Bird Watching
I've waited far too long for this and wanted far too desperately.
Gods, he's sitting right there, the pretty black haired strategist, Sima Yi, that is really completely at fault for my current situation. Cao Cao recruited him about a month ago; if you can call taking a troop of soldiers to a man's home and threatening him with arrest recruiting. I first saw him then, as he was being escorted into the palace. That evening Lord Cao Cao held a banquet and formally introduced Sima Yi to all of his other officers. Even when he has kidnapped one, Cao Cao sees a purpose served by such ceremonies (What that purpose is I cannot say.) I don't think Sima could fathom that purpose too, either that or he simply didn't care to as he spent the entire night seeming like he was contemplating his chances of successfully being able to bolt out the palace's front door without any of his new acquaintances catching him. Those chances were zero. The fact I kept stealing glances at him my not have helped his nerves in this respect. Unfortunately for me, Cao Cao monopolized Sima Yi throughout this dinner. By the end of the evening all I had gotten from Sima Yi was his name and a very nervous hand shake.
Since then, from what I've spoken to the palace guards of, Sima Yi has moved into the scroll room and the inner garden's pavilion. This is what's led me to my current location, standing half-hidden and watching him sit beneath a flowering tree. He looks so different out here in the garden than he did weeks ago in the palace. Not just because of the fact his hair is simply done and that he's traded in his ornate purple robes for a simple lavender one. He looks different in more ways than just what being seen in spring's morning light can cause. As he sits and reads through some scrolls he has beside him, I realize how similar he seems to some of the exotic birds he's sharing his pavilion with(he looks so perfect in the pavilion that I must call it his). Those birds changed greatly too, most importantly in that they have stopped trying to escape, though mind you they are still skittish. If their change in behavior is because they've come to love palace life or because they realize they would be hunted down and recaptured I cannot say.