SS1: A Forgotten Samurai’s Dream

The Daimyo’s estate rose out of the mist like a dream I wasn’t meant to enter.

I remember the first time I saw it — the sweeping tiled roofs, the lacquered gates, the banners snapping in the wind. I had never seen anything so large, so precise, so impossibly clean. My village had been made of driftwood and patched nets. This place looked carved from the bones of mountains.

The riders didn’t slow for me to take it in. They dragged me through the gates and into a world that smelled of cedar, ink, and horse sweat.

The stables were enormous — rows of stalls, each one housing a creature more powerful than anything I’d ever touched. The air was thick with heat and the sharp tang of hay. Horses snorted and stamped, their hooves striking sparks against stone.

The stablemaster looked me over with a frown deep enough to swallow me whole.

“Too small,” he muttered. “Too thin.”

He tossed me a brush. I nearly dropped it.

“Start with the black one,” he said.

I turned.

The black one was enormous — a stallion with a mane like a storm cloud and eyes that glinted like obsidian. He pawed the ground, muscles rippling beneath his coat.

I should have been terrified.

Instead, I stepped forward.

Slowly. Carefully. Breathing the way my father taught me to breathe when the sea grew restless.

The stallion’s ears flicked. His nostrils flared. He lowered his head.

I reached out and touched his muzzle.

Warm. Alive. Steady.

The stablemaster stared.

“Huh,” he said. “Maybe you’ll last the week.”

I didn’t know then that the horses would become my teachers. That they would teach me more about people than any tutor ever could.

Horses don’t lie. They don’t flatter. They don’t pretend.

They show you exactly what they feel — fear, trust, anger, affection — and they expect the same honesty in return.

I learned quickly.

I learned to move quietly. To listen with more than my ears. To read the tension in a shoulder, the flick of an ear, the shift of weight before a kick.

I learned discipline. Patience. Respect.

And the Daimyo noticed.

He would pass through the stables on his morning rounds, hands clasped behind his back, expression unreadable. The other boys bowed so deeply their foreheads nearly touched the floor.

I bowed too—but not out of fear.

Out of gratitude.

He had taken me from the sea. He had given me purpose. He had given me a place.

I rose through the ranks faster than anyone expected.

By sixteen, I was trusted with the Daimyo’s personal stallion. By eighteen, I carried messages sealed with his crest. By twenty, I walked the inner corridors of the estate — a place servants rarely entered.

I knew every whisper behind the paper walls. Every shift in the household’s rhythm. Every secret path through the gardens.

And eventually… I knew her.

Hitomi.

But that part of the story comes later.

For now, I was just a stable boy with calloused hands and a heart that beat too fast whenever she passed by the garden gate.

I didn’t know then how deeply she would change me. How deeply she would ruin me. How deeply she would save me.

All I knew was this:

My life had begun the moment I touched that stallion’s muzzle.

Everything after was fate sharpening its blade.

***

I first saw her in the garden.

Not during a festival, not in a ceremony, not in some grand moment meant to change a life. Just a quiet afternoon, the kind where the sun hangs low and warm, and the cicadas hum like they’re trying to lull the world to sleep.

I was carrying a bucket of water to the stables, the handle biting into my palm. My shoulders ached. My hair was plastered to my forehead with sweat. I must have looked like any other servant boy — invisible, forgettable.

Then I rounded the corner of the veranda.

And she was there.

Kneeling in the shade of a camellia tree, her sleeves pooled around her like soft clouds. Her hair fell over her shoulder in a dark, silken wave. She was cupping a fallen blossom in both hands, studying it with a tenderness I had never seen directed at anything but a newborn foal.

She didn’t hear me at first.

The wind stirred, carrying the scent of camellias and warm earth. A petal drifted down, landing in her hair. She brushed it away with a small, absent gesture — and that was when she noticed me.

Her head lifted.

Our eyes met.

I froze.

Not because she was beautiful — though she was, in a way that made my breath catch — but because she looked at me. Not through me. Not past me.

At me.

A servant boy with dirt on his face and a bucket in his hand.

She blinked, startled, as if she hadn’t expected anyone to witness her moment with the flower. Then she smiled — small, shy, the kind of smile that feels like a secret.

“Did I startle you?” she asked.

Her voice was soft, but not fragile. Like the sound of water over smooth stones.

I opened my mouth to answer.

Nothing came out.

She laughed — a quiet, breathy sound that made something warm unfurl in my chest.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” she said. “I won’t tell anyone you saw me talking to a flower.”

I swallowed hard. “I… wasn’t afraid.”

She tilted her head, amused. “No?”

“No,” I said, too quickly.

Her smile widened.

The bucket handle dug deeper into my palm. I didn’t dare shift my grip. I didn’t dare move at all. I was terrified that if I did, the moment would break like thin ice.

She stood, brushing dirt from her knees. The camellia blossom slipped from her hands and landed at her feet.

She didn’t pick it up.

Instead, she stepped closer.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

I bowed so fast I nearly spilled the water.

“Masayuki,” I said, voice cracking.

She laughed again — not mocking, not cruel. Warm. Delighted.

“I’m Hitomi.”

I knew her name, of course. Everyone in the estate knew her name. But hearing her say it — offering it to me — felt like being handed something precious.

She glanced at the bucket.

“Are you going to the stables?”

“Yes.”

“Then I won’t keep you.” She stepped aside, giving me space to pass. “But… I hope we meet again.”

I walked away before my legs could betray me.

I didn’t look back.

I didn’t need to.

I could feel her watching me until I turned the corner.

And for the first time in my life, I wished the walk to the stables were longer.

***

After that first meeting, I tried to avoid her.

Not because I wanted to — but because I knew my place. Stable boys did not speak to noble daughters. We bowed. We obeyed. We kept our eyes lowered.

But Hitomi… she had never learned how to stay behind the lines drawn for her.

The next time I saw her, I was brushing down the Daimyo’s stallion. The afternoon sun slanted through the stable doors, turning dust motes into drifting gold. The stallion flicked his ears, restless, and I murmured to him under my breath.

Then I felt it.

A presence at my back.

I turned.

Hitomi stood in the doorway, hands clasped behind her, leaning forward just enough to look curious rather than intrusive. Her hair was pinned up today, a single camellia tucked behind her ear.

She smiled when she saw me.

“I hoped I’d find you here.”

My heart lurched. “My lady—”

“Hitomi,” she corrected gently. “You already know my name.”

I swallowed. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She stepped inside anyway.

The stallion snorted, tossing his head. Hitomi paused, eyes widening slightly — not in fear, but in awe.

“He’s beautiful,” she whispered.

I nodded. “He’s the Daimyo’s favorite.”

She moved closer, slow and careful, the way I had approached him the first time. The stallion lowered his head toward her, nostrils flaring.

Hitomi laughed softly. “He likes me.”

“He doesn’t like anyone,” I said before I could stop myself.

She turned to me, eyes bright. “Then we have something in common.”

I froze.

She didn’t seem to notice the way my breath caught. She reached out, brushing her fingers along the stallion’s muzzle. He leaned into her touch.

I stared.

She glanced back at me, catching the look on my face.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re… good with him,” I said.

She smiled. “I’m good with you too.”

My pulse stumbled.

She stepped back from the horse, brushing dust from her sleeves. “Will you walk with me?”

“I’m working,” I said, though my voice betrayed me.

She tilted her head. “Are you refusing a request from the Daimyo’s daughter?”

I stiffened. “I—no, I—”

She laughed, soft and warm. “I’m teasing you, Masayuki.”

She said my name like it belonged to her.

I set the brush aside and followed her out into the garden. The camellias were in bloom, petals drifting across the path like pale snow. She walked ahead of me, hands clasped behind her back, humming a tune I didn’t recognize.

I kept a respectful distance.

She noticed.

“You don’t have to walk so far behind,” she said without turning.

“I don’t want to overstep.”

“You won’t.”

I hesitated.

She stopped, turning to face me fully.

“Masayuki,” she said softly, “I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

I wasn’t afraid of her.

I was afraid of what she made me feel.

But I stepped closer.

Just a little.