Sapphire Ambassadors

Yoshino wandered to the flower garden for some rest and reflection. She still felt out of sorts, but perhaps the tranquil surroundings would help?

She perched down near to some of the flowers to take in the ambience. It was mild and breezy. Very refreshing.

Jakuchou also seemed intent on enjoying the pleasant day today and found herself wandering the garden. Seeing a crane there, appreciating the lovely weather and flowers, the elderly Dragon approaches and bows. "Good afternoon Crane-sama. I am Mirumoto Jakuchou, and it's a pleasure to meet you. This garden is quite lovely. Are you one of the gardeners that maintains it or simply a fan of their work like myself?"

Yoshino turned on her fingertips to offer the Dragon a bow. She mentally noted the difference between this elder Mirumoto and the Togashi she'd met was like night and day. "Good afternoon Mirumoto-sama. A pleasure. I am Doji Yoshino. It is a pretty garden, ne?" She looked out to it thoughtfully. "I'm merely enjoying the scenery. I would end up putting them in the wrong soil."

"I definitely understand that concern. I'd likely be trying to grow seeds for yams in soil fit for chrysanthemums," she replies with a friendly smile.

"Are you from the area, or did you travel in? If so, I hope your travels were safe."

"At least you'd have soil good enough for chrysanthemums." Yoshino quips in an uncharacteristic display of positivity. Or maybe some sass. She wasn't having the best day.

It wasn't a bad presumption as Yoshino was a Doji and it was a Doji holding. Nonetheless, she shook her head. "I travelled in. It's my first time here actually. The journey was safe yet dull, but better that than the wrong kind of interesting. You?"

"That would be nice. Unfortunately, depleted mines and mountainsides tend to be pretty bad for growing either yams or chrysanthemums. But if you don't mind some hardier plants, then the mountains are perfect," she says with a smirk. "I am from the Great Windfall monastery, which was constructed in the mouth of a depleted gold mine. But it was a lovely trip out of the mountains, even if my old bones are still a bit sore from the walk."

"If hardier means easier to keep alive then they have my full support." She did not have a green thumb.

"Then you are in luck Mirumoto-san, for this town was made for resting." Yoshino rubbed her face. "I'm in need of it today, but the local priest urged me to so I make no excuses. Would you like to join me?"

"I would certainly appreciate it," she says with a smile and bow. "Are there any particular relaxation techniques you are practicing currently?" she asks as she joins.

That gave her pause. Did she know any relaxation techniques? Were relaxation techniques a thing? Yoshino stared into the nearest flower bed. "I don't think so...?" She replies with some uncertainty. "Can doing very little be called a technique?"

"Only if there are technical details to how you go about doing very little," she says as she moves to sit next to the Doji.

"Let's see if I can help. Do you have a memory that makes you feel happy? Something that reminds you of the pleasant things in this world?"

"I lack the experience with idling to have realised any technical details to the art Mirumoto-san." Yoshino comments with suppressed mirth.

The conversation direction was a good one. Her mind hadn't turned to such a notion in... in a long time. She crossed her arms as she contemplated it very seriously indeed. "They're hazy." She says finally. Jakuchou had unfortunately encountered a difficult woman in regards to this particular topic.

"I hope, for your sake, that you are politely sharing the fact that it is too personal to speak about such memories," she says with a very motherly smile.

"I will operate on the assumption that you simply wish to keep such things to yourself, or are having more difficulty in this moment for any number of reasons and continue."

Readjusting to a more comfortable position. "You are under no expectation from me to share anything. But I want to to think about the clearest such memory. The details are not of great importance for this technique. Think about it and focus, you may close your eyes, watch the sky, or observe the flowers, whatever may remind you most of the time you are trying to remember. And for now just sit and think on that moment as well as you can."

Jakuchou simply observes and tries to see if Yoshino's body language shifts at all.

The Crane wondered how the situation had come about. She had had an odd run in with a Scorpion earlier in the day. Now this. Was the town full of meddlesome, caring people? Or did it convert ordinary samurai into overly considerate ones? She chuckled darkly to herself. Yoshino still felt off, but she had enough awareness to be amused.

"I'll try to picture something, even if it's hazy." She says sincerely, accepting the Mirumoto's kindness. She looked around once more. Then she closed her eyes.

Nothing immediately changed. She was still tense and guarded at first. Gradually her shoulders would descend and her breathing would slow and deepen however.

"Now, in picturing and focusing on that idea or memory of happiness," Jakuchou continues with a gentle voice, "imagine yourself within it. Feel what you remember the air feeling like, and the scents, see the memory before you like you're standing there. Hear the surroundings and any conversation and let it drown me out," the Dragon suggested, continuing the exercise that tried to meld pleasant memory and meditation.

In her mind Yoshino was a student again, once more a child, and her family were alive and well. She was returning home for winter. There was a crisp chill in the air and frost on the ground. She was bundled up warm. Her family's little estate had smoke rising from it - the fireplace that was the focal point of the main room. She opened the gate to walk the path leading to her home... it was the start of the last visit with all her family together. Two months of snow, shivering to get to the outdoors toilet and honestly not much to do. It was boring and uneventful really. After the first month they'd run out of incense and the air became a little stale. By the end they only had simple green tea left in the house so it was that or water. The conversation became very idle and lethargic by then too. There were only so many things to talk about after all. She'd spent much of it practicing tea ceremony and wasting her mother's painting supplies. Her sister had pestered her throughout so she'd shown her a few origami techniques that had kept her busy for a while. The neighbour's lean white cat had stopped by occasionally in the mid-day to be fed a little dried meat. It was deaf so it was rarely startled by goings on, as loud sounds didn't faze it, but it had jumped when her father had dropped a pot of water. They'd all tried, all four of them, to calm it down after that. Somehow she'd ended up being the one that had to get a new pot of water, which meant a bitter cold trip to the well. To most those sorts of inane memories would not have been especially important.

She wouldn't have traded them for anything.

Suddenly she found herself fancying thick udon noodles.

Eventually, when Yoshino had found some form of calm and opened her eyes, she'd see Jakuchou quietly focused on a flower resting in her hand. It looks like it was a deadfall flower she picked up rather than a fresh one she picked. The Dragon elder looked to Yoshino.

"Never let go of the things that bring you peace."

The Crane appeared to consider that carefully. She asks a question with some sadness in her voice.

"What if our grasp of them is tenuous?"

"You mean like my memory of my brother's seventh birthday when my father fell in stream and the house was covered in a ridiculous number of catarpillars? Except my brother swears it was our mother that fell in and the catarpillars were actually my own 6th birthday?" she asks with a playful, joking smile.

"We're not perfect, and we rarely remember objective truth. But our subjective memories that give us nostalgia and other feelings, false or true as they may be, do not need to be accurate most of the time. The most important thing they give us is a reminder of the things we have felt. We can mine the depths of those memories to find something to provide the emotional support we need. We may not show emotion openly, but we feel it too deeply to ignore. So try to feel the things that give you happiness and peace when you can."

The Crane smiles awkwardly. Jakuchou was on a roll and it was no time to interrupt. She felt a little drained.

"I will bear all that in mind Mirumoto-san."