Time gone past

"Oh, Ashen, yes. I'm familiar with its Empress and her Shogun. He's not a man of many words... but his convictions seem strong. They make an interesting pair," she offered, her opinion neither particularly negative or positive. Venom and Hattori cut a striking couple, although she couldn't imagine the intimacies of their relationship. Did he speak more openly when they were alone? Somehow, she doubted it. How did you court someone like that? Come to love someone like that? A strange pall came over her as she recounted Thalia's reticence. The long silences that had stretched between them.

You didn't, was the answer. You would always be left wanting.

Perhaps the Empress was made of different stuff. Regardless, it wasn't polite to speculate on the relationships of others - and surely Raijin didn't speak of the Shogun himself. But pack of his own could mean many things. "Ah - oh, I'm sorry - is the Shogun your cousin? We've only met a few times, she confessed. "But could you tell me if he's ever any more talkative?" A glimmer of humor lit her eyes from within, sparkling in the flickering firelight that danced between them.