The Long Road to Freedom 2: Fire on the Water

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As they came before the man on the throne they both bowed, and Jian presented her as the 'honorable Lady of the Island, Mitsurigou Kintsuke.' She liked the sound of that. The man seemed to consider her for a moment before speaking, his voice deep and rough, more in his chest than his throat.

"I welcome you to my fortress, Lady of the Island. My servant informs me that you were extended an official invitation, and it must be so, else you would not have made it beyond the braziers outside. Tell me who invited you."

"She said her name was Shoucheng, your lordship."

"Is that so?"

He didn't sound convinced.

Kintsuke nodded, giving him a quick description of the woman that had invaded her home and slaughtered her friends, and it seemed to convince him. He ran his claws along his tapered length of beard for a moment before rising from his throne to inspect her circling slowly. He tilted his head this way and that, and as he did his bangs shifted, revealing a series of waving lines in a sunburst arc along his brow. She took the chance to get a better look at them as he tilted her face up with a clawed finger for a moment, grunted, and returned to his throne.

Her mother's words echoed in the back of her mind. Could it be...?

"Rejoice, Jian, for this is not Daiyufan. You may live another week yet."

Kintsuke thought Jian would melt with relief.

"You have her eyes; I will give you that, but those ears, half-breed, I suspect they're your father's?"

There was a subdued snarl in his tone.

"The man I met who claimed to be my father had the same ears as mine if that's what you mean."

"And what of your mother?"

Slowly, she drew the pendant out from under her hanfu.

"This is all that's left. She insisted I keep it."

He narrowed his eyes at her and the pendant, and she could feel his internal conflict through the fluctuations of his waves of jyaki. A wicked smirk twisted at the corner of his lips.

"Jian, fetch tea and a putuan, and delay any other business. My grand-daughter and I will be engaged for some time."

***

The man was quiet for a while once they finished their colloquy, letting Kintsuke take her time putting everything in place herself. Daiyufan had been her mother's birth name, which she left behind when she fled the continent with her father. She could not blame Daiyufan for leaving after having been hidden away for years as the family shame; not because of her gender or tainted blood, but because she had not inherited the family skill. Her father, apparently, had been of no notable birth or ability, hence this man's distaste for him.

Kintsuke's grandfather had both been pleased and infuriated to see his daughter go. She had gone behind his back, run off with some peasant, yes; but without a child in the nest, he was able to conceive another. It seemed that affliction was a family trait. When Kintsuke asked why he hadn't simply been rid of Daiyufan, he became quite incensed. "Those filthy mortals may drown their daughters for their nefarious reasons, but this family does no such thing." Kintsuke kept how Daiyufan had done that very thing in her own way to herself.

"I did not mean to insinuate such an act, honorable one. My apologies, I meant no insult."

He simply grunted.