The Twelve Kingdoms: The Shore in Twilight

He was chosen from among the first pilgrims traveling to Mt. Hou for the shouzan. "
    The kirin chose the king. Or rather, it was through the kirin that the Mandate of Heaven was expressed. The kirin were born and raised on Mt. Hou in the center of the world. When a kirin became old enough to choose the king, a flag was raised at the temple in the middle of the kingdom. All those desiring to be king journeyed to the Yellow Sea and set forth to Mt. Hou. There they met with the kirin, who ascertained the Divine Will on their behalf. This was called the shouzan, meaning the "ascension of the mountain."
    "He was a king who ascended the throne like a sudden squall. It's said that a rain squall doesn't last the morning, and a raging heat quickly cools. Some also say that a whirlwind king will be a strong oak or a leaf in the wind. One or the other."
    "Huh."
    "On the other hand, seeing that over ten years had passed in the interim, calling the Royal Tai a whirlwind king is perhaps not appropriate. In any case, The Taiho of Tai would be a fellow countryman of Your Highness."
    "Ah," Youko said with a nod. "A taika like me. The Royal En has said a much."
    Youko was born in Yamato, the distant, mythic land at the far reaches of the eastern seas where the streets were supposedly paved with gold. However, Yamato was not the actual land of her origins. Yamato was "there," and now she was "here." That was the only way she felt comfortable describing the difference. The one was always a dream world to the other, though rarely the two did intersect.
    Youko had been swept away during one of those rare crossings of worlds, and then she had returned. That's what it came down to. She grasped that much in her mind, but didn't feel it in her bones.
    She'd been swept away while still in embryonic form. In this world, children were born from the raika --the "egg fruit"--that grew on trees. When "here" and "there" crossed, the raika that contained Youko was swept away to "there." She was "alive" but had not yet born. Her embryonic life found its way to the womb of a Yamato woman and nine months later she was born.
    Naturally, she had no memories of the raika. As far as she was concerned, she'd been born and raised as an utterly ordinary child. Even after learning that the truth of her existence was entirely different--even being brought here and told that she'd been "born" here and that she was Empress--it was no different to her than being dragged down an Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit hole.
    Though she could hardly swear to it in court with a clear conscience, she probably had been born that way. The fact that she was here was pretty hard to dismiss, and so that had to be the way things had been.
    That was how she dealt with her reality. She'd returned from there and reigned as empress for two years. There was like a fantasy world to her now. And being born and raised in the exotic land that was Japan was something she'd experienced in a dream.
    "Taiki is how old?" she asked herself.
    Behind her Keiki answered. "I believe he was ten when the Royal Tai was named king." Keiki was the kirin of Kei who had brought Youko back from Japan and seated her upon the throne.
    "The enthronement was seven years ago, so that'd make him about my age." Knowing that another person shared the same dreams as herself, Youko felt a strange sensation come over her. Perhaps they dreamed of the same phantom country. Perhaps they dreamed even of the same places in that same phantom city. When she'd been a young child, another child like herself--a kirin--had been there too.
    How extraordinary. According to what the Chousai and Saiho were telling her, this child of her dreams had been part of her reality.
    Youko knew of at least two other taika in this world: the Royal En and the Saiho of the kingdom to the north of Kei. Together they'd built a great, five-hundred year dynasty. They were taika, but the medieval Japanese they spoke was equally fantastic. Theirs was the ancient Japan she read about in history textbooks and saw in the illusions painted on the silver screen. It was all the same fantasy, but their Japan was not the same Japan that haunted her dreams.
    She had acceded to the throne with the help of Enki and the Royal En. The stormy seas they had seen her through left her forever in their debt. But Youko had never felt the same way around them as she did now. She'd never felt that they'd emerged out of the same dream as herself.
    But she and Taiki could have