Well, this was unexpected. "Oro?" Kenshin blinked up at the boy. He was really insisting, wasn't he? "If you insist..." With a careful glance at the soldiers--they didn't seem to care--the rurouni bowed slightly and accepted the broom, handing Ritsuka his wash cloth.
Named after a day in early summer but born in the winter? That was strange. Still, he'd heard stranger. Maybe Ritsuka's parents had been hoping for spring when their baby boy had been born.
"This one travels," he said, "and is most recently from Tokyo. This one was born in a village up in the mountains--that's where the name came from, this one supposes; the 'red village'--but hasn't been back in...almost twenty years or thereabouts. It may not even be there anymore. It was a very small village." The cholera epidemic that had taken his parents had killed many others as well, and a village so poor could not survive the famine brought by civil war.
"And you, Ritsuka? If this one may intrude, where are you from?"
no subject
Named after a day in early summer but born in the winter? That was strange. Still, he'd heard stranger. Maybe Ritsuka's parents had been hoping for spring when their baby boy had been born.
"This one travels," he said, "and is most recently from Tokyo. This one was born in a village up in the mountains--that's where the name came from, this one supposes; the 'red village'--but hasn't been back in...almost twenty years or thereabouts. It may not even be there anymore. It was a very small village." The cholera epidemic that had taken his parents had killed many others as well, and a village so poor could not survive the famine brought by civil war.
"And you, Ritsuka? If this one may intrude, where are you from?"