He felt her move early in the dawn, but she didn’t realize he was awake. He felt her softness move away and, with quiet steps, she was gone.

He was allowed a few more hours of sleep than others. Shizue was gentle when waking him up, but, once he did wake up, she wasted no time in putting him through the motions. She took matters in her own hands after letting Shou carry him to the bathroom.

He assured her, that he could take a bath himself, but upon inspection it was pronounced that he was too weak and he needed a through scrubbing.

“Mother! Please,” Kuro pleaded. He tried to balance himself on his good foot and hold on to the trousers with his hands, and cover his naked upper body.

“Boy, stop. Who do you think I am? I have wiped your bottom when you were a snot nosed kid, fool. And who do you think was wiping your body for the last three years? Now let me TAKE. OFF. YOUR CLOTHES!”

---

The whole of Spring Breeze Hall was in motion. There was a hum of activity, of stairs being climbed, of things being moved. People sometimes shouted loudly, and carriages and carts arrived through the front gates. He sat in the tea room and sipped tea alone, for Narumi was still upstairs.

The tea room was well cut-off from the rest of the Spring Breeze Hall, facing the beautiful garden, of course, and designed to be a haven of rest from the rest of the manor. He felt very different sitting in the quiet, as if all the noise was distant and far away. He heard the fountain falling into the pond, and the metronomic thud of the sozu.

Ylinat had climbed on the table.

She is like a storm, isn’t she?

“She’s the whole goddamn typhoon.”

He felt defeated. How could he explain to her, that he didn’t remember her as a mother - that he had just met her in the night? There was no way. She was his mother - yes, in this reality that he had thought of protecting, she was - but that wasn’t what his body was listening to.

In the end, she had climbed in with a brush and soap. And, he felt embarrassed. He realized she really loved her son, and he again felt guilty for not being that.

The good news is that we have accomplished the first part.

“Huh?”

Castle Hisaka. The news from my morning rounds has been that there are preparations ongoing to leave for Castle Hisaka.

“Interesting.” And he closed his eyes for a moment to try to not think about Shizue’s wet clothes.

---

Various things happened in the course of the day. Narumi was running around the house, asking him what books he wanted to be carried.

“We’re going the Castle Hisaka!”, she said, all excited. “It’s a great place. The library is even larger than ours.”

“We have a library?”

“Of course we do, silly Kuro-nii.”

He should have sat and read there. That was a missed opportunity. “But the one in Castle Hisaka is wayyy larger,” she said, and hurried off.

Kuro managed to walk on his crutch across the tea-room and climb down a couple of steps to a large flat stone slab that served as an impromptu bench. His feet felt numb from the cold - the frost of the morning still visible as droplets clinging to the leaves - which was good in one way, because the pain seemed not to have lessened. It was more or less constantly there. The walk was an improvement on the number of steps he had managed without the pain flaring up, however.

And the late morning sun felt good on his face.

Shizue spotted him sitting out in the cold. While he was lost in thought, watching his breath turn to fog, which then caught the wind to float away, she came up quietly across the red arch bridge.

“Just because I’m busy organizing things, doesn’t mean I’m not watching you, mister,” she said, and put a thick woolen jacket around him. “Don’t sit without your winter haori outside. Hey, mister, look at me.”

Kuro found it very difficult to look into those green and grey eyes while the morning sun fell in that specific angle which made them look more beautiful than the light from the candle in the night. She pointed at her eyes with her index and middle fingers, and pointed them back at him. “I’m watching you, mister. I always have my eyes on you. You’re not catching a cold. Hmmmph, hey, look at me.”

“Yes, mother.”

“Yes, mother,” she mocked him in a silly voice, and went away.

---

“We’re going to have lunch in the garden, so stay there,” Narumi shouted after an hour or so.

And the promise was delivered. They walked all the way to the larger pond, into the pavilion with the wooden benches. Shizue - for some reason Kuro kept thinking of her as Shizue and not mother - walked beside him. She said they would be having a hot pot lunch. And that is precisely what they got.

The servants walked by with various utensils: plates of ceramic and glass, goblets and jugs of copper, and finally a large iron pot. Even as the three of them took their seats, they were setting up a little fire at the base of the pot.

“Let’s have lunch then!” Shizue said. “Kuro, is your foot okay?” she added.

“It’s fine; it’s improving.” He lied.

When the servants had finally left, serving them hot noodles and broth, with slices of flavourful pork chops, along with a soup of vegetables, Kuro observed something. “We should have invited the servants to eat with us. They never do.”

Shizue was chewing an slice of pork so it took her some time to say anything. “Well, I thought we should have a lunch just for us.”

“I just find it strange, for some reason. Jun has helped me the most after I woke up, just after Narumi. And Shou too.”

“For one thing,” she answer in her motherly tone. “That is tradition. What is tradition, is generally frowned upon to break. Especially by your honourable father.”

A stickler for rules.

“Why didn’t father come with you?” Narumi said.

She looked at her, and frowned. “Narumi …” A touchy subject.

“Did he even read the letter?”

Shizue put her bowl and hashi down. “Yes, he did. But, since I had to leave early morning, he couldn’t just leave all of Castle Hisaka to fend for itself.”

“I’m not ten, mother…”

“No. That’s the truth. He’s a very important, and busy, man. The Prince is coming, okay? That’s why we have to leave today evening as well. We have to reach day after tomorrow. Besides, your brother is due to arrive during the time as well.”

“Naoya-nii? When?”

“Day after, but … I can’t be sure, sweetie. He’s travelling with the Prince. Maybe the day after the swine, or maybe before.”

“Swine?” Kuro asked, surprised.

“Nii-chan, the family past-time is hating on the Prince Hidenori.”

“What she said,” Shizue said, and slurped on a long noodle string.

“Except, not in front of father,” Narumi added.

“What she said,” Shizue confirmed, while chewing.

Kuro ate his noodles with care.

“We support the Prince Narihira,” Narumi continued.

“Narihira.”

“He’s more gentle, and more thoughtful, and more handsome than that bloody, filthy swine!”

“Young lady, language, hello? Your mother is sitting right here.”

Trivialities.

“You will love Castle Hisaka,” Shizue said, with a sarcastic tone. “And all its courtly affairs, Kuro. I can already see the excitement on your face.”

“Too many new names,” he said. “They’ll come and go. I just can’t seem to remember them. Then names of a hundred nobles?”

“That’s the job!” Shizue said, picking up a piece of chicken in the sauce.

“You’ll like it, nii-chan,” Narumi told him. “There will be all sorts of people. Even mages and seers from Navori.”

Mages?

“It might seem like a farce, but this is politics, and they will all squabble about with their petty plans to corner more amount of influence in the capitals. So, along with a Prince follow all the plans, intrigues, and plots of the petty nobles in his court. But I think this will be a good change of pace for you. Maybe, not. I don’t know, and that’s why we are taking Doctor Ryomon with us.”

“You’ll be all the news, nii-chan,” Narumi turned to him. “The letter would have leaked, by now. All the girls would be like, ‘Oh… who is the mysterious young man’?”

“Oh, please.”

“Am I right, Mother?”

“I hope not,” Shizue said. “Look at your brother’s eyes, and his cute, pouty frown. Do you think he wants more attention?”

“I want to go to the library, and read,” Kuro said.

And, find out what mischief is afoot.

“And I hope,” Narumi said. “Father won’t set me up with another idiot again. And also that he will forgive Kuro-nii.”

Shizue found herself startled, and for a moment, the little flickering flame could be heard on the table. She composed herself, however.

“Narumi, young lady, please have your stew AND your vegetables. Don’t just gorge on the pork.” And after she steadied herself, she set down her chopsticks, and drank her soup in one go.

“Kuro, there is nothing to forgive.”

“I don’t remember it anyway. I don’t even remember how my father looks.”

“That is true. And, know this, that there was a disagreement between you and your father three years ago. He’s a much changed man. Things happen, and we change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. And … he has changed. For the good.” And then she took pause and added in the faintest of whispers, “At least for you.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t want to tell you,” Shizue said. Her piercing stare caught him off-guard. He dropped the final piece of pork from his chopsticks to the ground.

“Sometimes, we shouldn’t let the past colour our present,” she said. “Learn from it, but see the colours as they come to you. Sometimes, the colours fade, sometimes they become brighter. Who am I to think of how they looked yesterday? That’s all I will say about it.”

“I understand,” Kuro said.

“You do?”

“I am a new person. I don’t care about the past. Just the now.”

She thought for a moment. Then, reached across the table to squeeze his cheeks.

“Oh, my cute little wise man!”

“Stop! Please, Shiz – mother”

Narumi was laughing.

“Narumi, I’m going to set him up with all the girls in the entire royal court. He’s going to be so popular. Your father will think I’m a genius.”

After their teasing had ended, and most of the bowls were empty, Kuro said, “They’ll only see a skeleton.” No ghosts from the past. Just an empty skeleton.