Chapter 28
Ginko was in a very peculiar sort of pain as he knew he would be. That was the risk he took and it was successful, but he was paying the price now. "talk about torturing a starving man with a feast! Geez….." he complained in his mind. Tanyuu seemed to be resting already. He took out the drawings and the map as quietly as he could. He intended to study the lower left quadrants of the circles. Tanyuu posited earlier that they might concern what species of mushi were swarming inside each orb. That discussion eventually morphed into mushi species classification. He was arranging them in front of him when a piece of paper slipped out from the bottom. He picked it up, unfolded it, and noticed it was Tanyuu's hand writing. It was titled "Fairytale." At first he put it down, since it seemed like an invasion of privacy. But then he did not know she wrote other things than the sealing, and it did not seem like her diary, so he indulged his curiosity. He could see that the princess bard was an analogy of herself. When he came to "a jester" visiting him and his behavior, however, he scratched his head. A "jester" wearing a mask? The princess begging to come with him and him refusing but out of love? It all became clear when the jester called himself a "demon of ill fate." It was clearly, he thought, in reference to him. He kept scratching his head. "is that how she seems me? A funny man and a demon? What the hell!" He was not exactly pleased with that portrayal, but the jester's behavior was of a gentle, almost noble, man. The princess behaves as though a woman in love.
Ginko sat there still pondering. It was not that he was surprised so. What bothered him was that it changed nothing at all. But at the same time it ate away at his resolve. He refolded the paper and hid it in a hidden compartment of his trunk behind the drawers. In any event now was not the time to deal with it. He hoped that time would not come.
