Touch of the Setting Sun

Sworn to secrecy, the elite of the palace guard also belonged to a warrior-brotherhood in service to the Lord for discreet missions against his enemy clans. To serve him was their highest honor, and their loyalty was absolute. They were forbidden to live outside of their service or conceal their actions from him. Such misconduct was a disloyalty punishable by death.

Without waver, he honorably performed his duty but could no longer ignore the undeniable aching in his heart every time his eyes met hers when she came to tend her mistress in the palace. She felt it too, longing only to be with this man; even though she knew that doing so would be sentencing herself to death, as any mere seamstress would intending to marry a Samurai above her caste. Still, a dream grew in both their hearts that some day he would take her as his wife.

Finding such heaven in each other’s arms, they knew they couldn’t bear living apart. With too much honor to leave his duty and too much love for her to deny, he chose to live his life by both the blade and the heart hiding her away in the beautiful Japanese countryside. They lived in secrecy so as to protect her from his work, but would it be enough to endure against his enemies and his own alike?

The setting sun brought his departure for perilous missions, and with it her ritual in a protection prayer for her husband, yet also deep gratitude for the time she had been given with him. For if it was their last farewell, she was granted to touch her husband one last time and that would be the last thing he would remember of her and their beautiful life together.