Work Text:
In Hakkei Palace, as in each king's palace in every kingdom, three temples stand. One houses the roboku, where the king may pray for blessings for the people. Another shelters the white pheasant that cries only twice. The third is a smaller shrine, a single hall, octagonal in shape. Perhaps few outside the palace know what its walls enclose: a lone sapling, lithe and green, whose bloom is the rarest in the world.
*
Taiki peered at the sprig of green, then glanced up. "What grows on it?" he asked, thinking of uncanny fruit.
"A flower," said the king. "So the histories say." They stood together at the shrine's center, both of them dressed in robes of state. "I've never seen it. Only king and Saiho are permitted here." Until lately, Gyousou had been neither. He crouched as if to study the sapling from Taiki's point of view. "In most kingdoms they never bloom."
"Why don't they?"
"It seems they can't unless the kingdom thrives. But that's not the sole condition. It's never bloomed in Sou."
Taiki had learned enough on Mt. Hou to know that Sou's reign had outlasted any other living kingdom's, that Sourin's home had flourished for hundreds of years. The sages had never mentioned anything about auspicious flowers. The sapling's leaves looked glossy, sleek to touch. Taiki shied from stretching his fingers to test the impression. What would it look like, he wondered--the rarest flower? Even Master Gyousou didn't know. It was something they might find out together.
"Maybe it'll bloom for us?" he ventured, then bit his lip.
Gyousou's smile was faint, but it reached the corners of his eyes. "Heaven permitting." After a beat he added, "When you've grown a bit."
"Me?" asked Taiki in surprise, but Gyousou swept himself upright, still smiling, and said nothing more.
*
In the long years intervening--the Long Winter, people came to call it--Taiki forgot about the little tree. When he and his master at last returned together to Hakkei Palace, and he revisited the shrine, it was only to wonder mildly that it had been spared Asen's sword. Or torch, for that matter. But perhaps Asen had been unable to cross the threshold. Perhaps the eight-sided walls had resisted flame.
Springs passed, and with time and struggle the country recovered. Thrived, even, as much as any northern kingdom could. Summer came on unseasonably warm. Taiki tugged at his silk collar, on the verge of a sweat from his trek across the palace grounds. When he passed the half-forgotten temple, his glance fell on its eaves, and an odd whim waylaid him. He entered through the gate where only kirin and king could pass.
He burst out again almost as quickly, heart at a gallop. He hurried to the Residence through the closest gate, and made for the king's study.
"It's blooming!" he said--blurted, really--when he reached the desk where Gyousou sat at his administrative work. "The little tree. The rare one." Its name escaped him, if indeed he'd ever known it. He subsided then, abashed at his outburst. Of all the things to interrupt the king with when there was work to be done.
For a moment Gyousou looked blank, and then the blankness shifted to alert neutrality. If a glint flickered in his eyes, down in the depths, like a kindled or rekindled ember, he banked it well. He set down his brush.
"Is it," he said, in a level tone.
Taiki paused, attuning. "Is that...not good news?"
"It's very good news. What does it look like?"
The flower shimmered in his mind's eye, even as Taiki shook his head. He could paint it, maybe, on a good day. Words were no use, and still.
"It's beautiful," he said.
A smile seemed to lurk then, somewhere around the outskirts of Gyousou's mouth. "As suspected." He put his papers in order and rose. He came to where Taiki hovered in the garden doorway, and stopped at Taiki's side, close enough that for a moment his nearness and the volume of his presence swayed Taiki like the force of a cresting wave--not away from him, never away, but toward. He looked down at Taiki in a way that made Taiki forget to catch his breath.
"Will you show me?" he asked.
*
They went together to the shrine. As they walked, Gyousou took Taiki's arm, in a gesture so natural and of such courtly ease that Taiki could only lean into it with helpless pleasure, and then applaud himself for neither tripping over his feet nor floating upward from the path into midair. It wasn't out of the question. He could be nearly weightless when he chose, consciously or otherwise--could tread on cloud and wind. More easily done with hooves, though. The heat of the day no longer fazed him. He scarcely noticed it at all.
They entered the shrine, and stood before the little tree. The single flower shone among the leaves, in a color that astounded the eye.
After a silent moment Gyousou knelt, as if to pray, but he didn't pray. He looked at Taiki. He reached to trace the lobe of one bright petal, with due reverence, but as if he had every right to touch.
"A glory," he murmured. "I knew it would be. If I should be so lucky."
"It's not luck, Master," Taiki said, with authority that seemed inexplicable, even to himself.
"Still. I'm sensible of the honor."
When he offered his hand, Taiki accepted it, then sank to the floor, longing to fold against his side. Instead he stayed upright, striving for dignity, but his sense of surety deserted him. His fingers clung to Gyousou's hand.
"What happens now?" he asked, eyeing the flower. Could it last? What if it withered? The thought filled him with miserable dread. But if there could be trees that bore children, if there could be flying tigers and birds that spoke, if the true king could be restored to the throne of Tai in spite of everything, maybe there could be a flower that bloomed and bloomed for always, and spread its heady fragrance between the two of them, here, in this quiet place. As it was meant to, unfading.
He gave up on dignity, and let himself pitch into Gyousou's side. Immediately a warm arm enfolded him.
"We go at your pace," Gyousou was saying, still low. "As we have been."
"Have we?"
"Once I learned not to get ahead of myself. As you taught me." His other arm came around Taiki, and his hand slid beneath the fall of Taiki's hair to cup the nape of his neck. He lowered his head to look Taiki in the eye, searching, at dizzying close range, until their brows nudged. "Am I getting ahead of myself?"
Between that gaze and the flower's scent, Taiki's head swam. Another purl of heat began to build, not around but in him. He knew it now for what it was. A flush spread from his ears to his neck under Gyousou's hand. He closed his eyes. Without budging his brow from Gyousou's, he shook his head.
"Tell me if I do," said Gyousou, and braced to gather him up.
*