Suzuka
Suzuka paces back and forth, half-dressed, waiting for Maki to come to assist her. Feeling equal parts annoyed and worried, Suzuka holds the dress to her chest as she continues to pace about her bedroom. It is still open at the back, and without Maki to assist her, Suzuka will not be able to finish getting dressed. Suzuka tries to summon her friend again, pulling a rope that will set off a bell in the hall. Part of Suzuka hates to have to summon her friend as if she were a slave, but the dress she must wear is impossible to get on without someone else's help. Not to mention that these brief bits of time when Maki helps her get dressed are some of the few scarce moments, they get to spend with each other.
"Where is she?"
Suzuka hopes one of those servants she caught badmouthing her friend last night had not done anything to Maki. Suzuka can feel her heart hurt. Whenever she saw Maki getting harassed by people, it always hurts her deeply. Then it hurts even more whenever people do not listen to her and continue to harass her friend. She has told Yukina multiple times to leave Maki alone. Still, that woman will not listen to a word she says. She will even insult Maki to Suzuka's face telling the princess she is better off without a lowborn person in her life. Suzuka hates how powerless she is to protect her friend.
Gazing out of the window as the afternoon sun lights up the sky, Suzuka is only reminded further by how powerless she is. The treetops blowing in the breeze remind Suzuka of the outside world. A world she has been locked away from for years. Then there are the walls. Her mother constantly tells Suzuka are for her protection, but Suzuka sees them as walls to her prison. Suzuka wants to punch whoever started this war along with the person who made that Foretelling. Both of them, Suzuka, blames equally for her life locked away in the castle.
Suzuka pulls the cord again. The rope feels so soft yet so strong in her grip as she calls for Maki to come to her. She resumes her pacing wonder what is keeping Maki away from her. Usually, her friend would have arrived within a few minutes of Suzuka pulling the cord. Maki is never late. The only time Suzuka found herself waiting for her friend are when something has happened to her. A full minute passes, then two before Suzuka can feel relieved and let out a breath she did not realise she was holding. A soft knock on her bedroom door floods Suzuka with relief that Maki is okay.
"Princess, do you need something?"
In an instant, the joy Suzuka felt about seeing her friend again is dashed. As the door slowly creaks open and Sawano Fukuda steps inside. Suzuka does her best to hide her disappointment, but she would be lying if she said this was one of the last people she wants to see right now. "After I overheard the things she said," Suzuka hopes at least she finally learned her lesson after she broke up that secret meeting.
"Where is my handmaid?" Suzuka asks, making Sawano flinch as she fails to hide all the displeasure in her voice.
"Forgive me, highness. I am unaware of your handmaid's whereabouts. I do not know why she would not answer your summons," Sawano replies, regaining her composure.
"And I wonder why it is that my Maki is too busy to attend me," Suzuka narrows her eyes.
"May I be of assistance, your Highness?" Sawano asks, lowering her head and breaking eye contact.
"Since you are here, you may as well," Suzuka replies, not liking the look of victory she sees written all over Sawano's face.
An air of smug victory wafted off the head maid that Suzuka instantly takes a disliking to as Sawano walks up behind her. Sawano goes about the task of lacing up her dress gentler than Maki was ever capable of being. Still, that roughness was never something Suzuka complained about. Suzuka always found it comforting that at least one person did not treat her as if she were made of glass. Suzuka jostled as the girl tightened laces, tied one set, and moved up to the next. The long sapphire-blue velvet gown had fourteen individual ribbons down the back, which Sawano worked into elegant bows. Suzuka glanced sideways at the mirror to watch her, annoyed by the girl's victorious smile. Suzuka knows she did not want to attend to her out of any sense of loyalty or friendship. She believed it her station by birth.
"If Maki were here, she would talk to me as she tied the ribbons," Suzuka misses her friend's bad jokes with the silence that Sawano conducts her work in. Suzuka just wants Maki to tend to her. "Maybe if they know how I feel about her, they will leave me alone." Still, Suzuka is worried to the point of sickness that Maki would also never want to be near her again once she learns of her feelings. In Japan, an Empire created by the God of Purity, girls simply did not fall in love with other girls. But Suzuka had. Suzuka had often wondered if that means she had become evil or had the gods made her that way on purpose?
"All done," Chimed Sawano. "You look radiant, your Highness!" She fussed at Suzuka's hair. "Your locks are becoming a touch long, your Highness." A finger pressed into her back close to where her bottom started. "It is lovely, but perhaps time to shorten it?"
"It's fine for now." Suzuka looked down past a spread of embroidered flowers on her chest and front, at the tips of her black shoes peeking from beneath the hem. She had worn the plain ones, unconcerned with opinion. "Thank you, Sawano, that is all."
"Do you need…"
"That is all, Sawano. Thank you." Suzuka repeated in a firmer tone that worked a lot better.
Suzuka cringed inwardly at the domineering tone in her voice, harsher than she had expected. She hated using it, but her mother often warned her about seeming too pleasant. People would not be slow to take advantage of her. It helped that Suzuka did not have much fondness for this girl.
"Yes, Highness." Sawano clasped her hands in front, bowed, and walked out.
Suzuka takes a moment to calm herself before she exits her bedchamber. She catches a glimpse of Sawano with her head down, walking away, but she pays her no attention, quickly walking towards Maki's room a peaking inside. She is not surprised to find her friends room empty, but Suzuka still checked in the off chance that Maki was so tired from yesterday that she had not woken up yet. Her next stop was the garderobe, but she also finds empty, and Suzuka leaves as soon as she can not liking the room. Her skin crawls as Suzuka recalls a story she heard of an assassin being caught after climbing up the toilet shaft to gain entry. The thought of someone doing that while she was using the facilities horrified Suzuka more than an assassin killing her in her sleep.
Suzuka whirled at the scuff of footsteps, but her enthusiasm evaporated at the sight of a pair of young parlour maids in plain grey dresses, black shoes, and white aprons. The girls set buckets down and chattered away while cleaning the floor. She could not place their names but remembered the sisters were twelve. Their happy chatter stalled as she neared, and they worked in silence save for the scratching of bristles.
"Good day," Suzuka puts on her friendliest smile, but the girls still look as stiff as a board.
"Yes, your Highness," They chorused.
"Have you seen my handmaiden?"
They exchanged a glance before the brown-haired girl looked down while the flaxen headed one smiled.
"Mistress Takatsu sent her out to do something. She was to clean this floor, but she said Maki is too busy," The brown-haired girl offered a sheepish upward glance. "She did not seem pleased, your Highness." She looked around as if to ensure no one eavesdropped. "I hear Mistress Gojou scolded her."
Suzuka grinned. Yukina never did much care for Maki. For a woman of middling birth, she indeed held a significant amount of disdain for anyone beneath her. Suzuka found the way he bowed and scraped at her mother, nauseating.
"Thank you, girls," Suzuka smiled.
The maids returned her smile, finally feeling more relaxed around her before getting back to work. The young maid's whispers and laughter could be heard echoing through the hall's moments after Suzuka walks away from them. Although Suzuka has many bad things to say about Sawano, the one thing she can never complain about is how well the maids are trained. Despite being so young, those girls were able to conduct themselves around royalty and nobles as well as handle their work unsupervised. Although Suzuka feels that Sawano may have coached them to be wary of royals after the way Suzuka's father apparently acted around them. According to the rumours, Suzuka heard her father believed that servants were beneath him and should not be heard or seen if possible. Exceedingly proper, the former king would not even acknowledge servants existed as if cups refilled themselves and feather dusters floated on magic.
"They are people, too!" Suzuka huffed as she hurries through the hallway to the stairs before the grand throne room. Two sets of steps led from either side of the balcony railing and curved inward, merging before widening into the first-floor main hall. Red velvet tapestries hung between shining silver and white displays of plate armour. Swords and lances gleaned from the decorative boards. An enormous painting midway along the left wall depicted the gods: Lucen, the patron of light, dominated the centre. His billowing white robe, cinched with a golden sun brooch, left his right shoulder bare. Long white hair lofted around him as he stared straight into the viewer's soul. Atop his elevated hand balanced a glowing sun. To his side, the goddess Navissa stood shrouded in a gown seemingly made of the midnight sky, her head bowed in deference to her husband. Inky tendrils from the hem of her dress poured over the stone steps.
Beside her, Orien, their son, the patron god of life and daybreak, raised one arm to the sky. He wore the simple green robe of a woodland ascetic and a matching crown of leaves. Though not to his father's degree, he had been depicted with a powerful body and rippling muscles. He had a young face that suggested the early twenties. Tenebrea, the gods' daughter, hovered at her father's side with a sorrowful, distant expression. Her long hair flowed like her mother's, only a deep charcoal grey that swept to metallic silver toward the ends. The goddess of death and twilight, most Lucernians shied away from even speaking her name. One bare foot protruded from under her dress; her left hand extended toward a crawling skeleton, which reached up for her as if pleading for help. Suzuka approached the painting and stared at Tenebrea, a girl depicted around her age or perhaps a year younger. "They shun you for what you are," She bit her lip. "People are fools."
Servants and castle staff wandering by paused to look at her. A few mumbled to themselves about courting bad luck by standing so close to that goddess. Anyone who did not avoid her soon found themselves as shunned and whispered about as the deity herself. After all, only a damaged mind would want to associate with death. "Please forgive them; they think you chose to be the goddess of death." Not that she had any great love of the netherworld or a rush to go there, but she felt a person could fear death without fearing the entity responsible for governing it. Everything that lived wound up dead eventually.
Suzuka tore herself away from the painting, determined to find out what happened to Maki. She walked the length of the main halls and out to the front courtyard. A pleasant breeze hits her body, and Suzuka finds herself smiling under the sun's warmth. The sun was not that hot today, and the wind not that strong, but the warmth was still pleasant, and the gusts lifted her hair. Smiling, Suzuka enjoys what little time she will be able to enjoy days like this. In just a few months, the trees will shed their leaves, and the wind would become unbearably cold. She peered to the east, or where she guessed east to be, and wondered how the trees of Mokusa remained green and verdant year-round.
Of course, not all trees in Japan became skeletal and bleak. The pine forests, those remained full―but all of Mokusa teemed with life. Pity its citizenry was so brutal. Stories danced through her thoughts as she made her way to the stable. Most of the denizens of Mokusa dwelled in hovels deep in the woods, practising black magic and calling upon the demonic forces that Lucen had banished from this land. Many sharpened their teeth to fangs and ate the flesh of their dead, as well as any unfortunate trespassers. The tutors had warned her that such a death kept a spirit away from Tenebrea and condemned it to eternal torment as a wandering wretch or cast it into the Pit. Suzuka shivered wonder how people could live like that.
Whole groups of Japanese soldiers had disappeared, another thing she regretted hearing in the war room. A battle lost, a few men escaped to bring reinforcements… but when they returned, they found the field bare. The Mokusa warriors had taken everything. Probably for food. Suzuka braced a hand on her stomach to keep herself from being sick right there in the courtyard.
Rorick and a few noblemen gathered by the corner of the stables. Their tousled clothing suggested they had only moments ago returned from a hunt. They each gave her a bow, a smile, and a pleasant greeting. Despite the nobles being old enough to have fathered her, all three looked at her as if considering her for a wife. Suzuka put on a plan face, thinking back to the cannibals of Mokusa to calm her stomach.
"Rorick, where is Halorne?"
"Inside, your Highness." The gamekeeper pointed toward the stable before scratching at his tousled hair.
"Thank you." Suzuka nodded to him and scurried through the stable doors. "Halorne?"
"Yes?"
Called a deep voice. A second or two later, a tall, thin man with a salt and pepper beard and curly hair stood into view within one of the stalls. His green doublet and leather breeches looked well-worn and far more comfortable than her ponderous garb.
"Oh, your Highness…" He hurried out into the hay-covered walkway. "What are you doing in here? You'll ruin your dress."
"Have someone prepare my carriage. I wish to spend the day in Cimril proper," Suzuka requests stopping a short distance away from the man.
"Uhhhh… Beg pardon, highness. The queen has instructed me that you're not to leave the grounds." Halorne cringed, fidgeting with his pockets, unable to look at her. "For your protection."
"I am not a baby any more in need of constant protection," Suzuka tells him. "My mother overestimates the danger. I am sure I will be fine with spending a few hours shopping."
"Forgive me, your Highness, but I would incur your mother's wrath for… well, it is a direct order, ma'am." Halorne removed his soft brown cap and kneaded it at his chest.
Suzuka sucked in her breath about to argue, but she bites her tongue, not wanting Halorne to lose his job because of her. She could not in good conscience be the cause of his misfortune for want of her leisure. Nor could she blame him for her mother's decision.
"Very well then, I will go and speak with the queen myself," Suzuka says as she turns to leave.
Halorne almost melted into a puddle when she made to storm off. Relief dripped from him as he fixed his hat back in place. "Damn this war." Suzuka hears him curse as she leaves the stables.
Suzuka hurries across the courtyard, causing her dress to ripple and the eight armoured guards to stare at her. Most of her legs below the knees visible as she kept her skirt hiked up. A few servants and some of the soldiers seemed to fight not to smile at her. Their reaction only made her angrier. How was it everyone practically soiled themselves when her mother appeared simply unimpressed, never mind showing actual ire. Yet, seeing her livid, they found it funny. By the time she ascended the curving dual staircase to the throne room, she itches to lash out at someone. Suzuka shoved the doors wide with a loud, echoing slam that made the queen, and four advisors stop mid-conversation. All in heavy robes of cream and loam, the advisors froze in place, their tall, cylindrical hats tilting as they swivelled to regard her. With her mother seated in the centre in white, the five of them could have been another grand painting.
Iroha offered a concerned expression. She stares at Suzuka, waiting for the princess to speak. Yukina glared as though she were a misbehaving, petulant child. At the same time, the other two, Ema Hashima and Yuzuki Souraku keep their expressions blank as they stare at Suzuka. Her mother, the queen, meanwhile, raises an eyebrow as she watches her daughter carefully. Suzuka stormed straight up to the dais and stopped within arm's reach of her mother's knee.
"You told Halorne I'm not to leave the castle, Father," Suzuka says, trying not to sound too angry.
"I did," The queen nods.
"I wish to visit the shops today. The weather is beautiful, and I cannot tolerate being stuck inside this place any longer," Suzuka requests.
"Daughter, you must understand…" Yukari reached a hand up. Suzuka walked closer, and she threaded her arm around the small of her daughters back.
"I do, mother. But it is the middle of the day. Lucen watches over us. What skill do you expect from our guards that you think our enemies have spies in our castle city?" Ema and Yuzuki exchanged a glance that suggested the issue had been raised already.
"You know full well," Said Yukina, "The savages cavort with dark powers. They are quite different from us, young princess. Among our kind, magic is a rare gift. To them, their dark masters toss it about like crumbs to pigeons."
"Indeed," Whispered Yuzuki. "Their spies can appear to be anyone from a small child to an enormous bladesman. How can our soldiers identify them?"
"I am not one of your simple soldiers!" Suzuka yells. "I would not be fooled by their magic."
"Oh?" The queen smiled, indulgent. "Is that so?"
She raised her hand, summoning a brilliant orb above her palm, beseeching Lucen to bear the truth. A maid stood off to the side, faded transparent in the near-blinding glow, revealing a shorter, stockier woman standing within a ghost. The queen's look of gratified motherly pride melted to wide-eyed surprise. Yukina gurgled and pointed. The queen yanked Suzuka around, shoving her behind her.
"Spy!"
The maid or whatever she let out a panicked cry and runs towards the window, shoving a maid who was too stunned to move out of her way. A butler tries to stop her, but the spy effortlessly pushes him into an approaching guard. Suzuka gasped as the spy sprinted to the wall, a mass of shouting soldiers at her heels. She looked up at a window fifteen feet off the ground. The queen raised her arm. Less than a second before an army of hands grasped the spy, she vanished and reappeared standing on the ledge. A subsequent flare went off amid the soldiers where the infiltrator had been, blinding them all.
Intent formed in her mind and shaped the light at her command. A bolt flew from her fingertips, pure and bright blue. The spy had started to peer outside, presumably to repeat her vanishing act, but Suzuka's magic clipped her in the back of the thigh. The impact shoved her leg out from under her, though it did not appear to break the skin. Screaming, the woman fell out of sight. Seconds later, a splash came from the moat.
"After her!" Shouted the queen, pointing at the door. Guards scrambled to pursue.
"Search the castle." Iroha made a sharp gesture at the door. "Find the real maid."
"If there ever was one," Muttered Yukina.
"You see, my daughter," Queen Yukari turned to face Suzuka and held her by the shoulders, looking at her with pain in his eyes. "I am sorry. They would think nothing of killing you to defeat us."
"The Foretelling," said Yukina. "They know you will purge their ungodly heathen ways, as Lucen cleansed our kingdom."
"Yes, well, our princess has quite a way to go before her magic is a threat to more than one woman," Iroha lips twitched as if hiding a smile.
Shouts arose outside from the guards pursuing the spy.
"Yukina," Suzuka stared at her. "If Mokusa wants me dead so badly, why did that spy not strike me down? She was close enough. She could have killed mother as well. She could have slain either of us with ease before we even knew she was a spy."
"She likely didn't want to die." Yukina's tone questioned her intelligence for even asking.
"You keep telling me how dark and bloodthirsty these people are. If she believed killing me would spare her entire kingdom from destruction, would you not say a woman of that fervour would think nothing of giving her life to take mine?" Suzuka scowled at him.
The queen even smiled, giving Yukina a look that says. "She has a point," Iroha glanced away to hide her expression. Ema and Yuzuki still stared at the window, not having much moved since the false maid was revealed by Suzuka's magic.
"I will be fine," Suzuka assures her. "Please instruct Halorne to ready a coach. I do not mind if you send guards."
"Mere seconds ago, you discovered a spy close enough to take either of our lives, and you still do not appreciate the danger. They want to harm you, child. I cannot risk it," The queen sighs.
"I know… but… I feel like a prisoner. Sometimes, I think I would have more freedom if Mokusa captured me," Suzuka replies, looking down at the ground.
"Do not say such things, princess. They would certainly never 'capture' you. If those savages found you, they would kill you without a second's hesitation," Yukina gasps.
"Please understand." The queen took her hand in both of hers, squeezing it gently. "I think only of your life. My daughter will end this war, and then you will have all the freedom you want."
"The Foretelling doesn't say when I'm supposed to end it. I could be an old maid by then." Suzuka made little lights dance around her arms. "It's painfully evident I'm not ready to go to war, so it can't be soon."
"How do you think I will feel when I receive news of your death?" The queen brushed a hand across her cheek.
"That is unfair." She frowned. "But effective."
Suzuka hung her head and trudged off down the gold-hued runner connecting the throne dais to the doors. Two younger men in leather armour sprinted in, offered hasty greetings, and scurried over to the queen.
"My queen, the spy was caught just beyond the wall."
"Excellent," Suzuka can see her mother smile as she glances back over her shoulder. "Prepare him for interrogation."
"Apologies, your highness. The woman did not survive," Papers rustled. "We found these on him."
"Sketches of our engagement diagrams," Yukina exclaims. "They would have known where all of our men are stationed."
"How long was this woman in my castle?" Suzuka hears the queen as but she does not stick around to listen to the answer.
The door attendant quirked an eyebrow at Suzuka but kept silent. Suzuka rushed out the door as shocked gasps and grumbles came from the queen and her advisors. Tears leaking from her eyes, she stood with her hands over her face for a few minutes trying to collect herself. Suzuka knows it would not do for someone to catch her crying. The heir foretold to end the war could not be seen as weak. "Oh, why couldn't the queen have had a son? No one would doubt a prince could protect himself. No one would think a prince to be weak for showing emotion."
Growling, Suzuka turned on her heel and headed out to the one still accessible place that reminded her of happier times. She rustled her way across the ground floor, ducking into the corridor containing the lower servants' quarters. It was the fastest path she knew of to the rear courtyard. Some of the kitchen staff smiled at her, which lifted her mood enough to return their good cheer. One dark-haired kitchen maid of about fifteen regarded her with a guilty smile. Suzuka wondered if the girl pitied her for bearing such an awful burden at her age.
She exited the other side of the kitchen. The smell of fresh-baked bread and turkey filled the narrow, dim hallway that wrapped around the back end of the keep. Suzuka pushed open a dark wooden door with a pointed arch and emerged onto the garden walk past riding tack and cloaks. Overhang from the second story connected to evenly spaced columns, creating a covered passage about forty yards long to another door leading back into the keep. A waist-high wall ran under the columns, dotted with moss and weeds. Beyond the arch, the royal garden stretched into the distance, thick with trees, bushes, and magnificent blooms, all shifting in the gentle afternoon breeze. Her shoes crunched on long, brown seedpods strewn about the stone floor while her gown dragged a clear path to the shallow wall, where she climbed up and sat, her back against a column.
Suzuka gazed left into the topiary maze, her right leg dangling off the wall, her other foot flat upon it. This place held her only true fond memories, a place she could forget all about royalty, warfare, assassins, or having to conquer a nation. "Lucen, please let my father find a new queen and give him a son. I fear I will never be good enough. I am too afraid. I lack the courage to even tell the one I love how I feel." The calming hiss of the wind in the trees served as her only answer. Wistful memories of years ago, how happy and innocent this place had been for her, weighed on her heart. She gathered her hands in her lap and fought the urge to weep.