Ch2: Learning

The years passed as they always do, and Gyousou's family settled in their slowly rebuilding town. His mother was no longer ostracised since she had returned to help in the aftermath, and his father turned from turnip farmer to hunter due to the salted land. Gyousou became closer to his parents, especially his father who often took him on hunting trips. Despite having to swallow the bitter pill of his childhood hero's disastrous end he continued to practice his sword fighting, and asked anyone who would to teach him new moves.

One day, when Gyousou was 11, his parents took him aside and explained that since they had accumulated a little surplus they were planning to go to the riboku and pray for another child. Thus, one September day he stood to the side of a riboku shrine fingering the engraven kirin on the wall as he watched his parents tie their bright-coloured ribbon onto an overhanging branch. Every day, on his way home from school, he walked past the riboku and watched the tiny golden fruit become bigger and bigger. The baby had been planned so that it would be ripe in May and be spared the harshness of winter during its most vulnerable months, so when April rolled around and the snow started to melt Gyousou felt anticipation fill his heart as he started mentally ticking off the days until the 8th of May, when his parents would pick the fruit.

As he did so, he naturally wondered whether he would have a little brother or little sister. It didn't really matter to him since either way he planned to teach him/her how to swing a sword and win a fist fight. A brother might be nicer, though, because recently the girls at his school seemed to have gone a bit silly and he didn't think he could handle it at home too. Why did they always seem to be nudging each other and giggling when he entered the room? It's not like any of them ever came over to talk to him, though a few braver ones headed in his direction before veering off to the side at the last minute into a gaggle of friends who all started giggling. Also, they had started applying copious amounts of goey make-up, despite the fact it kept getting in one of their eyes and making it stick for a few seconds, though strangely enough it always seemed to be just one. Yes, girls truly were strange beings, so having a brother might be best.

This point was further enforced in Gyousou's mind after an extraordinarily strange incident in which a pink note, left in his desk, with girly writing and lots of little hearts on it asked him to meet one of the sillier girls behind the school after class. At the appropriate time, not without misgivings, Gyousou went to the specified place. The girl seemed tongued-tied and flushed and just kept stammering, "I… I… I… I…" before burying her face in her hands and running away crying, "Sorry, I just can't say it!" leaving Gyousou standing bemused on the spot.

He took an extra-long time standing at the gate of the riboku shrine, fiercely wishing that his younger sibling – due in 16 days now – was not female. And that's why he saw it happen.

At first, when the earth rumbled deeply and the ground beneath his feet churned like batter under a mixing spoon, he thought 'earthquake' and gripped the lattice-work of the shrine fence tightly. Then the sky, since that morning a pale grey most unusual for sunny Tai late spring, turned a blood red and began to churn as if it too were being mixed. The world around him spun in circles and he clung to the fence as high winds lifted his feet above his head. His fingers felt a tug, sharp and unwelcome, and then a slow pull as the fence was ripped from the ground and they were both sent hurtling into the twister. For a few moments he was flung through the air like a doll before he smacked into a tree. Wrapping his limbs around the trunk, he clung to dear life as he watched debris sail through the air, too shocked to take it in even when a golden fruit the size of a newborn flew past. He could hear the ominous creaking of the tree and felt it slowly snap in half, sending it and him once more hurtling into the extreme winds. Then, just as suddenly, it was still.

And he fell.

Gyousou wearily opened his heavy eyelids, struggling to understand why he hurt so much. He felt as if every inch of his body had been thoroughly hit with a large club by a professional torturer. He recognized the inside of his room dimly before suddenly he was being hugged and could hear his mother sobbing,

"My baby! Oh my poor baby! Thank Heaven he's awake!"

"Mom," he tried to force out with his leaden tongue, but it came out more as, "Mmmuhhhhrrrrrrggghh." After waiting a bit and taking a several deep breaths he tried again. "What happened?"

"There was a shoku," his father choked out, then cleared his throat in embarrassment. "You got tossed around and nearly died, so you'll have to take it easy for a bit. That means no getting-whacked-with-sticks practice, understand?" He added sternly.

Gyousou felt like he was forgetting something vital, and then the image of a large golden fruit flying by registered.

"The ranka…?" His parents glanced at each other and his mother turned back to him. "Gyousou sweetie, we need to talk to you."

"It was pulled away, wasn't it? Mom, what happens to a ranka that get pulled away before it's ripe? Can you save the baby, or it already…?" he couldn't bring himself to say the word.

"Sweetie, do you remember all those stories we told you about Hourai and Kan when you were little?" Gyousou nodded, a sneaking suspicion where this conversation was headed. "Well, those places really do exist, only they exist separately from the kingdoms. Sometimes, when a shoku hits, people from there end up here, and ranka from here end up there. So our baby, well, it's not dead but… we'll never see it. It's in Hourai now."

Gyousou looked away from his mother's tentative eyes, not trusting himself. This was exactly what he feared: the whole that-person's-not-dead-they've-gone-to-live-in-Hourai-where-the-streets-are-paved-with-gold spiel given to small children by well-meaning adults. His friend Tankei's parents had once told him that his aged pet dog had gone to live in Hourai, but he had never thought his mother would stoop to do so to him.

Trying to keep an edge from his voice, he said, "So it's dead?"

His mother misunderstood. "No sweetie, children are born differently in Hourai and Kan. There, when a baby is growing, it doesn't grow as a ranka on a riboku tree but in a woman's stomach. Our ranka just went to a mother's stomach there, and will be born to a different family. That's all."

Gyousou blinked at his mother in surprise, impressed she could come up with such a ridiculous lie on the spot. Children growing in women's stomachs? No matter how he looked at his mother, a baby would not fit in her stomach. If that were true, then the women of Hourai and Kan must all be extremely fat. Not to mention, how does the baby get out of the stomach to be born? Does it pass out when the mother goes to relieve herself? Gyousou felt that would be extremely painful and something so large could not possibly come out such a small hole. Then did they have to cut the mother up to get the baby? How barbaric!

His mother continued to try to sooth him with all the things she'd heard about Hourai and Kan. The people were very wealthy, it was never winter there, the streets were filled with magic floating lights during the night, giant metal birds ferries people from place to place, people could send voices over great distances and capture a moment of time in a piece of paper to treasure for eternity. The more she said, the less he believed her.

"Oh, that's right," his father suddenly remembered. "Both the Royal En and En Taiho were born in Hourai. Since En is the wealthiest country and has the second longest standing dynasty currently, surely Hourai must be a great country as well."

Gyousou said, unable to keep the criticism for his parents' blatant lies from his voice, "A king is always chosen from the people of the nation, and kirin are always born on Mt. Hou."

His father looked at him in exasperation, "If you spent less time being whacked with sticks and more time studying, you'd already have known this. All that is required to be eligible to be selected king is that the ranka sprouts on a tree in right country. Both King En and En Taiho were carried off in their ranka like our ranka was until they were found and returned. Don't get your hopes up though, only important people like kings and kirins get a search party sent after them." Sensing the skepticism radiating off Gyousou his father picked up Gyousou's textbook and, opening to a page Gyousou guiltily remembered he was supposed to have read a week ago, read out a passage that formally stated exactly what he had just said.

When he recovered few weeks later Gyousou joined his class sitting outside in the warm May sun, happy that, at the very least, the shoku had occurred with ample time to fix all the buildings before winter began. He lazily watched the soldiers of the provincial guard doing just that – fixing the schoolhouse. He wondered if they'll show him some new sword moves.

"Saku!" Gyousou's teacher, Potan-sensei, had an uncanny ability to ferret out whose attention was wandering. "Please read where Jan left off."

Gyousou glanced over at Tankei's book, where he repositioned his thumb to a different line. Gyousou quickly looked back at his own book and started reading from there, "Among the many services the provincial taxes support are the provincial guard. The duties of the provincial guard are to arrest criminals, suppress rebellions, patrol their assigned areas, and carry out important building projects such as disaster prevention and disaster relief. Some of the…"

"Thank you, Saku." Potan-sensei interrupted. She gestured towards the builders, "It's nice to see at least some of our tax money pay off, isn't it?" The children laughed and Potan-sensei turned on one of the sillier girls who seemed to be staring avidly at something in Gyousou's general direction, though what could be so interesting he couldn't comprehend. "Please start where Saku left off."

The girl blushed and began to read, "Some of the…"

However, Gyousou was suddenly reminded of his mother's angry words from four years ago, "The government sets taxes to an amount that will pay for all these things, and whether or not it's a reasonable rate is beside the point. That burden is distributed to everyone, and if one town refuses to pay its share it's merely forcing its neighbours to pay for it."

Presently, the class was dismissed to go to gym and Gyousou was left alone with the teacher, since he still hadn't recovered fully from his fall. He turned to her.

"Sensei?" she turned expectantly to him. "Do you think the taxes are fair? That the tax money goes to the people, and not the king's harem?" At this point Gyousou was old enough to understand what 'gems' really meant.

Potan pursed her lips and sighed, her lined face looking worn out. "Saku, what do you know about the late king?"

"The Scholar-King, you mean? He devoted himself completely to his studies pondering obscure religious and moral themes, neglected government affairs, and was struck down by Heaven after only 13 years, right?"

"That's correct. So you do occasionally pay attention in class," the smile lines around her eyes crinkled. "Because of his neglect the ministers and provincial lords were corrupt and oppressed them people severely. The Jou provincial lord often pulled young women off the street and nobody ever saw them again. The prefectural lord of Zan enjoyed having people fight youma to the death in arenas for his entertainment, and it didn't matter to him which one died. Slavery flourished everywhere. And the king did nothing. However, taxes at that time were very low. A king who dresses in sackcloth, will only eat basic meals, and rarely leaves his study doesn't require much to live on. When His Majesty was enthroned he overthrew those corrupt officials and set the kingdom in order. However, His Majesty likes his comfort. Thus our taxes are raised. Which do you think is better?"

"Neither," Gyousou replied without hesitation. "A king should govern well and not overtax his subjects. I'd kick the concubines out of the palace and all His Majesty's drinking buddies. Then I'd open the royal treasury and distribute it to my subjects."

Potan laughed, "How generous! However, a little sword swinging rascal like you might start a war. That's the problem with military kings; while they stay on the Way they're wonderful but once they lose the Way they cause huge disasters. Like that King Tai a millennia ago who invaded Mt. Hou and set fire to the Shashinboku to prevent the next kirin of Tai from being born. Or the previous king of En, who left the country heaving its death sigh five hundred years ago until the present King En took over. Or a queen of Kei who, two millennia ago, declared herself Queen of the World and invaded Kou."

"Kei really has bad luck with queens!" Gyousou exclaimed.

"Indeed. The day a decent queen of Kei appears is the day the kingdoms agree to selflessly work together. The point is, all these rulers arose from the military service and all had long, peaceful rules, except where they ruined their countries at the end. On the contrary, kings who arise from the civil service more often rule uneasily for a number of years and then slowly begin to decline."

Gyousou contemplated for a moment, "But there have been good kings who just met with unfortunate accidents and weren't struck down, right? How did they manage it if both military and civil kings are so flawed?"

Potan-sensei laughed. "A king is just a person chosen by a kirin, are they not? Maybe a person with better judgement or a better heart than most, but a flesh and blood human being nonetheless. The best thing any king can do is listen to the kirin that made them king in the first place. Kirin are not like us, they are part of Heaven born from the wishes of the nation and are so naturally compassionate they get ill near blood. If more kings listened to their kirin then less kings would be struck down by Heaven."

"I would listen to the kirin if I was king," Gyousou protested. "Sensei, do you think I could be the next king?"

"Do I have blond hair? Do I look like a kirin to you? How should I know! Hopefully, this dynasty will last long beyond your lifetime and a new king won't need to be chosen. Don't jinx it!" Looking severely at the child in front of her, Potan added, "Before you set your sights on being king, study politics! Join the civil service, no, for you it had better be the military service, and see whether or not you can handle the responsibility of authority."

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*"The day a decent queen of Kei appears is the day the kingdoms agree to selflessly work together." O.o Is Potan-sensei a prophet?

*I had lots of fun writing the part where Gyousou's parents tell him his baby sibling went to a woman's stomach in Hourai. Looking at it from the head of someone from the Twelve Kingdoms, our way of having babies is really weird.

*Also, those unnamed preteens girls are not platonically in love, so I lied. Oh, puberty. Don't worry, they never appear again. It just occurred to me when I was writing this that a good looking guy like Gyousou who is serious and skilled with a sword must have attracted a lot of female attention.

*Is this kind of a boring chapter, near the end at least? I felt like it had to be written though.

*Next time… Gyousou joins the army! Finally, action!

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