Michi ni Mayotte Musume

The Lost Daughter Inlet was the famous small island in the bay near Kyūden Doji where the first Hantei found his bride, Doji Mioko, the daughter of a simple peasant. The nearby fishing village was known as Ikieto, but it later was only known as Musume Mura, or Daughter Village. Courts of Stone, p. 71
== The First Empress ==
In the early days of the Empire, Hantei-no-Kami was in search of a bride. His sister, Lady Doji, attempted to find the best young women in the Empire, but none of her selections were able to impress His Imperial Majesty. The samurai of the Doji family set out to aid their leader and searched for someone suitable to marry their Emperor. At one fishing village, Doji Mioko, daughter of a local fisherman who had been adopted into the Crane Clan, had been sent away to a nearby island, Lost Daughter Inlet, to keep her from being taken away. Such was her voice and kindness that she could sing the very fish of the ocean to her side, and her father was made wealthy by the catch that she brought to his boat. He would not lose his livelihood—and his daughter—to a far-off nobleman. When the maiden Doji Mioko was isolated and had no one to turn to but the kami of the isles, the spirit of the island made herself known, and offered no shortage of marriage advice. Eventually, the Emperor ventured forth among the Crane lands and rode to the open sea. The Hantei heard a song borne aloft on the ocean breeze, and he was instantly enchanted, but he did not found the singer. Mioko had seen Hantei on her father's boat, but the fisherman said that the passenger was but a beggar. Mioko had already fallen in love with the handsome young "beggar," and tying a haiku to the foot of her pet bird, she prayed to Amaterasu that the goddess would deliver the poem to the beggar. When the bird reached the Hantei and he read the poem, he declared that he would marry its writer. The fisherman relayed this proclamation to his daughter, but she was deceived, believing the Emperor had stolen the words that were intended for the beggar. She agreed to relay her poem to another woman in the village so that the Emperor would marry her instead. But when the Hantei confronted her, she revealed that the fisherman had told her the poem, and the Hantei resolved to sail with the fisherman to the island one more time. Recognizing the "beggar," Mioko ran out to the shoreline and revealed herself. Instead of sentencing her father to death for his deception, Hantei agreed to his bride-to-be's wishes and forced the fisherman to live out his days on the island instead. Henceforth, the island became known as Lost Daughter Inlet, and future Empresses had all journeyed there to meditate on what it means to join the Emperor's family before they were wed. Winter's Embrace, p. 22
Category:Crane Clan Holdings (TCG)