(D2, LM) We Are Family (or about to be) (expecting)

[Asahina Hoshiko]

Everyone kept commenting on how warm the winter was so far...where everyone was mostly a flock of overheard Phoenix in this case. Hoshiko was finding it a bit chilly after spending the vast majority of her time in southern lands.

Still, it wasn't even snowing yet, so an extra pair of socks and her heavy coat would suffice to enjoy some time outdoors. The kitchen had agreeably packed up a portable sort of lunch, no doubt heavy on the onigiri, so she could grab her soon to be cousin for a promised chat with a view of the river from a bit of a rise along the road between river and keep. The grasses were quite done with this temperature, thank you very much, lying dead and golden.

"Do you ever wonder how many of the gifts each winter are ever actually used or displayed by the Empress? Do you think there's a storeroom back in Otosan Uchi cataloging them all? So they can be given as gifts again in another generation?" She asks as they're walking out. "Your ancestor gave this copy of the Tao to the glorious Hantei and now we gift it back with margin notes in their own hand that you may share the wisdom he found in the text....and the like."

[Daidoji Sae]

Snip

Sae was similarly rugged up, with a broad brimmed hat so she didn't have to squint in the morning sun, she had protested at least twice to be the one carrying their lunch but had both times been rebuffed.

"In truth I could not imagine 1 in 100 see use by the throne. As to the identity of a secret store room and the possibility of re-gifting...I simply could not comment; although I have seen a series of suspiciously similar and memorably ugly candle holders circulating between the governors in the Imperial City."

She steps aside to allow a patrol pass on the road, avoiding a few puddles here and there.
"I suppose I am fortunate in not having devoted my studies to the art of gift giving, when I give a scroll or a blade it is simply that. But when my Doji cousins do it's the long lost bonsai trimmer of Hantei IV accompanied by a six page poem on the nature of gardening, it must be terribly shocking for them to imagine it being tossed into a bin somewhere."

As the two continue away from the Castle Sae seems to relax slightly, nostrils flaring as she breathes deep.
"This was an excellent idea for an expedition, both for some solitude and of course, we can speak more frankly. I apologise it has taken us this long to meet, my duties are no excuse."

[Asahina Hoshiko]

snip

"Well, unless the trimmer is exceptionally good--and it may well be if an emperor was using it!--a lot of bonsai artists are really attached to their own tools." She pauses while picking her way past the puddles to the dry beyond it, wrinkling her nose at the scent of some rather fresh road apples nearby. "Most artists are similarly picky. At least most folks would toss it in a nicely made bin?"

"How long did you spend in the Imperial City? That has to be so much bigger than this...I wonder how much of a shock it is for the whole Imperial entourage to come spend the winter away from all that?" She shifts the picnic satchel on her shoulder and picks up the hems of her kimono a bit to start the wade through dry grasses with a little smile at the sound of the swishing, crackling stems.

"Anyway, it's only the second day of court. Even if you'd made it out to meet Nahomi-chan earlier, it's likely enough I'd have been away at the time. I'm quite pleased fate allowed us to cross paths here." She looks up toward the hill as she goes. "I always find natural surroundings ease most interactions. We spend a lot of effort designing buildings and decor to mimic what nature gifts us with unasked."

[Daidoji Sae]

Snip

Deadpan "Perhaps we should be gifting bins instead?"

Sae considers the question for a moment, following Hoshiko through the grasses.
"On and off for a decade, but my duties have been drawing me there for four years now, you are right in that it is bigger." Pausing for a moment, "much bigger. People travels like schools of fish and you can find the most honourable samurai and the most conniving crime boss sharing tea. For the imperials it must be somewhat of a shock, but doubtless they appreciate being away from the smell."

As the ground slowly rises she moves forward to walk by Hoshiko's side. "It sounds as though you travel often then? Your families plains seem so vast you can walk for a day and turn back to still see where you started. Your duties must be important to take you away so frequently from such a beautiful place."

Seeing a deep pit of mud the Daidoji gallantly surges ahead to explore the driest part and offer her companion a hand.
"Nature is truly wondrous, although I am thankful my tatami mats have never squelched like this."

[Asahina Hoshiko]

Deadpan "Perhaps we should be gifting bins instead?"

The only response to that was somewhat unladylike snort.

The sturdy priestess takes the offered hand in her left hand, squelching across the grassy hummocks. Her hand bears only the slightest of calluses one might develop from long use of a calligraphy brush, but the grip is solid. "Oh mine have. There was so much rain in my tenth year we feared the foundations of the tower would destabilize and moved everything valuable out of the possible radius of collapse for month. Also how we found out the shutters for several of the room in the top story weren't very sound."

"The smell?" she huffs a disbelievingly amused breath. "I guess they do have the sea right there, plus so many people. Take one of the fishing villages, multiply it and add a hundred privies and stables to get an idea?"

She considers the last question. "I don't travel widely, but pretty often, yes. I have the shrines of Yamada lands to care for...or see that they're being cared for, you know. And getting a courtly education meant finishing up with a few Crane winter courts these past few years. I imagine you've seen a *lot* more of the Empire in the same amount of time." Things grew drier up the hill, though they were still going to be thankful for the borrowed horse blanket seating when they got up there. The view of the river was improving with height as well; too broad to see across in the late morning light, with plenty of traffic moving on the water.

[Daidoji Sae]

Snip

"Indeed, the odour can be pervasive, and only when you leave and return can you experience its joys anew."

Sae pauses a moment once they crest the top allowing herself an open smile at the small watercraft making their way up and down, just like home. "While this I could never get tired of."

She fusses with the blankets, making sure they were 'just so'.

"Ah I see, spiritual duties. Those sound rather time consuming their own way, was winter court a diversion?"
The Daidoji seems to be asking herself the question as much as Hoshiko.
"I've certainly seen more of the empire than most. It is, forgive me I shouldn't be too modest, it is magnificent. Even the smell of the capital. Every land has its own beauty, and more than often their own local delicacies." Sae had started eyeing the hamper now.

"If you find the opportunity to travel, I think you should seize it. Where would you go if you had the choice?"

[Asahina Hoshiko]

snip

"Somewhere in the mountains. Taste the winds up there. See how the differ from those running across the ocean. Maybe in Phoenix lands?" She alternates watching the river and the settling of the blankets. "I imagine the river has less lovely moods, but they're likely more than balanced out by this sort of day. It *was* nice to see so much more of the Empire traveling here. I'm sure many of the lands are considered more glorious in the spring, but the sense of finishing up for the winter is a different kind of beauty."

"Court is no diversion. Not as central as it is for our clan," she says while setting out the packed food. Well wrapped onigiri are nestled in a bamboo box with pickled vegetables Mochi and dried fruit offer something sweet. Small gourds of water and very basic rice wine round it all out.

"My talents are almost certainly not unique, but unusual, and lend themselves to making connections" She kneels carefully on the blanket to better arrange the small repast. "So I was steered into courtly training to use that for the benefit of the Crane."

"And you? You're here serving the Crane rather than as a magistrate, no? Or at least quartered as such. Does that end up as a diversion for your career?"

[Daidoji Sae]

Snip

"Your senses are keen! At best I can smell clean air or bad, you have me beat."
Sae settles herself, careful not to get dirt on the blankets and holding herself straight backed and still not out of decorum but out of a sense of not wanting to start eating the (local and therefore delicious food) before Hoshiko started.

Instead she tries to see the river like her companion does, soaking in the natural beauty...it was indeed quite pretty.

"Many in our empire are fearful of unique, so unusual may be bettered? Although I hope your craft is still fulfilling?"
Sae looks over, seeming genuinely concerned at the prospect of a noble priestess being forced to make origami by the basket.

"Ah, even more perceptive." She smooths her kimono for a moment. "Yes, it is diverting. I would have preferred to attend as a Crane, or as a magistrate. But as an Emerald Magistrate who is also a Crane...I worry of confusing my positions' views with my own. I serve the Emerald Champion and the empress first and foremost, but also Lady Doji with all my heart. I pray those will align more than they diverge."

[Asahina Hoshiko]

snip

"They used to align more often than not, if the stories from elders are true, eh?" Stories was polite. More often complaints about how back in so and so's day, this or that thing would never have happened, or that clan wouldn't have felt they could make insults so freely. "That sounds like it may be challenging sometimes."

She plucks up one of the onigiri "rumors say these are a bit of a local specialty." Certainly these lacked the dried seaweed wrapping she was used to near the coast. Some wrapped in a thin layer of fried tofu, others a thin coating of sesame seeds. Conversation pauses a moment as she chomps into one, nodding appreciatively after a few moments. "More salted, really good."

After a bit to give the food some appropriate focus, she alternates between talking and chewing. "My craft? Hmm, art is pleasant, and there's satisfaction to working out a design from somewhere in your head to actually taking shape. But they don't need me court trained to make use of that training. But, take those possible conflicts of duty you could face, or have, eventually you'll have an accounting of them all before the court of Emma-O, and there are few who might advocate for you there. Overworked clerks hunting your records and dropping them with functionaries who open them as you finally stand before the Fortune."

"But one who has witnessed it, spoken to the clerks, knows the workings of the place can offer up briefs to the court, making sure those moments are not missed, that the sometimes easier-to-see failings do not overshadow the quiet triumphs of the soul." She lifts a gourd of light wine to wet her throat. "For that, you need to talk to those who might want such a thing submitted."

[Daidoji Sae]

Snip

"Mmmhmm." Sae's onigiri had disappeared in a flash and the Magistrate was nodding along while apparently trying to swallow it whole.

"Excellent indeed, and pairs wonderfully with the wine. I shall have to make a point of asking for more when I next leave the Kyuden."

She listens with interesting to Hoshiko as the priestess explains the nature of post-life bureaucracy.
"It is no surprise then that our courts would mirror his. A moment of inattention, a lost file, an aggrieved witness and a worthy case is lost forever."

Taking a small sip from her own gourd. "When you stand before Emma-O you cannot say you were ordered by others to do thus, or that honour was not convenient at the time. That will not suffice." Her voice resolute. "But I hope when I face him I have lived the truth of those words..."

She looks down over the river for a few moments, onigiri forgotten before shaking her head and turning back to Hoshiko.
"You seem to have an uncommon understanding of the Judge of the Underworld. Is he your principle Fortune?"

[Asahina Hoshiko]

snip

She nods. "It was thought that I was touched by death from the start." Holding up her right hand, pinky simply absent as example, she continues, "and my mother died soon after. Fourth kid too..as was my father." It's said very matter of factly. "That puts a lot of folks off honestly. It shouldn't if one lives as if death could arrive at any moment. But that's a hard thing to stick to, isn't it?"

"But when I started crossing to other realms...or my soul did, it seems. I found his court very familiar. And the Fortune is..." Her words fail a moment, eyes distant. "How many can say they've seen a fortune, even at a distance? I don't know if they all have such overwhelming presence. It's hard not to be drawn in. And unlike many, you're almost guaranteed to encounter him eventually."

Bringing her gaze back from remembered sights to the woman in front of her at this moment, her head tilts slightly with a sense of questioning. "But, I though you were aware of this, given that your request to discuss spiritual matters seemed connected to Keiji-san's passing from this realm."

[Daidoji Sae]

Snip

"People have discussed your spiritual expertise in...less specific ways. But I have always preferred to hear the answers from the source, at least for novelty's sake."
Sae doesn't seem outwardly concerned by the death hand of the death priestess who's seen Death at his 9 to 5.

"I can see why most would be put off, and for honesty's sake Asahina-san, it is slightly unnerving even to myself but.."
Munch! A rice ball is sent to Emma-O's court.
"...It seems somewhat blasphemous to look down on such a blessing, however unusual."
Her expression darkens somewhat at Keiji's name.
"Indeed."
For a moment the Crane seems to lose her appetite, frowning slightly.

[Asahina Hoshiko]

snip

"I think some may view it as a curse. I won't judge them as blasphemous." Someone else gets that job, honestly. She absently spears pickled carrots into her rice ball as she speaks. "Some of the spirits in Yomi seem pretty offended by me when I have been there. The clerks in Meido are more personable, particularly if I can ease any of their workload."

She leaves a small silence to let memories pass through. "I am sorry though, if bringing him up causes you pain. Things can feel very...unfinished when someone dies so young." It was very common, of course. And every one left things undone, unsaid. Hoshiko's own memories sigh in sympathy.

[Daidoji Sae]

Snip

Slowly "I suppose if I never speak of him then it is like...he never existed, which would be sadder by half. By still it is a raw pain, he was too young yes. We should have had children and a home and now I just have memories."

Sae's expression flattens until it is perfectly calm. "I need to look forward while not forgetting, while not dishnouring those memories. I had hoped you might have some spiritual guidance but I understand if it is more complex than that. One of those 'everyone deals with it in their own way' issues where nobody really knows the answer."

[Asahina Hoshiko]

snip

She nods "That's some of it. But some answers are worse than others and stunt the spirit of the living mourner." There is a soft, pained smile. "My elder sister should have been here before me, but she is frozen in memory. I don't know what name she'd have taken, or her first court. I continue and have grown beyond her, and beyond the me that had her in my life.*"

"From what I have seen, we all do that. We change and grow, and they cannot. So the place they hold in our lives shrinks as everything that comes after crowds around the hole they have left in us. The grief comes to feel almost strangely outsized for that shrinking hole. Where people go wrong, is fighting to keep that hole the same size, as if the hole is the person and needs to be protected from diminishing." The words are said with a quiet conviction.

**********************
* lost love triggered, though it doesn't matter so much on a closed Day

[Daidoji Sae]

Snip

"That is...you have surprised me, Asahina-san. I've heard so many platitudes about loss that something from the heart takes me by surprise. The way you have framed it makes sense to me.

Yes, there is a void I can feel still, and every time I feel it again it is a little smaller and I feel the guilt anew. I shall try to fill it with my life I suppose."

Sae goes silent again for another few moments before adding. "I am doubly sorry for your loss, both for your sister and for it to happen to you so young. If it is not prying, is that part of what has driven you towards Emma-O?"

Her own good humour slowly returning, Sae starts picking her way through the remaining food again.

[Daidoji Sae]

Snip

"That is...you have surprised me, Asahina-san. I've heard so many platitudes about loss that something from the heart takes me by surprise. The way you have framed it makes sense to me.

Yes, there is a void I can feel still, and every time I feel it again it is a little smaller and I feel the guilt anew. I shall try to fill it with my life I suppose."

Sae goes silent again for another few moments before adding. "I am doubly sorry for your loss, both for your sister and for it to happen to you so young. If it is not prying, is that part of what has driven you towards Emma-O?"

Her own good humour slowly returning, Sae starts picking her way through the remaining food again.

[Asahina Hoshiko]

snip

Hoshiko munches on her pickle-speared rice ball, offering quiet nods and nonverbal noises of listening and assent.

"It's like anything folks know only a little about. I might offer the same about the courage of our bushi, that would ring hollow with as little knowledge as I have of actual battle. But when you've been in the thick of it for a long while things come clearer."

Washing things down with a swig of the wine offers time to order a complex history. "The deaths around me, particularly hers, led me to study more yes, and my gift opened itself around then. I was an absolute pest trying to find her, actually." She grimaces a bit, remembering her younger, cringier self.

Shaking that memory away she shrugs, "but my eventual understanding of the Fortune and his courts led to a less selfish desire to serve. To offer aid to that court and those entering it." Another sip of wine and a wry grin over the top of it. "I will not say it doesn't also serve the Crane when this task creates connections and becomes favors some will feel the need to repay."

She leans back, bracing one hand on the ground and returns Sae's words back to her...in part, "if it's not too painful, how were you two betrothed? Did you start on the magistrate's path beforehand?"

[Daidoji Sae]

Snip

"I was assigned as a yoriki right after my Gempukku. My family is new and influential but you know how important history and prestige is. My family arranged the marriage because it would tie us to a more established and respected house and because Keiji was said to be a good man and my father knew better than to marry me to a bad one."

Another rice ball vanishes as she smiles...probably at the memory, but hey, the food was good.

"We met that winter, he had sailed up and he was...a good match indeed. Braver than me, better at convincing others, mmmhm, many called him handsome too."
She has the good grace to flush at least.

"We courted for a year and were given leave to marry. We had a little house in the Imperial City and it was good, really good."
Sae gaze shifts to the east and she lapses into silence.

[Asahina Hoshiko]

snip

Hoshiko smiles at the description. It *had* been a good match, politically as well. She wonders if she would be here without the small boost their connection to the more influential house had offered. No mention of children though. Perhaps that's why Nahomi made sense as a new pick to maintain the house connection and produce heirs.

"Living well in the capital has to be..." she shakes her head, barely able to imagine, "exciting...even with the smell."

There's a quiet pause to leave room for memory. "I'm sorry that changed. I expect, with that record, he would be judged lightly heading into his next life. Though if it would ease anything, I could offer a brief to enter in his records."