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foxinthestarsMirrorverse Miboshi is a bastard. (Unfortunately his extended telepathic conversation with Nakago loses something in my haphazard cutting and pasting, using as it does italics in lieu of quotation marks, but I'm lazy...) That's where the scene with Tamahome is going too. The original died in, what, two episodes? We made him our main villain.
I wonder if there's a name for the kind of trick book I was talking about.
Sitting back and looking at my plans for this story, I just have to accept that some characters are going to be overutilized (Hotohori) and others with plenty of promise probably underutilized (Ashitare, Tomo, and poor Soi what with the distressed damsel situation she inherited from our old stuff).
Sometime soon I'm meaning to make a non-NaNo post about self-consciousness, angst, violence, and tropes you don't like cropping up without your meaning them to...
But anyway! Today was on schedule!
Nakago only stonewalled him, only hearing his messages across the barrier.
And suppose I were to tell the Emperor that you were sabotaging the Seiryuu no Miko’s quest on purpose?
What he was doing, keeping Miaka from summoning Seiryuu before she was ready and thus preventing the likely catastrophic results, was the exact opposite of sabotage, but he was aware that the emperor was unlikely to see it that way. Even if it would be only Miboshi’s word, it would be child’s play for him to use his telepathy to light a spark of suspicion in the Emperor’s mind and blow it up into a flame...
After all, you left something very important back at the palace, didn’t you?
So he was going to use Soi as a bargaining chip. Nakago’s jaw clenched, but he maintained the mental wall. Her voice, however, he could clearly hear in his mind; he knew that if she were here and could speak, the woman who had clung to her will and dignity even through all the abuses she had suffered would tell him never to give in. It could even be that it wouldn’t do any good if he did, that he couldn’t save her no matter what he did...
Miboshi taunted him from the outside. Did you think you could keep from me the thing that’s never quite out of your mind? You’re nothing but a pathetic clown to me, Nakago. You show yourself to everyone as the mighty Shogun who commands Kutou’s army with an iron fist and ranks himself above even the Emperor, but deep inside you’re really thinking that you’ll die without that diseased whore!
With a crackle of blue energy, Nakago whipped around in a rage to what he thought was Miboshi’s position, but there was nothing there.
Tut-tut.
“Nakago, what is it!?” Suboshi shouted from the campfire.
Now now, you want to keep this between you and me, don’t you? Miboshi’s mind was so close again that the thought came like a conspiratorial whisper, laden with the implicit threat of what he could do to the others.
“It’s nothing; a false alarm!” he shouted back. He knew that it was laying out in plain sight: Miboshi, I’ll kill you!
That won’t be so simple. Right now, I can see you while you can’t see me, and you saw how easy it is for me to misdirect you if you search.
“Right now” that was the case, but it wouldn’t always be. He had to sleep sometime.
No, no, you need me alive, he argued all too calmly. I couldn’t stop the Suzaku no Miko, but I didn’t come away emptyhanded. Thanks to me, we have Suzaku’s Miracle Healer Mitsukake in our power. Now, then, haven’t I done well?
It sent Nakago’s mind spinning off balance. The Sei of Suzaku who could heal, the only thing he knew that could save Soi... Where is he?
In a place where his comrades cannot possibly enter to save him; I was very careful. So careful, I’m not sure anyone but me could go there, in fact... The thought included just a bit of the reality behind it; not enough to identify the place, but enough to make plain that it was no mere dishonest taunt. Of course, since I couldn’t stop the Suzaku no Miko alone, he will have to wait until our duty out here is done.
This time it was Miboshi who didn’t seem properly disappointed by his failure. Surely he would have killed Yui and her Seishi if he could, but it was now obvious that capturing Mitsukake had been his primary goal in that mission from the start. He had known that it wouldn’t be enough to hold Soi’s death over Nakago’s head, he would have to hold her life as well.
That’s right, Miboshi pressed him, abandoning all pretense. You can’t throw up your hands and say there was nothing you could have done. You have tonight to think about it, but when you give a direction to the drivers in the morning, it’s deciding between life and death. Could you say ‘death’ even if you wanted to, I wonder...?
Nakago tried and failed to suppress a reflexive I can’t. What plan are you suggesting? he asked, struggling not to make it a total concession.
Head them off, of course. Once they have Genbu’s Shinzahou, they still need Byakko’s, and there aren’t so many ways through those mountains for someone in a hurry. I doubt they’ll take the river again, but in any case those black cloaks you and the Emperor are so proud of can tell us which way they’re coming in time to ready an ambush.
I’ll consider it, Nakago answered with careful calm.
Oh, I know you will. With that, Miboshi finally withdrew.
Nakago stood still for a long time to see that Miboshi would leave him alone. His cloak had fallen a little, and the cold evening breeze tickled at his neck. Amiboshi had begun playing Miaka’s song on his flute, and it wasn’t the thing for someone whose heart was already pounding, so he finally climbed up into one of the carriages secure in its chocks. He formed a barrier around its interior, shutting out both Miboshi and the sound; secluding himself that way to think was such a habit with him that surely the others wouldn’t see it as anything amiss.
But this time, he couldn’t think. He knew that he had to, if he was to find some way out of the trap Miboshi had him cornered in, and he willed his mind into motion, but nothing came out of it, and he only sat there alone in the dark.
*******
‘In this way, the Shogun passed the night without sleeping, and when dawn came, he directed the carriages westward toward Sairou, intending to bide his time until he could counter Miboshi’s threats.’
Keisuke sat back again, with a sick feeling in his stomach. For the first time, the book’s picture of Miaka was convincingly recognizeable, but it had given him only a glimpse of her before revealing that she was caught in the machinations of its bloodthirsty villain.
Still, he shook it off. Get ahold of yourself, Keisuke. Demons and mind-readers, it’s crazy, it’s not real. Whoever set this up, it’s not like it’s a secret she likes B’z.
On a whim, he took a handful of pages and flipped through them forward, then backward, in case it was the old trick in which each page was printed on only one side, but every second one was shorter, so that flipping through one way looked normal, and flipping through the other way looked blank, but no, what was written was written and what was blank was blank no matter which way he turned it, and he went back in frustration to just reading it.
‘As the Suzaku no Miko’s ship approached the capital of Hokkan, the white northern mountains came into view far away on the horizon, and snow began to fall.’
*******
Yui and Chiriko had just finished converting the strap on Hotohori’s sword for a quick-release --- they had settled on a simple looped knot in a fabric toothy enough not to slip out by accident --- and were trying it out in front of him and Nuriko when Chichiri burst into the cabin.
“What are you all doing down here no da??” she demanded. “You’re missing the snow no da!”
“But it’s cold up there,” Chiriko said.
Chichiri produced one of her hats from her cape and held it out over the floor. A cascade of thick fabrics tumbled out of it until there was a heaping pile of warm garments in front of her: blankets, coats, mittens, scarves, hats; some knitted, some quilted, some embroidered.
Nuriko laughed. “’Fifty-seven blankets and thirteen coats’...?”
“I guess they’ll come in useful after all no da.”
Yui looked at them quizzically.
“The people in her home village have been making her things like that for years,” Nuriko explained.
“Even when I was your age,” Chichiri said, pointing at Chiriko, “so you don’t have any excuse no da.”
Yui pulled out a pink quilted coat with embroidered blue fish patterns and began looking for matching accessories. “Chichiri, could you take one to Tamahome, too?” she asked.
“I was going to do that no da.”
“But if you could talk to him,” Yui added. “I mean... I can only imagine how he feels, but I don’t know if I should...”
“That’s why I was going to do that no da,” Chichiri told her.
“Have you had any further visions about Mitsukake?” Hotohori asked before she could leave.
She shook her head sadly. “I still just see the same thing no da...”
“The cave we were in?” Yui questioned.
“I don’t know if it’s the same one,” she said, “just a cave with darkness below and only a little light high up no da...”
“Thank you for your efforts,” Hotohori said.
“I’d do that even if no one asked no da. Now you all go up and have fun no da!”
“I’ll see if Tasuki will give our guests some room to breathe,” Nuriko said, throwing a purple coat over her arm. “He’s got a coat already.”
Chichiri went down to the galley. In the last few days, Tamahome had taken to doing the dishes, always very slowly, and she hadn’t seen him anywhere else since lunch. Sure enough, there he was with the tubs of water. At the moment he was just leaning on the edge of one of them with folded arms, holding a plate with its edge in his mouth.
“Anou... Did you rinse that off no---?”
CRNCH! He bit down on it as his face screwed up, and he had to spit out pieces. “Bleagh! No!” How he hadn’t noticed the taste of the soap before then was a mystery even to himself as he snatched a clean towel to wipe off his tongue.
PS: Okay, the Tamahome-eating-plates thing, IIRC it happened in the original one time, but we were so amused by it that we adopted it as a running gag. It's not something I'd do again because it's just so cartoony, but when the opportunity presents itself like that...
I wonder if there's a name for the kind of trick book I was talking about.
Sitting back and looking at my plans for this story, I just have to accept that some characters are going to be overutilized (Hotohori) and others with plenty of promise probably underutilized (Ashitare, Tomo, and poor Soi what with the distressed damsel situation she inherited from our old stuff).
Sometime soon I'm meaning to make a non-NaNo post about self-consciousness, angst, violence, and tropes you don't like cropping up without your meaning them to...
But anyway! Today was on schedule!
21687 ★ 50000 (43.37%)
Nakago only stonewalled him, only hearing his messages across the barrier.
And suppose I were to tell the Emperor that you were sabotaging the Seiryuu no Miko’s quest on purpose?
What he was doing, keeping Miaka from summoning Seiryuu before she was ready and thus preventing the likely catastrophic results, was the exact opposite of sabotage, but he was aware that the emperor was unlikely to see it that way. Even if it would be only Miboshi’s word, it would be child’s play for him to use his telepathy to light a spark of suspicion in the Emperor’s mind and blow it up into a flame...
After all, you left something very important back at the palace, didn’t you?
So he was going to use Soi as a bargaining chip. Nakago’s jaw clenched, but he maintained the mental wall. Her voice, however, he could clearly hear in his mind; he knew that if she were here and could speak, the woman who had clung to her will and dignity even through all the abuses she had suffered would tell him never to give in. It could even be that it wouldn’t do any good if he did, that he couldn’t save her no matter what he did...
Miboshi taunted him from the outside. Did you think you could keep from me the thing that’s never quite out of your mind? You’re nothing but a pathetic clown to me, Nakago. You show yourself to everyone as the mighty Shogun who commands Kutou’s army with an iron fist and ranks himself above even the Emperor, but deep inside you’re really thinking that you’ll die without that diseased whore!
With a crackle of blue energy, Nakago whipped around in a rage to what he thought was Miboshi’s position, but there was nothing there.
Tut-tut.
“Nakago, what is it!?” Suboshi shouted from the campfire.
Now now, you want to keep this between you and me, don’t you? Miboshi’s mind was so close again that the thought came like a conspiratorial whisper, laden with the implicit threat of what he could do to the others.
“It’s nothing; a false alarm!” he shouted back. He knew that it was laying out in plain sight: Miboshi, I’ll kill you!
That won’t be so simple. Right now, I can see you while you can’t see me, and you saw how easy it is for me to misdirect you if you search.
“Right now” that was the case, but it wouldn’t always be. He had to sleep sometime.
No, no, you need me alive, he argued all too calmly. I couldn’t stop the Suzaku no Miko, but I didn’t come away emptyhanded. Thanks to me, we have Suzaku’s Miracle Healer Mitsukake in our power. Now, then, haven’t I done well?
It sent Nakago’s mind spinning off balance. The Sei of Suzaku who could heal, the only thing he knew that could save Soi... Where is he?
In a place where his comrades cannot possibly enter to save him; I was very careful. So careful, I’m not sure anyone but me could go there, in fact... The thought included just a bit of the reality behind it; not enough to identify the place, but enough to make plain that it was no mere dishonest taunt. Of course, since I couldn’t stop the Suzaku no Miko alone, he will have to wait until our duty out here is done.
This time it was Miboshi who didn’t seem properly disappointed by his failure. Surely he would have killed Yui and her Seishi if he could, but it was now obvious that capturing Mitsukake had been his primary goal in that mission from the start. He had known that it wouldn’t be enough to hold Soi’s death over Nakago’s head, he would have to hold her life as well.
That’s right, Miboshi pressed him, abandoning all pretense. You can’t throw up your hands and say there was nothing you could have done. You have tonight to think about it, but when you give a direction to the drivers in the morning, it’s deciding between life and death. Could you say ‘death’ even if you wanted to, I wonder...?
Nakago tried and failed to suppress a reflexive I can’t. What plan are you suggesting? he asked, struggling not to make it a total concession.
Head them off, of course. Once they have Genbu’s Shinzahou, they still need Byakko’s, and there aren’t so many ways through those mountains for someone in a hurry. I doubt they’ll take the river again, but in any case those black cloaks you and the Emperor are so proud of can tell us which way they’re coming in time to ready an ambush.
I’ll consider it, Nakago answered with careful calm.
Oh, I know you will. With that, Miboshi finally withdrew.
Nakago stood still for a long time to see that Miboshi would leave him alone. His cloak had fallen a little, and the cold evening breeze tickled at his neck. Amiboshi had begun playing Miaka’s song on his flute, and it wasn’t the thing for someone whose heart was already pounding, so he finally climbed up into one of the carriages secure in its chocks. He formed a barrier around its interior, shutting out both Miboshi and the sound; secluding himself that way to think was such a habit with him that surely the others wouldn’t see it as anything amiss.
But this time, he couldn’t think. He knew that he had to, if he was to find some way out of the trap Miboshi had him cornered in, and he willed his mind into motion, but nothing came out of it, and he only sat there alone in the dark.
*******
‘In this way, the Shogun passed the night without sleeping, and when dawn came, he directed the carriages westward toward Sairou, intending to bide his time until he could counter Miboshi’s threats.’
Keisuke sat back again, with a sick feeling in his stomach. For the first time, the book’s picture of Miaka was convincingly recognizeable, but it had given him only a glimpse of her before revealing that she was caught in the machinations of its bloodthirsty villain.
Still, he shook it off. Get ahold of yourself, Keisuke. Demons and mind-readers, it’s crazy, it’s not real. Whoever set this up, it’s not like it’s a secret she likes B’z.
On a whim, he took a handful of pages and flipped through them forward, then backward, in case it was the old trick in which each page was printed on only one side, but every second one was shorter, so that flipping through one way looked normal, and flipping through the other way looked blank, but no, what was written was written and what was blank was blank no matter which way he turned it, and he went back in frustration to just reading it.
‘As the Suzaku no Miko’s ship approached the capital of Hokkan, the white northern mountains came into view far away on the horizon, and snow began to fall.’
*******
Yui and Chiriko had just finished converting the strap on Hotohori’s sword for a quick-release --- they had settled on a simple looped knot in a fabric toothy enough not to slip out by accident --- and were trying it out in front of him and Nuriko when Chichiri burst into the cabin.
“What are you all doing down here no da??” she demanded. “You’re missing the snow no da!”
“But it’s cold up there,” Chiriko said.
Chichiri produced one of her hats from her cape and held it out over the floor. A cascade of thick fabrics tumbled out of it until there was a heaping pile of warm garments in front of her: blankets, coats, mittens, scarves, hats; some knitted, some quilted, some embroidered.
Nuriko laughed. “’Fifty-seven blankets and thirteen coats’...?”
“I guess they’ll come in useful after all no da.”
Yui looked at them quizzically.
“The people in her home village have been making her things like that for years,” Nuriko explained.
“Even when I was your age,” Chichiri said, pointing at Chiriko, “so you don’t have any excuse no da.”
Yui pulled out a pink quilted coat with embroidered blue fish patterns and began looking for matching accessories. “Chichiri, could you take one to Tamahome, too?” she asked.
“I was going to do that no da.”
“But if you could talk to him,” Yui added. “I mean... I can only imagine how he feels, but I don’t know if I should...”
“That’s why I was going to do that no da,” Chichiri told her.
“Have you had any further visions about Mitsukake?” Hotohori asked before she could leave.
She shook her head sadly. “I still just see the same thing no da...”
“The cave we were in?” Yui questioned.
“I don’t know if it’s the same one,” she said, “just a cave with darkness below and only a little light high up no da...”
“Thank you for your efforts,” Hotohori said.
“I’d do that even if no one asked no da. Now you all go up and have fun no da!”
“I’ll see if Tasuki will give our guests some room to breathe,” Nuriko said, throwing a purple coat over her arm. “He’s got a coat already.”
Chichiri went down to the galley. In the last few days, Tamahome had taken to doing the dishes, always very slowly, and she hadn’t seen him anywhere else since lunch. Sure enough, there he was with the tubs of water. At the moment he was just leaning on the edge of one of them with folded arms, holding a plate with its edge in his mouth.
“Anou... Did you rinse that off no---?”
CRNCH! He bit down on it as his face screwed up, and he had to spit out pieces. “Bleagh! No!” How he hadn’t noticed the taste of the soap before then was a mystery even to himself as he snatched a clean towel to wipe off his tongue.
PS: Okay, the Tamahome-eating-plates thing, IIRC it happened in the original one time, but we were so amused by it that we adopted it as a running gag. It's not something I'd do again because it's just so cartoony, but when the opportunity presents itself like that...
