D0EA, Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart (Open)

[Seppun Urusai]

"I'd planned on calling there shortly," Urusai replies. "The Fortunes first."

[Akodo Michi]

"Commendable, I could not resist the draw as a bushi", the Akodo admitted. "And travel has made for a poor routine. Tomorrow I will resume my normal duties of training and awaken far before Lady Amaterasu greets us.". She almost smiled at the thought.

[Seppun Urusai]

"Travel does complicate matters, yes," Urusai notes, "although it does offer more opportunity for conditioning by dint of restricting practice time. So there is that."

[Akodo Michi]

"I am aware, but surely Seppun-sama understands my words", she said pleasantly... As one who seems to stare down at everything can. "We are here now, though. And the academy is a place that strives to meet it's reputation, and for that may it raise the bar for which all are judged at kenjutsu."

[Seppun Urusai]

"And iai, as well."

Urusai pauses. "How extensively do the children of Akodo train in the Exquisite Art? I expect I will serve beside many in the Legions, and knowing one's comrades' background eases working with them."

[Akodo Michi]

"For many Lion, iaido is simply a method of readying the weapon", she revealed. "A swiftly drawn blade strikes first, and thus we train the discipline. I hear the famed Ruby dojo takes the matter very seriously."

[Seppun Urusai]

"I have heard so, as well. Kyuden Seppun teaches it in much the same way, as a means for swifter readiness to defend charges. But many Miya and Otomo find themselves in need of champions, as well, and so the Seppun do make provision for that."

[Akodo Michi]

"An attack is an attack", the Lion pointed out. "Akodo's teachings stress the importance of strategy in all things, and so there is little difference to us between a skirmish of blades and a duel of honor when it comes to technique." She smiled now, but it was a harsh, lopsided thing with her hard eyes. "Lives are wagered either way."

[Seppun Urusai]

"Indeed so."

Urusai's eyes flicker.

"I note your hair tie with some interest," he says. "An ancestral remembrance?"

[Akodo Michi]

"A gift from the monks of Bishamon", she answered, not looking girly at all as she precisely drew the jade trinket from her high tail, allowing her dark hair to be loose. Despite her precision and attention clearly on other matters than her looks, being a youth with her fair faced framed by dark hair she just as likely had the effect a more sophisticated woman would have desired. Chin out, hand extended with the item toward Urusai and continued.

"An honor received for enduring a particularly arduous course on the history of the temple since it's founding in 412, commemorating the deeds of Matsu Itagi."

The netsuke was carved as a lion head, holding a small jade crystal in it's mouth, upon the creature's head was a small shrine, as if some manner of crown. The entire object was no larger than a koku, but had exquisite detail.

[Seppun Urusai]

"A worthy gift for a worthy curriculum," Urusai agrees. "Something your descendants will treasure, I am certain, as well."

[Akodo Michi]

"One day, perhaps", the Lion answered, tying up her hair again. "But the honor of my family cannot wait for me to bear children. I have much to do before that."

[Seppun Urusai]

"As do we all, I think."

[Akodo Michi]

"I would think that a Seppun had their marriage, children and monastery of retirement prepared far before their birth by an astrologer", the Akodo declared with an amused look that was somehow a bit too dark.

[Seppun Urusai]

"Only rarely do the stars speak so that mortal minds can understand them in such minute detail," Urusai replies, "or that those who hear most clearly such speech attend to such prosaic matters; more often, the most skilled Astrologers apply themselves to questions of the Imperial safety, long may it be maintained. Certainly, that is a far more important matter."

[Akodo Michi]

"There is no better use for any skill or talent of a samurai than the protection of the throne, it is known", agreed the Lion. "But is your answer to mean you have not picked out how many children you wish, who you will wed, and where you will retire?"

[Seppun Urusai]

"If those arrangements have been made for me, I have not been advised of them," Urusai replies. "Fate ever goes as it must."

[Akodo Michi]

"Fate", Michi's head shook at the idea. "I have long thought about the idea, and it seems as though there is no such thing. The inexplicable is simply thus, unexpected, but what has passed. To think that fate, or destiny, must have assured some matter or another is folly to me. In the 8th century, Kakita Basho stated that All is Vanity as he died upon Hida Yomano's blade, seeing how small even his prestigious life was compared to greater things, but all things break, nothing is certain." She looked away from the statue, back to Urusai. "It is not fate, simply the way. We make choices, that is what it means to live in ningen-do."

She shook her head once again and bowed. "Forgive my oration, it was uncalled for."

[Seppun Urusai]

"Nothing to forgive," Urusai says. "I'd not have asked to speak with you did I not want to hear your words."

[Akodo Michi]

"Many believe in fate, but do not understand it's constraints, and so I have thought on it much, as I have said", she admitted more with that, but did not say. Her face became harder again. "The fortunes, lady sun, lord moon, they would not make lives they sought to control simply to tell one another a tale of their own mind. They are not children playing with dolls."