[D8EN] Words, Deeds, Thoughts, Feelings

[Doji Hikaru]

"I see. It's okay, I promise." Hikaru couldn't help but smile at the princess's blushing reacting. "That was not quite my first kiss... but quite nearly. I think it is something we can enjoy learning together." The thought of meeting Togashi someday, with all his strange powers... will he know what I've done with his daughter? Hikaru's lips quirked; the thought was more silly than anything else.

As talk turned serious once again, Hikaru took a deep breath, his gaze going skyward. Somehow his hands had ended up on her waist; after a moment of consideration, he left them there. She felt nice. "Yes." He said. "War seems inevitable. And that may mean no room for courtship for a time." And once that time had passed, who knew if they would feel the same way.

He lowered his gaze back to hers, pale eyes meeting her beautiful shining green eyes. "But if you come to Crane lands, or I to Dragon, and we both feel as we do now... let us spend some time together, doing things we both enjoy." He flashed a quick smile. "And perhaps kissing. That would be enough for me."

[Togashi Satsuki]

"See - I figured you'd already done that kind of stuff, because you seem like one of those heroes you hear in stories," she didn't quite stick her tongue out at him, but it was certainly there in her tone. It was easier to communicate her feelings by putting on an act.

Feeling his hands on her waist, she in turn placed hers on his arms near the shoulders. "Y-yeah, I think I'd like that. Get to know eachother a bit more without... well, doom will still be hanging over us, but without everything else here hanging over us. I don't want to rush into something like this. In case we're both not thinking clearly because of everything that's been going on, but--" Satsuki paused herself as she realised she was rambling, but the emphasis on her last word made it clear she had more to say.

"Right now, I'm very fine with... just being like this, yes? Being with you, and... kissing you." Her lips gently pressed together for a moment of nervousness.

[Doji Hikaru]

"Do I?" Hikaru chuckled softly. "That sort of hero always wins the admiration of the lord's daughter, you know." A quick kiss, playful, acknowledgement of her teasing.

Slowly, Hikaru nodded, smiling gently once more, confident to match her nervousness. "Then we shall not rush. Just enjoy each other's company. And kissing..." His hand came up to gently brush across her cheek before he leaned in...

/ftmo

[Togashi Satsuki]

/fade in

They had found a decent place to sit in the garden, on one of its benches. Hikaru's cloak was currently shared between them to sit on, and Satsuki's cloak was over both their shoulders as they sat next to one another. She swas smiling has their shoulders touched against the other's.

"Well, you might not have to visit Dragon lands after all then, if father is travelling south to Crane lands," she remarked with a gentle tone.

[Doji Hikaru]

Sharing a cloak with a beautiful woman who he definitely had some sort of growing feelings for was a very pleasant experience, Hikaru found. The warmth emanating from her slender form was more than enough, and seemed quite appropriate for what he'd come to know about her. Fire within, indeed. And the contact... well, it made him smile too, more carefree than Satsuki had seen him yet.

"Oh." Hikaru's lips parted a moment, then pressed together in a smile, just a little wry. "I feel I should try to be more open with my feelings with you, now. So I won't pretend that the thought of meeting Lord Togashi, your father..." both phrases were just a little intimidating at the moment, "-does slightly daunt me. But I look forward to it all the same."

He shifted his shoulder against hers. "Do you think your mother will come as well? I am no less curious about meeting Lady Saruko."

[Togashi Satsuki]

"Hmmm... I'm not sure. Someone needs to remain in with the Dragon, and organize the clan's efforts according to the Emperor's commands. I don't know if my brother Hoshi would be asked to do that." He had about much experience as her as dealing with these administrive tasks. "Mirumoto might probably do most of it, I think, being the experienced warrior and having been regent for the Wu for... as long as I can remember, really."

Sometimes she didn't understand why it was Wu's family when he'd hardly been around to see to it, and not Mirumoto's who had done all the work.

"So is it daunting because it's my father, or because it's Lord Togashi?" she was teasing him a bit now.

[Doji Hikaru]

Hikaru turned his head to face Satsuki. "Yes." He said, flashing a grin. And then he kissed her; just a quick kiss, but now that they'd broken that barrier, he found that he wanted to do so again and again, in a surfeit of new feeling.

He settled back. "But yes, a bit of both. I have spent most of my life in Lady Doji's service, and I have been of personal service to Emperor Shiba. But I have kissed neither of their daughters..." Hikaru chuckled softly at that. "-and Lord Togashi is said to have powers beyond mortal understanding, besides."

He looked at her. "So perhaps I would like to visit Dragon lands as well. Meet your mother. See..." He pursed his lips. "Some of your life. If duty permits, of course." A hint of pensiveness returned to his handsome features, but not so overwhelming as usual.

[Togashi Satsuki]

The little kiss was returned with another one from her, and her smile grew a little wider. Though Satsuki felt she was probably smiling like an idiot by this point.

"I would worry more about Jiyo-sama and uncle Sora if you kissed the Emperor's daughters, and less about the Emperor himself," she remarked with a small laugh. Her uncle was very kind-hearted and understanding, compared to the other two. "But... yeah, it would be nice if you could come visit our lands. Maybe when we return home...? I think there's some kind of protocol for offering an honor guard or something to escort a guest home."

She was mostly making that up. Maybe.

[Doji Hikaru]

"I do wonder at what that eye of Jiyo-sama's can see." He murmured. Perhaps it was fortunate that it didn't always work...

"I hadn't heard of that." Hikaru said. Slowly his lips curled up. "But I think it should be suggested, all the same."

He took a deep breath, pleasant and relaxed, shifting to bring more of him in contact with Satsuki. "If we were in Dragon lands, what sights might you show me?" He asked. Hikaru's gaze went distant, as though already trying to imagine a land he'd never seen.

[Togashi Satsuki]

"Hmmm... Great Falls would be the first one. It's slowly becoming a real city, I think, as it keeps expanding and growing as the people who make their homes there keep working on it. Looking out from the waterfall there, through the water's mist you can make out the green valley below." One day it would probaby become a real great city of the north, and with the Dragon being in the middle of the northern clans, it could certainly become a central point for them.

As she was thinking, she had a sort of distant look in her eyes as memories of her home was clear in her mind. "... My father's holding, the High House of Light, would be a great sight to see too. Few visitors come there, but it is... really beautiful. Very remote but when you stand outside there... tall mountains as far as the eyes can see, and yet it feels like you're standing on top of the world, like you could almost reach out and touch the clouds. And sometimes you do see the clouds as low as between the mountaintops there."

Satsuki sighed with a longing bliss in her tone. Now she was really feeling the homesickness again. "It is so peaceful and quiet there too."

[Doji Hikaru]

Sensing her homesickness, Hikaru gave her knee a gentle squeeze beneath the cloak.

"I would very much like to see that." Hikaru murmured softly. "It sounds beautiful... many of the places in Crane lands I wish to show you would be gardens, like this one. There is a place where you are hidden from sight, but can look out on the pond. And just over the wall, Lady Doji or her best disciples play music..." He briefly closed his eyes, remembering. After a few moments, they opened again. "But natural places, like you described, I very much like those, too. I might bring my canvas..."

He shot her a quick wry smile. "I made an attempt at painting you the other night, actually." He admitted, his own cheeks reddening just a little. "It didn't turn out well. I couldn't quite capture your eyes."

[Togashi Satsuki]

Satsuki sighed a sigh of contentment. "I've heard many tales of how beautiful Doji's palace is. Some say that the gardens there are so elaborate that it's like walking in actual nature. To see it... yeah, I'd like that very much. With my honored aunt, when she is freed." There was a strong sense of certainity in her words as she chose to say when rather than if. "And with you too, of course." His shoulder got a friendly bump from her own.

"But yeah, there are plenty of natural sights that artists try to capture in the Dragon lands. Many painters try their hands at it..." she regarded him with a curious smile. "Oh? I think I'd like to see you give it another go then... would it help if I were there when you try again?"

[Doji Hikaru]

Hikaru chuckled softly at the shoulder bump, and his smile warm as he looked at her. "Thank you." He said. "For sharing my conviction that Lady Doji will recover. I have that myself..." he took a deep breath, "-but I did not realize until recently how much it meant to not carry that alone." His eyes lingered on hers a moment longer. Indeed, it was that devotion that drew him to her as much as her many other qualities.

He took another breath. "That would help very much." Hikaru murmured, smiling. "And if you would like to try it, I would be honored." He gave the tiniest shrug, his shoulder moving against hers. "If nothing else, it would require us to spend a good length of time alone together, perhaps in a beautiful location. I may find myself painting very slowly."

[Togashi Satsuki]

"There is no room for doubt in these times we find ourselves now. We must remain convinced of success... of victory. And... I believe if uncle Hisomu could be rescued from being trapped in another realm, then I believe that she can too." The words were spoken to bolster Hikaru's own belief in their success, to bolster his hope for the future.

Satsuki's smile turned a little sly. "Good thing for you I have lots of practice with sitting very still then, if you're a slow painter. Sometimes I wonder if father's insistence on us learning to meditate with him was to keep us out of trouble...?" she chuckled at that, sounding very much like she had been a child that did get into trouble. But if Hikaru had heard her story earlier that week about Mirumoto having to go rescue them from their misadventure, then he knew it to be very likely that the two had indeed been very troublesome.

[Doji Hikaru]

Hikaru didn't say anything, but the determined glint in his pale eyes was answer enough.

He grinned, squeezing her knee again. "I look forward to seeing it. I also begin to think that your father may like me, as a steadying influence." Although he actually really liked her playful, energetic side.

Hikaru pursed his lips. "You probably won't be surprised to hear that I was very well-behaved as a child. My foster mother may have been... " he considered his words," -Lady Doji's stare disciple." He chuckled. "One stern look was all it took to bring me in line."

[Togashi Satsuki]

The squeeze made her giggle a bit and she reached out to hold his hand. All part of a cunning plot from stopping him from squeezing her in a place she was ticklish.

"I can see that... if she's anything like the Lady Doji, it's hard to not want to behave. Though you'd be surprised at how well my father can do the same without even giving a look. It's just like..." sitting up a bit straighter, Satsuki closed her eyes to imitate the way her father would often do. And with a slight downturn of her mouth, very subtly so, and letting her shoulders sink, there was an air of disappointment to the posture.

With a laugh she broke out of the impression and shook her head. "That's always the worst parent-emotion; I'm not mad just disappointed."

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D8 EN Fluff Acting/Awareness roll to imitate papa Togashi: 4d10o10k3 15

[Doji Hikaru]

Hikaru was perfectly happy to accept the diversion, squeezing her hand instead. He did make a mental note of the giggle, though...

"Exactly." Hikaru said; he couldn't help but smile as she laughed. "I shall have to watch for that one when I meet him." He sighed; again, pleasantly. "My mother was good at that. And so I strove from an early age to not disappoint." He paused a moment, considering; even in post make-out cuddling, Hikaru was sometimes pensive.

But then he smiled again. "What about your mother? I expect you must have gotten your outgoing nature from her." Hikaru had never met her, but he'd seen her, and that was enough to imagine her patiently explaining, smiling as she did so.

[Togashi Satsuki]

"Very much so, I'd say," she chuckled warmly, "mother is... very warm, very caring. But also encouraging us to... be ourselves, discover things on our own, explore. Not that father would say it outright, but I think he very much agreed with her that it's a good thing to learn by doing and understand more of the world and yourself by doing something - even if what you're doing can sometimes be risky or something you won't end up liking."

It wasn't hard to tell that her mother was probably one of her favorite people in the world judging by her words and the tone of her voice. But most of those who had met Togashi Saruko would remark on her friendliness and kindness.

"And she'd always tell us stories from her travels, or ones she knew from her days in the Ayakashi tribe, so she'd keep us wondering which tales were real and which ones were just stories. I... admit that did always make us curious growing up. Curiosity is probably one of the things that define all of us; my siblings and me."

[Doji Hikaru]

"Curiosity..." Hikaru echoed, his voice soft. He was silent for a few moments. "I see." After a few moments, he gave her hand another little squeeze; a wordless sign of his affection for that part of her.

"I would say that I was encouraged to excellence." He said. "To excel at the sword, art, manners, music, poetry." He gave a vague wave of his free hand. "But we Crane are not without our..." He frowned, trying again. "That is, I have chosen painting, and the flute. My particular areas of study.

He took a breath. "But I know very little of the time before the Kami came. Before Lady Doji." He paused a moment. "It wasn't so long ago, really. Perhaps you could share some of those stories, if we have the fortune to travel together?"

[Togashi Satsuki]

Satsuki's hand squeezed his gently in return. "I'll gladly share the stories I know, though I can't make any promises to do it as well as mother does."

Then again, her mother had had years to perfect her art as a storyteller, being considered the authority on the subject in the Empire by having told the story of Hisomu's rescue to Hantei's court. It had cemented her and her version of the tale to be one of the truths among many.

"Excellence, huh?" she mulled over the word. It was very fitting with how auntie Doji and uncle Nanzi talked about things. Perfection, excellence. "Excellence sounds like a hard thing to achieve, to be honest. Don't you find it... too much? Too much pressure?"