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Part Five: Insight
Chapter One: Precognition - Reiki
Reiki walked down the corridor towards Shima’s quarters by herself. She was hoping that he would have settled in by now, seeing as he had only came to the Moon Kingdom the day before. It had been several years since she had last seen her brother before he had left with the Lord Phoenix and now she wanted to get to know him again.
She figured that one of the best ways to revive their faded bond was to bring him into her circle. After all, the citizens of the Realms feared him and his abilities nearly as much, if not more, than they feared her and her companions. If she could just – she didn’t know exactly what she wanted him to do, but it would be great to have her brother back again. He wasn’t just her brother, after all. He was her dearest friend, her confidant, and her teacher as well. And she just couldn’t see why he couldn’t be the same to her friends.
That decided, she knocked timidly on the simple oaken door she had just arrived at. Moments later, the door opened silently on its well-oiled hinges.
"Yes?" came Shima’s husky baritone voice, preceding his appearance in the portal by an easy 15 seconds at least.
And finally, Shima stood before her in the entrance. He was dressed in the simple outfit he wore when he practiced his Arts. Black silken pants covered his legs with a strangely attractive manner of loose and tight areas. His feet were incased in simple black leather slippers without socks and a long, black, silk sash wrapped its way two or three times around his lithe waist. His torso was bare, revealing a exquisite assemblage of wiry chest and abdominal muscles. His long qui was wrapped several times around his neck, visible testament to its length. The rest of his midnight black hair spiked wildly about on his head as he refused to use the traditional oils that would slick his hair down neatly. His arms bore the marks of one long accustomed to the Arts of War. Finally, but his wrists were incased in the intricate bands of gold and steel that served him as bracers. Reiki could only blush at the sight of her handsome brother before her.
"Well? Did you need something, Reiki, or were you just wanting to stare?" his mild question interrupted her reverie.
Reiki blushed even deeper at that. "I’m sorry, Shima. I-I just wanted to ask you to-to come with me and –" she stammered.
"And what, Reiki?"
Reiki looked up and met his eyes. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she finally continued. "I want you to come meet my friends, big brother. Will you?"
Shima looked at her for a short time more then shrugged. "I suppose I could do that. Do I need to dress fancy or anything, little sister?"
"Nuh-no, Shima. You don’t. They’re in the training hall right now."
He shrugged again. "Ok. Just let me grab my shirt."
Then he vanished only to reappear moments later wearing a sleeveless leather jerkin that was unlaced and his scarlet cloak over his pants and sash combo from moments ago.
"Well, lead the way, little sister!" he finally stated with a smirk as he gestured grandly towards the corridor exit.
**********
Reiki could not believe that that had happened! How could Akai attack her brother so vehemently?! So, he was a boy! He was her _brother_ for crying out loud! He was supposed to be a boy!
And the others attacking them as soon as they walked in the room! At least Minanoai and Kina had the decency to look abashed at that gross injustice, but that childish girl, Akai! Sometimes Reiki found it hard to believe that her and gentle Amilia were twin sisters!
She continued in a similar fashion well into the night.
**********
Reiki slipped silently across the freezing cold stone flags of her brother’s chambers into the Sacred Fire antechamber. She knew that she didn’t exactly have Shima’s permission, or the permission of the Lord Phoenix, to be there, but she was worried about Shima. He had left three days before to join Serenity’s Prince Endymion on Earth in order to assist the noble young Prince in ridding the Terran High Kingdom from its recent bandit infestation. Which really wasn’t a big deal. The problem was that he had failed to send any form of contact back to lunar soil to inform anyone of his well-being. Even Akai had failed to hear from him.
Which was what led to Reiki’s invasion of the sacred realm of the Sacred Fire antechamber. As soon as she entered the presence of the blazing bonfire that was the Sacred Fire, she bowed in obsequiousness to its amazing demeanor. Then there were preparations to attend to and she was kept busy for the next two Terran hours, all the while silently blessing the fact that she didn’t have to relight the Flame, which would have easily added another three Terran hours to her tasks.
It was quickly nearing the middle of the night before she was able to fold her legs properly underneath her and begin the ritual that would allow to use the Flame as a medium for her thoughts. Her hands and fingers flashed through the intricate movements with the practiced speed of one who had spent many time periods weaving through the same movements over and over. Her dark, flashing eyes were closed, though not very tightly. Her red lips softly formed the ritual words in that strange Terran language that Shima had insisted she learn, though her pronunciation bore a rather distinct and pronounced Martian accent.
"Ayro, Pin, Tou, Ryü, Sin, Jo." She whispered, though her voice echoed strongly throughout the uniquely seamless chamber.
Then, in the back of her mind, she felt more than heard the mysteriously strange chuckle that she had began to associate with her link with the Flame as much as the bright and comfortable warmth which spread through her body. As her consciousness sank slowly into the flickering depths of the Flame, she gently began sketching out the details of her request. Who she wanted to find. Where he was likely to be located. What the cause behind her quest was. And many other questions helped to fine-tune and further focus the probing spark that was her consciousness in the Realm of the Flames.
After some time searching she eventually found the brilliant scarlet essence that she associated with Shima riding on the muted, dull brown and gold essence that was the charger he rode on Earth. All in all, she was quite happy with finding him so quickly, but something didn’t seem quite right. She couldn’t exactly put her finger on it, so she focused her mind on it instead. The something off became immediately apparent as soon as she allowed her attention to back slightly away from Shima and became aware of the surrounding. Suddenly she knew that he was in battle and that he had a companion. He was uninjured, so the battle didn’t bother her nearly as much as his companion on the brown and gold steed.
The other essence was a veritable bonfire of scarlet traced with gold flickers. At first, the extreme similarities between the stranger and her brother made her think that it was possible that the odd one with him was his soul mate, then she looked closer and noticed the thin piece of crimson thread that ran from the center of his soul to somewhere high above him and smiled slightly. Then she began a more in depth search of the unusual essence with him. She was quite startled to realize that it wasn’t another soldier on the steed’s back with Shima as she had originally thought, but instead carried the distinct traces of lighter shades within the essence that declared in no uncertain terms that the owner of the essence was of the feminine variety.
Suddenly, the bonfire girl disappeared from Shima’s steed to soar across the battlefield towards a rather nasty looking sickly green and yellow aura a good fifty to seventy-five Terran feet away. As Reiki watched, she was certain that the girl would fall far short. But most startlingly, the girl’s essence abruptly flared with a powerful influx of the Lord Phoenix’s energies!
The girl cleared the distance between Shima and the sick aura easily, in fact, with distance to spare. As her essence landed on the sick aura, the sick aura suddenly began to flicker then faded away. Even as Reiki watched, Shima rode over and the girl appeared back behind him, the touch of Lord Phoenix’s energies completely omitted from the essence again.
Reiki wondered about the strange girl for sometime, but ever time her consciousness tried to fix upon the surge of Phoenix Force, she heard, felt, whatever, that strange and mysterious chuckle in the back of her mind. Which made her thoughts tend to want to avoid that particular avenue of reasoning after a time.
Not long after, Reiki finally decided it was time to stop and withdrew from the fire and began the long ritual to finish a "reading" as Shima called it.
**********
Reiki tried to think about the girl some more as she headed back to her chambers wearily. But her mind just didn’t want to focus. It kept straying off on wild jaunts to hither and yon.
Finally, she decided, as she hauled herself into her room and prepared for bed, that she would just wait and see if the girl came back with Shima to the Lunar Realm. If she did, then she could ask the girl herself about the brief influx of energies. And beside, Reiki thought climbing exhaustedly into bed, she could always be nice to the poor soul and maybe end up with another friend out of it.
It was a shame that she only remembered her decision to try and make a new friend after she woke up the next morning.
**********
Reiki stood silently on the balcony that overlooked the gardens in a strangely pensive mood. Shima had been very upset about something for the past week and he was still refusing to come and talk to her about it. Which was, quite understandably, driving her nuts.
She knew that he had talked with all of the other girls, with the possible exception of Akai. But then, who really ever went to Akai when they wanted to be cheered up? To be honest with herself, Reiki could only see Shima going to deliberately see Akai when he was looking for some serious abuse. That girl had a definite anger problem. Which, for whatever reason, Shima generally chose to ignore or displace.
She had to admit that Shima had some kind of way with the fiery Mercurian that behaved much more like a native born Martian instead of one of the cool and collected Mercurians. No one had really ever bothered to get close enough to find out what made her tick. The only thing anyone really knew was that she utterly despised boys. And no one actually knew why that was, with the possible exception of her twin sister Amilia, and she certainly wasn’t talking.
Reiki sighed and slumped slightly to lean on the railing with her forearms. She wanted to help. She really did. She just didn’t add up like the other girls did. All she was, was the little sister of the great and wonderful Phoenix Prince. Who cared that he was once a rather gawky boy that no one really liked too much? Who bothered to remember his fascination with books and dusty old tomes that drove their father to distraction on more than one occasion? No one, that’s who. No one, except Reiki.
She knew. She remembered. It wasn’t like she could help it. All of her memories, as far back as she could remember, involved Shima in some way. Her dim memories of life as a babe in arms, she was looking up into the smiling face of Shima. Her mother had died shortly after her birth, and her father nearly openly rejected her just because she was a girl, and not considered "worthy" of his praise or attention. So Shima had filled in. He had been the father that she could hardly remember. He had filled the shoes of their dearly departed mother awkwardly, but much more skillfully than the evil witch that had crowded into their lives with their father’s court marriage.
Her face screwed up in wry disgust at that thought. She really shouldn’t have let her mind wander towards their step-mother and that odious little child of hers. Ugh. To think that a member of the Royal Martian Family would stoop so low as to actually wed one of the petty queens of the Lower Earthian Kingdoms was bad enough. But why couldn’t their father at least had the decency and good taste to choose anyone BUT Morriganna of the Fire Kingdom! That woman put the bad into bad taste! And that boy of hers! Zoicite? What kind of name was that? Wasn’t it some kind of nasty rock or something? It suited that ugly whelp to a T.
She slowly regained her temper with the thought that Zoicite had been reclaimed to Earth to serve and obey the High Kingdom. Which was not a task that the young pest had been any too thrilled about. Nor had his mother. She kept trying to claim that he was the ‘proper heir to Mars’ and as such could not possibly be reclaimed by Earth. As if! Zoicite would never, could never, be the ‘proper heir to Mars’ even if there was such a thing! Even if he could, he never was fit enough to sit the War Throne, despite the fact that he was three months older than Shima.
Reiki managed a low chuckle at that thought. The War Throne was the literal and metaphorical icon of the Martian way of life. It was a physical struggle to even rest upon the Throne momentarily, something which, Reiki was proud to say, she had managed on her thirteenth birthday, thus winning back the Heirship left vacant with the calling of her brother to the Phoenix’s side. As Amilia had once commented, the kingdom names came from the Old Tongue after all.
Mars meant, literally, War. A martian was a warrior in the Old Tongue. Just as jovian was creator and mercurian was a scholar. The center of the Realms was where it was because Lunar meant Royalty. Which was why they existed in the Lunar Realms.
Reiki hadn’t exactly expected it, but she was suddenly broken from her silent reverie by a very familiar tread on the flags of the balcony where she resided. She spun around in a suddenly much better mood, only to get worried all over again when she saw the disconsolate look on his face.
"Oniisan?" she whispered, reaching out towards him.
**********
It had been fun to run about with Shima on the balcony. It was as if they were kids all over again, without all the worries and hardships they faced on a day to day basis.
She nestled herself more snugly into his arms as the massive wings of flame that were required to carry Shima and her weight, even with the relatively low gravity of the Lunar landscape, flickered and flashed as they cut their fiery swaths through the crisp air. It was warm in her brother’s arms, with the fiery essence that was a quintessential part of him seeping through to help regulate their body temperatures in the cool of the night air.
She drifted off to sleep as he tucked her into her bed and brushed the raven hairs from her brow with a gentle palm. As she did, she briefly thought upon the fact that Akai was a very lucky girl.