Motonari Mōri

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The room was filled with books stacked floor to ceiling, wall to wall. If there was any sort of system of organization, it was known only to the master of these rooms. (And the collection had expanded to take up multiple rooms and was slowly edging its way towards the courtyard.) Somewhere amidst the neatly-bound forest was the former head of the Mōri clan, fast asleep with yet another book open on his chest. He'd retreated to his study some time after breakfast and no one had heard from him since. This was generally the way of things, but it seemed there was one member of the household that never quite caught on to that.

"MY LORD! MY LORD, WHERE ARE YOU?!" Terumoto's voice was enough to wake the dead and more than enough to wake his grandfather, who was only (poorly) pretending to be dead. Motonari opened one eye, then the other, and blinked wearily at the ceiling. This was always the hardest part of situations like these. Calling out would only encourage the boy to keep coming to him with every single little problem he ran into with day to day clan business. Staying quiet and trying to go back to sleep would only make Terumoto worry and start throwing open doors and tossing aside screens to find him. Generally, he banked on Motoharu or Takakage or some merciful servant to take care of the situation so he could nap in peace.

Motonari sighed and struggled up into a seated position, much to the protest of his bones, his muscles, basically his entire aging body. He found a piece of scrap paper to mark his book and set it aside on a nearby pile.

"Maybe I should store a futon in here..." he muttered quietly to himself as he rubbed at his eyes, "But sleeping surrounded by all these books might cause some more strange dreams..." He'd had quite a strange one this time and he blamed his readings on the founding of the Zhou Dynasty for it. He squinted at the book he'd just placed on the top of the stack, then picked it up and placed it high up on a different stack and replaced it with another. The tale of the Heike was old and familiar and he was fairly certain it wouldn't prompt any nightmares with giant snake demons.

"MY LORD! ARE YOU IN HERE?!"

Ah, he'd spoken too loudly and here was Terumoto...

Motonari sighed and pulled himself to his feet. No doubt the world was yet again in dire peril. Young people always seemed to think it was so. When you reached his age, you began to see that sometimes even things that seemed terrible at first were simple enough to overcome, but the passions of youth always seemed to turn even the tiniest kitten into a tiger. And Terumoto would have enough trouble dealing with the kitten. It seemed that his peaceful retirement was going to continue to be nothing but.