[D14, EA]Hide and Seek (Expecting/Open)

[Asahina Soyokaze]

He wasn't sure what had happened at the sake bar but it didn't matter, he didn't want to do this where anyone could see him. Soyokaze placed the four bottles down beside him as he rested against the trunk of a tree off the beaten path. With a sigh he picked up the first and drank straight from the bottle.

"Ahh"

[Shiba Raizo]

Raizo, taking a walk- in part to help deal with his own sake breakfast- when he heard it.

A sigh.

Huh.

It was funny, now that he'd made up his mind- pissing on Duty, forsaking his fealty, all of it- how little things had changed.

True, I should probably steer clear of Phoenix lands in future, but otherwise...

"Fuck 'em."

And oh, how good it felt.

He homed in on the sigh... and let out one of his own.

"Oi. Soyokaze. That stuff doesn't really help. It's not much good for the pain you're feeling."

[Asahina Soyokaze]

The Crane looked up at his friend though glassy eye, then cast around looking for his other. "No. Don't tell me."

[Shiba Raizo]

"Shiba Raizo is betrothed to Shika... something or other. Someone I've never met, or even heard of."

Raizo unceremoniously plopped down beside the Crane.

"The ronin Aimi is to wed Kasuga Yoshi. So. I gave sake a try this morning after doing my level best to tear my room apart. Broke some crockery. Contemplated a couple of assassinations."

[Asahina Soyokaze]

"Should have gone with Shochu." he offered the Shiba a bottle. "I am sorry my friend, deeply sorry. These Shika..." He took another swig. "...they are all of The Pit. They sung to us of love and then pissed on us when we found it." Another swig. "I have the esteemed pleasure of joining the Ujicorn at the side of Moto Mitsuki, someone I barely know and I think may hate me. Murato and..." he took another swig, killing the first bottle and threw it into the forest.

[Shiba Raizo]

"Mitsuki? She seems a decent sort. A bit intense, and I know you don't love her, but I don't think she'll resent you. Just stand up for yourself. You're heartbroken and pissed off, it's a feeling I know entirely too well. But she respects backbone. So don't shrink into your anger. Let her see it. Just... make sure she knows you're not mad at her. The Deer, though..."

Razo... sipped at the bottle.

"Well. I have to say I think the dirtiest trick they pulled was on poor whoever the hell it is they thought to assign me. Give me every reason to despise their clan and everyone in it, and then make sure I have a spouse from their ranks to resent and treat with bitter cruelty for the rest of my days. Of course, their plans will hit a teeny tiny snag, since Shiba Razio will no longer exist after today."

[Asahina Soyokaze]

He turned to look at the Shiba shocked. "You aren't?! Is she going with you?"

[Shiba Raizo]

"It's... complicated. You see... Kasuga Yoshi is, like me, a very bad samurai. I like him a great deal, because he has fashioned a solution."

He sloshed the bottle around, then took another sip.

"The... let us call it the polite fiction that Aimi is, in fact, a Tortoise on a Mush Shugyo will be made clear. When the pilgrimage ends, the ronin no longer exists. There is no ronin named Aimi, and Kasuga Aimi is not betrothed to anyone- and Kasuga Yoshi gains nothing for his clan by marrying one of their own."

Sip.

"So. All I have to do is shit on over a thousand years of tradition, forsake my fealty, and go ronin. The ronin Raizo will be married to Kasuga Aimi as a purely internal matter of the Tortoise Clan. And the Deer... get made to look like their research is inexcusably sloppy to have missed such important aspects in their matchmaking. Of course, they already failed to detect some other... key points about her background, so they can hardly call it unjust even if they do figure it out."

He chuckled.

"It's devious, delightful, and again, merely requires me to treat the basic precepts of bushido like a latrine rag. How fortunate, then, that I already had so little use for them."

[Asahina Soyokaze]

He lowered his head, as if some slight hope had been dashed by the Shiba's words. "I was considering something similar." He lifted another bottle and swirled it around in his hand. " I was on the verge of cutting...something this morning, I wasn't sure if it was going to be my hair or something else." he didn't want to say it but if he couldn't say it to Raizo he ever would. "I was ready to commit seppuku then and there, I was so close. Then my door opened and I thought I was saved, I thought it was her."

He chugged half the bottle and choked a bit doing it.

"It was Moshumaru. Not my love, not my heart but a Lion the Lion who caused me the most trouble during this damned event. He stayed my hand, he heard my pain and instead of going to Unsei he stopped to help me. Murato came to me in the baths, trying to reassure me that everything would be okay. Do you know who I haven't seen? Can you guess? But that's probably for the better, I don't want this to be her last memory of me. So I thought about taking to the road. Go to the Kaeru or Ryoko Owari where my skills can give me a reasonably comfortable life for a Ronin. But in talking to Moshu it hit me, I understood and in understanding I know that I CAN'T betray this oath of marriage.

Both the Lion think me crazy but I swear it to you Raizo I believe I am cursed. I have known nothing but pain my entire life and once I adapt to one kind of pain the Kami give me another. I believe I must have done something truly vile in a past life to deserve this and all I have left is the hope that if I can figure out what it was and fix it or atone in some way that maybe in the next life we can be together. Maybe then I will be worthy of her. But I am glad to hear that love has found a way for you and it sounds like the Tortoise should be commended. Know that no matter what my life turns in to if you ever need a home, a rest, a pause in your journey you will find it with me."

[Shiba Raizo]

"You want my utterly brilliant and theologically grounded advice? I think you've been shit on by fate, and I think whatever you might have done in a prior incarnation, it's a raw fucking deal. Of course, I'm one to talk, after this stunt, I'll probably come back as a slug in my next incarnation."

Sip.

"But I think you have nothing to atone for, and whenever you stand in front of Emma-O- which I hope isn't for a long, long time- I suggest you demand a fucking apology. So far as keeping in touch goes..."

Sip.

"I think I'll be kept away from... polite circles after this. But the Tortoise have dealings in foreign ports. The Unicorn likewise go beyond the Empire. So. If I seeyou on some foreign shore, drinks are on me, all right?"