RP: YSS Miharu Kyoto: Samurai House

Nyton began to sense an impending movement and began to collect his weapon. He looked over at the broken pieces of the tea bowl. "What shall I do with these?" he quickly asked.

"Nothing," Kotori shook her head slightly. "It will be taken care of later by others whom have been assigned to look after this place."

Outside, Kei's position creaked as she opened the door for them. Kôsuka went to her feet and bowed, rather deeply. "May the light of Chiharu guide you."

Nyton gathered himself as he looked all around him. After another observance of his surroundings he stood up. He felt strangely guilty for just leaving the small mess in such a well cared for building. "Very well, your highness."

With the GP-12 shouldered again he offered his other hand to Kotori. "Where would you wish to wait for Kosuka-san to complete her preparations?" he asked.

Kotori returned a nod to Kôsuka's respectful bow and then placed the tips of the fingers of one hand into Nyton, almost daintly, before she gracefully rose from her knees. Green tea had left a blemish on the lower part of her mandarin dress, but if the Ketsurui Princess paid it any mind, she did not show it.

"I believed we would have had been fine here," she answered Nyton.

"True but perhaps we could take a view from one of the upper floors. Maybe we can even see the aforementioned garden from here that the storm prevented us from seeing up close." Nyton suggested.

"Of course," the Samurai said. "Kei will guide you if you wish. I will prepare for the Miharu." With that, Kôsuka exited, leaving the straw-haired Kei waiting at the door, looking down in an attempt to be respectful.

Kotori gave Kei a measuring look and then smiled slightly. "Alright then. Please lead the way, Kei."

Kei bowed, then stepped forward lightly into the increasingly dim interior of Hanako House. Wax candles inside paper lamps were being lit by an actual samurai, not a trainee; Kei bowed to her, and the samurai replied with a small nod -- until she saw Kotori. At that moment, she bowed quite deeply. Kei led them past and on to the wide wooden stairs that led to the second level.

The second level was near indistinguishable from the first. "This second level," Kei said, "is bedrooms. Here the rooms are wider and with better amenities." The corridors between rooms were wider too. Kei only took them down one; all the rooms were dark anyway, and soon they were going up another, narrower set of dark wooden steps to the top level.

Two rooms were at the center, both nearly 15 meters wide and 15 across. But mostly, the level was empty, and the two were left with their guide as the rain began to hammer at the iron roof above them. "The two rooms are exclusively for the Empress and the Emperor," Kei said. "The beds inside are pointed east for the Empress, toward the life-giving sun's rise to life, and west for the Emperor, toward the sun's ultimate death. This is to reflect the positions of woman as life-giver and man as death-giver."

Kei led them by the room and to the waist-level wall that gave everyone a full view of the garden below. With its various trees, however, and the pouring rain, it was difficult to see. "I will be by the stairs, unless you require me further, Hime-sama." She bowed deeply. "Claymere-dono." She bowed far less deeply, and walked back to the steps, leaving Kotori and Nyton amongst themselves and the sound of the rain.

Nyton gave Kei a slight nod in response before she departed to the stairs. He had been taking in the sights as both bodyguard and facinated tourist during their ascension towards the third floor. He switched occasionally to thermal vision to check for various possibilities. A bemused thought had run through his mind regarding the life and death giver. If only you knew just how much that fits.

Once Nyton was left alone with Kotori though he gazed out into the trees and obscured garden. After the preliminary security sweep he looked back at the princess. "I suppose I cannot argue my role as a death giver. Even looking at it from a reproductive viewpoint does not the man's seed attack and destroy the woman's egg during the creation of life?" he philosophised dismissively, shaking his head while he spoke. He listened to the rain pound against the ceiling for a moment.

"Your mother's home is lovely. Do you have fond memories here?" Nyton then asked.

Kotori watched Kei go and then looked to Nyton when he spoke. The first remark drew a raised eyebrow from her and the second had her walk to the guardrail so she could rest her hands atop it. She was silent a long moment, looking out at the downpour thoughtfully.

"Yes," she finally said, her voice barely rising over the din of the rainfall. "How odd. My recollections of this place have been tainted with melancholy, but I do find myself - in hindsight - appreciating some of the experiences I have had here."

Nyton waited patiently, listening once Kotori began to speak. Slowly he walked over nearby her, arriving to her left. "Can you tell me of any of these recollections, your highness?" he asked in a plain even voice.

"...and dispel the mystique the Ketsurui Samurai have for you?" Kotori's face broke into an amused smile as she craned her neck to look up at Nyton. "Nice try."

Nyton crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you mean the Samurai's mystique or your own?"

"Both, really." Kotori chuckled. "In the same fashion, you'd probably want to gloss over the times your mother changed your dirty diapers, the times when you burped out milk all over a parent's shoulder or the time you peed in a flowerpot because it seemed like a good idea."

Nyton tilted his head slightly to the side. "I would not be able to recall such memories myself although my mother certainly could. And she could show you the pictures to go along with it. It is a tradition of Nepleslian mothers to humiliate their children like that. You need only ask and she would do that." he replied.

Kotori looked incredulously at Nyton for a moment and then looked back to the rain. "I guess I must be pretty lucky then," she said, a hint of self-consciousness in her voice.

A slight chuckle escaped Nyton this time as he smiled a bit. "I am fortunate to have a mother like that. Many Nepleslians don't even have any parents let alone a mother who loves them like mine does, so I do not mind. After all I put her through while growing up, a little embarrassment is no big deal." he said with a bit of humor.

"My mother sacrificed a lot for me too, though the time and effort might not come even close to equating with yours," Kotori replied, still as her eyes watched the steady rainfall. "I've always felt a lot of contradictory things about my birth mother because - or despite - that. It makes me feel painfully young to not even know how to begin to explain it."

Nyton rested one hand on the bannister and watched the rainfall with his main eyes. In essence he had been watching the rain the whole time but now he gave that appearance. "There is no need to compare how much our mother's did for each of us. The love they show for us is great regardless the length of time they had to express it. And it is always hard to understand just what our parents mean while we are growing up. Somethings my mother did are still a mystery to me."

Turning his head to look directly at Kotori again he then gave a half smile. "I think somethings are not meant to be understood until we become parents ourselves."