[ A Servant has no actual home, not after death, but the topic of conversation skims close enough to his roots that it makes Douman's smile less serrated. If he were any other version of himself, unmarred by the grotesque spirits of ambition that he folded into his malevolent existence, he might even have felt something warm and pleasant.

(Who's to say that he doesn't, still? He can understand that spark of feeling, and disdain it with whatever of himself he has left.)

Douman laughs, a high chime, and crouches in training-grounds dirt. Long nails rake over soil, drawing characters with a surprisingly delicate hand.

He has no idea that she won't be able to read them??? Embarrassing. ]

"Haya-me"... mmmm, or "ha-ya-me"?

[ 「早芽」, he writes first, then tries a few more permutations: 「疾瑪」, 「葉矢目」. The last one is decidedly more "modern", and seems unlikely. 「魚」 for "me" doesn't come to mind, though he'd find it novel. ]

You needn't concern yourself with upbringingー for a while, I was merely a monk in the outskirts of Harima.