A/N: This fic is based off a dream I had, so if the plot seems too bizarre, or if the story seems warped, remember that this was based off a dream and dreams make no sense.
Sorry about the American names. But like I said in the last paragraph, this was based off a dream and I don't dream in Chinese or Japanese! (I've actually dreamed in Hebrew, but that's a different story.)
Slight spoilers, slight AU fic after episode 33. Hotohori is already married to Houki, but Boushin isn't born yet.
The seishi were all lying around the palace. There was nothing to do. Everyone was too upset to do anything but mope after the death of Nuriko. Each day passed by more slowly than the previous one. A terrible, terrible sadness hung in the air, pressing down on everyone, like a big pile of bricks on their heads.
No one had said much to each other for about a week. No one was acting normal. Miaka wasn't eating right, Tasuki and Tamahome stopped fighting, Hotohori had a bunch of hand mirrors strewn around his chambers, each one face down and collecting dust. Chichiri had been spending all his time in the library trying to see if there was a spell that could bring someone back to life that didn't turn them into mindless, flesh-hungry zombies a la Shouka. Chiriko spent most of his time looking outside the window, leaving his bed covered with opened scrolls. Mitsukake was probably the only one acting normal, as he wasn't saying much and was keeping to himself. But even that had un unfamiliarity to it.
Right now, all the Miaka and seishi minus Chichiri (who was in the library), were lying in the garden, doing their favorite newly acquired pastime - reminiscing about Nuriko.
"Remember the time when we thought he was a girl," Miaka said with fondness, cuddling her knees to her chest. "And then I was taking a bath, and I hugged him? Then his robes fell o-" She was cut short by Chichiri, who came running towards them in chibi form and carrying a scroll.
"Look at this no da!" Chichiri cried excitedly. "I found some really good information!"
Miaka, wanting to be the first to know good news, jumped up and grabbed the scroll from Chichiri. Her face fell when she remembered that she couldn't read Chinese.
"Chichiri, what does it say?" she asked him, after going on for five minutes about how reading kanji was so hard for her and how she always screwed up in her kanji class and made the class get extra homework, making everyone sweatdrop.
"I'll read it to you no da," Chichiri said, un-chibifing holding the scroll open in front of Miaka and pointing to each word as he read. "'If any one of the seishi of Suzaku die, a replacement, who was born when the rest of the seishi were, shall take the place of the deceased seishi.'"
Miaka and Chichiri looked at each other for a second, then turned chibi and started jumping up and down and screaming like two schoolgirls, having found out that the boy one of them had been crushing on asked them out.
Everyone just looked at them, unsure of what to say. Tamahome put his head in his hands and said something that sounded like, "This is the girl I want to marry?"
"So, Chichiri," Miaka said, consulting the scroll. "What's her name?"
Chichiri looked at the scroll. "Julia no da."
"Julia? Isn't that kind of American sounding? I mean, that name's obviously not from around here," Miaka said, looking at Chichiri for help. Chichiri just shrugged.