The Truth Behind the Poetry

Karin poked her head into the side room where her guests had fallen asleep, feeling much better for a good night's sleep. Whatever the bats had used on her the day before had thankfully not had a permanent effect on her. Aside from sleeping harder, it was like nothing had happened the night before.

Well, almost, judging by the status of the room she just stepped into.

She covered her mouth to muffle any sound at the snoring duet of the hippo and the turtle, amused beyond measure. And then her heart felt like it was being squeezed when she saw her estranged cousin, wrapped around the young Lady and holding her close to him. She was using his tail as a pillow as she hid her mask-covered face in his chest, her own tail wrapped around their thighs and calves for extra warmth.

It seemed like as much as they protested while awake, they trusted each other while asleep. Sly in particular had to feel that way, judging by what she had seen, though now that she had a chance… Karin detected a fragility to Lady's spirit that she hid under her brash manner. Yes, she needed as much help as he did.

With no sound, Karin backed away slowly, tapping her chin in thought. Her waking them up would just embarrass her cousin, and she didn't want to upset anything that was currently happening between them. So there was going to have to be a different approach, and she knew exactly which one.

Sly was warm, and he was comfortable. A dim corner of his mind knew that he was waking up, but he couldn't give a fig. This was the best sleep he'd had in ages, and he wanted to wallow in it for as long as possible. He tucked his head down, the scent of orchids almost comforting, even with the tangy bit of orange underneath stirring his primal brain's interest, as he tried to bury his nose in the source.

Something hard and heavy slammed into him. "Ohayo!" a high voice yelled at full volume. Someone else close to Sly yelped in pain.

He reacted before he had a chance to process it. He reached up and grabbed the assailant, throwing it off of him as he sat up, a low growl in the back of his throat.

Rioichi hit the screens with a rattle and slid down, but immediately bounced back up on his feet. "Meanie!" he protested, rubbing at the back of his head like it hurt.

A hard rap came on top of Sly's head before he had time to process it all. "Don't be mean to the kit," a groggy female said.

Sly's mouth felt dry. He hadn't meant to hurt Rioichi! He'd just, just…

A small hand pressed against his chest. "Easy, sugah," Lady murmured, her curls falling loose from her braid to fall in the way of mask that also looked crooked. She was trying to get him to lay back down, tugging at her limbs. They were so tangled up in each other, he needed to be in the same position to get them undone.

He flushed in embarrassment, quickly trying to free himself and get out from under the covers. Oh God, Carmelita was going to kill him if she ever found out about this. Dead, he was a dead raccoon. He bit back the urge to whimper, and then side-eyed Lady. Why wasn't she freaking out about this, with all her protests about not liking Coopers?

Rioichi skipped his way back over, clambering into Lady's lap. "Again, again!" he demanded.

Laughing, Lady cuddled Rioichi close. "I don' think your mama would appreciate us throwin' yah into walls," she told him.

"Awww, but it fun! And I'm the ninja master, I won't hurt!" he pouted with his protest.

She chuckled, tucking him up close to her. "A tiny ninja," she cooed in what was possibly the most patronizing way possible.

Rioichi wrinkled his nose in distaste but submitted to her affections. He also used her moment of distraction to stick his tongue out at Sly.

Sly resisted the urge to growl at the little brat. "I know what you grow into, squirt," he said in warning.

The screen slid open. "You must share that someday, Sly-san," Karin said dryly, coming into the room as Murray and Bentley rubbed their eyes, waking up slowly with all the volume preventing any further sleep for anybody. She helped start to fold up fabric, eyeing the two raccoons. "Although, when you begin having kits of your own, you had better be used to such an awakening."

Lady snorted, and Sly flushed darkly. "It, we, we're not like that!" he stammered out, reaching for his hat and jamming it on his head so he could hide under the brim.

"Sugah, you're datin' a trigger-happy fox, I don't think it's a concern at all," Lady pointed out.

Karin's eyebrows shot right up and she looked at Sly. "A fox?"

"Just because Carmelita shot you, doesn't mean she's that bad," Sly weakly defended her, and then slouched. "And we're not dating, we're… paused." He didn't want to accept Carmelita's weak attempt at a break-up, and without her around, he didn't have to. Paused was the best way of explaining it.

Lady snorted again.

Clearing her throat, Karin patted one of the quilts draped over her arms, not wanting to touch this with the end of her glaive. "Now that you have settled. Bentley-san, my husband believes he has finished the magnet with your help." She paused and wrinkled her nose. "But I cannot say I trust him with it. Would you be willing to use it to find the necessary bronze?"

"Uh, sure, Coopergiwa-san, but… Can I ask why?" Adjusting his glasses, Bentley couldn't help but get bad feelings from his last little adventure around the village.

"Shinji is clumsy," Karin said bluntly. "And just as prone to pranks as my son. I would feel better if someone went with him to keep an eye on how it goes."

Bentley gulped and looked at Sly silently for help.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Sly looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. Yep, time to rescue his brain. "Well, I think I remember how your Coin Magnetism technique works. I could go with—"

"No," Karin snapped with such a tone of authority that Sly meeped and stood up straighter, wide-eyed. She took a deep breath and repeated, "No. Sly-san, I know you cannot see it, but you are torn apart inside. Some of the more mystic levels of techniques are not healthy for you to use right now. Let Bentley and my husband search for the bronze, and Murray and I to find the wood."

Sly winced, slouching and trying not to pout about being kept out of the loop.

Lady wasn't about to let that stand, though. She poked Sly in the side. "Come on, then. You and I can keep an eye on the kits." She ignored how he winced, and instead the two females started herding the group of thieves off to their respective jobs, even if not everyone was happy about it.

Sly left Lady playing with the kits (it was a very thorough game of hide and seek) to see how things were going for the others. Escape had been tricky, he had severely underestimated how difficult managing three kits could be, even if the two girls were very well behaved. But Lady turned out to be a pro at it, though she'd held Rioichi up by his collar using her cane at one point to get him to leave his sisters alone.

It took a little bit of wandering around, but then he found what looked to be a workshop. He poked his head inside, just as Murray set down a set of wood while Bentley cleaned his glasses, Shinji sorting out bits of bronze. "Oh hey, looks like you guys met with some success. Good work," he complimented them, patting them on the shoulder. Murray's chest puffed up and Bentley raised his chin in pride.

Karin was crouched in front of a strange furnace, measuring the heat with a critical eye. "And now we must use those materials they have gathered for us." She straightened up and gave Shinji a look. "My darling…?"

He coughed. "Right, I am not to be in the forge when the fires are on. Bentley-san, perhaps you could come to my workshop? And I am sure the kits would love to spend time with you, Murray-san."

"Yeah, Lady has them handled," Sly drawled.

Bentley looked up at Shinji. "Be afraid, be very afraid," he said in a dead-serious tone. Rolling his eyes, Murray moved to help with getting Bentley out of the shop to the turtle's sputtering protests that he could do it on his own. Shinji gave Sly a quick bow and hurried after them, heading towards a different outbuilding that Murray also stopped at. Ah, so that was his mysterious workshop. So that made this Karin's?

"Lady-san seems very capable," Karin said, laying out tools on the table. Yep, definitely her space. "Now Sly-san, come here." Reluctantly, he shoved his hands into his pockets and came to see what she had. "These have passed through my family for generations," she said, indicating a leather pouch that had several fine steel tools laid out in neat pockets.

And they were probably in hers or Rioichi's section of the vault. Sly memorized their shape so he could find them once back in their own time. She explained what each tool was and what purpose it served. Murray had brought back plenty of wood, which gave Sly a chance to practice with them. It was…a lot harder than Karin made it seem, though she had hers carved and smoothed down with ease.

Then came shaping the bronze, a long process of melting and purifying that made Sly sweat through his fur. He knew that his own cane had a steel core, that would only make the process worse.

At last, she laid out a series of molds. "Now, I use a glaive, here," she said, pointing to one of the larger blocks. "But there are other shapes you can use. I suggest making friends with a smith, to make the molds. They can help you make finicky parts to suit your own specialty, which is…?"

Sly's brain felt greasy. "I, um. Don't have one," he realized.

She tilted her head. "Did you come into your warrior status late in life, Sly-san?"

He waffled, because he'd gotten some training from his dad before they died, but he hadn't gotten into the skills of his family until he was eighteen. Did that buy him more time? But he had talked about settling down with Carmelita! But what about his family, the long line of Coopers that had resulted in him? Panic ate at the corners of his mind. "I'm twenty-four and I have nothing to add to the book," he realized out loud, reaching up to grab his hat and pull it down tighter like that would help him feel better.

A high, breathy laughter that was slightly muffled made his spine stiffen up, and he turned to look. Lady was leaning in the door way, tail swishing and her mask giving her the illusion of a Cheshire smile. "Sugah, ain't cha a little young to be worryin' about yer legacy?"

He growled at her, annoyed at her completely invalidating how he felt. "You don't get it, Lady Masque. I come from a long line of master thieves. Part of that means improving on what we do and writing it down for future generations! And I have nothing!" He swallowed around the lump in his throat, shame hanging heavy on his shoulders.

"Uh huh." She walked in and leaned on the balls of her feet to get in his personal space. "Two points. Un, you are only twenty-four. And you've been a bit busy if the bulletins on ThiefNet are to be believed, oui?"

"Oui," he agreed without thinking about it, slowly calming down. He normally avoided speaking French, less his native accent start leaking through, but right now the familiarity of it helped.

She reached up, using her fingertips to bring his chin up a little. "Et deux, this is chickens before they hatch, boyo."

"Quoi?" was his oh-so-articulate response.

He felt a slight shudder run through her, but she didn't give him enough time to think about it. "Don' yah need a female you can actually breed with first?"

His mouth would have dropped open without her hand under it. Oh, he'd somehow managed to forget. Half of the reason why they had come back to the past was to stop the computer program in the present from killing female raccoons. Even if he and Carmelita didn't work out, without females of his species, his family was a dead-end anyway. The end of the Cooper line through attrition. "Right," he managed to say weakly.

Lady patted his cheek and looked over to Karin. "Coopergiwa-san, a letter arrived while you were out." She held out a scroll. "It looks like there are some other nobles visitin' Minamoto, and their wives and daughters are havin' a shindig. I thought we could use the opportunity to our advantage but wanted to get yer eyes on it to be sure."

Accepting the scroll, Karin gave it a quick read and nodded. "Yes, we can attend this, see what the other nobles think of Minamoto's actions." She handed the letter back. "We will need that to get past the guards, so please do not lose it. If you will lay out two of my kimono, I will finish with Sly-san here."

With a nod, Lady moved to exit the forge. Only to pause and look over her shoulder. "Two?" she repeated dubiously.

Karin gave her a calm smile that revealed absolutely nothing. Sly was very happy not to be at the receiving end of it.

Later, Sly was sitting at the table in their room, looking over Bentley's recon photos and trying to piece out another clue for lack of anything better to do, when the screens parted. He looked up and grinned at Karin, who was sans mask and dressed very differently. "I take it you are not joining us, Sly-san?" she asked politely.

"You guessed correctly. And you clean up nice," he said with a nod of his head. "Forgive me, I don't know the names of all of these things." He paused and added. "And who is us if I'm not going?" He thought the letter indicated this was for the women only, were the girls going? They seemed kinda young…

Karin raised one arm to observe the dusky purple sleeve. "It is called a hōmongi," she said mildly, expertly ignoring his question. "The color is…dark indigo? I believe that is how it translates. And the flowers are kikyo, or—"

"Japanese bellflowers, also called Chinese bellflowers or balloon flowers," a more familiar voice drawled. "Karin-san, are yah sure 'bout this?" Huh, Lady must have gotten permission from Karin to use her first name. She slowly walked up, and why she was so slow became clear.

She was wrapped in layers of silk, sky-blue over a very muted pink. A darker pink and the same shade of the under layer formed the flowers of the pattern to her kimono, with gold leaves and tracings underneath the flowers that were scattered all over it. While Karin's sash was white, with a gold-on-gold belt and white chord over it, Lady's was more intricate with more of the darker pink as the sash, a white belt with a bigger version of the flowers in gold, and then the dark pink for the chord.

Karin's hair was still in its low knot, but she had managed to smooth Lady's waves into a high and tight bun with a decorative pair of blue chopsticks. The familiar mask had been replaced with a Kabuki style one, picking up the pinks and the blues like over exaggerated make-up.

Sly didn't know what it said about him that he found himself preferring her old mask.

Before he could do more than open his mouth, Lady pointed at him. "Not. One. Word. I am sewn into this, and I am bound from hip to thigh. Don' mess with me, Cooper."

Snickering, he raised his hands up. "I was just going to comment on how… lady-like… you finally look."

Her shoulders stiffened, her tail bristled, and Lady held out her hand. "May I, sugah?" she asked.

Karin coughed into her sleeve, and then slide a pink fan with gold and white flowers on the silk, the steel spines look far too sharp for Sly's comfort, into Lady's open palm. "Of course, but I advise not hitting him with it until you are used to the weight."

Lady weighed the fan in her hands, and judging by how she handled it, it was indeed a lot heavier than what Sly would expect typical fans to weigh. He eyed the similar looking one tucked away into Karin's belt, the silk black instead of pink, and decided he wanted to stay on the samurai daughter's good side. "So I take it you're passing Lady off as the relative instead of me?" he asked as a distraction.

"Yes, with a horrible burn on her face to explain her mask," Karin said with an annoyed look at Lady. "Since I could not talk her out of it." Unrepentant, Lady tugged on the bit of her bangs that was still free. Huffing, Karin looked to Sly. "I trust that you and the other boys will serve as guards? Shinji is staying home to watch over the kits. I expect to come home to complete mayhem and three exhausted children."

He nodded. "Sure, let me go get them." He paused on his way out the door, twisting to look at Lady. "At least the mask gives you an excuse not to talk," he teased.

She reached up, brushing his face with the back of her hand. She said…something…in a smattering of fluent Japanese that made Karin cough again. When Sly just stared at her, dumbfounded, she rapped the back of his head with her fan. Hissing at the heavy whack of steel to his head, he rubbed at the tender spot as he went to go find the others. One day, he would learn. He smirked a little though, glad he got to ruffle her feathers a little.

Lady took a chance and managed to herd Karin towards the koi pond that served as a focal point for the elaborate garden. It was a poetry and moon viewing party, so many of the noblewomen were either sitting on soft pillows on the deck or walking slowly together. It made sense for a visiting cousin to get overwhelmed by the strange crowd and seek a few moments along with Karin, so Lady was going to take shameless advantage of it.

"Well at least we know that Minamoto ain't actin' with the rest of the nobles, just on his own," she offered for what little comfort it was worth.

Karin sighed softly, leaning a little harder on Lady's arm as they walked around the edges of the water together. "I was not expecting this tonight…" she murmured. "Is what is happening in the village giving them nerve?"

"Possibly," Lady said with a sigh of her own. "Yah married outside of yer class, which ain't helpin'."

The older raccoon winced at the reminder. It was all the gossips had wanted to talk about tonight, despite gentle nudging by both females to find out what was happening with the red panda clans. "They are not even giving you the full story," she complained with a scowl.

Lady patted her arm. "Then tell me it now, so I can stand up for yah," she coaxed.

Karin fidgeted and looked over the pond water. "I was the oldest of my parent's children," she murmured softly, trusting Lady to watch for prying ears. "All of us girls, except the youngest. My parents needed help, so I helped raise my sisters and kept the household running. Our blood is thick, but with no sons, we were very poor trying to keep up with appearances."

"And then Shinji came around," Lady supplied when Karin took too long to continue.

The brown-toned raccoon grimaced. "His father," she corrected. "He wanted an alliance between the two families, and my father could not find any reason to say no. I think he expected Shinji to marry one of my younger sisters, but…" Now a small smile tugged at the corner of Karin's mouth at the memory. "He made me smile, and he said it was all he needed to know that I was the one he wanted. No one else would have ever called me a flower—I was too grim, too serious. But to him, I was as beautiful as the kimono I inherited from my grandmother, like you are wearing now."

Lady was suddenly very glad that she had been treating her borrowed finery with the utmost care. Heirloom garments deserved it, and Karin probably was counting on passing it down to one of her own daughters someday. "Your daddy must have been so happy," she said sarcastically.

Karin snorted, muffling the sound in her sleeve. "I had to bully him into agreeing," she said dryly. "When it was one of his younger daughters, he was willing to chalk it up as a loss without too much ceremony. But my mother was frail and delicate, not suited to running the household. Without me, he would have to rely on one of my sisters showing initiative." She paused and added, "But after he saw Shinji and I together, I think he changed his mind. Mother, though…"

"Had vapors?" Lady suggested, and then had to explain what that bit of slang meant before Karin agreed to it. Effectively, Karin's mother had gone off about her daughter of noble blood and dignity marrying a common merchant. The response of royal blood and dignity meaning nothing if there is no food on the table won Lady's affections for Karin, who seemed to have her priorities clearly in place. She glanced at the moon to use it as a gage of the time. "Come on, let's rejoin the party," she suggested, tugging Karin to circle around the pond and join the gaggle of noblewomen.

Unknown to them, a series of shadows were perched on the garden wall, the thick stone giving them a wide ledge to balance on. Their big ears twitched as they took in the group, zeroing in on the two raccoons who were separate from the rest of the party. They shared looks and coded chatter, and then drew their short swords, preparing for an all-out assault to get their targets.

Pellets rolled on the ground, stopping in front of the bats and releasing a noxious gas that burned their noses. With coughing and shrieks, they tumbled down off of the wall, desperately trying to escape the smoky fumes.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" a male voice drawled. They rubbed at their weak eyes and looked up at where they had previously been prepared to launch. The male raccoon from the other night who had interfered was balanced there, cane casually swinging.

"Looks like a bunch of bats to me, Sly," a gruff voice said from the side street. Several of the ninja twisted to see a large mammal unknown to them blocking that escape. He cracked his knuckles, and with his great size, he was going to be the easy victor unless they overwhelmed him with pure numbers.

"He was being rhetorical, Murray," the final, reedy voice said. It belonged to a turtle in a metal mechanical chair that scared the bats more than they wanted to admit.

They had fallen into a trap.

Ohayo—Japanese, good morning
Un—French, one
Oui—French, yes
Et deux—French, and two
Quoi—French, what
hōmongi—Japanese, a formal type of kimono typically worn by married women
kikyo—Japanese, bellflowers

Lady—Furisode, sora-iro with momo-iro and sakura-iro chrysanthemums with gold leaves and circles pattern going up the sleeves, legs, and over the left shoulder, sakura-iro under layer, momo-iro obiage and obijime, white obi with gold overly large chrysanthemum pattern. Momo-iro fan with white and gold chrysanthemums. Seen on my dA account.

Karin—Hōmongi, futaai with white Chinese bellflowers along the edge of the sleeves, bottom, and over the left shoulder, white obiage and obijime, gold-on-gold geometric pattern obi. Black fan with white and gold bellflowers.