Day 9 - Kyuden Mantis

Follow the arrows for more! "Hail, Lady of the Dragon!" The sailors cheer from their wide-masted kobune as the sea spray mists her face with salt tears. "Ho, Hitomi-sama!" On the pier, a troop of Mantis guards stands, forming an aisle of steel and green-lacquered plate. The banner of the Mantis snaps above high-towered cliffs where the ocean tears at stone as it has for countless years.

She is so small, Yoritomo thinks, watching the woman step from the deck of the small traveling ship. So small . . . and yet something towers within her soul, the like of which no samurai has ever seen before. If it could be turned to war . . .

"Hitomi-sama," he says, bowing curtly. "What is your business here? We have no time for pleasantries. My men sail to reinforce the northern territories of the Mantis." With a waved hand, he points along the Phoenix coast. "And there is little time to make alliances."

"The allies you need are not the ones I bring you, Yoritomo-san," the lady of the Dragon says, her obsidian hand focused into a fist. "But there is something you must know, before I leave this land. Walk alone with me."

"And I should trust you?"

"You trust yourself. Is there any other in the land who can say as much?"

He laughs, and the sound is rich and full. For an hour, the two walk along the beach of the Mantis isles. No one knows what words are said, but when she leaves those lands, Yoritomo dismisses his samurai and stands alone on the beach for a night.

Just the Lord of the Mantis and the thunder of a coming storm.

No man's pawn.

Source: posted to www.wizards.com/l5r on 1/30/00