Shizuka quietly went about her preparations, making ready for the tea ceremony proper, anticipating the arrival of her good host's son and the moment when she would have the [i]'honor'[/i], at last, of offering Takahiro Souma a refreshment of her own. The cups and tea set she chose to serve were truly exquisite, expensive and paid for entirely with her own coin in lacquered colors to honor the home of her hosts. Deep blues faded to a gleaming ebony in its expertly applied glaze, somber colors that spoke the true depth of the Takahiro clan's dedication to the business of their family and their honor.

But the young woman who personally saw to the arrangement of the tatami mats appeared, at the least, anything [i]but[/i] dark or somber. An iromuji-style kimono swathed her lithe body in deep pinks and subtle reds, reminiscent of the intricate floral [i]rinzu[/i] pattern of its shimmering silks, the soft tinkling of the polished metal [i]kazanshi[/i] secured in her long, dark brown hair. The ivory obi was secured about her tiny waist with a pale green [i]obijme[/i] cord, completing the effect for all purposes of a single ephemeral cherry blossom resting on a branch.

She made only two concessions in her outward appearance, to the truth of her Western heritage. She did not wear her hair in the more precise and taut style of the most elegant Japanese women, like the lovely Takahiro Ai who, in her secret heart, she came to wish might have been her sister in another time, another place. Rather, her long brown hair was pulled back from her face, adorned by the [i]kazanshi[/i] and bound at the nape of her neck, the long, wavy tendrils instead spilling down her back.

The second concession, was in the rings she chose to wear on the index finger of each hand: a polished onyx ring bound in an ornate platinum setting on the left, sparkling darkly in the sunlight; and a mother of pearl ring on her right, glowing with an opalescent luminescence in a band of gold.

Shizuka had learned a great deal in her eleven months in Japan, about a great many things. A Western woman come to teach these ever-inquisitive people the ways and language of those far-flung Western lands, she had become a student herself among them, her simple and sincere love for the customs and language and people of this island nation charming not a few in her wake. 

And all the right people as well. 

When Galina returned with Klara from their voyage on the [i]Empress,[/i] she confessed everything to her father. [i]Everything,[/i] to the last. She spoke of the meeting in the Winchester Mansion, and those once-precious moments with the gallant young Japanese man who stole away her naive heart as easily as she stole the schematics from the safe. Galina even shared the true reason for her strangely morose behavior for all those long months afterward, and did not spare her pride a single lash as she spoke aloud the ridiculous, shameful daydreams she once held so dearly. She told her father the truth of all that happened aboard the [i]Empress of Japan[/i], the elaborate deception and her humiliation, and yes, Takahiro Souma's message for her family, to the very word.

Never once in her life, had her father struck her in anger. Oh, he had trained her as hard and vigorously as any one of her brothers, and spared her nothing of the fist and blade and the hoof, every last blow that all Cossack boys knew in their youth. His unsparing training had made her harder, stronger and faster, honed her instincts and wit to a razor's edge. Baron Demidov had crafted a true Cossack warrior from the flesh of his girl child, her will married to the Church, to her people, to the Tsar and the Russian nation. And never [i]once[/i] in all that time had he raised his hand to her in a rage, to strike his beloved little Night Wolf.

Looking into the darkly-lit depths of her father's eyes in that moment, Galina was suddenly certain if she did not bear her father's ancestral name, if she did not so resemble the wife he loved above all Earthly objects? Baron Vasily Demidov would have killed her where she stood. 

Oh, there would certainly be blood spilled for all her folly, but not a drop of it would flow from Galina's veins. And that carnage had been merely the [i]start[/i] of her penance.

Her penance and her punishment. Galina would take these months exiled from the seat of her family home to entrench their own interests in the Japanese nobility, in the patrons of the Takahiro clan. The master spy had managed through subtlety and charm, through daring and audacious boldness to take root like a creeping vine throughout all the family interests - the cover businesses and the illegitimate enterprises they masked - of Souma's beloved Takahiro clan. 

All while stepping not one foot on American soil.

And now the favored son had returned triumphantly from his adventures roaming that same soil, rightly anticipating a homecoming worthy of all his success and accomplishments.

Galina's dark gaze turned toward the opened [i]shoji[/i] door of the tea room, spotting the large shadow of Yury pass by in the hallway. His own dark eyes glanced toward her, and brother and sister exchanged small, knowing smiles as the laughter of Takahiro Ai drifted toward them like the sweet, high sound of tinkling bells.