on the night of ch 11 (the wedding night)
Night 1: evenings steep'd in honeyed indolence
In another world, Koumei would've married her.
The imperial palace is not built upon a hill, so no archers, no enemy generals could come to the capital of the Kou Empire astride their war horses and point on the horizon, exclaiming there it is, surround the complex. Instead it is built on flat land, in the heart of labyrinthine Rakushou, fortified with walls and gates and countless soldiers who would be the first to proudly declare that they would die for their country.
It is unlike the Summer Palace, tucked in the mountains of Tohouku, blanketed in lush greenery, and with birds singing on chilly mornings; there are no fat carp swimming lazy figure eights in the imperial palace's ponds, no carmine red gateways built on upon a mountain path every so often.
Koumei doesn't realize this until he sees her again. He doesn't anticipate missing a kingdom so different to his own, and he certainly doesn't anticipate how sharp his next breath gets when they accidentally catch each other's gaze in the banquet hall.
The whisper of Tohoku's mountain breeze is in his ears when he looks upon her for the first time in a year.
That her eyes are still the deepest shade of green is his first thought.
Then he dips his head, smiling the tiniest of smiles to himself. Of course her eyes are still green in the way he remembers them—it had been a ridiculous thought to have, and besides, he always remembers the important things.
Yes, her eyes are still of a shade that would so easily be lost amongst the verdant mountain forests of Tohouku; her eyes, coupled with her white-silver hair and pale skin, still draw many an admiring glance from a would-be suitor that night.
He knows this acutely: after all, in another world, the natural consequence to a month of courting the Jishouan royalty and speaking to her father would result in their betrothal. In another world this would be their wedding night: she would be wearing Sayuri's crimson and white robes, and he would be wearing Kouen's heavy set of formal robes, embroidered with the dragon of Kou. It is too difficult to tell if she would be wearing Sayuri's carefully blank face as well, but in another world he would've offered her his name and she likely would've accepted.
Before this he had never really envisioned a marriage for himself—no matter how far and how wide his mind could reach, he had kept the idea remote, and had never really bothered about it—what use was a wife when he had his books and his pigeons and his brothers to keep him company?
Even now the idea stays out of his reach. But only because now he makes an effort to keep it there.
In another world he would've married her, or so he says, but the time to bring about that world has come and passed; Sayuri and Kouen have bound themselves to each other, and he remains the unwed Second Imperial Prince of Kou.
Koumei takes one moment to nod respectfully at Mameha.
Then his gaze strays, and she turns away to look at her brother sitting beside her.
In any case, it would be foolish and a waste of time to think more of such impossible things.
Notes:
I loved reading 1001 Nights as a child, so here's my own silly little tribute to it. Night 1's title is from a line in John Keats's poem, Ode on Indolence.
This is a non-linear collection of stories (like the Arabian nights!) from the AU world of Pale Fire that you can count as canon. There are a lot of side characters and would-be side plots I didn't have the time or space to explore, so here they are. If you wondered about what happened to x character or x thing...here's where they might be.
There's nothing really here that would terribly spoil PF, I promise.
