Kanzaemon

Kanzaemon remembered the potion tasting of crushed gemstones and a lie they’d once told. They had been the most meticulous scholar in the sun-drenched capital, dedicated to stripping away the flowery rhetoric of imperial decrees to find cold, hard fact. Frustrated by the gilded lies of the court, they sought out the Potion Master, Itame, begging for a draft that would grant true sight. Itame obliged. The first thing Kanzaemon saw with their new eyes was the white marble of the archives weeping in shades of purple. The scar above their eye is from the fall that followed. These days, they can no longer read a scroll; the ink swims off the page as music. But they see the ambition swirling like a golden fog around a courtier. The other scholars think them mad, but sometimes a general quietly asks what color the war room felt like that morning.