autumnleaf16

my proper blog is at: http://autumn-leaf16.livejournal.com/

Chapter Three

Lovingly, her husband sat down beside her and began to braid her long hair for her. Usually he liked to unbind them and see her lovely hair loose, it was probably because a grown woman would only let the one closest to her to perform this very intimate action.
“They told me that you must rest tonight.” Seishuku informed her gently, securing the end with a white ribbon.
She would get tired so easily, but the doctor had assured the very worried husband that this was not a dangerous sign, and that his beloved wife would defiantly recover as long as she obeys the tradition of resting for the majority of the month.
It seemed that she was recovering, although she was still not strong yet to stay through the festival herself. She had been down briefly to greet the guest, which was whole village along with the additional guests. As soon as she did this, she was allowed to go back and rest.
Her husband would have carried her back although it was not necessary had she not been holding their two children, as a result he gently guided her back.
“Boushin and Seihana are the most beautiful children I have ever seen,” Seishuku said happily, not for the first time. “I know that Seihana will definitely be as beautiful as her mother, which means that we will have quite some problems when she grows up. We’ll probably have to deal with young men asking for her hand every single day. The same goes for Boushin as well, he will end up just like his father, he’ll probably end up breaking every young girl’s heart in the village. Not that I was interested in any girl apart from you. I had been waiting for you ever since I was reborn into your world.” Seishuku hastily added. (1)
Closing her eyes Yuri was content to just hold her husband’s hand and listen to him talk like a normal man with the birth of his children. She was glad that he was only Seishuku, the son of a village leader, instead of Hotohori, an emperor. If he was Hotohori then by now he would probably have to arrange some sort of ceremony required due to the presence of an heir, if not already playing his part in it.
She would be left in her chambers again, if she was lucky then she might be able to watch her children, but likely they would be taken away for the necessary rituals. Or she might be dragged up to stand beside the emperor.
Many coveted the life of royalty, and like many little girls she had once dreamt of being a princess after having met prince charming, who would save her from everything and take her to his palace. After being an empress for two years she realized how ridiculous that dream was.
It was an impossible thing to be with one’s husband for the whole day, even now she was often apart from Seishuku as he worked on the fields during many of the morning and afternoon, and most people in society would be working. Although a farmer’s life resembled an emperor’s life in the fact that neither had weekends, that was probably the only similarity.
The main difference was that she knew when Seishuku would be back, unlike Hotohori-who might be away even at the evenings due to some urgent matter of the state. And if when she was very ill, Hotohori still had to look after his state first instead of spending his whole day beside her, like now.
Her two children seemed to be sound asleep, Yuri wander what life would have been like for them if she was still the empress of Konan. There would be grand celebrations when all she wanted was to hold her two children and be held by the man she loves.
“Chichi and haha are absolutely delighted with their grandchildren.” Seishuku was saying. “According to haha they look exactly like me when I was only an infant.”
“You must have been a beautiful child.”
“Yuri, I was naturally a child endowed with great wisdom, grace and wit in both lives.” He said this with a perfectly straight face and maybe he really did believe it, but it was clear that he regard his wife the most beautiful woman, while his children were the most adorable children ever seen, even more good-looking then him. (2)
Seishuku continued talking very light heartedly until Yuri finally managed to sleep, he could tell as her breath became more even and the weight of her hand became much lighter. He bent down and kissed her forehead before he took his two children into his arms and gently shut the door with his elbow.
The villagers were all at the house of the parents, ready to take part of this traditional celebration. Seishuku had insisted on making sure that Yuri was resting and refused to leave her side until he was satisfied that she was asleep. As Seishuku he could naturally do this and even be praised for being such a loving husband, but if he was still Hotohori then he would probably have to make Yuri stand beside him as they paraded around with their children.
Sometimes Seishuku was glad of having the memories of his past life not just because Yuri was there, but because they made him appreciate his new life even more.
But yet he still couldn’t resist whispering the following to his children: “Boushin, you almost could have become the emperor of a great kingdom, and you Seihana, would probably have ended up as an empress. You two may not believe this but your chichi was once the emperor of a grand nation, and your haha was his empress.” (3)

She was sitting beside the window as she often would when she was awake, but the strange thing was that the surface of the window became glass like instead of being thick paper. (4)
She could see her own reflection in the mirror, but instead of having her hair in the braid plait by Seishuku, her hair was loose and decorated with a headdress made from jade, not surprisingly it was carved into the shape of a dragon.
The loose night gown she wore was gone as well, replaced by the ceremonial robe of the priestess of Seiryuu. As to be expected, her forehead was marked by that symbol of a dragon.
“Why this…” she cursed angrily.
Raising her hand she planned to either strike the glass or tore the headdresses off. But her hand was grabbed by a strong grip, from the window’s reflection she saw that the hand was covered by blue scales.
“Do you so hate me, Seiryuu?” she hissed as she snatched her hand back, refusing to turn to face the god whose priestess she became. She knew that this dream was just like the first dream she had of Seiryuu, it was real. “You had what you wanted, your kingdom is saved and you will not be forgotten, and you even had me as your sacrifice, so why do you come before me again?”
“It seems that I should be the one to ask that, do you so hate me for what I had to do?” Seiryuu said, and his voice was rather quiet.
Yuri leant back and closed her eyes, her hand resting on her abdomen, remembering how he had clawed his way out of her body from there. That was also a few seconds before he finally ended her pain through death.
“I used my celestial warriors just as they used me, in the same way you used me just as I used you to get what I want. How can there be hatred?” she said softly.
“You are not like the priestess of Suzaku.” Seiryuu remarked out. “Suzaku will soon be talking to her, and I believe that her attitude will be very different from yours.”
“Suzaku granted Miaka her most desired wish, and let her live with the one that she love the best.” Yuri found that she was unable to keep the rather bitter tone out of her voice as she explained. “You could not grant me what I really wanted, and you also ate me, therefore taking me away from the man that I love.” (5)
“Do you hate me for that then?”
She shook her head and finally turned to face him. “I do not blame you for doing what you had to do. I do not hate you, but I cannot love you either. How can I love you when you killed me and ate my corpse? But at the same time I do not hate you either, because I know that it is not your fault.
“So what do you want, Seiryuu? I will listen to you.”
“I need your help, just as Suzaku need his priestess’ help. Listen carefully, as I do not think I can come to you again.” He began to explain to her about how the four gods had once sealed a being called Tenkou, who was a threat to the universe of the four gods, as well as this world. “But he is now breaking free of his seal, and in order to chain him up the four gods must all be summoned out.”
“I do not want to die, Seiryuu.” She whispered this out, almost pleading. “Especially not when I just had the children I always longed for.”
“You will not die this time,” he promised. “You must return to the universe of the four gods with the Suzaku priestess and obtain the two shinzaho of the other two gods, and then you must summon me.”
“How do I do that?”
“The scroll of Seiryuu will take you to Kutou and…”
Yuri was sure that Seiryuu was just going to explain to her when they were suddenly interrupted by a loud bang, and soon she felt the window behind her shattering, the glasses piercing into her back. Much to her surprise Seiryuu actually picked her up and held her next to him, preventing from her being seriously wounded. (6)
“You need to stay alive in order to summon me.” he explained simply. Turning he released a jet of blue light, making the presence in front of them visible.
The figure snickered as Yuri fixed her gaze on him, it was the silhouette of a man who appeared very slender and tall, clad in full black with long white hair hanging at his side, the colour highlighted even more due to the contrasting colour of his robes.
“Tenkou.” Seiryuu said angrily.
Neither the name, nor the appearance of the man, seemed unfamiliar.
“Your chain is breaking every single moment.” The one called Tenkou chuckled out. “I can now follow you as you enter the dream of this woman. You better leave her, Seiryuu,” he continued on with his mocking. “Otherwise your will soon find your precious priestess gone for the second time.”
With the ending of his sentence thick vines crawled around Yuri, chocking her. Beside her, Seiryuu snapped his fingers, the vines immediately disappeared, but her body was still bruised, proving that what happened was no illusion.
Tenkou chuckled again and waved his hand, ropes shot out this time, they were much thicker then the vines and instead of fixing them self around her lower body, they climbed up to curve around her neck.
This time Seiryuu had to close his hand over the rope and tear it to get rid of it.
“What will you do next time, Seiryuu? It will not be hard to kill her now as long as you stay with her.”
“You will know when you can summon me.” Seiryuu whispered to Yuri before he picked her up and threw her away from him. “Remembering all that happened last time!” (7)

As with any society, the gathering of the whole village ended up with a dance, providing an opportunity for both courting and the chance of lovers being together.
The father of the new born children spend most of the time showing his children off to the rest of the village, as one expected of him. It was clear that he was very proud of being the father to these twins, although most people realize that he really just wanted to be by the side of his wife, who was resting due to the birth.
“Seishuku, don’t you want to dance as well?” Miaka asked when she finally was able to take a break from dancing with Ryoen and the rest of the visitors to the village.
“Do you wish to dance with me, Miaka?” he asked well naturedly. “I certainly will not mind dancing with my sister in law!”
“Can I claim that honour instead, Seishuku?”
The speaker was a young woman who seemed to be around Seishuku’s age. She was dressed in the traditional dress of Konan with her hair gathered up on either side of her head. Miaka immediately felt that this woman seemed one of those typical ideal female in ancient Chinese and Japanese history, the ultimate symbol of pure and extreme femininity: quiet and gentle. (8)
She also seemed so sad, there was a smile on her face but it did not reach her eyes, therefore it could be not be labelled as a true smile.
“Seika…” Seishuku acknowledged quickly. “Let me just do an introduction first, this is Miaka, my sister in law as she is Yuri’s sister. Miaka, this is Seika, Shoka’s younger sister by one year. You have already met Shoka, she is Ju-An’s fiancée.”
“Will you dance with me, Seishuku? I would like to dance but I don’t want to dance with anyone else other then you or Ju-An, and he is dancing with my sister right now.”
“Seika…” Seishuku sighed slightly as he handed his twin children to Miaka. “You don’t have to be like that, you know. It’s not as if you are engaged to Hojun and even if you are…”
The rest of his words were lost to Miaka as Seika took his hand and led him away. But what she heard was enough to make her become rather excited.
“RYOEN!!!” she yelled the moment he made his way beside her with Taka, both juggling the plate of foods she had declared to want to eat. “Who is Seika?”
“Seika? You mean Shoka’s sister?” following the direction that Miaka pointed to, Ryoen nodded. “Seika also is…was Hojun’s girlfriend.”
“Was?”
“Well…Seika had been Hojun’s girlfriend since they were little, just as Shoka had been Ju-An’s girlfriend. Ju-An and Shoka got engaged and everyone thought that Seika and Hojun would be doing so too. Then on Hojun’s eighteenth birthday he said that he would be making an announcement that day…”
That event completely broke Seika’s heart because Hojun never once told her that he would leave her in such a fashion, and after he said that he was leaving he actually told her that he would not blame her if she wanted to be with someone else in the full view of the whole village.
Despite Seika’s declaration that she would not never be anyone else’s girlfriend there was still a large group of hopefuls who attempted to court her, but the only other man she would talk to beside her immediate family would be Seishuku, who was the one of the best friend of the man that she love.
Seishuku tried to comfort her as much as he could, but he could not lie to her by assuring her that Hojun would soon come back, because he himself was both unsure and surprised that Hojun would really leave the village. He had heard of his friend expressing a wish of exploring the world, but he never once thought that it would be like that.
“Since they were little the two sisters would often play with my brother and his two best friends, and as they grew older my brother would often purposely leave the two couples. He didn’t mind that much as he always told me they were opportunities for him to spend time with me.” Ryoen concluded with a rather wistful sigh.
Upon hearing this story Miaka shook her head hard, very angry. She remembered what Chichiri had told her and she had always hoped that Hojun would be able to find the happiness that he had lost when he was Chichiri, just like Mitsukake. But it seemed that once more he let the one he loved slip away from him…