"Ah, no thank you, I have plenty of terrible poetry right here!"
At Lavi's fleeting look of sympathy, Ginshu looks away in awkward discomfort. He doesn't deserve such concern. The Scarbacks may believe that the pain can cleanse humanity of its sins, but Ginshu suffers for no crimes but his own. There's already been too much blood spilled in the name of sin and redemption. He opens the book to a random page and reads the first poem out loud, grateful for the distraction.
"Untouched by dew, rice flowers bloom nobly I gaze upon the snow wearing a comfortable robe As the morning sun rises over frozen weeds If one follows one's path, one will not be lost in love If one strays from the path, one will lose the way of righteousness"
As he completes his recitation with dramatic flourish, Ginshu hides a gleeful grin behind his sleeve and laughs. "Oh my, it's even worse than I expected! He can't even stick to one set of overused seasonal metaphors! And what stuffy wording! Perhaps Mr. Hijikata should have allowed himself to be carried away by love once in his life, hm?" The long-dead poet would have fit in well among Leith's minor nobility - he'd affected a pretentious pastime as a way of showing off his status and sophistication despite not actually having much of either.
"Still, we can't judge him too harshly, can we?" he muses, mostly to himself. "No confusion, no ambiguity, no insecurity... it's easy and comforting to stay on a straight path. We've all wandered down those paths at some point, only to arrive at a dead end..." He glances down at the book and turns the page, murmuring softly as he thinks of his own past regrets. "'The warrant is all,' right?"
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At Lavi's fleeting look of sympathy, Ginshu looks away in awkward discomfort. He doesn't deserve such concern. The Scarbacks may believe that the pain can cleanse humanity of its sins, but Ginshu suffers for no crimes but his own. There's already been too much blood spilled in the name of sin and redemption. He opens the book to a random page and reads the first poem out loud, grateful for the distraction.
"Untouched by dew, rice flowers bloom nobly
I gaze upon the snow wearing a comfortable robe
As the morning sun rises over frozen weeds
If one follows one's path, one will not be lost in love
If one strays from the path, one will lose the way of righteousness"
As he completes his recitation with dramatic flourish, Ginshu hides a gleeful grin behind his sleeve and laughs. "Oh my, it's even worse than I expected! He can't even stick to one set of overused seasonal metaphors! And what stuffy wording! Perhaps Mr. Hijikata should have allowed himself to be carried away by love once in his life, hm?" The long-dead poet would have fit in well among Leith's minor nobility - he'd affected a pretentious pastime as a way of showing off his status and sophistication despite not actually having much of either.
"Still, we can't judge him too harshly, can we?" he muses, mostly to himself. "No confusion, no ambiguity, no insecurity... it's easy and comforting to stay on a straight path. We've all wandered down those paths at some point, only to arrive at a dead end..." He glances down at the book and turns the page, murmuring softly as he thinks of his own past regrets. "'The warrant is all,' right?"