<div class="floatright">(http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff383/Idariel1/Sparrow5ichi_31-560x315.jpg)</div><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Name:</strong>   Suzume Chiyu  (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=122669.msg5439531#msg5439531)</span><br/><br/><strong>Sex/Age:</strong>Female, 18<br/><br/><strong>Hair:</strong>Black and straight.<br/><br/><strong>Eyes:</strong>Black<br/><br/><strong>Height/wight:</strong>5' (1.52 meters) and 90 pounds (40.82 kg)<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Proper Description</div><div class="spoiler_body">Pretty, and deeply introspective. Sometimes seems to shut the world out. Someone who manages to be lonely even in a crowded room. Bright, but with a brittle quality. She has thin, clever fingers equally adept on an instrument or healing a patient. Her smile brings to mind not the rising of the sun, glorious, changing everything, but a shooting star, glorious still, but doomed to end in darkness.<br/>She has dark, mysterious eyes, often seeming to be looking at some inner scene, and soft, feather soft hair. Her skin is flawless and her features carry some of her great-aunt's beauty.</div></div><br/><strong>Time:</strong>1120 - Crane Town, Day 1 – Arrival<br/><br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Kyou<br/><br/><strong>Musical Inspiration:</strong>Blackbird, (http://youtu.be/lwhbcdbkeXY) by Alter Bridge<br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Blackbird lyrics</div><div class="spoiler_body">Blackbird from Alter Bridge's album Blackbird<br/><br/>The willow it weeps today<br/>A breeze from the distance is calling your name<br/>Unfurl your black wings and wait<br/>Across the horizon it's coming to sweep you away<br/>It's coming to sweep you away<br/><br/>[Chorus:]<br/>Let the wind carry you home<br/>Blackbird fly away<br/>May you never be broken again<br/><br/>The fragile cannot endure<br/>The wrecked and the jaded a place so impure<br/>The static of this cruel world<br/>Cause some birds to fly long before they've seen their day<br/>Long before they've seen their day<br/><br/>[Chorus:]<br/>Let the wind carry you home<br/>Blackbird fly away<br/>May you never be broken again<br/><br/>Beyond the suffering you've known<br/>I hope you find your way<br/>May you never be broken again<br/><br/>Ascend may you find no resistance<br/>Know that you made such a difference<br/>All you leave behind will live to the end<br/>The cycle of suffering goes on<br/>But memories of you stay strong<br/>Someday I too will fly and find you again<br/><br/>[Chorus:]<br/>Let the wind carry you home<br/>Blackbird fly away<br/>May you never be broken again<br/><br/>Beyond the suffering you've known<br/>I hope you find your way<br/>May you never be broken again<br/>May you never be broken again </div></div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Character Pictures</div><div class="spoiler_body">(http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff383/Idariel1/Sparrow600full-ichi-screenshot.jpg)<br/><br/>(http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff383/Idariel1/Sparrow4ichi4-1.jpg)<br/><br/>(http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff383/Idariel1/Sparrow3ichi_01.jpg)<br/><br/><div class="floatright">(http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff383/Idariel1/Sparrow2ichi_mb01.jpg)</div></div></div><br/>Chiyu glanced at Kyou, her brief, fragile smile lighting her eyes.<strong>“Kitsune Rina will attend. You may remember her from when we were children. She is also a Shugenja … we have exchanged letters since I first went to school with the Tonbo.”</strong>Her time there had been brief and frustrating, but some of their lessons in courtesy remained with her.<br/><br/>She looked on the pleasant town of Tsuma, seeing how hard the peasants worked to keep it clean and  beautiful, the small signs that all was well: strong roofs, smiling faces, well drained fields. A good town, withal. One worth protecting.<br/><br/>She smoothed a hand over her best kimono, clean and magically repaired to a like splendor with Kyou; her eyes lit for a moment, as she imagined their surprise. Two Sparrows, and both in fine feathers? Her gentle, fragile smile appeared and vanished again. She wore a fine traveling robe over her kimono, to keep dust and dirt from the road off of it. Wistfully, she longed for the spell to clean, as well as repair, but her Sensei had not let her choose all practical spells.<br/><br/>A samurai's first duty was to kill.<br/><br/>Kyou had guarded her most gently and determinedly during their trip; despite his towering height he reminded her very much of a Shiba Yojimba, save for the light flirting and pleasant stories that filled the evening. She glanced sideways at his massive form and felt very well protected, indeed. He would bring the Clan honor; it was her own flaw that she wished rather to have him return home whole.<br/><br/>She had not realized how much she missed the stories from home, how much the silence of the Phoenix had weighed upon her, until it seemed to have settled within her. Much like her mother's grief, that would not let go. She did not think of her father's silence the same; his silence had not been a turning away, but a … hearing. Much like the Ancestors, though he'd been so even before he became one.<br/><br/>She twirled her umbrella, thinking.<strong>“Another Fox, some distant relation to her I assume, though she did not say. And the last Shugenja that we know ...”</strong>she paused.<strong>“Kyou-senpai, I ask that you go gently with him. He is Moshi Liang, Centipede clan. He is very skilled, and a little angry.”</strong>He was a lot angry. But no one could change the past, so it was best to hope his fury would alight on someone else while they were here. They walked on for a while before she continued.<strong>“He trained with me, at the Isawa School. You may recall him.”</strong>She hoped he did not; the tall, thin intense young man's eyes had burned with ambition and jealousy each time they rested upon her, perhaps because he was not also a practitioner of Ishiken-do. Obliquely she delivered her warning.<strong>“Like many, he found it a difficult thing that I could sense the Void.”</strong><br/><br/>Her hand slid along her kimono's obo, checking its folds. Callouses from her musical instrument, the hours she spent practicing her Calligraphy and even the nicks and bruises from the trail chores she performed marred the expected perfection of her hands. Fingers roughened from grinding herbs into medicines slid into her kimono, and pulled out her father's unfinished sparrow. She soothed over the softened wood, tracing the places his fingers had gone. Finally she spoke, her eyes distant.<strong>“Usagi Jiro is to be there. My mother mentioned it in her letter. I do not know if … his sister attends.”</strong><br/><br/>The thought of Jiro's wrath made her shudder. He would have been a difficult brother-in-law, being a Hare Bushi whose purpose was to watch over the honor of the Shugenja, purging any who fell into the use of Mahou – bood magic. Now she did not know how to face him. Save simply, and with the truth.<em>My brother is disgraced.</em><br/><br/>She glanced at Kyou out of the corner of her eye, unable to see his expression at her news. His straw hat had many purposes, and one was to conceal his face unless he looked directly at her. Which he rarely did, except when he was thanking her for the food she summoned and prepared each night.<br/><br/>A good companion, soothing and gentle with her when some would condemn her along with her brother. But he chose instead to guard her … she decided to pretend he merely guarded her from all approaching harm, and not from a fear that she still was determined to find her brother.<br/><br/>Which she was, of course. He was her brother and she loved him.