Birthday Bash 2023
Prompt 4
Secret Heritage
Haru was a little grumpy that her sweet sixteen was being spent inside a lawyer's office, but at least she'd known for years that she was going to be here on this day. Not that it stopped her from heaving a sigh while distracting herself with thoughts of the party Hiromi had planned for her over the weekend.
"Stop that sighing," Great Aunt Yubaba scolded her as she bounced her grandson on one knee and ignored her daughter-in-law's longing look towards her child. "Some of us have been waiting for this day for longer than you've been alive."
"So you wanted a will over Grandma?" Naoko asked coldly, wrapping an arm around her daughter's shoulders and squeezing gently.
"Well, she can still show the proper respect!" Yubaba retorted with what passed for dignity with her. "Mom wouldn't have gone to such trouble for her estate if there wasn't something good! I mean, everything from Dad is already divided up."
The young lawyer finished setting up the old player and slipped the tape cassette in. "Very well, my instructions are clear. As per the last will and testament of Akiyama Haru, I am to play this recording on this, what would have been her one hundredth birthday to all of her living descendants," she reported cheerfully before pressing hard on the 'play' button.
A dignified voice began to speak, pulling Haru out of her silent world for now.
"Testing, testing, this better do the trick, confounded technology."
Haru couldn't resist giggling that the woman was definitely the source of her technology woes, even as her great aunt harshly shushed her.
Her poor mother, on the other hand, started silently weeping at hearing that beloved voice after so many years.
"All right, now that I've listened to that first part, I know I'm doing this correctly. Hello, my darlings, both old and new. … I'm sorry, I'm having trouble spitting out the right words. I knew how unlikely it would be that I would live to a hundred, even before the doctors confirmed it, but due to promises I made before I met dear Hideo, I am left with no alternative. Haru, my great-granddaughter."
Haru's head shot up with shock, since her mother hadn't so much as met her father before the grandmother died.
"Naoko was very direct when she told me that she would be naming her first daughter after me. I want you to hear from my own voice that I did try to stop her, my sweet. I have… done things. Lived things that no one in the family had ever come close to guessing. I'm sure you are fully aware that although my life with your great-grandfather is well remembered, I have never breathed a word about my heritage or anything before meeting him. It seems strange to say that today is the day my silence breaks since I'm eighty at the time of the recording, but I'm sure you understand at least a little. Mr. Fujimoto, or whoever the lawyer is where- I mean when you are, hand Haru my letter."
"Wait, why is Haru getting special treatment?!" Yubaba demanded as the lawyer pulled an old letter out of a small safe.
"Oh, Yubaba, I can hear you complaining from here!" the woman scolded, making her daughter flinch on reflex. "You and anyone else can stuff an apple in your mouth until I'm done. Everything will be making sense before you leave this room. Haru dear, I hope you have the letter in hand now."
"Got it," Haru couldn't resist responding while trying not to giggle at how well her great-grandmother knew her second daughter.
"Don't open it yet, pet. If society has accepted that women can have pockets of any worth by your time, pocket it for now. If not, slip it into the band of your skirt or whatever you need to for a secure hold on it. You'll know when the time comes to read it."
Though baffled by the strange instruction, Haru folded the old letter once, slipped it into the inside pocket of her long blue coat and zipped the coat all the way to her chin.
"Oh, it's so troublesome not knowing how long that will take," her ancestor muttered mutinously. "Now, this next part is very important. Whichever lawyer is handling this for me, I want you to shut off this recording and make certain that Haru wears the other item left in the safe immediately. Turn this recording back on after things are settled."
"That didn't answer my question!" Yubaba snarled as the lawyer stopped the recording before turning again to the safe. "Why is Haru getting all the attention and special instructions?!"
"Well, she is her namesake," Naoko couldn't resist protesting smugly, her eyes lighting up at the small brown package the lawyer was handling, almost as if she already knew what was in it.
Yubaba seemed to guess as well. "Oh no. She better not be giving Haru the necklace! I'm her daughter, me!" she roared, standing to her feet as the lawyer intentionally put herself between the crone and maiden after handing off the package.
Her daughter-in-law was all too happy to take advantage of the situation and slip her son out of Yubaba's suddenly thoughtless grasp.
"I am the executor of Akiyama Haru's last will and testament. If you keep raising a fuss, I do have the authority to have you thrown out of the building and have your niece tell you the proceedings," the young lawyer warned as the younger Haru opened the package after stepping away from the chairs to put a little more distance between herself and the great-aunt she never really liked.
It was definitely her great-grandmother's necklace. Since she'd never seen a picture of the woman when she wasn't wearing it, it was impossible to mistake. The necklace was mostly flat gold with a light emerald that would just rest at the throat like a cat collar.
Haru couldn't help wondering if she'd inherited her taste in jewelry from the woman, since she'd kept an eye out for something similar for years that had a prayer of being in her price range, but nothing had caught her eye like this one did. Her heart pounded excitedly at the idea of wearing it. 'At least I know it will look good on me, since I'm a dead ringer for Great-Grandma when she was young.'
"Haru, don't you dare! I'm the next of kin, it belongs to me!" Yubaba howled while trying to get around the young lawyer, who was rapidly proving that this wasn't the first time she'd dealt with unhappy relatives at a will reading.
"Here, let me help you," Naoko crooned, taking the necklace and wasting no time wrapping it around her daughter's throat.
Haru held her shoulder-length brown hair up with her hands, inwardly thinking that she wouldn't have needed to if her mother hadn't vetoed the usual ponytail.
Despite the simple clasp, the click it gave as it fastened itself into place was strangely loud. Haru suddenly felt like she was on an elevator, with all of her organs rising up as she went down, down-
"Haru!" Naoko screamed in fright as her child suddenly fell through a small green hole in the floor, only big enough for the teenager in question.
"MOM!" Haru screamed in fright, raising her hands to try to grab at something, but the fall was too sudden for such futile attempts.
She blinked, trying to see something in this never-ending fall as she kept screaming, but all she could see was green light, and her entire body felt that uncomfortable mixture of numbness and sparks when a limb would fall asleep.
Before long, the sixteen-year-old landed flat on her back onto a thickly cushioned mattress, sending up enough dust to almost blind and choke her as the green light faded away. She coughed and rubbed her eyes in confusion.
But no amount of dust could deafen the wild applause of something happening through an open window.
Although she felt unladylike about it, Haru had to spit out the dust as she sat up and got a good look at her new surroundings.
It looked alarmingly like how she'd always imagined a tower room in a castle. The room was large and round, made of grey stone and with furnishings that were clearly of high quality, but the effect was dampened by the thick layer of dust on everything. Even the canopy on the bed was desperately trying not to fall into threadbare rags on the floor. There were signs everywhere that this room hadn't been set foot in for decades.
Maybe even a century.
"Where the heck did I land?" Haru couldn't resist asking out loud, hoping that her nerves were interpreting the upcoming will into a strange nightmare.
The cheering out the window had softened considerably, but there was enough sound to assure her that the large crowd hadn't left yet.
Although terrified of what she was about to see, Haru's curiosity forced her to scoot off the large bed, even as she froze at a new sensation she'd never felt before, but instantly knew what it meant. She slowly turned her head behind her, praying that she was misunderstanding…
Nope. She now had a brown tail nervously twitching from under the hem of her long blue coat. With growing dread, the poor girl looked directly at her hands.
… At least she still had hands. They were covered with tan fur and her fingernails were missing, but at least she still had fingers. She flexed those fingers to make a set of white claws slip from the tips, curved and dangerous.
Noticing that there was a vanity, Haru reluctantly approached it and used her sleeve to clean off enough filth from the mirror to see herself.
She was a cat. A dust-covered one from her flicking ears to her shoes.
Her lungs refused to take in air as she suddenly remembered the strange version of Sleeping Beauty her mother used to tell her, and how her mother never lost an opportunity to mention that it was passed down from her own grandmother.
"It couldn't be," Haru whispered in dread before running to the window.
The crowd far below cheered wildly at the sight of her, perhaps too far away to tell that a lot of her grey coloring wasn't natural. She squinted to be sure, but yes.
Every single person was a strange sort of cat with human proportions. All of them were definitely happy to see her.
Haru stepped away from the window, rested her back on the stone wall next to it, and let herself slide to the floor in numb shock.
Her grandmother was that Sleeping Beauty. Everyone was going to think she was her great-grandmother. Their shared name and birthday would only seem to confirm it.
Not caring if it was the right time or not, Haru unzipped her coat and ripped out the envelope to open it immediately. She noticed that the outside of the letter was covered in strange hieroglyphics, but didn't pay them mind as she unfolded the paper to start reading.
My Sweet Haru,
I'm sure you've guessed at this point that I had a deliberate purpose to 'inventing' my own version of Sleeping Beauty. I'm more than certain Naoko told it to you exactly the way I told it to her.
Here is where the story is different; instead of choosing to go to sleep for a hundred years to wait for my true love, my bargain with the magician was that on what would be my hundredth birthday, the descendant that shared my name and birthday would also share my duties, which are represented by my badge of office, the necklace I just passed down to you.
I thoroughly expect you to be angry with me possibly for a long time, but take some comfort in knowing that I was promised that, just like my soulmate was in the Human World, yours will be found in my home world. It was gut-wrenching to realize that I would serve my kingdom and family better if I literally never saw either again, so I more than know what this will do to you.
My darling, the descendant of my sweet sister will explain the mating ritual to you, but since mine was in another world and I was the heir, bloodshed would have been inescapable without a clear mate for me. I was assured many times that the kingdom will fall if you don't step up.
I know this is a lot to just throw into your lap, my sweet. That's why I tried to talk your mother out of naming you after me, but stubbornness has always been a family trait. For both of our sakes, be the queen that I couldn't.
All my love, and all my sorrows,
Your distraught great-grandmother
Haru stared at the words as they turned fluid with her tears. She could read between the lines perfectly well.
You can't see your mother or friends ever again.
You wouldn't find the same love that you'll find in this world.
You have a kingdom to think about now. It can never be about your own wants again.
She drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, and started crying for the life her great-grandmother had renounced for her.
She may have gotten a kingdom for her sweet sixteen, but the cost was more than she could bear.
A hand started rubbing her head between the ears.
Haru looked up, still crying to see a brown cat that was clearly a king. He wore a green jewel on his forehead instead of a crown, but his royal standing was impossible to mistake.
His brown eyes, just like hers, were full of sympathy, but he still gently rubbed between her ears for comfort as he mutely held out his other hand for the letter. Likely because he could see the other side was written with him in mind.
Still too lost in her grief to wonder about how he and a handful of soldiers had come up here without her noticing, she handed him the letter and buried her face in her arms and knees again. She couldn't make herself care that now she had fur, it was going to be more work to clean her face from the thick mess of tears and dust. All she could think about was how this separation was breaking her mother's heart, even though Grandma had likely given a similar explanation in the rest of the recording.
"… So that's what happened. I guess Fujimoto's even more of a trickster than the history books said," the king sighed before turning to the soldiers as he folded and pocketed the letter. "I want all of you to start spreading the word. This is not my great aunt, but her heir from another world. The celebration is free to proceed as planned, but my cousin is in no mood to be presented to the people today. As the crown princess, she will be presented in due time, and I expect everyone to be considerate of what she has lost for us to gain."
All the soldiers saluted him smartly before the leader spoke.
"Your majesty, may we have a name to give the people?"
Haru rubbed her eyes once while sniffing. "I'm Haru. Same as Great-Grandma."
"Well, that will make it easy," the guard couldn't resist muttering as he and the other soldiers bowed before exiting through the door Haru had been too distracted to notice.
Though she wasn't sobbing, tears were still leaking down her face as she sensed the king sitting down next to her. "You'll ruin your clothes," she mumbled tiredly.
He responded by wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. "I have competent cleaners. I am sorry, we knew even less than you did about what would happen today."
Haru nodded but couldn't think of anything else to say. Since he wasn't making her leave the tower or be the main attraction at a celebration just yet, she let herself lean into his shoulder since he was technically family and she really needed someone to comfort her just now.
"… I suppose I should introduce myself," he said after a few awkward moments. "I'm Hashi Takahata, King of Althea. You are free to call me Uncle or Cousin if we are in a public setting, and whatever is comfortable for you in private. I hope this doesn't injure you, but how many descendants are there in your old world?"
"Three now," Haru answered miserably. "My mom, a great aunt and her grandson. You'd have been in for a rough time if my great aunt had gotten a hold on the necklace and came here instead, even if her daughter-in-law would have appreciated the distance."
He leaned to the side enough to nuzzle her dusty head fur without a care that he was getting his own fur messy. "I'm all that's left on this side. My wife died ten years ago with our twin daughters, so I wasn't the only one depending on today for an heir. The blood right to the throne is yours, anyway."
"I'm sorry about your girls," Haru wished him, understanding why he was being so gentle with her. "No interest in a second marriage then?"
He stiffened in shock. "Is that accepted in your world?!" he demanded in a near outrage.
Haru looked up at him in surprise. "If you reacted like that to a second marriage, I better not tell you about divorce when someone turns out abusive."
"We have laws for such rubbish," he informed her a bit stiffly, turning enough to squeeze her with both arms. "I am sorry for all you've lost, but this is hardly the most comfortable place for the kind of discussions we'll need to have. Are you feeling up to leaving the tower and getting cleaned up?"
Even though she couldn't feel the dust directly on her skin anymore, Haru forced herself to nod since she didn't need the vanity mirror to confirm that she looked awful. "I can't promise I'll be any good at being a princess."
At that, he grinned at her. "It's nearly a family creed to say we don't want the crown. I wanted to go into woodworking, myself." At that, he suddenly jolted and poked around a pocket before presenting her with proof. "I know this is paltry compared to what's happened, but happy birthday."
It was a beautiful hair comb with intricately carved roses and long teeth to hold hair in place since she'd gotten to keep her hair length when she was forced to change species.
Haru held it gently between her hands while smiling wistfully. "You'd have made a killing back home. Something like this would not be cheap."
He beamed at the praise, standing up and offering her a hand. "Ruling a kingdom doesn't leave much time for hobbies, but it's manageable if you're good with details."
She smiled and accepted the help to also rise. "I cross-stitch. That's nothing but details. But I would definitely like to have my hair clean before wearing this." She slipped the comb into the same inner pocket that the letter had been in to keep it from getting dusty like the rest of her.
King Hashi was even more pleased that she was treating his gift with respect. He offered her an arm. "I have excellent rooms prepared for you, and the portraits of the first Princess Haru are telling me loud and clear that the prepared wardrobe will fit you just fine."
Haru breathed in and out to steady herself as he led her out of the room and down a long spiraling staircase. "Am I going to have to get used to wearing corsets?" she asked plaintively.
"What are corsets?" he asked in bafflement, which cheered her up.
"Torture devices to give women ideal shapes."
"What?! What kind of world did you escape from?!" Hashi gasped in horror, stopping in his tracks. "First you talk about second marriages, and then wearing torture devices?!"
Haru frowned. "Frankly, I'm a bit sad that this means if your soulmate dies first, you're done with romance."
He frowned before placing a hand over hers as they resumed the stairs. "You're starting to make me think I should be grateful you know what a soulmate is. Just trust me; you'll understand when you go through the ritual and gotten to know the fellow a bit."
"Can we talk about something else?" she asked tiredly. "I'm a little too done with today to be worrying about some boy."
He nuzzled her head fur consolingly, but that didn't stop her from thinking that he was smirking while she couldn't see his expression.
"Very well, sweetheart. We'll have plenty to work through before he can get here, anyway."
Haru looked up at him suspiciously, confirming his smirk. "You think you know who he is," she accused.
"Heavily suspect," he corrected her, still grinning from ear to ear. "Now that I know that being in a different world than your soulmate will make the ritual think you don't have one, I think the only tom in history without a true love will be very interested in being at hand when you're ready for the ritual. I promise you will find little to object to if I'm correct."
Haru sighed, trying to stick to her original plan of not worrying about it for today. "Just as long as he's cool."