Chapter Four
"Sasami-kyou, may I have this dance?"
Sasami gazed up at the prince, laughter sparkling in her eyes as she took in his gentle, friendly expression. She nodded her head, grasping him loosely around the wrists.
"Of course I will, Takeru-dono, so long as my sister doesn't mind." She said playfully. "She might, you know...after all, you are going to be her husband soon enough!"
"Your noble sister seems somewhat out of sorts tonight." Takeru turned his head and Sasami followed his gaze across the brightly lit Juraian chamber to where Ayeka sat, away from the centre of the celebrations. She seemed quite isolated somehow, Sasami thought, immaculately turned out and more beautiful than she had ever been - yet detached from the royal merriment that surrounded her. A frown touched her lips.
"You're right." She owned, slipping her hand into her companion's. "Let's go speak to her...maybe we can cheer her up."
"Perhaps not." Takeru seemed troubled. "Princess Sasami, I think what troubles your sister is the impending wedding celebrations themselves. I think she is...well...afraid to marry me. That maybe I am not the choice of her heart, but the choice of her father's and the Emperor's instead."
"Lord Takeru." Sasami's expression became mock-scolding. "She's just upset that she won't be able to go travelling any more, that's all. We had so much fun on our last visit into Deep Space, and we made so many good friends. I think she wishes they were here with us to celebrate the wedding. I know I wish they were."
"You're excited at least." Takeru looked amused. Sasami nodded.
"It will be my first Royal Wedding." She agreed. "And then Ayeka will be officially appointed Crown Princess and one day she will be Empress and you Emperor. Of course it's exciting - I will be the sister of an empress!"
"You will be a most honoured guest in the Throne Room, my lady." Takeru's tones held a faint teasing note, and he led her away from the dance floor, taking a seat to one side and indicating for the young girl to follow suit. "But tell me about these friends of yours, Sasami-kyou. The Lady Ayeka is not forthcoming on the details of your adventures in Space. I know you were called back against your will, and for that I apologise. But I hope it won't remain too grievous a grudge between us."
"No, not at all. Don't be silly." Sasami told him firmly. "We both knew we would come home and I missed everyone here too, you know. It's just that there are so many worlds out there and we had so many adventures."
She giggled.
"I think I miss Ryo Ohki most of all."
"Ryo...Ohki?" Takeru looked non-plussed. "What is a Ryo Ohki?"
"A spaceship." Sasami dimpled. "With a fixation for carrots."
"Carrots?" Takeru's brows knitted together. "Lady Sasami, I fear I don't understand...what kind of a space ship is...a carrot?"
"No, silly!" Sasami let out a peal of laughter, shaking her head. "No, Ryo Ohki is a different kind of spaceship from our ships on Jurai. I don't know where she came from or who created her, but she's cute and fluffy when she isn't flying through space. And carrots are...are a plant that they grow on a planet we visited. Ryo Ohki liked to eat them...sort of like fuel, I suppose. It's hard to explain. But we met a lot of people who were very different from people on Jurai. It was nice."
"It must have been." Takeru nodded his head. "I have never travelled beyond Jurai space limits, so in a sense I envy you your travels."
He paused, pursing his lips as he glanced back across the room at his fiancee. "Lady Sasami, do you think that is truly the reason Ayeka is unhappy? Because I want so much to make her happy, you know that? It's not only an honour for me to be her husband, but also a matter of the heart. I have to admit, I love your sister very much."
"I'm sure." Sasami kicked her legs idly underneath her, nodding her head. "Jurai seems kinda small when you've been all over the whole universe!"
"Then I will have to ensure she doesn't feel that way any longer." Takeru got to his feet, and Sasami stared up at him.
"Lord Takeru?"
"Come on. I'm going to speak to your sister." Takeru responded. "Will you come with me, Lady Sasami?"
"Of course." Sasami nodded her head eagerly. "What are you going to say to her, Takeru? Please, make her smile again. She's been far too unhappy since we came back to Jurai, and I hate seeing her upset. She's going to have a big party and it's all going to be so special - I don't want her to cry."
"Nor do I." Takeru agreed quietly. "So you and I, we must do something about it. Don't you agree?"
"I agree completely." Sasami nodded again, blue bunches bobbing. "Ayeka? Ayeka, Takeru-san and I want to speak to you!"
Ayeka raised her head at the sound of her sister's voice, schooling her features into a smile as she saw them approach.
"How nice." She said softly. "I'm sorry...I must be quite tired tonight. I'm not proving a very good escort, am I, Lord Takeru?"
"Ayeka-kyou, you have much to consider." Takeru offered his formal bow, then sat down at Ayeka's side as Sasami settled herself at her sister's feet with little regard for the condition of her dress. "Your sister tells me that you're missing the adventuring across space and you and she have experienced - that you feel you will be trapped on Jurai from now on."
Surprise flickered in Ayeka's eyes, and Sasami offered her a playful grin.
"I was trying to explain to him about Ryo Ohki." She said, amused. "I don't think he quite understood."
"Ryo Ohki." Ayeka's expression became shadowed, then she spread her hands. "I don't know. Perhaps Sasami is right. I do feel...that I miss people."
"Well, then we will have to make sure that we travel far and wide whenever we can, once we are married." Takeru said firmly. "At least once every solar cycle, you and I shall travel outside of Juraian space limits and pay a visit to some of these wonderful worlds you two have already seen. Perhaps even visit the planet from which come these 'carrots' that Sasami has tried to tell me about."
Ayeka stared at her fiance for a moment, and Sasami reached up, squeezing her sister's slim fingers in her own firm grip.
"Can I come on your trips, too?" She asked. "It'd be so much fun, Ayeka, don't you think? We could go visit the Earth and everyone there...and we could go find Washu and then go to the Galaxy Police and see how Kiyone and Mihoshi are doing...wouldn't it be nice?"
Ayeka's expression was unreadable for a moment. Then she nodded her head.
"Yes, Sasami. It would be very pleasant." She agreed quietly. She offered a smile to Takeru, and only Sasami knew that it was not entirely genuine.
"Thank you, Lord Takeru. You have made me much happier with this promise."
"I'm glad to hear it." Takeru's handsome features broke into a relieved smile. "Then you must dance with me, Lady Ayeka. After all, soon we will be husband and wife, and people will expect to see us together."
"Hey! You still owe me a dance too, Lord Takeru!" Sasami protested. Takeru's eyes twinkled, and he nodded.
"Yes, after your sister." He promised. "Well, Lady Ayeka? Will you accept?"
Ayeka got gracefully to her feet.
"Of course I will." She agreed conservatively, holding out her hand to his. "You are right, of course, as you generally are. Yes, let us dance."
"Single file. No pushing!"
The guard rapped out her commands, her eye never leaving the slow procession of shabbily dressed convicts as they were led slowly down the corridor to the big bath-house that served the whole of the prison complex. Her gaze bored into Ryoko's back as she passed along with the others, her ankles hobbled and her silver cuffs digging deeper into her skin than usual. It was hot in the crowded corridor, and as the lead prisoner faltered, she heard the crack of the chief guard's whip. Inwardly she winced. A far cry from the happy hours spent in the onsen back on Earth, she mused absently as they were carefully segregated into groups, each with a particular officer in charge.
The guard barked some more orders to a companion, who roughly grabbed Ryoko's arm and held her to one side as the first group of prisoners were sent into the baths. Ryoko was too used to the routine now to even put up a fight, standing silently as she waited for her captor to allow her to enter.
Even heavily handicapped by the power-draining cuffs, they still did not trust her not to try and escape.
At length, the guard who had custody of her pulled her forward, pushing her into the bath-house with a terse command to 'hurry up'. Ryoko met the woman's gaze for a moment, then dropped her gaze, obeying the order without defiance. When she had first arrived, she had railed against such demoralising treatment, but she had soon learnt that all it achieved was the crack of the whip and short rations in her prison cell for the next few weeks. If she had to live this life, she reasoned, as she slipped out of her dirty uniform, she at least would try and live it the easiest way possible.
Once she was changed, the guard reached down to remove her ankle shackles, pushing her towards the water and Ryoko dipped beneath the warmth, enjoying the sensation over her skin. For all her adventures, she had always been aware of her own cleanliness and to be limited to one bath a week had been a difficult thing to become used to. Along the far wall of the compact bath-house, guards of both genders stood with arms folded, their stony gazes fixed on the six or so prisoners bathing at one time, and she rolled her eyes, ducking beneath the water.
"Prisoner Ryoko!" Immediately she heard her name rapped out and she resurfaced, sinking back against the tiles with a sigh as she ran her fingers through her drenched hair. It was the closest she would come to a good wash in some days, she knew that, and even if the onsen was barely big enough to hold the six bathing prisoners, she would make do.
"Hey, get out of my water space, pirate!"
A bulky female prisoner elbowed her to one side, splashing her liberally as she forced her stocky frame into an imaginary space. Ryoko's eyes glinted with anger, but she caught the gaze of the guard, and merely turned her back.
"Look at me when I speak to you!"
The woman's tone was low and menacing and Ryoko turned back, meeting the other woman's dark gaze with a level one of her own.
"Do I know you?" She asked softly.
"I know you're supposed to be some hot shot pirate." The woman's eyes narrowed to mere slits. "They think you're some kind of whizz criminal and they say you've even crashed the Jurai Royal Palace. Well you know what I think? I think it's baloney. I think you're a mouse on a jumped up rep, that's what I think. Can't even meet someone's gaze in the bath-house? Gimme a break."
Ryoko eyed her shrewdly.
"Obviously you don't know me." She said astutely. "Else you wouldn't be talking to me like that."
"And what are you going to do about it?" The woman demanded. She reached over, grabbing one of Ryoko's cuffed wrists with a derisive snort. "You're shackled. Nothing without your demon magic, are you, Ryoko? Same as the rest of us now, aren't you?"
"What is your problem?" Ryoko demanded angrily, pulling her arm away. "Shut your face...can't you let a girl have a bath in peace?"
"You shut your face." The woman bristled. "Or no, I'll shut it for you."
She swung her fist, but Ryoko's reflexes were too quick and she parried the blow, pushing the woman's arm away. As her foe struggled to counter, Ryoko was out of the bath, anger glinting in her golden eyes.
"If you want me, I'm right here. Powers or not, I'll take you on." She hissed.
"Prisoner Ryoko! Prisoner Nakumi! Desist!"
The guard's voices rang out, harsh and clear, but neither woman took any notice. Nakumi squared herself, but again Ryoko's lighter form gave her the advantage of agility and before the other woman knew what was happening she was pinned against the tiles by her throat, Ryoko's fingers hovering delicately above her windpipe.
"I said desist!"
Rough hands pulled the two women apart, and with a groan Nakumi sunk beneath the water, only to be hauled back up again by two prison guards. Ryoko struggled against the hands that held her, but they were too tight and she found herself forcibly dressed and shackled. With the heavy, coarse uniform chafing against her still wet body, Ryoko gave up the fight, allowing the officers to drag her out of the bath-house and back to her cell.
"If you weren't already serving a permanent term, Ryoko, you'd get life in prison for this!" One guard told her, as they threw her down with some force onto the cell floor. Then they left her alone, and as the forcefield whirred shut behind her, Ryoko picked herself up, shivering as she hunted around her barren cell for something with which to properly dry herself. Inwardly she berated her loss of temper, but it was too late to call the action back.
"Dry toast all week, no doubt." She muttered. "Damn that woman. Damn every prisoner who tries to take a pop at me! Just because I have a reputation...we're all trying to get by in here, and they always pin the blame on me. I hate this world. I hate it! I just wish I knew how to get out of it!"
She pulled the worn sheet from her bed, wrapping it around herself in a vain attempt to find comfort as her gaze drifted once more to the narrow window of the cell. Despite herself, she sighed.
"Tenchi." She whispered. "Do you even remember who I am now? It's been so long...it seems like another life time."
She sank back against the cold steel wall, closing her eyes.
"Forever is a long time when you live as long as I do." She muttered. "It's no good. Somehow I have to find a way out of here. There has to be a way...and if Kiyone won't help me, well, I'll just have to find it myself!"
It was pitch black outside now.
Ayeka stood on the balcony, gazing up dreamily into the stars that sprinkled the Jurai skyline, covered only by the barest wisps of cloud. Only half an hour earlier, she had been escorted back to her room, the betrothal celebrations having been proclaimed a complete success, and she found herself glad of the solitude, unable to maintain her pretence any longer.
"Takeru is a good man and one I don't deserve." She murmured to herself. "Even if Tenchi does love Ryoko, my heart is still on Earth with him and with Ryu Oh, my ship. Yes, father has assigned me any ship that I would like from his fleet, but none of them are the fruit of my tree. I should have brought a branch back with me. It was so sudden, I didn't even think...but it's strange to be without Ryu Oh. Maybe that's why I feel as lost as I do. Half of my soul is in a different galaxy, as well as the man I love. Explaining that to Takeru is impossible...he just says that when we are wed, I can take a branch of his family's tree and start anew. Even Sasami seems to think that in time he'll make me a good husband. It's so wrong to always want the things you can't have - but I do want them. I want them desperately. Even if he does love Ryoko, I wish I could at least see him once again. Ask him once and for all where his heart lies, before I sign my soul away to Takeru and my future on Jurai."
Hope flickered in her heart as the start of an idea began to take form, and she ran back into her chamber, grabbing her cape and fastening it around her throat. Gathering together a few random bits and pieces, she pushed open the door of her chamber, pausing to ascertain whether either of the knights were on duty outside her room. The sound of noisy Earth video games from along the hall told the young princess that both her bodyguards were suitably occupied with their younger charge, their main duties over for the night, and she inwardly said a prayer of thanks, closing the door behind her with as quiet a click as she could manage. Then she threw caution to the wind, hurrying helter-skelter down the big cavernous hallway and through the twisting branches of the Jurai royal palace until she reached the landing bay, where all of her father's space fleet were docked.
At the entrance she paused, considering her options.
"I'm not Lord Yosho. I won't leave my people and abandon them when they need me." She murmured. "But if I fly tonight, then I can be back by the morning and nobody will ever know I was gone. I can go to Earth, I can speak to Tenchi and then maybe I will be able to marry Takeru wth a peaceful heart! Even to hear him tell me that he doesn't love me has to be better than this uncertainty. I'd take that, just to see him again. However long a journey it is...I must try."
She crept across the dark docking bay, pausing at the furthermost spaceship and running her finger over the control panel. It opened at the touch of her Jurai magic, cascading steps down to the ground and carefully she picked up her heavy skirts, clambering aboard the craft and ordering it to shut the door behind her. It was an unfamiliar vessel, but in the style of many she had seen before, and so she made her way across the delicate sentient tree-scape, setting her hands down gently on the ship's central tree, the nervous system for the entire vessel.
"Hello, ship." She murmured. "I don't know your name, but my name is Ayeka. I am kin to Ryu Oh - are you also a child of Tsunami, the Tree of Life?"
At the name Tsunami, the tree's branches lit up with a cavalcade of colour, and Ayeka became aware of the soft hum of the ship's motor. She smiled.
"I thought so." she murmured. "You are brother to Ryu Oh, and you understand my words. Help me then, ship. I need to travel - to travel far across the Galaxy, to a solar system and a planet known simply as Earth. Do you know such a planet? And can you take me there and back again before the sun rises on Jurai tomorrow? My father will worry if he knows I am gone, but I simply can't stay here and wonder any more."
The ship hummed as it began to slowly lift into the air, launching itself strongly through the clear Juraian sky towards the upper atmosphere. As it climbed, Ayeka sank back against the tree's comforting branches.
"And this time I will bring back Ryu Oh's branch." She said aloud. "Then I'll have my ship at least, even if I won't have my Tenchi. At least then all of me will be on Jurai, even if I have to leave him behind."
So immersed was she in her thoughts that she did not notice Sasami's face at the balcony of her room, or hear the exclamation that came from the young girl's lips as she realised what was going on. Lost in her dreams, Ayeka allowed the ship to soar higher and higher above the Juraian landscape, shooting off into the stars as it plotted it's course for the Earth.
"What is she doing!"
Back in the palace, Sasami turned a dismayed face on Azaka as the knight came to join her on the balcony.
"What's wrong, Princess Sasami?" Azaka looked alarmed. "Has something happened? Won't you come back to our game - I think that I might even be winning this round."
"Azaka, we can't play! Not right now!" Sasami was near tears, and she clung to the knight in her distress. "Ayeka's run away! I just saw her...I saw her leave in one of Father's spaceships! Quickly, we have to go get her back!"
"Run away?" Kamadake came to join them, catching the end of the conversation. "But surely not, Princess. The Lady Ayeka's own ship is rooted on the Earth, isn't that right?"
"Father told her she could use any of his fleet, now she was going to be the Crown Princess." Sasami sobbed. "Kamadake, I saw her! I know she's gone, I just know it! She's gone to the Earth and Father is going to be so cross and everything is going to go wrong, I just know it! I'm frightened...what will happen to Jurai if Ayeka isn't here?"
"Then we must go and get her back, Princess." Azaka said decidedly. "Come. We'll bring her back to Jurai and speak with her - explain that it's not a good time for her to leave the planet. Not with her wedding so close."
"But don't you see? That's why she's gone!" Sasami exclaimed, as Kamadake reached for the young girl's cloak, fastening it around her shoulders then taking her by the hand. "She's gone to see Tenchi, I just know she has. She doesn't want to marry Takeru...she's still in love with Tenchi and she's going to get herself into so much trouble if Father finds out about this!"
"Don't worry, Princess. We'll make her turn back." Azaka assured her. "Nothing will happen to her, not while we're around to stop it."
"But how will we get to her?" Sasami looked helpless. "My ship crashed on the Earth too, remember? I don't have a spaceship either, Azaka."
"Desperate times call for desperate measures." Azaka said firmly. "Your sister borrowed one from your father and so, I fear, must we, Princess Sasami. Come on. The sooner we go, the sooner we can turn her back without anyone else finding out. She can't have left Jurai space jurisdiction yet, and we can catch her if we hurry."
"I hope you're right." Sasami looked anxious, as she allowed the two knights to lead her out of the chamber and down the hallway towards the main steps. "When Ayeka gets it into her head to do something, it's really hard to change her mind!"