Bond like Drops of Water

2

When the mystics read my fortune after I was born, they'd said I was born too strong.

"A dragon under the tenth moon," they'd whispered to my mother. "Born under Bull and Serpent parents. It will be her destruction, too powerful to be contained."

My father didn't believe in the old fortune telling, and said being born on the tenth month within a dragon year meant only I would be a cold baby, being born on the edge of winter.

Still, my mother wouldn't take the risk. To soften my strength, they gave me the softest name she could think of: Sakura, the word for cherry blossom.

"There's nothing strong about cherry blossoms," my mother said. "They're soft, pretty, and highly sought after by painters and poets as visions of loveliness in the spring. Sakura is an auspicious name. Your spring will be glorious."

I missed her after she died. I missed her wisdom, and her eternal patience, which I often tried to emulated, and always felt I lacked. She was softer than I was, which I always sought to be.

On a morning a month after my seventeenth year, I was praying at the small altar that sat on an old fishing crate near the front door of our home. The altar itself was an old family heirloom, passed down from generations, and occasionally added to with auspicious ornaments that had belonged to those that had passed on. It had a proper wooden base, carved with the names of spirits he prayed to often, and painted red with gold beads here and there. There was a mirror on the inside, believed to reflect our soul, to reveal the deepest desires to ancestors and spirits.

On it sat one of my mother's combs, a small plate for incense, and a basket of flowers I often collected on my way home. This morning, they were a bit dried out from being there overnight.

I prayed to the gods for as much fish as my father could catch that week, and hopefully plenty of lobster or crabs to warrant many more silver tsukas. I had a plan, and I needed every coin I could negotiate if I was going to pull it off.

The neighboring village, a two-day journey from home, was having an Inspection Day soon. There were several openings, as no less than seven of their girls and two of their boys had been married, either as concubines or spouses. Their doju was now near empty.

I'd heard the rumor from a traveller who had arrived late at the market the afternoon before, and purchased the last of some baby squid from my stall.

"You should head that way," he told me. He had purchased some freshly cooked rice from another stall, and had wanted the little squids raw to add to his meal. He used his own eating sticks from his pocket to scoop the mixture into his mouth and chew. With his cheeks full, he spoke to me, a rice grain sitting on his lower lip. "A girl like you would be snapped up in a heartbeat. There aren't enough girls in that doju now."

This seemed like flattery for me, but still, I was drawn in. "Not enough girls?" I asked. "How so?"

"There are five left," he said. "And eighteen boys. The other girls in the village had already married, or they are too young, still babies."

He continued to eat in front of my stall, leaving crumbs on his cloak and I asked him for details, like how to get to the village, and what were the guards like. Did I need to bribe them?

He waved me off. "Just show up," he said. "They won't turn you down. That is until I tell people about their ordeal. Some parents may send their daughters over soon."

I wasn't so sure. It was dark in the shade of the stall, with the grass woven roof above my head. Did he not see my green eyes? Did he not notice my thin arms and face? Maybe he didn't see at all.