Today's #flashfiction Yasuhide's Home

“I'm going out on a limb here.”

Treebeard* #quote

Today Jessica will be over and hopefully there won't be any walruses getting in the way of our elaborate plans again. Anyway onto the flash fiction!

Yasuhide's Home

         Yasuhide ordered his family inside their small home while he took off the large, wide hat that shaded his head from the Sun and hid it in the bushes so that no samurai or their soldiers would find it. Retreating into the home became habit for the family, and was practiced like a fire drill in modern times. Yasuhide's family lived behind two tall hills, along with their farm and family. Just enough to conceal them, but not enough to raise suspicion. At least, unless anyone from the battles next to the river and large mountains nearby. People fought over the river and the strategic position in between the mountains. They didn't care for the hills, since they didn't know farmland existed there.

       Yasuhide's family managed to live there, avoiding having to be serfs under a lord for generations by hiding behind the hills. The lords battled for the nearby space in the mountain and he aimed to keep it that way. Yasuhide wore comfortable cloth sown together of many different patterns. With the many battles his lineage managed to grab a few things here and there when nobody was looking. Over time they've taken apart materials from several people's clothes, even fallen lords, to make practical yet beautiful farming clothing.

        And this day was one of many where Yasuhide hid. The battle happened, he heard the screams and shouts of war. The clashing of weapons. The battle took several waves. The battle lasted three days as both sides took defensive positions and threw out their soldiers in calculated ways. Eventually something happened that never happened before. Yasuhide stepped outside his home on the morning of one day to find a man near the entrance. The samurai went from stumbling to crawling and could only mumble unintelligibly at Yasuhide.

       Yasuhide knew he could help this man. Pull the unknown samurai into home, shelter him, bandage him and most likely save his life. But what of the consequences? A samurai serves his lord and Yasuhide's family would soon lose their luck of being an unknown spot on the map away from all the conflict and ownership of the lords. His family and every generation going forward belonged to that lord as the samurai would most likely report Yasuhide as another peasant to be under his lord's command.

       Yasuhide took the samurai's blade, kicked the samurai over so that he faced the sky and plunged the sword into his face. Yasuhide found this to be a better way to have the man die than letting him painfully continue to bleed out to death. The farmer then picked up the samurai's body, draped it over his shoulder and dragged it far away from his home. With the warrior's death he knew his family was safe in isolation once again.