White flower

Who graces us

Fall slow

To the ground

As the words

Here briefly flash

Gently descend

Ever slower

To the end,

So that

Your beauty

Shall live

More vibrant

Suspended in air

More precious,

More beautiful,

All the longer.

Chapter 2: The Blue Fire

Kyoto had a stench that was truly unbearable. Pigs and children squalled equally in squalor and filth, and strange foreign ladies in grotesque creations of chiffon and taffeta bedecked with feathers wandered about without escort. Beady-eyed men watched with glittering eyes and the fumes and smoke of boats without sails clogged the air.

She was very glad that she was veiled heavily, all in pale white like a ghost, or a flower. Her mother had always chided her because she loved to wear white, cool as water and clean like mountain air. It had made her feel cleansed and pure, no matter where she was or what happened. Wondrous white and silver embroidery covered the outer robe, and pale spider web embroidery over the sheer veils made of silk tissue, so fragile that after three hand-washes it was ruined.

The five story mansion was in the center of what was locally called the Golden Lane, because gold and silver and enormous sums were dealt so frequently. She and Hidekei entered with their servants into the echoing front hall, and he left immediately, without even a glance for her, to a meeting with these new foreigners. His back was rigid and cold, and she sighed. Love would come with time, her mother had reminded her. But for the present, it was all she could do to be obedient and draw him into her bed as often as possible to beget an heir for him. In this way, he would love his son-for it was no question that she would have to bear one- and come to love the woman who had borne him. However she shuddered and retched afterwards, it had to be done.

These foreigners, they were all enormously tall, like trees, and dressed in the red and gold of a uniform. Strangely, they were all very young. None could have seen his twenty-fifth winter, and she raised her chin coldly as they all turned to look at her. Their eyes followed her veil, as if they could pierce it and actually see her face. Well, the invaders would not be honored with the sight of her face.

Three maidservants surrounded her to adjust the outer robe and inner, the veil and headdress, and a harsh order in their language was barked by another voice, deep and very young, and they all made their peculiar bows and snapped to attention.

A man who had been a boy very lately strode in with a dark scowl, the one who had spoke the military order. She understood the rudiments of English, and even to her ear, his intonation was precise and beautiful. He had tall shoulders with muscles almost too heavy for gentility, perfectly proportioned from his head to his feet. His hair was black, but surely no one could have mistaken him for being Japanese. He was glaring down at the floor from his formidable height and when his eyes raised, they were a dark, raging blue fire that seemed to frighten his soldiers. There could have been no question of his superiority, for his very air and bearing spoke of it, and the ornate manner of his coat, his saber, and his golden spurs.

Another order that was issued curtly turned the soldiers to the door and marched them out in perfect unity, much like the orderly text of English marching across a page. He turned to regard her with those raging eyes, and he lowered himself to a bow and a nod, and turned with that military precision again to march out of the door.

In that moment of foreboding, a brief flash of childish fancy and premonition, she knew that he would hold great importance to her life. And the flash flew, as she scolded herself for the adolescent silliness she exhibited. He was a stranger, a foreigner, as far removed from her world as he could be. There could be nothing between them.

A Message to a Faithful Reader:

Dear Hally Dang,

Mitsouko is a perfume made by the famous Guerlain, imperial perfumer to the Empress Eugenie of Napoleon's French Empire. Guerlain is still a famous house of perfumery today. The author of "La Bataille," Claude Farrere, was a friend of Guerlain's, so Guerlain honored him by naming a perfume after one of his ill-fated characters, Mitsouko, which means "mystery." Of course, in this story Mitsouko is only a nickname, but your guess is as good as mine as to who it is. ;)

P.S. I am honored to have the devotion with which you read my works. I am glad that you still read the old masters of like Kit Spooner, Ekai Ungson, and Chelle-sama, since some of the new works have been honestly maudlin. I have to confess, however, that my talent with the written word has waned of late, and I might not have the flair with which I once wrote. I will apologize now if my work is not up to par.