Jaycee Woods

Made plans for the continuing story after the introductory “Nature’s Foundling,” the Kedakai series of stories will have 3 types of stories: virtue tales, Lord Akamatsu’s conflict with his regent uncle, and the climactic conflict between Kedakai & Lord Akamatsu about her future, aka who she will marry.

The virtue stories relate to her adopted name Kedakai referencing a noble spirit of good morals. There will be separate stories focusing on each of the 7 virtues in Objectivist ethics: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, and pride. Regarding plot, these stories show her transformation from feral foundling into a daimyo’s cultured adopted daughter; however, she will retain her wild independence which causes her to think beyond traditional limitations. Further, these stories dramatize her evolving relationship with her daimyo leading up to their conflict about her future.

The rationality story will focus on how she determined the cause of the reduced water flow in the Itachi River. The daimyo’s advisors claim that a kami has caused it and must be mollified by sacrifices. In contrast Kedakai convinces Haruki (a Burakumin) to join her on a journey up river to discover that dams and irrigation canals on the river by a rival daimyo interrupted the water flow. (Side note: in talking to Haruki, her initial hypothesis will be that water “migrates” like herds & flocks, so a focus on natural causes instead of supernatural.) This conflict over water rights with the rival daimyo becomes critical to the developments & resolution in the series.

The justice story will also involve Haruki who was accused of a crime by one of the daimyo’s samurai. As Haruki is only Burakumin, the samurai could legally kill him without consequences. Kedakai will argue with Lord Akamatsu for Haruki’s fair treatment, which later leads to a finding of his innocence. However, there is still conflict to be resolved as the samurai cannot be seen to lose face in this disagreement, even though he was wrong.

The pride story will be about Kedakai, the former feral child, learning to play a traditional Japanese instrument as part of her training to be a noble lady. Beyond traditional songs, Kedakai innovates to create her own songs on the instrument in which she mimics natural sounds from the forest. Kedakai’s music soothes her daimyo as a unique value to him, the man who adopted, instructed, and raised the former feral child.

Still need to come up with story ideas for the other virtues. Such stories need to fit within the feudal Japanese setting, exhibit her character development, and demonstrate the value of her untraditional thinking to Lord Akamatsu.