The evacuation part 1 (D3 EN open)

Bayushi Norikami · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:22 pm **Posts:** 315

He scratched the back of his head.

"No need to apologize, I'm just a loud mouth, anyway", he said, not really sure how to progress really. He wasn't the type to apologize for anything, much less be apologized too.

"Ah, but what you were saying is right. Sometimes words can't define things, and honestly I think that's something great about life."

Kasuga Asakuro · **Joined:** Sat Apr 04, 2020 12:13 am **Posts:** 274

Kasuga Seitouna wrote:

"Not as yet. I have no such port to call home, no such berth in which to drop anchor. The harbormaster has yet to assign me such a thing, though I could not lie and say I have not put in at the occasional port of call."

Again, sotto voce: "I cannot think it is in our interest to have the elder ascend. And I worry that others might not do so well for us as an heir who is still young, whose regent will be much occupied. If we have any pull in the matter, cousin, I would hope we put it to securing things such that our operations can continue as they previously had.

"After all, who would support the Menagerie?"

There is a smile that might be lost in the darkness.

"Maybe there will be a place I can deliver cargo soon. Should we survive the voyage, of course."

"May our voyage be safe and swift so that your follow-on journey be sound," he wished for his cousin.

"While others will be required to act, we still wear the Shell on our back: if we so choose, we might remain unseen, unheard, and carry on as normal under any and every circumstance. No matter what happens, I do not foresee a situation upon which the Shell might be cracked: even if another takes the Throne and power is secured, distractions abound if regency is not preferred and continued opportunities in the shadows await. And yet... careful in the waters must we still tread."

Kasuga Seitouna · **Posted:** Fri Apr 17, 2020 7:56 pm

Kasuga Asakuro wrote:

"May our voyage be safe and swift so that your follow-on journey be sound," he wished for his cousin.

"And your sails ever full of fair and following winds," came the reply, almost as if by rote.

"Then I shall plumb the depths at our destination and see what swims up when disturbed."

"As also for your lady wife."

Mirumoto Wasako · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:56 pm **Posts:** 945

Bayushi Norikami wrote:

He scratched the back of his head.

"No need to apologize, I'm just a loud mouth, anyway", he said, not really sure how to progress really. He wasn't the type to apologize for anything, much less be apologized too.

"Ah, but what you were saying is right. Sometimes words can't define things, and honestly I think that's something great about life."

"That, as well as the surprises and learning opportunities that are thrown our way," she nodded on that note. "Life does give a lot but I guess it doesn't hurt to add a bathhouse into the mix."

Bayushi Norikami · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:22 pm **Posts:** 315

"oh? You're actually getting excited for this bath house visit, I think", he said, maybe standing slightly closer. Simply to be better heard. Really.

Mirumoto Wasako · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:56 pm **Posts:** 945

"I don't know about excited," she chuckled with a roll of her eyes. "You're the one who brought it up and kept mentioning it. So I am looking forward to it but I wouldn't say I would lose sleep."

Bayushi Norikami · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:22 pm **Posts:** 315

He paced a while longer, the roll of her eyes, the laugh. He wanted to not say it, but he couldn't keep it in, he had to admit. He was just that kind of man.

"I could stand to lose a little sleep over it."

It was a hairy situation they were all in, taking risks was part of the game. Though of course there was the other risk that Wasako might completely miss what he was getting it.

There was that.

Mirumoto Wasako · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:56 pm **Posts:** 945

"You would?" Wasako said curiously before looking at him up and down. "Didn't you just have a bath earlier? Well, I don't know how long it would take to get to Nikesake but I guess we would probably all want a bath after we get there. I think I could see why you would."

She bobbed her head in understanding his full meaning.

Bayushi Norikami · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:22 pm **Posts:** 315

He met her eye for a split second and kept smiling.

There'd be time for it, he imagined.

At least things were looking up in some ways, despite everything else being shit.

He kept pace with Wasako, happy to keep quiet for then.

Mirumoto Wasako · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:56 pm **Posts:** 945

...At least, she thought she got the whole meaning.

Seeing as he was comfortable with silence, she also went quiet and continued the walk into the night. Her sights were directed forward to the path ahead and the uncertain future.

Togashi Myo-en · **Joined:** Mon Apr 06, 2020 4:27 am **Posts:** 418

Yogo Aya wrote:

Matsu Kōgyoku wrote:

"The right thing, just like the rest. We're all fated to die. You're also fated to betray. Everything before and beyond can be guided by honour and sense of duty." The Lioness answered, finding compassion for the Yogo's plight in her and so trying to bring Aya's thoughts on track. "Did your founder not do the right thing when given choice?"

Aya chuckled a bit.

"Ah, but did he? Here we return to our original conundrum about the infallibility of ancestors. Was Yogo himself cursed to betray, or merely his descendants? If he himself was cursed to betray, what was his betrayal? Joining the Scorpion clan? Not making the three cuts as soon as he learned of the curse? Was he driven to propagate his line and therefore the curse, or did he make that choice? Does the good of his original decision outweigh literally generations of betrayals so long that his line and the Empire continue?" she posed.

Myo-en marches in silence for a while, listening attentively but content to let Kogyoku take a turn warming up by sparring with Aya.

"It's not the work of humans to judge our dead. Emma-O does that," she re-joins the discussion in a level voice. "Or to ask how going back would change our fates now. The great wheel only rolls in one direction, and we go along with it. Matsu-sama's question, I think, is... it is not whether we can judge our ancestors. It's what we choose to do, ourselves, if they have already been judged and found wanting."

She uses her staff to hop-skip past another large puddle. "I have heard a story of two sages at the beginning of the Empire who debated which one of them came from a more righteous domain. One sage said, 'Among us here there are those who may be styled upright in their conduct. If their father has stolen a sheep, they will bear witness against him.' But the other sage said, 'In our part of the land, those who are upright are not like this. There, the father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. There is uprightness in that.'"

Myo-en watches the other two women sidelong as she tells this short tale, compelled by necessity to keep some focus on the uneven ground at her feet.

"Which sage was right?"

Matsu Kōgyoku · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 5:36 pm **Posts:** 368

"There is honour in taking responsibility for misdeeds of your betters. But I cannot find it in maintaining falsehood. Honesty is a tenet." Kōgyoku said after a thought.

Yogo Aya · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 12:42 am **Posts:** 719

Aya chuckled.

"Y'know if the magistrate here had said 'Why yes, lying about stealing is a great idea,' I would have been thoroughly convinced that everything I had ever been taught about the Lion clan was a lie."

She thought about it.

"Though stealing in general is a weird concept when you think about it. Everything ultimately belongs to the Empress after all. When an army is marching through another clan's territory waging war, while some supplies are shipped from home, they tend to take from the peasants of that land as well. Those supplies were lawfully assigned to the people who held them by their lords who serve the Empress. Yet taking them away to feed the invading army is not stealing."

Togashi Myo-en · **Joined:** Mon Apr 06, 2020 4:27 am **Posts:** 418

"If they win the war," Myo-en points out to Aya, arching an eyebrow. "If they lose, their domain will promise restitution when they sue for peace, most likely. Either way, they are not supposed to be acting on selfish interests, but for their liege." The wryness of her expression as she says this does reflect some personal ambivalence about the reasoning, however much it might accord with samural norms.

"So... Matsu-sama would accept a magistrate's judgement on her parent, if it was just? Or grandparent?" She shrugs. "Emma-O's judgement does not seem so different in kind, only in execution."

The evacuation part 1 (D3 EN open)

Who is online