Tanabata being tonight also meant a lot of preparations to do. Which meant a visit to the bath-house for a thorough wash and scrub...

... And then a trip to the warm pool.

Sighing, Hyeon-ju sank down into the waters, eyes closed in quiet contemplation as she was for the moment by herself.

Akemi was having a weird day. The issues that have been plaguing her for almost the whole miai had been solved, she just had dealt with their last consequences she had any authority over, and she had no energy left to any more wedding politics at the moment. Or for anything really.

So she just let herself lie nonchalantly in the hot water. In the absence of clothes her fleshcraft was on full display, starting just after the shoulder blade and replacing her whole left arm. The burn of a not fully healed radiant shot was also quite visible on her upper left chest.

After a period of quiet and half-consciousness, she finally realized who she was sharing a bath with.

"Silent thunder?"

The Unicorn sighed silenty, nodding as she kept her eyes closed still. "I believe the name I used in the circle was Silent Lady, but yes, the idea behind it was for the first Unicorn Thunder."

Akemi was likewise phlegmatic, not moving from her comfortable position:

"Silent Thunder has a better ring to it. Any lady can be silent but only rarely is the thunder silent.

Thinking about going pro?"

"I suppose..." she straightened up somewhat, opening up her eyes to see who she was speaking with. Ah, that Crab.

"Maybe? Depends a bit on where things go from here. It was... surprisingly fun to try, I'll admit."

"Well, if you like it, and since you've got the look and the skills for it... Plus, isn't wrestling kind of a Unicorn tradition? Bariqu and all?"

"It is more of a Moto tradition than an Utaku one, but, again it depends much on how my married life will look like. That duty will have to come first."

She gave the Crab a curious look. "But thank you for the vote of confidence. Speaking of, how is your future looking like after this, if you know?"

"Nothing certain yet. The most likely at the moment is that I will make an acceptable business marriage that will please my grandpa but not delight him, and that things won't change too much for me in the end. As in, back to the frontline in a few weeks and all.

Should I guess your own situation is more complex?"

"I wouldn't say it's complex as such," she at least didn't think it needed to be complex, but well, in the end samurai were also people.

"My goal is to achieve the best possible match for my clan. It has always been." Which was true. Of course she considered her own happiness along with it too, but it was a secondary thing to duty. "There were some setback to that goal, so now things are a bit more uncertain... either way, the choice is mostly out of my hands."

Akemi straightened a bit, her head now resting on the stony rim of the bath, her eyes looking at the sky:

"Indeed. We've danced every dance the Phoenix asked of us, and now it's almost entirely in the hands of their nakodo and of the other higher-ups. Our short-term destiny is probably already written as we speak, we simply don't know it yet."

She smirked:

"Well, maybe Benten in person will descend tonight and shuffle things. Who knows?"

"Who knows indeed..." she agreed. It should be a fairly straightforward thing, so Hyeon-ju deeply disliked the sense of uncertainity.

"So how has the miai been for you, overall?"

She pondered about that for a bit, eyes lost in the void, before answering:

"Educational. Not in the sense I spent all my time reading rare books in the Phoenix library, but in the sense I had a lot of experiences and met a lot of people I wouldn't have in other circumstances. Will leave the planet a totally different person than I came to it whoever I end up marrying."

She had some ideas of what it could be, but... it was improper to voice them out loud.

"True... I suppose I can relate to that. We'd normally not meet with some clans in such peaceful circumstances. The Mantis and Crane have been... surprisingly friendly."

"The Crane is always friendly I think. That's kind of their trademark.

The Mantis... Yeah, the Mantis miai participants have been surprisingly nice. Maybe because they didn't send in any Yoritomo? Sometimes I feel like the best thing that could happen to the Tsuruchi and the Moshi would be for them to part ways with the unruly kids of the storm..."

"Hmm... I haven't met any Yoritomo in person, so I can't say, but from what I've seen here... I'd say the Mantis would be better off without the Spider and Crane."

It was really a pity that. Hayato would've been a good choice.

"Have you met Mantis before? Before coming here, I mean."

"Not really. I have had encounters with a few privateers in the past, and colorful insults might have been exchanged on these occasions, but I hadn't really talked to a Mantis before.

Allying themselves with the Spider was kind of a point of non-return though. I'm surprised the clan didn't just implode when they did that. Some of them are direct descendants of Hida for kamis' sake!"

"I don't know, there's a lot of things that could be considered points of no-return..." Hyeon-ju straightened a little, settling one arm on the ledge of the pool.

"At this point, I think all clans have been allied to or enemies of eachother at some point in time. Well, except Spider and Crab, I can't recall that having been the case there."

"I don't remember any Great Clan but Mantis and, and only since a little bit, Crane allying themselves with... Well... Absolute evil.

Crane might still be salvageable by burning only a few corrupted branches. Mantis... Mantis needs a bigger change. They have been labeled as pirates for several millennia now, it's not a youthful error anymore but a problem running deep."

"I don't know. This miai has proved more that the Crane and Spider seem much closer than the Mantis and Spider - the Spider men seem rather busy with wooing all the Crane women."

Hyeon-ju shrugged, realising that her own knowledge was limited.