"Kyourin."
The voice was less gentle than usual, stern, as though chastising. Kyourin felt herself flinch, and she forced her feet to stop kicking under her desk. "Yes, Kashou."
"You have to focus." This was Kashou talking, one of Kyourin's less favorite nyosen. Kashou had been charged with teaching Kyourin to read and write, and she really didn't like it.
Kyourin spoke, trying not to whine. "Why do I need to write anyway? This is stupid."
Kashou let out a sigh. They had this discussion frequently, and Kyourin was sure Kashou was tired of it by now. "We've talked about this. You have to read and write so you can effectively advise your king in ruling Kyou."
"Well, it's stupid." Kyourin slumped over the desk, letting her cheek rest on the surface. "Why couldn't Tentei just stick this in my head? Pop, know everything."
"Kyourin, you're going to get ink on your face." At Kashou's words, Kyourin let out her own sigh, and sat back up. "Now keep going. Finish this set and you can go play."
Kyourin straightened in her seat, and focused on her writing with new determination. Having figured out how to shift into human form a few years ago, Kyourin still looked like a child of eight, matching her age. She was lean and long-limbed—the nyosen were sure that, should she age to human maturity, she would be thin and rather tall. She had a sharp face and narrow, intelligent eyes. Her straight, deep red mane fell to her shoulders. When she sat it was with a rigidity, as though she were fighting to withstrain great energy.
If anything, Kyourin was even less focused than usual. There was an understandable reason for that. Houzan seemed filled with a nervous, excited energy as preparations were made. The Reigon Gate had opened some time ago, and the multitude of people on their shouzan were approaching, the last batch having already left. The shouzan, an event held four-times yearly, was always a time of anticipation and excitement. Everyone was looking forward to Houzan's most intimate contact with the outside world, to meeting new people from interesting places. Also, people were hoping Enrin would choose a king or queen in these next few weeks, and were wondering what kind of person the new ruler of En could be. Everyone was excited, especially Kyourin. Kyourin had told no one but Kasshi and her shirei, but she had a plan for this shouzan, and it was going to be very fun.
So she needed to contain herself until that happened. Kyourin tried to focus as best she could, and copied out the characters. She was sure she had to know several hundreds by now, maybe even a few thousands. She had been assigned things to read; she had stopped reading stories meant for children a while ago and had moved on to history texts, which were still a little hard to get through. These last few months, her vocabulary had increased by leaps and bounds—she liked leaping and bounding—but it wasn't enough for Kashou. It was never enough for Kashou.
By some miracle she made it to the end of the set. She slammed her brush down, and shouted, "Done!" She turned to spring out of her chair.
"Wait a second." Grumbling to herself, Kyourin sank back into her chair. Kashou reached around her to pick up the paper. For a few seconds, she examined Kyourin's work. "Good enough," she said. "You can go now."
Before the sentence was even finished, Kyourin was already out the doorway of the room. She ran through the pagoda with Kasshi, who had joined her just outside the doorway, at her side. Soon they burst out into the breeze and sunshine, out onto the grass. Kyourin impatiently scrabbled at her clothes, eventually getting them off. She threw her robe to the ground,and before it had even hit the dirt, was already transformed into the Kirin that was her true shape.
Kyourin moved around too much for anyone other than Kirin to keep up with her, and had been so for as long as she could run. She ran all over the mountain, crossing grassy spots as fast as she could, leaping from boulder to boulder in the stony areas. After simply running for a while, she went down to a nearby forest, and went hunting for youma. After a while hunting, she ended up in a contest of wills with a pretty big, dangerous-looking cat-like youma she didn't know the name of. It bested her though, so she ended up fleeing the monster back toward the safe areas of the mountain. She lost it in the maze after a little effort, guided by Nansou. Nansou was still smarter than her, but Kyourin was sure she would catch up eventually. It would have been easier to fly away—nothing can match a Kirin in flight—but it would have been too easy.
It was while crossing a grassy area bordering a stream on the way back that she ran into Enrin. Enrin was sitting in the middle of the grass in her human form, a rather small teenager with a long golden mane. For a little while, Kyourin ran and jumped in a circle around Enrin, but she didn't even look away from the horizon. Eventually, she grew bored of that. She shifted into human form and took a seat on the grass next to Enrin. "Hi."
"You lost your clothes," Enrin said immediately.
"I didn't lose them."
"That so?"
"I know where they are. They're just not on me."
Kyourin saw a slight smile on Enrin's face. That was an accomplishment; Enrin didn't smile very often. It quickly vanished. "The nyosen won't be pleased that you're running around naked again."
"How else am I suppose to run around?"
There was a short pause as Enrin thought. It was hard to keep track of one's clothes while four-legged. "Good point."
For a while they sat in silence. Kyourin played around with pieces of grass, while Kasshi played with her mane. It kind of tickled, but she was pretty much used to it; Kasshi played with her mane a lot, ever since she had learned to take human form. A lot of people seemed to pay special attention to her mane. She wondered if it was because she was a red Kirin. She knew Kirin like her were pretty rare, and also rather unusual, though she had never been told exactly why.
Kyourin was bored again. "Where's Oukou?"
"Around," Enrin said with a shrug. "I wanted to be alone."
"Oh, sorry." Kyourin made to get up.
"No, it's okay. You can stay."
"Okay. Do you want Kasshi to leave?"
"She can stay."
"Okay." Kyourin was confused. If Enrin said she wanted to be alone, and had even sent Oukou away, why was she okay with the two of them staying? Was she having a fight with Oukou? But that was impossible. Kirin and their nyokai were always together, and never fought. Or so she had been told. As Kyourin understood it, nyokai worshiped their Kirin, and could never be angry with them, at least not to this degree. So what was going on? Kyourin decided to say, "You're sad."
The answer took a while in coming. "Yes."
"Why?"
"En."
Kyourin frowned. That was even less of an answer than she usually got from Enrin. "What about En?"
"My kingdom is suffering." This was true. When one of the twelve kingdoms were without a king, like Kyou and En were now, or simply when the king lost his Way, various problems befell the kingdom. Infestations of youma, natural disasters, famine, plague. It wasn't pleasant. Three kingdoms at the moment were in an especially sorry state: En, Kyou, and Ren, where Renki was in shitsudou. It was pity for the people of En that made the nyosen and others wish so powerfully for Enrin to choose a king. They were considering signaling Kyou to raise their flags as well, though Kyourin was still young. "I'm worried."
"Of course." Kyourin paused a moment, thinking. "Why?"
"Shouzan."
"Yes?"
Enrin let out a long sigh. "What if nothing happens again? What if all these people come by me and none of them are the king? What do I do then? En has been in such a terrible state for so long and there's nothing I can do to speed its recovery."
That was certainly something to think about. But Kyourin didn't have to think. "It will happen when it's supposed to happen."
"What?"
"You'll choose your king when Tentei tells you to. When it's meant to happen. That's all."
Now it was Enrin pausing to think. It was a pretty long pause, too, filled with nothing but the sounds of the breeze. Kyourin stopped playing with the grass and leaned backward into Kasshi, feeling her warmth on her skin. Finally Enrin let out another sigh. "You believe in Tentei that much?"
"Of course."
"Hmm." Another pause, shorter this time. "I suppose I can try to take it on faith."
"It'll happen."
"It'll happen," Enrin agreed. "It's about dinner time."
Kyourin glanced toward the sun. "It is."
With ease and grace, Enrin popped to her feet. "Think you can find your clothes?"
Kyourin scrambled to standing next to her. "Yeah. I have a few sets."
"Cheater."
From where they were, it was a pretty simple walk back to the main part of the palace; neither even bothered shifting. Enrin would lose her clothes too if they did, anyway. As soon as they got back, various nyosen started chastising or teasing Kyourin for abandoning her clothes again. Kyourin suspected Enrin was laughing at her on the inside. Before being allowed in the pagoda they usually ate in, Kyourin was redirected to her bedroom, where she was dressed again. Then she was led back to eat. Enrin was already there, with Oukou. That's good. She would be sad if they weren't getting along. Kyourin and Enrin ate, all the while Kyourin trying to get a reaction out of Enrin. She just met her antics with the usual stony silence and occasional raised eyebrow. That was no fun.
After they were done eating, Kyourin was to take part in another part of her education. This one was fun, though. The nyosen kept a variety of strategy games around, and she liked challenging them. She liked one in particular, one that involved placing white and black rocks on a grid. She had been given differing reports on what it was called, so she simply called it kokki, "rock-game". She had been told this was another part of her education, teaching her to think logically and flexibly, but she wasn't sure she believed it. It was too fun to be work.
It was a little frustrating though. When she had first played the game, she had been completely annihilated. The second time she had played, the game had been a close match. And it had been a close match every time she had played since. She was sure she was getting better, though. She suspected the nyosen she usually played with, Sekto, was toying with her, playing at a gradually increasing level as Kyourin improved. It was pretty frustrating. Not so frustrating it wasn't fun, but frustrating. Every once in a while, Sekto would barely lose a game, but she was sure it was intentional. But even that egged her on, demanded of her to do better, to make Sekto lose a game that wasn't intentional. She was sure she would know it when it happened. Pacifying shirei was actually good practice for the game; the force of will necessary was similar. Odd, that. Sekto, and the other nyosen who played strategy games with her, insisted she was very good for her age—though they didn't specify if they meant compared to Kirin or humans. Not that it mattered, she guessed.
They were still playing when the sun set. She and Sekto kept playing until the game was over, which took until the sky had mostly darkened. Kyourin lost again. Sekto directed her back to her pagoda. Since they had gotten closer playing kokki, Sekto had been absorbed into the small group that was more directly involved in Kyourin's care, so it was Sekto that put her to bed. That seemed to happen a lot these days. Kyourin had no complaints; she rather liked Sekto. Soon Kyourin was settled into bed, and she was left alone.
She waited a moment to be sure Sekto was out of earshot. "Nansou," she hissed under her breath.
"Taiho," came the reply, just as quiet, from the shadows near her head.
"Tell me when the coast is clear."
"Understood." Was that amusement in his voice? or disapproval? It could be so hard to tell with shirei. If she asked Kasshi she knew she would be met with disapproval; Kasshi never took delight in her schemes, always worried for her safety. Boring.
Slowly, as silently as she could, she slipped out of her bed. She moved to where her clothes were kept. She had alternately heard it called a closet and a wardrobe; she hadn't decided which term she liked better. It didn't really matter for the purposes of tonight, so she randomly picked out a set. At the hiss of her name, Kasshi took the bundle of clothes, and with a gesture of Kyourin's eyes, Kasshi slid into her shadow. Good, the clothes had gone with her; test one was successful. Halfway there.
"Leave now, Taiho," again came Nansou's rumble of a voice. "South." Kyourin did as her shirei directed, and ran as quietly as she could out of the pagoda, and to the south. She slipped into the labyrinth; almost immediately, Nansou told her to make a westerly turn, so she did. Once Kyourin decided they were isolated enough, she shifted. She sprinted around in a circle, following Nansou's instructions to avoid the nyosen, and even took a short stint in the air. Before long she returned to the ground, and stopped.
She shifted back. "Kasshi," she said immediately, anticipation on her voice.
Kasshi reappeared. With the clothes in her arms. Test two was successful.
Yes, this was going to be a lot of fun. Kyourin couldn't wait.
Kashou: 夏咲
Oukou: 黌簧
Sekto: 石渡
Nansou: 難爪
