The Chrysanthemum bud

[A minor Glamour]

Taken by the mist, flung far from home on a violent wind, a storm of emotion. A lone Rokuman woman in the misty lands finds herself lost and distraught. Unable to return home, no safe passage through the mists offered by the Vistani, she begs they will not grant her wish, they say the poison sea is impossible to cross, she looses hope of returning home, her island home, the village she grew up in, her family, the clan, still loyal, while oceans apart.

She dreams of riding dragons across the vast seas, a faint glimmer of hope as she spots the tip of the islands on the horizon, but she never arrives, always just over the next horizon long before she wakes.

Everything is foreign her only comfort is the curiosity shop and the old man who tells her tales of his youth, they share a drink together, they long for Sake, they make do with plum brandy. She puts her thoughts to paper, a beautiful script, impossible to read to all but a few...

           木枯らし                                                         幽玄                               むらさき
                                      森林浴                                             物の哀れ                                                                                        行逢りば 兄弟
                     生き甲斐                                                                                                                       川明かり
木漏れ日                     浮世               ボケット                                          一期一会                                                              無礼講                                懐かしい
                                                                            花吹雪                                            恋の予感
                            食い倒れ                                                        しょうがない                                                         高嶺の花                            風物詩
金継ぎ                             鏡花水月                   おもてなし
    和                                じがばち                                  ありがた迷惑                                             わすれもの                                    蛇足

[A minor Glamour]

I reunited a mans head with his body in the catacombs below the morninglord temple. It appears a jiki-niku-gaki had disemboweled and decapitated the man to lure others. So that the spirit would not become angry and haunt me for not reuniting the missing, I retrieved the body and head. Iron armour agreed to help bury him. We needed a priest, it took all the night into the next day but I found one with the head of a bird, the Tori no mono agreed to help bless the body, to prevent the dead man returning as a Kuei, but he flew away never to return. The next morning we where able to find a priestess to help the kami smiled upon us, at last it was done, I can rest easy knowing I will not be haunted.

[A minor Glamour]

Dead men walk beneath the Morninglord church, these Yurei are usually slow and weak but I have encountered ones with monstrous strength, and red lantern eyes. They must have died a terrible death, or returned to the living world because of improper funeral rights. A gaijin insisted I stand in front and fight, I made it clear he would be the one to fight with sword, and I would stay behind and practice my Kyūdō. He showed me a wicked staff, he is a scholar, I asked do all scholars collect such things here, he wants to destroy it, this place is filled with such things.