[Day 11, Late Evening Aimi's Room] The Fortune of Bad Poetry (Closed)

[Shiba Raizo]

He had absolutely no idea where he'd gotten the paper the night before, and his first impulse upon reading the poems had been to burn them and never speak of them again.

But...

But they don't say anything about her secret, and yeah, they're awful, but... they're my awful. For her.

So Raizo held a stack of paper (ink-spattered and festooned with terrible calligraphy) in his left hand as he scratched at her door with his right.

[Aimi]

Aimi opens the door this time, having only returned to her room a short time ago, and raises her eyebrows at the sight.

"You know, Raizo, one of these days I'll have to come visit you," she says with a fond smile, "Can't let you be doing all the work for this relationship now, can I?"

[Shiba Raizo]

"Ah, but my room is a spartan nightmare, showcasing the emptiness of my life, Aimi m'dear. Whereas your room has you in it, so it's the best-decorated place in Rokugan."

Damn, that was ALMOST smooth.

He held up the sheaf of paper.

"So I got a bit blitzed last night. I wrote... I think it's supposed to be poetry. I think."

[Aimi]

"Oh my. Improvised drunken poetry? How could a girl refuse," Aimi drawls, but her expression is still delighted. She's had people she can share this kind of rough, unpretentious intimacy with before, but only the barest handful, and to find another in (she hopes) her future husband... ah, sometimes the fortunes truly are kind. "Well then, why don't you come on in and give me a performance?"

Grinning, the ronin settles herself down on the futon, back to the wall so she can hopefully avoid falling over in the face of terrible laughter.

[Shiba Raizo]

"Okay, you might want to keep a chamber pot handy, my artistic efforts have been known to be toxic in moderate doses..."

He flourished the first paper.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

His delivery was... actually... decent?

[Aimi]

"Raizo," Aimi says, a soft smile on her face, "That was actually rather lovely. Unconventional, to be sure, but well spoken and heartfelt, with some decent wordplay and imagery."

She lifts a hand. "And, before you engage in another layer of performative self-mockery, remember that there is a difference between staying humble and taking poison."

[Shiba Raizo]

His expression was... curious. A bit of a glimpse of the kid he'd never really gotten to be. A bit of a bashful smile.

"Might be I've just lacked the right inspiration up to now..."

He shrugged... and held it out to her.

"It's yours. They're all yours. Even this one..."

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.