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On a small, dusty farm in Tsukishima, the first rooster of the morning began to crow in announcement of daybreak. On the Western half of the skyline, cold night still hung onto the sky in shades of blue, dark rain clouds creeping to the edge of the skyline as if to flee from the impending morning. The sun was still glimmering splinters above the ocean horizon, though it slowly rose to pierce the sky in soft pink hues. Tsukishima was known for its sunrises, especially over Mount Kaji. It was the day of the mid-Autumn festival. In the north, shipments of fireworks were being carefully arranged for festivities, silk dresses were being smoothed out and displayed in the windows of storefronts, and streets were being swept clean for the Imperial Parade. In the south, vendors woke earlier than usual to begin frying a surplus of chicken, baking racks of mooncakes, and brewing entire barrels of tea. Crates of traditional offerings -- rice dumplings, white chestnuts, and sweet potato -- were being pulled by oxcarts into marketplaces, where carts and tents began to set up. All around Tsukishima, russet maple trees began to shed their leaves in the crisp morning winds.

At Obokuri Harbor, no such maple leaves spun lazily through the breeze, and no vendors prepped for the lunar equinox. Most would be unable to see the moon through the smog. Even without the smog, in the furthest northeastern harbors of Tsukishima, some know little else of the day's significance than the effect the parade would have on foot-traffic. Miles from the harbor, closer to the blossoming red sunrise behind Mount Kaji, a steamboat made its way towards the port city of Obokuri. It was a great grey ship, with no sails, windows, or wood of any kind. In lieu of a flag, its starboard side was painted with the seal of Goristan; A crowned, golden pegasus on a red and silver shield. If it had not been encrusted in barnacles and half-washed away by the wind and brine, the crest would have been a more pleasing sight, though making the great ship pleasing to the eye would be a harder fix than painting a winged horse on the side. It was smelted of dark metal, with great rivets holding it together like sutures. Where the mast should have been, chimneys and their billowing plumes of black smoke were in their place. On the deck, no men were visible, though this was typical for Goristi ships. Goristan had more interest in getting their things to Tsukishima than their people for the past few years.

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Saishu woke with the sunrise, though this was not so much a feat of rugged samurai discipline as he would have any hypothetical onlooker believe. In truth, when he was a samurai, Saishu enjoyed his bed more when he woke up in the morning than when he would lay his head down at night, and would often wrap himself in his cool silken sheets, pat his futon for his faithful companion Jōjō to curl around his feet, and pontificate until nearly noon. As the son of Endoyuki's daimyo, heir to Endoyuki village and the next in line to be ruler of three rice paddies and an inn, his youthful duties were more centered on training, studying, and keeping his time otherwise gainfully occupied than with the grueling preparation of a soldier. The Tazugane were samurai, but they were by no means a large or influential clan counted on to lead armies with a war drum -- Like many, their purpose was to maintain the status quo by ruling a small number of serfs and ensuring that Shogun Yukizaru would have skilled, loyal swordsmen even in the most rural villages. The shogun could sleep soundly that his laws were obeyed in the backwater hamlets he had never seen, and one family from each of those backwater hamlets could sleep soundly on silk sheets.

Of his old life, one of the things he missed most, more than banquets, his swords, or his faithful hound, were his silk sheets and soft crane-feather futon. In his lucidity of entering the waking realm, Saishu began to wonder if he would ever rest on feathers again. He certainly hadn't woken up on any. By the time he remembered where he had found shelter from last night's storm -- a cobweb-ridden shack that had perhaps once been a stable -- the pain had returned. More than he missed his bed, or even his face, he missed when he did not exist in a state of constant anguish. He crawled out from the dusty table he passed out beneath, itching at a sore on his shoulder and beginning the steps of relieving the pain of his burns, ripping a bandage from his chest and beginning to unwrap it as delicately as if it were his own skin. To be fair, given that his burns were clean through his flesh and nearer to his muscle and fat, it was his skin. He could more painlessly replace his dressings if he took his time and did not look at his wounds, so that was his method used. He hated the glimpses of his skin. He looked like a plucked and boiled chicken, covered in thousands of tiny recesses where he once had fine black hair.

By the time Saishu had removed the bandages from his chest and legs, the sun had risen and he had heard the first initial sounds of early morning outside the thin walls of his shelter -- Namely, a few oxcarts over the hours, and the shuffling of sandals across the dirt road. By the time he had removed the bandages from his arms and face, it appeared to be the late morning. The sun shone through a crack in the ceiling's rotten planks as well as it did the cracks in the walls, and the hours between hearing noises outside became minutes. Among the grumbling of merchants passing through the forest path Saishu had found himself on, he had heard the word "festival" four times, and "toll" twice. A wave of paranoia slowly crept through him, and he began to fear that his shack was perhaps a tollbooth, and that one of the local lord's men would be arriving at any moment to his station. He could only imagine it. A fat, middle-aged guard tiredly traipsing through the forest towards the shed he would sit in while awaiting passerbys, eating a dumpling and planning his actions for whatever festival was taking place, swinging open the door to reveal Saishu's naked, skinless body. The sheer level of embarrassment and the stain such a death would put on his honor scared him more than the prospect of being stabbed in the gut by a frightened guard, and so he began to bandage himself at a greater speed.

By the time Saishu made his way from the shed, it was high noon, and the only sign of the weeping monstrosity that had been in the shack hours ago was a tall pile of bandages, off-white on one side and dark red on the other. He was still as mummified as ever, but his pain had greatly subsided. If there was one thing Saishu's burns had taught him, it was that on the road, cleanliness was paramount to staying alive. There were no physicians living in his keep to treat him at a moment's notice, and no local herbalist he could depend on for treating even the smallest of his cuts. Moreso than he needed a physician at the moment, or any kind of herbalist, Saishu needed a cook. The agony of his wounds had been replaced by a hollow, gnawing pain in his rumbling stomach. Try as he might, he couldn't remember the last time he had eaten, though he was smart enough to know how grave a problem that was. He had enough ryu in his pockets for a bowl of rice, though bowls of rice weren't exactly abundant in a misty afternoon forest. All he could do was follow the path, and so, he did. He followed it for nearly an hour, taking slow, measured steps. Saishu, for all the cartwheels he had practiced as a boy, and all the races he had beaten his younger brothers in, had the pace of an old man on his way to tea. An early old man.

Mimichi did most of her dreaming in the morning, it had come to be her most anticipated time of the day. When she opened her eyes, while the blurry world hurried into focus, she found she could catch full glimpses of the things that fleeted from her in the day. Some mornings she would see her home, nestled into the Lorro’s crux with naught but the torches to light it in the dark, early morning. Others, the grain in her eyes would fool her into seeing the valley proper, long and tapered like a delta of fertile land. Those were the nice mornings, the pleasant ones whose memories brought less pain than warmth. Some–bittersweetly few–were less kind. In the waking blur she would, on occasion, see her old friends. She would see the other Serpents, strolling the small roads or practicing in the field outside of the manor. She would see her brother, Sazo, sometimes happy, sometimes bearing the look of hatred and betrayal he’d worn the last time she saw him. Yuna, too, would appear on the drearier mornings. She was small, and still had hair down to her shoulders. Sometimes she would smile, sometimes she would cry.

These were the difficult mornings, where the nostalgia weighed so heavy her breath would catch and her eyes would sting. It hurt to see, but it hurt worse for the moments to pass. For every bit of agony, she would not trade them for the world.

This time she saw Hiroyuki lying beside her. His face was abnormally touched by the blur, but she could tell his eyes were shut, and he was smiling. By the way his side rose and fell, it was clear that this time he was sleeping.

A sting caught her eye, and when she blinked the world was focused, Hiroyuki was gone.

Mimichi rolled onto her back and groaned through a series of stretches. She reminded herself, 'this is not the valley,' when she was done and got to her feet. It wasn’t, these were forest trees, much taller and more densely packed than the trees of Lorro. The south was its own kind of lush, one she was not used to, but certainly welcomed. Forests were hard to track through and easy to hide in. Trading in a comfortable night’s sleep on the bed of an inn for the relative safety beneath the towering shadows was something she’d become long accustomed to.

She buried the remains of her cooking fire and pulled her bag down from the branches she’d hid it in. With dismay, she saw one of the flaps had opened, and some of her vials had come open. A misting had passed through earlier, the ground was heavily dewed, her blanket damp. Worst, the moisture had crept into her bag and turned a monkshood paste to slush, which had then seeped into a smaller satchel of raw ingredients.

Frustrated, she dumped the contents of the satchel, then buried the thing itself. It wasn’t exactly rare for ingredients to leak, but where she’d once just pick the replacements herself, her position and disposition made that difficult. She was near a small town, but during festivals even small towns were usually diligent about harvesting the most obvious herbs. What she had left–mostly odds and ends additives, and nearly empty vials of ingredients snagged from the valley–wouldn’t make much without the more basic components. She’d comb with careful eyes along the way, but it was becoming clear to her that she’d need to visit the town to restock what she could. A glance into the pocket holding her money told her it would not be much if she planned to eat.

‘There’ll be work,’ she thought with some level of certainty. Big events, big crowds, these things tended to spark conflicts, and conflicts–at least the way she implemented herself into them–brought coin. Even if nothing needed doing that day, she was confident the next days would see plenty of people in search of aid of one kind or another. Investing in the materials would be worth it. She could likely find cheap food during the festival anyway.

This time she made sure the bag was entirely shut, and all its contents were secure, before slinging it around her shoulder. Last, she hooked the two halves of her weapon to her belt, bound in cloth to keep them from clacking together as much as to hide what they were. She might have called the thing a naginata, if she’d ever seen any respectable form of the weapon come apart at the middle, and require a ridiculous twisting mechanism and pin to keep from breaking at the slightest motion. Even the blade was more a ruined spear than a glaive, which was due more to the shoddy quality of the metal than the shape itself. But it had been cheap, and, to her surprise, had endured crossing a bandit’s sword–though the edge was now severely chipped.

The town, of which she didn’t know the name, wasn’t far. With the traffic, she even felt she could follow the road without trouble. Indeed, festivals, crowds, excitement, they had their merits, and part of her wondered if she might find some enjoyment in the events herself. A small part, though, and one she didn’t give much mind to once she was on her way.

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The silence of the blackened night had begun to fade, a stillness replaced with tranquillity of rye susurrated by the warm morning air. As the sun peeked its vibrant crest over the horizon a golden hue flooded the land like paint to a canvas. It had broken dawn, and amongst this life giving moment was a timber bullock cart, trudging through the farmlands as it was pulled forth by a muscular, white beast. Only the sound of the heavy, oak wheels carving their way through the dirt could be heard by any onlookers — a list that comprised of cicadas, rabbits, and a lone pheasant looking for its dayspring meal.

There were three occupants who sat within the compound of this old cart; three occupants who remained quiet as they felt the crushing clumps of dry soil resonating through the wagon. The leader of the trio sat at the forefront, head buried deep down within his chest as he rocked sleepily from side to side. A question as to whether or not he was truly an awake individual was only answered by the occasional slapping of his cane on the rear hide of the bull. Without warning, a sudden cockcrow of a cough emanate from his chest — a cause assumingly connected to the rye dust carried by the wind — signalling to the passenger pair it was both a time to awaken, and time for a well deserved drink.

"Here you go, grandpa." The younger passenger broke the first words of the day as he leaned over with a bamboo flask. The old man took a swig, filling his mouth with cool water in order to suppress the uninvited lurgy. Once satisfied that the miracle liquid had cured his ailment, he passed the container back to his grandson only for the boy to look towards the final cart occupant, gulping nervously with a more than generous proposal. "You can have some too, if you wa—"

"She doesn't get any—" gruff, cold, and demeaning. The old man sliced through the act of civil kindness harder than a Hattori Hanzo blade, "—that little thief."

Uzuki grimaced with humility as she heard the low-blow comments of mockery, curving her lower lip between her teeth and nipping at the soft, fleshy brim. She peered down at the rope around her wrists; those tightly bound wrists that always held the dark desire to landed her in such a precarious predicament. There she noticed a deep, salmon coloured irritation which begun to spread its way across the skin surface.

Opposite Uzuki the young boy sighed softly with a disappointing and obedient "Yes grandpa" reply; slowly realising that his naive innocence must have gotten the better of him. It just so happened that Uzuki turned out to not be their friend, nor were they her's, and how it all reached this point was through her own, selfish actions.


The thief landed on her knees, the bottom of her once silky, white dress now tinted in with all the colours of the wet earth. In the dirt before her laid her all too familiar Tanto knife, alone and eagerly awaiting for her much desired companionship. Uzuki turned her head to espy the twain from beyond the rim of her kasa, watching as their wagon made a steady gait toward the hill's horizon. The longer she watched, the more it would dip beyond that thickly defined mound until they were eventually out of sight, already becoming a distant memory for 'The Lone Pine'.

In this lonesome whereabouts Uzuki oddly found herself thankful, grateful for a level of hospitality to which she didn't deserve. She staggered her way across the soil to her discarded knife, a surly gift left by the old man before telling her to never return to their land, and clutched the hilt with her clammy hands. With a gentle motion she rolled her wrist back and forth along the downturn blade, fraying the rope edge on the honed steel. With each movement she could feel the pressure easing from around her wrist, the warm circulation gradually returning to her fingers, and the screaming ecstasy of her hands once again being freed.

"Where to now?" the audible thought escaped Uzuki's lips, knowing the solution should have been as clear as the morning she was admiring, and yet the answer she held was as clouded as a dark and stormy evening. The town of Tōtōmi was such a location where she could stay, half a day's travel along the river stream and across the Hana Valley; if only she knew how easy it was to find.

Slowly and surely Uzuki lifted her rattled body to its feet, and with a light pat she dusted off the surface dirt — only leaving the remaining marks which had managed to ingrain themselves into to finely woven fibres. She had looked better before, but at the same time looking worse was also a very real possibility. No one would look twice and with her seemingly natural ability to blend into the crowd, and appearing a tad shabby was the least of her worries.

Another day, another venture. And with more and more mistakes pushing her north it would only be a matter of time before Uzuki would reach the capital of Tsukishima, the famous City of the Emperor.

The early morning had been a strenuous one for Kagura. She had awoken long before the sunlight filtered through the forest trees to hear the birds call, and as the sun's rays grew brighter with each heavy step she took, Kagura seemed to be one foot behind finding a plentiful breakfast. She had settled for nothing but handpicked berries for yesterday's morning meal, and went without any sort of food to end last night. Her tongue felt painfully dry and her limbs, usually moving with great confidence and strength, seemed to slug behind her. Her pacing towards an unknown destination was not as swift as the days before, and with each new day as her food supplies got smaller, Kagura would ask the forest to not be so cruel the next coming morning. Today, it seemed, the forest had once again ignored her plea.

An hour passed, and Kagura was still wading through the morning mist. Although her movements grew slow, her senses remained sharp, hoping to hear an animal's crinkling steps against fallen autumn leaves. She tried to keep the grip around her bow firm and tight, her footsteps careful and quiet, but with each minute her body seemed to be doing the opposite. The sunrise began to shine bright in Kagura's tired eyes, and all she could do was moan at her misfortune.

Yet another hour of roaming over uneven levels of forestry passed, and the sun had gone from a vibrant orange to a pale yellow. At that time, Kagura began to question why she had woken up at an unnecessarily early hour. Aside from herself, the towering trees and shrubs that were rooted into the soil, and perhaps the occasional whistle of a bird, everything around Kagura seemed to be dead. Dead still, more like.

But her stomach and the arrows that sat in her quiver were hungry for some meat. Just the thought of having some rabbit meat roasting over a fire was what kept Kagura struggling through this skeletal forest. She licked her lips sore, the imaginary taste of and hunger for rabbit proving too much for the weary teen.

Then, as if the forest had graced her with a solution to her cracking lips and limp tongue, Kagura's ears picked up the sound of running water. She darted straight towards it.

And there it was, a shallow river sheltered by thin trees. She leapt onto the riverside, kneeling on the pebbles and plunging her free hand into the flowing water. Cold. Clear. It looked safe enough.

Kagura made no hesitation in downing as much as she water as she could stomach, cupping her hands to drink as well as wash the dirt off her face and out of her hair. If, or rather, when she found something to call breakfast, she could bring it back here. It had almost been a week since she had found her last clean river, and two and a half days since her flask ran dry. Kagura expressed her gratitude in a triumphant yell, thirst quenched and energy slowly returning.

With a full flask of water and a small pouch of berries from the bushes behind her, Kagura felt prepared for a hunt. Or rather, she was starting to feel a bit more lucky.

And lucky, she was! The tables turned as soon as she spotted living, breathing breakfast after walking a couple of miles away from the river. There, in a small clearing where all the sunlight poured into, a pheasant. Kagura could feel the drool running from the side of her mouth; she hadn't had pheasant in months.

The bird was big, the bird was fat, and Kagura was very, very hungry.

Crouched behind a prickly shrub, she drew her bow. Slowly, carefully, she drew her arrow further back and waited. A minute passed as she watched the bird pecking at the undergrowth. Kagura closed her eyes and uttered something under her breath, and upon opening them she saw the pheasant begin to move.

Then, she let go of the arrow.

Kagura grinned, giving the forest her thanks for not ignoring her plea.