Kisako was born in Fukabusuru, to a soldiering family. He had served under a lord since before he was a teenager, whether it was as a cupbearer, as a squire, as a herald, or as a soldier. Shizuru had always guided his life. Honor has always been his first priority.
This is why the most difficult moment in his life is when his father asked him to betray his lord. The father had grown tired of serfhood, he had figured that it was time to take advantage of the fact that the lord trusted his son enough to be around the vault. Kisako's father asked him to let him into the vault, where he could steal as much of the lord's gold as he could carry before making off with it into the countryside.
Naturally, this was a difficult decision for Kisako to make, and his decision shaped what the entire rest of his life would be. One puts one's family first, so of course Kisako decided to side with his father He couldn't have known that they'd be caught, or that they would be jailed, or that Kisako's father, on Kisako's testimony, would be executed. (Kisako was, after all, only trying to tell the truth). Kisako's role was much more minor, but he had lost the trust of his lord. He was released from service. This confused Kisako. He had never been without direction. Without somebody telling him what to do. What was he supposed to do?
For awhile, he sat in his empty house and cleaned and polished his weapons and armor. It was what he had done during the downtime before, and he saw no reason to change. Then the food started to run short.
He panicked.
Sometimes, tax collectors would come, asking for money or tithes or tribute or whatever the particular group called it. Kisako gave what he could, but when the money ran out, he tried to turn them away. After a few weeks, he simply couldn't anymore and one day, while he was out, he came home to find it locked.
This took him a few moments to comprehend, but in a surprising turn of snap decision-making, he broke in, gathered what he could, and took off again. He wouldn't be back. They didn't want him. He stowed away on the first ship out of the Fukabusuru, and emerged with the birds shrieking in Coldgrass.
