[Day 22, Late Morning] Let the Healing Begin (Expecting)

[Jiyo Sora]

There just hadn't been time on the march home, to get around to the inevitable.

But he figured he owed Phi a bit of privacy in case anyone wondered why she was beating him like a drum, so he'd sent word that there were some fascinating things to see out in the farms, and had wandered out a fair distance to await his vision's consummation.

[Nozomi]

"Fascinating things indeed. There's farmland out here, and the three week old remains of Miyako and my campsite," came a grunt from the undergrowth. She did like skulking around almost as much as he did at times. A rustle of the patties and Phi emerged, stepping up and onto the roads, brushing the dust of the road off. She looked better. A lot better in fact. The woman actually looked like she had bathed... and probably in the bath houses for the first time in her adult life.

She strode in closer. There had been less time to talk in the last week than she would have liked, and she'd kept close to Shinsei, to Saruko, to a few others. But she hadn't forgotten Sora. "Been meaning to have a little... chat with you, old friend."

[Jiyo Sora]

"You do know I have some idea of what your chat's going to entail, right?"

He half-smiled, even though... this was probably going to hurt.

[Nozomi]

She smiled at him in the innocent way that a child might, if that child was a walking murder machine with skin as pale as a ghost and eyes the color of blood. She walked right up to him, her left fist coming balled up and going for the gut right before her right went for the face in a smart smack. "At least you knew this was coming," she said, continuing to smile as she did it. "I might have been more cross with you if you'd tried to hide from me."

...

"I would have told him," she said a second later, her tone a little hurt. "I was going to, that night in fact."

[Jiyo Sora]

Yep, she still hits like a Hikaru. Ow.

He took a moment to get his breath back.

"I didn't bring it up. I wouldn't have, but... he started talking about a future. With you. And..."

He sighed.

"Just like this encounter here... some pains are best dealt with quickly. I know you would have told him. But I couldn't... give him false hope, once the subject came up. I can't do that. I can't even lie to the Emperor's daughters that way."

[Nozomi]

She grunted and nodded, letting it stop there. She was mad, but she wasn't that mad. "We haven't lost hope, so you know. I... just didn't want to tell him until after the battle. Didn't need both our heads out of the game at all. But we have hope. We don't need... we don't need any of them to know. We need us to know, and that's what matters there. And when they're old enough? They'll know too."

She stepped back with a grunt, giving him a level look. "So. Just so you know. Saruko's probably going to know. It's going to be hard to hide it from her, but he thinks she can help, so we'll be going that way at a certain point. When it's all done. I heard... I heard Kinsen's lost her damned mind, so she probably has no clue, and Umeno ... I can lie to Umeno if it ever matters, and she'll believe it. Or she'll say she does. Only other person that might put two and two together..."

She coughed. "I don't know how well that girl recognizes voices, but I know she never saw anyone go into his tent for a fact." Yeah. Haka ... probably didn't know. "So, it's Taka. Good man. I heard he didn't actually have any living relatives. Sad... but it helps."

[Jiyo Sora]

"Poor Taka. Deserved better."

Which was absolutely true.

"There was... one upside to my little chat with Shinsei. I was able to give him some... context on his situation."

[Nozomi]

"They all deserved better than they got. But at least we avenged them, made sure those things didn't hurt anyone else." She raised an eyebrow at that. "But what do you mean by 'gave him context?' You been holding out on me somewhere, Sora?" Admittedly, unlike Koyama, she hadn't known the old man quite as well. And, after Koyama'd turned into a giant freaking dragon she could hardly say that she knew him half as well as she'd thought when they were younger.

[Jiyo Sora]

"I know a thing or two about helping raise the children of a woman you have feelings for, even if they're not... 'yours.'"

[Nozomi]

"It's... going to be a little different, but I had no idea." That was... a different kind of hell. Living next to someone who... and she knew for a fact exactly who he meant. The man's reputation as being a close confidante of the Emperor's children meant... yeah. 'Awkward' didn't even begin to describe that. "Uhhh, sorry about the cracks about you and that girl. I might not have made them if I'd known." No guarantee she wouldn't have, but she'd at least have thought about it.

"We're going to be ok. We're going to raise them together, and it's going to be fine. And I'm going to make sure they stay safe. I might not be destiny on two legs like you, Sora, but I'm going to make sure my kid grows up to that full potential. I promise that." There was a pause. There was a breath and she closed her eyes.

"You care about Shiba. Be ... careful of his twin. I have nothing ill to say of him. But be careful with that one. I can't and won't say anything more than that, and there are things it is better never to know, but always have eyes in the back of your head. I think he means to serve the empire well. I don't doubt it. But... as good as he may be, I do not know if he is safe, Sora. So always have eyes in the back of your head." And to make her point, she turned towards him and reached up with a finger and tapped right under her eye. The same eye that was discolored on his own face.

It hadn't been the same kind of vision, but that didn't matter.

[Jiyo Sora]

"I am always careful of one who doesn't trust his own face not to betray him. Even if I respect him for letting everyone know that about himself."

[Nozomi]

"Good. If I ever know something that you need to know, I will tell you." the trick was 'know.' She couldn't say the type of certainty he needed to say what she felt in her heart, but what he had seen, the fact that she had seen his daughter, known her name before she ever mentioned it to Shinsei, and her face... She was glad that Bayushi was not his first intended visit.

"In slightly less ominous news, I'll be taking a vow when I leave with Shinsei. Kind of like the one he took. The next time you see me, I'll be going by Nozomi. I ... kind of figured you might at least understand what that'd mean. We're still friends in my book, but I need to put my past behind me. It was going somewhere... somewhere I shouldn't go."

[Jiyo Sora]

"Well, I'll miss the little mountain squirrel and her constant barbs and jibes, but my friend Nozomi will make up for that. She seems to be an improved specimen of humanity, anyhow."

[Nozomi]

"Mmmm, a name change and a vow do not a changed woman make. I'm just barely honest enough to say that. But maybe Shinsei will make a fully honest one out of me," she said before reaching into a pouch, pulling out a blowgun, staring at it for a second and offering it to him. "I guess honest enough to say I don't need something like this. No shame in it. Gotta protect your own, but ... that's not the path I'm walking. You can have it, or toss it in the river. Fine by me either way. They're cheap after all."

[Jiyo Sora]

"Think I might teach the Emperor's daughters how to use it, actually..."

He took it, turned it over in his hands.

"In case they need to know how."

[Nozomi]

"Fortunes!" she said, shaking her head and looking at him almost aghast. "Teach them how to knock some sense into a guy wit skipping stones, not that! You know what that's for, after all. I never got enough breathing power to do any real damage and they're useless without that if you have any armor to deal with. One of these days, Shiba is going to kick your ass."

[Jiyo Sora]

"But skipping stones aren't as comical as a dart to a visiting aunt or uncle's backside..."

[Nozomi]

"You are going to get your head on a pike one day, and their rear's smacked." She laughed and shook her head. "Well, fine. Just don't say you got it from me when Shiba inevitably comes looking for you to ask why there's darts in some courtier's ass. Not my problem anymore, Sora. Not at all. Oh god... I'm going to have to raise this one one of these days, aren't I? I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do... I'll figure it out... I'll figure it..."

Pause. Frown. Sigh. "I shouldn't visit the brewery. Midwives were always clear on that."

[Jiyo Sora]

"Oh, I have only one secret from my Emperor, my friend, and the origin of this blowgun isn't it. When I go down, so do you!"

At her musing on motherhood, he nodded.

"Afraid so. And you're gonna want to eat some pretty weird shit."

He shrugged.

"But if you ever need a sitter, I've changed my share of dirty nappies for people who will grow up to be important, so, you know... look me up."

[Nozomi]

"I'll keep that in mind, but I intend to grow eyes in the back of my head before the little tyke gets up and starts walking. they're going to have no secrets from this mother." And considering that she might eventually learn and develop certainly techniques... yeah, she just might do that. "And I'm not about to go taking parenting advice from someone who's going to tell them to shoot people in the butt."

...

"And don't you dare call me a hypocrite because I did that to Choji years ago. He had it coming."