BETWEEN THREE ROGUES
By Eric 'Erico' Lawson
Thirty-One: Journey From The West
The Divine Empire of Yafutoma, Yafutoma City, The Royal Palace
180 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Morning
She had been named Moegi Tokugawa, and she was the princess of the Empire beneath the Blue Moon. Moegi woke with the first rays of sunrise, breathing in deeply as she cracked her eyes open and took stock of her surroundings. A bedroom two sizes larger than the houses possessed by most commoners greeted her sight, with the framed paper sliding doors partially opened and potted plants scattered around the room. The riot of greenery and bright flowers, some which only blossomed under moonlight, often brought her comfort when she had been younger.
This morning, Moegi stared at them all with empty eyes as she pushed the plush blankets back and rose up from her rest. Her maids would be by soon, she knew, which limited her time. Moegi threw on the simplest robe she had to hide her nightgown and went to her chamber pot, finishing quickly.
Once her hands were clean, she then walked to her bedroom's ornate desk. It had been carved from a single piece of thick Yafutoman spruce that had grown for 300 years before being cut down on the slopes of Mount Kazai. From its drawers, she drew out a stand, a box of incense sticks, and a folded blue obi, carefully and lovingly preserved.
It was the work of seconds to light the stick and set it in the stand, and she breathed in the crisp scent of the fumes, using it to wake up and to center herself. With the obi set in front of her and centered in her mind's eye, the princess clapped her hands together loudly to summon the ancestral spirits to her presence. She willed her energy and her prayers into that obi, and to the person it belonged to. A person whose name she was no longer allowed to speak in her father's presence, or in the Court.
But nobody, not even her father the Emperor, could forbid Moegi for praying for the welfare of her brother, or for whispering his name in the dark.
"Keep Daigo safe for one more day." She whispered to the spirits who served the divine wind, the mighty guardian born from the heart of the Blue Moon's grace. "Give swiftness to his steps. Keep the breath of life in his lungs. May he always be protected."
Moegi reached for the small penknife she kept in her desk for opening letters, brought it up to her head, and carefully sliced off three strands of her long and lustrous black hair. She held them to the smoldering stick of incense until they caught fire and burned quickly, dropping the offering only when the fire came to her fingertips. Then she extinguished the incense, tucked everything back away, and went over to open up the doors that led to the balcony overlooking the royal pond surrounding the palace.
Long-necked swans swam gently through the waters while squat little ducks splashed and cleaned themselves nearby, chirping as their wake disturbed the lily pads and sent the koi scattering beneath the surface.
Moegi Tokugawa was the princess of the Empire of Yafutoma. She lived in luxury, wanting for nothing save for her brother and the freedom to live her life for herself. She acknowledged it as an expensively decorated cage.
The palace, expensively decorated or not, was a cage all the same.
Moegi had never been expected to rule. It had been the same with her mother. The late Empress had held no real political power, and had instead held the duties of overseeing the royal household and attending to planning the festivals for the people of Yafutoma. They lived peacefully in the skies under the blue moon, sailing and fishing and crafting and celebrating their good fortune. Growing up, her days had been filled with lessons on flower arranging, calligraphy, numbers and letters and history. There were dance lessons in the place of martial training that her br - that other royal family members had received, and she was skilled at playing the shamisen. At least, skilled enough that the tutors paid to fawn over her said that she was marvelous, but Moegi knew well enough to understand that they were probably lying about it.
One constant over the past three years had been the steady reminders of her coming of age at 21, and how her formalized engagement would be concluded then with the wedding ceremony. If her servants were to be believed, there were many eagerly looking forward to it. The Emperor was an old man now and had a face full of wrinkles and shock white hair, and had no heir set to inherit. Her fiancee would secure the bloodline and embed in her a child, and it was her duty to bear a son to carry on the Tokugawa dynasty.
She was sitting in the royal library, a tea service nearby left untouched and growing cold as she went over the historical scrolls taken from the archives. Moegi found solace and inspiration in the old stories, not in the ancient creation myths or in the long and rather boring history of her dynasty or the other three that had come before the years of the Tokugawa's reign. The Yafutoman perspective was that peace and boredom were good, and troubled times were a curse to be avoided. Yafutomans were homogenous in appearance and culture and language, staying within the boundaries of expected behavior. May you live in interesting times was an old axiom that predated the oldest of the recorded dynasties, and it still applied.
Since Daigo had been exiled and Moegi's fate had been thrown into the hands of others, though, she had found solace in more recent history from 200 years ago. Back then, all of Yafutoma had been thrown into chaos because of the actions of a man who claimed to come from the West. A man whose name had ever since carried the stain of a curse, so much so that the language he spoke was still taught in the higher schools as a warning.
Daqat had come from the West, and he had brought woe and misfortune to Yafutoma and sailed off with the second princess of the Tokugawa's line, kidnapped the night before her wedding. He had also made off with her dowry and most of the food prepared and set aside for the wedding feast, and while there was nothing in the primary accounts to support the claim, it was common legend that Daqat, famous for always wearing an oddly shaped black hat, had laughed so loudly that he'd been heard clearly as he and his crew flew away. That he'd held the Princess Kikue in his arms like some common teahouse painted girl. One spot where the legends differed, Moegi had noticed, was that the commoners who spoke of it sighed wistfully, claiming that she had fallen into his arms willingly, seduced by his foreigner's wiles and ways. The nobility always saw Daqat as the unredeemable villain and thief and kidnapper who had been shown hospitality and repaid it with spite.
"Really, your highness. You've let your tea run cold again." Moegi blinked and looked up from her scroll, finally noticing that she wasn't alone in the room. So engrossed in her reading, she'd failed to sense the approach of a higher-ranked house matron with black and gray-streaked hair tied back in a bun, held in place by steel needles. The old woman clicked her tongue once in disapproval and picked up the discarded tea service. "I will attend to this. Why aren't you outside? It's a lovely day, and you do so love to walk by the gardens."
"I am searching for answers." Moegi told her, gently rolling the ancient vellum back up and sliding it into the waterproof tube it had been stored in. Much was spoken of by the record-keepers of the time about Daqat, but little to no attention was paid to Princess Kikue. She was so important to the story about the thief who came from the west on his strange airship and then sailed away with a princess and all the wealth meant to pay for her. None of the historians of the day ever thought that Kikue had been important enough to know as a person.
The matron laughed at her response, already walking towards the doors. "You must be our resident expert on the people from the West at this point." The woman teased her. "Though I am certain there are better hobbies than learning their tongue or studying the actions taken by the accursed Western Thief. I'm sure that Lord Muraji would find you more appealing if you spent more time studying the arts - dance, perhaps."
"What Muraji wants from his wife may not be what he gets." Moegi snapped back at the woman bitterly. The matron paused, set the tea tray down on a small end table by the doors leading out of the library and turned back around. She didn't draw near to Moegi, or offer to touch her, for such were actions that even a matron did not have the standing for. There was quiet sympathy in her eyes, though.
"I know that Lord Kangan's son may not be...what you might have hoped for in a husband, my lady." The older woman started out carefully. "But your father is not a young man, and Yafutoma will stand or fall on the strength of the bloodline. He is the best possible match, and he will not rule for long after you bear him a son. The line of Tokugawa must continue through you, Princess Moegi." The matron looked down at the floor and bit her lip. "There is no one else who can bring prosperity to the Tokugawa dynasty."
Not anymore, Moegi thought bitterly. She wanted to scream and tear at her hair, and yet she knew it would change nothing. It would do nothing to help. Her life had been written out for her since she was born, but at least before, there had been a chance that she might marry for something close to love. When there had been another to take the throne, and she had just been the spare.
It was all gone now, and the Empire stood on foundations that were burned to ashes.
Shouting and the sound of running footsteps out in the hallways of the palace made Moegi and the matron both turn and stare in wonder and worry. There wasn't the clanking of armor plates or the shifting of spears and swords bouncing, however.
"What in the devil is going on out there?" The matron murmured. A presence stopped in front of the library doors and threw them open, and a panting, sweating palace messenger glanced in, relieved when he set eyes on the princess.
"Oh, thank the moon, your highness! The Emperor has requested your presence in the main audience chamber, straight away!"
"My father? Why?" Moegi frowned. "I was not aware we had visiting noble dignitaries due to arrive today."
The messenger shook his head. "No, your highness. Not Yafutoman nobility. Westerners. There are Westerners being escorted to the royal palace by his majesty's spearmen as we speak. They sailed in this morning and docked at the harbor in a great ship of iron, colored blue and silver! The patrol captain on duty couldn't understand them at all, and we are in desperate need of a translator. Your father has asked for you specifically for that purpose. Please, your highness." The messenger fell to his knees and kowtowed to her, not a full forehead to the floor kowtow, but enough to make it known that it was his wish as well. "There is nobody else alive who has studied the Westerner's ways from 200 years before more than you. You are the only hope we have in avoiding an incident."
"An...incident." Moegi repeated, rising up from her chair and staring at the man. "You think that these Westerners mean us harm?"
"It is all that anyone can talk about, princess. How large their ship is. How dangerous it must be. The size of their cannons alone has set tongues to wagging." He looked up, fear in his eyes. "There are still others aboard the ship, while four of them are being brought to the palace. If they do not return…"
Fear was a powerful motivator for most people, but Moegi's heart thrummed with something even stronger as she smoothed out her dress and tucked her hands back inside the over-large mufflers sewn on to her royal dress. Excitement.
May you live in interesting times, the ancient Yafutoman curse went. To a people who thrived on peace and stability and things never changing, 'interesting' forever meant dangerous and harmful.
"Take me to my father." Moegi said, her face set and determined.
She was living in interesting times at last, and the princess finally felt like she was alive.
The Emperor's Audience Chamber
Emperor Mikado Tokugawa was an austere man. He had already been old when he assumed the throne, and he'd gotten older since. White hair and wrinkles had slowed him down, but it hadn't diminished his imposing presence. He was already sitting on the throne when Moegi glided into the room, and inclined his head slightly in greeting as she took her place at his side. Down below at the base of the steps that led to them, her father's chief advisor Kangan Kurowei and his son Muraji held a united front. Against what, Moegi had no idea.
"Moegi." Her father said. "We have been waiting for you."
"I came as soon as I received your message, father."
"Perhaps you would have come sooner if you were in a part of the palace that you were expected to be in." Kangan snidely remarked, rolling his mustache as he did. His son, a terrible excuse for a man, covered his mouth with his sleeve and snickered hard enough to almost make his tall hat slip off of him.
The Emperor tapped his armrest twice for silence. "Enough, Kangan." He said coolly. "You are my chief advisor, but if my daughter was not so interested in the study of the West and in Daqat, there would be nobody able to communicate effectively with these...visitors. You yourself, as I recall, once voiced three years prior to this that it was a waste of resources to educate our people in the tongue spoken by the foreigners of long ago."
Kangan's flinch was minimal, but he did bow and wipe the smirk from his face, suitably chastened. "My apologies, your eminence."
"Do not belittle my daughter again, Chief Advisor, and nothing more will be said about it." Mikado said lightly. Kangan nodded once more, still working his jaw, and Moegi filed his response to the chastisement away, staying silent as always. Nobody wished a woman to speak if she was not prompted to, not even a princess.
Emperor Tokugawa raised his right arm in a gesture. "Admit our visitors."
The mighty doors of Yafutoman spruce, two hands thick and painted a vibrant red, were pulled open by a pair of guards. Moegi got her first good look at the four travelers from the West. She momentarily forgot how to breathe.
With a pair of soldiers at their front and another pair at their back, they seemed less like visitors and more like prisoners being brought before tribunal. They didn't seem at all concerned, though, and she saw strangely forged swords strapped to the waists of the two men. The one leading them had brown hair and a scar over his left cheek, and wore a strange eyepiece on his right. Most striking about the young man aside from his posture were his clothes. A coat of deep blue and more buttons than she'd ever seen in her life for such a garment, and a hat that made her blink as she struggled to place it. It was black and bore red and blue ribbons along its three cornered tips. She knew that hat. She knew it and not remembering how she knew it made her freeze up until she shook herself out of it and focused on the features of the other three. The second man in their party was a little taller than the first, wore a strange flat and fluffed hat, and had hair the color of wheat ready for harvest. If the brown-haired man exuded confidence and unshakeable purpose, the second was tempered and refined. Like a sword made into human form. Or a shield, perhaps.
The other two in the party were women, and that was where her mind well and truly fell in on itself. The first had yellow hair even brighter and more silvery than the tall man that felt like a well-crafted sword, but she wore a revealing silver dress with a cutout at the top of her breasts over her heart and the sleeves were bare in places. She carried no weapon, but Moegi, who knew enough magic of her own for minor defensive workings and even a little healing, shivered as those cool blue eyes of the young woman crossed over her face. Behind those eyes she felt a wellspring of tremendous strength, untapped and resting quietly, and knew that the magic she could call up exceeded anything she could ever hope to do.
The second young woman...Moegi just stared and stared because she had to. No girl, no woman Moegi had ever met before had ever dressed like she did. Her hair was red and blazing like the light of a blacksmith's forge in the two bound tails of her up-do, and her eyes were the same shade of brown as the man in the blue coat. She wore boots that came up to her knees, and then there was nothing until the hem of a very short skirt of yellow leather that connected to her bodysuit. She wore what seemed like a bare minimum of clothing, enough to cover the absolute necessities, but which for a Yafutoman of high birth, was absolutely scandalous. Moegi chanced a look over and saw her father staring at the women with wide eyes, his mask of impassivity broken, and Kangan's face was reddening while his son looked positively apoplectic. The red-haired woman ran her bare hand over the thick glove she wore on the other, clearly seeing the men in the room all staring at her. She then jutted her hip out, put a hand to it, and smirked.
Each of the four Westerners dressed differently, had different hair, and in the subtle cues of their posture and their faces were signs that they clearly would fight differently. If it came to that. That the guards hadn't stripped them of their weapons was telling in itself. Someone must have tried. Someone had clearly failed, and further efforts had been put off.
Her father cleared his throat, and Moegi averted her eyes in his direction to see him looking at her expectantly.
Oh. Right.
This was her duty.
The Westerners' tongue had been recorded and passed down over the years. Learning a fraction of it, at least enough to recognize the cadence and know it as a danger for having been spoken by Daqat two centuries past, was something every student who went past the basics of schooling in basic reading, writing and arithmetic received. Moegi had pushed further, learning the whole of it that had been written down, more out of personal interest. She'd never had a chance to practice it on a native speaker before. There was a first time for everything.
Moegi stepped forward slightly and dipped her head towards the newcomers. "Wu - wee - gurreet you, peepul from West."
The eyes of the four lit up at that, and the silver yellow haired woman in the silver dress moved forward, making a deeper bow and then folding her hands together in a very formal and a very old-fashioned gesture of respect.
The words that came out of her mouth stunned Moegi and everyone else in the room, because they were ancient, ancient Yafutoman. A thousand and more years ago ancient.
"Fain to be in your presence, we are, respected ones, and without vainglory we come." The cadence and the sentence structure was all wrong, and Moegi blinked twice before she ended up tittering.
"Sorry, I - I'm sorry. But your Yafutoman is so stilted."
"Yafutoman?" The young woman repeated curiously. "Yafutoman - here?"
"Yes." Moegi nodded. "This is the royal palace at the heart of Yafutoma City, the center of the Empire of Yafutoma. My name is Princess Moegi Tokugawa. And you are?"
The woman worked out the feel of modern Yafutoman in her head, sounding it out silently on her tongue before nodding. "I am Fee-na. This is Vai-su and Aii-ka and Enu-ri-ki. You speak our tongue?"
"Not well very." Moegi apologized, reverting to the language of Daqat. The other three, Vai-su and Aii-ka and Enu-ri-ki all brightened up again as she did so.
"How do you know it?" Vai-su asked her. "This land is not known in Mid-Ocean. Only Fina knew that there were lands beyond the Dark Rift."
Moegi blinked. "Dark...Rift?" She was slowly picking up the cadence and the structure of their tongue, but it was still rough going. Until she did so, communication would be rough.
She, along with everyone else in Yafutoma, was in desperate need of a primer. She didn't know she was showing frustration, but Fee-na must have seen it.
"An eternity, this translating might take." Fee-na came back in ancient Yafutoman again, sighing as she did so. "Forbearance, we must practice. Might there be more comfortable residence we could adjourn forthwith to continue our meeting?"
Moegi looked over to her father, noting his frown. As eager as she was to continue the dialogue, there was still one matter to be settled.
"Why have you come?" She asked Fee-na carefully. "Your great ship scares our people. Do you bring danger to us?"
Fina blinked in horror, repeating the question to the others softly in their Western dialect. The other three all recoiled as well, and Vai-su was the first to shake his head, vehemently denying it.
"We did not come to hurt your people. We came to save them. We came to save all of Arcadia."
Arcadia. There were names that had power, and that one was a name in the most ancient legends. It was the name of the world before the mythological Rains of Ruin. If such things were true and not just the creation myths their ancestors had told over fires at night to try and make sense of a world they didn't understand. Moegi drew in a deep breath and looked to Vai-su as the man stood there, not kowtowing, not even going to his knees, but standing there as though he were their equal in status. He stood there with his body unguarded and his hands away from the hilts of his blades and a look of earnestness that Moegi realized, with all her long years of studying facial cues in her father's Court, wasn't faked.
"We are not your enemy. We need your help. We will tell you why we are here and answer your questions."
"If there's someplace better to sit and talk?" Fee-na added with a hopeful smile.
Moegi wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. The years she had spent reading the accounts of Daqat and the Princess Kikue and the danger of the Westerners, history boiled down into cautionary stories told to children and scraps of language meant to instill fear. Scraps of language that weren't enough, not by a longshot, and stories of questionable veracity.
She was living in a story of her own now with these travelers from the West.
"We can use my liked parlor." She answered, fumbling with the word, but getting her point across.
Over the next four hours, two trays of savory meats and stir-fried vegetables and bowls of steaming white rice and far too much tea, Moegi worked through a crash course of back and forth that brought her passable Western dialect, which they called Mid-Ocean trade language, up to snuff. She learned valuable lessons about conjunctions and contractions, and how she had probably meant to say favorite parlor instead of liked. A token force of her father's guards stood by the doors, but after the first hour, they loosened up and relaxed their grip on their weapons. If the four visitors, who Moegi now pronounced correctly as Vyse, Aika, Fina, and Enrique noticed how their minders had been tense and were now relaxed, they said nothing about it.
Enrique borrowed an inkwell and drew a map of the world as he knew it on the tablecloth after the dishes were taken away, and Vyse and the two women who were with them spoke animatedly of the lands on the other side of the eternal dark storm that they called the Dark Rift. Moegi could only shake her head as they told her of lands where rains fell almost constantly on a living forest that covered an entire continent, and grand spans of arid landscape where the sun burned over open expanses of endless sand. They taught her of the six moons that lingered over Arcadia, which surprised Moegi who had only ever known of the Blue Moon, and her head spun at the thought of there being five others.
The story of how they had come together was inextricably linked with the mission of great importance that Vyse had described. Another Empire under the yellow moon sought to claim moonstones of great power and risked the Rains of Ruin, what they called the Rains of Destruction, all over again. They had come up to being imprisoned in the enemy's stronghold and were starting the tale of their daring escape from it when Moegi blinked, set her teacup down, and stared at Enrique in shock.
"You - you are Prince?" She exclaimed.
"In exile." Enrique corrected her, smiling sadly. "I could not support what my mother, what the military under her was doing. For my honor, for the sake of my soul and the honor of my people, I had to leave. I am royalty, but I have pledged my troth to the Code of the Blue Rogues."
Moegi sifted through the prince's words, startled by how sincere he was about it. How there was no conflict in him over the decision. Of course there wouldn't be; he had said the word honor. Meiyo. It was so vital to her own culture, of course it would be important in his. It left a bitter feeling in her stomach, though. Why did he, a man, get to walk away from his role and his duties so freely? Why was he able to claim he was upholding his honor when he set duty aside?
"Princess Moegi, have I offended you in some way?" Prince Enrique asked her, concern writ plain on his face.
"You leave. Just for - honor?" She asked him coldly. "You leave duty behind? For honor?"
He winced a little, and Moegi caught how the other three looked to their friend sympathetically before fixing colder glances on her. Aika even reached a hand out and patted the prince's shoulder.
"Not just for honor." Enrique admitted, once he had composed himself. The smile came back, sadder than before. "I wasn't happy. My mother's ambitions are cruel, and she takes advice from a man even colder than she is. I had been raised to be virtuous. I had been taught to serve by a code of conduct. Yet no such virtues were practiced by my mother. By the bulk of the admiralty. And certainly not by the soldiers who served under them. When given an order they surely knew was unlawful under the rules of war, they should have refused. Yet to a one, they followed it. And kept following them, over and over again in spite of all my protests."
Moegi sat still as a statue as Enrique drummed a hand on his knee. "I was the crown prince, and my presence was useless, my opinions and my beliefs on how Valua should act and lead fell on deaf ears. I was useless, caught in a trap made from my own role that I could not escape from. I could not bear it any longer, not while others fought a battle that was mine. I could not bear to be a prisoner in my own home, to be voiceless." Enrique looked up, nodding at her. "I apologize. This all must seem so strange to you. I must seem a horrible excuse for royalty, your highness. I'm sure you do not suffer the same pressures I did, valued as you are to your father. You must have no idea what I am going on about."
It was only her long years of courtly training that allowed Moegi to keep from weeping at his confession. Even with it, her hands tightened into fists underneath her dress's billowy sleeves. He thought she didn't understand? Truly? When Daigo had been cast out for opinions and actions that Kangan forced her father into taking offense to? When Daigo had tried to seek the best way forward for their people and been stymied at every turn? When there were days that Moegi wanted to scream for feeling so trapped and helpless and victimized by the role that duty and honor had made for her?!
She swallowed once. Tried to speak, choked on a throat gone dry, and reached for her tea again. It had gone cold, but it was wet, and that was what she truly needed.
"Not strange." Moegi answered him softly. Enrique blinked as he tilted his head to the side and looked at her. Really looked at her, in a soft and considering way that made her face go warm, and gave her the impulse to look away and reach for a paper fan to hide behind.
She coughed once, dismissed the strange feeling twisting in her stomach, and pressed on. "So. You want save world. Save Arcadia. How?"
Vyse looked to Aika and gave a small nod, and the red-haired woman brought the satchel she had come in with around to her front. She undid the clasp at the flap and reached inside. From it she produced a crystalline pyramid that glowed with a brilliant inner red light. She set it on the dining table between them, and Vyse pointed to it.
"We have to collect all of those. Take them someplace that Valua will never be able to find them." The Blue Rogue as he called himself explained. "To Fina's people, who have stayed hidden from the rest of the world."
"There is one Moon Crystal for every moon above Arcadia." Fina went on gently. "There is one here in Yafutoma. We don't know where it is kept, we don't know how to get to it, but we know it is here. The stories of my people described it as a great blue pearl, like a droplet of water. It might even be forgotten. The people of Nasr had no idea that it existed. To the people of Ixa'taka, it was a legend known only to the priesthood. Our success, and the fate of the world lies with you, Princess Moegi."
The dark-haired princess reached a hand out slowly for the artifact between them, extending a single finger to touch its surface. It carried no heat in itself, yet from it she felt the phantom sensation of warmth, as if the hottest summer day had suddenly appeared around her. Moegi pulled her hand back and shivered. Aika took it back and stowed it away with such nonchalance that Moegi had to re-evaluate the red-haired woman's strength as well. How could she hold such a terrible power and not be affected by it?
"We will ask my father. Tomorrow." She needed time to process all of this, to get her thoughts in order and to practice her Mid-Ocean language skills some more. No doubt they would appreciate the rest as well.
181 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
The Maga Sphere.
Of course they were talking about the Maga Sphere. Why wouldn't the great and terrible artifact of power that they were searching for be the ancient, lost treasure of Yafutoma? It wasn't as though Kangan and his worthless son Muraji needed another excuse to go flying off the handle, but this didn't help matters.
"Your majesty, we have entertained these treacherous Westerners long enough!" Kangan exploded, sneering under his eyebrows. "Westerners have only ever brought us disaster! Remember the deception and betrayal of that thief Daqat, and do the only sensible thing! We must cleanse them from our lands immediately!" Vyse and Aika and Fina stood a little taller at the mention of the infamous rogue's name, looking confused.
"I agree with my father!" Muraji quickly seconded, and Moegi battled down the urge to roll her eyes. There's a surprise, him just being a mouthpiece for his father. "We should dispose of the Westerners with all haste."
The four visitors from the West that Moegi had gotten to know yesterday had returned to their vessel for the evening and returned refreshed. They watched the exchange with no small amount of wariness, and Enrique looked to Moegi.
"Should we be worried?" He asked calmly. The Emperor raised his hand to silence the Chief Advisor and his feckless son, and shook his head.
"I understand your concern, Kangan, but these people are our guests. By all accounts, they have been peaceful during their time here. There is much we can learn about the West from them, and there is much they can learn from us. Just yesterday, my daughter produced a map of the Western world that they drew and explained freely, speaking of the lands elsewhere, and their ship has stayed in harbor and made no threatening moves. Daqat was one man and one event. We have long memories, it is true, but is Yafutoma ruled by fear, or by reason?" He waited for Advisor Kangan to respond, and true to form, Kangan did nothing more than a slight bow of acceptance of the Emperor's wishes.
The point made, the Emperor turned to Moegi. "Inform our guests of the resting place of the Maga Sphere. While it is a treasure of Yafutoma and I am unwilling, for now at least, to let unknown visitors walk off with it, they would have the gratitude of the jade throne if they were to retrieve it. The ship merchant in the city who we commission parts for our royal vessels from, I believe he has a small vessel that can take them. I would prefer if their ship did not sail our skies freely."
Moegi bowed to her father's wishes and turned to address Enrique. "An argument. Advisor Kangan does not like you."
"We don't like him, so the feeling's mutual." Aika answered, smiling so casually that sugar wouldn't melt in her mouth. "What else did your father say?"
Moegi prepared herself. "The Maga Sphere was treasure of the royal line in ancient times. It is relic passed down from ruler to crown heir long ago, but after the Rains of Ruin, legends say it was sealed away in the depths of Mount Kazai. Many thought this just stories, but…" Moegi paused, remembering the gleam of the Red Moon Crystal that Aika had produced so willingly in her presence, and the feel of the terrible power within it. "...I know now, they is true."
"They are true." Vyse corrected her gently. "You're improving, your highness. So, if it is in that big mountain we saw north of the city on the mainland when we flew in, do we have your father's permission to go looking for it?"
Moegi didn't shake her head. "With acceptance."
"Um." Fina interjected. "He is allowing it, or there are other details with his yes? If there are other details, the word you want is exceptions."
Moegi's placid smile faltered a little. "Exceptions. The Maga Sphere is Yafutoman treasure. He does not want it...how you say, disappear?" Aika rolled a hand at her, in a gesture that Moegi knew from their exchanges yesterday to mean more. "More disappear? Ing? Ah. Disappearing. Yes."
"So he would like to hold onto it, then?" Vyse mused. Moegi nodded. "For the short term...that would be fine. What would we have to do to convince him that the safest place for it is with the others, in the hands of Fina's people?"
Moegi considered it. "Your ship, when it flew in, frightened us. Kangan still thinks you plan on war making. Is there a reassurance you can make that you have good intent?"
Enrique looked over to Vyse, and the two men exchanged a glance full of silent conversation.
"You're afraid of us?" Vyse asked.
"Westerners...not have best reputation." She said back. "There was man, long ago. He came. Stole princess, stole bridal gift. Stole wedding feast and fled on Yafutoman ship. We have long memory."
Vyse nodded, idly tapping the side of his three-cornered black hat, and Moegi's eyes went to it. The realization hit her like a thunderbolt. She knew why that hat seemed so familiar. But she dared not utter it here, where her father and more importantly, Kangan, could hear it. Daccat wore a hat like that according to the legends, but there was never any mention of red and blue ribbons sewn around its brim.
"Then we'll have to show you that you can trust us." Vyse said to her. "Starting by retrieving the Blue Moon Crystal for you."
Moegi cocked her head. "So sudden? You not afraid of danger?"
The grin Vyse gave her didn't have a shred of doubt in it. "We're Blue Rogues, your highness, and we live by a Code. Part of that Code? Blue Rogues never back down from a greater danger. Besides, this won't be our first dungeon dive. The Temple of Pyrynn? There were way more traps there."
"I see." Moegi recovered quickly. "There is a merchant known to my father, he has been loyal many years. To get to mountain, you will need Yafutoman ship."
Vyse blinked. "Oh. We're flying to the top of the mountain?" Moegi nodded. "Right. Your ships can fly higher than the Delphinus can." He agreed.
"You...have met Yafutoman ship before?"
Fina stepped forward, switching over to Yafutoman. The silvery-yellow haired girl must have been very smart, because she'd picked up more markers of the modern dialect, and she no longer sounded so outdated. "A few ships, just past the mighty walls of stone. In vain, they attacked us, and we threw them back whenst they tried to board. They fought bare-handed, demanded our weapons. They named themselves Tenkou."
At Fina's announcement, Kangan scowled and Moegi's father looked pained.
"Pirates." Kangan snapped. "Treacherous pirates in our skies are the Tenkou. And you fought them off?"
"We did." Fina answered him. "How long have Tenkou been here?"
"Five years, almost six." The Emperor said. "They go after traders, Imperial ships, but they leave smaller, poorer vessels alone. It is why I am sending you with the blacksmith to the mountain. He goes often looking for ore; if there are Tenkou who might be sniffing around, they will leave him be."
Fina bowed in gratitude and then turned and filled her comrades in on the plan in Mid-Ocean trader's tongue. Vyse and Enrique both seemed to agree with it, and then Vyse looked to Moegi.
"While myself and my comrades sail to Mount Kazai with this blacksmith, we'll keep our ship docked. In the interest of fostering better relations, Princess Moegi, you are welcome to visit the Delphinus and meet with the other members of our crew. They come from all over the world, and joined for many different reasons. You will have no better chance to practice your mastery of our language than with our people."
"When?" Moegi blurted out, eager for the chance. Or maybe she was just eager for a glimpse of the outside world, of seeing something different in her life. Of seeing more Westerners, people who Vyse seemingly trusted not to harm her.
Maybe it was selfish, but she wanted one thing in her life that she had decided for herself.
"Agreed." She inclined her head, smiling gently in defiance of the joy she felt over matters. For the benefit of her father, she spoke in her native tongue, confident that Fina could translate it to the others well enough. "I accept your invitation to tour your ship and meet with your crew while you are on the quest to reclaim the Maga Sphere."
Vyse nodded, the girls seemed pleased. The warm smile that Enrique offered up lingered on her mind the longest, as did how he took a step forward and extended a hand towards her.
"I would consider it a privilege to escort you and make the introductions."
He didn't use the word honor there, he didn't treat it as an obligation.
Moegi looked one last time at Vyse, and to the eerily familiar hat that was so much like Daqat's before turning back to Prince Enrique. Enrique, a prince who had left his homeland behind by choice out of a desperate wish to save it from itself.
His soft blue eyes were stunning.
The Delphinus, Yafutoma City Harbor
182 Days After the (First) Grant Fortress Escape
Princess Moegi had often wondered about the world. Yafutoma had lived in isolation, insulated from everything else aside from its own concerns for centuries. Millennia, even. Daccat, as his name was more properly pronounced in the common tongue of the Westerners, had been a thunderbolt through Yafutoma. There was more to the world than the swirling black storms and the impenetrable stone reefs which formed the west and the far east of their skies. There were other people that lived in it.
She had come aboard the Delphinus as an honored guest yesterday by Prince Enrique and was introduced to as many people as the prince who claimed to come from the lands under the storm-darkened skies of the yellow moon could get away with before Fang Su the merchant had appeared. The merchant had flown up adjacent to the rail of the great metal ship with Vyse and Aika and Fina to retrieve their fourth comrade. Enrique had issued his apologies for leaving her without a proper escort and passed her off to the warm and friendly hands of a woman named Kalifa, whose enigmatic smiles and easy laughter shattered Moegi's view of the world even more than Aika and Fina had.
Even today, with a full night's sleep under her, she was still reeling from the discoveries of yesterday. So many different people lived and worked on that ship of wonders. Kalifa had tried to introduce her to everyone that Enrique had missed, and with her steadily improving skill with the Mid-Ocean dialect, she had been inundated with the wealth of diversity.
There was the dark-skinned Merida and Tikatika, who claimed to come from a land called Ixa'taka in the far, far west, under the domain of the green moon that Vyse had described. What Merida and Tikatika wore went beyond mere scandal to Yafutoma's more conservative style of dress, tiny bits of thin, thin cloth stitched together with bright feathers. They came from a people wronged by Valua and who had been saved by Vyse and the women Aika and Fina. Merida had joined to spread joy and laughter with her dancing, to remind herself and others that there were things beyond the fighting. Tikatika had joined as penance for his failure to see the danger coming, and vowed that Vyse and the women Aika and Fina, the saviors of his people, would not ever be caught so unawares.
There was a boy, born to the lowest of the low under the darkened skies of Prince Enrique's capital, who had struggled to survive on the streets after his parents were killed and who had stowed away aboard the great ship when Vyse stole it and escaped. He never had a cross word for anyone on the crew in spite of the suffering he had lived through, and his hero worship of Vyse was endearing in a way that made Moegi laugh behind her hand.
There were two survivors of a city that had once stood proud under the light of a red moon, a rubenesque woman merchant and a barrel-chested cannoneer who had almost drowned the sorrows of his failure to protect his home in alcohol before Enrique and Vyse had stood him up, driven sense into him, and breathed fresh purpose into his lungs. He and a company of his men served as the cannon crew, as they proudly declared.
There were two subordinate ship engineers. That was a word new to her, but it meant a sailor skilled in the working of machinery. They were unrelated, both fostered by the same family, as they adamantly insisted on, but their loyalty to each other and to the Lady Aika and to Vyse was built on rock-solid, unwavering trust. The younger had joined to see the world and go on adventures, and the older had joined because Vyse had beaten him down when he was vengeful and bitter, and lanced the wound with the balm of truth and a second chance.
There was an explorer who had demanded to sail with Vyse once it became clear that the Blue Rogue would beat him to every new discovery and revelation about the world, and who still marveled at the wanderlust his captain was possessed by.
There was a skillful herbalist and physician who had sworn never to cause harm, only to cure it. By virtue of some long-ago and previously unknown tie of blood linked to his name, he had claimed the Lady Fina as his distant and most precious niece, proudly calling himself her uncle.
What brought Moegi to the point of tears, though, were how many people aboard the great metal ship were clearly past their prime as sailors, but who declared to a one that Vyse was the greatest captain they had ever known. From their leader, a helmsman named Don, Moegi learned of a quest to fly through the great black storm west of Yafutoma. She'd learned how the people of the West had considered Daccat's claim of lands beyond the dark storm to be an invented boast, and had thought it the edge of the world. Don had told her of a quest formed 20 years ago brought to a painful end, and how they had all been wasting away in a forgotten settlement, dying slowly as they stared into the void that had denied them their hopes and dreams. She learned of how Captain Vyse and the Ladies Aika and Fina and Prince Enrique had sailed, stirred their spirits, beaten back Valua's Armada. She learned of how every Esperanzan had fought to rebuild a single ship to fly out and join them before they pierced the storm. She learned how, with the help of the Esperanzans, Vyse and his crew did in a week what no Westerner had ever done successfully before; they crossed it. She learned of how they had found a single survivor within that eternal storm, Don's closest friend and the husband of the ship's cook who had signed on for the sole purpose of trying to find her missing love.
When Don told her of the ceremony that Vyse had held the night after they came out on the eastern side, how they had planted the tattered expedition flag and mourned the deaths of their fallen brothers, her eyes had burned. The old sailor had passed her a napkin to dab her eyes with, and never said a word about it.
Every person aboard the Delphinus came from a different place in the world, had joined for a different reason. Every one of them was Loyal in a way that Moegi had never known was possible, Loyal like no oath of fealty ever made to her father had ever sounded. He offered them their dreams, a Code to live and sail by worth admiring, and a place to belong. They were pirates in the broadest sense of the word, but every one of them was quick to rally and argue that they were Blue Rogues. That they fought against oppression, for freedom, and that Vyse's mission to save the world wasn't just some made-up excuse.
She stood on the foredeck next to the young Marco as he and another boy named Pinta played catch with a strange breed of dog that was the friendliest, rolliest ball of purple fur one might ever see. The boy reminded her a little of the ducks that liked to swim in the pond around the royal palace, when the swans didn't get in their way. It was the way that he let everything roll off of his back and kept charging along, making noises every few seconds, although no duck that Moegi had ever known had hair so blood red as Marco's. Even Aika's hair wasn't as dark.
He was also, for a boy, very observant. "You okay, princess?" He asked her.
"I am well, Maru - sorry, Marrko." She replied, reminding herself that the Westerners dropped some of the vowel sounds in their names. Writing Western names out in Yafutoman script promised to be frustrating, and it explained why they pronounced Daccat differently.
The boy wasn't so easily reassured. "Yeah, pull the other one." he said, and she blinked. Pull the other what? "You're unhappy."
She was, but having a boy she'd known for less than a day puzzle it out so easily startled her. "I am...concerned." She corrected him. "Worried, for your people. The Maga Sphere, it is lost in the great mountain. Others, they have looked. Many dangers are there. Some, drown."
Marco chuckled. "Don't count them out, princess. Just when you think he's licked? That's when Vyse turns around and makes it work. Blue Rogues never give up."
He was so sure, so settled. Moegi shook her head. "You think he has the luck, protection of ancient spirits?"
"Maybe?" Marco replied, shrugging. Pow came running up with a stick in his mouth and plopped it at their feet, his tail wagging eagerly. Marco chuckled and threw it across the deck to where Pinta was at the other end of the foredeck. "I dunno about spirits or nothin', but he's got Aika and Fina looking out for him, and they're plenty strong. But luck? Nah. He makes his own luck. And they've done this before, from what I've heard. Going into ancient ruins? Dealing with traps and monsters? They'll be fine." He looked back at her again. "That isn't what has you so upset, though. It's something else."
The boy was far too insightful, Moegi told herself. She wondered how he might do in her father's court, if he'd been allowed time for some training.
"It is nothing you can change." She told him. "Things are...very different here. What you and others tell me of life in the West, it is…"
"Bad?"
"No." Moegi quickly shook her head. "Not bad. Different."
Marco blinked. "Wait up a second. Are you - are you jealous of us?" He asked, and he took her silence as an affirmative. "You're a princess, though! When your father steps down, you get to take over!"
"I do not." Moegi ground the words out. "My husband will rule. Then my sons, if I have any."
Marco blinked. "Huh. Seems kind of weird. I mean, Valua has an Empress for crying out loud, Enrique's mom. She's as crazy and evil as all get out, but nobody says a thing about her being a girl." He scratched at his mop of red hair, using the pause to reach down as Pow came back to them and dropped the stick again. Another throw later, he turned his focus on Moegi. "You're trapped, aincha?"
Moegi laughed once, bitterly. "More than I knew, seeing you all."
Marco shrugged. "You know, there's nothing wrong with not being happy about how things are going in your life. If I'd just said I was fine with my life, I'd still be back in Valua's slums, eating out of trash bins. It's okay to want something more. Vyse taught me that. It's okay to try and be happy. That's why I'm proud to call myself a Blue Rogue. I'm happy here. I have a family again. I have a big brother and two big sisters. I chose to be here. This was my choice. So what's your choice?"
"I don't get one." Moegi said thickly, and Marco scowled.
"The hell you don't. Enrique left, and he's still a prince. He says he isn't, but he is. Stopping the Empire was his choice. He keeps telling me it's the only way to save our people; stopping the Armada. He could have rolled over and just let things keep happening. He didn't. You don't have to either. You want something more? You make it happen. Or you ask for help. I know Vyse. If you asked him for help, he'd give it to you."
A princess, asking for help from a pirate. Unheard of. Or, depending on which version of the story of Princess Kikue one believed in...perhaps not.
"I will consider." Moegi said, and gave Marco a short bow. "See you at lunch?"
"Oh, yeah, that's right!" Marco brightened up. "You said something last night about offering to have some Yafutoman cuisine brought on board for us. I'm pretty excited for it. Do you really use tiny sticks to stab everything?"
Moegi blinked. "What? No. You pick up food with them."
"You pick up food. With sticks." Marco blinked, and Moegi nodded. He thought about it for two seconds, then shook his head. "I don't get it."
Moegi's giggle was more honest than her prior reassurances had been. "I will show you."
"Good." Marco grinned. "I get to learn something new. Later, princess!" And he left her side, going running for Pow who started barking happily as he went to join the dog and Pinta in closer proximity.
Moegi sighed and turned to walk back into the ship proper. Miss Polly had offered to brew her a cup of an alternative to tea that had taken some of the ship's crew by storm, and she was eager to try a bit of the Kof-fi that supposedly came from Ixa'taka.
Advisor Kangan Kurowei was a harsh and bitter man who Moegi attributed much of her suffering towards. He looked at the Westerners and saw them as nothing more than a threat to the Yafutomans, to their way of life and to their security and their prosperity. Kangan had always been like that, even when Moegi had been a little girl. Differences were things to be stamped out, uniformity bred safety and tranquility. Her ongoing cultural exchange with Captain Vyse and his crew here on the Delphinus was something that made the sneering and cold-hearted man constantly sour-faced. She hoped dearly that Vyse and Enrique and the Ladies Aika and Fina returned, and returned quickly, if only to prove him wrong.
Their world had been upended for only two days now, but Moegi found herself soaring even as Kangan struggled to stay afloat and relevant. May you live in interesting times, indeed. Kangan saw differences as intolerable weakness.
Moegi, who knew these Westerners better than anyone else in Yafutoma now and was still learning more about them every day, saw something else. In their differences they had found a sense of unity that could not be broken, a pride that went beyond loyalty to flag or to crown.
It was a strength, and one that Marco had offered to her freely. The strength to help her find her happiness.
The histories said that the Thief Daccat stole Princess Kikue and disappeared, never to be seen again. Now another thief, but one who walked in honor with the goal of protecting the world had appeared 200 years later. In Vyse's confidence, and in the trust and respect that she saw in Prince Enrique's blue eyes every time the self-exiled royal looked to his captain, Moegi felt that strength and began to wonder if the histories had been falsified to hide what her ancestors must have seen as shameful.
Perhaps Daccat hadn't stolen Kikue at all, but merely offered her a hand and showed her a way forward in a world larger than she'd ever known before. What if she was so miserable about her destined life that she had been willing to do anything, even sacrifice a life of leisure paid for as the role of bedwarmer and unwilling mother for her intended? Perhaps Kikue had felt so trapped that she'd thrown everything away just for the chance at something different. Something that, perhaps, could be better.
Moegi dared to think, for the first time in years, that perhaps she too might have her fate altered. Another pirate had come wearing a hat far too similar to Daccat's to be mere coincidence. At her back, she felt the Divine Wind, the protective spirit said to watch over their lands.
She paused at the door of the foredeck's entry and looked over her shoulder into the harbor of Yafutoma City, shivered once, and then walked inside.