Yukara was tired - being angry took it out of you, and so she had eventually gotten tired enough to just go to her tent in the camp, avoiding making eye contact, and had a lie down.
If she had been awake to see it, she'd have been surprised how quickly she vanished into dream.
Yukara finds herself in the great Imperial Library in the capital, the central hub of the Imperial Library System. The libraries are a good bit fuller than they were in her youth, as the Imperials and the more study-focused Clans made a concentrated effort to fill it with texts on every conceivable subject. She remembered when she was young and at loose ends after killing Shimizu and the Day of Thunder, trying to find her place in an Empire at peace.
She had come a long way since then, she found herself reflecting. She wore a long kimono now, thick against the cold, and sat at one of the many low desks, writing her own treatise on bakeneko. She flexed the fingers of her right hand on the brush, the green tips of her claws showing themselves briefly and she smiled to herself. It was a subject she knew quite a bit about now.
Suddenly, she feels a weight on her old back. "Grandma!" Announced a cheerful female voice. The young girl came around, showing herself to be dressed in Bat colors, her grin with a little extra sharpness to her teeth and eyes like her own. "Mom and Dad are too slow, so I came by myself!"
"Oh, how brave," she heard herself say indulgently as she ruffled the girl's dark hair
It didn't feel like a dream. It felt real. Real like the future itself, but just out of grasp.
She would need more than she had to reach it. And to cast aside her weaknesses. All she had to do was reach out and grasp it.
Yukara settled the child into her lap, even age not slowing her down too much, as she pushed the treatise aside, leaving fresh parchment for her granddaughter to doodle upon.
"Your father is probably late again, trying to teach his students one more technique, one more stance."
She shook her head. She remembered her own days early in the days of the order of Warrior scholars who supplemented the Bat magistrates and army, always trying to fill the day with more effort, more success.
Now she knew the value of a good sit. The reward of a life well lived.
Her husband was busy in his diplomatic work at the embassy, but she still enjoyed their evenings together by the fire, no matter how late she waited.
Some distant thought wondered how she had managed, back when she was alone. It felt like such a long time ago... and how glad she was that it was behind her now.
"Dad's always like that," she said, picking up some charcoal and starting to doodle a cat on the page. "But he's so clumsy at home! He stepped on Mom's tail yesterday. She was really mad!"
She leaned back to look up at Yukara, blinking her big, golden eyes. "What were you writin' about?"
The Yukara who saw the dream saw how far she was from this version of herself... But she could also see the path. It was long, but it wasn't out of reach. It would take changes, a shift in focus that might be difficult, but it was there, laid out in her mind.
Or... she could have it sooner. She could get what she needed now.
"How my own grandmother's spirit helped me when I was struggling to find my way."
She felt that pull, but some part of her knew that she couldn't rush. That all things came in their time. The gifts she wanted had come at the right time... even if she hadn't realized why at first.
It hurt to feel far from a dream, but that was why it was called a dream. It gave you hope in the waking realm.
