I Want to Know (Day 4 Late Evenng)

[Ichiro Daisuke]

"Yes, if nothing else you can always keep in touch with letters." He smiled. "I have friends in Crane lands, I plan to keep in touch with them that way."

"Perhaps you've met some here that you might exchange letters with after our time here." It was much a question as a statement, not that he was particularly looking for the answer though.

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"Maybe so," Saksaha agrees. That too is a peculiar and interesting thought to her--that you could leave somebody behind but their words could still find you again, and yours find them, for as long and as often as you wanted.

"Already I have met many interesting people. Some I might call friends... though I am not used to making friends so quickly. And I suppose maybe one I will marry... though I could not say who. Not the girls, anyway." She giggles, then sobers a little. "And if I marry away from the Clan, I must write letters to my kin, too, I guess, instead of seeing them often."

[Ichiro Daisuke]

He chuckled along with her. "I think I've met a few I might write as well, and a few I would like to get to know a bit better as well." Shinjo Kemuri had seemed a decent enough fellow. "As for marriage partners?"

He sighed. "I think we are in similar positions, I'm not sure who I might want to marry...."

"Perhaps if I knew what I was looking for in a spouse, I might have a better idea. But I think I'm still trying to find out what that is."

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"Yes," she agrees, rather fervently. "I thought, best not to have many preconceptions. It is not good to come with some long list, things that must be just so, like buying a new yak cow. Especially when I do not think I will be made to choose very early." She picks at the fabric binding the edge of the tatami mat next to her. "Maybe I thought I would just know? But it is not like that."

[Ichiro Daisuke]

"It's not." He agreed with a small chuckle.

He shook his head. "And now I'm really wanting a cup or two of Shochu."

"I do understand though, at least I think I do. I thought it would be nice to meet my potential spouse before I wed them, and that maybe I'd know which one it would be when I met them. But it hasn't been like that."

"And now I'm wondering if I might be doing something wrong."

[Iuchi Saksaha]

Saksaha sighs and nods when he mentions shochu. It would be nice, wouldn't it? ...warm, bright, and sleep-bringing, and a good distraction from these distracting worries.

The sounds of the heavy rain fill the space between them for a few beats before she speaks again.

"I hope mostly that if some man picks me before I can pick him, it will not be a stranger," she confesses. "Maybe this is not likely. I hope not. But how strange it would be, marrying someone you do not know at all! Though people keep saying to me that this is common enough here in Rokugan."

[Ichiro Daisuke]

"It is, though sometimes you will be given time to meet once or twice before things are set in stone. That might not always be the case though. There are people called nakodo, that will decide matches that are beneficial for your Lord, and in those cases well. You might meet in the days before your wedding."

He ran a hand through his hair, repressing the urge to sigh again. "As for me though, I think I'll be picked or marry someone I've had no chance to meet. I beleive it will be the latter though." Too many of the other men are more desirable then he.

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"Hm." She makes a glum little noise. "If it is so common here... you must know people who married this way. Do they find happiness?"

[Ichiro Daisuke]

"Yes." He offered in what was perhaps a lifeline of sort. "From how my mother put it, if you have respect for your spouse it can grow into affection which will bring you happiness. Children apparently also help with that."

He clears his throat, his cheeks becoming slightly pink. "There are other ways of course to find happiness, at least for yourself, affairs are a rather common thing in arranged marriages. As long as you keep it quiet and respectful. Not many find issue with it."

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"Children...." Thinking of her own parents and grandparents, she can see some sense in this. While he'd been alive, though she was quite small then, she'd sometimes gotten the impression that the one and only thing Grandfather had in common with Grandmother was their daughter and grandchildren.

When he mentions that other thing, she also colors visibly, though fortunately the flickering lamplight provides some camouflage for both of them. "I--" she shakes her head and coughs to clear her throat a bit. "Um. Everyone knows that this happens sometimes, but I never--I could not imagine that it--that people would think of this before the marriage vows are even spoken!" She shakes her head in semi-disbelief. "Maybe in some decadent city across the Sands, but... here?"

---
edit: missing punctuation was buggin' me.

[Ichiro Daisuke]

"Aye, here." He nods seriously as his voice drops to a lower level. "Apparently such behavior is rampant in the courts, or so I have been told from some of my Crane friends."

Mind you these had been some of his naughtier Crane friends, bit he could believe it. "I've even heard that in some schools, the students tend to practice such activities... To give them experience with it for their future dealings." Daisuke wasn't going to name any school in particular, but he knew a lot of stories about academy girls.

[Iuchi Saksaha]

Saksaha hugs her knees in again. "My teachers would never stand for such things."

Well, and also, she'd taken her training while still living in her parents' tent, and her gempukku in the middle of a ride through a nightmare land where moments of incautious abandon were likely to cost you your face and/or life. Both of those things had tended to put a damper on a lot of the possibilities for more casual youthful experimentation.

"I do not think I want a husband who would go looking for another woman before our bed is even cold. This sounds... not right, to me. Dishonest."

[Ichiro Daisuke]

"My own teachers never gave us time for such things, at least by the time I started to notice the women I went to school with. We were always moving so much that we were exhausted by the time we stopped for the day. Then most nights there were watch schedules that have you loosing a few hours sleep."

At her words he nodded. "I'd have to agree, I would want my wife to at least give the relationship some time, give us the chance to get along." He would hate to have to look at his children and think they might not be his.

[Iuchi Saksaha]

Saksaha nods to herself. "Your teachers sound wise. A tribe on the march is also like this. Little time to waste, or sleep to waste either." She swallows an incipient yawn. "I hope you get a wife who will take your chance, Ichiro-san. You deserve it, I think."

[Ichiro Daisuke]

"Thank you." He offered her a smile. "And I hope you find a husband who will give you the respect and honesty you deserve." As kind and compassionate as she seemed, she deserved at least that much.