The Descendant

The following is a piece of fiction. Though the period and some of the names may be historically accurate, they tale is solely my creation. Comments are welcome and appreciated.

1.

The snow fell whisper quiet all about her, the stillness of the night making all the world seem to slumber in winter's embrace. Wei Lin continued on her path, the thick, wooden tooth of her geta crunching along the cobblestones. The air was chill but not overly cold and the snow was soft and beatific, much like how her mother had described the ash falling all about the region when the big mountain had last thought to clear its throat. However, here in the city of Kyoto, there were no mountains to spout their ash upon her and the snow was crisp and clean and while she knew she should be wondering over the beauty of the still night, she found herself, instead, wondering if she would ever feel the warmth of summer again.

Where are you?

The voice of her sensei, soft with a touch of sadness yet still distinctly masculine, filled her thoughts and touched her with a warmth all its own.

I am here, sensei. Wei Lin could not help but smile at the imagined conversation.

And where is here, he would question further.

Here is now. Her practiced response would bring a soft smile to them both. She could almost smell the green tea as she watched the cup rise to his lips, wisps of steam playfully dancing around the graying mustache and flared nose.

With a contented sigh, Wei Lin pulled herself back from the pleasant memory to the here and now of the snow and the crunching of wood on stones and wondered if spring would ever come again, for her or for her beloved Japan. In doing so, she became instantly aware of the other presence on the road. Behind her, some 30 meters distant, staggering in an exaggerated gait that showed his drunkenness, came a man, singing an off-color tune and waving a sloshing bottle of what Wei Lin could only assume to be sake. With her solid footwear and traditional, shuffling step, she knew that he would quickly overtake her. So, with a practiced ease, she moved herself to the side of the street and bowed slightly, her left hand floating behind her and under the extravagant train of her susohiki as her right glided across her lap, smoothly removing the folds of her inner kimono. Allowing herself a quick glance to her fellow traveler before bowing her head politely, Wei Lin could make out the thick wool of his ten layer kimono and the black hakama pants beneath, their pleat-less fabric marking him as less than a noble or samurai. His head was hidden beneath a wide brimmed, bamboo rain hat, which swayed to and fro in rhythm with the terrible song. The man passed by and Wei Lin allowed herself a brief moment's relief until he stopped starkly still. The wide hat swept back and forth, before the shaded face beneath turned fully toward her.

"Hey," the man slurred. "Hey there, are you a professional girl, girl?"

"I beg your pardon, honorable sir," she answered, not lifting her bowed head to look upon him, "I am no common girl, but a Geiko." Wei Lin was only painfully aware that common prostitutes in the area had taken to calling themselves Geisha and so a more correct term, Geiko, had been introduced to the local dialect to differentiate those streetwalkers from traditional artists such as she. She was aware, but still found her pride stinging whenever anyone attempted to compare the two professions. To Wei Lin, it was just one more sign of the decline of traditional Japanese values in this waning world. Despite her injured pride and societal resentments, she remained ever so still and allowed nothing to show on her outward demeanor.

"Oh," he laughed foolishly, nearly toppling over and catching himself a mere meter from where she now stood, "so you're a fancy, professional girl."

"Again, my apologies, honored sir," she continued, "but I am currently on my way to an arranged engagement and must continue without delay. Please, have a pleasant evening." With these words, Wei Lin allowed herself to cast a glance through her lashes into the face of the lout. Her eyes flared in her alarm, showing a green flash in her alarm.

"Hey, what's the matter, little Geiko? Don't you like me?" The man's demeanor was stilling, becoming more solid from his former, shaky posture. But, what alarmed her all the more was the black scarf that grew from the neck of his charcoal colored, happi coat to cover his lower face and leaving his all too sober, dark eyes to gleam in the dim light.

From beneath her Obi, Wei Lin drew forth her tanto dagger. The wind whistled as it passed centimeters from the man's throat. Wei Lin quickly drew it to her core, leaving its point forward, her right hand coming to support her left in case she needed to plunge it into his heart.

In an instant, faster than Wei Lin could anticipate, the man stepped forward, allowing the point of her dagger to rest against his sternum at the center of his chest. All pretense of drunkenness had been replaced by grim certainty. "No," he said, "I see that you do not like me much at all."

Wei Lin's mind flew back and forth between whether to strike or not to. His simple yet aggressive step up to her weapon had shown a certainty that she was lacking and she could not help but remove the point a couple centimeters back lest she risk cutting him.

"That's alright," he continued as if she hadn't moved at all, "I'm sure you will like my associate."

Wei Lin moved, the point of her knife cutting behind her toward the new presence she had somehow failed to notice. She cursed her foolishness as a thick arm, clad all in black, encircled her throat, locking itself under her chin and catching her breath in its iron grip. Instantly, stars began to dance before the Geiko's eyes and her lungs began to burn for want of air. Without a second's hesitation, Wei Lin turned the tanto in her grip and sought to slash into the offending arm, severing the tendons beneath the fabric and weakening the arm sufficiently to free her neck. However, her assailant was much faster than she and, in a blur of movement; another hand came down from over her right side, thrusting into the wrist of her left. It connected hard with the tendons there and, as she felt her grip loosen, slapped the knife from her numbing fingers. Wei Lin watched impotently as the blade fell and sank point first into the ground at her feet. Colors began to swirl all about her and she was certain she would soon submit to darkness if she didn't act now. Instantly, she locked her weakening fingers on the thick muscle of the arm constricting her throat. Throwing herself backward, Wei Lin kicked out with her feet, contacting with the other man who had distracted her so sufficiently for his counterpart to sneak up behind her. She ran up the torso of the other man, wasting no time to actually attack him but surprising him all the more. She sought to launch herself over the head of the man at her back, sail over him and break his grip upon her at the same time, giving her a safe position at his back from which to attack from. Unfortunately, he was quicker than her yet again. As if sensing her intention, the large man at her back simply threw himself backward, allowing himself to impact upon the ground behind him. The movement robbed her of her inertia, pulling her feet from the other man. The impact upon the ground knocked the remaining wind from her lungs. Her assailant, prepared, as he was, to strike upon the ground, was not so affected. His arm did not relent.

As darkness grew up to overtake Wei Lin's senses, she looked upward and wondered at the snow now sailing down upon her face.

2.

The snow had been falling that day as well. The sky above was blue with a few, small, white clouds fluttering about like so many gulls, but still the snow was falling upon her, chilling her skin even through the many layers of her susohiki. Her legs and knees ached as she walked; a pleasant reminder of her exertions of the night before. Her first review had been a roaring success, her onee-san; her sister in name if not biology, had gleefully told her that her fan dance had been the best she had ever seen. She had, of course, laughingly followed up with a reminder that she had never seen herself dance. And, with that done and behind her, Wei Lin began her training as a maiko. Her onee-san assured her that she should soon expect to hear from wealthy men vying to be her danna; her patron. This very morning, her housemother had come to her and her onee-san with the most beautiful kimono that Wei Lin had ever seen and, while gasping excitedly for air, had informed them that prices had been coming in all night long. Finally, at the small hours of the morning, her patron's price had been set and met.

She was to meet with her danna, one Miyamoto Kojiro, a samurai of some note and sensei of his own Kenjutsu ryu. She didn't fully understand everything that had been said about her new danna, but she didn't really need to. He was a man and had already shown an interest in her skills. She would be cordial and perfect and win his heart; at least enough to untie his purse strings wide enough for her house mother to collect her price from him. Once upon a time, when she was but a child and begun her years of training in her house, she had dreamed of meeting a wealthy man, of him falling in love her and taking her away to live in luxury. But in those days, her training had been in servitude, cooking and cleaning after the more experienced geisha; staying awake to the wee hours of the morning until all of the girls had returned to the house, being beaten for stepping out of line or for not being as perfect as her housemother thought she should be. She was no child any longer.

The gate to her danna's estate was simple; a plain, bamboo structure overarching a walkway of finely polished stone. His house was extravagant enough, large but simple in its design, but instead of walking directly to the front entrance, Wei Lin followed the instructions she had been given and followed the path as it meandered around the right side of the house, past a single cherry blossom tree with its branches already bared by the cool air, and finally found herself standing before the back entrance. Again, as instructed, she stepped up onto the porch that circumnavigated the house and knocked twice upon the door. Stepping back to the edge of the porch, she knelt low, bowing her head and running her hands in a practiced fashion to remove the wrinkles from her legs and wind up with her hands out of site, at her back and buried beneath her voluminous sleeves. She remained thusly bowed and waited for whoever would come to open the door. Remaining poised and proper, still she waited. Wei Lin waited until the already overworked muscles in her legs burned with the exertion of remaining still and her knees ached to be straightened before the trainee wondered if perhaps anyone inside had even heard her gentle knock. She considered knocking again, but couldn't help but wonder if someone were just inside, waiting to chide her for not following her instructions. It seemed silly, she knew, even ridiculous, but still she couldn't help but wonder. However, wondering alone was not easing the ache in her joints and thighs. Despite her mind's ravings, Wei Lin still did not move.

She was certain she would collapse from the strain when the door suddenly opened. Wei Lin glanced up in preparation of introducing herself and, before the words could even pass her lips, was doused with a wave of grimy, soapy water. She gasped and sputtered, coughing out the bit of dirty water that made its way into her open mouth and finally stared into the darkness of the doorway. She could see the young servant with the now-empty bucket dart back beyond the frame, leaving her standing face to face with an older woman, dressed in a fine kimono with her arms crossed across her thick frame and a scowl filled with a mixture of rage and disdain across her face.

"You will follow the path back the way you had come," she hissed. "Turn left at the end of the house and follow the path back to his ridiculous excuse for a dojo." The woman Wei Lin was quickly coming to understand was the woman of the house, the samurai's wife, stepped forth until her front half stood bathed in sunlight. It looked completely unnatural on her pale skin and caused her to squint until her eyes were nothing but black slits staring from paint encrusted folds. "You will never step foot in my house."

With this, the samurai's wife stepped back to her familiar shadows and slid the door closed with a bang. Wei Lin stood staring at the door with unabashed shame and confusion. Her onee-san had told her often to beware the wrath of a bitter wife, and when Wei Lin glanced down at the grey and brown stains that were quickly running down her new, fancy gown, she wanted to rage and cry. She had done nothing to this woman, had not even met her husband yet, let alone taken any steps to garner the wrath of his hate-filled sow of a wife, yet here she was; soaked and stained and still expected to go and stand before the man who had paid so dear a sum to win her patronage. All at once, Wei Lin wanted to rage, to fly into a furor, toss aside the door like so much rice paper, lock her hands on the hair of the corpse-like wife and pull every hair from her wrinkled, bitter head. All she actually did was to back down the step and follow the path back the way she had come.

At the cross path where she was directed to follow to the left, Wei Lin paused again. She looked right back around the house to the road and her return to her house, and then to the left and to the dojo she could not see hidden amongst a copse of thick trees. Back to the road and back down again her eyes darted, her mind arguing both points again and again; to stay and face possible dishonor for her disheveled appearance, or to return home and face the certainty of it. Her housemother would have to make apologies for her not presenting herself to her danna as well as purchase her a new kimono or pay just as much to have this one repaired. Again and again she weighed her options, coming no closer to a suitable conclusion.

Shish-shish.

The noise came subtly to her ear and Wei Lin turned back to her left. Somewhere, just beyond the beginning of the tree line, she could make out slight movement. The noise, which she was coming to understand had been constant throughout her inner diatribe, was coming from that somewhere just beyond. Her own sense of curiosity, more than anything else, finally made Wei Lin's feet move. She followed the path to the left and was amazed to discover, just beyond the obscuring wall of wood, a splendidly large, Zen rock garden. In the middle of it, his wooden rake completing a circle about the enormous boulder just off center stood a young man, his back still facing Wei Lin. As he turned, the geisha was amazed to see that the trim figure was topped by an equally thin face, the centerpiece of which was a rather long nose and teeth large enough to keep the man's lips parted in a seemingly eternal smile. At first, the features made the man look so ridiculous as to make the apprentice laugh, but Wei Lin's training saved her from such a disgraceful act. Indeed, as she looked on, she noted a sublime air of peace about the man, whom she could now see was only slightly older than she. The man, his thin frame dressed in a fashionably expensive kimono with a stylized wren silhouetted across the breast that marked him as a samurai, extended his natural smile further along the number of his teeth when he finally noted Wei Lin's presence. She folded herself uncomfortably, suddenly reminded of the state of her gown, her make-up and hair, and quickly turned it into a deep bow. The young samurai turned back to his labor, touching his rake again to the soft stone beneath him, just outside of the ring he had just completed. He gestured kindly for Wei Lin to meet at the far side of the garden, indicating the deep brown bench that rested there, and proceeded along his way, dragging the rake behind him with enough skill to obliterate all evidence of his steps having ever been there. When they stood facing each other before the wooden bench, she bowed deeply to him and he joined her in kind before gesturing for her to take her ease before him.

"Are you Master Miyamoto?" she could not help but ask.

"No," the young man smiled and Wei Lin suddenly found his awkward looks beautiful, "my name is Lee Jin. I am Miyamoto Sensei's kohei. Do you know what that means?"

Wei Lin nodded. "You are kohei; the junior man, to your sensei's sempei; the elder man. It denotes a relationship akin to student and mentor."

"True," Lee Jin smiled at her, "and well spoken. However, it speaks of something much deeper. Miyamoto Sensei and I have agreed to wander through this life together; learning from one another and from all that the world has to teach us. I look to him for wisdom and clarity and he looks to me for..." here, Lee Jin paused as if hunting for the correct words, "youthful exuberance, I suppose."

Wei Lin joined him in a small laugh. "I understand," she admitted finally. "In the world of the geisha, I have been chosen by my onee-san, my honored sister. To her, I am imouto-san; her junior. I will go with her where ever she decides I am to follow and I will learn from her as she will come to learn from training me."

Lee Jin nodded sagely despite his young years. "You understand much, geisha, but I suppose that is what my master meant when he asked me to wait here for you."

"Oh, I am not geisha yet," she corrected politely, quickly finding herself warming to this young man, "I am still a maiko; a third level trainee. I have much to learn before I can be called an actual geisha. But, what did you mean? What did your master say about me?"

"That is for him to decide whether or not he will tell you. However, he did wish me to extend his fullest apologies for the way you were treated at the house." With this, Lee Jin slid from the bench and knelt low upon the ground in a deep, formal bow. Wei Lin found herself blushing at the gesture.

"Then, he knew that would happen?"

"Sensei suspected that his wife might try to...embarrass you in some way. Again, please accept my master's apology for the dishonor done to you in his family's name."

Wei Lin, with all the courtly grace she had been taught, placed a single hand on the junior man's shoulder and bade him to rise. "I accept your master's apology and will hold no dishonor upon his house. I am here as a servant and if that is how his wife chooses to treat me, than so it shall be."

"Domo arigato," he thanked her formally. "However, Miyamoto Sensei wishes you to know that no such actions will be taken against you on his property or by any members of his family again. Also, he wishes me to escort you to his dojo where you will find a warm bath and suitable change of clothes waiting for you."

Lee Jin stood and gestured for her to follow. Wei Lin stood as well and thanked him for his every kindness. Together, they walked back to a path that would lead deeper into the wood and to a structure she could just begin to make out. However, so overcome was she with this young samurai's demeanor and treatment of her that she only just noticed that she had stepped partially into the confines of the rock garden, causing a small disruption in the peaceful pattern of the stone. She looked up at Lee Jin and bowed deeply, ashamed by her clumsiness and thoughtlessness.

Lee Jin, placing a hand on her shoulder and lifting her from her deep bow, merely smiled more widely. "Thank you Wei Lin," he said lightheartedly, "now I have an excuse to come back and tend the garden again."

The pair walked on, laughing, and by the time they entered the dojo of the man they would both come to call Master, Wei Lin was certain she felt nothing but love for the man Lee Jin.