Re: ( IC) On the Trail.
Hanako, satisfied that the young man held captive by a ragged grandmother still lives even with a bronze blade held so threateningly above him, glances about swiftly.
The face on the shrine draws her attention, it's features somehow familiar to her eyes, yet never so still as this one. Music half recalled but compelling in it's cadences, graceful dancers arrayed in vivid finery, and a language without the need for words.
The face is that of a woman grown monstrous, once a queen of men, now a queen of wicked kami and demons, a fallen follower of a stern but fair goddess from a far off land, but a goddess still known to Hanako's people, all be it by a different name and borne there by the words of saffron robed monks.
It is not the serene faced goddess alone that tips the scales of karma in that epic though, there is another force for good whose role is more prominent, a warrior of the great cat kami, who laughs at little monkeys and their antics, but fights the demon queen like a lion, or perhaps even a tiger...
All this passes through Hanako's mind in but the second it takes to see it, along with the knowledge that the laughing tiger lord and the angry outcast queen war eternally, but both are potent forces held in balance only by each other's existence.
The armed and dangerous old woman is thus seen in a different light by Hanako than most onlookers would regard her, but the young man's fate is more urgent than her own interest in royal history.
Hanako turns to the two bodyguards and rapidly whispers "We must free the bound man. The woman is also more use alive than dead. Words before blades, but be ready to use both."
OOC: Hanako has a plan to distract the woman in mind, but there's little time to discuss details in these circumstances. If anyone has any objections, and would prefer an alternative plan, this is the time to say so.