The gardens of the Crane were beautiful, even in the onset of autumn. Fumisato leaned against the balcony railing and admired the chrysanthemums and the bellflowers in the castle garden below. He had spent the first part of his life never noticing the glories that surrounded him, and then they had all been taken away — every graceful white-walled castle, every poem, painting, song, every garden. The loss had almost destroyed him, and it was then that he had fully realized that he was a Crane, and that no Crane could live without beauty –even if all he ever did was kill in its name.