Lopsided Luck (Naotora)
Mar 25, 2014 19:33:21 GMT -7
Post by Miyamoto Kenji on Mar 25, 2014 19:33:21 GMT -7
With a great yawn and a hand rubbing his eye, Kenji stirred from his slumber. With his uncovered eye, he stared up at the mid-morning sky through the foliage of the tree he'd taken refuge under the night before, the sun peeking through the leaves. It was looking to be a cozy day so far, a thought that made him chuckle to himself as he reached across his face to rub his other eye.
That's when he saw it.
Affixed to his finger was a jade ring, well-crafted, almost flawless in design. No inlaid stone. More importantly, this item most certainly wasn't on his finger, let alone his person the night before. Kenji blinked a couple times to make sure he wasn't seeing things, but sure enough, the ring was still on his finger. It felt somewhat tight, not as if it were suffocating his finger, but tight enough to be irremovable. He sat up and scooted back against the tree's trunk, examining it carefully in the light. Upon closer inspection, the merc detected a small inscription that he hadn't seen before. It read, "A Promise to Kaede." Kenji had to do a double take to make sure he was reading that right. He only knew of one Kaede, and her unmentionables were still folded up in a small satchel under his sash.
"When did she...?" he started, then paused, thinking back to the night before.
The shugyosha had had a long trek the previous day, and in general since he left the center of the country in his bid to return home to Dewa. He'd spent a fair amount of time at the nearby Date-affiliated village's local watering hole, and while he hadn't become drunk, he was certainly tipsy by the time the night was finished. Instead of fetching and riding Aozaki through the night, he wisely decided to let her remain in the stables and excuse himself from the village for the night, setting up his bedroll under a tree and storing his armor away in a sack. That wasn't the problem: the problem came when Kenji had been woken up during the night by a curious noise. When his look around the immediate area gave away no particular source, he'd put his head back down to sleep.
That noise, he now deduced, had to have been Kaede. Why the hell had she followed him all the way out here though, and without just meeting him in person?
Then, after another glance at the ring, it hit him: this was a promise ring, a Western tradition that Kenji had overheard discussed a few times during his travels. One of his European friends even mentioned knowing someone who tried to give her a promise ring, though she politely declined. It signified that one was bound to another, 'promised' as it were, but not yet engaged or married. In short, it marked you as monogamous and taken.
"...Well, this is awkward. How do I explain this? I'm not even looking for a relationship," Kenji mused, scratching his head. Shrugging and deciding to put it out of his mind, he broke 'camp,' equipping his armor, though storing his gauntlets in a pack that he'd purchased in back west, along with the sack which would be rolled up with the bedroll and stashed in said pack. He felt the need to leave his hands uncovered in case he thought of a means by which to remove the ring.
With that, the mostly intrepid mercenary hoofed it back toward the Date village, planning on looking for a jeweler... Or Kaede. Either or.
If only his luck was so great.
That's when he saw it.
Affixed to his finger was a jade ring, well-crafted, almost flawless in design. No inlaid stone. More importantly, this item most certainly wasn't on his finger, let alone his person the night before. Kenji blinked a couple times to make sure he wasn't seeing things, but sure enough, the ring was still on his finger. It felt somewhat tight, not as if it were suffocating his finger, but tight enough to be irremovable. He sat up and scooted back against the tree's trunk, examining it carefully in the light. Upon closer inspection, the merc detected a small inscription that he hadn't seen before. It read, "A Promise to Kaede." Kenji had to do a double take to make sure he was reading that right. He only knew of one Kaede, and her unmentionables were still folded up in a small satchel under his sash.
"When did she...?" he started, then paused, thinking back to the night before.
The shugyosha had had a long trek the previous day, and in general since he left the center of the country in his bid to return home to Dewa. He'd spent a fair amount of time at the nearby Date-affiliated village's local watering hole, and while he hadn't become drunk, he was certainly tipsy by the time the night was finished. Instead of fetching and riding Aozaki through the night, he wisely decided to let her remain in the stables and excuse himself from the village for the night, setting up his bedroll under a tree and storing his armor away in a sack. That wasn't the problem: the problem came when Kenji had been woken up during the night by a curious noise. When his look around the immediate area gave away no particular source, he'd put his head back down to sleep.
That noise, he now deduced, had to have been Kaede. Why the hell had she followed him all the way out here though, and without just meeting him in person?
Then, after another glance at the ring, it hit him: this was a promise ring, a Western tradition that Kenji had overheard discussed a few times during his travels. One of his European friends even mentioned knowing someone who tried to give her a promise ring, though she politely declined. It signified that one was bound to another, 'promised' as it were, but not yet engaged or married. In short, it marked you as monogamous and taken.
"...Well, this is awkward. How do I explain this? I'm not even looking for a relationship," Kenji mused, scratching his head. Shrugging and deciding to put it out of his mind, he broke 'camp,' equipping his armor, though storing his gauntlets in a pack that he'd purchased in back west, along with the sack which would be rolled up with the bedroll and stashed in said pack. He felt the need to leave his hands uncovered in case he thought of a means by which to remove the ring.
With that, the mostly intrepid mercenary hoofed it back toward the Date village, planning on looking for a jeweler... Or Kaede. Either or.
If only his luck was so great.
