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[coughcoughshank.livejournal.com]

[From the looks of it, Souji has just finished some practice - the bokuto are put away neatly, but he hasn't bothered getting changed yet. He's sitting out on the porch, still wearing his hakama and gi, hair tied up off his neck. He fans himself with one hand - it's a bit hot today for training, but he didn't want to waste a string of good days just because the weather was uncooperative.

Come bother him?]

Comments

[coughcoughshank.livejournal.com]

[Ah, well, that was something of a relief. It wasn't quite a secret here, any more - not among the other officers, anyway - but the fact that one of the ranking Shinsengumi officers was dying of tuberculosis wasn't something he wanted spread around.]

Ah, I see!

[In an effort to draw the conversation away from that particular topic, he went back to something she had said earlier.]

Something...drew you here?

[paintedkoi.livejournal.com]

I have been traveling for some time. Occasionally, the fog will lift and I will find myself speaking to someone.

[She smiled softly in his direction.]

It seems I am drawn to these places.

[coughcoughshank.livejournal.com]

[Souji glanced up thoughtfully, kicking his legs absentmindedly]

I wonder what drew you here, then...

[paintedkoi.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it was you. The threads of fate seem wound tight around you.

[She closes her eyes, tapping her cane softly against the ground with scaled and webbed hands.]

[coughcoughshank.livejournal.com]

Mm, maybe.

[There's a sort of false cheerfulness to his voice - fate means someone taking his decisions out of his hands. And he really doesn't like the sound of that right now.]

[paintedkoi.livejournal.com]

I have troubled you. I apologize.

[She doesn't have to hear the false cheer in his voice- she can sense his thoughts, and she doesn't dig deeper than that. She bows her head softly, blinking her eyes closed.]

[coughcoughshank.livejournal.com]

Ah- it's fine. It wasn't you. Things have just been - complicated, lately.

[paintedkoi.livejournal.com]

I have gathered as much.

[And she pauses before tentatively reaching out and resting a webbed and scaled hand on his upper arm. Her touch was cool, often invoking feelings of a white fish in a pond.]

I will listen, if you wish to speak.

[coughcoughshank.livejournal.com]

[The cool, smooth feeling of her hand doesn't come as much of a surprise to Souji - he's realized already that she's not human. Too kind to be a kappa, but maybe some other water spirit, wandering a bit far from their lake. If so, lying to her would not be in his best interests. Such beings tended to dislike that sort of thing.

There's a long silence before he speaks, though. He'd been somewhat idly kicking his legs against the edge of the porch - slowly that comes to a stop as well.]

I'm dying. I have another two years, maybe. If I'm lucky.

[paintedkoi.livejournal.com]

...I see.

[She knows it either must have cost him something to speak it, or else it's something he lives with the knowledge of every day. Probably both.

She smiles softly. She has seen death, felt the threads of someone's life cutting short. But she knows the one truth in those deaths.

She pulls her hand back, and folds her hands in her lap.]

Death is not to be feared if you have lived an honorable life.

[coughcoughshank.livejournal.com]

[He laughs, somewhat shakily]

Well, I guess that depends on if the gods are imperialist or shogunate, ne?