[That toast gets another laugh out her, a longer one that has her shoulders quaking. She hopes that emperor sneezes right about now — let him wonder who is talking about him tonight. Youko would usually sip her drinks, but if she is keeping pace with a vigorous drinker, well. She throws her own cup back with clear practice, enjoying the faint, sweet flavor as it slides down her throat for a moment before refilling both their cups.]
Well, I can't possibly serve guests bad food or drinks. Think of the imperial dignity, how it would suffer.
[Youko assumes he means the gardens. She was weened on Shouryuu making passes just to fluster her and he practically lives in the brothels of En, so anything short of what she finds egregious slips beneath her notice these days. Glancing around the garden — perhaps a little lacking on a traditional garden, more rock than manicured plants — she smiles, softly.]
I'm glad it passes muster, but I should take you down to the shore before you go.
[The Sea of Clouds is a literal title, after all. Where they sit above the cloud line exists another ocean, casting its own tides of rain water and unshed storms against the side of the mountain. It is her favorite part of living here, so much so that if it wouldn't have resulted in giving her staff more work, she might have moved the rokushin to another building, nearer a view of it. It reminds her of home — her old home.]
You want the provenance of the snacks?
[She laughs against the rim of her cup, and takes a sip before answering.]
My kitchen staff made the flatbreads and cakes, they know I like them so there are always plenty kept on hand in case of something like this. The rice cracker-peanut thing was something I asked En Taiho to get from Hourai — [She adds on a quick clarification.] — from the place I was born. I cut all the fruit, and filled all the flasks.
[ Since she'd said she'd prepared them. Of course most people of importance considered the work of their staffs to be their own, but when Youko flaunted such expectations from the start he'd considered that she might be speaking literally.
Now he turned a slice of peach over in his hand. Cut by an empress. That made it a rather rare thing, if you thought about it... but it was cut by an empress to be eaten, so there's really nothing else to do with it, is there? Down it goes, followed by another full cup. ]
If you take me to the shore I might just take you swimming.
[ He laughs and flexes his wings slightly; he knows perfectly well what she means. They use a similar naming convention where he's from. ]
I think if I had used the kitchen to actually cook, I would have really gotten in trouble.
[Youko gives him an apologetic smile while refilling his cup. The truth was, she wasn't half bad at cooking. She had grown up learning how to from her mother, one of the humble tasks of a girl, but she hadn't cooked anything much harder than boiled water for tea since ascending. (And even doing that got her disapproving looks.) Messing with the imperial kitchen stores was a surefire way to be found out, and the ovens were a little more difficult than what she was used to.]
You'll have to settle for the spread being heavy on good drinks and light on the 'homemade' snacks.
[She downs her cup to keep up before refilling both their cups. She laughs, just the slightest edge of a giggle creeping in as he flexes his wings.]
I think the only way my shadows listening in don't rat me out for accepting that offer is if we let them come with us.
I wasn't expecting it. Mostly wanted to know how far you'd pushed things with the court. I know how they react to... sullying your hands.
[ He just keeps putting them down as fast as she pours for him. Whether its the alcohol or just him slowly unwinding from his less-than-relaxed everyday state as they talk, he is wearing a smile when he puts the cup down again.]
Your shadows? Is that why you have this... leeway with your guests you were telling me about?
It's not like they disguise that I'm not their favorite ruler, though I am slowly ousting the loudest, entrenched of the bunch.
[She is lockstep with him on drinks, her smile loosening up just a bit the only real indication that she's had as much as she has. She refills their cups from the next flask.]
No, not really. The last little stunt — [A little bit of code for 'assassination attempt'.] — had Keiki adamant that I be more careful. Two of his servants — oh, no, three of them are keeping an eye on us as we speak. That bit of leeway is really just because my regular guests are of high status. I've sort of asked for a wait-and-see policy if at all possible.
Like pulling teeth, I'm sure. [ Not that he can say much. It had been beyond his imagination, to try to change how things were done, back when he was in the middle of it. ]
You're a lot stronger than you look, aren't you?
[ He means in terms of will... though it could probably be taken as a comment on her drinking too. Keeping up with someone who outweighs her a few times over even for this long. ]
And do his servants have their own wings? Carrying four would be awkward. And if I was up to anything nefarious I'd just drop them anyway...
I think what makes it hard is that they can live forever. They get so set in the formalities and processes from a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago—
[It is like pulling teeth. She is more than happy to keep the civil servants who are passionate about their roles, who want Kei to thrive. It is the ones clinging to status even after she ordered kowtowing minimized, the ones angry she puts official they deem lesser in high positions that are the headache. She needs an effectual court to do her best for Kei and has been fighting to put that in order since she took the throne.
Maybe one day she'll have it.
Youko downs her cup with those thoughts swirling around in her head, laughter brittle while she pours a new drink.]
I don't think so. I'm just hanging on by my fingernails most of the time.
[Whether she understood him and meant her will or believed the question to be about her drinking is left for Calhir to guess at.
She reclines in her seat, letting her head loll to the side, hair cushioning her cheek on against shoulder.]
[ He can't answer that with much but a sympathetic nod. His species is long-lived but his homeland was too small to have much in the way of middlemen and functionaries; immortal bureaucrats are well outside his experience. And even if they were...
He does, though, take her second answer for being addressed to the more serious topic. ]
Hanging on by your fingers is where you need the strength.
[ He clicks his claws together, contemplating them. Easier than looking someone in the eye when he's confessing. ]
[Youko listens to him with a distant look in her eyes, swishing her cup, watching the how the liquor churns and ripples the reflection on the surface. Watches him clack his claws in miniature, eyes rolling up to look at the real deal. She lowers her voice, not wanting to be heard beyond their table, truly only wanting him to hear this. No one in Kinpa Palace needs to know her drunken anxieties. Her words are cautious, deliberate, not a single syllable meant to diminish his words. Just her drawing the line between their different circumstances.]
But you have wings, Calhir.
[Failure is the destruction of the land. Failure is Keiki sickening. Failure is abdication because she couldn't cut it, and abdication is her death. Just like the last empress.]
Back then it didn't feel like it. It felt like I was tearing them off.
[ His response is the same; there's no argument in the words. The distinction she draws is correct in many ways, including the most literal: the abilities he was born with, the strength of his body, are enough to allow him to survive almost anywhere. He lost many important things when he ran, but the risk to his life itself was far less than it would be for most people, let alone Youko.
And yet. He understands that feeling of responsibility. His was not so all-consuming, but he was still raised to believe he was the favor of their god for his chosen people given form. ]
[It is a kind offer, one she won't turn down, and the atmosphere was getting too heavy. What better time to share his wings? She starts to set her full cup down before thinking better of it and downing the sweet baijiu in one shot, a satisfied smile on her slightly heated face, then placing down the empty cup and getting to her feet with a slight sway.]
How? You'll have to tell me what to do.
[They'll have to go to the eastern side of the palace, where there is false shoreline made out of a ridge on the mountain. She often takes Keikei down there to play. She puts a hand out to Calhir, and grins expectantly at him, waiting for him to take her up on the offer.]
Riding astride is for horses and consorts, your majesty.
[ His tone is determinedly neutral. He probably shouldn't have said anything at all, since it seems far more likely she'd made an empty tipsy comment than an insinuation. But the way she's grinning does make him want to joke. And maybe push his luck, which here is a word standing in for those unseen boundaries of comfort. ]
Carrying you in my arms is most comfortable. If you'll put your arms around my neck...
[ He kneels down. The intimacy of the position isn't entirely lost on him, but he's been doing this for a long time, since he was young, usually for quite pragmatic reasons, so... it's mostly lost on him. And the alternatives are all awful. He could just carry her in those big ol' bird feet but it would be incredibly undignified and uncomfortable by comparison. Under her arms doesn't look as bad but it's still pretty awkward and less secure. On his shoulders forces him into some really inefficient and difficult forms of flight... and so on. ]
[Youko had meant it as innocently as could be, not an insinuation to be found in her head, so his reply does make her blink up at him wide eyed and flushed. Her grin doesn't drop off, so much as soften with the warmth overtaking her face.
It is hardly the first time she's been caught out by a joke like that, just the first time around Calhir. At least, she thinks that was a joke. The neutral tone is one she struggles with even sober. It takes her and her floating mind a moment to manage to tack on any comment at all.]
And— and kijuu —
[He doesn't take her offered hand, so she retracts it just in time to watch him kneel down. Even if he says it is the most comfortable, that is certainly not a position she's used to being in, and she feels awkward stepping into his personal space, carefully looping her arms up around his neck.]
I'm not going to be pulling on anything like this, am I?
[ He wraps his arms around her, one supporting her body and the other her legs as he picks her up-
-and then the earth recedes, as his crouch becomes an inhumanly high leap becomes the first and second beats of his great wings, a furious first second of ascent that carries them far above stone shore and most of the roofs of the palace. He spends another few seconds in a gentler climb, then banks so that she's facing the mountain, the now-shrunken cliffs and buildings and points of lamplight. ]
Can you see it?
[ He's never gotten an exact grasp on how good - or from his perspective, bad - human night vision is. ]
[Incorrect, but she only realizes that as the speed of their ascent makes her lose her breath, a lightheadedness joining the warm haze of alcohol in her bloodstream. Youko clings on tighter, idly hoping she isn't pulling at any plumage with her hands by mistake while trying to refill her lungs with steady breaths.
The first thing her eyes see, adjusting to the dark void his wings are keeping them hung in, are the fast moving figures of Hyouki and Hankyo chasing up from the palace, her poor shadows as disarmed by Calhir's speed as she was. She tries to turn into the wind, angling her head so her hair on the breeze doesn't whip them both blind. Then the night on a wider stage becomes shades of blues and blacks she can parse, and she can see Mount Gyouten, smaller, dotted in miniature by pinpricks of lanterns and rooftops catching moonlight. It is something she may have seen when they first marched on the capital, not that she remembers much beyond the fighting. It is so small and fragile looking to her.]
That— yes, I can see it.
[She doesn't feel brave enough to lean back, but she relaxes her grip just a little.]
[ Even if it makes her struggle, even if it fights her. ]
I don't think the distant view is a false one. There are things you can't see from afar, and things you can't see up close, but they're both views of the true thing.
[ He waggles his wingtips at the shadows as they draw closer, a salute of sorts... though perhaps there is a little mockery in it, for being forced to catch up. His life has delivered a few lessons in humility, some of them sharp and lodged close to the heart, but not so much that they've killed his pride entirely. Especially not when he flies.
Then he wings over - a stomach-turning maneuver for his passenger, most likely - and rolls, so that his body is between her and the palace with its earthly light. There's just the sea of clouds below and, where they're facing, the sea of stars above. ]
At night it's difficult not to favor the stars, though...
[ There is the ultimate in distant, untouchable beauty. Never to be marred by knowledge of any other truth. ]
[Her gaze has drifted away from Mount Gyouten, down through the water of the sea below them, to the few village fires still burning this late, dotting the seabed — that is Kei itself — in between reflected stars.
She smiles softly at how many there are now, even if all she can see is Ei Province sleeping. The mountain palaces were always the least touched by the march of destruction — bureaucracy lived on between each ruler, after all — so if asked what is a more beautiful sight, it would be those living beneath the clouds. Her people.]
You're right. You have to change your point of view over and over to see the whole picture.
[Hyouki and Hankyo reach the area just below them and drift along, watching carefully over the scene, not interceding yet, though clearly poised to do so. They're too well-behaved to snarl at Calhir's little jab at their pride, and merely call out to Youko — "Your Majesty!" — in two refined, surprisingly human voices.
She is just starting to feel relaxed when Calhir rolls them. It hardly takes a moment, but her fingers dig into the plumage at the back of his neck as the world goes ass over tea kettle, and Youko swallows a scream, heart in her throat. She has gotten comfortable flying in the years since, but she fell into this world from the sky, and was baptized in the Void Sea. The fear that it could happen again doesn't live far from her other anxieties.
If Calhir intended to show her the stars, all he has regrettably succeeded at is getting her to cling to him, face buried against his chest.]
[ He's surprised, honestly. Despite the lows of their conversation earlier, she has always given him an impression of strength. Or, no... her ability to share her worries was, to someone like him, part of that impression. He's never thought of her as someone who would scare at the jolts of flight.
But then, he lives and breathes flight. Knows his own wings. Isn't relying on just the grip of two pairs of arms to keep him in the sky.
Surprised too at how good it feels. Warmer than it should. He remembers that when he was young the 'blessed', the winged ones, would do that kind of thing, doing stunts so attractive passengers would hold them tight, hearts pounding. The kind of thing that seems very stupid after just a few of those long, long years between adolescence and adulthood, but the years aren't quite so long that he doesn't still appreciate the result.
He rolls all the way over, onto his back, so that his chest is under her, and pats her back. It's a terrible way to fly, that even with all his excess of strength and stamina he can't keep up all that long, but it can serve for a moment. ]
[She doesn't need to apologize necessarily, but she can't stop herself. At least, it gives her something to do while trying to catch her rabbit-fast heartbeat and breathing, shoulders hunched up to her ears as her cheek rests against fine scales. The feeling of him patting her back is grounding, soothing.
With their combined efforts, she calms down enough to open her screwed shut eyes and pick her chin up. She meets Calhir's gaze with an embarrassed smile and a shaky laugh, the flush on her face a mixture of how rattled she was by the maneuver and the effects of the white liquor in her belly.]
[ He strokes her gently as he can while she calms, though the need to keep a hold on her makes the gesture a little more forceful than might be ideal. She feels small - or maybe it would be more accurate to say 'her real size', without the magnification of personality or title - like this.
He smiles back when she looks up, a slightly apologetic cast to his brow. And tamps down the little voice that says 'do it again' when he sees how flushed she is. ]
I will.
...this is what I love about them though. How quickly you can move when you catch the air. The ones who just float around like your servants may have most of the uses for it but they haven't half the joy.
[Though she feels a little like a house cat being pet too strongly, the feel of him stroking her back does help plenty. Her shoulders relax and Youko gently loosens her excessive hold on Calhir, apologizing as her fingers release the downy feeling feathers at the back of his neck, hoping she didn't dislodge any by the fistful.
She can only sort of imagine what he means as he talking about catching the air. She finds herself thinking of a lost feather drifting on the breeze, and how quickly it could shift directions when he makes his jab at Keiki's shirei. It startles her again, but pleasantly, making her laugh, and turns her smile a much less strained. That said —]
You didn't bring me up here just to show them up did you?
Abduct the empress just to start a race I know I'd win? Hardly.
[ For the first time he flashes real grin at her. The arrogance of youth, which he'd once had such a surfeit of, and now mostly shows itself for this topic alone. Nor does the flippant denial sound completely sincere. He would enjoy showing them up a little...
But he's here to show her a good time, honest, so no race is in the offing. ]
I did offer to take you for a swim in the sea of clouds, didn't I? Up for it?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[ When she's poured for them both, he raises his cup in a toast. ]
To youth and indistinction.
[ He quaffs the cup in one gulp. He has been dropping hints he's a strong drinker up 'til now, so probably no surprise. ]
See, I knew it would be good...
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[That toast gets another laugh out her, a longer one that has her shoulders quaking. She hopes that emperor sneezes right about now — let him wonder who is talking about him tonight. Youko would usually sip her drinks, but if she is keeping pace with a vigorous drinker, well. She throws her own cup back with clear practice, enjoying the faint, sweet flavor as it slides down her throat for a moment before refilling both their cups.]
Well, I can't possibly serve guests bad food or drinks. Think of the imperial dignity, how it would suffer.
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[ He means the gardens, but that could pretty easily come off as flirting. He has been paying more attention to her hair than the landscaping.
He pushes the cup out for another fill, sampling the fruit she's laid out as he waits. ]
When you said you prepared this yourself...
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I'm glad it passes muster, but I should take you down to the shore before you go.
[The Sea of Clouds is a literal title, after all. Where they sit above the cloud line exists another ocean, casting its own tides of rain water and unshed storms against the side of the mountain. It is her favorite part of living here, so much so that if it wouldn't have resulted in giving her staff more work, she might have moved the rokushin to another building, nearer a view of it. It reminds her of home — her old home.]
You want the provenance of the snacks?
[She laughs against the rim of her cup, and takes a sip before answering.]
My kitchen staff made the flatbreads and cakes, they know I like them so there are always plenty kept on hand in case of something like this. The rice cracker-peanut thing was something I asked En Taiho to get from Hourai — [She adds on a quick clarification.] — from the place I was born. I cut all the fruit, and filled all the flasks.
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[ Since she'd said she'd prepared them. Of course most people of importance considered the work of their staffs to be their own, but when Youko flaunted such expectations from the start he'd considered that she might be speaking literally.
Now he turned a slice of peach over in his hand. Cut by an empress. That made it a rather rare thing, if you thought about it... but it was cut by an empress to be eaten, so there's really nothing else to do with it, is there? Down it goes, followed by another full cup. ]
If you take me to the shore I might just take you swimming.
[ He laughs and flexes his wings slightly; he knows perfectly well what she means. They use a similar naming convention where he's from. ]
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[Youko gives him an apologetic smile while refilling his cup. The truth was, she wasn't half bad at cooking. She had grown up learning how to from her mother, one of the humble tasks of a girl, but she hadn't cooked anything much harder than boiled water for tea since ascending. (And even doing that got her disapproving looks.) Messing with the imperial kitchen stores was a surefire way to be found out, and the ovens were a little more difficult than what she was used to.]
You'll have to settle for the spread being heavy on good drinks and light on the 'homemade' snacks.
[She downs her cup to keep up before refilling both their cups. She laughs, just the slightest edge of a giggle creeping in as he flexes his wings.]
I think the only way my shadows listening in don't rat me out for accepting that offer is if we let them come with us.
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[ He just keeps putting them down as fast as she pours for him. Whether its the alcohol or just him slowly unwinding from his less-than-relaxed everyday state as they talk, he is wearing a smile when he puts the cup down again.]
Your shadows? Is that why you have this... leeway with your guests you were telling me about?
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[She is lockstep with him on drinks, her smile loosening up just a bit the only real indication that she's had as much as she has. She refills their cups from the next flask.]
No, not really. The last little stunt — [A little bit of code for 'assassination attempt'.] — had Keiki adamant that I be more careful. Two of his servants — oh, no, three of them are keeping an eye on us as we speak. That bit of leeway is really just because my regular guests are of high status. I've sort of asked for a wait-and-see policy if at all possible.
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You're a lot stronger than you look, aren't you?
[ He means in terms of will... though it could probably be taken as a comment on her drinking too. Keeping up with someone who outweighs her a few times over even for this long. ]
And do his servants have their own wings? Carrying four would be awkward. And if I was up to anything nefarious I'd just drop them anyway...
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[It is like pulling teeth. She is more than happy to keep the civil servants who are passionate about their roles, who want Kei to thrive. It is the ones clinging to status even after she ordered kowtowing minimized, the ones angry she puts official they deem lesser in high positions that are the headache. She needs an effectual court to do her best for Kei and has been fighting to put that in order since she took the throne.
Maybe one day she'll have it.
Youko downs her cup with those thoughts swirling around in her head, laughter brittle while she pours a new drink.]
I don't think so. I'm just hanging on by my fingernails most of the time.
[Whether she understood him and meant her will or believed the question to be about her drinking is left for Calhir to guess at.
She reclines in her seat, letting her head loll to the side, hair cushioning her cheek on against shoulder.]
No wings, but they fly all the same.
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He does, though, take her second answer for being addressed to the more serious topic. ]
Hanging on by your fingers is where you need the strength.
[ He clicks his claws together, contemplating them. Easier than looking someone in the eye when he's confessing. ]
I didn't have it. I let go.
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But you have wings, Calhir.
[Failure is the destruction of the land. Failure is Keiki sickening. Failure is abdication because she couldn't cut it, and abdication is her death. Just like the last empress.]
If I let go, there is only the fall.
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[ His response is the same; there's no argument in the words. The distinction she draws is correct in many ways, including the most literal: the abilities he was born with, the strength of his body, are enough to allow him to survive almost anywhere. He lost many important things when he ran, but the risk to his life itself was far less than it would be for most people, let alone Youko.
And yet. He understands that feeling of responsibility. His was not so all-consuming, but he was still raised to believe he was the favor of their god for his chosen people given form. ]
Will you share my wings for a night, then?
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[It is a kind offer, one she won't turn down, and the atmosphere was getting too heavy. What better time to share his wings? She starts to set her full cup down before thinking better of it and downing the sweet baijiu in one shot, a satisfied smile on her slightly heated face, then placing down the empty cup and getting to her feet with a slight sway.]
How? You'll have to tell me what to do.
[They'll have to go to the eastern side of the palace, where there is false shoreline made out of a ridge on the mountain. She often takes Keikei down there to play. She puts a hand out to Calhir, and grins expectantly at him, waiting for him to take her up on the offer.]
I only know how to ride astride.
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[ His tone is determinedly neutral. He probably shouldn't have said anything at all, since it seems far more likely she'd made an empty tipsy comment than an insinuation. But the way she's grinning does make him want to joke. And maybe push his luck, which here is a word standing in for those unseen boundaries of comfort. ]
Carrying you in my arms is most comfortable. If you'll put your arms around my neck...
[ He kneels down. The intimacy of the position isn't entirely lost on him, but he's been doing this for a long time, since he was young, usually for quite pragmatic reasons, so... it's mostly lost on him. And the alternatives are all awful. He could just carry her in those big ol' bird feet but it would be incredibly undignified and uncomfortable by comparison. Under her arms doesn't look as bad but it's still pretty awkward and less secure. On his shoulders forces him into some really inefficient and difficult forms of flight... and so on. ]
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It is hardly the first time she's been caught out by a joke like that, just the first time around Calhir. At least, she thinks that was a joke. The neutral tone is one she struggles with even sober. It takes her and her floating mind a moment to manage to tack on any comment at all.]
And— and kijuu —
[He doesn't take her offered hand, so she retracts it just in time to watch him kneel down. Even if he says it is the most comfortable, that is certainly not a position she's used to being in, and she feels awkward stepping into his personal space, carefully looping her arms up around his neck.]
I'm not going to be pulling on anything like this, am I?
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[ He wraps his arms around her, one supporting her body and the other her legs as he picks her up-
-and then the earth recedes, as his crouch becomes an inhumanly high leap becomes the first and second beats of his great wings, a furious first second of ascent that carries them far above stone shore and most of the roofs of the palace. He spends another few seconds in a gentler climb, then banks so that she's facing the mountain, the now-shrunken cliffs and buildings and points of lamplight. ]
Can you see it?
[ He's never gotten an exact grasp on how good - or from his perspective, bad - human night vision is. ]
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[Incorrect, but she only realizes that as the speed of their ascent makes her lose her breath, a lightheadedness joining the warm haze of alcohol in her bloodstream. Youko clings on tighter, idly hoping she isn't pulling at any plumage with her hands by mistake while trying to refill her lungs with steady breaths.
The first thing her eyes see, adjusting to the dark void his wings are keeping them hung in, are the fast moving figures of Hyouki and Hankyo chasing up from the palace, her poor shadows as disarmed by Calhir's speed as she was. She tries to turn into the wind, angling her head so her hair on the breeze doesn't whip them both blind. Then the night on a wider stage becomes shades of blues and blacks she can parse, and she can see Mount Gyouten, smaller, dotted in miniature by pinpricks of lanterns and rooftops catching moonlight. It is something she may have seen when they first marched on the capital, not that she remembers much beyond the fighting. It is so small and fragile looking to her.]
That— yes, I can see it.
[She doesn't feel brave enough to lean back, but she relaxes her grip just a little.]
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[ Even if it makes her struggle, even if it fights her. ]
I don't think the distant view is a false one. There are things you can't see from afar, and things you can't see up close, but they're both views of the true thing.
[ He waggles his wingtips at the shadows as they draw closer, a salute of sorts... though perhaps there is a little mockery in it, for being forced to catch up. His life has delivered a few lessons in humility, some of them sharp and lodged close to the heart, but not so much that they've killed his pride entirely. Especially not when he flies.
Then he wings over - a stomach-turning maneuver for his passenger, most likely - and rolls, so that his body is between her and the palace with its earthly light. There's just the sea of clouds below and, where they're facing, the sea of stars above. ]
At night it's difficult not to favor the stars, though...
[ There is the ultimate in distant, untouchable beauty. Never to be marred by knowledge of any other truth. ]
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[Her gaze has drifted away from Mount Gyouten, down through the water of the sea below them, to the few village fires still burning this late, dotting the seabed — that is Kei itself — in between reflected stars.
She smiles softly at how many there are now, even if all she can see is Ei Province sleeping. The mountain palaces were always the least touched by the march of destruction — bureaucracy lived on between each ruler, after all — so if asked what is a more beautiful sight, it would be those living beneath the clouds. Her people.]
You're right. You have to change your point of view over and over to see the whole picture.
[Hyouki and Hankyo reach the area just below them and drift along, watching carefully over the scene, not interceding yet, though clearly poised to do so. They're too well-behaved to snarl at Calhir's little jab at their pride, and merely call out to Youko — "Your Majesty!" — in two refined, surprisingly human voices.
She is just starting to feel relaxed when Calhir rolls them. It hardly takes a moment, but her fingers dig into the plumage at the back of his neck as the world goes ass over tea kettle, and Youko swallows a scream, heart in her throat. She has gotten comfortable flying in the years since, but she fell into this world from the sky, and was baptized in the Void Sea. The fear that it could happen again doesn't live far from her other anxieties.
If Calhir intended to show her the stars, all he has regrettably succeeded at is getting her to cling to him, face buried against his chest.]
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But then, he lives and breathes flight. Knows his own wings. Isn't relying on just the grip of two pairs of arms to keep him in the sky.
Surprised too at how good it feels. Warmer than it should. He remembers that when he was young the 'blessed', the winged ones, would do that kind of thing, doing stunts so attractive passengers would hold them tight, hearts pounding. The kind of thing that seems very stupid after just a few of those long, long years between adolescence and adulthood, but the years aren't quite so long that he doesn't still appreciate the result.
He rolls all the way over, onto his back, so that his chest is under her, and pats her back. It's a terrible way to fly, that even with all his excess of strength and stamina he can't keep up all that long, but it can serve for a moment. ]
You okay?
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[She doesn't need to apologize necessarily, but she can't stop herself. At least, it gives her something to do while trying to catch her rabbit-fast heartbeat and breathing, shoulders hunched up to her ears as her cheek rests against fine scales. The feeling of him patting her back is grounding, soothing.
With their combined efforts, she calms down enough to open her screwed shut eyes and pick her chin up. She meets Calhir's gaze with an embarrassed smile and a shaky laugh, the flush on her face a mixture of how rattled she was by the maneuver and the effects of the white liquor in her belly.]
Warn me. Please. I really don't have wings.
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[ He strokes her gently as he can while she calms, though the need to keep a hold on her makes the gesture a little more forceful than might be ideal. She feels small - or maybe it would be more accurate to say 'her real size', without the magnification of personality or title - like this.
He smiles back when she looks up, a slightly apologetic cast to his brow. And tamps down the little voice that says 'do it again' when he sees how flushed she is. ]
I will.
...this is what I love about them though. How quickly you can move when you catch the air. The ones who just float around like your servants may have most of the uses for it but they haven't half the joy.
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She can only sort of imagine what he means as he talking about catching the air. She finds herself thinking of a lost feather drifting on the breeze, and how quickly it could shift directions when he makes his jab at Keiki's shirei. It startles her again, but pleasantly, making her laugh, and turns her smile a much less strained. That said —]
You didn't bring me up here just to show them up did you?
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[ For the first time he flashes real grin at her. The arrogance of youth, which he'd once had such a surfeit of, and now mostly shows itself for this topic alone. Nor does the flippant denial sound completely sincere. He would enjoy showing them up a little...
But he's here to show her a good time, honest, so no race is in the offing. ]
I did offer to take you for a swim in the sea of clouds, didn't I? Up for it?
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