In the twenty-third year of her reign the Queen of Kei, the late Hi-Ou, was struck down by Heaven and in the period of half a year a single branch of the Shashinboku bore one small golden fruit. It hung above the beaming, newly-born feathered nyokai named Haku Kaiko, who tenderly stroked it, murmuring,
"Keiki."
That fruit gradually swelled for nine months until Kaiko, positively glowing with bliss, reached out and gave it a light tug, which detached the fruit cleanly from its stem. Seeing this, the nyosen gathered round, although the fruit would not crack open for another twenty-four hours. During the incubation period the area beneath the branches of the Shashinboku resembled the slumber party of a large group of preteen girls who stayed up far too late drinking Red Bull.
They were so excited they nearly missed the tap from within, followed by a clean crack as the egg-fruit split into perfect halves. The gathered nyosen's hearts melted into gooey mush of at the sight of the bleary eyed, damp kirin foal. He was curled up in a ball with his slender legs tucked in, slightly larger than a full grown cat in the same position. His pale cream back with strewn pure white speckles arched, and he stretched out his thin legs. He lifted his narrow muzzle to face Kaiko, unfolding his triangular ears and blinking open his violet eyes, both large in proportion to his small face.
The nyosen almost swooned out of sheer cuteness overdose as he wobbled upwards, pushing his narrow hind legs up with his forelegs and stumbling a couple of steps. The surge of nyosen rushing forward alarmed the newborn, forcing him to retreat backwards into his nyokai's outstretched arms, tripping over his hind legs in the unlearned motion and falling spread legged on his stubby tail. Seeing this, Teiei scolded the nyosen and assigned each tasks to busy themselves with, which they performed with long, dawdling detours around the Shashinboku. But for the most part Keiki was left in peace.
The nyosen were all eager to care for the baby foal, but Keiki proved to be skittish around large groups of people, so the nyosen tending to him were reduced to a small handful comprised of those who were most senior, those who were most eager, and those who were masters of rock-paper-scissors. He grew slowly stumbling along blithely after Kaiko through the gardens, until after a year had passed his legs had grown strong and his young mind curious.
That's when Keiki began to stray to the edge of Houro Palace, right along the walls, learning the boundaries of his world. There he encountered small youma, gaining shirei without understanding anything more than he wanted to win the staring game with the little fuzzy animal. He soon knew the passages of Mt. Hou by heart, guiding his nyokai through them instead of the reverse, and his curious little mind ever sought to find something new in the well familiar space.
Doors were his greatest enemy. The tall beings that surrounded him had funny little things at the end of their front legs, the ones they used for things other than walking, that could magically open doors and do many things. Many of the things they could be used for he could achieve with his teeth and nudges with his head, but not opening doors. He was sure there were lots of exciting things behind the many doors in the buildings, but he couldn't get at them.
In particular, the tall beings always emerged from one door with a tray laden with good things to eat, and he could smell all the yummy things behind the door. But no one would open it for him, not even the fluffy winged tall being he really liked. He stared morosely at the door, then looked pitifully at the winged being, who smiled and shook her head. She wasn't going to open it. One of the tall being in bright colours passed by, and he gazed at her imploringly.
The bright tall being laughed, "No, Keiki, you can't go in the kitchen."
All Keiki understood from that was "Keiki" and "No". She wasn't going to open the door either. Rats.
The tall being moved off, and the most delicious smell arose from the crack under the door. Mhmm… mint carrot stew. He really, really, really wanted to go in there. He nudged the door with his foreleg, and then awkwardly tried to lift it to the sticky-outy-thingy that when pulled created the miracle of an open door. No matter how he nudged it with his foreleg it didn't turn, and the door stayed shut.
How did the tall beings do it? They had five little thingies at the end of their forelegs that could wrap around the door, five little thingies he didn't have. He really, really wanted them. If he just had the five little thingies he could get into the food room too.
Keiki felt funny for a moment and suddenly the end of his foreleg was a lot more bendy. Bendy enough to wrap around the sticky-outy thingy and, with a lot of fumbling, pull it and open the door. He took a step inwards… and fell flat on his oddly flat face.
The bright tall beings inside the food room looked up from the yummy smelling thing they had their hands in and exclaimed, "He's transformed!"
He tried to scramble up, but his forelegs suddenly seemed much shorter than his hind and they had funny bendy-thingies at the end. He looked down in bewilderment and couldn't see himself anywhere, just tall being legs. He turned his head frantically to try to find his body, and suddenly there it was again. He got up and trotted over to where he smelt the good things, and the bright tall beings made lots of fuss over him, stroking his head and giving him sliced apples.
That was Keiki's first ever time transforming and, though the kitchen nyosen loved to fondly retell it over and over again, he was much too young to remember it.
After that no doors were safe from Keiki (since none of the doors on Mt. Hou had locks), and he gradually found many other uses for his newly discovered ability. By the time he was six he had grown strong enough to hold transformation for days on end, and that's when the nyosen felt it prudent to alert Kei Kingdom they could raise the kirin flag and send over shouzan pilgrims.
Before that Keiki had known that somewhere far away was a place called "Kei" that he would go to when he got big. He was the "Ki" of "Kei", so when he got bigger he would find a person called "Ruler" and then go with "Ruler" to "Kei". But suddenly he was big enough, and there were people coming to see him, maybe even the ruler!
Before Keiki had been a diligent learner who knew many more characters than children twice his age did, but now he frantically expanded his education by poring over difficult books on Kei. He studied things he didn't really understand, and often had to pull aside a nyosen to help him. He learned that almost three hundred years ago there had been a good king called Tatsu-Ou, but then Tatsu-Ou went bad and his Keiki died, and after that two bad queens called Haku-Ou and Hi-Ou followed him after very long interims during which the new Keikis were born and grew up. He was the third Keiki since Tatsu-Ou's Keiki, and the nyosen told him all the Kei people wished he would choose a good, just ruler and guide that ruler well for a long time.
Keiki felt a bit alarmed at this, but he knew that the ruler was a good person chosen by Heaven, so if he worked hard it should be something he was able to do. He poured himself over scrolls detailing the exact duties of the Saiho and examined various accounts of scenarios that had occurred to his predecessors. When the pilgrims arrived his head was spinning and stuffed full of all the government stuff he could cram into it.
He knew the ruler would seem different to him than all other people, but he didn't feel like that towards any of the people there, so the people were quickly disappointed to learn there was not a ruler among them. Keiki found the strange people fascinating to be around, though he wasn't very good at talking with them. The only people he had ever seen were the nyosen, who knew him so well that he hardly ever need actually say anything to them. And if they knew what he wanted without him having to say so, why bother? It just wasn't practical. But Keiki quickly realized the pilgrims were not telepathic, and so he learned that he needed to specifically state something for it to be understood. There were lots of people who came up to him and talked on and on about nothing, but they were generally those trying to curry the kirin's favour, so Keiki didn't feel obliged to reply to them at all. There were also some friendly ones who merely chatted on about their jobs or children conversationally. Keiki found the topic of children fascinating, since he had never seen a child before, but because he didn't say anything and his facial expression didn't convey this the topic was often changed to a more tedious one, until the pilgrim ran out of things to say or got unnerved by his unresponsive silence.
Despite being a most apathetic participator, the pilgrims' chatting taught him they all hoped he would soon choose a ruler. His two immediate predecessors had nearly been thirty when they chose a king, since Haku-Ou had been too poor to go on a shouzan and Hi-Ou had, fearful of the dangers of the Yellow Sea, delayed the voyage. Since Haku-Ou had lasted only sixteen years, and Hi-Ou only twenty-three, this meant the interims had been longer than the actual reigns. Hence why everyone hoped he would choose a ruler early, particularly a king.
Men were almost as strange creatures as children to Keiki, despite himself being male. On Mt. Hou there are only nyosen and his nyokai, no men at all. If asked to describe how men differed from women he would be hard pressed for a definition, but the slight difference fascinated him. The difference was not so large or standard that it meant that a king was preferable to a queen, but as the two previous queens had been quite useless and short-lived Keiki knew everyone was hoping the ruler he chose would be a king. He hoped so too, because all the things he read about the duties of Saiho sounded complicated enough even without the stigma of kaitatsu attached to the ruler at ascension, but it wasn't something he really had power over. The ruler was the ruler, whether it was a king or queen was not something he got to decide. In fact, he had about as much say in the selection as the dice does in whether it rolls a snakes eyes, but the pilgrims all told him they wished for him to quickly choose a good king.
It was a huge burden for a six-year-old to have to shoulder.
The pressure caused Keiki to retreat from the pilgrims and lock himself up in Shiren Palace fervently studying all he could about rulers. Of course each time a new group of pilgrims arrived he politely waited for them to offer incense and examined each person for ouki, but the ruler never came and Keiki had a lot to learn. The nyosen told him he didn't have to be so uptight and it was fine for him to go play or converse with the pilgrims, to which he paid no mind. There was much to learn, and Keiki was desperate to fulfill the hopes of the people he had been born to serve. The most the nyosen were able to convince him to do was spend an afternoon of rest after a tiring morning shirei subduing excursion. Then, in the evening, he would go right back to his scrolls.
The years passed this way and Keiki grew older and much more knowledgeable, so at times he would go to some of the pilgrims to converse. He found them a good source of information, and in this way he learned about the state of Kei and the general international state. This was how he found out that the Tai Taiho had been struck with shitsudou, and nearly a year later when he was walking past the Shashinboku he paused and squinted at it.
The end of one of the branches seemed to be giving off a dilute golden glow, almost like a translucent lamp shade, faintly noticeable in the dimming evening. He pulled a passing nyosen aside and pointed it out, but she didn't see anything. Over the next few days he frequented the Shashinboku in puzzlement, and the glow grow strong enough that he was able to see it in the day.
Teiei, who had been informed of Keiki's strange behavior, approached him. "Is something the matter?"
When Keiki pointed to the tree branch and described what he saw, Teiei clapped her hands together and smiled. "The means a new ranka is sprouting! It should be the Taika, since Tai is currently the only kingdom to our knowledge without a kirin. How exciting, two kirin on Mt. Hou at once! It is most rare, I've only had it happen twice in all my years serving here."
Teiei sighed dreamily. "It is so wonderful to have two kirin growing up together like siblings. Just think Keiki, you're going to be an older brother!"
Older brother? Strictly speaking kirin were not related to one another but, as there were only twelve at any time, there existed a fellowship between them similar to that of family. Keiki, however, had never met another kirin, and hitherto he had been the youngest. In addition, he had yet to meet another child and the concept of 'baby' to him was a distant phenomenon he'd read about.
Keiki detoured to the Shashinboku at least twice a day after that, watching the small bud sprout on the tree until it was a clearly distinguishable tiny golden fruit. The nyosen were completely ecstatic, and they kept coming up to him telling him how wonderful it was and how he would have to be a good role model. Keiki started digging through the archives on Mt. Hou for a treatise written on siblinghood, but he couldn't find the meanest essay to instruct himself. The whole thing made him feel rather disconcerted and unqualified, and he dearly wished some ancient philosopher had been kind enough to do a study on role-modelism and write out concrete instructions on how to go about it.
Terrifying as the idea of being a mentor was, Keiki longed to see what tiny creature appeared from within the delicate golden fruit. He was just detouring past the tree, on his way back from subduing a hinman named Jouyuu, when he caught sight of a female ninyou spring from beneath the roots and bound over beneath the Taika, lovingly cradling it and cooing,
"Taiki."
He stopped a few minutes to observe the nyokai, since he had never seen one other than Kaiko before. The leopard-lizard-woman was fascinating, but he was weary from the battle of wills with Jouyuu and wanted nothing more than to go curl up and sleep for a while. Fighting the wind all the way back to Shiren Palace only made him more exhausted, so he just flopped onto his bed fully clothed and shut his eyes, falling asleep in an instant. Even at that young age, this was something very uncharacteristic for Keiki and clearly showed the extent of his exhaustion. He dreamed peacefully of a smaller version of himself galloping joyfully through the air beside him, until all of a sudden he was rudely jerked awake.
Keiki slammed into the floor and opened his startled eyes in bewilderment, taking in his overturned furniture and the shuddering earth. He raced to the door clarify the situation, and he had only turned the knob when it suddenly blew open and hit him in the face. Retracting a step in pain, he clutched his bleeding nose and looked out dazedly.
The whole sky had turned blood red and gusts of high winds blew tree branches and fragments of palaces through the air like dandelion seeds. The force of wind slamming into him forced Keiki to retreat another step.
What in the world is going on?
Mt. Hou had inherently good weather, and storms of this magnitude simply never occurred. The only natural disasters that had ever happened on Mt. Hou were…
A shoku?
Keiki broke into a run towards the Shashinboku, doubled over from the effort of fighting his way through the winds. He had only ever read about shoku, from an account of a nyosen named Shoushun who had served on Mt. Hou five hundred years ago, but the description she had given had matched what was happening exactly, and worse, at the time it had carried off the Enka!
Keiki transformed and instantly he was able to spring forward without hindrance, arriving at the Shashinboku in seconds. The leopard nyokai was reaching out her hand desperately, sobbing and screaming,
"Taiki! TAAAIKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!"
Then suddenly the sky was blue and the wind a mere gentle breeze. All was peaceful, but there was no Taika on the Shashinboku.
Keiki didn't remember much after that, partly because he was in bed several days afterwards with blood fever from his smashed up nose, though he remembered being assured by a distressed nyosen that everyone else had been dispatched eastward to Hourai, searching. The kirin of other kingdoms were asked to aid the search, but he was not permitted to join in, being too young. Keiki's hope for Taiki's return dwindled, until it seemed like the time another kirin had been growing on the same Shashinboku he'd been born from was nothing more than a passing dream.
