Honor

Chapter One:

Whatever I Say is Royal Ocean

Kokoro felt as though she was floating. She opened her eyes and looked around. The whole world to her was now as a floating ocean of white light. She searched for someone, but she was all alone. Her mother, her home, and Matthew, they were all nowhere to be found. Suddenly she felt overwhelmed. She had been in his arms, she remembered, they were about to kiss and she was about to tell him something that she did not remember, but knew it was important. After that all she remembered was the explosion and how she passed out. She was lonely, and now she was scared. "Am I dead?" she asked herself out loud, her eyes welling up with tears.

She had gone about burying her face in her arms with her knees pulled up to her chest, so she cried in a ball for a few moments before she heard a dim whining noise before hearing a calm voice from nowhere. "Kokoro, you are not dead as you may know it. Be calm and still your teary heart. You have much to do."

She could only look around the astral void for the voice, knowing it was in vain. "I am afraid." There was no answer for several minutes.

"Do not be afraid. Have faith and all will be well." At this she began to cry again, harder this time.

"Mom… where are you? I need you. Matthew… please come save me…" she called out, she soon felt sleepy and the feeling of distantness consumed her once more as the white sea of light dimmed to black.

She opened her eyes, remembering what she thought was a dream, expecting to see Matthew over her. She was waiting to see his expression of worry after she passed out in his arms. She wanted to kiss him. She was still scared from her dream.

There was a figure over her, it was worried and relieved that she was awake, but it was not Matthew or her mother. It was a girl who looked like she was about twelve years old. "You are finally awake Miss!" Kokoro sat up with a start. "You are safe here," the girl tried to calm the obviously surprised Kokoro, "you have been sleeping for the past two days! Are you sick Miss?"

Kokoro looked around the room. It was wooden and old fashioned. The room's only light was from a few candles around the room, still the room was dim. She looked at the girl and what she was wearing, a kimono styled dress. "I… am not sick. Where am I? What about my mother and what about Matthew?" The girl just looked at her.

"Matthew…?" The girl had a lot of trouble pronouncing the name. "I've never heard a name like that. Whoever it is we did not find them, or your mother, when we found you."

"Found me?" The girl nodded.

"You were passed out in a field outside of the village two days ago. They brought you here, to our Inn. The doctor said you would be fine after your fever broke." Kokoro remained silent for a time, she was scared now, and she was found in a field?

"Is this another dream?" she asked herself in her head. "What about the explosion?"

"What explosion?"

"There was an explosion the other night?" The girl looked like she honestly had no idea what she was talking about. "You have no idea what I am talking about do you." The girl shook her head. "So I was found alone?"

The girl nodded. "You were found in a nice kimono, and make up done like a geisha so they brought you here."

"Here? Where is here? More importantly, what is here?" Kokoro asked, with a countenance of concern. The girl saw this on her face and calmed her.

"Miss Yuki heads the geisha house here. They brought you to her because they thought you were a geisha from here. In fact, she has been waiting for you to wake up." Kokoro felt like this was not a dream as the girl went to get Miss Yuki. Kokoro was scared of this person for some reason, like she may be like her dance instructor and be harsh with her if she did something wrong, and Kokoro felt that being found alone in a field was a sort of wrong. Kokoro remembered that she was found alone and checked herself for any injuries, there were none at all to her amazement and relief, she was hungry all of a sudden as her stomach made all sorts of noises as it begged for food.

Finally, after a few minutes the girl returned with a woman who looked forty or so. The woman looked stern and she looked over the confused, scared girl sitting up in a bed. "What is your name?" Kokoro looked up, she was stiff and scared.

"My name is Kokoro, ma'am." Kokoro remembered that she had to be formal in her training, and this was a geisha who oversaw a town's worth of geisha.

"And how old are you?"

"I am nineteen, ma'am." Her back ached from laying in bed for so long, but she was too scared to show it. The woman did not seem to like the answer.

"You do not look nineteen. In fact you look much closer to sixteen, Kokoro."

"Ma'am, I mean no disrespect, but I am nineteen years old."

There was a long pause as the woman starred at her for correcting her, even if Kokoro was right, and Kokoro blushed slightly and looked at the floor. "Very well Kokoro, if you insist on saying that you are nineteen, there is no reason that you would lie." Kokoro remembered her I.D. was in her kimono, but she was not wearing her kimono, but a robe they had put her in. "But do tell me, that is a very nice kimono that you were wearing and a halfway decent attempt at make-up you had when they brought you here. What is it that you do?"

"I am a geisha in training."

"Under whom are you instructed? I am sure I will know you're instructor."

"My mother, Miyako, is instructing me."

"Where are you from?"

"A town near Kyoto, ma'am."

"Like the town we are in now?"

"I guess so, ma'am."

"I have never heard of Miyako, Kokoro. So are you sure you are a geisha in training from this place?" Miss Yuki staring was down hard at Kokoro.

"It is, as far as I know, ma'am. Forgive me for being hard to get answers from, I do not remember being alone before I was rendered unconscious, and I have not eaten since. I sincerely apologize for the difficulty." The woman lessened her stress on the girl. The woman knelt down at her side and got a closer look at her.

"You are welcome to stay as long as you earn your keep. If you are what you say you are, you may help that way."

"May I see what I had with me in my kimono?" The girl retrieved the Kimono. Kokoro found the I.D. and showed it to Miss Yuki. "This is my driver's license."

There was a long pause, "And this means?" she said, clearly having no idea what she was being shown.

"You do not know what this is?" She shook her head.

"Child, I cannot even read those strange characters. I have never seen them written like that."

"Am I dreaming? I feel like I have been sent back in time…"

"Back in time? From when child?"

"As funny as it will sound, I was born in the year 1990, and I am nineteen, so back to here from 2009..." Kokoro trailed off realizing how crazy it must sound and noticing that the woman was not looking at her like she had lost her mind. "Am I insane, ma'am?"

The woman merely shook her head, "The gods must have sent you for their own reasons, and maybe you are to learn something."

Kokoro sat there in the bed with Miss Yuki, both in silence. Kokoro finally broke it, "So I have been sent back in time to do… something."

"Or learn something."

Kokoro drew her knees up to her chest again, placed her arms on her knees and buried her face in her arms and began to cry softly. "Oh God… what do I do here?" She cried softly until Miss Yuki placed her hand on her back. Kokoro burst into sobs at the first utterance of words.

"Dear, why are you so distressed?" she asked with no small amount of alarm.

Kokoro fought to answer her though sobs and gasps for air and tears to answer the woman. "I remember when I passed out. I was with a boy…"

"Boy… as in a child?"

"No. He is… well…" she paused, "will be older than me."

"He will be your husband?"

"I am not married. I was in his arms though. We were about to kiss and I had something to tell him."

"So you two were intimate? Why are you a geisha if you are with a man?"

"Things are different, well they will be different."

"So you can be a geisha and have a husband?"

"I never saw a reason why not."

"And you and this man were lovers?"

"He will be my boyfriend."

"He has asked you to marry him then?"

"No, he has not asked me to marry him."

"Then you must really like him."

"Why do you say so?"

"He is not your husband to be, yet you two lie together… You must hold him very dear."

Kokoro paused for a moment, her crying softened. She raised her head. "I am a virgin! I have not had sex with him… or anyone before… How did you gather that I had?"

"You said you two were lovers and were intimate."

Kokoro laughed slightly and quietly. "Not that intimate. Not yet. I have not known him long enough, but maybe one day if we get married."

"So it is alright to marry if you are a geisha?"

"My mother did so. But geisha have become less prominent in my time. They are entertainers still yes, but they are few and other entertainers hold superiority over the world. The rules have changed I imagine."

"Well nothing on Earth is permanent." Kokoro had since placed her face in her arms. "Kokoro, I can only imagine that you miss him terribly, both him and your mother. We will find him for you if they are here." Kokoro only nodded. Her stomach then proceeded to make a deep and loud rumble. "I will send you some food. We will discuss you living arrangements when you are feeling better. You should get some rest in the meantime.