Maybe It's Bad Luck. Maybe It's Fate.

She was suitably reverent and though reasonably he knew Ochitsuki had always done right by him, she was still intrinsically linked with the idea of Kiriko. The memories of her, since she'd been the one to host the marriage ceremony, to witness what had happened that day, in effect proof that it had happened. Hattori always strove to be beyond sheer pettiness, claimed he did not hold grudges but here he was, clinging onto the bitterness like a pill he refused to swallow. If nothing else, he granted his own children his grace as at this point they felt more his than hers; his legacy, never hers. They were Hattori's above all else, she was a bastard- even so a royal one- and such had no last name of her own.

If nothing else, he fully intended to put the fae to work- he should have done so with Kiriko too. Offered her too much leniency as the Mistress of the Bamboo, it seemed. He believed Ochitsuki, for the most part anyway, but refused to show as much.

They were kindred spirits, almost, both let down by those they'd put faith in.

Not acknowledge her pledge, he simply continued to stride forward, brows furrowed. "I do not have as much time as I would like to host lessons for my children. They are yearlings but there is much you could teach them about our homeland. "A duty he was foisting upon her, a test somewhat.