(D5, EM) Waking Up to See the Sun

[Ryoshun Yua]

"Part of Doji's court. Yes, I imagine that does keep you busy. Hopefully more with art than battle these days?" Her eyes track the single white strand of hair, thoughtful.

"It is less gentle in..." she pauses, "in the actual force used. One does not pound a poem to the page, or stab a canvas with paint, neh? Nor does a poem draw blood, does it?"

She looks somewhat skeptical of a blade being part of one's soul. "I will note that I have never needed to quiet an unrestful sword's spirit. Though I suppose, in time... Stranger things have happened certainly."

[Doji Hikaru]

Hikaru hesitated a moment. "Yes." He said after a moment. It was true, if incomplete.

His lips shifted. "That depends on a poem. But perhaps I take your meaning." He pursed his lips. "In a literal way, yes, less gentle. But it is about the feeling. And the sword, it's not that it has a soul, but it is an expression of the self..." Hikaru trailed off.

Gently, he shook his head. "It is difficult to explain."

[Ryoshun Yua]

Her eyes widen. "Oh. Not a literal soul." There is a gentle nod. "This is why you write poetry, and I do not." There is a warm matter-of-factness to her comments in that even voice.

"But yes. There is an expression of the self put to metals in the forge. I suppose you are saying that it is similar wielding a blade then?" There is a thoughtful silence.

[Doji Hikaru]

Hikaru's lips curled up at the corners. "No. Not a literal soul. Well... not exactly..."

But then she had it, or at least close enough. "Yes, that's it. Such is all art, or so I have found. It is how we in the Crane express ourselves. And perhaps some in other clans. The Stag, for instance. The Dragon..." His lips shifted, "-perhaps it is not the only way."

"And the Bat?" His eyebrows went up. "I confess, I have been curious about your clan as of late."

[Ryoshun Yua]

"Have you? Why curious about the Bat in particular?" Her hands smooth at the frayed edges of her coat. "Do our warriors consider their weapons a sort of self expression? I'm not sure. Nor do we have a separate school to train them, which might instill such things. Reaching through the Void is...kind of the opposite, while the work of a spirit guide feels very necessary, but not particularly artistic."

[Doji Hikaru]

Hikaru considered all of that. "Perhaps some of that is a Crane thing. Although I feel that any sufficient mastery has some amount of art." It certainly was a Crane attitude.

"I..." Hikaru frowned, silent for a moment as he considered. "I have had more of an interest in the mystical, as of late. And I have a friend who was once a Crane, now living with your Clan. Kakita is his name now." Hikaru looked at her, blinking slowly. "I think he may have died, and returned, but I am not certain. Regardless... " Hikaru waved a hand, a substitute for a shrug.

[Ryoshun Yua]

There is a slight shrug from Yua though. "If you view art as expression of the self, reaching into the Void is..." her eyes focus elsewhere, thoughtful. "You want to come out of it with your self intact, but it's about grasping all that connection. And to guide ghosts, you don't want to give them much of yourself, honestly. Though perhaps there's an art to the convincing of them. If so, I'm still not well practiced at it."

Head tilting at mention of Kakita she nods. "He serves Lady Rei-sama, and I'd heard he was a Crane or had ties to them. I had not heard anything of his death though. Seems quite alive to me. I don't even think he came to us haunted as many do. Though you'd be better off asking the Lady about that."

[Doji Hikaru]

"I see." Hikaru murmured. "So in your tasks, you risk losing yourself." He considered a moment. "I have heard of such happening with art as well, but perhaps those were just legends. Of the craftsman who puts everything into a perfect work, and is a shadow of themselves after." He gave a minute shrug. Such things were beyond his knowledge.

Slowly, he nodded. "I see. Perhaps I was mistaken. He was a Crane once, and we thought him dead. And then he appeared to me, the night of the wedding. We were alone, and I was in the garden. It was snowing..." Hikaru shook his head gently. "It very much seemed like a dream. Or that he was a ghost. If I was mistaken... so be it." In truth, Kakita was a friend, ghost or not; him being alive changed nothing.

"He is a good man." Hikaru nodded. "He should serve the Bat well."

[Ryoshun Yua]

There is a slow shake of her head. "No, I can lose myself in the work of the forge. Forget I have a body that needs food. Needs sleep. Forget everything but the work in my head and my hands. But... I am not really losing anything, I'm just pouring it into what is being made. I can sometimes see the bits that an artist leaves behind like that, if I seek into the Void for that connection in their work."

"But the Void is so vast, you can lose your...Self...what makes you a separate person. You don't forget you have a body, you forget you have a...personality, a mind. You can't give to the Void as you do to art, because it already holds...Everything." A small lift of her lips speaks to this being a pleasant, rather than terrifying experience for her. "So, you need to remember the connections that are yours. Once learned...I feel more whole when I return from the Void than when I entered. Which probably does not make much sense."

As to Kakita. "I would speak to him more, I think, were he a ghost. Otherwise, it is a wide world with many surprises. There may indeed be some touch of other Realms on him, and so he gravitated to the Bat." There is some actual mirth to her growing smile. "Perhaps we were closer than the Spider when he was drawn to find a home." Her eyes dart slightly to the left and the smile fades back into neutrality, more quickly than it came.

[Doji Hikaru]

It was a mixture of confusion and understanding that Hikaru regarded Yua with as she spoke. The difference between the self and the Self, the significance of the later, was only something he caught on closer examination. "I am afraid that it does not." Hikaru murmured. "I suppose some things need to be seen for themselves. But alas, I cannot." He gently shook his head. "Some realms are just too far apart."

And then he regarded Yua with raised eyebrows. "Do you find it so difficult to talk to people instead of ghosts? Were not ghosts people once?" He frowned as he considered that. What would a ghost be like, truly.

The comment did make him smile, if only a little. "I think there is something of fate in him. He seems to be here for a purpose. What, I could not say. But I think if he is with the Bat, he is intended to be with the Bat."

[Ryoshun Yua]

"Oh people are as easy as ghosts..." she says with a small shrug, "mostly easier since I need no offering to talk to them. But if he were one, I'd have some obligations to talk to him more is all."

"And all the ghosts I have run into so far were people once." Head tilting with some small curiosity, she lifts her hand to gesture towards his errant white lock. "Speaking of ghosts. There are stories of hair becoming suddenly white from meeting with one, is the silvered bit there from such an encounter?"

[Doji Hikaru]

There was another pause. "I see." Hikaru finally said. Strange as it seemed to him, it at least did make sense.

At her question, Hikaru took a deep breath, his gaze going distant. "I don't know." He answered truthfully. After a moment, he refocused on Yua. "But I don't think so. I've had it since I was first found, after the fire. Perhaps I had it before that." He shook his head. "But I... choose to believe that it was that fire, and being found by Lady Doji that changed it. The mark of fate, or of my new life."

Another breath. "But truly, I do not know."

[Ryoshun Yua]

"A fire? And found by the Kami herself?" Two of those little questioning lifts in a row actually makes her sound rather excited after all this time with her even voice. "A mark for sure. Perhaps she touched you? Or some departing protective spirit did." After all, if he were left to be adopted after a fire, it wasn't unlikely that some family members had perished in the flames.

She nods to the shrine within. "Perhaps such fate means your voice has a bit more chance of being noticed, particularly here."

[Doji Hikaru]

"I don't think she did." Hikaru replied evenly; for his part, sounding more distant as he reminisced. "The first memory I have is her looking down at me. I have some memory that she smiled... but I'm not sure." He pursed his lips. "I had not thought of it as being the touch of a spirit." He was silent as he considered that; it seemed he couldn't reach a conclusion.

He followed her gaze. "Perhaps." He said neutrally. After a few moments, his eyes shifted back. "Can you tell if your voice is noticed?" He asked softly.

[Ryoshun Yua]

"I..." eyes downcast, smile a bit sheepish, she shakes her head. "I mean...I try to watch the world for signs extra carefully after visiting the shrines. But I think I'm just convincing myself there. But here," she looks up again, catching his eyes, "surely Lady Sun watches more closely here, where her favored son might sometimes come to speak with her?"

[Doji Hikaru]

"Hmmm." Hikaru murmured. For a few moments, he said nothing.

Then he looked back to Yua. "One may hope. And we may pray, and never know if our prayers are heard. I suppose that is faith."

He took a slow breath. "Perhaps it is time to perform our devotions.. He looked up, one hand coming up to shield his eyes as he looked towards the sun.