The courtesan's multicolored robe glowed ethereally like the halo of the moon and her primrose perfume overpowered the scent of rotting wood and mold that made up the shoddy excuse of a schoolhouse or as she put it, "an outhouse on stilts."

Ashi did not mind. Lessons with her aunt made the highlight of her week. The young girl could have been content just sitting there, watching the imbued grace of her aunt's every movement. But of course, like with all of Ashi's training, there was never a moment without purpose.

"In the rare instance you should take something from a shared plate," Her aunt explained, "you use the opposite ends of your chopsticks." She demonstrated and had the young girl repeat it, plucking up a gyoza from the platter laid out between them.

"Yes. Now remember to show appreciation when you eat but never eagerness, make it so as though you are incapable of hunger." When Ashi did exactly that, she was rewarded with praise, something that was still a foreign concept with her having been used to physical blows and verbal reprimand.

It was hard to believe that this woman with her beauty and gentle words could belong to the Daughters of Aku. The same could be said of her teachings. Ashi could not imagine what use learning the correct table etiquette or color coordination could have alongside her usual training. Strangest of all, she was the only one attending her aunt's lessons, which began from Ashi's first bleeding cycle. Her sisters never had this weekly reprieve, not even when the female curse found them as well.

On the very first lesson they had, Ashi had been given a chance to ask questions. Something that could never happen in her mother's domain. She only had one that day.

Why?

Her aunt's smile rivalled the crescent moon when she gave an answer.

"Because you are meant for something greater in Aku's plans."

"What am I going to do with you?! You need to grow out of your childish ways!" Their Oka-san's stern voice carried out through the screen of the room, much to the delight of the eavesdroppers crouching in front of it.

"I didn't mean to! Honest!" came Fumiko's retort. "I even tried to fix it"—!

"You cannot patch up an exquisite kimono that's survived the rage of Aku with paltry sewing skills!"

Satomi and Chiyo exchanged grins, reveling in the youngest maiko's suffering, who had accidentally made a tear in one of Ashi's kimonos while playing dress-up and had been caught red-handed trying to fix her blunder.

"Do you think Oka-san is going to flog her?" snickered Satomi.

"I ought to flog you both."

Both looked up to find Ashi, who had just returned from flower arranging, glaring at them. Quietly, the geisha instructed the two maiko girls away from the room to give them their own scolding. "You girls should be ashamed of yourselves." She said, hands planted on her hips. The girls winced at her severe tone. Chiyo, the meeker one, stepped forward to minimize the tension. "Big sister, it's not that we don't care about Fumiko or wish her ill, it's just"—

"Fumiko always touches our things and now she's getting comeuppance." Satomi injected less contritely before pointing out, "You shouldn't be upset with us, Big sister. After all, it was your kimono."

Ashi wanted to remind them that they were just as meddlesome, but decided it was fruitless to further the castigation knowing that her reproaches emptied out from inside their heads like cracked jars. She sighed in exasperation, fingers pressed at her temples. "Yes, but it's still not ladylike to take pleasure in such pettiness."

At that statement, both girls blinked at her, their disbelief fanning from their lashes.

Ashi frowned. "What?"

"Nothing…" Chiyo muttered, but that was obviously not the case.

"Are you girls questioning my own person?" Ashi spoke their thoughts aloud causing their shoulders to jump in startled guilt. "And I surmise this is about a certain prince?" She bit back a smirk, knowing she had read their minds perfectly from their red-cheeked faces.

"Well…" Satomi ventured bravely, her trademark mischievous smile working its way to the corners of her lips. "You seem to enjoy torturing the prince, playing him like a koto. If anyone's a master at petty games, it's you, Big sister."

"Oka-san says you're playing hard to get." Chiyo followed, trying to fight a giggle. "He's been sending you letters but you haven't replied to any of them. The runners that deliver them loiter near the area ready to jump like fleas at the moment you should answer him."

"That reminds me!" Satomi piped, digging out something from her sleeve. "This just came in today." She handed Ashi a slightly wrinkled letter. They followed the geisha into a room, bouncing on the zabuton cushions, excited to learn the contents that Ashi always shared with them...as an example of how not to write poetry.

"Ladies," Ashi said with flourish, waving the missive in the air. "If this is any indication of what our dear prince has learned in the future, then poetry must be dead."

The girls clapped with laughter. "Give him a break!" Satomi said in mocking defense. "Perhaps he has improved greatly in the two days since his last letter."

Chiyo sounded more genuine. "You have to credit him in how he folds his letters so intimately and precisely." The maiko adored such small romantic details. "And his messy and hurried calligraphy, as you call it, must mean he couldn't wait to share his thoughts with you."

"Or for the ink to dry." snickered Satomi. "His last letter was almost unreadable."

"I suppose we shall see..." said Ashi with an air of indifference as she started unfolding the paper. She took her sweet time smoothing out the folds so as to prolong the waiting agony. She carefully read ahead with her eyes as she spoke. Jack's letter was as exciting as wet mulberry pulp. He detailed excessively on how busy he was at court, fulfilling responsibilities here and there and his subtle hints requesting a reply were anything but subtle. While she did not expect him to indulge in gossip, at the very least, he could try and find a worthy topic of interest to prattle on about. His poetry was also horrendous. He always wrote them at the end of the letters like an afterthought.

When Ashi reached the end of the letter and the beginnings of the poem, she was prepared for another awful piece. But as she read, her eyes widened in astonishment and the paper nearly slipped from her grasp.

moonlit-whispered words
stir my heart passionately,
waiting longingly
that their sweet promise be near.

Her face became awashed with heat, and her ears felt like they would set her hair on fire. She almost split the paper in half when the girls urged her to continue.

"That's it…" Ashi coughed to hide her fit of embarrassment. "That's all he wrote."

"No poetry lessons this time?" Satomi pouted, not bothering to hide her disappointment. "And here I thought I could taunt Fumiko with what she'd missed out on."

"Isn't it time for you girls to go on with your dance lessons or something?" Ashi prodded, hastily stuffing the letter inside her obi. "You need to hurry along now."

Chiyo eyed her worriedly. "Big sister, are you all right? You look flushed"—

Without another word, Ashi turned and fled to her room. Inside, she pulled out the letter and read it once more, her color deepening with anger.

That...jerk!

If she had read on carelessly, it would have given everyone that listened the wrong impression. He had referenced that night she came to him as though they had been...consummate lovers. Oka-san would have swooned and be twice as overbearing than she already was.

"Lecherous snake." She sneered, folding the letter in annoyance. His previous poems had been awkward, lacking in finesse and temperance that she cringed just thinking about them.

Ashi huffed, kneeling down in front of her writing desk. He was growing impatient with her. This letter was meant to rile her. She had relished snubbing him, knowing it tormented him. When one starved a caged animal, one had better chances taming it.

She carefully laid out a sheet of rose-colored rice paper. Then, dipping her brush in her inkstone, began to form a reply.

It was time to throw the mongrel a scrap.

Jack guided his horse from the stable by pulling on the reins. He ran a gentle hand through its mane as it drank from the trough. Yawning, he pressed his head against the neck of the steed to momentarily rest his eyes. He had a long journey ahead of him and had scarcely gotten enough sleep.

There had been another attack, yet another temple.

One of the provincial magistrates had sent in the report. Jack had read it to his father in his shinden. The emperor had paled at the name of the temple, which concerned Jack greatly, knowing how his father always put on the face of a warrior, showing no signs of weakness. Stranger was how his father tried to brush it off in front of him, calling it a minor rebel attack.

Jack was determined to find out what troubled his father. As it stood, these were no ordinary attacks and further investigation was needed. He'd left a note for his father, who would undoubtedly be displeased once he learned he was setting off outside the palace again. At that thought, Jack chuckled, remembering how his parents had done everything in the past year to coax him outside the daidari as frequently as possible. Now, it was the opposite.

A fragrant morning breeze brushed past him and his mind immediately swirled with thoughts of Ashi. He had sent her several letters in the past couple of weeks but he had not received a single one from her. He had put in a lot effort crafting his letters and poems, his brazier was a nightly mountain of ashes before deciding upon a letter he did not wish to burn.

It embarrassed him how out of touch he was with the rule of taste and intricacies of the court. He'd gone through decades of hardship, where survival was all that mattered but once his role as a samurai had been completed, his duties as the prince took its place. Jack did not mind the responsibility expected of him but court life still baffled him with the attention it paid to how one dressed or spoke...or wrote poetry.

Hopefully, Ashi would forgive his shortcomings on paper and perhaps even appreciate them in her privacy. He knew they weren't good and were rudimentary at best but he'd poured his heart into the task and hopefully she'd see that. He was especially proud of his most recent work.

She was probably just upset he hadn't stopped by to visit. He sighed as he mounted his horse, warming up the beast to a slow walk around the grounds. While he felt guilty not being able to currently spend time with her, part of him was slighted that she would think ill of him. He'd been nothing but forthcoming to her in his letters, the least she could do was answer him, even if it were just to air out her grievances. That way he could assure her that things would get better and once they were married—

His mind reeled, and he unintentionally jerked his horse back. His heart thudded wildly in his chest as blood rushed to his face. Shaking his head, Jack chastised himself for indulging in such an idea.

Why not? His mind argued with itself. You do intend to marry her and it will happen. You want her to be your wife.

Try as he might, Jack could not suppress the idiotic grin on his face as he imagined the future with her. He'd do everything in his power to make her happy...and that extended to their children. Many children. So many. His blush deepened as he chuckled to himself.

"Umm...your highness?"

Jack blinked.

A group of his finest hand-picked warriors blinked back at him from their mounts. Jack's horse had wandered off to the waiting party while he was foolishly lost in his own fantasies, obviously thinking it had more sense than its master.

"Oh." Jack said, trying for regal composure but failing. "Now that we're all here...we should err...head out."

"Of course, your highness." His second nodded, a twitch in his mustache. The rest of the men suddenly developed a cough. Great, Jack thought. My own men think me a fool.

"We've already had scouts sent ahead." One said, trying to conceal the humor in his voice. "We will have a lot of ground to cover in order to make good time."

Jack just nodded, trying to make his face as expressionless as possible. He had to regain himself as the master warrior in their eyes.

"Your highness!" a young groomsman called out breathlessly, running over to them. He proudly held out a slip of folded pink paper up to Jack. "One of the runners just came back with a reply from the geisha!"

Almost rabidly, Jack snatched it from the young man's fingers.

He did not bother hiding the giddiness in his expression as he affectionately held it under his nose to inhale the sweet hint of her perfume.

The men this time also did not bother holding back their amused laughter.

The sun would soon set and Ashi would need to find shelter. The tall trees loomed around her imposingly, their rustling leaves competing with the shrill cries of cicadas.

Her shoulders sagged in exhaustion from their latest training. The skin on her hands were painfully raw with burning scrapes from the rough bark of trees she had climbed, her knees aching from the long leaps of one branch to another and having to keep her balance to avoid falling.

She walked listlessly, scanning for an ideal place to rest. She would have almost missed it had it not been for her sharpened eyes, someone camouflaged against a tree.

It was her sister, Ami. Her skin was covered with streaks of soil and moss, and she was completely immobile save for the soft rise and fall of her breathing. Like Ashi, the training also had taken a toll on her, perhaps even more for she did not even seem to sense Ashi's presence.

Ashi studied Ami and found that the sash that carried their rations was absent around her waist. Was it lost? Her fingers skimmed down to her own sash, which held her last sour plum wrapped in leaves. Ashi removed it and soundlessly moved toward her sleeping sister. She laid it in front of her feet. As she straightened, she met Ami's piercing stare. She spoke only one word to Ashi, delivered with disgust and contempt.

"Weak."

Ashi opened her eyes, and calmly sat up from her bed. She instantly knew she had company. She turned to the window to find Ami propped near her window.

They stared at each other in quiet assessment. Ashi in her beautifully patterned nemaki and Ami in her dark navy uwagi and hakama with her hood pushed back.

Ami did not bother with greetings. "Aunt sent me. There are changes and we must ride the momentum."

Ashi's eyes widened by a fraction in her otherwise stoic expression. "Does that mean it's time?"

She did not expect Ami's dark chuckle. "You'd want that, wouldn't you?" She said as she took out something from inside her shirt. She tossed it to Ashi, who caught it effortlessly. Ashi frowned at the small cloth bag on her lap. She looked inside to find what resembled tea leaves and cakes of opium.

"You are to start sleeping with the prince." Ami stated, not bothering to let Ashi absorb the news. "These are to ensure you do not carry. You can ground them into a paste or simply ingest them with water."

Ashi sifted through the contents of the bag so that Ami would not see the tremble in her fingers. "So it's time then?" She asked again, trying to keep her voice level. "I am to carry out the prince's death?"

"I did not say that. You are merely instructed to start sleeping with him."

Ashi closed her eyes, a strange fluttery feeling dancing in her stomach. She should not be surprised, this was what she had been preparing for all her life. But the idea of laying pinned beneath Jack instead of some faceless entity she'd conjured up all these years brought new unfamiliar sensations.

"The moment he returns from his trip, you must begin seducing him." Ami said, looking out of the window to the framed moonlight.

Ashi opened her mouth, an unknown question hanging on her lips but Ami intercepted it, coldly remarking, "Are you questioning the will of Aku?" Doubt and disobedience had no place in their world.

Ashi looked away. "No." She denied, clutching the bag tight.

"Ashi…" Ami's voice was startlingly soft, almost gentle. "Don't be weak."

"I'm not"—

But when Ashi turned her gaze back to the window, Ami had already gone.

This chapter was originally intended to be much longer but I decided to split the other half for the next chapter for an easier digest. As always, comments are loved and appreciated. I also intend to have the next chapter of the collaborative Yours and Mine done soon. Thank you and any errors spotted will be fixed later. Happy New Year!