Starlit Reflections: Dark Quarter

Fushigi Yuugi is copyright Watase Yuu, Flower Comics, Studio Perriot, Pioneer Entertainment, Viz Communications and other interested parties. The characters and situation are used without permission for personal entertainment only, and no copyright infringements are intended. No profit is being made from this fic; if there was, Tasuki and Tamahome would lighten me of it, as soon as they could.

Chapter Three: The People's Priestess  ~ Namame

It was not long after we met that I came upon Namame sitting alone upon a rock beside the road. I sat on the ground beside the rock, and took advantage of the peace to write in my then-diary.

I did not believe he had noticed me until he said, "Uruki, all anyone wants is to be understood."

To this day, I cannot think of anything that could possibly define Namame better.

It took three days to ride down from Tolan to the first settlement on the plain below the foothills. After the hangover Hatsui had and complained about all the first morning, I quietly hid the bottle of plum wine we'd bought from the marketplace.

That evening, we told stories around the campfire. Takiko told us a tale of a sea-sprite who had fallen in love with a human lord, to the point where she traded her voice for feet, that she might walk upon the land as a human maid and so win his affections. Both she and I wept at its tragic end, and Hatsui told us that if she'd had the courage to approach him as herself, her story would have been very different.

Hatsui recited a lay of the far North, of a fisherman who had dealt kindly with the son of the Emperor of the Sea, but whose greedy and dishonest wife had driven back to demand wealth and honours of him until the Emperor lost patience and gave the greedy woman exactly what she deserved.

I think Hatsui enjoyed our shivers as he described the foolish woman's grisly fate a little too much.

For my part, I told the story of Plum Blossom, Jade Circle and the Winding Scarf. Hatsui and Takiko were both sympathetic, annoyed and properly appalled by the cold-hearted eunuch's icily practical solution to everyone's problems.

After we had made each other cry, shake, and otherwise provided ourselves with material for our nightmares, we went to our blankets.

Takiko slept soundly. Hatsui snored. Loudly. All night.

I was not good company the next day.

We were heading north, into the trade routes to the north and northwest, and I believe a further word of explanation is needed here.

The populations of Kounan and Koutou lie securely in the hands of the Four Gods, bound as they are to north and west by Hokkan and Sairou, and to the south and east by sea. Surrounded by nations that, friendly or not, still speak the same language and follow the same religion, it is easy for those of those countries to forget - or, at least, conveniently not remember - that we are not all of the world.

We of Hokkan have no such buffer zone. To our north lie tribes of nomadic, wild barbarians (the wild nomads of Hokkan are civilized), and to the west are nations, some of which we have cordial relations with, and some of which we don't.

In our past, we have conquered these regions. Many of their royal families are distantly related to our own. As a result we have established trade with these nations, and caravans regularly travel to and from our major cities.

Heading as we were into the great plain that lay between the mountains that bordered Hokkan on the north and south, we were riding towards the flat ground that makes the roads the traders prefer to drive their wagons over.

We were riding into bandit territory.

I was tired and not a good rider. The combination slowed our group down considerably, but I cannot be sorry, not when it was because we were moving slowly and quietly that we managed to sneak up behind the first group of raiders.

They were themselves a small group, only five of them, but they made up for their lack of numbers with sheer belligerence. We looked at their scars. We looked at their very sharp weapons. We listened to their boasts.

And then Hatsui, Takiko and I linked hands, I cloaked us all in shadows, and we quietly slipped past them. I kept the cloak up until we were a good two leagues down the road.

Rather than risk encountering another party of bandits, Takiko suggested we join a caravan of traders. That seemed to be only sensible, so we rode towards the nearest cloud of dust on the road.

The traders in the caravan we encountered objected to our joining them at their campfires, until I quickly went through my bag, in the hope of finding something worth trading, and offered them a string of pearls that I found there.

"I didn't know you had that," Takiko commented quietly as we lay in our blankets near one of the campfires, inside the caravan's guards.

"Neither did I," I replied, equally quietly. "Chiu Yuen appears to have packed several pieces of my jewellery in my bag. I suppose she realized I'd have to have something to pay my way with...." I drew a deep breath. If I were home at court, I would have eaten a meal of soft breads and rich, sweet pork with delicious vegetables, not chewed old cheese and bread, and instead of lying in these scratchy blankets I'd be sleeping on fresh cotton sheets. Chiu Yuen would have tucked me in and kissed me goodnight, and I would be lulled to sleep by her soft singing as she sewed in my outer room.

I rolled away from Takiko so that she wouldn't see me cry.

We entered the trade city of Lunyan a week later, slowly but with our persons and property intact.

Hatsui had stayed away from the trader's campfires after the first night with the caravan, and he hadn't stayed there with them for very long after Takiko and I had excused ourselves. He hadn't gotten drunk once either.

As we waved goodbye to the caravan, I said to him, very softly, "I thought that you and they would have become better friends."

Hatsui smiled at me and said, "And I thought you were honest, Uruki!"

I blushed and said, "From what the gate guards in Tolan said, I thought you enjoyed drinking with other men."

He shrugged and said, "The company wasn't bad, but I don't like alcohol much. I only drank to stop hearing. I'd've needed to drink around them, but I never have with you or Takiko."

"Oh," I said.

He grinned and said, very softly, "Besides, it's fun to make you blush."

"Why, you-"

A passerby said sharply to Hatsui, "Stop teasing your sister, boy!"

We both snapped "Hey!" at the spot where the stranger had been.

Takiko giggled.

We found an inn in a side street of the caravanserai, and after we deposited our bags in the room we engaged, we felt the need to explore the city a little. (We decided on one room because Hatsui, whatever his other faults, was a gentleman, and we didn't trust the innkeeper not to let the fact that two young ladies were alone in a small room be known to undesirable persons.)

After we extracted our valuables from our bags and hid them on our persons (we really didn't trust that innkeeper) we wandered out to the marketplace. Naturally enough, the place was buzzing with rumour.

It was while we were idly inspecting some cloths at a stall that we heard the first rumour concerning myself.

"Oh, but have you heard about the High Princess Meiran?" the stallkeeper asked Hatsui, as he leaned against the post holding up the awning. (He'd placed himself there, telling the stallkeeper that 'a brother has to keep an eye on his sisters', and ostentatiously ignoring the face I made.)

Hatsui controlled his face admirably, his eyes only flicking to me momentarily, and then back to the seller. "No," he replied blandly. "What did she do?"

"Why, she vanished from the Court! The Great Khan's most treasured and beautiful daughter -" I snorted, and turned it into a cough - "the poor man is heartbroken!"

"He is?" I asked, and if Takiko choked at the note of saccharine sweetness I infused into my voice, the stallkeeper didn't notice. "But why would she leave her father's side?"

"Because she was called to become one of the Priestess of Genbu's handmaidens, and she did not dream of refusing! Can you imagine? With her eyes flashing like elegant dark stars -" (I have brown eyes. Big brown eyes. 'Elegant' is not the word) "her glorious cloud of dark hair -" (My hair is brown, fine and flyaway. 'Glorious' is not the word either) "and skin white as milk -" (I really did snort at this one. My mind suddenly filled with countless memories of Chiu Yuen scolding me for sitting in the sun, and pointing at the reflection of my pinkened nose in the mirror. It didn't stop me, though - I knew that one day I'd have to go with the Priestess of Genbu and I'd have to be able to walk in the sun. The cloth seller apparently didn't notice, though, and continued) "she was the jewel of Tolan. All the Court is in mourning for her loss, and the Great Khan has charged the Priestess to hurry and save Hokkan, and return his precious daughter to him!"

"I wonder how the Priestess will save Hokkan?" Takiko asked innocently.

"I'm sure I don't know! She sits in state down in Tolan, and contemplates such things. She will know the best way to stop those greedy easterners. Not that the west is much better! Constantly exhorting us to worship their Buddha, and charging ruinous rates to honest traders. Praise Genbu, He's watching over us!"

The hot-food vendor we patronized had a far more colourful version to share. "The Emperor of Koutou stole her out of her own bed with vile magics! All this talk about being 'called by Genbu' is just a front to preserve the poor girl's reputation. They say she's so beautiful - that Emperor's probably made the princess his concubine already."

My face must have been an absolute picture, for the vendor bent over and said worriedly, "Are you all right, miss? The food didn't disagree with you?"

I coughed. "N-no," I managed. "Just - just went down the wrong way."

"Oh, that's a relief. It's so hard to get good foods these days - all the locals are gouging us terribly. It's enough to make you wish the story about the Priestess of Genbu really was true."

Takiko was the one to have the coughing fit this time, as we left.

And so we bounced from stall to stall and story to story. I heard about five different version of my name (although how they managed to construct 'Xai Tan' out of 'Mei Ling' I still don't know) and about six versions of my leaving Court, from being stolen entirely against my will out of my bed to leaving with full departure ceremonies. Belief in the Priestess of Genbu varied from absolute belief to absolute disbelief.

We were tired and amazed when we returned to our inn.

Lying in bed that night - ah, for mattresses, pillows and clean sheets! - I said, "I really can't believe that the Khan is spreading such rumours about me."

Hatsui's voice came out of the darkness. "Perhaps he isn't."

"But who else would?"

"Did you have enemies at your father's Court?" Takiko asked.

"I suppose," I replied. "Everyone has enemies at the Court of the Great Khan. But these rumours are silly! I'm not the great beauty they're describing, so if they're meant to hinder me, they're not working - people are looking me in the face while telling me these stories. The only thing I can think that these rumours will do is make it difficult for me to go back to Court...." my voice trailed off as I thought about that.

I'd never really liked it at Court, but it was the closest thing I had to a home. I had been born and raised there, but I'd never really belonged there.

"Do you want to go back?" Takiko asked.

"Not... really," I replied slowly, "but there isn't really anywhere else I can go."

"My mother probably wouldn't mind adopting a daughter," Hatsui interjected, "if you don't mind being a commoner."

"Thank you," I said to both of them.

The next day, we ventured forth again, to the merchant's sector this time. We took our leave of the inn (much to the innkeeper's disappointment, because we had paid a rather high price for that room) and headed off to sell several pieces of the jewellery that Chiu Yuen had thought to provide me with. Hatsui's purse was running far too thin for anyone's liking, least of all his.

The merchant's quarter had all the bustle of colour and crowding of the caravanserai, but as it was the place where the merchants who remained here all year round lived, the buildings here were a bit more permanent, built of stone rather than canvas and wood.

We chose a jewellers' shop that was a bit quieter than the rest. I'd heard enough rumours the day before to satisfy any craving I had for fame, Hatsui was not wildly enthusiastic about crowds in the first place, and Takiko had had enough window shopping the day before. We slipped in quietly and waited till the shop was empty of everyone except the jeweller and ourselves.

I think he got a bit of a shock when he turned around to see a fine emerald necklace laid on the counter. He looked up to see Hatsui grinning at him.

"It's for sale," Hatsui said calmly. "How much do you think it's worth?"

As we'd heard the prices this man was charging his other customers, we'd revised our strategy. He wasn't selling his goods cheap and could well afford to give us a decent price.

"I'll give you... a hundred gold for it," The jeweller said.

Hatsui glared. "You know it's worth at least a thousand gold. Give us nine hundred and stop wasting our time."

"I can't afford that!" the jeweller protested. "You'll bankrupt me! A hundred and fifty."

"In a place like this? You can well and truly afford it. We'll drop to eight hundred and fifty."

As we were haggling, a door behind the counter opened, and out stepped the most beautiful young man I'd ever seen. He had the same dark green eyes as the jeweller, but his hair was the colour of the gold set around the emeralds we were haggling over. Beside me, I heard Takiko draw in a deep breath.

He looked up and glanced at us. His eyes ran over Hatsui and I, and came to a sudden stop on Takiko. He drew in a breath of his own.

I felt my ankle suddenly start burning. I didn't need to look to see that my symbol was blazing out through my sock.

Hatsui swore and began rubbing the back of his right hand, as if that would make the fire of Genbu's mark fade.

The boy flipped his left arm up, displaying the underside to us and showing the sigil 'Bi' on the inside of his wrist.

"Yu Ping!" the jeweller gasped. "How many times have I told you? Put that away before somebody sees you!"

"It's a bit late," I said as calmly as I could. "Hello, Namame. I'm Uruki, and this is Hatsui. We've been looking for you."

The jeweller turned and looked at us. Hatsui grinned and lifted his hand, displaying his character.

Takiko kicked my ankle.

"Oh! and this is Okuda Takiko, the Priestess of Genbu," I introduced her.

Namame's face lit up, as if he had just been presented to a goddess. He came out from behind the counter, revealing a slender physique, and fell to one knee before Takiko. "My Lady," he said soulfully, "I am Yu Ping, Genbu Shichiseishi Namame, and I am yours to command."

Takiko blushed. "Please rise," she said quietly. "I am young, and a stranger in this land. I would that we were friends." She did not lift her eyes from Namame's as he rose from his genuflection, and he did not turn his eyes away from her face.

The jeweller, Hatsui and I looked at each other.

"Five hundred gold for the necklace?" the jeweller eventually asked, with a sigh.

"That was what we were thinking, yes," I agreed. "Um... about your son...."

The jeweller sagged onto a stool. "My youngest," he said sadly. "I guess... I mean, I always knew it would happen, it's just that... well... I wasn't expecting it to be so soon. He's only seventeen."

Hatsui cleared his throat. "It's not like he's going away forever. We'll bring him back. And... um...." He glanced over at where Takiko and Namame were still staring at each other.

Namame's father looked at them, and then looked at us. "Yes," he sighed, and then straightened himself. "I would consider it an honour if you would dine with my family tonight, and spend the night within my house," he formally invited us.

"We are honoured, and delighted to accept your gracious hospitality," I replied.

"Thank you," Hatsui added.

We turned to look at Namame and Takiko.

"They've got to blink sometime," Hatsui predicted.

We set off north the next morning, deeper into the plains that led up to the steppe.

Namame's family had all been very interested in us. Takiko had been taken to the bosom of the family, and asked to recite her history several times. All his female relatives spent their time fussing over her. Hatsui had found Namame's brothers congenial company and spent more than a little time with them.

I felt left out, and the visit had left me feeling hollow.

It is an odd feeling to no longer be the centre of someone's attention. Almost from the moment Takiko had entered Hokkan, I had been by her side. She had always turned to me first, over the past week. We had discovered saddle sores and the city's stink together.

And now she was talking with and confiding in Namame.

I turned my back on them and dug my heels into my pony's sides. We had four more Shichiseishi to find. But the wind blew past me, and I felt emptier than ever.

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