Kyuden Shika

The sound of crashing and thrashing somewhere down the hall told him it was time. He had only just returned to his room, having taken a quick bath after a long night of temple scrubbing. He slide the door open and retrieved the letter.

And he wept.

It was a brutal and ugly thing and he couldn't stop it. Nothing had mattered as much to him as she did and now she would be forever denied to him. He wanted to die, for several minutes he sat there, hugging his wakizashi like a stuffed animal just crying. He couldn't do it, not because he feared death but because he knew that if the fortunes had denied him in this life they would certainly deny him in the next if he did. It didn't matter that he didn't hate his betrothed, she was noble, beautiful and interesting; he was luckier than most but in that moment none of it mattered.

She was gone, forever.

((Permission gained over DMs before entering the scene))

Moshumaru was running at a breakneck speed towards Unsei's room, but stopped when he heard that voice. It sounded... different, crying. It sounded raw.

Fortunes...

Moshu scratched.

Following this, he knocked.

Finally, the Kitsu simply walked in.

And here we are, he thought to himself. Exactly as predicted.

Yet... he couldn't help but move to embrace the Crane, to try and comfort him as he had countless others.

The touch didn't register with him, then it did but it wasn't hers so it didn't matter. He gripped his wakizashi tighter, maybe he could do it.

"There's no need to grip it so tightly, Asahina-san. Your honour is still with you."

It was a soft whisper, almost a lullaby. Gently, he moved one hand onto the Wakizashi, enticing the smith to not hold it so hard.

"Why?" It was all he could manage yet it encompassed a thousand other questions.

"Because the fortunes have plans for you. Plans to elevate you above... this. This despair will pass. It will be okay, I promise."

...Fortunes, he was a Crane. A Crane and a fool and a... why couldn't he bring himself to rightfully hate him?!

"I sh-should have taken your offer. I should cut my hair right now, cut myself right now. Everything my father ever told me is true, about me, about love. I would rather march into The Pit than this. I barely know here, she doesn't even seem to like me and...and...Bai..." The tears began again and the gentle clicking of a blade popping free and then dropping back in could be heard as he flicked at the tsuba with his thumb.

It was hard to feel like a victor when the result of your victory was... this.

He was beginning to see what he hadn't in a long time - empathy. Genuine empathy for a Crane.

A hand forces the Tsuba shut as he holds Soyokaze tighter - if he wanted to kill himself, he would have to cut through them both, trapping the wakizashi between the two scarred bodies.

"You are here because your father was wrong. Your father stole your confidence, your comfort, and for a long time your joy, from a child. He stole from the Emperor's children."

His tone turned steely.

"Never forget that."

"And he doesn't care, he wont care. He's gotten rid of me, strengthened relations with a needed ally and will probably get a Unicorn horse out of it. What do I get? What did I do in a previous life to deserve all this? How do I build a future with someone who thinks I'm weak and pathetic just like he did? Who's taken little interest in me other than to call me a child?"

"You see this ceiling of impression, I see every opportunity in the world to impress her. Do you remember how you impressed Oubaihime? Impressed Shika-sama on the final day? Impressed me?"

He cursed himself where no one would hear him for admitting it.

"Because you didn't wait to see if you could. You didn't contemplate the advice of someone else. You did. You built that mirror, you made that Wakizashi, you aced that final trial - you can do this. You're walking into a clan which I cannot begin to understand, but if you're willing to throw yourself wholeheartedly into understanding them I have a lifetime of work which says they'll repay that passion in kind."

He wondered, briefly, if this is what parenthood was like. It had stopped being work - it was too personal, now.

"Do not believe you are dying. Believe you are being reborn."