Harumi was taking a stroll trough the castle gardens with her maids when she noticed that all the employees of the castle were buzzier than normal. It looked like they were getting ready for some kind of festival. Harumi had after more than half a year in the past no problem with telling the time by their system, but knowing the date was a different thing. She was used to using the Gregorian calendar and the one they used in ancient Japan was all weird and wacky in comparison. She knew it was autum due to the weather but she had no idea if it was September, October or November. Heck, maybe the seasons were different in this time and it was already later in the year. So Harumi had no idea for which holiday the people were preparing.
"What's going on?" Harumi asked while she looked at the courtyard. Dozens of people were decorating the place with colorful banners and lanterns.
"It's the festival of Rippana Kazoku." Rike-chan answered. Harumi dug trough her memories, but never had she heard about such a holiday.
"What is it?" She asked eventually while they made their way back to her quarters.
"As the name suggest, It's a festival to honor once family." Lin-chan explained. Harumi had never heard of it. It wasn't surprising. She imagined that most of the holidays they celebrated in this time were long forgotten in her own time. Most of the holidays in modern Japan were adapted from the west, like Christmas.
"And what do you do during the festival?" Harumi continued to ask while they arrived at her quarters. Harumi sat down at the low table while Rike-chan began to make some tea for her. In her maids eyes their lady often asked strange questions about things that were common knowledge so they didn't look at her questionably when she had a strange question.
"Unlike some other holidays, you don't honor your ancestors but your living relatives. Most people travel back to their home town to pay respect to their parents, grandparents and other family members. It's a quite joyous occasion." Masa-kun explained.
"And are you gonna go to your families?" Harumi asked. Now her maids looked at her in disbelief for a moment before regaining their composure.
"Of course not!" Lin-chan was the first one to enter. "We have to take care of you."
"Nonsense!" Harumi said determined. When she saw her family every day she had more often then not taken them for granted. The thing she wished for the most was to see them again. She couldn't do that at the moment, but her maids could. "When is the festival?"
"Rippana Kazoku is in five days." Lin-chan answered.
"Okay, you three all get a three day holiday. Plus transport to visit your families." Harumi said.
"But we couldn't leave you alone Nohime-sama!" Rike-chan exclaimed. "Who is going to take care of you?"
"I can take care for myself. I wont die in three days. And besides, there are a lot of maids within the castle who can bring my food and stuff. All of you really deserve a holiday." Harumi said, not willing to budge. When Harumi had just arrived her maids ofter tried to change her mind but by now they knew that they couldn't do than then Nohime-sama had made up her mind. All three of them didn't know what they had done in a previous life to get rewarded this much in this life. Although they were still maids, they had an excellent life. Their master demanded they they ate from the same table, they got showered with gifts, their workload was small and now they even got a holiday!
Harumi would definitely miss her maids when they were gone, but she actually had another reason to send them away. She still had made almost no progress in finding a way back to the future, and now that Nobunaga gave her the cold shoulder she just wanted to wallow in self pity for a while. Whenever she was with her maids, she had the feeling that she couldn't do that because it would mean that she was ungrateful. Since they would be gone Harumi would have three days were she could just stay in bed the whole day and pity herself without feeling bashful.
It was the second day of her maids holiday and Harumi did feel a bit lonely. She knew her maids would be back soon and she just hoped that they all would have had fun with their families. Masa-kun had suggested that some other maids would substitute for them but Harumi had declined. She wanted to be alone so the maids only brought her food and helped her with bathing. Harumi wore an thick overcoat while she sat on the veranda by her quarters while she looked at the setting sun. Just catching the last rays of sunshine above the three tops. Today had been a nice day and Harumi had the feeling that after today there would be a lot of rain and ugly weather, so she wanted to saver these last rays of uncensored sunshine.
"Lady Nohime-sama." A maid said quietly while she approached Harumi with a tray. Harumi looked up at the girl with a smile. Chiyo-chan was around her age and had helped her the last couple of days. Chiyo-chan was a timid and a bit angsty but she did her job well.
"I have a late night snack and some calming tea for you." Chiyo-chan continued while placing the tray beside Harumi. The cookies looked delicious and the tea had a strong smell of cinnamon and something else Harumi couldn't quite place.
"Thank you, you can turn in for the night." Harumi answered with a smile. Chiyo-chan made a deep bow and left Harumi's quarters. When she was alone Harumi first nibbled on a cookie but it wasn't really her taste so she put them to the side while she picked up the cup of hot tea. The tea warmed her up from inside out and made her feel nice and fuzzy. Only now she realized how cold she was and thanks to the tea the fatigue got the better of her. She picked up the tray and placed it inside of the living room, closed the door that led to outside and yawned while walking to her bedroom. She could hardly keep her eyes open so she decided to just sleep in her normal kimono instead of changing into her sleeping attire.
Nobunaga listened to a report from one of his warlords. For the last couple of weeks he had been wary of his wife and had tried to figure out if she was indeed a spy. The evidence from Honno Ji didn't lie, but there was still a side within him that couldn't completely condemn his wife. So he had been feeding her false information on purpose. To see if she would give this information to someone. He had send some of his warlords out to investigate of there were any suspicious moves that could indicate that Nohime was indeed a spy. But everything seemed normal and his wife clearly hadn't given this information to someone. He was a lot more relieved when he knew his wife was innocent than he would have imagined. Half a year ago he had made a vow to himself to let nothing come in between him and his goal. When had his wife become so important to him?
With high spirits he walked trough the castle the next day to visit his wife. He had seen Nohime far to little in the last couple of weeks. Without knocking he walked into her private quarters. Nohime had just finished her breakfast. She wore a beautiful kimono with a intricate embroidery design he had never seen her wear before and her hair was tied up in two buns with a few ornaments sticking in them. For a moment he had no idea what he should do, she looked like a goddess.
"Good morning Nobunaga-sama." Nohime said happily while she made a deep bow for her husband.