Disclaimer – still don't own anything but my law school debt and a lovely set of law textbooks.

Chapter 4

As predicted, Chichiri did not manage to return to sleep. He held the sleeping woman and pondered the day's and night's events. He had gone from traveling with a 15 year old priestess in the morning to traveling with an older version of the same girl in the afternoon. He had imitated the Emperor and heard a fascinating tale of time travel. He had learned that his friend and fellow warrior Tamahome had managed to join this Miaka in her world and they had married and had a child. This older version of the priestess wanted to offer this option to all her warriors. Being a lover of learning, the prospects of traveling to a completely foreign world appealed to him, but it disturbed him to know that that same world had been so completely devastated. It seemed that a world without divine protection and guidance was doomed to failure. How had this simple woman managed to rewrite the Universe of the Four Gods which was the past, present and future of these two worlds as written by celestial beings? And what about the visit by Suzaku in the night? Had this woman's distress called to the God?

His eyes turned from gazing at the stars to an awe filled inspection of this woman's features. She was still as lovely as the younger version he had left earlier, but her face was leaner and sharper. The innocent baby fat had melted away from her cheekbones and her face was longer. There were fine lines developing beside her eyes that evidenced many years of laughter. But there was also a more pronounced crease between her brows that spoke of pain, anger and frustration. Her lips were just as full as before, but were chapped and torn from being worried at by her teeth. Here eyes were just a beautiful, but held more wisdom and depth than the younger, more innocent version of herself.

This Miaka was a bit taller than her younger counterpart. Not to mention her frame was covered with lean muscles. Though, she retained the curviness that appeared after bearing a child. Her poor hair had seen better days, which he planned to rectify when she woke. The Lieutenant's dagger was still parked in the log behind them.

But the greatest changes he could see were not physical changes, but changes in her character. Her face, while just as beautiful, did not shine as brightly with unadulterated joy as the fifteen year old Miaka's face did. So far, her smiles had been tight and slightly reserved. More like Hotohori's smiles. Beautiful but still sad. More often than not, her smile was completely absent and her face looked haunted as she mentally drifted away from reality to relive her memories. He had seen that look many times in their afternoon march away from the capital.

Her personality had also changed, possibly due to the responsibilities of her life and the tragedies she had endured. He had still seen sparks of her childish humor, and scatterbrained-ness, but she seemed more … he couldn't really think of a better word than 'adult.' She seemed like an adult instead of a teenage girl. She had a quiet confidence that commanded respect though she tried to downplay it and remain unassuming. Her clumsiness seemed to have been replaced with more grace and agility. He had overheard two of the soldiers speculating over what type of training she had undergone and discussing her fighting style when she arrived at the palace gates. First on the mind of the soldiers had been who had bothered to train a girl? It was rather unusual. So, Chichiri had been surprised to discover that this "Mia" might be able to fight. When the soldiers gossip degraded into betting on who could beat the strange woman, Chichiri had tuned them out.

Dawn began to lighten the sky to the East ever so slightly, and the early morning birds heralded the beginning of a new day. Chichiri realized he was still cradling the gently sleeping woman in his arms and thought he ought to return to his own sleeping spot to prevent any embarrassment or awkwardness. It had felt right staying in the position he had been in when Suzaku had spoken to him. It had been a shock to see the deity in person in this world. Chichiri assumed that they must have successfully summoned Suzaku in Mia's past, but this was the first meeting between the God and this warrior. It had made his entire body tingle, and his mark of being a Suzaku warrior had flared to life with incredible power in the presence of its maker.

Chichiri wondered if he should mention this unexpected visitor to the sleeping woman. Was it important that Suzaku was watching over her? Never in all his years or any of his studies, had he heard of a God personally watching over an individual. The Fates wrote all of their individual stories, and people were nothing more than insignificant specks in the vastness of life to a God. This was defiantly something he would have to bring up with Taiitsukun after the quest was over. He thought there were some things even that all knowing witch could not possibly know.

Mia woke groggy and sore. "Ugh, did anyone get the license plate of the ice cream truck that hit me?" How could it be morning already? She had just closed her eyes ten seconds ago! For a moment, she felt like pitching herself onto her stomach and pounding the ground and kicking and screaming 'it's not fair' in a childish tantrum. But, then her maternal side flinched and scolded her for even thinking of creating such a childish display! If her daughter had witnessed such a thing, she would have imitated her and used it against her. A smile crossed her face as the image played across her sleep muddled mind. She unconsciously listened for sounds on the baby monitor of Hikari rousing from sleep. It was always the funniest range of noises, and her sleepy mind always tried to guess what the toddler was doing. Once, she peeked in to see the infant sitting up in the crib, actually chewing on the thick, rubber antenna of the one-way baby monitor base unit. Good thing they are made to be chew and slobber proof. That had been the day the baby monitor had been mounted on the wall behind the crib, well out of reach of slimy little baby fingers.

Strange sounds reached her ear that had nothing to do with Hikari waking. There were birds chirping, leaves rustling, flames crackling and men talking. Had they gone camping? The bed was rather uneven and hard, like she was sleeping on the ground. Hmm. Camping. They had loved to venture out at least once a month when the weather was nice. Tamahome loved to get back to nature since it made him feel a bit more at home. And Hikari loved to catch all the insects and fireflies she possibly could. She never hurt the 'little pretties,' she just loved to put them in jars and make homes for the poor orphan bugs. Miaka didn't mind her catching fireflies, but had to draw the line when the child was picking up little tree frogs and trying to put them in her backpack to bring home as pets. It had been a long discussion to try and explain that the whole outdoors was the home of these happy animals. It wasn't until Tama had mentioned that she would be taking them away from their happy little frog families that Hikari had caved and decided to leave them be.

Pain in her entire body began rousing her out of her sleepy thoughts. Something just didn't seem right. Had she trained last night? Usually her sensei went especially hard on her since she was one of the older students in his class. That, and the man seemed to fancy her a bit. He truly looked like a more masculine version of Noriko with a more conservative sense of clothing. Still, he would wail on her if she had not been practicing as hard as he thought she should. He told her she was his star pupil, and needed to be the best since he was counting on her to bring the dojo honor in the tournaments. It had gotten so bad at one point that Tamahome confronted the man and the two men had nearly beaten each other senseless. Sensei had become less aggressive in her training after that, even to the point of insisting she take it easy during her pregnancy. He had eventually even become on of Tamahome's best friends, after her brother and Tetsuya. Sensei's idea of a bachelor party had been quite amusing and the four men had been almost incapacitated for the wedding rehearsal held the next day. She had put her foot down at the idea of having the party the night before the wedding. She had heard some of the stories from sensei's other friends' bachelor parties, where the groom was trapped in another province, without clothes or money or identification. She would not have her wedding ruined after she and Tamahome had worked so hard to save up the money to pay for it themselves.

Something was shaking her shoulder as her mind tried to drift back to sleep with images of her wedding day. Her name was being called by a masculine voice. She groaned, "Five more minutes, Tama. Hikari isn't even up yet." Then swatted at her shoulder. The voice was louder and more insistent as the shaking continued. She tried to ignore it, really she did, but finally she angrily opened her eyes with a loud, "What is it!"

Staring down at her was a grinning Chichiri face with mask in place. His light blue hair was carefully tucked into a soldier's cap with just his wild, spiky bangs peeking out. "Sorry to wake you from such a peaceful sleep. But if you don't get up now, you'll miss out on a lovely breakfast, you know. I think some of these soldiers can eat as much as you can. Plus, we need to get an early start to avoid suspicion, you know." He moved back on his haunches and allowed room for her to sit up.

Reality crashed back down on Miaka in a heartbeat. 'That's right. I'm in Konan looking for the Shinzaho. Tama and Hikari are…' her mind blanked as she slowly looked around. Soldiers were efficiently breaking down camp and stowing all their gear on the pack animals. Lieutenant Kanai was walking about supervising his troops and issuing an occasional order, or encouragement. She and Chichiri were the only things in the camp not hustling around.

Chichiri handed her a plate and cup as he settled beside her on the log to eat his portion of breakfast. She finally registered what was in her hands when the wonderful smell reached her nose. It made her stomach grumble with hunger that caused Chichiri to laugh. The old Miaka resurfaced, and the food was quickly consumed. He even offered her his toast as he caught her eyeing it with desire. Once the dishes were returned to the cook, Chichiri smirked at the subject her needed to address.

Miaka's legs. She had yet to really move because her legs felt like jelly. Oh, it wasn't an unfamiliar feeling, it just wasn't something she wanted to face just yet. It was going to be torture trying to stand up and do anything that required her to bend her legs at all. Walking was going to be difficult, and using the bushes was going to be impossible. She had no idea how she was going to remain in the saddle today.

After stalling as long as she could, she finally pushed up onto her knees and tried to stand. There was no way she could repress the groan that escaped her. This was going to be bad. She finally glanced shyly over to the ever watchful Chichiri and asked, "Um, do you think you could give me a hand? It seems like my legs don't work today." Chichiri assured her he would, and reached over to hoist her into a standing position without her doing anything at all. She sighed then added, "Um, do you think you could help me with a little matter involving bushes and relieving myself?" It just wasn't fair that men could go standing up. Lucky jerks!

After their little embarrassing trip to the bushes, Chichiri took hold of the Lieutenant's dagger and announced, "We need to do something with your hair before we leave, you know." Several soldiers made comments, suggestions and rude noises as her hair was evened out and layered to look more like Tamahome's minus the pony tail. It was as short as Yui's and actually looked rather nice framing her face with the shaggy locks. It was just another thing that differentiated her from her younger self. She ran her hands through the new hairstyle and laughed at herself. This would take getting used to. But at least she didn't have to worry about hair ribbons now.

With a stern look, Lieutenant Kanai approached the two. He cleared his throat and glared at Chichiri. "I hear from my camp guards that we had an unexpected visitor last night. Care to enlighten me? And is this going to be a usual occurrence?"

Well, so much for the idea of keeping the visit a secret. Chichiri turned serious eyes towards Mia. "It seems that last night we had a visit from Suzaku." Mia looked at him with disbelief and shock and questioned, "Why would he come here?" Chichiri shrugged his shoulders, "He came while you were having nightmares and touched you to settle you down. He said he would strengthen and watch over you on this journey, you know. Then he said I must protect you and that you had earned his respect and affections. It was really amazing, you know."

She simply chewed on her already chapped lips and pondered over this. Why would one of the Four Gods watch over her? She was just a simple woman. Kanai cleared his throat and suggested, "Well, we might want to camp in isolated areas to avoid notice if Suzaku is going to be making surprise appearances at night. It would definitely blow our cover if citizens witnessed their God descend from the stars." Then he clapped his hands together and grinned a sly, almost evil grin, "Enough of that. Time to get you back up on your horse. Think you can mount on your own? Or do we have to throw you up there?"

Mia growled at the thought of using her leg muscles at all, and dreaded the idea of spending more time in the saddle. She placed her hands on the ground and straightened her legs then pulled her torso up to a standing position like she was doing toe-touches in P.E. She walked very slowly over to Tank without bending her knees. She looked like Frankenstein in that old horror movie her brother made her watch when she was six.

Standing next to him, Tank appeared to tower at least ten feet tall. His big gray head turned to eye her. Could horses laugh? Because she was sure she had just heard him snicker followed by a sigh of exasperation. She petted the gray sides of the beast and defended herself "Hey, I'm doing the best I can here. How about a little sympathy? You know, you could help by lying down so I could just sit on you. I mean, elephants do that and handicapped friendly horses do that."

Lieutenant Kanai laughed a deep, hearty laugh that rolled through the camp as he approached behind her. With a practiced move, the big man kicked gently at the horse's front hooves and barked the command "Stretch!" Surprisingly, the warhorse stepped forward with his front legs, but kept his back legs in place. The Lieutenant kicked the front hooves again and the horse took another step forward, leaving his back legs planted. She looked on in awe as she realized that this monstrous horse was actually stretching and her saddle was coming down to a more manageable height. She giggled and admitted, "What a smart horse! Thank you Tank." And patted his muscular side.

With a grab onto the saddle and a tremendous grunt, Mia was on her way towards being mounted. Somewhere in the middle, she lost momentum, and came back down to the ground. Hmph! She spit on her hands, rubbed them together, and grasped the saddle again. With more of a determined look on her face, she bounced on her right foot and tried to lift most of her weight up without using the muscles of her left leg. Her left foot got a bit twisted in the stirrup, and again, she didn't quite make it. But this time, a hand made contact with her rump and shoved her the rest of the way up. With a loud "Eep", she slung her right leg over the saddle and was seated. Neither face below her held any indication as to which of the two men had 'boosted' her up into the seat. So, she glared at both of them and turned Tank to walk away from them with as much dignity as she could muster.

Behind her, Chichiri and Kanai exchanged glances and smirks. They would never tell.

OoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

AN – yes, it's a shorter chapter than usual, but I just thought it was a funny place to end. I can just picture these two grinning like fools and keeping their secret. The story will move on about some more problems they come across on their way to retrieve the first Shinzaho. Who will appear to try and stop them? And will Mia rebel and toss out the weird little soldier's hat? Once her muscles calm down, there may be some sparring with some of the soldiers. Wouldn't it just be a shame for our little Mia to open up a modern era can of whup ass on a trained soldier? I mean, let's face it, the 15 year old Miaka did pretty well when she was "scrapping" in the alley before Tamahome saved her, not to mention my favorite scene, where she is tied up but still hopping around, biting bandits.

And the question people might have been wondering… who was behind the explosions that ripped away protective layer of the atmosphere in her modern age? An old enemy? An old ally turned enemy? A new player that we haven't seen before?

Also – when picturing Mia, think about how much older she looked in the OVA where she is pregnant and they are celebrating. She looks older, but still the same, leaner, and without those awful hair buns on the side of her head that looked like mouse ears!

Please review, it makes me feel like I'm not writing just for myself.