Hanae was a dull and plain girl when her parents first sold her to the House of the Red Lotus at Ryoko Owari. She had matured into a bright and charming geisha in the two years since. A Scorpion bushi, Bayushi Motomu even loved Hanae. Most of this success was due to secret aid from her allies among the Bloodspeakers. When in 1166 Iuchiban called his servants to strike out the Empire in a wave of murder, betrayal, and destruction, the patrons of the Red Lotus, friends, family, lovers, would die screaming in blindness and paralysis whith the poison Warui Paseri Hanae sprinkled over the evening meal.