She dips the brush, composes a haiku.

“Cherry blossom weeps,
Bitter winter wind laments—
Fierce hearts do neither.”

Compliant wives conform. But she’d rather confront her treacherous husband on the battlefield, beneath snapping crimson skies.

“Wielding Father’s sword—
Scarlet camellias bleeding
From my ink-black hair.”

Victory—like justice—is poetic.

Deborah writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.