EREMITES, START YOUR SCRIBBLING

AND THEY'RE OFF!

Basically took one of my five break days yesterday, though I did get a few words in and came up with our protagonist's name, but I was able to turn around and get some shit DONE today. 2,000 words, and I'd written today off as a break day!

PROGRESS: 2265/50000

It was pleasant, if a bit brisk. The road was trod, and the sun had dried it out pretty well, so the soil was only coming up in moist clumps. The wind bit into me, but I could feel the growing weight of the sun in moments of peace. I passed by fields and meadows, taking note of the first sprigs of life coming about again. Shoots of the roughest grass were popping up, and at the very least I could see a few birds floating overhead. The peasants of our fief within view of the road were few, and fewer still were the ones who noticed me. They gave me a bow, wiped the sweat off their brows, and usually went right back to work.
The morning was pretty uneventful, just the steady beat of steps accompanied by brass jingles and the roll of hills. I think I saw a fox in the cedar grove surrounding the crossroads out to the further reaches of the fief, but that could have been a trick of my eyes. I turned onto the crossroad out towards the west. The air on the other side of the grove had finally become warm, though I did enjoy the cloister of forest smells that the trees and brush provided.
Once you're caught by the rhythm of your steps and the slow change of your surroundings, travel affords you a great deal of time to think. I began to see the castle in my third eye, a heavy lunk of fortress built right into the side of the mountain. My imagination set it against a thundering snowstorm. I had seen Ginga men before, of course, but had not really interacted with them. Burly and scarred, some lacking pieces of their bodies, we would watch their surreal forms drink wine, throw each other to the bare floor of the frigid dojo, and roar. The daimyo, an elderly gentleman who also bore the practiced weight of experience, would ask Lord Utani for a spar. I shook myself from my reverie before I could see that thrilling conclusion. I was just being a boy again. Obviously there were going to be some men like that, but others could only be as old as I was, or even a little younger.
I nudged Bakuma off onto a little knoll and dismounted. Stretching, I took a few paces, and then went to open up my saddlebag for a cloth filled with dried slices of plum. A few minutes into my break, the bright outline of a man on horseback popped over the crest of a hill, heading down the road in the same direction that I was. He dipped into a trough, and by the time he got above the next hill he was close enough for me to recognize. He placed a hand to his mouth and called out, “Damned if it isn't Shitetsu Kaneru!”