The Wings of Dreams

forward.
    “Because he’s got the best name in the whole world. A shushi like Gankyuu can never let him go.”
    “I told you—” Gankyuu started to say. At the top of the hill, Seisai waved his magnificently long tail.
    “They’re here.”
    Rikou narrowed his eyes. A cloud of dust rose up beyond the hill. A rokushoku came over the top of the hill, followed by a whole company of kijuu. With Seisai in the lead, they nimbly descended the steep slope.
    Shushou gaped at the sight. So did Gankyuu. Crowded among the plainly attired goushi were women in brightly-colored kimonos. Stranger still, one of the thirty or so kijuu riders was a man she didn’t recognize. He was astride a youma. Not a kijuu, clearly a youma. His golden hair flashed beneath the azure sky like a wave of polished copper.
    Gankyuu and Shushou were momentarily at a loss for words.
    “Gankyuu, that’s—”
    “He most likely is.”
    Shushou turned to Rikou. “Why in the world is the kirin coming here?”
    “I can only think of one good reason.”
    “One good reason?”
    Gankyuu took in the approaching company and grinned. “Yeah, they’re here to meet us.”
    “Meet us? What for?”
    “What do you think?”
    “But who?”
    Rikou chuckled. “I was born in Sou. And Gankyuu—”
    “I was born in Ryuu. And I’m pretty sure the haku was born in the Yellow Sea.”
    “But—” Shushou sputtered.
    Rikou clapped her on the shoulder. “Alas, only one person here was born in Kyou.”
    “You can’t be serious.” Shushou clung to Gankyuu’s side. “What am I supposed to do?”
    Gankyuu patted the dumbfounded girl on the back. “You and your luck reeled in a wizard and now a kirin. What is there left to say?”
    A girl with the kind of good fortune that could reel in an entire kingdom. There was only one thing left to say: But of course.
    “Go.”
    Gankyuu gave her a gentle push. She took two steps and looked back in confusion. Leaning against the haku, Gankyuu pointed with his finger. Rikou smiled and motioned with his hand for her to keep going.
    She nodded and walked on, meeting the company at the base of the hill.
    The goushi were there, Kinhaku among them, along with an anxious Shoutan. The women she didn’t recognize must be wizardesses from Mt. Hou.
    Shushou stood there paralyzed. They all dismounted and knelt on the ground. It’d make sense if they were bowing to the kirin. But why were the wizardesses and the goushi bowing to her ?
    Only the man with a bright, friendly face and the head of copper hair remained in the saddle. For a long minute, he took in the girl in front of him. His eyes narrowed. He smiled with relief and joy. He dismounted. Despite his large, sturdy frame, he moved with an effortless grace, alighting on the ground without a sound.
    “Um—” said the bewildered Shushou.
    He walked up to her and knelt down. “I have come to see you,” he said with another genuine smile, the words ringing with faint and haunting reverberations.
    “Um, me?”
    “Yes, you.”
    The expression on his face struck her as that of a man who had just met with the most extraordinary stroke of good luck.
    “Really?”
    He nodded. “I could sense your Imperial spirit all the way from Mt. Hou.”
    Shushou took a good hard look at him. She’d commandeered Keika’s kimono, run away from home on a moukyoku, left Renshou in the middle of winter, and crossed Kyou to the Yellow Sea. Looking back on it now, she realized she’d covered a staggering distance.
    In that moment, an irrepressible impulse arose from the back of her brain. Shushou raised her right hand. The company watched in amazement and winced in unison as the little girl biffed the big man across the top of his head.
    “Then why didn’t you show up when I was born, you darned silly fool!”
    The kirin looked up at her in stunned disbelief. The girl’s young cheeks flushed bright red. Her shoulders dropped and she let out a long breath. A smile rose to her lips.
    The kirin smiled as well, from the bottom of his heart, and bowed his head low to the ground.

Postscript
    A small black dot appeared high in the skies above the Yellow Sea.
    It headed due south, gliding above the Sea of Clouds, crossed the Kongou Mountains, and emerged into the skies over the Red Sea at the southern tip of the Yellow Sea.
    The black dot continued on its southward path across the bright blue waters. A day and a night later it came to the borders of Sou, the southernmost of the eight contiguous