Cautiously, Kiseki pushed open the heavy door into the lower temple. It took both her hands to move the solid oak door, and she shuffled slowly into the high-ceilinged building. She had never been to the lower temple before, only the High Temple, far up the mountainside. She stood still in the [...]

Clad neatly in a semi-formal kimono of Ashikaga grey, patterned with careful lotus designs in burgundy, Kiseki padded softly toward her mother’s quarters. Usually at this time of morning, her mother would be taking a few well-earned moments to herself, to write haiku (syllabic poetry) in her careful cursive characters. As far as [...]

Kiseki paced back and forth across the main room of her quarters, oblivious to the fact that her pale grey yukata was trailing across the tatami (straw mats). She wrung her hands together, and often slid the shoji doors to the balcony open, peering outside. Equally as often she slid open the inner [...]

“Good day, good lady!” he cried, springing to his feet with trademark agility and executing a florid bow. “Why do you call for a fan? Do not hide your fair face from us!”
The Nurse accepted her fan and snapped it open as Aki said those words, and another roar of laughter went up. [...]

Shin’s eyebrows flew up. “Well. Well, well, well.”
“Go on,” Aki drawled, sprawling lazily on the brink of the grand fountain. The triple tiered fountain was the main showpiece of the square, an elegantly simple synthesis of white marble and black obsidian, with a centre spire reaching three metres high. The spray [...]