Scene #3655: Stinging Whisper

Owner	Pose
Yukihana Masamune	Three days. Yukihana Masamune had said to return to her aboard the One Eyed Jack. The time had passed, and now the swordsmith's work is complete... The forge has changed significantly since the last time, Wuyin Tsai had visited. Most of the equipment necessary for Yukihana's trade placed into storage elsewhere, leaving nothing in the room save for her anvil, where the completed blade rests, and a small table and tea set. Clad in a kimono of pure white silk, Yukihana sits in seiza style, tail swishing behind her of its own accord. She waits.
Wuyin Tsai	Wuyin Tsai left the One Eyed Jack and almost has no reason to return, and every reason to stay away. The second-biggest of these is his own emotions. While kept under lock and key normally, they're more free when he's around Yukihana, a person he barely knows and feels uncannily strongly about. Maybe it's her situation that resonates with him, the loss she's experienced and the way she picks up a hammer as if duty-bound to carry on. Maybe it's something else. It's difficult to think about, and even more difficult to say. The strongest reason is the Buzzing. The last time he was here, he had a fit like he hadn't in quite some time, physically marring part of her home to communicate the mad wisdom of the otherworldly hive. This time... who knows what will happen? Will she hear them, and be driven to claw off her own ears or gouge out her eyes? Will she seek the wisdom of empty sockets, as a voice from the black drips sweet words darkly into her mind? Will it be his fault if she does? Three agonizingly slow days come and go. In the end, Wuyin makes the decision as any Dragon must: with a simple coin toss. The door opens. He steps inside, multi-colored glasses concealing his features again. He's dressed as he was before and as he always is, presenting a picture of stoicism and an aura of mystique. Yukihana knows otherwise, if for no other reason than from hearing the words he spoke before. Wuyin Tsai doesn't say a word. He looks at her, standing on the threshold, utterly still and perfectly silent.
Yukihana Masamune	The door opens, and the fox smith does not budge. Not so much as an inch of motion, not a breath, the only indication that the girl is no statue, are her eyes. Vivid scarlet gaze flits up to lock solidly upon the Dragon, even with those two-toned glasses to conceal them. The silence stretches long and taut for several beats too many, before she finally moves. Slow and measured, perfect and elegant, a formal motion of one arm that displays both the Masamune crest upon the sleeve of her kimono, and urges Wuyin to sit across from her. This time there is no question of if he will take tea; no, she already sets to the formal and pre-scripted motions. A bow. The presentation of several utensils... Matcha poured in perfectly measured scoops, thrice, and then water ladled into the bowl. Tea will be had prior to the presentation of her work, and wholly in silence as she whisks the steaming contents. It is difficult to tell if her gaze is upon what lay behind the man's glasses. Or upon what is behind the man himself, that had etched upon the door to her forge in her wild and terrible fuge, as she holds up the bowl in offering.
Wuyin Tsai	Wuyin doesn't move a muscle until she's made some indication that he's welcome. Part of him was hoping her mask of calm would crack, and that she'd lash out at him somehow. He could take any punishment she saw fit for his failure, and for the damage he'd done. What is the purpose of immortality if you have to live with the sting of failure with no chance for recompense? Something to meditate on, he thinks, but not tonight. Wuyin takes his place. He sees the motions, and he knows what is coming. The Dragon thrive on chaos and the tearing down of the old to make way for the new, but they live for ceremony, for the perfection of an art, and for others to observe how to better themselves through the same. Wuyin knows what she's doing, and he doesn't think to interrupt, moving only to follow her and let her carry through the motions. He wants to turn, and look, to see if what he wrought still remains. He doesn't dare.
Yukihana Masamune	It is an intricate ceremony, even in the perfect silence of the forge left to go cold. Yet her cool wall does not thaw. She does not lash out, yet rather simply turns the bowl, and has a sip of her own, once Wuyin partakes from it, and then sets it down. Tea has been had. And now those scarlet eyes close. Here she lingers, now the silence more from an uncomfortable struggle. She had words prepared. They flee her. And that perfect, icy, demeanor from a moment before resplaced by that of an awkward child, when she manages to clear her throat. Finally she speaks. "I do not know how I came to forge this sword. Three days, I spent lost in a delirium; remembering nothing but the roar of flame, the heat of the furnace, and the ring of hammer on steel." This blade, being the very sword set upon the anvil. She retrieves it, holding it in both upturned palms with a reverence that only a master forged weapon deserves. Even sheathed, there is no mistaking the form of a jian, the traditional Chinese straightsword. One of the four major weapons, and known as the Gentleman of Blades. the scabbard is a two-toned lacquer, half blue, half red running down the length of the perfectly polished wood, matching the grip. Scowling oni faces adorn the guard, twin horns sticking to either side to form the short cross. "I say without ego, that I have forged nothing of this quality in the past fifty years. A portion of my very self has been forged into this blade. It is your blade now. Even after the day you die, it will remain your blade for many hundreds of years; no one but you and your direct line may pick it up and call it their own. I bid you, with my thanks, take it. May it serve you well." The sword is held forth, indicating Wuyin take it. And draw it.
Wuyin Tsai	Wuyin drinks. He watches, and he waits. There is a different quality to this silence. He would say before that the silence was respectful and deliberate. It was a property of the ceremony, and a sign that the two engaged in it would allow it to continue to its conclusion. Now, he would say that it is tense, and nervous, with a growing sort of energy attached that can't be shaken until it's been shattered like so much glass. The silence changes. It becomes one-sided, the silence of a man who does not wish to startle a girl, who recognizes that this is not quite what she had in mind. He watches her, his eyes hidden behind those lenses, seated and unmoving. If it weren't for the fact that he's breathing, even slowly, it would be difficult to tell she was presenting this to anything other than a perfectly-arranged corpse. At first, he does not take it. He tilts his head forward and downward just so, apparently examining the weapon presented to him. He stares at it, the quality of the sheathed blade striking him even now. It looks a touch strange, and a touch menacing, and so well-crafted that these things and more had to be wholly deliberate. Then, finally, after a silence of anticipation and hesitation both yawns, he takes it. Wuyin holds the weapon in both hands, and, at once -- as if remembering himself, as if suddenly realizing that he has no reason to be so hesitant -- he draws it.
Yukihana Masamune	The longer Wuyin does not take the blade, the more leaden it grows in Yukihana's hands. Eventually pale arms begin to tremble, slender shoulders shifting uncomfortably. But not from her position nor the weight. Scarlet eyes glance aside as she still waits for the Dragon to accept his new sword. She was not exaggerating when she had said she poured a part of her very self into her work, the man's last visit having finally brought the turmoiled mess of her pained emotions into a much clearer perspective. A perspective hammered into the very steel, folded in with layers of tears and bathed in shards of her heart as flux. The blade itself is a sorrowful one, the very depths of Yukihana Masamune's woe embedded into the core of the sword with each measured blow before being quenched in her silent, nightly, tears. And that much can be felt no sooner than when steel is drawn from the scabbard. But in that solemn sorrow there is something else. It is not a woe meant for Wuyin Tsai. But for those in his path who might seek calamity. That he may never need apologize to a girl for his percieved failings, when she had already never blamed him in the first place. Light glimmers off the blade, a perfect mirror polished silver, etched with intricate engravings of honey colored gold. A single tree branch winds its way along both sides of the blade, nine bees of gold following the path before them, the paths of each flight marked by thin threadings of further gold that weave swirling and dizzying patterns no mortal eyes should look upon, small crackling arcs of voltaic energies dancing along the golden inlaid etchings as the very sword hums with a buzzing life all its own. She had spoken true when she said it would be his blade. As soon as Wuyin Tsai had drawn the sword, it is his. Even if he should decide to never wield it once in his life and choose another weapon, none other may so much as touch it. "Tsai, Wuyin. I... Thank you for allowing me to forge you such a blade. Knowing it is in your hands brings me a measure of peace that I believe you will understand."