The Winter Peony (Young Hanzo x Reader)

The Nakodo and the Flower

The silence in the room was thick, and the tension hung like a knife ready to strike. Hanzo, at the age of fourteen, kept his gaze politely to the floor as he had been taught; his father beside him to the right, his mother to his left and Genji slightly behind them. He had been dressed in an elegant dark blue kimono that had two dragons designed in the fabric, and his hair was tied off to the side with a blue colored ribbon. His father and mother were dressed in similar fashion to him, and Genji behind him was dressed in a different shade of blue, lighter like the sky with only one dragon stretching across his kimono top.

He was sitting correctly with his back straight in perfect posture as he studied a line in the wood on the floor silently, hearing Genji sigh in boredom behind him. He felt the woman across the room staring at him, but he didn't feel nervous, this was his duty to the Shimada family, and he would keep the family's honor intact.

"Prince Shimada." The woman said softly from behind her fan, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Tell me, what do you think the purpose of marriage is?" She watched as Hanzo thought for a moment but didn't lift his gaze from the floor, his head tilting slightly to the left with his process.

"To further the family name and honor the ancestors by producing children," Hanzo replied coolly, closing his eyes and ignoring the confused noises Genji was giving behind him. He could hear his brother shifting nervously and knew that soon he would not be able to control himself and have an outburst. Hopefully, this meeting would not take much longer.

"Stand, young Shimada." The woman ordered gently, Hanzo looked to his father who nodded solemnly. Hanzo smoothly rose to his feet, keeping his eyes forward and pulling himself to his full height. He held his hands to his side as the woman rose gracefully and walked around him, the silks of her kimono making the faintest whisper of movement as she circled him. She was an older woman, dressed in a green kimono with a design of bamboo stalks running up the length of the fabric to her obi where green and pink foliage was stitched. Her grey hair was twisted into a decorative bun on the back of her head, keeping it away from her neck and shoulders.

"Strong build, he will be tall," She kept circling him, his eyes locked on a wind chime in the window behind her seat at the far side of the room.

She touched his shoulders with a second fan that was closed. "He will be broad, admirable qualities." She circled around in front of him and tilted his face left and right with the second fan, her face still hidden by the first fan. "Handsome, strong facial features," she leaned in closer, Hanzo could smell the jasmine perfume on her skin and see the flawless makeup she had applied as she looked at his eyes. "He has a strong spirit, an unbreakable will..."

She took her fan and used it to lift his hands and turn them palm up, "Large hands, rough and firm but with the capacity to be gentle." She narrowed her eyes and lifted his right hand, "You have calloused fingers on your right hand...Archers hands..."Hanzo blinked in shock and looked at her as her eyes shone. "You are quick to the point and avoid flashy distractions...You must be on edge with such a long meeting." She chuckled as a little blush tinted his cheeks.

She went back to her place at the other end of the room behind a small knee-high table with papers placed neatly across it. "You will make a fine leader of the Shimada clan, your children will be strong--if we can find you a suitable mate." She gestured for him to sit back down and he did so gently, going back to studying the line on the floor before Genji broke his concentration with a question.

"Wait...What do you mean? 'Find him a suitable mate'?" Genji asked as Hanzo whipped his head back around to face his little brother, shaking his head and pressing his lips into a line to silence the younger Shimada.

"It means we will look over the women in my service and find your brother a bride that will honor the Shimada name by bearing children for your brother." The woman explained a hint of glee in her voice as the younger Shimada's eyes went wide in shock and Hanzo turned back to face the room closing his eyes again. "But it will have to be a blessed match, not just any woman is worthy of a dragon's love." She looked down at the papers on the table and lifted one, the fan snapping closed as she lowered it. "And with the Shimada clan, she must not be a commoner or someone of lower standing, we wish to uplift the clan, so no less than a Lord's daughter or a princess shall do."