( imeeji ) memory registry

[worthathousand]

	DATE	LINK
亜子 Ako	day 75	you lift it anyway
Hero Worshipped	day 111	it has been my dream to live by your example
Alone in the Fields	day 111	the rice stalks sway
The Wyld Hunt pt. 1	day 127	your heretic chosen
The Wyld Hunt, pt. 2	day 127	the fate of those who lose their will to demons
Joined with Shiho	day 199	kimono in Serenity blue
A Fight for Father	day 201	once there was a maiden
The War Yeddim	day 201	the battle is a song
General Ascendant	day 201	white lily of war
Calibration Stories	day 201	born an exception
Shrine Maiden	day 260	you are my child of peace
First Battle	day 260	cries of the injured and dying
Shiho's Illness	day 260	a season of cold and fever
Meet-Cute	day 451	Tits, indeed.
Imagining a Future	day 456	"What do you want to do, after?"
TBD	---	---
TBD	---	---

full registry on trello

Comments

mild nsfw: nudity, references to sex

[worthathousand]

Sunlight filters through the flaps of your tent, where it dapples prettily across the sleeping women beside you—one on either side, their skin bare beneath the blankets. You’ve been self-indulgent, letting yourself sleep this late (that is, letting yourself sleep past dawn at all), but the soldiers had truly earned last night’s celebration. The residents of Hayashi Village had been eager, too, to show their gratitude for having been liberated from occupation by Viridian’s forces. And, well, they’d kept plying you with drinks and toasts and samples of their fine local sake… and the local women had been incredibly beautiful…

Well. Perhaps you had been due to release some of your own tension too.

Still, it wouldn’t do to miss the scouts’ morning reports, so you begin re-fastening the ties of your clothing, still half-smiling to yourself at the memory of the celebration…

Perhaps that’s why you don’t hear the polite cough from outside the tent. Or the slightly more insistent cough after that.

“Oh, this is ridiculous.” The voice is muffled.

All at once, daylight floods the tent as one of the flaps is brusquely shoved back, illuminating your two still-sleeping companions along with you, one breast still loose from its bindings. Silhouetted in the opening is a tall woman with some sort of case strapped over her shoulder. Her eyes have gone slightly wide.

You feel your cheeks flush as you yank the flap closed again with a curse that comes out a bit louder than you intended.

“Mela’s tits!” Tits, indeed.

It only takes a few minutes for you to finish getting dressed properly, and another two for you to strap on the fine armor that Lord Okudaira Noriko had commissioned for you (it’s a bit overkill, but you feel the need to compensate). Your cheeks stay hot the whole time.

Eventually, you find the woman sitting at the fire with your Scale Lords, her case—which you recognize as meant for carrying a koto—placed across her lap. She meets your eyes, and her lips curl at the edges in catlike amusement.

You have faced down hundreds of armored soldiers with nothing but your naginata, but no, this is absolutely how you die, isn’t it.

The moment passes (you lived, somehow), and the woman at last introduces herself. Her name is Nakajima Shiho, and she has been serving as a traveling messenger and bard ever since she lost her parents in the war; now, she has traveled to offer her services to the White Lily of Battle and her army—both as a chronicler, and as a potential diplomat. For, she says, a bard may travel freely where others may not. Apparently she had arrived in the pre-dawn hours, when it was said you preferred to wake. No wonder she had gotten so impatient.

“My lady—“ you begin, but she corrects you.

“I am no noblewoman.” She still has that faint, catlike smile, and you feel yourself blush again.

“Ah… Nakajima, then. I… ah… I cannot neglect my own duty so gravely as to allow a civilian to put herself at risk like a soldier. Indeed, it was with such purpose—ah, that is, the protection of civilians—that I first took up my blade.”

“Please, General Amakura, give me a chance to prove to you how invaluable my skills can be. You have long been the sharp edge of battle; if you but allow it, I will show you the disarming power of song.” A beat, and then she looks you straight in the eye. “Besides, haven’t I shown I’m skilled enough to surprise the great General herself?”

Oh, you are so doomed.