After a certain age, we are all walking around this world in bodies made of secrets and shame and sorrow and old, unhealed injuries. Our hearts grow sore and misshapen around all this pain—yet somehow, still, we carry on.
An old woman tells the tale of her youth and how she came to be what she has become. She has learnt along the way that although all of us are what we are, some of the wounds we inflict cannot be healed, and honour is what makes for adulthood. As her aunt's friend once explained to her, "Everything will be expected of you now. You will need to be vigilant in your principles. Sacrifices will be demanded. You will be judged. If you make mistakes, you must account for them. There will be instances when you must cast aside your impulses and take a higher stance than another person—a person without honor—might take. Such instances may hurt, but that's why honor is a painful field."