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foxinthestarsI crossed the 30k mark a day late and took another little bite out of my shortfall, but not as much as I wanted to --- I wanted to make it to 31k today, and I'm so close that I might go ahead and do it after midnight, but for now I'm doing the daily post.
Story-wise, there are no cookies for guessing where this is going. I'm jealous; if the anime had done this, they would have rattled it off without a second thought and we all know it, but my brain demands that I dot i's, cross t's, and ask the characters what they would logically do under these circumstances until it's water-tight. Once again I'm taking for-freaking-ever (with the world-builder's disease aiding and abetting), and I can't help wondering if a bolder attempt to put it over on the reader might have worked better, but for now, I'm forging ahead; that's the important part, and it is fun.
“What were you thinking!? Were you thinking!?” Nuriko demanded of Hotohori, as the two of them and Chichiri sat in a cell below Hokkan’s palace, closely watched by the guards, but at least their hands were untied now. “Did Chichiri bring you out here so you could get yourself killed??”
“Anou, I’m right here no da,” Chichiri pointed out.
Nuriko forged ahead anyway. “What about Yui?? What’s she going to think when Tamahome finds her and tells her about this?? How is she going to feel??”
Hotohori had been weathering the storm quietly, avoiding her eyes, but at that he reflexively reacted. “Ah...”
“You are not to speak!” the guard at the bars bellowed.
“Why just him?” Nuriko asked.
“Because he presumptuously looked upon the princess,” the guard answered.
“Well, can we ask him things and just have him nod yes or no no da?” Chichiri asked.
“No. Absolutely not.”
Chichiri took the opportunity of the others’ puzzled silence. “See, Nuriko-chan, it’s not fair if he can’t answer, now is it no da?”
“But that was so reckless, I can’t believe it!” Nuriko insisted, merely transferring Hotohori to the third person of the harangue.
“It’s going to be all right no da,” Chichiri told her.
“What, did you have a prophecy about this, or---”
She shook her head. “I just think so no da,” she said brightly.
“But you don’t know!” Chichiri had deflated Nuriko a little, enough for her worry to start showing through her anger. “He definitely didn’t know, whether it was...” The truth was that Nuriko knew exactly what he had been thinking, but now she tripped over how much of it she could say without compromising them.
“You think that if it’s the princess who’s from our country, it’ll be okay, right no da?” Chichiri asked, navigating the obstacle. “I’m sure it was her no da. Hotohori-chan can’t tell us, but he doesn’t seem scared no da.”
Unable to answer, he only lowered his eyes. He thought she looked familiar, he thought her voice echoed in the right part of his mind, but he had only caught a brief glimpse and heard one quick command, both now fading into memory. It wasn’t enough to be sure whether it was her, the sister he hadn’t seen since they were children. Nuriko was right; he hadn’t been thinking. The possibility that Kin’umi could be there in front of him had translated directly into careless action...
The guard moved aside as another soldier and a monk arrived in front of the cell. “The princess wishes the man who looked upon her person to be brought before her,” the monk said. The soldier he had brought with him nodded, and the cell guard unlocked the door.
Hotohori compliantly rose and let them lead him out. Nuriko tensed. If it wasn’t safe for him, this would be her last chance to intervene; she could get out of the cell at any time, but if they took him away alone, by the time she knew anything was wrong it would be too late.
Chichiri clasped her arm. “Trust me; he’ll be fine no da.”
Nuriko turned to her, but before she could respond, the door clanged shut again, and the key rattled in the lock as it was re-fastened. Hotohori was already out of sight. Presently the outer door could be heard opening and closing. “You’d better be right,” she finally told Chichiri.
“The princess from Konan never goes to the monastery,” the guard said. He was looking after Hotohori with an expression of stern, tired compassion.
Nuriko felt the floor fall out of her chest.
“I don’t know which of the princesses went out today,” he admitted, “but I do know that. No matter how her husband the prince begs, she still worships Suzaku in the palace and refuses to go to any of of Genbu’s temples.”
“I still think it was her no da,” Chichiri said, not the least shaken.
Nuriko stared at her desperately. “What makes you say that?”
“I just think so no da,” she said with a wink.
She had clearly meant the gesture to be reassuring, but Nuriko was only agitated more by her cavalier attitude and wished she could tear that playful mask off Chichiri’s face. If the face underneath it was really this confident, that might be enough to put her more at ease, but she couldn’t see whether it was, and she could hardly ask Chichiri to take the mask off here.
“Can you trust me no da?” Chichiri asked more softly, but still with a smile.
What else am I supposed to do? Nuriko thought, but she didn’t say it, and managed to give Chichiri only a small nod.
Hotohori’s encounter with the Princess of Hokkan places Yui in an unexpected situation as she faces the guardians of Genbu’s Shinzahou. The revelations those guardians offer her will reach across the boundary between worlds.
Yui and her Seishi were aided as they entered Hokkan’s capital, but the laws and customs of that place are both unfamiliar and absolute. Hotohori’s transgression of looking upon Hokkan’s princess led to his arrest along with Nuriko and Chichiri, and before Tamahome could find Yui to tell her, she heard the news as rumor and was seized with dread. Hotohori is now summoned before the princess, able only to hope that her face will be a familiar one.
As Hotohori walked through the corridors with the monk in front of him and the soldier behind him, the palace of Hokkan felt at once familiar and alien. The grandeur and opulence of a palace and some elements of its structure formed common threads with his own long experience, but as stifling as the palace of Konan could be, this place, he thought, must be much worse. The halls were practically silent except for their footsteps. The servants whom they passed worked in silence, pausing in their tasks to bow as they passed. The decorations were more sparse and less colorful. Everywhere they led him it was closed corridors, never a walkway with a view, and as they had been led into the palace, he hadn’t seen any such walkways from the outside, either, so he doubted that it was only the particular route they were taking. Although this one and his own were both palaces, they were palaces of different colors; that of Konan was the vermilion of warm, lively exuberance, and here in the palace of Hokkan, it was the black of close formality.
Such was the place to which his younger sister and only surviving sibling had been sent at barely over ten years old, upon her political betrothal to the crown prince of Hokkan. He remembered his own loneliness at having her taken away, but what must those years have been like for her?
And was it her that he was about to see? That was the reckless gamble he had made. Even if it were another princess, he told himself, his situation wasn’t necessarily hopeless; the Sacred Order of Genbu, headed by the royal family, had offered their help to the Suzaku Seishi in their quest. Still, he remained alert against the possibility that he would have to defend himself and escape, noting as best he could the location of the soldier’s sword.
At last they arrived at a pair of heavy black carved wood doors where another soldier waited. The monk who had led him opened the doors, which led to a long, empty corridor that smelled of Genbu’s sacred incense. The monk led him in, leaving both soldiers outside, and as the doors closed behind them, Hotohori saw that there was a second monk, also, who raised a bell and struck it sharply. The two monks seated themselves flanking the same door on the opposite side of the wall.
Another pair of massive doors at the opposite end of the corridor opened, first one side, then the other. A soldier with a massive halberd stood backlit in the aperture. “Come forward!” It was a woman’s voice.
It struck him as strange, given all the formality and security, that they left him to cross the corridor alone, but it was filled with a strange energy as though the room were somehow enchanted. As he came close to the waiting soldier, he could clearly see her feminine figure and her long hair falling down her back in a number of small, tight braids. Once he was through the portal, she motioned him to a seat where a cushion had been laid out on the carpeted floor, and she shut the doors behind him. Uncomfortable turning his back on her huge axe, he watched over his shoulder as he settled into the offered seat.
“He’s here; coast is clear!” the guardswoman announced over his shoulder, suddenly very casual. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell on you,” she assured him.
Hotohori turned at last and found himself seated before a black curtain of the same heavy slubbed silk as the draperies of the palanquin, rising nearly to the ceiling, brushing against the floor, and closing off from view a square of the room about six feet on each side. The curtain rustled slightly; four delicate fingers appeared beneath its lower edge and lifted it up to reveal a flowing red dress with draping sashes such as a noble woman in Konan would wear, and above that, at last, a face with delicately sculpted angles, brown eyes touched with gold, and rich chocolate-dark hair.
His joy even eclipsed his relief, and he smiled irresistibly as he recognized his younger sister. Not only had her features not changed so completely since their childhood, but even all these years after nursemaids had remarked on the two of them looking like twins, her face was still very much like the one he knew so well from admiring it every day.
She stared at him as if hardly daring to believe it. “S- Seishuku...?”
He lifted his chin in facetious dignity. “I would prefer that you address me by my august name.”
“Sai-niichan!!” Kin’umi threw the curtain aside and sprang forward to embrace him with such force that she knocked him backward, and the two of them tumbled to the floor, laughing.
“Oy,” the guard remarked. “You weren’t kidding about the resemblance.”
Story-wise, there are no cookies for guessing where this is going. I'm jealous; if the anime had done this, they would have rattled it off without a second thought and we all know it, but my brain demands that I dot i's, cross t's, and ask the characters what they would logically do under these circumstances until it's water-tight. Once again I'm taking for-freaking-ever (with the world-builder's disease aiding and abetting), and I can't help wondering if a bolder attempt to put it over on the reader might have worked better, but for now, I'm forging ahead; that's the important part, and it is fun.
30850 ★ 50000 (61.70%)
“What were you thinking!? Were you thinking!?” Nuriko demanded of Hotohori, as the two of them and Chichiri sat in a cell below Hokkan’s palace, closely watched by the guards, but at least their hands were untied now. “Did Chichiri bring you out here so you could get yourself killed??”
“Anou, I’m right here no da,” Chichiri pointed out.
Nuriko forged ahead anyway. “What about Yui?? What’s she going to think when Tamahome finds her and tells her about this?? How is she going to feel??”
Hotohori had been weathering the storm quietly, avoiding her eyes, but at that he reflexively reacted. “Ah...”
“You are not to speak!” the guard at the bars bellowed.
“Why just him?” Nuriko asked.
“Because he presumptuously looked upon the princess,” the guard answered.
“Well, can we ask him things and just have him nod yes or no no da?” Chichiri asked.
“No. Absolutely not.”
Chichiri took the opportunity of the others’ puzzled silence. “See, Nuriko-chan, it’s not fair if he can’t answer, now is it no da?”
“But that was so reckless, I can’t believe it!” Nuriko insisted, merely transferring Hotohori to the third person of the harangue.
“It’s going to be all right no da,” Chichiri told her.
“What, did you have a prophecy about this, or---”
She shook her head. “I just think so no da,” she said brightly.
“But you don’t know!” Chichiri had deflated Nuriko a little, enough for her worry to start showing through her anger. “He definitely didn’t know, whether it was...” The truth was that Nuriko knew exactly what he had been thinking, but now she tripped over how much of it she could say without compromising them.
“You think that if it’s the princess who’s from our country, it’ll be okay, right no da?” Chichiri asked, navigating the obstacle. “I’m sure it was her no da. Hotohori-chan can’t tell us, but he doesn’t seem scared no da.”
Unable to answer, he only lowered his eyes. He thought she looked familiar, he thought her voice echoed in the right part of his mind, but he had only caught a brief glimpse and heard one quick command, both now fading into memory. It wasn’t enough to be sure whether it was her, the sister he hadn’t seen since they were children. Nuriko was right; he hadn’t been thinking. The possibility that Kin’umi could be there in front of him had translated directly into careless action...
The guard moved aside as another soldier and a monk arrived in front of the cell. “The princess wishes the man who looked upon her person to be brought before her,” the monk said. The soldier he had brought with him nodded, and the cell guard unlocked the door.
Hotohori compliantly rose and let them lead him out. Nuriko tensed. If it wasn’t safe for him, this would be her last chance to intervene; she could get out of the cell at any time, but if they took him away alone, by the time she knew anything was wrong it would be too late.
Chichiri clasped her arm. “Trust me; he’ll be fine no da.”
Nuriko turned to her, but before she could respond, the door clanged shut again, and the key rattled in the lock as it was re-fastened. Hotohori was already out of sight. Presently the outer door could be heard opening and closing. “You’d better be right,” she finally told Chichiri.
“The princess from Konan never goes to the monastery,” the guard said. He was looking after Hotohori with an expression of stern, tired compassion.
Nuriko felt the floor fall out of her chest.
“I don’t know which of the princesses went out today,” he admitted, “but I do know that. No matter how her husband the prince begs, she still worships Suzaku in the palace and refuses to go to any of of Genbu’s temples.”
“I still think it was her no da,” Chichiri said, not the least shaken.
Nuriko stared at her desperately. “What makes you say that?”
“I just think so no da,” she said with a wink.
She had clearly meant the gesture to be reassuring, but Nuriko was only agitated more by her cavalier attitude and wished she could tear that playful mask off Chichiri’s face. If the face underneath it was really this confident, that might be enough to put her more at ease, but she couldn’t see whether it was, and she could hardly ask Chichiri to take the mask off here.
“Can you trust me no da?” Chichiri asked more softly, but still with a smile.
What else am I supposed to do? Nuriko thought, but she didn’t say it, and managed to give Chichiri only a small nod.
Hotohori’s encounter with the Princess of Hokkan places Yui in an unexpected situation as she faces the guardians of Genbu’s Shinzahou. The revelations those guardians offer her will reach across the boundary between worlds.
Yui and her Seishi were aided as they entered Hokkan’s capital, but the laws and customs of that place are both unfamiliar and absolute. Hotohori’s transgression of looking upon Hokkan’s princess led to his arrest along with Nuriko and Chichiri, and before Tamahome could find Yui to tell her, she heard the news as rumor and was seized with dread. Hotohori is now summoned before the princess, able only to hope that her face will be a familiar one.
As Hotohori walked through the corridors with the monk in front of him and the soldier behind him, the palace of Hokkan felt at once familiar and alien. The grandeur and opulence of a palace and some elements of its structure formed common threads with his own long experience, but as stifling as the palace of Konan could be, this place, he thought, must be much worse. The halls were practically silent except for their footsteps. The servants whom they passed worked in silence, pausing in their tasks to bow as they passed. The decorations were more sparse and less colorful. Everywhere they led him it was closed corridors, never a walkway with a view, and as they had been led into the palace, he hadn’t seen any such walkways from the outside, either, so he doubted that it was only the particular route they were taking. Although this one and his own were both palaces, they were palaces of different colors; that of Konan was the vermilion of warm, lively exuberance, and here in the palace of Hokkan, it was the black of close formality.
Such was the place to which his younger sister and only surviving sibling had been sent at barely over ten years old, upon her political betrothal to the crown prince of Hokkan. He remembered his own loneliness at having her taken away, but what must those years have been like for her?
And was it her that he was about to see? That was the reckless gamble he had made. Even if it were another princess, he told himself, his situation wasn’t necessarily hopeless; the Sacred Order of Genbu, headed by the royal family, had offered their help to the Suzaku Seishi in their quest. Still, he remained alert against the possibility that he would have to defend himself and escape, noting as best he could the location of the soldier’s sword.
At last they arrived at a pair of heavy black carved wood doors where another soldier waited. The monk who had led him opened the doors, which led to a long, empty corridor that smelled of Genbu’s sacred incense. The monk led him in, leaving both soldiers outside, and as the doors closed behind them, Hotohori saw that there was a second monk, also, who raised a bell and struck it sharply. The two monks seated themselves flanking the same door on the opposite side of the wall.
Another pair of massive doors at the opposite end of the corridor opened, first one side, then the other. A soldier with a massive halberd stood backlit in the aperture. “Come forward!” It was a woman’s voice.
It struck him as strange, given all the formality and security, that they left him to cross the corridor alone, but it was filled with a strange energy as though the room were somehow enchanted. As he came close to the waiting soldier, he could clearly see her feminine figure and her long hair falling down her back in a number of small, tight braids. Once he was through the portal, she motioned him to a seat where a cushion had been laid out on the carpeted floor, and she shut the doors behind him. Uncomfortable turning his back on her huge axe, he watched over his shoulder as he settled into the offered seat.
“He’s here; coast is clear!” the guardswoman announced over his shoulder, suddenly very casual. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell on you,” she assured him.
Hotohori turned at last and found himself seated before a black curtain of the same heavy slubbed silk as the draperies of the palanquin, rising nearly to the ceiling, brushing against the floor, and closing off from view a square of the room about six feet on each side. The curtain rustled slightly; four delicate fingers appeared beneath its lower edge and lifted it up to reveal a flowing red dress with draping sashes such as a noble woman in Konan would wear, and above that, at last, a face with delicately sculpted angles, brown eyes touched with gold, and rich chocolate-dark hair.
His joy even eclipsed his relief, and he smiled irresistibly as he recognized his younger sister. Not only had her features not changed so completely since their childhood, but even all these years after nursemaids had remarked on the two of them looking like twins, her face was still very much like the one he knew so well from admiring it every day.
She stared at him as if hardly daring to believe it. “S- Seishuku...?”
He lifted his chin in facetious dignity. “I would prefer that you address me by my august name.”
“Sai-niichan!!” Kin’umi threw the curtain aside and sprang forward to embrace him with such force that she knocked him backward, and the two of them tumbled to the floor, laughing.
“Oy,” the guard remarked. “You weren’t kidding about the resemblance.”
