Starlit Reflections

Fushigi Yuugi is copyright Watase Yuu, Flower Comics, Studio Perriot, Pioneer Entertainment and Viz Communications. All rights remain theirs and I have no claim to any of them. Tasuki, Kouji and the Mt. Leikaku bandits, however, have cheerfully laid claim to all the money you happen to have in your pockets as you're reading this. It and all C&C will be welcome.

Chapter Fourteen: Step by Step

She smelled the forest.

She was asleep, and knew it, and knew that the forest must therefore be a dream. Yet there was nothing so real as the soft squerch of the decaying leaves between her toes, the feel of rough bark as she trailed hands across the treetrunks, the spears of sunlight that managed, here and there, to stab through the faraway canopy to pierce the soft twilight of the trees. Creatures scurried along branches above her, living out their lives, adding their own rhythm to the heartbeat of the forest.

She knew nothing of this place and yet felt as if she had just unlocked the door to her family's house. This place was home.

Eventually she came to a tree. It did not seem that different to the rest, but there was a low branch, placed invitingly near her, that was at just the right height to climb on... so she did. And there was another, just a little higher, and then another....

Before long, she was climbing up the tree, higher than she had ever climbed as a child in the waking world. There was an atmosphere of expectancy about the forest as she moved higher and higher through it.

Finally, she found herself climbing up through the canopy. The tree extended up, past the tops of its neighbours, allowing her to keep going and look down of the ceiling of green.

The sky, rather being the clear cerulean she anticipated, was lavender and grey and purple, lit with flashes of lightning. Thunder growled in the distance. Rain fell almost lazily compared to the way the clouds were twisting, roiling like a pot of boiling rice.

The lightning flashed, each white finger of electricity punctuated with another thunderous growl. She looked up, unafraid of the power of the storm. It was the power of the forest, and it coiled through her blood. Yet it was not part of her; it would be truer to say that she was a part of it.

She let go of the tree, balancing only on her feet on the branch, and held her hands out to the storm. Another shivery, zigzag line of power lanced down from heaven onto her outstretched palms. She laughed with delight as the lightning sang through her, meeting and blending with the power of the trees, claiming her utterly....

Yui opened her eyes, blinking the last of sleep away. She yawned and sat up, stretching.

"You're up early," Soi said softly. "Sleep well?"

Yui blinked at her Shichiseishi. Soi was dressed in a white cotton gown that covered her from neck to wrists and ankles, that almost glowed in the predawn gloom. She was sitting on her own rumpled blanket, indicating that she hadn't woken that much earlier. The three boys, scattered around them in their own blankets, hadn't stirred.

"Wonderfully," she said, equally quietly. "I had the strangest dream.... I was climbing a tree during a storm, and then I was struck by lightning. But I wasn't hurt - it felt good."

Soi's lips quirked ironically. "Proof it was a dream," she muttered. "But it's a good sign. Lord Seiryuu is the master of lightning, after all."

Yui frowned. "I don't know," she replied. "There wasn't anything of Lord Seiryuu's except the lightning in the dream. It was probably just a dream." She shrugged and then changed the subject. "I wasn't expecting you to be up so early, either."

Soi hugged herself. "I like to watch the dawn," she said quietly. "I like to watch the darkness leave."

Yui looked at Soi out of the corner of her eye. That last bit hadn't sounded like it was directed at her. She didn't ask, though. It sounded like the answer wasn't something she wanted to hear.

The two girls sat on their blankets, faces turned towards the east. They watched quietly as the sky slowly lightened on the horizon, midnight blue becoming purple, then lavender and magenta, gradually becoming paler until a ribbon of orange heralded the white-gold ball that slowly peeped above the rim of the world, adding cinnamon, pink and yellow to the colours that painted the eastern sky. The stars slowly faded as the sun rose, and the pale sunlight poured over the two of them.

The sun was halfway up when Soi sighed. Yui smiled at the sound, for it was full of appreciation of beauty - the sort of sigh one makes when there are no words.

The sound, however, ended the peaceful interlude. The three youths, previously fast asleep beside them, began to stir. Yui and Soi barely had time to exchange a look of mutual understanding before Tomo, Amiboshi and Suboshi started to demand breakfast.

Miaka had not been able to dismiss the World of the Four Gods from her thoughts, much less Yui's disappearance. For her to simply vanish like that was not in her character. Yui had always been reliable.

So Miaka had slipped out into the hall and quietly called Yui's home again. The phone had been picked up by Yui's worried mother, who had been just about to call Miaka. After promising to call Mrs. Hongou if she heard anything, Miaka had hung up and gone back to her room.

Yui usually made a point of getting home before either of her parents got home from work. She had ended more than one outing just while it was getting started to do it. For Mrs. Hongou to have come home to an empty house was even more disturbing than the empty reading room at the National Library.

Torn between homework, worrying about the World of the Four Gods, and Yui, Miaka had laid her pen down and thought about how she had come back to her own world.

There had been utterly no sign of Yui in the room, but the Book that had glowed red that she had felt compelled to touch was lying open on the floor, as if someone had been reading it. And on her way back, it had felt as if she were being propelled up, out of a pool, enwrapped in a blanket of red light. There had been something coming the other way, a figure surrounded in blue, that had felt as if its forward momentum was powering hers - or perhaps hers had been powering it....

She sat up straight, her eyes wide. She had forced her way out of the World of the Four Gods before the story had run its course. What if the book had needed a replacement - and Yui had been reading it....

It sucked her in! she realized. I left a hole and it sucked her in to fill it!

Quickly jumping up out of her chair, she grabbed her biggest knapsack and began filling it with necessities, such as her underwear, toiletries, and of course her favourite snacks. She'd go back to the book and finish the story. Yui would be returned and everything would be all right!

Miaka ignored the little voice that commented that she'd also get to see Tamahome again as well. She shoved clothing in until the seams of the bag were stretched to the breaking point and she could barely do up the ties that would hold it closed.

Her mother was sitting in the living room, watching her favourite television programme, as Miaka slipped out. She bade her a silent farewell as the front door of the apartment closed softly behind her. And then she began to run.

Gyoukouran ran down the corridor, dodging other maids, courtiers, and the occasional Shichiseishi. "Excuse me! I'm sorry! Pardon me!" echoed behind her as she dashed towards the stables.

The Emperor blinked as the wind she was generating stirred his robes. "A busy maid," he commented. "I wonder whose she is?"

"Lady Houki's, I believe," Lord Yukino stated. "The maid is Sir Tamahome's younger sister."

"Lady Houki's?" Saiheitei echoed, raising an eyebrow. "I didn't know Lady Houki worked her maids so."

"Neither did I," Nuriko said, a quizzical tone in her voice. "She has the day off today... or so my sister said," she added quickly. "Seeing her older brother off to visit their father, I understand."

"Ah, that explains it," he replied, and the party continued the slow promenade to afternoon Court.

Gyoukouran, unaware of the political incident she had nearly caused, raced down the covered path, rounded a corner at speed by the expedient of transferring her burden to one arm and swinging around the corner's bracing pole with the other, and literally flung herself down the short stairs to the courtyard where Tamahome was saddling up Hikaru. The chestnut gelding had been designated 'his' horse, after having carried him to Mount Taikyoukou and back, and Tamahome was not going to fail to take advantage of such a useful gift.

It's not like the Emperor doesn't have other horses, he thought, as Hikaru butted his hand, looking for treats. "Spoilt," he said aloud, cheerfully rubbing the horse's nose.

"Oh, what a beautiful horse!" a voice said behind him. Tamahome turned his head to see his little sister, holding a bag, watching Hikaru with shining eyes. "Is he yours, Older Brother?"

Tamahome grinned. "Yes, he is. His name's Hikaru. Hikaru, this is my sister Gyoukouran."

Gyoukouran set the bag down, pulled up some grass and offered it to Hikaru, her hand properly flat. Hikaru lipped at the blades politely, and Gyoukouran giggled. "That tickles!" she said, delighted. "He's lovely!"

Tamahome blinked as he watched his sister fall in love with his horse. It didn't help that the gelding played up to her outrageously, closing his eyes and leaning into her scratching of his eyebrow ridges. After a few minutes, though, he decided enough was enough. Clearing his throat loudly, he asked, "What's in the bag, Gyoukouran?"

Gyoukouran jumped as though she had been poked. Hikaru sighed mournfully as she turned to her brother and the bag at his feet. Tamahome spared a glare for his outrageous ham of a horse as Gyoukouran picked through the bag. "Uh, Lady Houki gave me some stuff for Father," she said, pulling out a basket. "She said to tell you to stop by her family's shop on the way, that her brother would have helped Chuei and Shunkei. I don't know what she meant by that, though," she added, her nose crinkling the way it always did when she was puzzled.

"Her family are the clothiers Chuei and Shunkei are appenticed with," Tamahome replied absently. "She probably meant that her older brother, who runs the business here in Eiyou, would give them time to write a letter home."

Gyoukouran sighed softly. "Writing," she said wistfully.

Tamahome gave her a sidelong glance from the mouthwatering pastries that were arranged inside the basket. "Perhaps Lady Houki will teach you," he suggested gently. "These pastries look delicious."

"There are two baskets, one for Father and one for you. She had the Court cooks make them with flour imported from Hokkan," Gyoukouran told him. "She's really interested in things from and about Hokkan right now."

"Hokkan?"

"Yes. Apparently it's really cold up there, too cold for rice, so they grow wheat and they make it into flour and cook it up into something called 'bread'. She had one of the cooks make her some yesterday and she let me have a bit. It tasted really weird. Nothing like rice at all."

Tamahome grinned. "Then aren't you lucky you live in Kounan, where we do have rice and not this bread stuff!"

"I didn't say it was bad!"

Tamahome laughed and after a moment Gyoukouran had joined in.

"I expected Yuiren to be here too," Gyoukouran said, after the laughter had subsided. "I thought she had time off as well."

Tamahome shrugged. "I saw her yesterday. She said goodbye then. She said that as I would be back in a week, she'd see me then."

Gyoukouran frowned. "I didn't think she'd be like that."

"As long as Yuiren can remember, Father has been ill," Tamahome pointed out. "I don't think she even realizes that there was a time when he wasn't."

"I can barely remember it myself," Gyoukouran acknowledged, closing her eyes to better remember the image of the man, bearded but still hale and healthy, coming in from a day in the fields, laughing and snatching her up in a hug. She shivered as she remembered how it had felt to fly through the air, supported by the large, strong hands holding her beneath her armpits. "It was so long ago that he fell ill. I wasn't more than - what? Five?"

"Four," Tamahome corrected her gently. "I was nine when Yuiren was born and Mama... died, and Father fell ill about six months later. You kept trying to help me with her."

"Nine years," Gyoukouran said. "Since Mama.... Do you think that has something to do with it?"

"I think," Tamahome said soberly, "that if it were possible to die of grief, Father would have been in his grave these past nine years."

"You're not happy," Kouji announced.

Genrou, who had been lounging on the grass of the meadow directly beneath Taichou's Place, sat up. The sudden action made him knock his head against the rock he'd been leaning against. He sank back down again. "Ow. You're right about that."

"I'm serious. You can tell by the way I'm not supplying your side of the conversation."

"So am I serious. My head hurts."

The purple-haired boy cocked an eyebrow at his oathbrother. "You should've gone with them."

"This old chestnut, again? They didn't need me and the guys do. I can go when they need me. Until then, we'll all be better off with me here."

Kouji snorted. Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Genrou. I've seen the way you watch the horizon. Genrou belongs here - but Tasuki is a different story. Genrou sprang up and tackled him, sending them both rolling through the grass. Friendly blows were traded, neither really aiming for the other, and by the time they'd stopped rolling in the grass, both were laughing.

That was when the bandit Genrou had left on lookout called up to them. "OI! GENROU! KOUJI! THE RAIDING PARTY'S BACK!"

The redhead stood up and stretched. "See? Duty calls."

Kouji stood more slowly and watched Genrou walk down the mountain. Genrou's duty calls. But how much longer are you going to be Genrou? Tasuki's a part of you - or maybe Genrou's a part of Tasuki - but every day you're a bit more him. And Tasuki doesn't belong here....

The pickings in the wood were getting slim. He picked at the bones that lay on the floor of the cave he'd decided to den in. He'd already bitten them to make them crack so he could suck the marrow out; there was absolutely no nourishment left, on or in them. He would have to hunt again, and he'd almost hunted these woods bare. Even in his wolf form there were almost no scents to trace.

The problem with being a wild carnivore was that there was a depressing lack of undomesticated herbivores. Almost every animal around that didn't want to eat him belonged to men.

Not that he was afraid of a single man. A good portion of the time he was one. But a village full of men, armed with stones and spears and arrows, who would gather up together to hunt down and kill the wolf that was killing their cattle... that was something to be afraid of, indeed. He remembered all too well the village he'd been born in, the freak show they'd sold him to and his eventual escape from it. One man alone was nothing; a group of them was a murder waiting to happen. He had no wish for it to be his.

He had slept in human form, it being more comfortable in the warming nights of late spring, but his wolf form was infinitely better at hunting, so he assumed it. Leaving his den, he sniffed the air and felt his ears flatten with shock and alarm.

Men! Men in his wood! What were men doing in his wood?

Another good thing about his wolf form was that it was very good at moving around unseen. He scented the air again and then set out to track down these men.

Halfway there, he stopped and sniffed the air. Not only were they not moving, the men had started a fire and were heating food. There was even - he smelled the air a third time to verify this last fact - some meat! He sped up. If he scared them off fast enough, they would leave their food, and he would eat very, very well. He licked his lips as he loped along. Food... meat....

They turned out to be a party of very young people - if any of them were older than twenty, he would be extremely surprised. There were two females and three males. The two youngest males were littermates; their faces and scents too similar for anything else. The older male covered his scent and face in thick perfume and coloured paint; perhaps a good disguise among humans, with their weak noses and ability to see colours, but not to a wolf, who would track him by his perfume. The older female was nothing out of the ordinary to his senses. The younger female....

He felt his ears and tail stick straight out from his body, along with all the rest of his fur. Without concious decision, he moved closer, and stumbled out into the clearing.

Yui was not happy. Riding, even at the gentle rocking canter Yumi, her horse, had fallen into, was draining, and she wasn't looking forward to another day of it, much less the rest of the journey. It didn't help that she'd never ridden a horse before. Soi assured her that Yumi was the gentlest mount the Temple owned (although Yui was quite convinced she'd have to go pretty far to get a more placid horse than Soi's mare Atsuko), so that meant that Yui just had to get used to it. Five days in, she still hadn't.

At least I'm not sick, like Miaka was, she comforted herself, watching as Tomo expertly fried sausages and journey-cakes bought the day before from a farmer's wife. He had turned out to be an excellent cook, a fact he used to get out of all the other campsite chores that accumulated around any travelling party.

She was not expecting a wolf to stumble out of the undergrowth and stare at her with piercing grey eyes.

The popping of the fire was the only sound as the entire group stared at the animal. Thin, with the bones of his ribs showing, the brown-grey animal half-stumbled towards Yui. Suboshi recovered from his paralysis first. Without a word, he flung his Taisuisen out, towards the wolf. It tangled around the animal's legs, making him fall heavily to the ground.

Then the form of the animal blurred. What had been matted fur became dirt-encrusted skin; the muzzle twisted and shrank down into a human face. A dirty, grey-eyed man lay chest down on the ground, tangled up in Suboshi's Taisuisen. "No-" he coughed, trying to roll over. "I'm not going to-"

Without thinking, Yui snatched one of the journey-cakes out of the forgotten pan. "Hush and eat," she said, tearing the hot rice-patty into pieces with her fingers and poking a piece at the man's face. He snapped at it, like a dog snatching food from his mistress' fingers. She looked down at him and her eyes widened.

"Lady Yui," Amiboshi said sharply, "what are you doing?"

Yui fed the man another piece of journey-cake and pointed at the lower right quarter of his bare back. The symbol 'Bi' glowed blue in the morning light.

"'Tail'," Soi breathed. "This is Ashitare."

The man looked up from the crumbs of the last piece of journey-cake. "Who's Ashitare?"

Tomo gave the naked man an appraising glance. "Apparently, you are," he drawled.

"I'm Ashitare," the man said, consideringly, and then smiled. It completely changed his face, making ruggedly handsome what had been merely forbidding. "I've never had a name before." He looked around the group. "Who are you?"

"Friends," Amiboshi said. "We won't hurt you. Suboshi, you'd better untie him. Tomo, do you have some spare clothes he can wear?"

"Not before he has a bath, I don't."

Amiboshi rolled his eyes. "Then go give him one," he said in a long-suffering tone. Suboshi had finished untangling the cord of his Taisuisen, but Ashitare didn't move, looking up at Yui instead.

"Go with Tomo, Ashitare," she said, encouragingly. "He won't hurt you. He'll just wash you and then you'll come straight back and have something to eat with the rest of us."

Ashitare blinked and, very obviously reluctantly, stood up. Yui swallowed as she watched Tomo lead Ashitare around the Tree to the part of the stream that they had designated the washing area the night before.

"He's very... tall, isn't he?" Soi said into the silence.

"Mm-hm," Yui hummed affirmatively, not trusting her voice.

"That could have been very dangerous, Lady Yui!" Suboshi said shrilly. "He could have bitten you!"

Yui shrugged. "He was just hungry. And so am I. How burnt are the sausages?"

Attention was turned to rescuing breakfast, and everyone was sitting down and eating when Ashitare and Tomo returned. Ashitare ran straight to Yui's side and squatted down beside her, while Tomo sauntered over at a more leisurely pace. Yui noticed that Ashitare was very carefully angled away from the group, and that she was the only one who was within two arms' reach of him. How hungry was he, if one journey-cake has won this much trust?

"So, Ashitare," Amiboshi began, "what do you know about destiny?"

"What's destiny?"

"All right," Amiboshi continued after a breath, "what do you know about Seiryuu?"

"Mothers smack their children for saying that word."

"Huh?" Suboshi said.

"When people put me in the cage and others stared at me, sone children would say that word and their mothers would smack them." His eyes narrowed. "I'm not going back in the cage. I will eat you if you try to put me there." There was a resolution behind the words that made them utterly believable.

Yui patted his head and fed him her last sausage. Really, he's like a puppy. "Don't worry. I won't let anyone put you in a cage. You're my Shichiseishi and I'll look after you."

"Really? Nobody has said that since Mama died."

His body blurred, and Yui found a silver-grey wolf sitting on her feet, his head lying on her lap and his grey eyes staring up at her soulfully. His symbol glowed on his right flank.

"Something tells me," Soi said, "that Ashitare will have no trouble with the 'serving Lady Yui' part of being a Shichiseishi."