[D9 EN] Princess and Herbalist (closed)

[Bayushi Mineichi]

"Mmh. I can see that. And you do have really nice voice. I feel like I could listen you for hours." Drawn into her as Mineichi was, he was enraptured by everything she presented. Her voice, her lustrous dark hair, her eyes. While he knew that no moment ever repeated twice, this very moment Mineichi was drunk on Yakumo in best and worst possible ways.

"Perhaps there's more to me than meets the eye." he replied, winking. "After all, we all wear masks." he brushed his hand across his jaw, causing his veil to flutter ever so gently. "Few of us dare to show our true selves, we are taught. There are layers to everyone. Some are just more honest about that than others."

With her eyes closed she could not see, but Yakumo could her Mineichi's clothes rustling as he moved, his breath warm against her cheek as he pressed closer. There was a touch on the small of her back, Herbalist taking a gentle hold of her even as she could feel his lips brush against her, ever so softly. "Mmhm.." A tender kiss followed another, Mineichi pressing his forehead against hers. "Go on Princess, open your eyes."

[Susumu Yakumo]

"And do you wear a mask to hide yourself?" she asked, feeling her breathing tense up a little with her eyes closed. There was something about being deprived of a sense that heightened ones awareness to some degree, and she gasped a tiny bit in surprise as she felt the touch on her back, and then her senses shifted to focus fully on the lips against hers, the tenderness returned with stirring embers of passion.

At his cue, Yakumo opened her eyes again...

[Bayushi Mineichi]

"We all do, Princess, we all do." he smirked with a wry smile on his lips. "You, me. Governor General. Everyone. Some of us don't dare to show our true selves. Others don't know whom they really are." There was another kiss, Yakumo now able to see his dark eyes, his pupils a little wide as he drank deep of her. Her ghosts, the voices in her head would quiet again just as court quieted when a lord stepped into the room. "And I am really, really..." Another kiss followed, this more passionate than the previous ones. "...curious to know what there is behind the mask of a songstress." Mineichi kissed again, this time biting her lower lip ever so gently even as he wrapped his hands around her, pulling her smaller frame against his.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Her breath caught in her throat, feeling that unnerving silence again, leaving her breathless and speechless as Mineichi pulled her in close against him. A tension swept through her body as she found herself caught somewhere between dread and arousal from Mineichi's attention, but he would find her surrendering into his arms. He is not the evil spirit, she thought, reminding herself that he was not who she should be afraid of. He was not the source of her fear. Rather, whatever spirit lingered there still was the danger, and she knew not what sort of hold it had on him.

... And wherever its other half was? That was also a concern. Though if she assumed the a gaki like that might've possessed him in a fit of anger perhaps, she was decidedly not going to anger him needlessly.

Finding her will and her strength to squash down the fear for now, her now freed lips returned the kisses with more intensity and passion than before. "... Let's unmask together then," Yakumo murmured between the kisses, her breath hot against his skin, and her pale face flushing slightly pink.

[Bayushi Mineichi]

Holding her tight, Mineichi leaned back, tumbling down on the pillows with Yakumo on top of him, one of his hands slowly moving down along her back. "Gotcha." he smirked, using his 'free' hand to tug his veil off, crumpling it in his hand before tossing it on the table, the flimsy cloth resisting his efforts and unceremoniously falling on the ground. "Show me..." he beckoned her, grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Show me what you truly are." Mineichi tugged Yakumo's garments even as he pushed up a little to kiss her deep. "Show me..."

[Susumu Yakumo]

The slits on the side of her cheongsam rose higher as their hands explored one another, revealing more of the absolute territory as they were tugging at the silks and cottons in their way. Drowning out the oppressive silence from her ghosts, Yakumo lost herself to the passion of the moment, embracing the privacy as they both unveiled to one another.

"I promise I won't bite hard..." she murmured, and soon her teeth teased the skin of his neck as the fabric of his yukata was pushed out of the way.

Letting go like this, was not something she had done before...


/fade to black

[Bayushi Mineichi]

Some amount of time, gasping and passionate bites later, the duo laid on the pillows, the person responsible for cleaning the room having a good reason to hate their life as Mineichi and Yakumo had bumped into the table, causing the tokkuri of umeshu knock down, the sweet liquid dribbling down on the pillows below. The room was a mess - much like the two samurai, Mineichi wiping his face clean with a cloth, Yakumo laying by his side.

"Now that..." he started, having to pause to draw breath. ".. was interesting. I did not quite expect you had that in you." Mineichi grinned, sounding quite satisfied, tired as he was. "You were wonderfully savage, Princess." Yakumo could feel his fingers on her skin, his touch soft and reassuring this time. "I don't think anyone has quite done that before."

[Susumu Yakumo]

It had been exhausting, but it had also been a fun wild ride she knew as she heaved for her breath. A shame about the umeshu, as she very much felt like she needed a drink... but some pickled plum that hadn't ended up on the floor served as a palate cleanser at least.

"Mm," she purred at first in response to his touch and shifted a bit closer to him. Yakumo was too exhausted for words at first. "It was quite something, yes," she said eventually, the words husky and breathy. "Didn't know you had it in you either..."

[Bayushi Mineichi]

"Well." His hand roamed along her spine, Mineichi stroking her neck for a moment before his fingers found their way among her dark curls. "I said we all wear masks, didn't I." His smirked, allowing his hand trace the contours of her body, pressing his fingers against the points he had been biting only moments ago. "There was a time when I was ashamed of this side of me - thinking it wasn't me." The soft chuckled and the earlier events made it rather clear what had happened to that shame. "Still, it's not everyday someone can meet me half way like that. A pleasant surprise, I'd say." he leaned closer, planting a soft kiss on her brow, Mineichi able to taste salt on her skin.

[Susumu Yakumo]

The occassional murmured sound of pleasure came in response to his touches, simply enjoying the act of being touched and caressed. "I can understand feeling... shame, about oneself, to some degree." Hers laid more in the physical though, and speaking of it made her more conscious of the fact that the gloves had come off (literally and metaphorically) during the rounds of passion. As casually as she could she reached for one of the pillows and brought it in to support herself on it more, and tuck her hands underneath.

"But," Yakumo leaned her head against him after the kiss, returning the favor with a tender kiss to his neck, "I don't think people should be ashamed in private, hm? It's not like... intense passion is illegal. If so, I would have to see you arrested, noble magistrate." She smirked devilishly at him.

[Bayushi Mineichi]

He watched Yakumo hide her hands, shuffling closer so that he laid a little closer, kissing her cheek, then her shoulder, laying a trail of tender kisses down her arm - yet he would not try to push her hands out, instead trying to show that he accepted her as she was. He had blemishes of his own, scars earned in the line of duty. Crimson clad they called him - drenched in blood as he had walked out of the forge, in blood both of the rebels and his own.

Yakumo could feel him shiver as she kissed him, hair on his neck standing for a moment. "No, people should not. Well, not at this." he reached to pat her rump. "As for passion..." Mineichi grinned. "I am guilty as charge." Propping his head on his hand, he offered Yakumo his widest smile. "What is Princess going to do about that, hmhm? Is she going to apprehend me?" he teased Yakumo. She already had had him on his back, rather literally.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Sensing his intentions as she felt the trail of his warm lips down her arm, Yakumo allowed herself that moment of vulnerability that she rarely gave, shifting her arm and hand to be freed from concealment and allowing the kisses to continue in the direction of her hand and miscolored fingers. Her inhaled breath turned a bit sharp, a small sign of her initial surprise that he did not seem to mind, and over the caresses displayed to the parts of herself she was most ashamed of.

"Mm... maybe?" she giggled softly, voice still a bit husky. "Or, maybe I'd douse you with some purifying waters, you sinful man." Yakumo teased, kissing him once more, this time over one of the bitemarks on his chest.

And if it would be as easy as that to rid Mineichi of this spirit, she'd do that in a heartbeat.

[Bayushi Mineichi]

Mineichi would not only kiss her palms, but also nibble her fingers tenderly to show that he did not care how he skin looked, his eyes intent on her to make sure that he would stop should she wince in pain or show any discomfort. "We are what we are." he murmured, giving her fingertips a gentle lick as if to make his point. "Our bodies do not make ourselves lesser, unless we let them to."

"Here I thought you doused me already." he replied with a sly smirk on his lips, gently poking her ribs as he did so, acutely aware how uncomfortably damp one of the pillows beneath his back was. Her kiss brought an end to his jokes, Mineichi responding to her tenderness. "Mmhmh... mhmhm." Pulling back, he exhaled. "So." Mineichi licked his lips. "Are you all this passionate, or are you a special case?" She could see mirth in his eyes as he teased her.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Yakumo gasped in surprise as Mineichi kissed and nibbled her hands, unused to such attention to them, and yet she did not object or pull away. "Y-yes..." she murmured, a touch speechless. It was something she had always been taught to be ashamed of; from her family, from the Crane... Yu, Rei, Koyuki, and Mineichi had all seemed to embrace this flaw of hers.

The sly remark caught her somewhat unaware, her face turning slightly red while she bit her lower lip, half-embarrassed and half-thinking back to the moment in question. "Ah... this, hm, was more a special case, I'd say. I don't think I've ever been as unrestrained as this before." Truth be told, she was often the more passive one in these private acts, for different reasons, but with him - the first time she wanted to be in control, to not surrender that to him then. And this time, to lose herself completely in it.

"Almost like it was something driving me, to let loose," Yakumo added, looking at him curiously as she had chosen those words with some thought.

[Bayushi Mineichi]

What may have been flaw in public was rarely a flaw behind closed doors, Yakumo far more than any blemishes her skin might have had. "Our souls are weighed by our deeds, nothing else." he reassured her, pecking another kiss on her brow, coughing softly when he recalled how the Spider might have a different take on that. "Really now? Never before?" Mineichi asked with a sly grin on his lips, enjoying how Yakumo seemed a little flustered. It seemed that the lord magistrate knew no shame. "Seems that I bring out the best in you, then." Best for a given value of 'best'. "It's not all that bad, is it?" he glanced at his chest, her bite marks slowly starting to show on his skin. "I mean, as long as you won't chomp too hard." His tone was teasing, his hand finding its way among her curls as he ruffled her hair as if to show that he not only accepted, but enjoyed her bestial side. "Mhmhm. Really now? Because that is exactly how you make me feel. Something within me..." Mineichi touched his chest. "Hungers for you." A soft chuckle escaped his lips. "Maybe I'm just smitten with you."

[Susumu Yakumo]

"Yes," she murmured in agreement, a bit taken aback still by his reassurances. Because the Spiders did indeed have different ideas about it, albeit hers had been corrupted somewhat by the Crane.

It was a bit odd for Yakumo to feel a bit flustered about it, as it felt different from doing it in the moment and talking about it. "No... no, not like this before," she confirmed again, biting down on her lower lip again as her eyes flickered to his chest too. "And no," a shake of her head, "it's not bad. It's... just different. I suppose I'm unused to this, but it is a freeing experience to show another side of myself. One I didn't know I had."

The words that something hungered for her gave her a slight shudder. It could also be because the night was a little chilly now without anything covering them. "... Have you... felt like that before with anyone else? This hunger, I mean."

[Bayushi Mineichi]

"Freedom comes in many shapes and forms in this city... and I suppose there's such thing as too much freedom. Still, stifling everything that is in you gets tiring really easily. Which is why this place exists." he mused, still playing with her hair. "Maybe Princess just needed to stretch her wings after all the time in her gilded cage?" Mineichi asked, his hand roaming to her back, the older man savoring the touch and warmth of her body.

"Uh.. mhmhm." He looked troubled for a moment, his gaze drifting towards the ceiling. "Yes." Mineichi whispered, swallowing audibly. "Long time ago."

[Susumu Yakumo]

"I do feel like I live in a gilded cage sometimes," she did chuckle softly, "but sometimes even that is a good thing. Though as you say, there is such a thing as too much of something."

Be it freedom, or captivity.

Seeing his troubled expression, Yakumo shifted a bit closer to him. She had a good guess of what that time could have been, yet she still pressed gently. "Oh? Something like this, or...?"

[Bayushi Mineichi]

"Mhmhm." he murmured, distracted by her dark curls, playing with them much like a cat might play with a dangling thread. "Yeah, something like this." Mineichi's sighed softly, his voice now more quiet. "They do say regret is a sin. Yet, one is often left with questions. How things might be." Shaking his head, he cupped Yakumo's neck, pulling her close for a kiss, his hand roaming down along her back until he found something far more interesting to poke at. "I am sure you can guess."

[Susumu Yakumo]

Questions...

She had a feeling that he hadn't quite accepted the easy story the Scorpion report had told of the incident. "... Your wife, yes?" she asked gently, keeping her tone warm and understanding. Perhaps there were more answers to be found, if he opened up more to her. "It seems you were lucky, to be so fond of eachother - a political arrangement, no?"

Yakumo brought her fingers up to his face, tenderly caressing the cheek to assure him that she was here. "Please let me know if I ask to much. I just... you feel like such a mystery, even when you claim to be a simple man. I cannot help but feel... drawn in? Or drawn to?"