As a historian, I should have seen this coming

@harmori​

“…San…ni…ichi! Mo ii kai?” Gin strained her ears, hearing only the breeze with neither a ready or not yet. The Mōri children may have all been younger than her, but she was on their home turf. Finding them in the grounds that surrounded Greenleaf’s castle would take all her and Shinx’s knowhow. Assuming Haru hadn’t cheated by hiding inside again. Moto probably had stopped that, though.

“Okay!” Shinx jumped to attention out of the curled ball of covered ears and eyes. Gin picked a direction at random and set off at a jog. She’d need to keep the pace up to cover the castle grounds.

    Her father had always made fun of uncle Nari for being a stickler for the rules, she recalled. Hiroko could never be sure how true that was–her father had a way of exaggerating, after all–but in all the stories she’d been told of their childhood together, it was true that most of the trouble they ran into had been mostly her father’s fault, with poor uncle Nari trying to be the voice of reason (and failing). 

    The fact that he was here, outside of the village, certainly contradicted that bit of knowledge though. And–perhaps more importantly–she now had to dread the scolding of a lifetime for breaking the rules herself.

    “What are you doing here?! I thought we were under orders not to leave the village!” | @harmori​

It took every shred of willpower not to bury the poor girl in a smoldering hug. It seemed like the entire family disappeared over night, and every day carried a new ache of mourning. 

On the bright side, relief was an easy enough emotion to convert into concern, then to disappointment, and finally to a softly boiling anger. 

    “The way you put it, you make it sound almost noble. I’ll keep that in mind so I don’t go mad with power once I have half an idea of what I’m doing.”

    Relaxing a little, Ruolan felt herself able to breathe easier. Maybe it was all just part of a cleverly-built facade, but Motonari’s easygoing attitude made her feel just a bit better herself - the absentminded, affable old scholar schtick was clearly working for him. 

     “Even so, I’ll keep my eye on him if he ever comes around. I might be a slow learner, but I’ve learned enough from experience to know that the nice ones are usually the most dangerous.”

     …An adviser. She’d been so bogged down with the minutiae of resurrecting her kingdom, the simple matter of staff had completely missed her. Glancing aside, she lifted her shoulders in a nervous shrug.

    “You’re lookin’ at her. I’ve had a couple people nice enough to come from other kingdoms to help rebuild, but at the moment, the only one advising me is me - and you can see how that’s going.” She laughed, though it came out sounding more desperate than amused. “Why? Do you know someone who’d be crazy enough to pick up such a sh…such a rough detail?”

“Fair enough- not many people are nice for the sake of it in this country.” Hopefully that would change as the wounds of war healed, but it wasn’t going to be a quick stitch. Generations had been fighting the same battle for what seemed like eons. 

Still, a waterfall starts with one drop. 

“Well-- I can’t promise perfect attendance, given their involvement with Greenleaf matters, and they don’t have the cleanest reputation, but I can promise experience beyond compare and, probably most importantly, completely free consultation- save maybe access to restricted documents or histories that would have been restricted to the public.”

What a weird resume to have. To think, technically, he never had a job before. Warlording was on a bit of a different scale.