5/23/2025, 1:50 AM
cameo
he has followed her without fanfare, without word, as though the earth itself bade him keep pace. ryujiro, a phantom in the brush, walked behind the lady with a silence that did not ask to be noticed. it was not servitude that tethered him, nor pity, nor protection— though perhaps there were threads of all three woven in the old samurai’s steps. he did not know this land, did not care to name it; its hills and fog-swept passes bore no loyalty to him, just as he bore none to its thrones or ghosts. but kaede— kaede he followed. her shoulders did not roll with grace as they once did, her breaths shortened by more than just the cold. even so, she moved with her head high, and he admired her for that. and now, beneath a tree blooming soft as her voice, ryujiro watched as her gaze found another: a woman dressed in petals, alone in a field as though she had fallen from some myth. he had seen too many women who wept like flowers and struck like snakes. but still, he came to stand beside the lady— not to shield, but to witness. his eye swept the scene, noting the dreamlike ease with which the petaled girl moved, how even kaede's sigh seemed to fold reverently into the hush.