She was bent over a small table, a rice-paper scroll weighted with smooth river stones, a paintbrush and pot of cuttlefish ink in her hands.
“What’s that you’re writing, girl?” the Blackbird asked.
“Mind your cards, Captain-san.”
“The way this poor lump plays, I could win blindfolded.”
Akihito hid his pout in his beard, sipped his saké.
“If you must know, I’m writing a book,” the girl sighed.
Michi held up the scroll case in which she carried her work. It was crudely carved of unfinished pine, some hasty kanji etched into the surface.
“The Lotus War…” Akihito read.
“Mrnm. Not sure on the title.” The Blackbird stroked his beard. “What’s it about?”
“Fishing.”
Piotr sputtered a mouthful of smoke. Akihito found himself chuckling, gave Yoshi a nudge. The boy just scowled.
“Very funny,” the Blackbird bowed. “What’s it really about?”
“It’s a history of this war. Yoritomo. Yukiko. Masaru. Aisha. Daiyakawa.” Michi waved her brush over the Kitsune fortress. “Us.”
“Why?”
“So people will remember.”
The Blackbird sipped his saké, made a face. “Sounds like a waste of good rice-paper to me. Nobody ever won a battle with a bottle of ink.”
“You don’t think people should know what happened here?”
“Oh, I think they should know, no doubt. I just don’t think they’ll care.”
“How could they not?”
“Because it will be different next time. It always is.”
“Different?” Akihito frowned at the cloudwalker captain.
“Different,” the Blackbird nodded. “Whatever they fight over. It’ll have a different name or a different shape—religion or territory or black or white. People will look back on us and say ‘we could never be that blind.’ People don’t learn from history. Not people who count, anyway.”
Michi’s reply was sharp as steel. “Everybody counts.”
“Not everybody is a Shōgun,” Blackbird said. “Not everybody commands an army—”
“An avalanche starts with one pebble. A forest with one seed. And it takes one word to make the whole world stop and listen. All you need is the right one.”
“You really believe that, girl?”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s something so wrong with this place it makes me want to scream. And I suppose you could be right, and all this counts for nothing. But suppose I’m right, and I do have the power to change things, but instead I sat back and figured someone else would speak up. That I shouldn’t bother trying. What would that make me?”
The Blackbird scratched his beard, looking slightly abashed.
“Trying costs nothing if I’m wrong,” Michi said. “But if I’m right, doing nothing costs everything.”
Yoshi sighed, climbed to his feet. “Fuck this noise…”
“Where you going?” Akihito asked.
“Someplace a little heavier on the mellow and a little lighter on the drama.” The boy slouched off with his hands tucked in his obi, eyes fixed on the rumbling sky as he walked away.
“Well, he seems lovely,” Michi mused, turning back to her calligraphy.
“Don’t mind him,” Akihito shrugged. “He lost someone. Someone special.”
“Just one? He should thank his stars, then.”
Akihito turned back to the sky-ship captain, brow furrowed. “You make a funny sort of rebel, Blackbird-san. You don’t talk like most of the folk around here.”
“That’s because most folk around here wouldn’t know their tackle from their rigging.”
“Well, why the hells are you helping us?”
“Blood-debt. The Shōgunate killed my baby brother.”
“Forgiveness,” Akihito covered his fist and nodded. “How did he die?”
“Yoritomo-no-miya blew his head off. After he failed to return with that damned thunder tiger your girl rides around on.”
Akihito’s jaw fell into his lap. “… Your brother was Ryu Yamagata?”
A slow nod. “Captain of the sky-ship Thunder Child.”
“Then I ask forgiveness again,” Akihito said. “I knew him. A good man. A brave man.”
“Well, now he’s a dead man. But he won’t be sleeping in the hells alone.” The Blackbird knocked back the last of his saké with a sigh. Scooping up his winnings, he stood and stretched. “Anyways, work to do. Kimono to chase. Thanks for the drink.” A smile. “And the coin.”
Akihito watched the captain saunter away, tipping his ridiculous hat to the serving maids as he passed by. The big man’s brow was still creased and he fidgeted with his beard, running fingers and thumb down the resin-hard spikes.
“Akihito-san,” Piotr said. “Talk me with you.”
Akihito looked at the gaijin sideways. “So talk.”
The gaijin cast a wary look over his shoulder to Michi, leaned in closer, his voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Girl,” he said. “Your pretty girl.”
“Hana,” Akihito frowned. “But she’s not mine.”
“She Touched. She Zryachniye.”
“What does that mean?”
“I can still hear you, you know,” Michi said, eyes still on her calligraphy.