The Wings of Dreams

Gankyuu sitting slumped against the stone wall blankly watching her and the haku. She ran over to him.
    “Are you okay? Does it hurt?”
    He managed a smile. “Stings a bit.”
    “There’s no need to fib. That must hurt like the blazes.” The boy’s very human tone of voice confused Shushou all the more. “Miss, the wound needs to be cleaned. Draw some fresh water.”
    Shushou bobbed her head, wrung what remained out of the leather water bag and filled it from the spring. Setting it down, she took hold of Gankyuu’s hands and helped him to his feet. Coming to a standing position, he glanced at the boy, who was tending to the fire.
    “Shinkun—”
    The boy glanced back at him, only waiting for the rest of the sentence.
    “Thank you. For the haku too. Much appreciated.”
    “Give your thanks to Heaven. You are simply the beneficiaries of very good fortune.”
    Shushou scrutinized him as best she could without staring. Gankyuu called him Shinkun and he’d responded.
    “Kenrou Shinkun,” she said aloud.
    Squatting next to the fire, Shinkun turned his attention to her.
    “But you look like an ordinary human being.”
    He laughed a very human laugh. “I don’t recall ever being anything but. Here, let me help you.”
    He lent Gankyuu a shoulder. Shushou followed them to the spring. They sat Gankyuu down. Shushou took off his boots and chaps, undid the dressing around the wound and washed it off.
    “I never thought,” Gankyuu mused, “that Shinkun was a real person.”
    “Well, if you don’t consider wizards people then you would be correct. I am a simple Tensen, a wizard of Heaven.”
    “A Tensen.”
    “Like a Hisen, a wizard of the air. They live a little longer than most but are by birth never anything but human.”
    “Huh,” said Shushou. “Do you serve the gods of Gyokkei?”
    “Good question, that.”
    “Then you don’t?”
    “Enough of the third degree,” Gankyuu interrupted.
    Shinkun only reacted with a small smile. “Tensen do not, as a rule, interact with humans. So perhaps we should stick to the matter at hand and avoid unnecessary tangents?”
    “Oh. Sorry.”
    Shushou apologized and concentrated on Gankyuu’s leg. She washed away the dried blood with a wet cloth. Amazing, she thought to herself. If Shinkun was a human being, then maybe the rest of the Gods were too. And somewhere there might be a real Gyokkei, a kingdom where they all dwelled.
    “There are more mysteries in this world than I would ever have imagined,” she mumbled aloud. She said to Shinkun, “This okay? Oh, I mean, do you think that is all right?”
    Shinkun said with a wry smile, “Don’t fret the formalities.
    He bent over Gankyuu leg. Gankyuu was rooting through one of his travel packs for something. Shinkun stopped him and took a small bamboo flask from the bag attached to his armor at his waist.
    “Do you have a fresh cloth there?”
    Shushou hurriedly got a clean hand towel from the pack. He poured some of the liquid in the flask onto the towel and applied it to the wound. He capped the flask and handed it to Shushou.
    “Take this. Have him drink some if it starts to hurt too badly. There’s not a lot but it should tide him over until the wound heals.”
    “Um, what—” is this, she was going to ask. He spoke first.
    “You don’t appear to be a koushu.”
    “Well, I’m not. I’m going to Mt. Hou.”
    Bandaging Gankyuu’s leg, Shinkun glanced over his shoulder at her. “You?”
    “Yes, me. Gankyuu is a shushi. But I, um, had him come with me as a goushi.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    The blunt dismissal could help but get Shushou’s goat. “I am fully aware of how ridiculous that might sound.”
    “Why would a child like you think of going on the Shouzan in the first place?”
    “Because I thought myself a worthy vessel.”
    “Shushou,” Gankyuu chided her under his breath. She paid him no heed.
    “You certainly aren’t lacking for self-confidence.”
    “My professors taught me there was nothing wrong in believing in yourself.”
    “And pride goeth before a fall. Would you even understand what being empress involves?”
    Shushou felt the blood rushing to her cheeks. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Koushu and wizards, they were one and the same when it came to this subject. “I’ve had it to here with this attitude that I can’t comprehend something because I’m a child! Do you think I would have come to the Yellow Sea in the first place if I didn’t know what