Blackfeather Woods always the fool

aw! pathetic boy being, well...pathetic lol.

the past few days traveling with the two samurai and now lady have been spent in silence, mostly. partly because he simply does not speak their language, partly because he's too insecure to try and converse. only masa knows his tongue and, well...the man isn't the best conversationalist. 

he's noticed the way they look at him, when they think he isn't paying attention. the leers, the judgement. especially between the two samurai. they look at him as if he's pitiful. useless. he doesn't blame them. they're profound men, practiced and skilled in ways lorroakan could only wish to be. 

and still, it bothers him. each stare crawls beneath his skin. each word spoken in the language foreign to him felt like slander; as if he was the butt of some cruel joke. lady kaede didn't seem to stare as much, though he couldn't decipher if she thought the same of him as the rest. 

he sulks, he distances. puts on a smile when he's around the trio, only for it to vanish the moment he turns away. they all know the truth; he is not a fighter. and so what good is he to the group?

there, in the still and quiet early morning, away from the samurai and the lady kaede, it all comes crushing down on him. a weight he cannot handle. anxiety that slowly bubbles from the pit of his stomach, up into his throat, latching onto his mind. whispering all the negative things in his ears he thinks the samurai whisper in the night. 

would they leave him? would one day he wake up to find himself completely alone again? does he deserve it? 

ro sniffles and hangs his head as he shakes beneath a pine, hidden by its heavy boughs. wrestles with the self-doubt that he will never be good enough for anyone to keep around.

kaede does not live life at the fringes as lorroakan is made to do. by way of her sex and her appearance, shinjou and masa-sama speak often to her. 

and they speak often to one another. concentric circles of isolation begin to form from necessity.

this gilded hour, her own touches that of the boy she does not understand. what is his utility? he is not a fighter or even of their land. some other taste, then. 

she sees that he is unhappy, for it is she who hears how they speak of him. and while their eyes hold respect for her, they do not for lorroakan. perhaps the lady even engages their banter, if only to remove a masculine spotlight from herself.

now salt falls beneath pine.

kaede bows her head at his shoulder.

"i will teach you our words, lorroakan-sama," she offers. it is not in pity nor kindness.

kaede is selfish.