Izzy’s Character
My Dear Yuta,
Remember when we were little, and I would laugh at you for hanging back when I raced up some rockface or made some ill-advised leap? That was ill done, as you were always the better of us. In partial payment of the many debts I owe you, let me confide to you as I would to no one else: I am overmatched.
Of all the Kitsuki who could have solved your murder, I am perhaps the least well equipped. And simple conversations in a wayside inn leave me baffled; how shall I navigate the Imperial City? I was made for katas, for quiet meditation and urgent action. I have none of your gifts for statecraft, for intruige, for people, Yuta.
Yet you are dead, and though I am a poor choice to seek vengeance for you, there is no one else to do it. And I do not regret my choices, overmatched or not. My sensei advised against this course, though she stopped short of forbidding it. Our father was quietly furious when I asked to be sent as the attache. I do not know why; that bit of manuevering was the closest I’ve ever been to being the daughter he hoped for. There are truths I can speak only to you.
But the fortunes turn. I have found traveling companions who may be friends and allies. I may fail you, brother, as I have before. But I will not change my course. I will see you avenged or die in the attempt.
Your Devoted Sister Always,
Niko
My Dear Yuta,
Not everything in the spirit realms can be trusted, and our own eyes can deceive us. But it was you, wasn’t it, in that ruin, that warning of a future we must subvert? The thought is a blade that cuts to marrow.
I am cut, torn open by your loss. You were always the other half of my soul. Perhaps that is why I feel so far from the path of enlightenment.
Well. If that path is no longer one I can walk, at least I see I was right to think the fortunes or some other power have guided us here. If I must set aside that pursuit in this life to save the Empire, I will do so, and not gainsay it. But losing you? There are wounds that don’t heal.
Your Devoted Sister,
Niko
My Dear Yuta,
It will not surprise you to learn that I didn’t get through my first court event without causing an incident. My cause was righteous, my approach foolish. I miss the monestary, where my failings as a samurai and courtier are less obvious, less of a detriment. Thankfully, Kakita Oroko stepped in gracefully to prevent an escalation which could have lead to a duel. (I imagine you reading this, your forehead creasing ever-so-slightly, the way it did when you were covering a strong reaction; well, I never claimed I wasn’t a fool.) Crisis averted, and a wrong set right, thanks to Oroko and my friends. I played a part too, coming up with a key part of the plan and observing the key detail. I might have made a good magistrate, if all that was required was observation.
Sumiko is too kind to blame me, but the worst of it is I was the fool and she was the one who drew her ambassador’s ire. Would that others did not so often suffer the costs of my failings.
I wrote those words before learning that I have been summoned to assist page:6cdc0ea7-b732-4fc5-90aa-5c03a751abb3, an Emerald Magistrate. If I were in a better mood, I might say fate is playing a cruel joke on me. But instead I wonder: if you were the other half of my soul, and your karmic destiny has been foiled, at least for now, has mine been as well? It feels good to have friends outside the monastary—you know I’ve never been good at that. I distrust that feeling, but that is a monk’s thinking, not an investigator’s.
What were you studying, my dear brother, about the city’s founding, that someone would kill you for it? I must find out, if I am to help save page:051de36a-ee03-47bd-98b6-852acbeffd56, and if I am to avenge you. In my fantasies, it is my death that is the mystery, and, scholar and diplomat, who would have been an amazing magistrate had to set wished to be one, who unravels the threads of whatever threat surrounds us. I hear your kind, disapproving voice, one that always saw the best in me. I will try to see it too. Whatever I lack, I can at least claim tenacity among my virtues. Fortunes grant I rise to the challenge.
Your Devoted Sister,
Niko
My Dear Yuta,
The other day the ambassador asked me what I wanted, and as far as I could tell he meant it. What could I say? I want to pursue enlightenment, to be free to leave our family name behind, pass on my daisho, and be a member of my Order. I want to see you avenged. I want to save the Empire.
Those last two are, I suspect, related, but they take me far from my pursuit of enlightenment, and far from home.
And now, deep in Crane lands, I realize another desire, and feel its pull in another direction: I want to see wrongs set right. I want accountability for those who have sinned. A reckoning. (I’m not ready to say that’s what I want for your killer, Yuta; I have never claimed to be pure of mind, and rage and grief burn in me like a fever.)
This could get me killed, naturally. But so could everything else I’m doing. It probably will, in fact. Not before I’ve done right by you, I hope. Our current danger is one we should, perhaps, avoid. But consider the facts:
- a lord who let his people starve
- a samurai sworn to that lord who fomented rebellion and then murdered the woman who sought to warn the castle
- The ghost of that woman, a peasant who was twice wronged by samurai—twice that I know of—who cannot rest
- A parade of dead and silenced witnesses
The locals ask why my friends and I are doing this. I can’t speak for them, but for myself, I’ll say this: wrongs like these fester like an infected wound. I’ll see it lanced and cleaned, if I can. Maybe this is what drives our best magistrates?
A troubling line of thought, and one I must reluctantly consider.
How strange, to be afraid of nothing except failing you, and to have that fear coiled always about me.
How I miss you, Yuta!
Your Devoted Sister,
Niko