Vignettes of the Tokugawa
The rain was soundless when it fell, lighter than it had been the previous days. The many small droplets no match for the noise of tree branches or even the soft timber of his breath or padded footsteps.
Perimeter checks happened at various points of the day. It was important not to be too predictable, not to do the same thing at the same time. Assassins always appreciated patterns so it was best to give them none. Takahashi had begun to work on his accounts with several other men, the procession calling for multiple guards. The senior trained bodyguard and two others stayed at tactical points inside the room while Kusinage and the other slowly walked the different paths which wrapped around the great stone base of his Lord's Castle. The rice paper walls looked like rectangles of a bright, bleached white, like the empty pages of a book glued against a wooden wall.
He paused at one of the castle columns to lean his shoulder against it. He imagined that the rice fields would be bending, waving under the weight of the downpour, moving like a sea of grain.
Still raining. Finished with the day's lessons, Takara was left to her own devices, admonished to play quietly and keep out from underfoot. Father was in an important meeting, she'd been warned, and was not to be disturbed. Mother was... doing whatever it is that Mother did in the afternoons, and was also not to be disturbed.
The little girl had done her best to keep herself amused, but she was bored and lonely and tired of being quiet. Throwing her doll down in frustration, she'd taken to watching the rain for a time, her little chin propped in fingers only just beginning to lose their toddler pudge, her brows furrowed in discontent. There were plenty of other toys she could have played with--Takahashi's only child lacked for nothing--but none of them currently held her interest.
She wanted to go outside, to play with the beautiful kite one of Father's visitors had gifted her several days ago, but the rain was unrelenting. Takara was mad at the rain, mad at the sky for going on so when there were kites that couldn't be touched until it stopped.
Restless, the girl did what she always did when she was bored and lonely and tired of being quiet. She went looking for her shadow, on silent feet --as silent as any six year old who thinks she's being silent, in any case --she crept from room to room in search of the one company that couldn't turn her away.
The other guard approached him. He could hear it, the whisper of the man's feet because it was still louder than the silent, persistent rain. His gaze remained constant, fixed on the treeline outlined with grey. The other man spoke, "Lunch."
His eyebrows lifted and finally he looked at the other guard, his gaze dropped slightly as he did so. He was taller than most, his eyes generally needing to be downcast to meet someone else's. Abandoning his post to the other, he slipped off his shoes and then slid the door open. Like all the doors, they moved left to right instead of swinging outward. Once inside he turned, shutting it behind him quietly. At this hour Takahashi and his family wouldn't be in the dining area, so it was available.
That was where the shadow-man was. Spooning out rice with a flayed fish on the side. He sat at the near-to-floor table, legs crossed and chopsticks maneuvering to pick out the bones of his fish. The longsword and the short sword were still strapped to his side, the handles pushed forward instead of being more in the direction of his body.
The kimono Takara wore today wasn't particularly elaborate: it wasn't a festival day and they weren't expecting any high ranking visitors who weren't already present. It was white with an almost geometric pattern of flowers in shades of black and red and white. The sash that looped her chest where the two halves of the garment crossed over and closed was of a deeper burgundy. Her hair had started up in a high ponytail whose ends trailed into little baby fine ringlets, but the style had suffered a bit in play, now askew to one side and fallen considerably.
She trailed into the dining area, dark eyes lighting up as they fell on his figure at last. The scowl that had been so permanently impressed into a face yet plump with little-childhood began to ease as she moved up to him, still under the impression that she was being very quiet, very sneaky indeed.
The bones were fine, thin pieces of white he peeled gently out of the pale flesh. He could hear her, and like with his colleague, he did not turn his head to face the sound of her approach. It suggested her small gait by its higher pitched footfall and her age by the way she had let her kimono reach the ground, rubbing the bamboo floor. She would see his back to her, still, his left hand moving with a diligent care to sort the bones from his meal. Steam still moved off the top of his rice.
Practically giddy with the prospect of 'surprising' him, Takara continued to "sneak up" on the shadow man until she was right behind him. Surely the girlish giggle muffled by the quick squash of one hand over her mouth gave her away as much or more than the drag of her hemline, but he was kind in that he did not turn or otherwise give an indication of his awareness.
Finally she stopped, proud of herself for her successful sneaking. "Surprise! I found you."
He made a show of stiffening his back in the terror of being found. There was a look over his shoulder, chin tipping up to gaze at her. It felt like he was smiling broadly even though it was only a thin suggestion. His attention dropped to her garb, which in itself was an indicator of how serious the day may go. He'd been there earlier, standing at the doorway and staring on as she and her parents ate dinner. Takara had a restlessness about her he had seen in other children, but not quite as brightly as it was in her.
There was a restlessness in her that never really went away. It could be appeased, assuaged, distracted away for a time - particularly on fine warm days when she could run around outside with her kites, the wind in her face making bright spots of color in her cheeks.
It was only in the last year that her restlessness was beginning to be forcibly checked, that she was being funneled into activities that were appropriate for a little girl and away from those better suited to young boys. It was a source of constant frustration for her, a friction that felt like a bridle, an invisible chain growing slowly tighter about her ankle. Sometimes, she wished she didn't have to be a girl, that she could wake up one day having transformed overnight into a son instead of a daughter.
His reaction had her smiling broadly enough for the both of them, a peal of childish giggles all but echoing in the otherwise silent room. In her youthful delight, Takara had forgotten altogether that she should have been more quiet, that it was polite to smile demurely or not at all. She had a tendency to let her mindfulness of all those boring stuffy girl rules slip when the only watchful gaze on her was Tag. He was perhaps the one person in the household who was not constantly chastising her for her behavior.
It never occurred to her that he actually couldn't.
There was a motion of his hand to invite her to the table. He rose up, stepping around and fetching a second flat dish that curved just slightly towards its ends. It was pale as a seashell, threatening to become translucent at the edges. With that small plate and secondary chopsticks acquired, he cut a portion of the steaming rice aside and placed atop of it a strip of deboned fish. His fingertips adjusted it, nudging the plate into a spot that was beside him.
Like someone sewing a patient closed, he continued to weave out of the pale flesh the other pieces of bone. It was an effort not to look at her or say anything, especially when her laughter filled an otherwise meditative air. With her noise and her joy she was quite the scourge of the castle. He could see her mother was worrying about her behavior, wondering when the phase she was going through would pass and trying to remain hopeful. Takara would do well, her mind was keen.
That happy grin seemed to linger as she padded closer still once invited, any traces of her previous pout erased from her brow for the time being. While the bodyguard rose to retrieve a plate for her, she found the seat beside him, sinking gracelessly to her knees. Little feet crossed underneath her exactly the way her Mother and the nurses were constantly telling her they shouldn't -- with no one to stop or correct her she fell into those habits that were most comfortable.
Her little hands were similarly splayed on the table's surface, tracing a swirl pattern on its face instead of being folded in her lap as they properly should have been. Takara was a young girl for whom the becoming still chafed--the rules now set upon her seemed sudden, abrupt and unnecessary. Some part of her was purely convinced that this was some strange phase her Mother was going through, and she couldn't wait for it to pass, for things to go back to the way they were.
It did not, could not enter her mind, the magnitude of what he was doing. That he had invited her to sit with him, that he shared what small ration of food he was afforded with her so readily - she who could have had whatever she wanted had she only complained loud enough.
It was the same innocent self absorption that made her think of the shadow man as hers. He is here to keep you safe, little Treasure, she'd been told, and that little Treasure had taken it at face value: the dark man was her bodyguard, her friend, her willing if somewhat reluctant playmate. He was her ally in a castle full of people who suddenly expected bizarre and uncomfortable things of her. It seemed only natural to her, then, that he would give her some of whatever he had.
She did not thank him, but the smile she turned up at him was bright and brilliant, as guileless as a kitten. "Can you make it stop raining? I am tired of the rain." Perhaps she thought he could do anything, up to and including controlling the weather.
She asked him to stop the rain, as if that was nothing. His eyes, black as hers, turned away from the table to the rice paper doors. Somewhere behind it and on the roof was the rhythm of rain. It would continue days, maybe weeks more. The rain. Inevitable as the sun, the blood flow of the city. He looked back at her, pointing with his chopsticks to her food to remind her to eat.
The last of the bone splinters was plucked from the fish flesh and set aside. He twisted off a piece, leaving the skin behind, and ate it with a short shoveling of rice. As he chewed his food, he thought about what the evening would be, about the next talk he would have with his friend when they were in town and saw each other. He spoke of fire, of separation and change. He said things could be different and for some reason... he believed that.
It seemed he would not answer. That he wouldn't say anything at all.
"I would not stop the rain from coming... the world needs the monsoon."
For awhile, Takara watched the guardian eat. It was strange to her, even now, even though she'd seen it a handful of times already. The way he held the chopsticks towards their centers, using the two sticks as a single flat plane on which to scoop up the rice.
It was different from the way she'd been taught: when prompted, the little girl lifted her own set in another way, balancing their squarish ends against the curve of her finger. She held them aloft, manipulating her fingers, clumsily trying to mimic his shorter grasp. One or the other of them fumbled, unbalanced and then fell: she giggled quietly and then picked them up again, this time using the 'proper' grip.
His food, too, was different, and maybe that's why it was appealing. Simpler fare, things she recognized but served in a way she'd never experienced. Takara retracted her free hand into her lap, tucking her fingers up into the sleeve as a matter of reflex. Her table manners, at least, both indicated her rank and that these were rules with which she'd already grown comfortable.
Her dark eyes turned serious as she lifted her gaze to his face. "Why?"
There were some things she may or may not have known, being a child. The ink of the fresh tattoos on his back did not show, but on occasion a small mark or scar would. It came from practice as much as it came from a reprimand. He was only nineteen, his build not filled in the way an older man's might be. The differences between him and the others weren't numerous but pronounced. Takara may not have noticed them, being so used to the shadow man being there. The bridge of his nose was more prominent, and his eyes opened up wider, like they could take in the whole world and not the small little piece he was just seeing.
She ate properly enough. He glanced at her for a moment, not set on correcting her unless her misbehavior was great. A few bites later the question of why came. They looked at each other, he hesitated to say anything but eventually spoke, "The rain has a way of healing."
From the back of the room came the startled voice of her mother, "What are you doing here?"
Takara froze, equally startled. She tried to cover it in that completely unsubtle way of children - about as effective as her 'sneaking', really. It was unconscious the way her feet uncrossed, the way her posture straightened, as though to prove that she'd been behaving. "...I was hungry," she explained matter-of-factly, lifting her chopsticks as proof.
The admonishment was not for her, as it turned out. Her eyes fixed on the shadow-man, deep and dark. As she crossed the room he collected his dishes, the half a quarter eaten when he rose. His eyes were on the floor when she stared at him as if angry. As if he was nothing but... it was beyond a child's comprehension that there could be so much hate and desire all in one, simple motion. The bodyguard kept his eyes low and turned away, putting away food and dishes, slipping out the rice paper door to slide back on his shoes.
When he watched the rain he knew. There would be blood and he would be lucky that it's all there would be.
It was so far beyond her comprehension that the little girl could only blink in confusion, her dark eyes spinning from her rising, retreating shadow to her mother and back. Just like a thunder clap, the furrows descended back into her smooth brow, her wide and happy smile retreating, disappearing in the rain as her lips drew in, and then down.
Her shadow, too, had disappeared into the rain, and Takara stayed where she was, stubbornly resisting her mother's imperious glare until she'd finished the rest of what he'd shared with her. Only when she was done eating did the little girl rise, smoothing down the front of her kimono and then leaving by the same entrance from which she'd come. Making her way back to her room, she kept her chin held high and her voice silent.
Her mind, however, was storming.
(written with Tag Sentry)
The rain was soundless when it fell, lighter than it had been the previous days. The many small droplets no match for the noise of tree branches or even the soft timber of his breath or padded footsteps.
Perimeter checks happened at various points of the day. It was important not to be too predictable, not to do the same thing at the same time. Assassins always appreciated patterns so it was best to give them none. Takahashi had begun to work on his accounts with several other men, the procession calling for multiple guards. The senior trained bodyguard and two others stayed at tactical points inside the room while Kusinage and the other slowly walked the different paths which wrapped around the great stone base of his Lord's Castle. The rice paper walls looked like rectangles of a bright, bleached white, like the empty pages of a book glued against a wooden wall.
He paused at one of the castle columns to lean his shoulder against it. He imagined that the rice fields would be bending, waving under the weight of the downpour, moving like a sea of grain.
Still raining. Finished with the day's lessons, Takara was left to her own devices, admonished to play quietly and keep out from underfoot. Father was in an important meeting, she'd been warned, and was not to be disturbed. Mother was... doing whatever it is that Mother did in the afternoons, and was also not to be disturbed.
The little girl had done her best to keep herself amused, but she was bored and lonely and tired of being quiet. Throwing her doll down in frustration, she'd taken to watching the rain for a time, her little chin propped in fingers only just beginning to lose their toddler pudge, her brows furrowed in discontent. There were plenty of other toys she could have played with--Takahashi's only child lacked for nothing--but none of them currently held her interest.
She wanted to go outside, to play with the beautiful kite one of Father's visitors had gifted her several days ago, but the rain was unrelenting. Takara was mad at the rain, mad at the sky for going on so when there were kites that couldn't be touched until it stopped.
Restless, the girl did what she always did when she was bored and lonely and tired of being quiet. She went looking for her shadow, on silent feet --as silent as any six year old who thinks she's being silent, in any case --she crept from room to room in search of the one company that couldn't turn her away.
The other guard approached him. He could hear it, the whisper of the man's feet because it was still louder than the silent, persistent rain. His gaze remained constant, fixed on the treeline outlined with grey. The other man spoke, "Lunch."
His eyebrows lifted and finally he looked at the other guard, his gaze dropped slightly as he did so. He was taller than most, his eyes generally needing to be downcast to meet someone else's. Abandoning his post to the other, he slipped off his shoes and then slid the door open. Like all the doors, they moved left to right instead of swinging outward. Once inside he turned, shutting it behind him quietly. At this hour Takahashi and his family wouldn't be in the dining area, so it was available.
That was where the shadow-man was. Spooning out rice with a flayed fish on the side. He sat at the near-to-floor table, legs crossed and chopsticks maneuvering to pick out the bones of his fish. The longsword and the short sword were still strapped to his side, the handles pushed forward instead of being more in the direction of his body.
The kimono Takara wore today wasn't particularly elaborate: it wasn't a festival day and they weren't expecting any high ranking visitors who weren't already present. It was white with an almost geometric pattern of flowers in shades of black and red and white. The sash that looped her chest where the two halves of the garment crossed over and closed was of a deeper burgundy. Her hair had started up in a high ponytail whose ends trailed into little baby fine ringlets, but the style had suffered a bit in play, now askew to one side and fallen considerably.
She trailed into the dining area, dark eyes lighting up as they fell on his figure at last. The scowl that had been so permanently impressed into a face yet plump with little-childhood began to ease as she moved up to him, still under the impression that she was being very quiet, very sneaky indeed.
The bones were fine, thin pieces of white he peeled gently out of the pale flesh. He could hear her, and like with his colleague, he did not turn his head to face the sound of her approach. It suggested her small gait by its higher pitched footfall and her age by the way she had let her kimono reach the ground, rubbing the bamboo floor. She would see his back to her, still, his left hand moving with a diligent care to sort the bones from his meal. Steam still moved off the top of his rice.
Practically giddy with the prospect of 'surprising' him, Takara continued to "sneak up" on the shadow man until she was right behind him. Surely the girlish giggle muffled by the quick squash of one hand over her mouth gave her away as much or more than the drag of her hemline, but he was kind in that he did not turn or otherwise give an indication of his awareness.
Finally she stopped, proud of herself for her successful sneaking. "Surprise! I found you."
He made a show of stiffening his back in the terror of being found. There was a look over his shoulder, chin tipping up to gaze at her. It felt like he was smiling broadly even though it was only a thin suggestion. His attention dropped to her garb, which in itself was an indicator of how serious the day may go. He'd been there earlier, standing at the doorway and staring on as she and her parents ate dinner. Takara had a restlessness about her he had seen in other children, but not quite as brightly as it was in her.
There was a restlessness in her that never really went away. It could be appeased, assuaged, distracted away for a time - particularly on fine warm days when she could run around outside with her kites, the wind in her face making bright spots of color in her cheeks.
It was only in the last year that her restlessness was beginning to be forcibly checked, that she was being funneled into activities that were appropriate for a little girl and away from those better suited to young boys. It was a source of constant frustration for her, a friction that felt like a bridle, an invisible chain growing slowly tighter about her ankle. Sometimes, she wished she didn't have to be a girl, that she could wake up one day having transformed overnight into a son instead of a daughter.
His reaction had her smiling broadly enough for the both of them, a peal of childish giggles all but echoing in the otherwise silent room. In her youthful delight, Takara had forgotten altogether that she should have been more quiet, that it was polite to smile demurely or not at all. She had a tendency to let her mindfulness of all those boring stuffy girl rules slip when the only watchful gaze on her was Tag. He was perhaps the one person in the household who was not constantly chastising her for her behavior.
It never occurred to her that he actually couldn't.
There was a motion of his hand to invite her to the table. He rose up, stepping around and fetching a second flat dish that curved just slightly towards its ends. It was pale as a seashell, threatening to become translucent at the edges. With that small plate and secondary chopsticks acquired, he cut a portion of the steaming rice aside and placed atop of it a strip of deboned fish. His fingertips adjusted it, nudging the plate into a spot that was beside him.
Like someone sewing a patient closed, he continued to weave out of the pale flesh the other pieces of bone. It was an effort not to look at her or say anything, especially when her laughter filled an otherwise meditative air. With her noise and her joy she was quite the scourge of the castle. He could see her mother was worrying about her behavior, wondering when the phase she was going through would pass and trying to remain hopeful. Takara would do well, her mind was keen.
That happy grin seemed to linger as she padded closer still once invited, any traces of her previous pout erased from her brow for the time being. While the bodyguard rose to retrieve a plate for her, she found the seat beside him, sinking gracelessly to her knees. Little feet crossed underneath her exactly the way her Mother and the nurses were constantly telling her they shouldn't -- with no one to stop or correct her she fell into those habits that were most comfortable.
Her little hands were similarly splayed on the table's surface, tracing a swirl pattern on its face instead of being folded in her lap as they properly should have been. Takara was a young girl for whom the becoming still chafed--the rules now set upon her seemed sudden, abrupt and unnecessary. Some part of her was purely convinced that this was some strange phase her Mother was going through, and she couldn't wait for it to pass, for things to go back to the way they were.
It did not, could not enter her mind, the magnitude of what he was doing. That he had invited her to sit with him, that he shared what small ration of food he was afforded with her so readily - she who could have had whatever she wanted had she only complained loud enough.
It was the same innocent self absorption that made her think of the shadow man as hers. He is here to keep you safe, little Treasure, she'd been told, and that little Treasure had taken it at face value: the dark man was her bodyguard, her friend, her willing if somewhat reluctant playmate. He was her ally in a castle full of people who suddenly expected bizarre and uncomfortable things of her. It seemed only natural to her, then, that he would give her some of whatever he had.
She did not thank him, but the smile she turned up at him was bright and brilliant, as guileless as a kitten. "Can you make it stop raining? I am tired of the rain." Perhaps she thought he could do anything, up to and including controlling the weather.
She asked him to stop the rain, as if that was nothing. His eyes, black as hers, turned away from the table to the rice paper doors. Somewhere behind it and on the roof was the rhythm of rain. It would continue days, maybe weeks more. The rain. Inevitable as the sun, the blood flow of the city. He looked back at her, pointing with his chopsticks to her food to remind her to eat.
The last of the bone splinters was plucked from the fish flesh and set aside. He twisted off a piece, leaving the skin behind, and ate it with a short shoveling of rice. As he chewed his food, he thought about what the evening would be, about the next talk he would have with his friend when they were in town and saw each other. He spoke of fire, of separation and change. He said things could be different and for some reason... he believed that.
It seemed he would not answer. That he wouldn't say anything at all.
"I would not stop the rain from coming... the world needs the monsoon."
For awhile, Takara watched the guardian eat. It was strange to her, even now, even though she'd seen it a handful of times already. The way he held the chopsticks towards their centers, using the two sticks as a single flat plane on which to scoop up the rice.
It was different from the way she'd been taught: when prompted, the little girl lifted her own set in another way, balancing their squarish ends against the curve of her finger. She held them aloft, manipulating her fingers, clumsily trying to mimic his shorter grasp. One or the other of them fumbled, unbalanced and then fell: she giggled quietly and then picked them up again, this time using the 'proper' grip.
His food, too, was different, and maybe that's why it was appealing. Simpler fare, things she recognized but served in a way she'd never experienced. Takara retracted her free hand into her lap, tucking her fingers up into the sleeve as a matter of reflex. Her table manners, at least, both indicated her rank and that these were rules with which she'd already grown comfortable.
Her dark eyes turned serious as she lifted her gaze to his face. "Why?"
There were some things she may or may not have known, being a child. The ink of the fresh tattoos on his back did not show, but on occasion a small mark or scar would. It came from practice as much as it came from a reprimand. He was only nineteen, his build not filled in the way an older man's might be. The differences between him and the others weren't numerous but pronounced. Takara may not have noticed them, being so used to the shadow man being there. The bridge of his nose was more prominent, and his eyes opened up wider, like they could take in the whole world and not the small little piece he was just seeing.
She ate properly enough. He glanced at her for a moment, not set on correcting her unless her misbehavior was great. A few bites later the question of why came. They looked at each other, he hesitated to say anything but eventually spoke, "The rain has a way of healing."
From the back of the room came the startled voice of her mother, "What are you doing here?"
Takara froze, equally startled. She tried to cover it in that completely unsubtle way of children - about as effective as her 'sneaking', really. It was unconscious the way her feet uncrossed, the way her posture straightened, as though to prove that she'd been behaving. "...I was hungry," she explained matter-of-factly, lifting her chopsticks as proof.
The admonishment was not for her, as it turned out. Her eyes fixed on the shadow-man, deep and dark. As she crossed the room he collected his dishes, the half a quarter eaten when he rose. His eyes were on the floor when she stared at him as if angry. As if he was nothing but... it was beyond a child's comprehension that there could be so much hate and desire all in one, simple motion. The bodyguard kept his eyes low and turned away, putting away food and dishes, slipping out the rice paper door to slide back on his shoes.
When he watched the rain he knew. There would be blood and he would be lucky that it's all there would be.
It was so far beyond her comprehension that the little girl could only blink in confusion, her dark eyes spinning from her rising, retreating shadow to her mother and back. Just like a thunder clap, the furrows descended back into her smooth brow, her wide and happy smile retreating, disappearing in the rain as her lips drew in, and then down.
Her shadow, too, had disappeared into the rain, and Takara stayed where she was, stubbornly resisting her mother's imperious glare until she'd finished the rest of what he'd shared with her. Only when she was done eating did the little girl rise, smoothing down the front of her kimono and then leaving by the same entrance from which she'd come. Making her way back to her room, she kept her chin held high and her voice silent.
Her mind, however, was storming.
(written with Tag Sentry)