The Heartwood 茶葉

patiently kaede waits, but she does not see masa return.

suppose he does not mean to come back?

suppose he has gone already to collect his bounty?

but the lady is patient. her small hide bags of herbaceous fare are full before she seeks @Ryūjirō.

she is alone when she approaches the samurai on silent approach, bowing low in recognition of his dual position, both as warrior and as brother to her lord.

"ryūjirō-sama. will we soon leave?"

where is masa? when will he lead us?

i do not want to be here. my service is to him. if he is not here, i have no lord.

kaede keeps herself curved in that bow, a delicate stem of willow bending under winds she was not able to change.

---

her voice cuts through the haze like a reed through still water, soft but certain, and for a moment, ryūjirō doesn't move. just sits beneath the pines with that massive frame slouched against the weight of his own silence, one hand resting near the hilt of a blade he hasn’t drawn in days. the call of her voice—his name on her tongue, formal and restrained—pulls at something buried in him, something colder than grief and older than rage. masa. that samurai still lingers in his periphery, in every shadow cast by fading sun, and ryūjirō wears that absence like a second skin. but kaede—little kitsune, clever and patient—she stands before him not as a soldier, not as a servant, but as something else. her bow is deep, and he watches her from beneath his lashes, the corners of his mouth dragging into something that might have once been a smirk, had his heart not been cracked in half by the brother who should have stood where she now did. he ain’t here, he says, low, like gravel beneath a boot. and maybe he ain’t coming back. the words carry no malice. just fact. truth that doesn’t sting so much as settle, like ash. and then, softer—something for her, something left behind in the wreckage: where do you want to go, kitsune? his head tilts just slightly, voice rough but rich, laced with something darker than charm. i’ll take you. you say the word.

so.

it is to be a dismissal.

it offends kaede. she knows better than to reveal herself for even a moment.

spine straightening, the lady is still. she does not allow herself to be read, not even as shock and anger ripple through her as bloodstains dissolved into water.

does ryūjirō expect her to beg? does he expect her to cling to him, to ask that she might stay within his presence?

masa is smooth cedar. his brother is a thornbush.

kaede has no idea where she and clover might go. she thinks shinjou will be pleased enough to hear that the samurai will be shut of them.

"take me to a kingdom, please, ryūjirō-sama."

half riddle. half challenge.

---

he snorted, quiet and sharp, and raised a brow like her words were something sour he’d tasted before. his jaw flexed once, muscle ticking beneath scar, and he muttered—a fucking kingdom,—low under his breath, like the very idea of it offended him more than her presence ever could. his eyes found hers then, a slow burn, dark and dangerous, the weight of a man used to violence, not riddles. what, not worthy enough to serve me? he said it like a joke, but there was bite beneath the grin—his kind of joke always had teeth. he stepped closer, just enough to let her feel the edge in his calm, the tension in the space between them, sharp as drawn steel. you’re the one running, he added, voice rough, i’m just not stopping you. but he didn’t move away, didn’t turn his back—because deep down, part of him wanted to see if she would.

ryūjirō is offended.

good.

they can share in this silver malaise together.

he is angry because masa has gone.

he is angry that she does not bow her head to him.

ryūjirō is a man of unaddressed hungers.

"i am a lady." is he so angered that he refuses to uphold the hierarchy of their ways? so proud as to believe she belongs to his filthy wake, tramping behind a samurai on his own bloodfull hunt?

or does he name himself ronin now?

in that kaede will have no part.

smoothly a step back is taken.

---

ryūjirō groans low, deep in his chest, like the weight of his own pride was finally too much to keep swallowing down. his brow twitches, jaw tight, but there’s no bite when he speaks—only the tired resignation of a man dragging his own ghosts behind him. my brother would’ve wanted this, he mutters, like the words taste bitter, like saying them costs him something. but still, he moves—shoulders squared, spine taut beneath the rough lay of his fur as he trudges forward, not with grace, not with ceremony, but with a grudging sense of duty. he doesn’t look back to see if she follows, thinking she will. her service to her brother bound it as such, even if she hates him for it. let’s go, he grits out, and it sounds less like a command and more like a wound.

to find a kingdom.

he relents.

or he does not.

he invokes masa and kaede bows her head again, biddable to the sound of his paws against the forest's floor.

a quick call urges @Clover to her side. she places two bags across the slim shoulders of yotsuba and takes the other three herself.

the conflict with ryūjirō is not something kaede had expected, but all the same she will take its glow where bestowed.

in his wake she follows, silent, asking no more than what her rank determined.

he would have wanted this.

what then, does ryūjirō want?