Authors Preface: This fic was actually the product of a dream I had, and the curious question on my part of "I wonder if a kingdom with a stable enough government could have a king out of action and yet Tentei would allow the kirin to live..." In short, what if matters in Tai continued as they more or less exist now, only Taiki and the other rulers found a way to stabilize the throne enough that Heaven felt no need to act. I tried to keep as true to the world canon and the tone of the novels as possible in this one so I really hope you all enjoy. Book and manga cannon both exist simultaneously, and this first chapter is the longest one in the fic. Enjoy!


:Intransigent, bloody stubborn northern lords!: Yuka thought to herself as she pulled off the shenyi of heavy silk with gold embroidery she wore to court over the back of a nearby chair for the room servants to do something with later and threw herself onto her bed in nothing but the light silk zhongyi. comfortable for perhaps the first time since she'd woken that day. The clothes she wore even under the formal robe would have been put on display in a museum or an art gallery, Yuka found them only somewhat less stifling than the normal rigamarole she was required to wear. Not for the first time she thought,

:If I had known it was going to be like this, I would certainly not have been so eager to pick a fight with Youko over the throne of Kei!:

That little incident was long decades in the past and her present was not something Yuka had ever seriously thought her life would be like. She was supposed to be an old granny, with tons of children and grandchildren of her own, but instead she was in the rather unenviable position of having to prop the throne up from the inside. Thier prop was a jury-rigged string of contingencies, loopholes and make-do's that even now seemed like they relied more on prayers and the mercy of Heaven than actual law.

:And how did I find myself in the center of this mess?: she thought rhetorically with an edge of annoyed bitterness. :Oh that's right, it turns out I have a soft spot for Kirin and signing my life away!:

Ever since she'd had that late-night conversation with Taiki, Yuka had felt so sad for him that she simply been unable to bring herself to sit still about it. Oh no, she'd had to go and get herself involved, had to go getting close to him, and care for him (in a strictly platonic sense). When Yuka found that there was something she wanted, even if it wasn't for herself, she generally found ways of getting it done. It had been no different in that case.

:Getting Kaname over to this world was a relative cinch, since the kirin of En had been actively looking for him,: Yuka thought, reflecting about the past to herself as she carefully started to remove the fancy hairsticks from her stiff court coiffure.

:Though compared to all the nonsense I face in the royal court every day, finding Kaname's stupid king was the easy part!:

The shouku had stranded the two of them in the Province of Ba in Tai with little to get by on and the weather just turning from winter to spring. The winters in Tai, it turned out, were nothing to laugh at, and they extended farther into the year than she was accustomed. Still, the two of them had managed to land on their feet; Yuka had a skill in the form of proficiency with a musical instrument (and could make some small money busking for coins) Kaname had his own skill as an artist so they'd been able to travel freely from place to place. Traveling safely, however, had been another matter. There had been youma everywhere. The "adventures" (and by that Yuka meant life-threatening situations and dangerous alliances) they'd had in orienting on the place where the usurper to the throne had hidden the king could fill a book.

:It's a good thing that Taiki has his magical "king-sensing" ability, or we'd have been up a creek without a paddle,: Yuka thought.

Finding Gyousou Saku had been the easy part. Matters became a great deal more complicated after the king was "rescued".

:What good's a king that can't rule his kingdom. Damn Asen for being so clever!:

Once they had liberated the king from where Asen had hidden him, they discovered the extent of the difficulty they faced. Asen had used a Chyoukoku, some kind of half-youma thing that, much like a hinma, wrapped itself around inside of a person's body. It was actually a sort of parasite that fed on life-energy. It drained its host of all the energy needed for active functions but kept it alive in a state of coma.

:And Chyoukoku do not possess a mortal lifespan, they are able to live as long as the host body lives. That damned clever Asen was able to see the possible advantage of this, If the host body is immortal then so would the Cyoukoku,: Yuka thought with an inward shudder of dismay at the memory of them having received the bad news.

Conceivably, that parasite could have kept draining the king of Tai forever, keeping him alive but in a coma until Tai was consumed by ruin. To remove the thing by force had not been an option sadly, it would kill the host and anyone connected to that host. While Yuka might have been just barely willing to sacrifice the king in order to save the kirin (Kaname could choose another after all) killing Gyousou would have killed her friend and she had not (and would never have) been willing to risk it.

:But doing nothing woud have kept the usurper on the throne.:

It had been a dicey situation in a lot of ways. The Royal Tai was stuck in suspended animation by a usurper who was as immortal as the man who'd granted his immortality, the only person able to revoke that immortality had been unable to do so as a result of being stuck in suspended animation. A real catch twenty-two.

:Asen really had everyone by the short and curlies,: Yuka though in irritated admiration for her former enemy.

Naturally, after they (they being Yuka, Kaname, Youko and her coalition of kings from other nations) had discovered Gyousou's state, they had tried everything they could think of to reverse it. At first, they'd thought that the Hekisoujo, the royal jewel of Kei that healed anything might get rid of the parasite, but it had been ineffective because it did not read the parasite as a being a wound to be healed (she supposed). They'd even hauled Gyousou's unconscious royal carcass to Mt. Hou but the Oracle of the Jasper Mists, Lady Gyoukuyou had been unable to remove the Chyoukoku from him. She had offered a slight hope however... she couldn't kill it, but she could change it. The powerful entity (Yuka couldn't think of someone able to work such powerful magic as being human, no matter what outside form she wore) changed the Chyoukoku feeding on Gyousou's energy so that it would have a life-cycle that resembled a butterfly. It would live inside of a host, feeding of its life energies for only so long, then it would metamorphose into something else and leave its cocoon.

:Of course, that didn't really help us or Tai right then!: Yuka thought in remembered frustration.

The life cycle of Choukyouku's larval state was roughly half a century. Even with her powerful magic, it seemed that there was only so much Gyoukuyou could do. Tai would not last that long under Ansen's care, and Taiki could not choose a new king while his leige yet lived (and again, allowing said king to die would kill the kirin in this case). So they had done the logical thing and set up plans to retake the throne of Tai in Gyousou's name.

:Up until that point, I'm sure that no-one had ever once dreamed of putting a kirin, a creature of benevolence and pacifism, at the head of an army, even figuratively!:

Poor Kaname had known, even when it was brought up, that he would be physically incapable of being around all of the blood and violence that would ensue in a messy re-coup like the one that the King of En knew would be necessary to reclaim Tai. So he had asked Yuka and Risai to go in his place.

:It was to be my second time restoring a throne, I remember how foolishly eagre I was to prove myself a good and loyal friend to poor Kaname, whom fate had been so unkind to.:

She's felt so sorry for him. Back then reaching out to other people and trying to empathize had been a bit of a new thing for her. Yuka always been something of a lone wolf, happier reading her books than interacting socially so having a real friend that she wanted to help and be there for had been something of a novelty for her.

:Risai was all set to lead the coalition of Youko's and the Ever-King of En's forces straight into Tai and start pruning away Asen's Army!:

However, Heaven had interceded in the most inconvenient of ways. It was against the Laws of Heaven for any king to lead his army into another kingdom, no matter how justified he or she was. The only exception was that a king could loan his army to the king of another kingdom (as En had to Youko in order to depose the usurper Jyoei the first time Yuka had traveled to the Twelve Kingdoms), but that king had to be in the lead.

:Taiki was physically and spiritually incapable of going into battle so he could not lead the army, not without serious risk to himself on many levels,: Yuka remembered. :And the Royal Tai was out of commission!:

At the time it had seemed like Asen's scheme had an answer for everything they might try to defeat him and that Tai was out of luck and out of time...

:I'm still not sure that the Ever-letch did anyone any favors with his solution though.:

The King of En had found a loophole in one of the history texts in the Royal Library at Shadowlore palace. In the early days of the Kingdom of Sou, he'd explained with a bright smile, the then-Royal Sou had been incapacitated and there had been huge civil insurrection by an embittered rival turned enemy. The army of Sou had been annihilated and it looked like the insurrection against the crown would be successful, but the Royal Sou's consort had journeyed to Kou at the behest of the Sou Taiho to beg the aid of the Royal Kou and the use of his armies. The Royal Sou' consort had consulted Heaven's will on the matter, and Heaven had decreed that her use of another army in defense of her homeland and husband was allowable in Heaven's eyes. The insurrection had been defeated and the rightful throne restored. The Royal Sou and his wife had ruled in harmony for three hundred years.

They had not, at first, seen the use of his particular example for Gyousou Saku was not married. There was no Royal Consort they could use to head the army, and they still could not ask Taiki to do it since it was near-physically impossible that Taiki, the kirin of Tai, could handle being around that much bloodshed.

"Ah, but there's another loophole!" En had said with devious had felt her guard go up even then with that false disarming charm of his, as they said in the north "tender baby chicks know a weasel when they see one."

In the instances where a king might be incapacitated by injury or illness, the Taiho was the one who ran the inner palace and attended to rites. The Taiho also had the authority to manage matters in his liege's House and family. Technically, he could perform the marriage rite on his kings' behalf. With the Taiho presiding, the king and his bride could undergo a proxy-marriage, essentially, there would be a stand-in.

:To this day I still recall how every single damn royal face in that room looked down the table right at me!: Yuka thought irritatedly.

During their search for Gyousou, and the search for a cure that ensued their discovery of his state, Yuka had proven herself time and again. She managed situations. The girl who'd been bullied in class and shut everyone out to pursue her interest in literature had never imagined herself in a situation where she would have to handle people, but being on the outside looking in all of the time had given her a great deal of insight as to how people worked. She enjoyed intellectual games of strategy. In school she'd been able to get by with an aloof manner and an ability to keep her mouth shut, but when it came down to figuring out the intricacies of politics and personality types and the complex interweaving of alliances and advantage (and finding a way to use them to her advantage,) Yuka was a strategy player with plus fifty intelligence.

:Now I sort of wish I hadn't proven myself quite so reliable!: Yuka thought.

It had been decided that a person with intelligence and acumen (if not experience), proven fearlessness in battle, and a great deal of loyalty to Taiki personally was just the sort of person who would make a perfect prop for the throne.

:I still think they should have made Risai do it. She's closer to his age and had battle experience.:

The King of En (and surprisingly, Youko, who, Yuka would have thought would have agreed with her about the inappropriateness of it) had argued that while Risai was an excellent woman and an experienced and capable general, she lacked the cunning and acumen necessary to maneuver in the political arena.

Yuka had tried to protest the appointment, naturally, but Taiki had given her that puppy-eyed look and begged her to help his king. Yuka, a sucker for kirin in general and him in particular had agreed to take one for the team... or kirin. She'd sworn to him that she would help him hold his kingdom together in such a way that it would be so stable that Heaven would have no cause for complaints (or to put poor Kaname under shitsudo, more importantly).

With Kaname presiding over the rite and Youko, Rakushun, Enki and Keiki as witnesses, Yuka was married by proxy (with a pervy King of En as the royal stand-in) to Gyousou Saku and made Royal Consort to the King of Tai.

:A girl's supposed to think of her wedding day as the happiest day of her life... All I recall about mine was the impatience to get it over with so that I could go liberate a kingdom so that my friend would not die.:

Her wedding clothes had been the armor she planned to wear into battle.

Their reclaiming of the kingdom of Tai had not been nearly so decisive as Youko's had been. For one thing, the usurper was better armed and a lot more savvy about military strategy. Youko's usurper had only been a cloth-merchant's daughter who was being propped on the throne by the King of Kou and his armies. Also, Jyoei had been on the throne for maybe a year or two, at best. Asen was a general equal to the famous king of Tai (perhaps his superior since he had, in fact, succeeded in ousting his rival from the throne). Furthermore he had had a few years to put all of his pieces into place; to purge the military of commanders loyal to the king and put his own soldiers in place, to destroy the royal court, to replace all of the provincial governors with men loyal to himself rather than the crown.

The Royal Palace had held out for three days, the capitol city took a month longer to recapture seeing as they had to try to go easy on the populace. Yuka was the figurehead at the army for the duration and her education in military strategy quickly went from theoretical to practical. Sadly, getting the palace and capitol city of Kouki under control was only the beginning. Asen "dropped his tail" like a lizard when he gathered his remaining forces and ran to the next province over, calling on that provincial governor's army to aid and protect him.

:If fighting an army wasn't bad enough,: Yuka remembered. :The kingdom was crawling with Youma!:

A number of casualties during the first winter war of the Tai's little reconquista were due to Youma attacks. In a series of battles they managed to "crush" the provincial army (many of the common-rank soldiery decided they'd rather lay down thier arms and surrender to the rightful rule of Heaven than to continue fighting) and Asen fled again to the next province over and stir up their troops to start the whole thing over again.

:Yeah, that was not happening!: Yuka thought, still smiling a little to that day at the way she and Taiki had outmaneuvered the little bastard.

The usurper had clearly set things up so that he could sustain a guerrilla warfare by hopping from province to province, raising the local troops and making a further nuisance of himself. Yuka was more wiling to pursue the diplomatic route. She had reasoned that, due to human nature, a wealthy person in power would want to keep that wealth and power. Any honest general would say that armies were expensive things to field. Thus, supporting an army would cut into the wealth that the provincial lords wanted to enjoy once they were given their rank and titles. There was a war strategy that said "make allies far away and attack nearby" that had been applicable. Yuka had approached the other provincial lords surrounding the province that Asen had fled to with an under-the-table deal. Deny thier patron the aid he wanted (the aid he had put them into place to secure!) and they'd get to keep their palaces and positions. If they chose to harbor a fugitive, she could execute them on sight when she found them. To be perfectly frank, Yuka had had no choice but to deliver that ultimatum. Her powers as the consort were, in fact, quite limited. She could act as a diplomat, and perform offices to which she had been officially appointed by her lord-husband or his taiho (by proxy) but she could not exercsize actual royal authority, such as firing a provincial governor and appointing a new one. That was an imperial prerogative.

:Which is how this poor kingdom became the massive diplomatic clusterfuck it is today,: Yuka thought.

Asen had certainly gone down swinging. He was a military strategist the likes of which Yuka only read about in books. Even without meeting him face to face, Yuka could tell by the way he set up his skirmishes that he was very intelligent. She honestly couldn't claim to be any smarter than he was, but he had one weakness that she had been able to exploit. A general of the armies, the man did not seem to even consider the effectiveness of the use of a Navy. The ships on this world were primarily used for trade, not fighting; the closest thing they had to a Navy was really more akin to a coast guard. Still, Risai and Yuka were able to herd enough of Asen's major forces to battlefields that were on or near the coastline for them to make a massive sneak attack on land using amphibious warfare tactics, This, combined with the largest airstrike from the kuukoushi (the air force) they could coordinate.

Unfortunately for Yuka's peace of mind, when they at last had the source of all of their troubles in custody, they could not execute him. His immortality could only be revoked by the rightful king, and Taiki begged for leniency on Asen's behalf. Yuka's authority to act was less than Taiki's even with what would become a co-leadership of the imerial court, so there were places where she had to make concessions. With her hands tied, she expediently suggested his exile on the rock-island prison on the Isle of Nen. If they let him run free, even exiled to another kingdom, the man would only have tried to continue his plans, and since those plans included Kaname eventually undergoing shitsudo...

:He had to go.:

When she had agreed to act on Taiki's behalf at the head of the armies of Kei and En to liberate Tai from the usurper, she had sworn much more than a mere acting captaincy. She had sworn that she was in it for the duration. If Tai continued on the ruinous course it had taken under the usurper then the Emperor of Heaven would without a doubt declare the current rule insufficient, Tentei would decide the Taki's king, Gyousou, had lost the Way and must be removed from office. Taiki would undergo shitsudo. Yuka had crossed over with the express purpose of preventing that. Never again under her watch would another kirin (let alone her close friend!) undergo shitsudo. Yuka would do all in her power to prevent it.

:And in this case, preventing it meant repairing the damage Asen did to this poor kingdom. Stabilizing the economy, the government, and restoring the military to a strength that would enable them to start working on Tai's youma problem.:

All of that would have to be done with the limited powers that she and Taiki shared between them. They could act on behalf of the emperor with certain authorities granted them, but they could not take the place of the king.

:It would not have been nearly so difficult if Asen had not purged the royal court of damn near every single capable minister in the place!:

Not to mention, the kingdom was bankrupt. They had also been (and still were) stuck with shuukou, provincial governors, whose only real interest was in mining the gemstone springs and gold springs in their provinces and selling the precious materials to line their own pockets.

:And of course, any traitor who will turn his back on his patron, will just as easily turn against the next leader in line.: Yuka thought with remembered irritation for the whole mess.

Not a scant year after Asen's exile, Yuka had just barely managed to capture and deport the last of Asen's military supporters to an island prison-mine off the coast of Tai, when the provincial governors of Sui, Ran, Ki and Chou Provinces in the south section of Tai had gathered their own armies and descended on Whitejewel Palace with the intention of coercing the taiho into being their puppet. Yuka, fed up with their non-sense decided that their little usurper-party should be brought down from the inside.

:After all, alliances of that nature last only as long as alliances can last... that is, until one side sees an advantage.:

She had heard from Youko that there was actually a song about the way Tai's Royal Consort had waited at the front steps of the imperial palace in her finest gown for the four leaders of the revolt to descend like vultures, ready to pick at the carcass of the remains of Royal Authority. She'd prepared a feast for them before the empty throne of her "husband" and the four of them, seeing her as meek, compliant young girl, had let thier guard down. Each Province Lord had fancied himself the one who would gain control over the royal court by controlling the Royal Consort and Taiho.

To this day she still mentally called that time "The Winter of the Wolves." Sowing dissension and discord among her guests in the fertile ground of their mutual mistrust of each other had been the most fun she'd had since the wars had started.

:The limited powers of my position wouldn't even let me sentence them to execution for treason,: Yuka thought. :I couldn't even reappoint them, for that is a kings prerogative and doesn't even belong to the Taiho. Fortunately for me, there is one specific rule that gave me just enough of a loophole to take care of the problem with those shuukou personally.:

The four southern shuukou who had taken over the Royal palace had all been men of a certain type; interested soley in thier own pleasures. Those interests being wine, food and debauchery. It had only been a matter of time before thier eyes fell on the pretty and vulnerable young Royal Consort. As Yuka had known they would, each Shuukou's thoughts inevitably turned to the idea that if they could make her his woman, then all of her Royal Consort authority would be his for the using. Unfortunately for them, the penalty for laying hands on a woman of her rank was a good deal more than a mere slap on the wrists and a lecture. Yuka had the right to challenge them to combat in order to defend her honor. She had won, and when the time to make the kill-strike had come, she had not hesitated.

No matter that he knew it was necessary, Kaname had censured Yuka for it, believing that she should have acted with greater mercy and simply exiled them as she had done with Asen and his military supporters. There was already a rule in place under Heaven to cover contingency of a Provincial Governor dieing and the king either choosing not to (or in the case of Tai, not being able to) appoint another so Yuka and Taiki had not had to worry about treading on any divine toes or imperial prerogatives. If a province should lack a governor then by default it fell under the jurisdiction of the Saiho, which was another word for the Taiho (Yuka was still a bit fuzzy about the distinction other than that Taiho seemed to be more like an official honorific title). This was called "being under Golden Rule". So when she killed the four southern Shuukou in a duel over her honor and there was no king to appoint a new governor, she simply let it fall to the default setting of Golden Rule and she and Taiki had "appointed" (they couldn't actually appoint, but had sent them as "temporary agents to act on the Taiho's behalf") four new governors for the southern provinces. With the taming of the four southern province's added on to their control over Zui province (which belonged to the Taiho by custom and law) half of the kingdom was back under imperial rule.

:But half is by no means all of the kingdom, there's still the north to contend with!:

The northern lords of Ba, Bun, Ie and Jou provinces had hung back when the four lords from the South had moved to take over the palace, likely to see which way the wind blew and probably so that they could amass their own forces to take over the palace from then when the right moment arrived.

:The problem is, its awfully difficult to get leverage on a group of people who have no shame and whom I cannot actually officially punish, or reappoint.:

Thus had started a series of diplomatic and economic mini-wars between the four northern shuukou and Yuka. It was a war where her enemy held nearly all of the better weapons, but Yuka had a few trump cards she could play and thus far she had played them well. For instance, the only province in the north that was self-sufficient in providing its own food was Jou Province, the largest of them, the rest relied on the money brought in from selling the products of its gem-springs to purchase stores for the winter. It had taken some work but fortunately what was needed to be done to bring those stubborn lords to heel also fell in with her plans to create a more diversified export market for Tai (which relied nearly entirely on the export of gold and precious gems).

Yuka had improved the infrastructure of the south provinces (a tale in and of itself) so that transportation of materials between provinces would aid in export for foreign trade. Most provinces, aside of Bun, had their own ports so any gold or gems that were grown (rather than mined like on her world) could be exported directly from nearby. Yuka's ultimate plans lay in driving those northern home-ports out of business, forcing the shuukou of the northern provinces to send their goods to her southern ports due to higher trade-traffic. As such she'd ordered the construction not just of new infrastructure but also new ports in the southern provinces, ones with superior and more efficient facilities.

:After all, a captain will sooner take his ship to a place where he does not have to languish at anchor in the harbor waiting for a port to open up rather than wait for days possibly just to get a larger supply of the gems. Captains rely on getting thier good quickly from place to place, and a shorter off-loading and loading time means more money faster for them.:

She'd also worked on finding new markets for other things that Tai produced but did not export in great quantity in order to boost the economies of the provinces loyal to the crown. In addition to that, discovering or inventing new materials and creating markets for them also meant new jobs and a more stable economy. Tai now exported a material made from tree-sap that was sort of like plastic or plexiglass. It used to make windows that were less expensive than the near-ruinously expensive glass windows. They also exported a fabric made from a fibrous, slightly gooey plant that, if treated correctly became waterproof (it was in demand at home as well since Tai spent so much of its time with snow on the ground and waterproof coat were a boon in the snow). Ran Province produced exquisite dyes from the few ex-gem springs in that province that were exported via Sui province to Kei where Youko's countrymen used them on their textiles. The shift in job-markets to the south had resulted in a predictable population shift.

:Those northern lords got so used to their precious stones being such a hot commodity that they completely overlooked the draw and appeal of new things on the market! Heh, in teh words of teh kitteh; "Ai iz at yur ports, stealin' yur trades!":

She had also known that if Tai was to be successful as a trading nation, it needed better infrastructure. The roads in Tai when she and Taiki took back control of the imperial palace had not only been crawling with bandits and youma, they had been in terrible condition as well. The harsh winters had combined with the lack of maintenance since the rightful king had been displaced combined to make the roads all but useless for traveling overland. A nation that depended on trade unable to get its goods to port for export in a timely fashion would be crippling. Unfortunately the imperial coffers were all but bare and repairing roads was a lengthy and laborious process requiring a great deal of labor, resources and money that Tai did not have. Yuka wanted a less expensive and more useful shortcut. For a long time they hadn't been able to come up with anything... however a chance remark by Kaname had given her the ah-ha! moment she needed to come up with a way to save Tai's coffers and infrastructure all in one stroke. He had remarked on the winters being perfect for skiing and it had been the mention of the sport that had jogged loose the picture of the ski-lifts used for transportation up mountains in winter.

Careful planning and an ingenious corps of engineers hired from En and Ryuu by the Ministry of Winter had attacked the various problems with building the cable gondola system. There was slope to be adjusted for (a gradient for safe travel over the system could not exceed thirty degrees, but that was dealt with by changing the height of many of the suspension towers. The towers themselves had to be carefully designed to withstand the terrible winters in Tai, dangers of snow-storms and avalanches and wind-shear to be dealt with. Plus the testing the appropriate metal for the cable itself, they could not have a metal that would be too brittle in Tai's bitter cold. Then there was testing the system for weight-bearing, and then deciding on the routes, and many other matters. The skyways had a chain of cars like a gondola, but they rested thier wight on two cables hung on either side of the cars and rode over (sort of like a train) by special wheels. The cars were moved by another cable on the top that was connected to an old fashioned bull-roarer, or a large wheel that was set sideways, the spin powered by an oversized "hampster wheel" run by large, healthy horses. Cables were supported periodically by slightly smaller arch-towers (for stability) and there were stations at periodic intervals for ease of maintenance and so that the horses running the wheels didn't get over-tired by having to "pull" a load for too long a distance.

:Best of all, the system essentially pays for itself, and we have a way to get not only goods, but news and imperial relief and aid to about any province in the network in a matter of days!: Yuka thought with a pardonable feeling of pride. If she was remembered for nothing else, she would be proud if history would remember her for this. She really, really wanted to take a ride on the skyway just once!

On the third year of there being fewer people to work the gem-springs up north Yuka had struck at the northern lords with her next right hook. She'd cut off the gem-trade with Han. It was a gamble; Tai had already been bankrupt, and her recent transportation restructuring campaigns, while free in terms of man-power (she had plenty of prisoners to work with, though she and Taiki had went round and round about it) had strained Tai's already slender resources almost to the breaking point. Han was the biggest purchaser of the gemstones and gold that Tai was so well known for and it was still a major source of income... unfortunately it was a major source of income for her "enemies" (though technically they were all supposed to be on the same side) so Yuka had reluctantly sealed off the gem-trade and began her economic stranglehold on the Northern Provinces. Naturally they looked for other markets for their gems but Yuka had pursued an expansionist policy when it came to foreign trade so any port city that was able to receive their gems, Yuka already had a rather large foothold in.

:And by foothold, I mean spies...:

She knew pretty much who sold what where and for how much, so she was able to make certain deals with certain interested parties to get certain other parties interested in acquiring stones to take their interests elsewhere... or else. It wasn't perfect by any means and there was still the black market to contend with, but the northern shuukou were feeling the hurt. Word from her spies was, they were missing their luxuries. Their people were all slowly shifting down to the south of Tai in provinces where the economy was stable and there were more jobs. Yuka was greatly concerned about the population shift and what it could mean for the future. She rather hoped that the king might know what to do about that when he woke up. For now, she was working on her latest salvo in the eternal economic and diplomatic wars with the northern shuukou.

:They know better than to attack me and Taiki outright,: Yuka thought in frustration.

They knew that if they led an insurrection against her or tried to coerce her or Taiki directly, she would be perfectly justified (and perfectly happy) to release the military on them and replace them with more temporary governors who were amenable to her advice. So they were stuck in this diplomatic mire in which no-one really won. It was a constant series of political skirmishes between them. She lacked the authority to oust them permanently or punish them officially and they knew it so she was forced to resort to coercive measures. Any lever that was powerful enough to make them react also had an effect on every person under them. Yuka had done her best to get the helpless civilian population out of the way of thier fight, so the flow of emigrants headed to the south for better jobs and opportunities Yuka often thought of as being more like refugees trying to flee out of a battlefield.

:At least the youma problem is being taken care of!:

She had received numerous complaints from En and Kei (Ryuu seemed to have its own concerns) about the influx of Youma from Tai (and since they had so kindly married her into the royal family could she please do something about making them less of a nuisance for everyone?). Tai had a new career path, the hunter-warriors. She'd even set up a guild. The crown would pay so much per head per different kind of monster. It wasn't perfect, but sadly, the military could not always be spared to hunt youma as much as Yuka would have liked.

:But it is a trade-off,: She thought with a wry smile of amusement. :These adventuring youma-hunters are civilians and don't have the same discipline as an officer in the military, and though the guild produces a large number of heroes it also produces its share of drunken disorderlies.:

Fortunately for her, that was usually a problem to be handled by the local judiciary.

:I suppose, all things totalled, it could be worse,: she reminded herself to be optimistic. :After all, Taiki's not undergoing shitsudo, and that's my main objective, so I must be doing something right.:

It seemed that even though the running of the kingdom was unorthodox, it was at least stable enough that the Tentei of this world had spared poor Kaname.

:I just wish that stupid king would wake the hell up!: she thought impatiently.

It was a plaint that had worn thin with the passage of time. Yuka thought that there probably wasn't a day that went by that she did not wish that the damn Chyoukoku would come out of chrysalis and leave its host so he could get back on his throne and run his kingdom like he was supposed to!

:I'm not supposed to be doing this job, I;m not even really supposed to be here! I should be old and married with ten kids and a hundred grandkids by now. I should be knitting them sweaters or whatever it is grannies spend their time on!:

But no. Here she was stuck inside of the imperial palace every day, forced to maneuver around power-hungry lords who could not be put in their place, and economic troubles she could do little more than manipulate, and a constant sad, weary people she lacked the power to even comfort.

She often envied Youko; if Youko had difficulties she, at least, had the option of being proactive about them. If a member of her nobility was giving her trouble, she could summon the recalcitrant noble and stand him before her on the carpet to either dress him down or fire his ass. She could make decrees about a situation as she saw fit. She could even go out and investigate matters herself, leaving her throne in the capable hands of her Taiho and her loyal court. By contrast, Yuka was forced by her rank and the situation in the kingdom to stay inside the palace.

:I feel like Taiki and I are the Penelope and Telemachus to his Odysseus,: Yuka thought with a small smile.

She had taken a walk to help alleviate her lingering frustration with having to unravel yet another knot created by the provincial governors of the northern provinces and her feet had drawn her to the emperors chamber where she knew that Taiki would be.

:He's so devoted to his king, I know its a kirin's nature to be happy around thier ruler... I hope for his sake that this king he loves so much is worth it. If he's a useless fellow, I'll skin him.: Yuka promised herself.

At any time when they were not at court or dealing with the affairs of the realm, Taiki came to the emperors chamber in Seiden Palace, where they had put the king to sleep out his chrysalis in peace. And because this was the place where her friend Taiki could be found, Yuka was as familiar with the chamber and the bedside of the sleeping king as her friend was.

As usual, Kaname sat in a chair next to the bed, slumped over onto his side, curled up next to his liege. Yuka picked up a nearby throw blanket, pushed over an ottoman and gently straightened her friends limbs and covered him up. She knew of his prefference for sleeping next to the person he loved most in the world, and if she couldn't support him in what made him happiest then there was no point to her being there at all.

:Hurry and wake up,: Yuka thought at the sleeper with a sigh. :He's waiting for you to wake up. We all are.: