Dowager-Empress Hisako was a woman of refined taste, incomprehensible stubbornness and, dare she say it, moderate intelligence. She had wed into the Kisaragi family at the tender age of four-and-ten, a gesture of good-will on the side of the Otori clan in a time when the crown faced trouble from all corners of its domain. Her husband had then been the young master Shigeru, a boy of no more than ten years of age. Together with him, she had taken lessons and spent long hours discussing the merits of poetry. They'd gathered frogs together and played on long summer days; they had grown together and built up Wutai to the best of their abilities. They had shared good and ill throughout the decades and faced challenged unnumbered. Through the highs and lows of life, Shigeru had held her hand and lent her strength. The greatest of their achievements had been Kushina, their only surviving child.

She saw much of her daughter in Yuffie. They had the same built and colouring and shared a great resemblance, but more than that they had the same sparkling spirit and gregarious nature. When Godo of the Funa won her daughter's hand in battle, Kushina had been but six-and-ten. Hisako had protested the match. The man had been far older, a worldly sort with none of Shigeru's softness about him. But her husband has insisted that such a son was precisely what the Kisaragi needed and so the match went through and Godo was wed to her precious Kushina. Shigeru died soon after.

At the very beginning, she had been utterly miserable at the turn of events and made no attempt to hide her feelings behind the mien of politeness. Her daughter felt differently, however. Each day she came to greet her mother and spoke to her of the small bits of kindness her husband showed her. He'd train with her and help her improve her aim, or they would walk together beneath the fruit-laden branches of the orchard and he would pick for her the fruits which were ripe and sweet. He would bring her flowers and sweetmeats and would often indulge her in a game of Go. In due course, she allowed Godo too might join Kushina in her morning greeting.

And then Yuffie was born. She had been a small thing then, but standing before her with an obviously contrived smile, her granddaughter was a woman grown. Still small and dainty, but with the strong core of a woman, Yuffie was the very image of her mother as she bowed gracefully in greeting. If only her garb were more fitting. Hiding an indulgent smile, she passed her gaze onto the companion the girl had brought along and observed him display a shocking knowledge of their customs. She wondered if her granddaughter had instructed him. Good of her to think ahead, Hisako supposed, approaching the young man as Yuffie stepped aside with her father and the Council closed rank around them with alacrity.

"My granddaughter is full of surprises this day. Would you not say so, Vincent?" Hisako questioned gently. "May I call you Vincent?" she added as an afterthought, taking hold of her arm, so he might provide anchor for her should a swift gale blow by. She'd pronounced the name carefully, happy enough that the structure was fortuitously close to that of her own tongue.

"I have learned to expect them of Yuffie." He answered. He had a pleasant voice, deep and gravelly, with a faint crackle to it like fire."Vincent will do, Your Majesty." He inclined his head.

"Wonderful. My granddaughter loves little better than surprising her fellow man." She looked up into his face. "Now tell me, Vincent, do you know the occasion for which the Council has summoned her?"

"I believe the general goal is a wedding." He certainly was plain-spoken. Hisako chuckled. "I am also aware Wutai holds that such a union must be won by strength of arm." She felt her eyebrows lift in wonder. He knew a fair amount of such things.

"Then you are a man of much knowledge. Yuffie must indeed wed and there are several young men of good families waiting for the chance to prove themselves." She waited for a reaction, but when he remained impassive, she added, "Did she also tell you one must have the blood of Wutai running through their veins to compete?"

"I believe several of your daughter's suitors were not of Wutai, Your Majesty," he responded glibly. He had done his homework. "But even if the rule should apply, I believe in Wutai one traces the origin through their mother. Mine just so happened to be of this land."

She took a closer look at him upon hearing the claim. It was true that she could see something of it about the eyes and mouth. She might better make it out once the cape was out of the way. "Is that so? Does she have a name, this mother of yours?"

"Fusae of the Mogami Clan." And that truly caught her attention. He must have understood her consternation, for he ventured to explain his assertion a little. "Indeed, I was born more than half a decade ago." It was slightly alarming to hear, but her granddaughter ran about with some interesting characters.

"You are remarkably well preserved, in that case," she answered gamely. "Ah, I recall Lady Fusae, though she was older than I. The Mogami had some very strange notions regarding a woman's education but whatever else they thought, I doubt her elopement pleased them." She added in a rather sly manner, "The family has a son; Minato. Nice boy. You might meet him." He did not answer. A hard man to learn. Hisako nodded towards Yuffie, "Then I suppose now we come to it; why should I trust you with my granddaughter?"

"Because I mean to marry her and it makes not one whit of a difference if those vows come with a royal title. I prefer they didn't, but she believes her duty lies here and so I follow." His decided manner thrilled her. Leave it to Fusae to raise such a man.

"Vinnie, thank Shiva. You had me going for a moment there." Yuffie threw her arms around him and squeezed. Tightly. "You could have answered, you know." She'd turned her face into his chest, plastering her body to his. The yielding shape of her yukata made allowances for its length, letting him feel a great deal of her. "I was honestly worried grandmother had gone and scared you off." He bit back his amusement at her obvious sincerity and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her even tighter against his frame.

"She did no more than any concerned parent or grandparent might. Certainly no more than I mean to do for our children." In the moment it had seemed a very natural thing to say, but as soon as the words slipped out faint alarm bells began ringing in his head, warning that he might be moving too fast. They were not even married after all.

Yuffie reacted far better than one might expect. "Great Leviathan, our children. Vince, are you trying to melt my heart?" She pulled away from him momentarily. "You rogue; it's working." She slapped his shoulder in retaliation before sighing longingly. Because she looked soft and entirely too kissable to ignore, he did lean in to steal her lips. Although, in fairness, she met him halfway there.

They were alone, with nary a chance of interruption, no longer threatened by motion sickness or too many eyes. It was just them and instinct cracked its whip, sharp and thorny. He pressed harder, just so, tentatively. A small sound left Yuffie, but otherwise she clung to him whole-heartedly. He loosened his hold and brought his palms to her waist, both to stop himself from going too far and so he might have a grasp on her. The pressure increased further. If he could only find some way to melt into her and meld them together. One way other than the obvious that was; for he could not yet join them together in that manner.

They broke apart for breath. Yuffie giggled. "I could do this a lifetime and not get tired of it." Her cheeks glowed red and she glanced away. "That must sound so silly. I don't know why I said it." She squirmed in his hold. Galian Beast with his canine inclinations urged action on his part. Vincent lifted Yuffie's chin, forcing their eyes to meet.

"You enjoy our kisses," he pointed out the obvious, taking in her darkened gaze with inherently male satisfaction. "I enjoy them as well." Tremendously, though he did not voice it. Yuffie huffed quietly, the gaze dissipating.

"Right. Kiss me again, would you?" He obeyed, needing no further encouragement. He pushed the boundaries by sliding one hand a fraction lower so it rested at the top of her hip. The encounter was somewhat brief. "Point taken. I am enjoying it. But we had best talk. I want to know exactly what my grandmother said."

He would have rather continued with the pleasurable pastime of kissing her, but acquiesced to her demand. "She asked the usual questions one might expect," he repeated the point he'd already made. "She assumed, and rightly so, that I am a suitor."

"So she asked about your family?" Yuffie guessed. He nodded. "That is fine and all, but did she mention anything about the Wutaian trial?" Vincent had been given a fair lot of information with regards to such customs on account of his mother; she had often spoken of her girlhood home with equal parts longing and ire. But more to the point, she had told him something of royal custom and Vincent, having found the whole thing incredibly diverting, had simply stocked the information, locking it away, never expecting he would need it. Still, he wanted to hear Yuffie's explanation, thus he shook his head. "I hadn't though they got all their ducks in a row so soon, so I didn't mention it, but it seems they mean to hold a competition for my hand, as they put it, and have all their candidates ready." She rolled her eyes. "For my part you have nothing to prove."

"I know." He slowly led them out onto the porch. A faint light trickled through the foliage of the inner garden. "And I will win." Of that he held no doubts. His confidence brought a wide smile to Yuffie's face. "Have you any notion of who will be competing?"

"Unfortunately not; I am supposed to receive a list sometime tomorrow, but I suspect it will be elder sons of elevated families. Well, those of them who have yet to marry someone else that is." She leaned her head back, presumably to better feel the breeze. "They cannot be many. Most actually do make such vows by the time they are eighteen at most. There is one more thing though." Yuffie hesitated.

"Go on," Vincent encouraged. "What is it?" He could not help if he did not know the facts of the matter.

"For some reason the Council is being particularly obstinate about anyone observing these sessions they mean to hold. I will tell you all about it, whenever they set me. It's dumb and stupid, but there you have it." She glanced at him. "You can use the spare time for the mission, if you want."

"That might be best." While it would have been beneficial if he were to observe the gathering, his exclusion made no matter in the end. "I am an outsider to them after all and you cannot expect acceptance in so short a time."

"I suppose," she replied, none too pleased. "But I still think they are idiots with the notable exception of grandmother that is. Since she showed some interest, I can only conclude she approves the notion, otherwise she'd not have given you the time of day. I'll have to speak to her and see just how much she is willing to aid us."

"You are so certain she approves my suit on so little evidence?" Yuffie knew her relatives best, naturally. But it still seemed to him too scant an amount of information for any decision to have been reached. Perhaps he had simply missed something.

"She'd better, because I'm having no one else," the young woman laughed. She sobered after a moment. "There have been several White Roses in my shoes throughout the ages. While in the past the rules were severely restrictive as to who might compete, traditionally the White Rose could, if she so wished, chose a champion. A favourite, as it were, to compete in the final round. That way much of a hassle was simply bypassed."

"That seems rather convenient," Vincent noted. "I am surprised Wutai custom would allow for such a shortcut."

"As I said, initially it didn't. It was Princess Yuyan actually who provided the basis for the rule when she chose, in an unprecedented move, a member of her shinobi guard as champion. Tanaga Saemon was the man's name; he is remembered for having disposed of all his competition within a couple of days, outside of the competition itself. Due to a lack of combatants, he won the Princess and prompted the Council of his time to institute the rule, lest they lose all their sons in similar fashion, in the future." She shrugged as she finished. "About half our rules do make sense."

"I see. But how is this rule not common knowledge?" And he had to suppose it was not, otherwise why had his mother made no mention of it. Yuffie's expression took on a tinge of curiosity as she quite frankly questioned those words. He chose his words carefully. "Wutai was perhaps the dearest subjects to my mother's heart, seeing as it was her country. She never mentioned this rule."

"Your mother is Wutaian? I didn't know that, did I?" Her mouth slackened into a soft oval of realisation. "Why didn't I know that?"

"She was and I never advertised it." Her second question received no reply, for he rather thought she'd asked that of herself, not him. "It appears she eloped with my father, according to your grandmother, though the circumstances remain unknown to me. Neither spoke much of how they met."

"You mean to say grandmother knew about this before me?" Fortunately, Yuffie's curiosity was swift to win over her ire. "Just tell me what her name was. I might be able to shed some light." And so he did. "Leviathan, you mean the Lady Fusae of the Mogami. My goodness, Vinnie, it was a huge scandal back in the day. Lady Fusae was the daughter of Mogami Hiraoto, Minister of the Treasury. He sent his daughter to study in Junon and even allowed her to attend a university there for about a year before calling her back. I hear she refused all her suitors one by one and one day simply vanished with only a note saying she was well and happy and that no one should search for her."

"And from that they assumed she had eloped." It made sense. And they were likely correct. "If my calculations hold, she would have returned to Wutai at about nineteen and left sometime around her twentieth birthday in January."

"Well, you were born in October, so that makes sense." She brought her hands together in an excited gesture. "Now I'm curious about how they met as well. Darn; there's no one we can ask now. Why is it always important things like these that are left up in the air?" Yuffie mused a little space. "You know, I am the same age she was when she married. I believe we might just be a fated couple Vince." She smiled winsomely. And in her heart she believed it. If that were not the case then why should they have been brought together as they were? "And so were they. She must have loved him a great deal to leave behind everything she knew. Would you tell me some more about them?"

"I cannot think of what to tell you. They weren't all that interesting, to be honest. He worked a great deal out of the home, being gone for months on end at times, and my mother took care of me. She spoke of her homeland often and taught me as much as she knew. My father taught me to shoot a gun." Yuffie listened avidly as bits and pieces came out. It was by no means a complete picture and her heart ached for what must have once been a very lonely young boy. Unthinkingly, she reached out for his hand, pleased when he elected to turn his own hand up so their palms met. "They were neither very demonstrative, but I always got the sense their bond was strong. I do recall that after she died my father took on even longer assignments."

Yuffie bit her lip, indecision holding her hostage for a long moment before her courage asserted itself. "How old were you when that happened?" She wanted to know everything there was to know about Vincent Valentine and the opportunity was at her door.

"About fourteen." She gasped at his answer, no matter that she had been far younger when her mother perished. But at least her father had always been at her side.

"But that is so young. What happened to her?" She hadn't even had the chance to see what a fine man her son would grow into. That was a true pity. Yuffie squeezed Vincent's hand comfortingly, wondering if she had done well to prod for answers. "If you don't wish to–"

He shook his head. "It was a long time ago. A very long time ago." Said the man who'd willingly mourned a half-realised romance for thirty years. "Some malady of the lungs killed her. It was father who found her collapsed one day and he who admitted her into the best treatments money could buy. His Shinra connections were hard at work trying to find a cure, but it was just too late for her."

"That poor woman; how horrible." She must have suffered greatly.

"Four long years she suffered silently, lying in a hospital bed. Father requested an office transfer and so for that period, he would take me to see her every day she was deemed fit for company. He would still go every day himself and sit with her. What else might have been to their relationship, I like to think he loved her too." He paused, looking out into the garden. "After she died and he left, I was put in the care of his younger sister, Evelyn. I stayed with her up until I joined the Turks."

"You know, I might just be persuaded to cooperate if you at least tried to listen to me from time to time," Yuffie pointed out archly, ignoring the look on her father's face. "After all, have I not proven myself by coming to you when you called?"

"This isn't a game, Yuffie. The fate of Wutai rests in the balance here and I would thank you to be mindful of it." She almost rolled her eyes at that, but somehow found the wherewithal to restrain herself. "This is not a question of your loyalty, but of your willingness to make sacrifices for this country. Your country, might I add. Now do be serious and answer me, have you considered other potential choices?"

"No, I have not, nor will I. Leviathan almighty, Vincent is the only contender I mean to indulge." She held her hand up when it looked as though he might interrupt. "I know you think it is only youth speaking, but have you ever known me to turn back on a decision I've made before?" Her father shook his head morosely. "Precisely my point. Now, I will listen to the Council's proposed list, but I will name Vincent as my champion and there is nothing anyone can do about that."

"You will find, daughter, it is not as easy as you think." He held out a folded sheet of paper to her. "Please, have a look for yourself." She almost did not notice the slight shake in his limbs, but as she caught it her blood ran cold.

Godo had never, in all her life, looked so troubled. She had seen him grieving and she had seen him incensed, but before her eyes unfolded an entirely different set of sentiments. Part worry, part resentment with a dash of ire, his face darkened with it. On edge in the wake of understanding, she held out her hands and took the proffered list, unfolding it slowly. Several of the names on the list were familiar and not threatening in the least. A few of them she had lesser knowledge of, but she supposed they might be individuals active in fields other than politics. It was the last name on the list that gave her pause.

"What in Shiva's name is he doing here?" she pointed accusingly to the last candidate. "And why is this to be a matter of Council decision as opposed to combat, as is tradition?" What a despicable low to sink to. "I am the White Rose of Wutai and if they think they can truss me up and deliver me on the doorstep of Rufus Shinra, the Council has another thing coming."

"I like it no more than you, which is why I did not make it public. I cannot refuse the suit, much as I wish to however. Rufus Shinra is willing to pour the amount of resources in Wutai no one else can match." He was being pragmatic and entirely truthful. Yuffie hated that. She loathed it because she could see the sense of taking such a deal.

"The Council would truly countenance making him Emperor of Wutai?" She marvelled at the notion. "There will be nothing to stop Shinra from twisting Wutai into anything he wants then. After we have fought so hard to protect our home, it is to come to this? Father, can you not see how unfair it is? Shinra have the blood of so many on their hands, the blood of my mother and countless others."

"But they also have money and the power that comes with it. And we do not; I am afraid the Council is adamant." She had wondered at being called to him in the middle of the night. "It will have to be Rufus Shinra."

Rufus Shinra, Emperor of Wutai; she would rather part with all of her materia than see such a nightmare become truth. "I wish to speak to grandmother." She was knowledgeable in the more obscure laws of the land. If anyone could find an escape, it was her. Father allowed it and thus she snuck away to her grandmothers chamber.

She explained her plight to the woman, only half-surprised to find her awake with a book on her lap. "I am afraid, Yuffie my dear, that the Council holds too much sway in this and your father is right to worry. As the Emperor, his reliance on their support prohibits any opposition on his side and should a royal decree come, you will be bound to obey." She put away her book. "A White Rose of Wutai must aid her country in whatever way she deems fit and if that calls for sacrifice, she must make it." Yuffie liked that answer not one bit. But grandmother had no other wisdom to impart aside from advising her to seek out the slivery light of the moon. "Tomorrow the Council convenes, but you yet have a few hours until such a time. I suggest you profit by it."

Leaving in a huff, Yuffie returned to her own room and landed in a frustrated heap on her mattress. She looked out to the dark skies. There wasn't even a moon to be seen on the black canvas. Turning on her side, she bit back a curse, grandmother's words chasing themselves in her head over and over again. It hadn't sounded like the woman merely meant to fob her off and she must despise Shinra as much as Yuffie herself, so how could she be so calm in the face of the calamity?

Once again, she revisited the words. And then it struck her what had seemed so off about them. Of course, the light of the moon was sought principally by lovers. And she had a good few hours to decide which road to take, did she not. Precious little for a woman lingering in doubt, yet Yuffie knew only one thing, she had to stop Rufus Shinra, come what may.

She stood to her feet, certainty mantling her with each step she took.