~An American Miko~
Chapter Eighteen
Celebration & A Hangover
They heard the laughing and roughhousing from all the way down the hall. The seven of them stopped outside the two large doors that led to the common room of the stronghold. Hakurou pushed the doors open, standing tall and strong, his long hair flowing down his back and over one shoulder from the ponytail in back.
There were several breaking glasses and all went silent. Hakurou's voice rang strong through the common room full of stunned bandits. "It's good to see that you're all still enjoying yourselves."
Several of these 'strong bandits' had a suspicious glistening in their eyes. Myst smiled. She liked this man even more now. One could tell that to almost all of the bandits, Hakurou was more than just a leader. He was a brother, a father, a mentor, and a friend.
Kouji was the first to speak. "Hey Boss! I was hoping you'd be down today! After Mitsukake healed you last night, you still looked like it would take some time to recover. You look like your old self now. Come have a drink! Oh Kouji, thank you for your compliment and concern! I think I will have a drink with the men. Well boss, you know you're welcome to sit where you'd like. Of course Kouji, thank you! No problem boss!"
Hakurou laughed and squeezed his shoulder firmly. "Thank you Kouji." He went and sat down at a table in the middle of the room. Myst sat on his left and the rest of the seishi spread out around them. The room erupted into cheers as Hakurou took his first sip of sake.
The seishi were given sake as well. Chichiri kindly refused but the others all accepted. Myst frowned when she wasn't offered one as well. Deciding that it would be best to try to fit in with this rough bunch, she let her wild side out. She reached over and grabbed a full bowl of sake from one of the bandits that had just sat down.
The man growled and reached to take it back and received a shock. Myst calmly took a sip of the sake while her arm seemed to, of it's own volition, swing out and her fist hit him square in the nose. Myst smacked her lips as her arm relaxed. "Not bad sake."
Another man against the wall stood angrily to defend his friend and Myst, without even looking at him, shook her arm slightly and flicked her wrist. There was a snick and the man plopped back down into his chair holding his bleeding cheek and staring at the dagger imbedded into the wall beside where his head had just been.
Hakurou looked over at Myst, not phased by any of this, but still impressed, and watched as she poured more sake into her now empty bowl. "That stuff is pretty strong. Sure you can take it?"
Myst shrugged and smirked. "I think I can manage." She reached out to refill her bowl again as another bandit scooted next to her. His arm reached around her and cupped her full breast.
Myst's eyes flashed and some of the bandits leaned back with wide eyes at the look. Since the man was standing behind her, she elbowed him in the stomach, knocking him backwards into a chair behind her. She was up with her sword drawn in a second, the tip pressed to his adam's apple, and her boot heel in his groin.
With her free hand, Myst grabbed a handful of his greasy hair and turned his head to the side where Hotohori was now standing with his own hand on his sword. Myst spoke as if to a child. "I am happily married. To that man there in fact. Do you really think you could ever come close to him in any way? Do you think I would ever be tempted to sway from him? Nooooo." She shook his head forcefully, careful not to knick him, but to keep steady pressure on him as well.
Myst voice changed to a seething one and her face showed her anger. Her voice carried to all in the room. She looked strait into the mans eyes as she ground her heel painfully into his manhood. "The next time you ever look at or touch me in such a manner, I'll rip your balls off and shove them so far down your throat that you'll be shitting sperm for a year! Then I'll let my husband have at you." She flung him to the floor and planted her heel in his spine while the tip of her blade rested on the beck of his neck.
Myst looked like the perfect warrioress as she stood there glaring death around the silent room. "That goes for all of you slugs! Is all I have said understood or shall I explain it better?" On the last word, she half stomped for emphasis. There was a whimper from the floor and everyone but Hakurou and the seishi nodded with words of obedience. She smiled and withdrew from the downed bandit. "Now get away from me!" The bandit scrambled away and into a corner somewhere. Myst sheathed her sword and calmly sat back down, this time with Hotohori beside her.
Hakurou sipped and looked at her. "Very well done. It was exactly the right thing to do with these men. If you hold your liquor as well as you just did that, you might very well be the last one left standing."
Myst laughed. It was a happy sound that broke all tension in the room. The room went back to it's normal activity. "Oh no. Nuriko would beat me all hands down! I've seen him drink."
Nuriko laughed too and leaned across the table since he sat across from Myst and Hakurou. "She might be right about that. Then again, your men are big, strong bandits. I'm just a little crossdresser." He smiled mischievously. "How about a little drinking game?" With that he took anther sip of sake.
Everyone waited in silence for Hakurou to answer the challenge. Hakurou cocked a eyebrow and smirked. "You're on little man."
The room erupted in cheer once again.
**********
Nuriko slammed the sake bottle onto the table breathing hard. His face was bright red and his rose-colored eyes were glassy. Admirably, with very little slur, he demanded, "Who's next?!" He looked around the room of passed-out, drunken, drooling, snoring, bandits, and finally his eyes rested on the one person still awake and surprisingly, still lightly sipping sake. "You!"
Myst shook her head and chuckled. The only reason she wasn't drunk was because she had not been sipping sake the whole time, taking brakes to cool off her levels. She uncrossed her lags and stood up to walk around behind him and wrap her arms around his thin waist. She laid her chin against his shoulder and leaned her head against his. "Not a chance in hell Little Love. I'm not crazy. This was quite a party. Hell, I have no clue how you managed to goad Mitsukake and Chichiri into it, but you even drank them under!"
Nuriko looked drunkenly in the direction that she was and saw the monk, sans mask, drooling and open-mouthed snoring, on a likewise passed out Mitsukake's chest. "Wow. I don't even remember that."
Myst straitened up, pulling him off the bench, and wrapping his arm around her shoulders as he staggered. "Yeah well, you drank Hotohori under too and I don't feel like lugging his ass up the stairs. Imperial or not. Besides," She looked over at her sprawled husband, "he looks quite happy on the floor. Since you can still. pretend. you can stand, I'll help you to bed."
He looked up at her, not supporting his weight at all as she dragged him out. "Bed? Aren't you married to. someone?"
"Ohhh, you are so smashed."
The door shut behind them.
**********
Hotohori and Hakurou trudged into the room with matching bloodshot eyes and snarled hair. They stopped as one and squinted down at the bed. Hakurou leaned closer to the bed while Hotohori just waved his hand once at it in dismissal. Hakurou looked at him as he passed. "Do they always do that?"
Hotohori sighed as he pulled his messy hair up into and equally messy pile on top of his aching head. "Frequently. Like I said, they have a special bond. This sort of thing has something to do more with innocence in that fact that there is nothing out of place. It's not about the physical, at least not in that sense. It's about closeness."
Hakurou joined him at the mirror and began doing likewise with his own hair. "It could just be the hangover talking, but with the sheets to their waists and his arm strategically placed over her breasts like that, it seems almost as if they had planned it."
Hotohori pulled a robe out of his travel bag. "Mistyc seems to be able to do that quite a bit and it also affects others around her likewise. Must be a thingy from her world."
"A 'thingy' Your Majesty? Could it be that you have lost some of your eloquence with the onset of your first real hangover?"
Hotohori scowled as they moved back to the door. "Shut up and show me where I may soak my head in cold water."
When the door closed Myst cracked her eye open. She shifted a little and Nuriko groaned and scrunched his nose, burying his face deeper into Myst's neck. "Wha wa zat?"
Myst shifted more and brought the blanket up around his shoulder. She turned onto her side facing him and gathered him closer in her arms. She buried her face in his soft hair and kissed the top of his head. "I think Hotohori has bonded with a certain bandit leader."
Nuriko didn't open his eyes, only snuggled more deeply into her embrace. "Now we're in trouble. Two equally gorgeous and talented leaders in opposite fields are now friends. What shall we ever do?"
She ran her fingers through his hair and kissed his head again. "How's your hangover"
"Still marching with a vengeance. I can't believe that party lasted all day. Should have taken something for it last night."
"Eh, we did what we could. Here, roll onto your stomach, I'll give you a back-rub."
He groaned and cracked and eye open. "Thank you."
She chuckled and untangled herself from him. "That was just pathetic. Now the key will be Little Love, to go down there later and look unshaken and untouched by a hangover. You'll have the whole mountain thinking you the avatar of Suzaku himself."
He cracked a smiled and slowly turned onto his stomach. She bustled quickly about he room, gathering things that she would need. She also threw a heavy blanket over the window to block out almost all of the light, knowing it must be killing his head. She would have had to light a candle to see clearly if it wasn't for her excellent night vision.
He moaned again in thanks and that gave her another idea. She gathered the lightly scented oils that were good for headaches that they both favored and some fresh towels. She poured a bowl of fresh almost ice-cold mountain water into a bowl and soaked one of the towels in it. She rung the towel out a little and walked back to her friend. She gathered his long hair up into a loose bun, then wrapped the cold towel around his head
He gasped a little , then relaxed and smiled as the cold began to seep into his headache and numb it.
She pulled the sheet down to his hips to expose his lightly muscled, feminine back. He murmured to her as she straddled his slim hips and began to warm oil in her hands. "You know, sometimes we almost act more married than you and his Majesty. People in court are starting to wonder and talk."
She shrugged as she began to work the warm oil into the knotted muscles of his shoulders. "Let them talk. I do love you, just not in the way that I love Hotohori. It's almost closer in a way. The three of us have such similar pasts. Hell there are just as many rumors going around about you and Hotohori as there are about you and me." She stopped for a second then leaned over and whispered in his ear as she worked her thumbs into the back of his neck. "Either way you're the center of attention. Screwing both the Emperor and Empress. Scandalous. Tch, tch. What's next?"
Nuriko chuckled. "Yes, it's a conspiracy! If that doesn't work then my children will court your children! Mwahahahaha!"
Myst smiled and dug her fingers into a knot below his right shoulder blade. "You know, that's actually not a bad idea. If you ever have a daughter, maybe we could try a little matchmaking. However, I won't betroth any of my children. They're going to have a choice who they marry. If they are going to marry for love, then so be it. Even if that love happens to be a beggar from the streets."
Nuriko flinched when she hit a sore spot on his lower back, but opened an eye to look at her anyway. "That's another reason I and many others think you are a good Empress and why so many people love you. Even though there are no royal families that affect you from where you come from, you still grew up privileged beyond most, yet everyone is equal in your eyes. From beggars and bandits to the courtiers and nobles, we are all the same. You even treat the seishi the same. That's what this country needs, is someone who listens to all and turns a blind eye to status. That's why people love you, because you are part of the people. They also see how happy you've made the Emperor. He smiles on his rounds now. He even gets into the crowd with the people and gets down on his knees to speak evenly with children and the ill. They see him like that and then they see him smiling at you while you're doing the same and they know. They know the Emperor as one of them now because you pushed the advisors to allow it. They see that as well."
Myst kissed his shoulder and he could feel the heat from her blush. "Ryuen, you're making me out to be something I'm not. I'm."
Nuriko turned over onto his back beneath her and grabbed her hands, pushing her palms against the flat plains of his bare chest. "You're lessening it. You don't want to admit how special you are or how much you have really done."
Myst looked down into his beautiful eyes and smiled lightly. "All I've done is love."
"And that's all we, Konan, needed. We needed his Majesty to find an Empress who loved the people as much as he did. You have filled that role and more. We're here now because you love enough to go out and find the rest of the seishi. A great man like Hakurou is still alive now because you loved enough to ride headlong into danger to save one man, one bandit leader. WE all know that Tasuki is only the secondary reason we're here. Suzaku showed you Hakurou and his soul and you immediately loved him, and simply for the reason that he was a goodhearted man in pain." He brought her forward to lay on his chest in a hug. "No wonder Suzaku chose you. He's the god of love and you are the embodiment of love."
Myst tilted her head up and kissed him lightly. "And you're a fucking sap."
He tightened his arms around her as they relaxed for another nap. "Mhm. And you're a miracle worker who takes hangovers away." His last act before they drifted off was to pull the towel off his head and drop it to the floor with a plop. Tendrils of moist hair clung to his face and Myst, half asleep already, brushed them away whispering, "I love because you and the other seishi love. It's a full circle thing you know."
**********
A.N.: Pretty much nothing other than keep reading. Oh yeah! This bond with Nuriko is actually completely about innocence. There's no thought of sex or any temptation anywhere. It doesn't even cross their mind. Well, there ya go na no da!!!
~Celesta Hellewise Harman
They heard the laughing and roughhousing from all the way down the hall. The seven of them stopped outside the two large doors that led to the common room of the stronghold. Hakurou pushed the doors open, standing tall and strong, his long hair flowing down his back and over one shoulder from the ponytail in back.
There were several breaking glasses and all went silent. Hakurou's voice rang strong through the common room full of stunned bandits. "It's good to see that you're all still enjoying yourselves."
Several of these 'strong bandits' had a suspicious glistening in their eyes. Myst smiled. She liked this man even more now. One could tell that to almost all of the bandits, Hakurou was more than just a leader. He was a brother, a father, a mentor, and a friend.
Kouji was the first to speak. "Hey Boss! I was hoping you'd be down today! After Mitsukake healed you last night, you still looked like it would take some time to recover. You look like your old self now. Come have a drink! Oh Kouji, thank you for your compliment and concern! I think I will have a drink with the men. Well boss, you know you're welcome to sit where you'd like. Of course Kouji, thank you! No problem boss!"
Hakurou laughed and squeezed his shoulder firmly. "Thank you Kouji." He went and sat down at a table in the middle of the room. Myst sat on his left and the rest of the seishi spread out around them. The room erupted into cheers as Hakurou took his first sip of sake.
The seishi were given sake as well. Chichiri kindly refused but the others all accepted. Myst frowned when she wasn't offered one as well. Deciding that it would be best to try to fit in with this rough bunch, she let her wild side out. She reached over and grabbed a full bowl of sake from one of the bandits that had just sat down.
The man growled and reached to take it back and received a shock. Myst calmly took a sip of the sake while her arm seemed to, of it's own volition, swing out and her fist hit him square in the nose. Myst smacked her lips as her arm relaxed. "Not bad sake."
Another man against the wall stood angrily to defend his friend and Myst, without even looking at him, shook her arm slightly and flicked her wrist. There was a snick and the man plopped back down into his chair holding his bleeding cheek and staring at the dagger imbedded into the wall beside where his head had just been.
Hakurou looked over at Myst, not phased by any of this, but still impressed, and watched as she poured more sake into her now empty bowl. "That stuff is pretty strong. Sure you can take it?"
Myst shrugged and smirked. "I think I can manage." She reached out to refill her bowl again as another bandit scooted next to her. His arm reached around her and cupped her full breast.
Myst's eyes flashed and some of the bandits leaned back with wide eyes at the look. Since the man was standing behind her, she elbowed him in the stomach, knocking him backwards into a chair behind her. She was up with her sword drawn in a second, the tip pressed to his adam's apple, and her boot heel in his groin.
With her free hand, Myst grabbed a handful of his greasy hair and turned his head to the side where Hotohori was now standing with his own hand on his sword. Myst spoke as if to a child. "I am happily married. To that man there in fact. Do you really think you could ever come close to him in any way? Do you think I would ever be tempted to sway from him? Nooooo." She shook his head forcefully, careful not to knick him, but to keep steady pressure on him as well.
Myst voice changed to a seething one and her face showed her anger. Her voice carried to all in the room. She looked strait into the mans eyes as she ground her heel painfully into his manhood. "The next time you ever look at or touch me in such a manner, I'll rip your balls off and shove them so far down your throat that you'll be shitting sperm for a year! Then I'll let my husband have at you." She flung him to the floor and planted her heel in his spine while the tip of her blade rested on the beck of his neck.
Myst looked like the perfect warrioress as she stood there glaring death around the silent room. "That goes for all of you slugs! Is all I have said understood or shall I explain it better?" On the last word, she half stomped for emphasis. There was a whimper from the floor and everyone but Hakurou and the seishi nodded with words of obedience. She smiled and withdrew from the downed bandit. "Now get away from me!" The bandit scrambled away and into a corner somewhere. Myst sheathed her sword and calmly sat back down, this time with Hotohori beside her.
Hakurou sipped and looked at her. "Very well done. It was exactly the right thing to do with these men. If you hold your liquor as well as you just did that, you might very well be the last one left standing."
Myst laughed. It was a happy sound that broke all tension in the room. The room went back to it's normal activity. "Oh no. Nuriko would beat me all hands down! I've seen him drink."
Nuriko laughed too and leaned across the table since he sat across from Myst and Hakurou. "She might be right about that. Then again, your men are big, strong bandits. I'm just a little crossdresser." He smiled mischievously. "How about a little drinking game?" With that he took anther sip of sake.
Everyone waited in silence for Hakurou to answer the challenge. Hakurou cocked a eyebrow and smirked. "You're on little man."
The room erupted in cheer once again.
**********
Nuriko slammed the sake bottle onto the table breathing hard. His face was bright red and his rose-colored eyes were glassy. Admirably, with very little slur, he demanded, "Who's next?!" He looked around the room of passed-out, drunken, drooling, snoring, bandits, and finally his eyes rested on the one person still awake and surprisingly, still lightly sipping sake. "You!"
Myst shook her head and chuckled. The only reason she wasn't drunk was because she had not been sipping sake the whole time, taking brakes to cool off her levels. She uncrossed her lags and stood up to walk around behind him and wrap her arms around his thin waist. She laid her chin against his shoulder and leaned her head against his. "Not a chance in hell Little Love. I'm not crazy. This was quite a party. Hell, I have no clue how you managed to goad Mitsukake and Chichiri into it, but you even drank them under!"
Nuriko looked drunkenly in the direction that she was and saw the monk, sans mask, drooling and open-mouthed snoring, on a likewise passed out Mitsukake's chest. "Wow. I don't even remember that."
Myst straitened up, pulling him off the bench, and wrapping his arm around her shoulders as he staggered. "Yeah well, you drank Hotohori under too and I don't feel like lugging his ass up the stairs. Imperial or not. Besides," She looked over at her sprawled husband, "he looks quite happy on the floor. Since you can still. pretend. you can stand, I'll help you to bed."
He looked up at her, not supporting his weight at all as she dragged him out. "Bed? Aren't you married to. someone?"
"Ohhh, you are so smashed."
The door shut behind them.
**********
Hotohori and Hakurou trudged into the room with matching bloodshot eyes and snarled hair. They stopped as one and squinted down at the bed. Hakurou leaned closer to the bed while Hotohori just waved his hand once at it in dismissal. Hakurou looked at him as he passed. "Do they always do that?"
Hotohori sighed as he pulled his messy hair up into and equally messy pile on top of his aching head. "Frequently. Like I said, they have a special bond. This sort of thing has something to do more with innocence in that fact that there is nothing out of place. It's not about the physical, at least not in that sense. It's about closeness."
Hakurou joined him at the mirror and began doing likewise with his own hair. "It could just be the hangover talking, but with the sheets to their waists and his arm strategically placed over her breasts like that, it seems almost as if they had planned it."
Hotohori pulled a robe out of his travel bag. "Mistyc seems to be able to do that quite a bit and it also affects others around her likewise. Must be a thingy from her world."
"A 'thingy' Your Majesty? Could it be that you have lost some of your eloquence with the onset of your first real hangover?"
Hotohori scowled as they moved back to the door. "Shut up and show me where I may soak my head in cold water."
When the door closed Myst cracked her eye open. She shifted a little and Nuriko groaned and scrunched his nose, burying his face deeper into Myst's neck. "Wha wa zat?"
Myst shifted more and brought the blanket up around his shoulder. She turned onto her side facing him and gathered him closer in her arms. She buried her face in his soft hair and kissed the top of his head. "I think Hotohori has bonded with a certain bandit leader."
Nuriko didn't open his eyes, only snuggled more deeply into her embrace. "Now we're in trouble. Two equally gorgeous and talented leaders in opposite fields are now friends. What shall we ever do?"
She ran her fingers through his hair and kissed his head again. "How's your hangover"
"Still marching with a vengeance. I can't believe that party lasted all day. Should have taken something for it last night."
"Eh, we did what we could. Here, roll onto your stomach, I'll give you a back-rub."
He groaned and cracked and eye open. "Thank you."
She chuckled and untangled herself from him. "That was just pathetic. Now the key will be Little Love, to go down there later and look unshaken and untouched by a hangover. You'll have the whole mountain thinking you the avatar of Suzaku himself."
He cracked a smiled and slowly turned onto his stomach. She bustled quickly about he room, gathering things that she would need. She also threw a heavy blanket over the window to block out almost all of the light, knowing it must be killing his head. She would have had to light a candle to see clearly if it wasn't for her excellent night vision.
He moaned again in thanks and that gave her another idea. She gathered the lightly scented oils that were good for headaches that they both favored and some fresh towels. She poured a bowl of fresh almost ice-cold mountain water into a bowl and soaked one of the towels in it. She rung the towel out a little and walked back to her friend. She gathered his long hair up into a loose bun, then wrapped the cold towel around his head
He gasped a little , then relaxed and smiled as the cold began to seep into his headache and numb it.
She pulled the sheet down to his hips to expose his lightly muscled, feminine back. He murmured to her as she straddled his slim hips and began to warm oil in her hands. "You know, sometimes we almost act more married than you and his Majesty. People in court are starting to wonder and talk."
She shrugged as she began to work the warm oil into the knotted muscles of his shoulders. "Let them talk. I do love you, just not in the way that I love Hotohori. It's almost closer in a way. The three of us have such similar pasts. Hell there are just as many rumors going around about you and Hotohori as there are about you and me." She stopped for a second then leaned over and whispered in his ear as she worked her thumbs into the back of his neck. "Either way you're the center of attention. Screwing both the Emperor and Empress. Scandalous. Tch, tch. What's next?"
Nuriko chuckled. "Yes, it's a conspiracy! If that doesn't work then my children will court your children! Mwahahahaha!"
Myst smiled and dug her fingers into a knot below his right shoulder blade. "You know, that's actually not a bad idea. If you ever have a daughter, maybe we could try a little matchmaking. However, I won't betroth any of my children. They're going to have a choice who they marry. If they are going to marry for love, then so be it. Even if that love happens to be a beggar from the streets."
Nuriko flinched when she hit a sore spot on his lower back, but opened an eye to look at her anyway. "That's another reason I and many others think you are a good Empress and why so many people love you. Even though there are no royal families that affect you from where you come from, you still grew up privileged beyond most, yet everyone is equal in your eyes. From beggars and bandits to the courtiers and nobles, we are all the same. You even treat the seishi the same. That's what this country needs, is someone who listens to all and turns a blind eye to status. That's why people love you, because you are part of the people. They also see how happy you've made the Emperor. He smiles on his rounds now. He even gets into the crowd with the people and gets down on his knees to speak evenly with children and the ill. They see him like that and then they see him smiling at you while you're doing the same and they know. They know the Emperor as one of them now because you pushed the advisors to allow it. They see that as well."
Myst kissed his shoulder and he could feel the heat from her blush. "Ryuen, you're making me out to be something I'm not. I'm."
Nuriko turned over onto his back beneath her and grabbed her hands, pushing her palms against the flat plains of his bare chest. "You're lessening it. You don't want to admit how special you are or how much you have really done."
Myst looked down into his beautiful eyes and smiled lightly. "All I've done is love."
"And that's all we, Konan, needed. We needed his Majesty to find an Empress who loved the people as much as he did. You have filled that role and more. We're here now because you love enough to go out and find the rest of the seishi. A great man like Hakurou is still alive now because you loved enough to ride headlong into danger to save one man, one bandit leader. WE all know that Tasuki is only the secondary reason we're here. Suzaku showed you Hakurou and his soul and you immediately loved him, and simply for the reason that he was a goodhearted man in pain." He brought her forward to lay on his chest in a hug. "No wonder Suzaku chose you. He's the god of love and you are the embodiment of love."
Myst tilted her head up and kissed him lightly. "And you're a fucking sap."
He tightened his arms around her as they relaxed for another nap. "Mhm. And you're a miracle worker who takes hangovers away." His last act before they drifted off was to pull the towel off his head and drop it to the floor with a plop. Tendrils of moist hair clung to his face and Myst, half asleep already, brushed them away whispering, "I love because you and the other seishi love. It's a full circle thing you know."
**********
A.N.: Pretty much nothing other than keep reading. Oh yeah! This bond with Nuriko is actually completely about innocence. There's no thought of sex or any temptation anywhere. It doesn't even cross their mind. Well, there ya go na no da!!!
~Celesta Hellewise Harman