[Saiunkoku] The Path Not Taken

[runiclore]

The Path Not Taken
Author: Amber Michelle // myaru
For: Mademoiselle Butterfly
Request: Shuurei, Juusanhime - friendship. Develop their views on love and their future as women; no pairings, no male characters.

Notes: Set near the end of book 14, before Shuurei leaves the capitol.

Posted anonymously here at saiunkoku_fic for the 2008 secret santa exchange.



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Shuurei entered the Ran Princess's rooms at her sing-song call to come in! and set her books down on a bamboo table by the door. She didn't visit often, but she came around enough to know where Juusanhime preferred she leave her shoes - on the left side, not the right, because you never knew when she'd have to hide behind the arc of the door to stab someone - and walked in past the painted screens instead of waiting for the other girl's voice to bid her forward. The princess was pounding at something in a mortar at the table by the window, frowning at it, then at a piece of paper at her elbow. The thunk thunk of the stone pestle was louder than Shuurei's footsteps, and the smell - it was herbs, and flowers, and it reminded her of an overgrown kitchen garden.

"I've never been good at this." The pestle thunked into the green sludge she was mixing, and Juusanhime shoved it across the table. "Making incense for him will have to be your job."

Shuurei folded her hands over her stomach, working her fingers into a tight weave. "It sounds like I don't have to tell you about it after all."

Juusanhime leaned back in a slump, hands dangling, working under her silk sleeves. "Heard about it last night when I went in with his new robes. He's such a polite emperor. I wish my brothers were that nice."

Yes, he was polite - and kind, and well-meaning, and Shuurei was beginning to see why her father said Ryuuki needed a ruthless associate, and the ways she herself failed to serve. "Shuuei is perfectly nice," she said, putting a hand on her hip. "He's never been anything but courteous."

"You didn't grow up with him. Let me tell you how obnoxious he is--"

Shuurei used a wooden scraper to clean the mortar out while the Ran princess poured water into a porcelain bowl to wash her hands and pick bits of rosemary and mint from beneath her nails. Her brother may behave now, she said, but he was a pest when they fostered with the Shiba family, like a mosquito. He'd nag her until she would spare with him, and pouted and slammed doors when she won their matches - he's better now, but he lacked focus when we were kids. He didn't get serious until Prince Seien embarrassed him in a public tournament.

Seien is the one who sounds rude, Shuurei commented, and Juusanhime laughed a little longer than she expected. Well it's true, isn't it? That's a horrible way to teach someone a leson, and the Ran princess grinned and said, you have no idea.

Shuurei brushed bits of lavender from the paper with the incense recipe. All the right components were on the table - lavender, rosemary, mint, balsam, honey. The instructions were in Shusui's handwriting, the edges blotted with oil and fingerprints, and the last character was blotted with a drop of honey that was still wet and sticky. Juusanhime trailed off, and Shuurei was aware of the silence, but she couldn't look away from the last letter: open. It was the wrong one; rather than the character referring to the opening of bottles or pots, it invoked the opening of doors and windows.

There were only two doors for Shuurei - two paths. She'd always known they would never merge into one. They weren't meant to be, not in her situation; another woman with another suitor might find a way to work at court and handle her family life, but she was allowing herself to be caught by an emperor, and everything she did once she entered the inner palace would reflect on him and her own family. Nobody was scruitinized as closely as the imperial concubines. Which would receive the honor of being called 'empress?' Which would bear the first son, which would bring more prestige?

Which was more beautiful?

The door was closing on the path she wanted, and Shuurei felt her stomach flutter, as if her body thought she could run and stop it before the latch locked and trapped her on the wrong side.

She wasn't beautiful. She wasn't graceful. Shuurei knew the municipal code by heart, the property laws, especially as they applied to exports from the provinces, and the code of conduct for officials. She knew the technicalities on which an official of any standing might be incarcerated on suspicion of sedition or embezzelment, and she'd started studying the clan and family histories - a little late, maybe, but better than never. The puzzle of the court, the noble and exam factions, was slowly becoming clearer.

"I'm not good at this sort of thing." Shuurei put the paper down when it trembled, and reached for the pouch of lavender. She measured two spoonfuls of dried buds into the stone mortar.

Juusanhime stopped her when she reached for the mint, her hand warm, her fingers strong and rough, like Seiran's were. "Your family isn't like mine." Her grip tightened. "You can say no."

Shuurei took a deep breath, let her hand be pressed to the tabletop. Lavender was supposed to be a meditative scent, but it lanced through her nose, her sinuses, and she thought she might sneeze. "It was bound to happen. Even if I married someone else, as a woman--"

"I could have argued with my brothers." Juusanhime let go of her, handed her the pot of mint. "It doesn't matter if the emperor wants to marry me. If he rejected Setsuna's gesture, I would be given to someone else. That's the fate I was born with, but you-- when your uncle led the Kou clan he sponsored you as an official. Now that your father leads the clan, he's giving you a choice."

Shuurei opened her mouth to ask how the Ran princess knew that - even she didn't know about her uncle until her involvement with the Civil Administration case - but she clenched her teeth together and measured the mint, just a little, just enough for a refreshing undertone to the scent, and kept silent. Kouyuu knew all that time, so Shuuei probably did as well. Why not his sister? "It's not really a choice."

She saw the other girl frown in her peripheral vision. "I thought you were amazing for breaking tradition and getting into court. You still are."

"After he asked me..." Shuurei twisted the pestle into the leaves, wrinkling her nose at the strong scent it released. The Ran princess propped her chin in her hand, leaned on the table, but she didn't look directly at her, choosing instead to stare into the bowl. "I think this time I can do more as the Kou princess. That's all."

Juusanhime sat back, picking at her nails. The thin snick snick and the grind of the pestle filled the silence. Her eyes gleamed when she turned toward Shuurei again, lit blue like the jewel of Ran province when the light illuminated her face. "Once you enter the palace, there's no taking it back."

"I know."

"It's dangerous to live in a place like this. I'm not going to let you sit still and get poisoned."

Shuurei breathed a short laugh. "Will you teach me how to fight?"

"Absolutely! Do you know how many times you were almost killed the last time we were here? Honestly, Shuurei--"

She swallowed the lump in her throat, the taste bitter like tears, and smiled.