03-28-2024, 08:06 PM
[[no problem]]
His response confirmed the suspicion about his bruising, and while she knew it was not her business, Eido had trouble turning her mind away from it. Instead she looked away. She would not have minded to stand, but refusing the hospitality would be both rude and churlish, which he had done nothing to warrant. She sat gingerly, her straight-backed posture most likely to be taken as a mark of her formality and any stiffness in the way she settled herself negligible. The wound along her ribs was not a constant pain; rather it was one she kept forgetting was there, to be taken in surprise every time it twinged anew with her movement. The years had made her soft; something she presumed Zephyr would remedy with brutality, given the ferocity she had witnessed in her dervish against the vetala. Neither did Eido wince when she reached for the prepared tea, but did keep the cup in her hands afterwards, rather than setting it back after the polite sip.
She was grateful for the silence and the space it gave her to gather all the thoughts that had dispersed the moment he’d answered the door. But more than that she found peace in the banality. Kota was a tempest, filled with a voracity for life that Eido refused for herself. They shared meals when they could, and Eido cherished such anchors to her day, but they never sat like this, and were simply quiet. If her silence made her for awkward company she did not seem to notice. But she was aware she was taking up his time, too.
“To discharge you of it, yes.”
The balance of debt was a difficult thing, at least when setting the scale to right in a way that left no remaining imbalance. She had done little to warrant any favour in the first place, and she presumed the weight Kiyohito gave it was out of love for his brother more than it was a reflection of the help he actually received. It was for that reason alone she was wary of attempting to refuse it. But neither did she wish to dance around her own uncertainty. Instead she would just be honest.
“My brother and I have only been in Moscow a matter of months, but it has been six years since I last saw my home. I miss it greatly, but the exile was my fault. By right it should have been death by my own hand. It still should. When I heard you in the compound behind the bar, I thought it was why you were there. It is why I told you I had no honour to defend. Do you still feel you owe me a debt, Korii-san?”
His response confirmed the suspicion about his bruising, and while she knew it was not her business, Eido had trouble turning her mind away from it. Instead she looked away. She would not have minded to stand, but refusing the hospitality would be both rude and churlish, which he had done nothing to warrant. She sat gingerly, her straight-backed posture most likely to be taken as a mark of her formality and any stiffness in the way she settled herself negligible. The wound along her ribs was not a constant pain; rather it was one she kept forgetting was there, to be taken in surprise every time it twinged anew with her movement. The years had made her soft; something she presumed Zephyr would remedy with brutality, given the ferocity she had witnessed in her dervish against the vetala. Neither did Eido wince when she reached for the prepared tea, but did keep the cup in her hands afterwards, rather than setting it back after the polite sip.
She was grateful for the silence and the space it gave her to gather all the thoughts that had dispersed the moment he’d answered the door. But more than that she found peace in the banality. Kota was a tempest, filled with a voracity for life that Eido refused for herself. They shared meals when they could, and Eido cherished such anchors to her day, but they never sat like this, and were simply quiet. If her silence made her for awkward company she did not seem to notice. But she was aware she was taking up his time, too.
“To discharge you of it, yes.”
The balance of debt was a difficult thing, at least when setting the scale to right in a way that left no remaining imbalance. She had done little to warrant any favour in the first place, and she presumed the weight Kiyohito gave it was out of love for his brother more than it was a reflection of the help he actually received. It was for that reason alone she was wary of attempting to refuse it. But neither did she wish to dance around her own uncertainty. Instead she would just be honest.
“My brother and I have only been in Moscow a matter of months, but it has been six years since I last saw my home. I miss it greatly, but the exile was my fault. By right it should have been death by my own hand. It still should. When I heard you in the compound behind the bar, I thought it was why you were there. It is why I told you I had no honour to defend. Do you still feel you owe me a debt, Korii-san?”
![[Image: cherry-blosson.png]](http://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cherry-blosson.png)