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+--- Thread: AW I don't mean to be guarded (/showthread.php?tid=11527)
I don't mean to be guarded - Layre - 5/7/2026
Scarred soldier woke with a start. Blearily blue eyes peered in the gathering darkness. The jarring of motion making his side ache. He took a breath and slowly stood on blunt paws. Stretching as far as his fractured ribs would allow. Muscles along back and shoulders rolled and tightened, only to loosen again as he moved. Maw split in two with a large yawn.
Slowly he ambled from his resting place.. He wasn't in as much pain. Each step did not create agony. HE was not forced to take shallow panting breaths. He had rested. And he was ready to get back into things. Though slower than he would normally like. He began a slow trot. Then increased his speed until it was slightly painful. But he could handle it regardless.
Finally, sides heaving. Body aching he stood beneath the moon. Blue eyes upwards. Counting the starts. Moving through the motions of finding each constellation. His gaze easily finding and holding onto the north star. The home star. She had always lead him home. But where was home now? What was home now?
RE: I don't mean to be guarded - Lady Kaede - 5/10/2026
tatsuhime is in the care of the queen.
lady rio is helping to mentor the imperial princesses.
kyoami trains his strength.
when kaede is not with the empress, she visits each member of her own little clan with treats or a small meal. it is important to know how they all fare.
layre has run; now he gazes upon the stars with such intensity that lady kaede experiences it in her own chest.
small steps carry her to his side. she does not speak, only turns her face up to the pale moon.
lady rio is helping to mentor the imperial princesses.
kyoami trains his strength.
when kaede is not with the empress, she visits each member of her own little clan with treats or a small meal. it is important to know how they all fare.
layre has run; now he gazes upon the stars with such intensity that lady kaede experiences it in her own chest.
small steps carry her to his side. she does not speak, only turns her face up to the pale moon.
RE: I don't mean to be guarded - Layre - 5/11/2026
Layre saw very little of the wolves he had come here with. Other than Lady Kaede. Who did her best to help him. Nurse him. He would be every appreciative of that fact. Not that he had been close to death. But fractures in your ribs were no joke. And she had eased some of the pain and discomfort with fetching and being there.
He turns to gaze down at her with a sideways smile. The north star. She always took me home. That is what I Followed.
He traced his nose. That's the lion leo they call him.
RE: I don't mean to be guarded - Lady Kaede - 5/27/2026
leo.
north star.
layre teaches kaede something each time they are together. she has come to treasure this.
her wrists feel strangely emptied. her children are leaving her. she has created a fiction which gives them pride and status, a half-truth.
but this man, he holds the reality.
kaede wonders but does not speak.
in mandarin, in the tongue he is learning, she points and says the word for lion.
north star.
layre teaches kaede something each time they are together. she has come to treasure this.
her wrists feel strangely emptied. her children are leaving her. she has created a fiction which gives them pride and status, a half-truth.
but this man, he holds the reality.
kaede wonders but does not speak.
in mandarin, in the tongue he is learning, she points and says the word for lion.
what else?she asks him, eyes shining in the soft light.
RE: I don't mean to be guarded - Layre - 5/27/2026
It is two fold his lessons. He teaches and she teaches. They teach each other. Learn together. It is something he finds grounding. Because he is adrift here. Unsure where he fits. A knight with ill fitted armor.
Layre knows of the children some of their history their past. But it is a truth he will safeguard. Live for. Die for if need be. He will not repeat that which Kaede does not wish to be told. He will hold her peace as long as he is able. Even if it is to his grave.
It is a struggle to piece the words together. But he figures out her question.
And though it is slow and butchered. He speaks the tongue she has taught. There is Ares the ram. he traces his nose along the beast with horns.
He studies the stars. Trying to remember a constellation a foreign soldier had told him. Once upon a time when they were in a trench far from home. Dying and bleeding and young.
A soldier dying once told me of the four.
He traced the directions. Voice soft. There is dragon of the east. The bird of the south. The white tiger of the west and the black tortoise of the north.
The language halting. The words coarse because it was not so easy to his tongue. But he fought through. Remembering the boy that had died in his arms. And how he had to tell his mama. It had been one of the hardest things he ever had to do.