[Sky Cradle]
Since the world for the Pirate I Was Meant to be is slowly growing into a mammoth universe, I decided to take a little detour to the kingdom of Raimon with King Takuto. The story takes place after Akane left him, but before the siege of Angler's Reef. But because Taiyou will take up an important role later in the pirate story I really wanted to write something about him.
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Amemiya Taiyou had been sitting in the same room for almost five hours, walking around like a lion who was locked up in a cage. His visit to Raimon was supposed to be short. Just giving King Shindou the letter, asking him to rethink the situation and then, to offer him Arakumo's suggestion then fly back home with the news. However, the messenger was late.
It must be because of Akane's letter, he thought while he was staring at the ceiling. King Takuto arrived a day before him, with a letter from Yamane Akane, his fiancée. Apparently she didn't just annul their engagement, but decided to fight alongside the Island Nations as one of their leader. Taiyou had to admit he looked up at Akane for being so bold and going against Raimon and its rock headed council, but she didn't depend on their supplies like Arakumo, his town up in the northern mountains. Ever since the war between the Holy Emperor of Seidouzan and Raimon started and the dragon knights of Seidouzan scorched their field and forests the town was fighting not only the enemy soldiers, but starvation and diseases what easily took down the weakened town folk.
The door opened with soft creak, however it as not the messenger who appeared in the door way, but Matsukaze Tenma the royal guard. Back when Kind Mamoru went missing, and later they declared him dead, everyone thought the boy would be his successor, but fate proved them wrong and instead Shindou Takuto was chosen.
"Taiyou! I knew you will be here!" the boy greeted him, throwing his arms around the young pilot, his blue eyes shone with happiness.
"Tenma, you are crushing my bones!" Taiyou let out a fake-whine and ended it chuckle. He thanked the gods above him, that the boy didn't wear his heavy armour, though it must've meant that he was off-duty for that part of the day.
"You deserve it! Leaving me here so suddenly last time, and then refusing to answer my letters too! I thought you were hurt or worse...!" Tenma shot back almost immediately, before cheerfully tightened is embrace around Taiyou.
"I did answer your letters, I just never had the time to send them to you," he apologized with a lopsided grin. War's side effect was the lack of post services, more than often they got the letters, but they couldn't send anything from their side, because the post office not only lost its main building and everything, that could've been used to administrate letters, but more than often their postmen were either caught or shot. "But they're all here in my bag!"
After he managed to pull away from Tenma's hug, he quickly pulled out a stack of envelopes from his brown messenger bag. The letters were neatly tied together with a thick yellow thread.
"All my sweet words and promises in one long collection. So even when I can't write you, you can just open a new each week."
"Says the one, who kept me waiting for weeks! Taiyou, you're late."
"Hey, if I'd sent them, then half of them would be scattered around the grasslands. Isn't it better this way?"
Tenma grimaced, before poking Taiyou in the side. "Not, when you make someone worry. Next time at least try sending something back with the supply caravan." he was about to say how Nishiki would never lose them, but they both know that Nishiki would probably lose anything if it wasn't stapled to him.
"Roger that!" he winked. Before walking to the door and peeking out to see if someone was coming. "Also Tenma, I was wondering if you would like to wander around with me for a bit. I'm already bored out of my skull and something tells me that the council and our beloved king won't do anything today."
Since they made him wait, Taiyou thought, he deserved some fresh air and a change in scenery.
"Of course!" Tenma said, before another thought suddenly appeared in his mind, "Wait, I have to check the weapons in the storeroom or else Tsurugi will bite my head off at dinner. Last time I completely forgot that and I was assigned to cleaning duty for a week."
"Well, no wonder. It would be unlucky if you ran out of gunpowder in the middle of a battle. But I can totally understand where Tsurugi is coming from. You can be pretty birdbrained."
Tenma pretended not to notice Taiyou's remark.
"Hmmm…" he answered vaguely, seriously thinking about leaving the boy who wore a beaming smile on his face.
"But if you need some help, I could still count a lance or two. And after that you can show me the Pegasus house."
Taiyou was worried about many things that day, and there was an uneasy feeling that lingered in the waiting room. However if there was one thing Tenma did better than anyone, then that was driving away the clouds… and blabbering about the pegasi.
In some way, Taiyou needed both.
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Okay, so first chapter is done and wow I never thought that I would write a multi-chaptered mini-spinoff for The Pirate I Was Meant to Be especially not with Raimon as the main stage, but
Yes. Taiyou requires a bit of a background work, because once he shows up, I probably won't be able to write his full story into the chapter, just like I wasn't able to show you Akane's letter because Shindou takes no part in the main story.
If you are interested in Akane's side it can be found on my profile as "My Beloved" It contains her letter, however her means and reasons can be found in the big fic where she takes up the role of a Pirate Lord.