[D5 EA open]Flute of time

[Kakita Masao]

The nikutai looks at her like she must be joking, but she doesn't seem to be. After a long moment he asks, because he can't resist: "Toritaka-san would... bewitch me?" He knows he must be missing something.

[Toritaka Hanatsuko]

"Mother is former Kitsune and well..." the girl sighed. "I am not really a spirit but it is what it is." She looked at Kuma.
I should tell him... but... I just can't
Yeah... I know... we have very weird traditions... The truth hurts less than a pack of untruths.

"Do you really want to know?" She looked back to the Kakita.

[Kakita Masao]

Masao looks thoroughly baffled. "You're... I have no idea what you're trying to tell me. I mean..." He shakes his head to try to focus. The anxious silence in his head isn't the problem.

"Han--Tori--," the man who has stared down charging Hida berserkers feels a pit in his stomach. "Just tell me, whatever it is." He breathes heavily. "I'm sure it'll be fine," he forces himself to sound optimistic.

[Toritaka Hanatsuko]

She took a deep breath. "You probably are already having a marriage planned with someone of higher status... or even a great clan." She moved her braid forward and started braiding the ends. "I... it is just a silly Kitsune tradition to marry the one true love within a year."

[Kakita Masao]

Masao, who had sat down just after she had, now lays back in the sand with his hands over his face, but it's actually relief that is affecting him so. "Oh, good Fortunes, Toritaka-san," he says, voice half-laughing through his hands, "for a moment I thought you would tell me that you're a spirit and we could never be together." He laughs again, not loudly, but he's clearly pulled back from the panic he'd briefly felt.

After a moment of powerful relief, he freezes. "Wait," he says, rising back to sitting. "You just... you said..." Grandson, I am begging you: Don't do it. It's too soon. There's too much still unknown!

The Crane waves a hand in front of his closed eyes, like one clearing a cobweb. Then he looks at her intently.

"You said true love," he says, quietly excited but disbelieving. "You want to marry me," he says, clearly in wonder. Grandson...

He looks at the ground between them for a moment, breathes to center himself, and then he says, quiet but firm, "I want that too." No! Damn it...

"I...," he tries to continue, has to try again. "I'm not betrothed. But--" Oh thank the Fortunes, at least he's saying this.

"I don't know what my father may have planned. Since Sango died, and Kitora..." He shakes his head as he tries to talk through all the uncertainties he's been feeling for at least two months. "My father may insist on something that I do not have the heart for. Someone..." He doesn't finish that thought. Can't finish that thought, not now. Finally, he just says, "I don't know what will happen."

[Toritaka Hanatsuko]

The woman laughed. "Me ...a spirit.. Hardly..." She shook her head. "My heart breaks because I know that Benten has blessed this one with what probably cannot be." She lowered her braid. Then she realized his words. "I feel honored and I understand that... Kakita sama. You are next in line if Jurojin fails to aid your brother. I know I may be good wife material but a Crane wife..." She left the thought incomplete.

[Kakita Masao]

"It is my deepest wish, in every way, that my brother will be my father's heir and live a long life as governor," Masao confides, although it's hardly a secret. "It... It's dangerous to wish for a future that may not be," he says quietly, "But if, as my brother rules the city, I could be there as the captain of his guard, and I could have you beside me..." For once, instead of the ground it's the heavens that his eyes seek. "I cannot imagine a happier set of duties than to you and him."

[Toritaka Hanatsuko]

"Then we should pray to the fortunes and hope for the best." She patted his shoulder in show of support.