It was a couple days later that the people on their shouzan started reaching the Meadow-Path Villa. Every once in a while, in her free time, Kyourin would hop on top of one of the pillars of rock near the gate to watch them. At the center of the field just outside the gate was a small building. Inside, she knew, was a place for the Kirin to sit and watch as hopefuls lit incense and prayed, checking each one. It sounded like a pain to her, sitting in one place like that, but whatever. Surrounding the villa was a gradually growing sea of tents. They were of all colors, many of which with flags raised, likely proclaiming allegiances. Kyourin didn't recognize any of the flags; she was familiar with some of that type of symbol in Kyou, but of course it was different in En.
Within the sea of tents were people, more people than she had ever seen. Wandering back and forth, gathering, talking about things she could only imagine. She even noticed a couple children. For a moment she thought it was weird that people would bring their children on such a dangerous trip. But then she reasoned that En at the moment had to be just as dangerous, so the parents probably felt safer with their children at their side. This was good. If there were other children, it would be easier for her to blend in.
Today was the day. She couldn't wipe the smile off her face. She took a moment longer observing the camp, checking for where the children gathered. It would be interesting to interact with children her age. She picked out one group in particular, who seemed to be playing some kind of game involving a feathered ball. She would start there.
She descended the rock, and, at Nansou's direction, weaved a path through the maze toward an edge of the inner palace a few degrees removed from the camp. She shifted, and leaped over the barrier. For a short while she ran in a circle around the camp, until she approached the path the people were ascending. She stopped, shifted back. She called for Kasshi, and took the clothes she was carrying. For the occasion, she had chosen her simplest clothes, a set she had for on days she felt like doing some particularly messy playing around. They still fit. She didn't even bother covering her mane; she doubted people would recognize her as a Kirin. She wandered a short distance further until she came to the path.
People, people, people. There weren't as many as there were gathered in the meadow, those traveling now fallen to a trickle, but it was still as many people as she had ever seen at once. Their clothes were all foreign to her, but it was easy to tell by their quality that there was a good spectrum of rich and poor. Some even wore armor. Their faces ranged from the hard military type, the soft feminine type, to the fat wealthy type. Their hair and eyes were in all different colors; she even noticed someone with hair a similar color to her own, though a bit lighter in shade. She took another moment to observe the people. She took in as many details as she could—how they looked, how they walked, how they talked.
Then, as nonchalantly as possible, she wandered away from the darkness and onto the path, slipping behind a group of people on youjuu. She had seen this type of youjuu in the Koukai before. These were tenba, basically big dogs with wings. They were common, and not particularly dangerous, though they could fly pretty fast. She wondered why they were walking with everyone else when they could have just flown up. No one much took notice of a single child joining the line. Or so she had thought.
"You, kid," came a gruff voice from behind her.
She turned so she was walking backwards. The person talking was a woman; her rough understanding of the appearance of physical age suggested middle age. She had a weathered face and grainy brown hair, and sharp green eyes. Kyourin couldn't decide if her expression was one of concern or annoyance. She was still learning how to figure out facial expressions. The feeling she got, though, was that it was both. "Yes?"
"What are you doing out here alone?"
"My parents are in the camp," Kyourin said, gesturing behind her, toward the camp.
"That's not what I meant," the woman said, her annoyance side rising a little. "What are you doing wandering around the Koukai?"
"Exploring." Kyourin shrugged.
"Stupid child. There are youma in the Koukai."
Oh, right. She had forgotten that human children would have to be quite stupid to go wandering the Koukai, what with all the youma about. It was hardly a concern for her anymore, what with all the shirei she had and how fast she could fly. "People say that a lot," she decided to mutter.
"What? That you're stupid?"
"Yes, that."
The woman made a gesture; Kyourin understood she was telling her to come walk next to her, instead of walking backwards the way she was. Kyourin did. "So, what's your name, girl?"
Kyourin had prepared for this question. "Aku," she said immediately. It was written 'beloved crimson'. She thought it was pretty, and if one can pick their own name it may as well be something pretty. Not that anyone would be able to tell how it was written by how it sounds.
"Aku. So, Aku, who are your parents?"
"Oh, just minor functionaries in Tei Province." She had picked the province at random. At first she had picked one in Kyou, but then caught herself just this morning.
"Sennin?" asked the woman. She looked a little surprised. It took Kyourin a short while to figure out why; she probably shouldn't have used the word 'functionaries'. Not age-appropriate. Oh well. The woman would probably just assume her parents took her education seriously. Which she supposed was true, under a certain perspective.
"Nope. I'm just a normal eight-year-old." She heard a couple of her shirei laughing in her head; it took a fair bit of control to not laugh with them.
"You don't talk like a normal eight year old."
Whoops. "My parents take my education very seriously. They hope I can have a position higher in the government." That was also somewhat true. This lying thing was easier than she had thought it would be. It looked like she would be able to get by with half lies. "So, what's your name?"
"In'ou," the woman said with a smile. She supposed the woman was waiting to see how long it would take her to ask. Apparently the length of time was funny for some reason. "I'm just a normal farmer. My husband is a soldier. He thought he would try his luck with the Taiho."
"Well, good luck to him. Where he is?" Kyourin looked around, as though expecting to find someone she didn't know what he looked like.
In'ou shrugged. "With his soldier friends. I decided to walk ahead of them this last stretch."
"You don't like them."
"No, I don't."
"Do you think they smell like blood?"
In'ou blinked at her, frowning a little. "Smell like blood?"
Realizing her mistake, Kyourin shrugged a little. "If he smells like blood Enrin might not like him." She had been thinking if he smelled like blood she wouldn't want to be around him herself, but it was a good cover.
"No, I guess not. You're an interesting child, Aku."
Kyourin felt the ridiculous smile on her face. "Thank you!"
For the first time, In'ou let out a little chuckle. This person wasn't quite as reserved as Enrin, but Kyourin still felt she had accomplished something in making her laugh. "I was wondering if you had time for tea. After I find a spot with my husband, I was going to make us some. But you should probably get back to your parents."
She was so interesting In'ou wanted to have tea with her? Well, that was okay, she could do that. Interacting with people was exactly why she had come down here. Wasn't it kind of strange for an adult to have tea with a child? She didn't really know how this kind of thing worked in the outside world. She shrugged internally, and said, "Sure! My parents gave me leave to do whatever I wanted." That wasn't entirely true; she had been given free reign while preparations were made, but she wasn't supposed to leave the inner palace.
So the two of them stopped at the side of the path to the meadow. They talked intermittently about random things, mostly Koukai and the palace. Kyourin tried very hard to not act more knowledgeable about the palace than Aku should be, but it was hard. Before too long, her husband showed up, a man named Rou. He was big and broad-shouldered, wearing the simple armor of a provincial soldier. At least that's what it looked like. To Kyourin's distaste, he was carrying a sword. To her further distaste, as he approached, she could smell the very faint scent of blood on him. It was thin enough, old enough, it didn't affect her, but she still had to fight the urge to squeeze her nose shut with a hand. Rou, too, wanted to know where her parents were, so Kyourin pointed in a random direction across the meadow. That seemed to be enough for him.
Rou and his soldier friends moved into the meadow to pick a spot, In'ou and Kyourin trailing behind. While they set up tents and stuff, In'ou ran off to collect water for boiling and wood for burning. Before long she returned, and quickly had a fire going. It wasn't long later that tea was prepared. When Rou sat down with them, Kyourin flinched. As casually as possible, she stood up, walked around in a little circle, pretending to check out her surroundings, then sat down again on In'ou's other side. Now she was crosswind of Rou. That was much better. In'ou gave her a weird look, but didn't say anything.
And so they talked over tea. A lot of it was over Kyourin's head—talk about various things going on in En, who showed up, who they thought was likely to be selected, things like that. There were things she could talk about, like the different kinds of people that showed up, the various youjuu, how colorful and exciting everything was. Rou said that it better be exciting up here: they had lost a number of lives going through Koukai. The thought struck Kyourin anew. She spent so much time in Koukai she never really thought of it as that dangerous, but of course humans would have trouble in it. She suddenly felt a little guilty for sneaking out to enjoy this time, knowing that people had died for it. She shook it off as best she could. Eventually the tea was drunk, and Rou and In'ou had to set up their tents and stuff, so Kyourin decided to dismiss herself. In'ou, for some reason or another, gave her a parting gift: a riceball. She left with a promise to see them again in a day or two—and by 'them' Kyourin meant In'ou, who she decided she kind of liked—and wandered off into the crowd, munching on her riceball. It was pretty good; it was seasoned in a way she hadn't had before. Food on Houzan was usually pretty plain.
So she wandered the camp. She flitted from thing to thing—tethered youjuu, chatting soldiers, people gathered around food. Luckily no one was slaughtering or cooking any meat—due to Kirin sensibilities, most forms of meat were banned on Houzan—but there was still the faint scent of blood in the air, worse in some areas than others. Those places she tended not to stay in very long.
Eventually, she ran into a small group of children; she supposed those were their parents chatting here and there around them. They were in the middle of an open space, playing some kind of game. There was a small ball, with feathers affixed to it every so many degrees. The kids were, with lesser or greater degrees of clumsiness correlated to their age, kicking it repeatedly into the air. Kyourin quickly figured out the rules: the object of the game was to keep the ball in the air for as many hits as possible without using the hands.
When someone messed up and the ball fell to the ground, Kyourin stepped toward them. "What are you playing?"
The kids give her weird looks, as though it should be obvious, but one of them answered anyway. "Shukukon," he said.
"Can I play?"
"Yeah, sure," another boy said.
Kyourin, with a wide smile, bounded over to join them. At first, she was pretty terrible at the game; she would miss the ball every time it was passed at her. But she quickly adapted to it. By the time she was starting to get hungry again, she was about par with the rest of them. It was pretty fun, she enjoyed it. If they were playing tomorrow, she would probably come play with them again. Just as Kyourin was about to leave, the parents came to split the game up, saying it was time to eat. Perfect. She was just about to pass the ball back to the owner—with her foot, of course—when there was a shout behind her.
"Kyourin!"
Kyourin flinched. The ball thudded down against the ground. The shout brought a sudden silence in the crowd around her. "Yes, Kashou?" she said over her shoulder. Of course, it had to be Kashou who had found her.
"What are you doing out here, Kyourin?"
Quietly enough so the nyosen wouldn't hear it, she repeated a word she had heard today that she was sure was a swear. That was Teiyei, one of the more senior nyosen, with authority to match. "Um, playing?"
She turned around to find a small group of nyosen, including an annoyed Teiyei and a more furious Kashou, coming to a stop shortly before her. "Are you supposed to leave the inner palace?"
"I go to Koukai all the time."
"This isn't Koukai."
"No. This is even less dangerous than Koukai. Perfectly safe." She looked around her. Some people were prostrating themselves, but more seemed a little confused. She supposed it was because of the color of her mane that so many weren't sure what was going on. "Oh, stand up," she said to them. "Kyourin, Kyou. Not your Taiho. Enrin is inside."
Teiyei let out a long sigh. "Come on, Kyourin. It's time to eat."
"I was just leaving." She turned to the kids, who were all in the confused category. "I'll be back to play tomorrow."
"She will not," said Kashou.
Before following the nyosen out, Kyourin hissed to the kids, "Yes, I will." Then she scampered towards the nyosen, who immediately formed a protective box around her. As they starting guiding her away, one of the kids yelled "Bye, Aku!" at her back. Kyourin turned around to give a big energetic wave before turning back forward.
"Aku?" said Teiyei. It could be Kyourin's imagination, but she sounded a little amused to her.
"I came up with a name," Kyourin said simply. "You know, so they don't know it's me."
"I suppose we ruined your fun."
"Pretty much."
"Hmm." For a while they walked in silence. Kyourin noticed the people they passed didn't really know what to think about a girl with red hair being escorted by nyosen. It was possible a lot of people didn't even know about red Kirin, as they were pretty rare. "You really shouldn't be sneaking off by yourself."
"But I go to Koukai by myself all the time."
"It's not the same thing," said Kashou.
"It's not. There aren't even any youma. Perfectly safe."
"Yes, but—"
"I'll allow it," Teiyei interrupted.
Kyourin felt the excited, victorious smile spread on her own face. "Really?"
"Yes."
Kashou sputtered for a moment. "Teiyei, you can't seriously think this is a good idea."
"I don't see the harm in it. But we're putting the flags up in Kyou. If you're old enough to sneak around you're old enough to select a king."
"Seems fair," Kyourin agreed. Really, the flags should go up anyway. She might be old enough, and the sooner she selected a king, the better it would be for Kyou. And, if Enrin were any indication, it would take a long time for her to find her king anyway. The sooner they started, the better. And she got to have fun. Win-win. "No escort?"
Teiyei took a moment to consider. "No escort," she agreed. "But we'll be watching you."
Kashou didn't much like that, either.
Aku: 愛紅
In'ou: 音桜
Rou: 労
shukukon: 蹴羽根
