Life is a canvas - Epilogue

[Matsu Inori]

1 month later

Her journey to there may have been shorter than the way home from Teitaku, but it had still carried Inori further away from everything she knew than she had ever been before. It was a strange feeling, really. Lonely. She felt unreasonable, irrational - but still, more than once Matsu Inori caught herself wishing she could just go back to simpler times. Just show up to the Dojo, do backbreaking, sweaty levels of exercise and get yelled at.

On reflection her new life did not seem all that bad.

She brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face and studied the scroll a servant had brought her - she was a student again, of sort, although she was studied as much as she was studying. Still, the imperials wanted to figure her out, and she was using the opportunity to learn as much as she could, herself. It was...a life. Plus the food was a lot better than she'd had for most of her life. Truly the most extraordinary turn of events.

Who would have thought that she, ordinary old Matsu Yuuka, would still take Gempukku early, and travel to other clan's lands? Rub shoulders with extraordinary people from all over Rokugan, and have tea with an imperial power broker? Much less travel to Kyuden Seppun with an actual bodyguard? A bodyguard, mind you, that wasted no time in bundling her off to a tailor and get her a presentable wardrobe. She was an imperial ambassador now, the older woman reminded Inori, and supposed to dress the part. Besides, she could well afford it, now that she had an imperial stipend.

Imperial stipend? That was another of those entirely surprising new developments. She had never cared much for gold, but felt its absense keenly once or twice in Teitaku. Now? She wasn't rich by any means, but...sometimes she marveled at just how much even a still somewhat ordinary level of wealth allowed her to do. Well, in this case it had allowed her to be pushed and pulled around, and measured, and prodded with wooden pins by a muttering middle-aged tailor.
She also had gotten new Kimono, like the Lion light brown with deep blue, sapphire trim that she wore right now. The added fabric and stiffer make sure took getting used to...

However, over an hour into her reading, her concentration was not that great anymore. Her eyes began to wander and she fidgeted, when a thought occured to her. Now that she had time - there were promises to be kept. The Lion started smiling as she pulled out a sheet of paper and started writing.

Dear Shiba Ryusei

I guess that's what they're calling you now, is it? I hope the last year has treated you well, and beg your pardon for not writing earlier. It has been most...exciting

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3 months later

It was the height of Summer, and even here near the coast there was hot, humid air and she was sweating - but not for her the marching in the sweltering heat, the campaigning. She still went to the Dojo every other morning - Inori did not think that would ever change, and the Seppun, from what she saw, seemed good sports about it. Sometimes they let her fight their senior students, near Gempukku, and more than a few times she'd lost...

She did not mind the bruises. If nothing else it would mean capable hands should this place ever come under attack - and also good challenges she could use to prepare herself. Although that, too, seemed farther away. Recently there had been more...painting. They put her in front of shrines, waterfalls, rock formations, bonfires - places of spiritual power, and had her paint them. Gave her a large copper bowl of purified water and had her call forth a humanoid water spirit, much like the one she had seen back in the 1000 stances Dojo - more and more she suspected it was the same one, in fact, and she found it easier and easier to call now, and hold its manifestation.

They experimented on her, studied her.

But the imperials were nice about it, and she? She, Matsu Inori, would do what she could to observe their respect, and do what she wanted with the opportunities she began to cultivate. Travel, write, study, paint - perhaps, one of these days, love.

Life, to her, was a canvas. Inori grinned, dipped her brush into a bright green....

and painted.