Hideaway Strath Set the stage

against all better judgement, satsu approaches. she lingers around the stranger's periphery.
do they meditate? she wonders.

fight me. commands the giant, making way for satsu in the circle.

satsu, who looked perplexed. she who had been warned by the daimyo to take great care.

the woman shrinks back from the line in the dirt.

a good choice — her silence derives action from the wolf within, a strike that satsu does not anticipate. they reach and grab, no doubt vying for a piece of satsu. demanding something of her she does not feel she can provide.

satsu's summer coat puffs down the central line, her tail a bottle-brush of shock.

i do not fight! countered her fraying voice. at most she was a shrine-maiden in her past life. her brothers, they were the warriors! they followed the samurai's path
— all the way to death!