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 All pretense of drunkenness had been replaced by grim certainty.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.
