4 successes
"Well, I have a black, a white, a pink and a blue. That... should be enough, right?"
The specific colors he had gotten he had forgotten to check, simply taking the clerk's recommendations. After setting up the basics facing the river, he tapped his brush. Outside, under the light of the eclipse, a fish lept out of the water, and then back in.
"I know where to start - I'm thinking something about the stars. Stars, stars... ah!"
Putting his tools down, he dipped the tip finger in his tea, swirling it until it formed a spiral. Of course!
Lord Moon, Lady Sun.
We only see one - have they
Embraced around us?
The day after that gift, Unsei told him that he was right - that the Moon and Sun are embraced around Rokugan. But if we can only see one of them at a time, then either the earthly realm shifts or the heavens shift...
"...So it looks like the stars are moving." The Kitsu said in realization, more to himself than the Kaito. He then turned to his advisor. "Should I spin left or right?"
After covering the base canvas black and letting it dry, he applied Oubai's suggestion, painting white stars spiralling around a non-painted central circle, using white with pink shadows from this centre.
...
But the centre was a question that needed answering. What was in the centre of this swirl of stars?
But even as I spoke
Her light kept shining down
Reflecting in the sea
Spreading her love around.
"Hajime, you genius! I'll need to thank him after this. Oubaihime-san, Is blue on white a good contrast for an eclipse, or should I go blue on pink? Or black and blue on white, maybe??"
Following her suggestion once his work had dried, he would lay down a moon, some sunlight behind - and then a sun. Like a solar eclipse had a beam from the heavens themselves beamed onto it. In a seemingly stark, ruinous move, he made three lines from the sun outward - one each to the left side of the top, left corner and right corner, before adding two short lines halfway up and two more longer lines near the end, almost creating boxes, but not quite.
"I've seen one of the Seppun-sama's astrological charts; I'm trying to replicate something along those lines."
And what, dare he asks, goes in those spaces?
...He stopped to think.
Temples... temples... sights from the Kitsu lands...
Pillow mountain! No, that's not it. What was it? Something in pillows, something temples...
His heart skipped a beat as he recalled what he was thinking.
That sense of joy from the way she smiled. And that little pitter patter her feet do. And that thing with her cheeks when she -
Moving like a man inspired, the little, closer boxes found approximations of rabbit feet in them, while the upper ones carried expressions that he remembered - that first wide smirk, that cute little pout, that thing with her cheeks when she-
Once it was set to dry, he took a moment to pause, making sure his work (and their tea, and damn near everything else) was out of "oh whoops" or the
Hime range, as one might call it. Speaking of his partner in paint,
"Sorry, if I may, should I do the other side a different colour or the same, for the lines, feet and faces?...What do I even call this?"