Yumi smiled easily at Ryuuen. Even in the saddest moments, her grandmother's brilliant males always knew what to say. They might not all give her the physical contact she sometimes needed to recenter herself. Still, each of the seven geisha bound to her grandmother had their own ways of interacting with her Queenly granddaughter. Growing up with Hinata as her role model and the seven daggers her best templates for how her future males should act, she well understood the purpose of men in a Court, how easily they could pull her back from blinding anger or crippling sadness. Ryuuen's hugs, his familiar scent, did more to ground herself than the distraction of her face in the mirror.

"Of course," she said, "I suppose there's something to be said for Grandmother and I living in the same place, for the moment." Hinata would be returning to the Territory Court, probably, to oversee the Interregnum. It rankled that her poor grandmother should be pulled back into service, just as it bothered her that there was a male in a seat that ought to be a Queen's. She did understand the reasoning, but she didn't want it to be happening. Ishiyo no Izayoi had failed not only her people but the whole of Tacea. At least the Queen had had the good sense to run.

She turned her attention back to the basket, which was now occasionally growling and lurching as Ryuuen picked it back up. "From Naoji-kun?" Her heart jumped in her chest, up into her throat. If it was from Naoji, certainly it was something wonderful; she knew now it was something alive, from the way the basket trembled. She accepted the basket, settling it down in her lap as she sat at the vanity again. Carefully, she loosened the lid and placed it on the floor. Then she looked at her gift.

It was a tiny white shiba puppy. Yumi gasped, delighted by the carefully groomed little creature and its tiny bark; very carefully, she slipped her hands around it and lifted it--no, him!--up. It was easy to see how enchanted she was, her dark eyes practically full of stars as she ran her fingertips over the puppy's ears and cradled him to her chest. "He's beautiful, Ryuuen!" And so squirmy! Yumi slid off the chair to set her new puppy down on the floor, cooing as the little white shiba took a few steps forward, cautious in its investigations. "Does he have a name?" Surely Naoji would have picked a beautiful one... or perhaps Yumi was meant to? She puffed out her cheeks as she watched the puppy toddle about.

Zhihao noticed how little Seung ate of his dinner before setting the box aside, but said nothing. Perhaps the Warlord Prince would come back to it later. It was, after all, difficult to eat and focus on business at the same time. The spymaster set his own meal aside as well, not wanting to make Seung feel self-conscious, and picked up his teacup once more as he nodded along with his host's words.

"Of course I can do that," he said reassuringly. Assessing backgrounds was hardly different from assessing threats - which was perhaps why he'd taken Ishiyo no Izayoi's sudden snap so personally. He hadn't seen it coming. There was nothing in the profile he'd assembled on her to suggest she was even capable of such... such violence. Such madness. If something so glaring could slip past him - what other threats had he missed?

But Seung Corro hardly needed to hear his insecurities. Only his confidence. And though he was in the latter half of his life, An Zhihao was still very much in his prime.

"I am certain such a woman exists," he said, "Even if she is not a daughter of the four great clans." For he'd discussed as much with Hinata, and was certain Seung was on the same page as them both. "And I am certain we will find her."

He paused to take a long sip of his tea, appreciating the flavor. If he was not invited back to Seung's office, who could say if he would ever taste Tang pekoe again?

"Did you have anything else you wish to discuss, Prince?" he asked when he lowered the cup.

Elenor squeezed her eyes shut but it did no good. The words, the questions, they were inside her, where they had always been. It made her skin crawl on the inside, her Self pull back from each invisible blow. They were all howling, teasing demons created to fight this descent into the Self, to keep Elenor from touching upon the pain deep at the heart of it all.


In stories when the protagonist looked into themselves wisdom popped up. Elenor waited, but none did, there was no easy revelation or poetic words drawn from a font of truth buried deep. There was, instead, an awkward voice saying, what answer does he want? What answer is right?

The questions kept pelting her like raindrops. Let go of her confusion? How, everything here was confusing and scary! She didn’t know enough not to be confused even though she had worked so hard to learn. Study, ask questions, memorize, learn, and all of it for nothing because it didn’t seem to matter how much information she acquired, there was always something missing, something she ought to...ought to know...and…

Her head throbbed and her chest ached, fingers flexing as if to reach for something no longer there as her chest constricted, a fond tightening around her and…

Breathe.

The inhale was sharp. Air filled her lungs and throat, diaphragm expanding to hold it, then contracting again as it left. Her heartbeat there, in her chest, in her Self. They matched at that point and that point only, it seemed. Elenor could feel the disconnect like the time one of her joints had slid out of place. Painful, jarring, wrong. Three pieces, all neglected in their way.

A body allowed to suffer and starve for food and touch and still be asked for more.

A mind expected to come up with answers to questions that had none.

A soul that had no grounding, no anchor or care put into why it was hurting.

The Heart was the only thing that bound the three. Flesh and Blood that powered Mind that housed Soul that gave purpose to Body. Solid, grounded, sure.

The heart had no questions, it knew, but were there words for the truths it held? They didn’t seem the sort of things that had words. They were too concrete and deep for words, and as she focused in on that feeling housed there, let it open and unfurl from long slumber…

Pain.

The sheer intensity of it made her gasp, her chest aching as she felt the wave crash through her, out her parted lips and down her cheeks as tears.

Carried on that wave was…everything

Who are you?

Abaddon had given her part of that answer.

I am a Queen

Compassion hit her first. The compassion she had been forced to put away the first time she stared at a rabbit and snapped its neck so she could eat. Every living thing she touched that had sung to her over all the long years, calling for her, yearning for the touch of a woman who wasn’t just a guardian of the Land but a part of it. The pain there was of innocence lost. It was the sense of the harm done with her every deed began to be stacked for a reckoning that had never come on a scale that she could never hope to balance because of anger-

It hit her next, like fire racing over each of her nerves, setting them alight with that new pain, though it was cleansing. Fury, also visceral and innate just like the compassion had been, a part of her that was not name or memory but primordial instinct, a rabid, feral protectiveness and myopic short-sightedness. That too she had stuffed away, scared at what she had seen another Queen do with that rage. 

Those two conflicting emotions spiraled together within, light and dark, the desire to protect and the desire to destroy, neither given a target but rather just coiled together tighter and tighter until the compassion had turned to stone and the fury melted to sludge, neither able to be true to itself and to her.

“I’m me, there’s nothing more.”

That truth slipped out in another wave of tears. There was nothing more, just these broken, mismatched pieces that should have fit together so easily had each of them not been the anathema of each of the others. Except that wasn’t true, was it?

“I’m a body. I’m here. It’s just me and that scares me.”

1. Purchased a +35 Power Rank item to be applied to her Purple Dusk here.

2. Pending Dash's approval from a wanted standpoint, she's ready for review!

Seung did notice Zhihao's appreciation of the tea. In truth, it wasn't really a fresh batch. The tea was well-preserved with stasis spells; he had bought the blend in bulk when the hibiscus had been the rarest part of it, as he did any tea that he favored. Who knew when it might suddenly vanish from the market? He was a thousand years old and his tastes didn't often change. He drank it sparingly, saving it for guests and friends who would appreciate it. Once, he'd had his own tea blend, but several components had been medicinal herbs from his own garden in Jaejong. Gone, now, like the fields and gardens of Zhong. It was a shame, since he would've liked to put a cup of the tea on his family altar for the spirit of Jang Hye. So much had been lost when Jaejong sank. Remembering it, Seung's shoulders slumped, but he didn't speak on the matter of the tea. It was a personal sorrow.

"Thank you," said Seung, nodding his appreciation over his food. Now that business was at least partially taken care of, he turned his attention to the meal before him as he listened and ruminated on the Zhihao's answers to his questions. It was always wise to watch the Queens, for their protection if nothing else. True enough, the Queens were the dangerous ones. Had his mother not been a more terrifying warrior on a killing field than his poor dead father? But why force them to the edge of their tempers and risk another breakdown like Ishiyo's, or put them at risk for death or pain?

When he was done with his meal--for a Green Jeweled Warlord Prince, Seung often ate worryingly little--he set his chopsticks aside. "As candidate Queens make themselves known," he said, "I'd like it if you would vet them. We need Queens with solid backgrounds, no scandals, no skeletons in their winter storage. This Queen cannot be prone to abdication at the first sign of difficulty or to a psychotic break--solid. Steady. Reliable. If she is not all three of those things, then she cannot be trusted to set us aright." He made eye contact with Zhihao: in public, it would've been unacceptable forceful. In private, it was emphasis.

"If you're uncomfortable with that, now is the time to inform me, so I may turn to another spymaster."