Walking on the Wild Side [Day 9, Late Afternoon]

Togashi Mai · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:22 am **Posts:** 417

While the sun yet hung in the sky, though clouded from view as it was, Mai had left word at the Embassy for Myo-en to come see her at her earliest convenience. Citing that she would be yet outside the wall she merely hoped that in some way or manner her word would be received by Myo-en and that she did not wait out here for no purpose.

Hiding underneath a wicker umbrella she kept somewhat dry on her journey but had found herself something she might stand under even still.

With eyes out for the horizon she offered herself a moment of peace and wonder. Had she had the mind, and no appointments to keep, she would have sat out here under the elements and thought on what events have transpired.

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

The countryside around Nikesake is lovely, in its flat and very civilized way, even in the endless rain. Myo-en abandons the road with its soupy, churned mud surface to walk among the leafless, meticulously tended mulberry groves with her trousers kilted up to the knee, barefoot despite the cold.

Sharp dark eyes keep a constant, alert look-out for things out of place... or for Mai, who, when she comes into view under a mulberry tree, is not out of place at all. No, she is exactly where she's supposed to be.

Myo-en waves to catch Mai's eye as she approaches. She cuts a rather nondescript figure in her broad hat and straw cloak, but the large crow flapping from tree to tree above her probably makes her easy to recognize nevertheless.

Togashi Mai · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:22 am **Posts:** 417

Stepping off, as she leaned against the mulberry tree, Mai gave a wave with a heartier than usual smile from afar. With conditions as they be she did not wish to allow any other thought to persist as to the intention of this meeting. With her umbrella yet propped up against the tree there was naught a wonder as to how she reached this destination given the weather.

"Myo-en-sama!" she called out, another brief wave and she waited till the other woman reached where she yet wait.

"Thank you for coming out this way to meet me, Myo-en-sama, I had not been certain that the message would receive you in time."

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

It takes Myo-en a bit longer than it otherwise might to make her way to Mai's position over the squidgy ground, but in a few moments she arrives!

"Mai-san." She smiles as well, making her usual clasped-hands bow. "Please, your rank is even with mine. May we be informal here?"

Myo-en shakes her head slightly. "The Embassy workers are very attentive. More than the servants at Toshi no Omoidoso's winter court, even, though perhaps if they had as many guests as a winter castle they would be busier too." She sends an acute, inquisitive glance in Mai's direction. "What is it you want to talk about out here?"

Overhead, twigs rattle and a shower of dislodged water droplets patter onto Mai's umbrella as a crow of impressive size lands in the mulberry tree.

Togashi Mai · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:22 am **Posts:** 417

"May, of course, Myo-en-san," she dips her head, "it is a habit I tend to well when traveling alone most often. Better to offer greater humility and appear the stranger than to offer disrespect. Yet, in your case I find it is your greater experience that elevates you so in my mind but.." she waves a hand, "it is of no importance."

"As for our being out here," she took a look around at the area in which the stood, a simple farmers life had the snow not yet littered the fields and muddy footing made the ground all but impossible to wade through. "Well, I wished to ask you some things of a direct nature which makes them a sensitive topic.. may, we could have of course gone elsewhere but being out here and looking out there put the mind to the right frame."

"May," she said, looking back with a conspiratorial glance, "a little rain and mud has never been that which would dissuade one of our own from the trek, after all you are here, and there are yet no others that would bother us here. Besides, I have no care for tea or whatever else they might wish me served elsewhere."

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

"It's good to go out of the city while we still can." Myo-en wiggles her feet one at a time against a mulberry root to shed some of the clinging mud. "We may be stuck within those walls soon enough. As for the way people at court eat and drink just for something to do... after a long winter, I have had my fill of it." Her lips quirk wryly.

"What do you want to ask?" Her dark eyes are intent and curious.

Togashi Mai · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:22 am **Posts:** 417

"May.." she started to say but faltered, tapping a finger on her cheek as she thought. "Now that the time has arrived of the questioning I scarcely know the way best to approach it, but Myo-en-san.. I take it you are one who has been among the Empire for a great number many years more than I and.." she shook her head.

"I know not who I would otherwise ask to know more of the Empire that I might understand the situations developing here. May, the coming battle is simple to understand but there is so much more going on even still and I find myself overwhelmed by the need to know more of such things that I might place it into its proper context."

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

"Not so many more years." An odd smile plays on Myo-en's lips and at the corners of her eyes. Mai could not be the younger of the two by more than a couple of years, but she seems determined to imagine Myo-en as some sort of... elder? How strange the ways we see each other through water and smoke.

"I walked out of the mountains three years ago to fight in the Shinomen against the Naga, walked the western Lion lands for a season, and later spent a little time in Ryoko Owari," she explains. "Only a few weeks. That is as close as I came to worldliness until this winter's court in Toshi no Omoidoso. If you count only by plain arithmetic, I have no more than a year more of time in the lowlands than you, Mai-san." She shakes her head ruefully. "Still, what do you want to know? Maybe we can arrive at understanding together."

Togashi Mai · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:22 am **Posts:** 417

"May, a year would be much and more, depending on what you did with the time Myo-en-san. Yet, I find I should relent, because it is as you say there is not much difference between our years. Though I yet feel lost to make sense of what I have yet been hearing within the walls," she says, glancing toward the city.

"This situation surrounding what the Miya herald spoke just earlier today has offered me much and more to think on. May, there is cause and reason for me to look again at that of which he speaks and yet I would not normally do so considering what duty it is with he is placed."

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

"You mean the late Emperor's brother and the Empress? I have heard there was never much love lost there." Myo-en shrugs dismissively. "Miya are not oracles, just mortal samurai who act as duty tells them. It is good to think for yourself."

She gives Mai another inquiring look. "What is it about this that makes you look again? In unknown territory, trust instinct, but verify when you can. Sometimes the senses notice important things before the mind understands them."

Togashi Mai · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:22 am **Posts:** 417

"May, I believe you speak wisely Myo-en-san. Though I would yet wish to trust the office the Miya yet hold, they are mortals even still. May, I wished to yet trust their word as my own reason for doubting theirs was that of a personal reason."

"They are a kind soul, and though I aided in quieting their rage against the proclamation I did not feel as if they were wrong. I would yet hope that if they were merely driven to break decorum from a shock, that I would yet understand and feel as such but I did not in this moment. Thus did I realize I yet would desire to seek answers to this question. To know more of what I yet may for the situation and more."

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

"Whose kind soul is that?" Myo-en's eyebrows arch upward. "And what question do you want to answer? The web of fortune is a complicated weave. It's never easy to read, but asking the right question makes the way smoother."

Togashi Mai · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:22 am **Posts:** 417

"Matsu Mogami-sama," she said, holding yet to the exceedingly over polite address. "They.. appear kind, at least, to me. Though in truth I yet do not know them well they have seemed eager to yet become greater than mere acquaintances. May, the simple notion of allowing me to work ink upon them appears to have opened themselves up yet to the idea that we may yet even call one another friend by the end of the week. May even sooner.." the thought drifted.

"May.. this was not what I wished to spend your time you have most kindly offered my on, Myo-en-san. Back yet to the topic I am uncertain as to the game that appears yet being played in the courts. Yet who is true and who is false among those who yet might be the one chosen to lead the Empire into its next days."

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

"Who speaks true about the Empress's child." Myo-en taps a finger against her lips, not noticing the small smear of mud this leaves on the tip of her nose. "Who cares for the Empire, and who cares for the Throne. I also wonder about this."

Dark eyes search the rainy sky from under the bridge of her hat for a few moments.

"Heaven's choice may already be made. But will we know how to see it?"

Togashi Mai · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:22 am **Posts:** 417

Mai pressed her free hands index finger firmly into her cheek as she thought on the matter. "May, I would imagine it yet already decided by the Heavens but I find myself with the desire still to understand it's many pieces."

"How do you yet deal with such questions, such uncertainties Myo-en-san?" she pondered.

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

"I consult what I know already. I consult the coins." Myo-en's divination tools, three antique bronze coins tied up in a handkerchief, are tucked away under the layers of her straw cape at the moment, but Mai might well have seen her turning them over and over in her hands on other occasions. "And I consult other people I trust, when I am ready. The important thing... well one important thing, at least..." her brows draw together over dark eyes. "I have to know my own mind before I can use my mind to understand the world. Something I only think I know, something I feel strongly without realizing it--all things of that kind cloud one's understanding and lead one from the path."

Walking on the Wild Side [Day 9, Late Afternoon]

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