7b - Burning like a Silver Flame
prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
Miyako City
Sendai, Draconis Combine
20 June, 3028
The three other women were gathered in the center of the room around the tea-making table, none having spoken a word yet. It would break with tradition for discussion to start before drinks were poured. A formality, but like all formalities an essential one.
According to tradition, the most junior Miko present was charged with performing the tea ceremony. Usually, the senior priestess would carry out the ceremony, to better emphasize that the Order was socially superior to their visitors. But since the visitors today were also members of the Order of Five Pillars itself, it was the rank of those present that mattered and had to be adjusted for. A situation which only presented itself among meetings of the Order's priestesses or when the Order met with representatives of The Dragon.
Bending at the waist, the Miko in charge of tea--and incidentally the topic of the meeting--carefully fanned the coals on the underside of the table. She focused on the act to the exclusion of everything else, trying not to notice the unlucky number of people in the room and instead place her attention on how to balance how much air she blew onto the coals. They needed more than they currently had, but if she was too enthusiastic they would begin to burn instead of slowly smolder as she wanted.
Rei Hino focused her efforts and only moved the fan with careful, deliberate motions that allowed her the most control over its effects. She still had trouble balancing the heat versus the flames. It seemed as if every time she was charged with tea, the coals became restless at her mere presence and blew up at the slightest provocation. No matter how slowly she fanned them or how little air she let actually pass in, they always burst into fiery displays that had no place in what she was doing.
If she were forging a sword, perhaps the massive pyres of fire she created would be appropriate. Or if she were meeting with particularly despicable people she wanted to subtly show her displeasure towards. But for tea meant for her superiors, that much heat was unnecessary, wasteful, and insulting.
At the moment, being wasteful or insulting was the last thing she needed. With three senior priestesses of the Order of Five Pillars gathered together in the room, the last thing she needed was to make a mistake that would reflect poorly on herself and N'goto's training of her. Particularly considering the topic under discussion.
Rei nodded in satisfaction as the coals, for a change, obeyed her wishes and flared to a black-outlined red-hot glow that was perfect.
As if to spite the thought, a small sputter of orange tried to come to life in one corner. It burned for an instant, but was lacking in fuel and air and burned itself out almost as quickly as it had come. But the fact that it had come was enough.
Her nod died at almost the same time as the flame. Acceptable then, but not perfect. Not perfect by a long shot. She didn't know how she was supposed to do it!
Putting the mistake behind her as best she could, Rei transferred the pot of water onto the grate above the coals. She gave it one quick, light swirl to make sure it would steep evenly, then leaned back into the proper position--head bowed, back straight, and knees together underneath her.
Tyrson was ignoring her, which was comforting. If the Illuminatus didn't notice her, it meant she had done nothing incorrect that would draw her attention. Tyrson's nonverbal vote of confidence was reassuring, even if Rei wasn't entirely certain she deserved it.
Less comforting were the stares focused on her by the two other priestesses accompanying Tyrson. They did not even have the courtesy to try and hide the critical eye they had on her, and Rei felt a twinge of sympathetic embarrassment on their behalf. Amazing that one could rise so high without learning basic courtesy!
When the tea was ready, Rei kept her eyes on her task as she poured it for everyone at the table. She forced her mind to obey the same dictum. She admired many things about the Order. Its inner political workings was not among them. Especially when they had been used to shuffle off her mentor to what should have been an honored position in near disgrace. Being 'promoted' to a position in the orbit of Marcus Kurita, no matter how close it might be to the Coordinator, was a deliberate slap in the face.
What she couldn't figure out was why she was being sent to duties elsewhere rather than stepping-in for her old master as tradition dictated. That thought occupied center-stage in her mind as she set the teapot back upon the table.
"Konichi-wa Tyrson-sama, you honor this humble shrine with your visit. How was your trip?" Rei said after taking a courteously small sip from her cup.
She hid a flinch of anger in her lips behind the cup as Tyrson allowed one of her lessers to answer the question. It was going to be one of those kinds of meetings, then.
"We experienced only minor inconveniences. There was a delay of some days in Sulafat because the helium-tanks on our jumpship required repair and refueling. The captain had grown careless in his maintenance concerns and damaged the jumpship through his negligence. We shall have to hope his second-in-command takes better care of the Dragon's infrastructure." One of the two lower-ranking priestesses said.
"Indeed." Rei responded simply, not willing to grace the verbal trap with any further response.
Her master had been reassigned in disgrace. It was no accident that Tyrson's retinue had decided to share the story of a disgraced leader as their opener. The message was obvious: Serve the Order better than your former master did. The question was what N'Goto had done to deserve such a harsh condemnation.
Rei kept her face impassive as she lowered her teacup and listened politely to the other priestess as she continued. N'Goto had done nothing but serve the Order for as long as Rei had known her. The elderly woman had taken the time to train her in the Order's ways after her first master had been struck by a bus. N'goto might as well have been a mother to her, and the same to at least three dozen others on Sendai! The shrine's attendants and maintainers were made-up of everything from street-urchins and the family-members of dishonored DCMS personnel to the relations of out-and-out yakuza.
Now the Order had thanked N'goto for the sacrifices she'd made in taking in such a wide variety of what otherwise would have been little use to the Combine by shuffling her away. Heaping shame on her as if she had done something wrong by teaching the Order's ways to those in need of them! As if she deserved to be punished for making the Order stronger!
Her own proposed reassignment to be the head miko on another planet, in that context, was more insult than compliment. They thought her a protege of a disgraced priestess who needed to learn the Order's ways further before being promoted to further duties.
She, however, knew there were things of greater importance she should be doing. She could feel it.
"This is a very good brew." Tyrson interrupted, her voice lighter and airier than her juniors. There was the barest trace of an accent behind the Japanese, more guttural and less flowing than it was usually spoken.
Rei jerked upon the realization that Tyrson had spoken because her cup had gone empty. She bowed slightly as she grabbed the teapot and refilled the Illuminatus' cup, thankful that the slight bow allowed her to hide the blush that colored her cheeks at the mistake. Usually tea at these kinds of meetings was little more than a decoration, and she'd already refilled Tyrson's cup once!
She should have been paying better attention.
"It is, isn't it? The best part is that we need not import it from off-planet, either. The locals grow enough to trade with us in return for their ivory." Rei answered, doing a much better job than the other two junior priestesses had of hiding her barbed point behind properly courteous words.
"Sometimes it is the smallest blessings of a place which make it a pleasure to serve there." Tyrson continued.
The words themselves were harmless enough, but now the implications of what Tyrson was saying was clearly worrying the two others with her. From the only half-concealed glances they exchanged with each other, they had expected to speak for their superior throughout the entirety of the meeting.
Rei caught the veiled message clearly, and had to wonder why Tyrson was so friendly to her argument. The elderly Illuminatus was well-known for her conservative bent, which in the Order of Five Pillars was an extraordinary accomplishment. But she was offering implicit support to Rei's point by being so complimentary and accepting. So much so it was throwing off the two inferiors at her side!
To be honest, it was throwing off Rei as well. But she was much better at concealing it than the other two.
The two junior priestesses got themselves under control better in the next few moments, however. With their next words, things returned to the pattern that had been established before. The two underlings spoke to Rei in place of the senior priestess, all while Tyrson did naught but sip at her tea.
Though Tyrson did wave Rei towards her compatriots almost-untouched cups when the conversation began to turn to the actual reason for the meeting.
"The Order has new duties it wishes to ask of you. The senior priestess for Kervil has become indisposed. The Order recognizes you as deserving of her position. Would you be willing to set your affairs here on Sendai in order and make this journey?"
Rei hid a huff of disappointment and offense behind a careful sip of tea. So rude! Worse than that, so shaming for them to bring up the actual business of the meeting so quickly. Tradition dictated at least another fifteen or twenty minutes of courteous small-talk before the actual topic of the meeting was broached. Even then, as host it should have been her who began such discussion by inquiring as to the purpose of their visit. They were skipping over all of that as if it didn't matter in the slightest.
She might have considered her own reaction as excessive, but Tyrson also broke her own facade to tilt her head at the two junior priestesses beside her. The newest members of the Order seemed to have a disconcertingly low degree of patience and a serious lack of respect for the traditions of the Order. Rei knew she shouldn't criticize the two priestesses in such a way, as they were about the same age as her. But they conformed to the stereotype so well she couldn't help but notice it.
She quietly took one hand off her teacup and rubbed it against the side of her robes. This was the part where things would get interesting. She had been exchanging polite but irate messages with other members of the Order for a number of weeks now. She had seen the insult against her master and herself and, mostly at the behest of N'Goto, had been arranging things to her benefit in contesting it for weeks now. Rei never wanted to be involved in the politics of the Order, but she could appreciate it when someone who knew the ins-and-outs as well as N'goto did talked her through how to take advantage of it.
"I have a great number of commitments here on Sendai which demand my attention at the moment, Masood-san." Rei said. Not a refusal, that would be rude. But a negative placeholder that would put the onus on them to either make it into an explicit order or rethink themselves.
She didn't have much hope in them actually reconsidering. But she could force them into shaming themselves by having to break with tradition and order a priestess into a new temple. It was the most extreme protest she could give for her 'disgraced' former master, and N'Goto was worth whatever dishonor she might acquire in others' minds by her own actions.
"Whatever minor concerns the people of Sendai have can be dealt with by the new head miko." The second protege of Tyrson said, crossing her hands over each other in her lap. She hadn't so much as taken a sip from her cup yet, a calculated insult if Rei had ever seen one. But it was almost juvenile in its obviousness. A more accomplished and subtle message would have been to pantomime drinking but let her cup remain full in spite of the act presented.
"The concerns of the Dragon's subjects are never minor. I would be remiss if I did not attend to them as quickly as possible." Rei responded without missing a beat. She tried not to feel smugly satisfied at the purple hue that rose from the other woman's neck at the words, but failed entirely. Where had the Order found such a pair of bumbling ingrates like these, the Periphery?
Tyrson slowly raised one hand and cut-off whatever retort either of her two juniors might have had. She made a small circular motion with her index finger. Clearly trained to react to the gesture, both of the other two priestesses rose and shuffled their way to the shoji-panel door that led out of the tea-room. Masood gave a heated glare before exiting and closing the door, but Rei ignored it as easily as she had every other rudeness the pair had focused on her.
She had to grudgingly admit that the silent way they manipulated the door was commendable. She had expected them to slam it in the same manner as a child throwing a tantrum.
The silence that developed was interrupted only by the soft bump and whisper of Tyrson's teacup floating through the air and being set against the table. Tyrson took a slow, quiet breath and the beginnings of a smile crept onto the edge of her lips.
"Better. Much better." She said, half-closing her eyes.
She went silent again after those three words. Tyrson's entire world became centered around the teacup in front of her, and Rei began to feel like an intruder in her own temple. She dared not say anything to interrupt the Illuminatus' thoughts, and did her best to settle in herself.
Everything seemed to conspire to stop her from copying Tyrson's easy relaxation. A slow fire began to creep up her right leg in protest of maintaining the knees-tucked posture she'd held. There was a bothersome whistle of air from the ceiling where the vent to the rest of the temple and the outside was located. The biting smell of the burning coals seemed to curl into her nose instead of drifting out of the room as it should have.
Tyrson took one final, somewhat-barbaric gulp of tea from her cup and set it back onto the table with a loud clink. She visibly breathed, then pushed the teacup further into the middle of the table. Before Rei could stop her, she picked up the kettle herself and refreshed her cup.
Rei leaned back at the unorthodox assumption of control over the ceremony and replayed the preceding conversation in her mind. There had been four priestesses present until Tyrson had dismissed them, a symbol of disrespect and ill-will in most cases. But Tyrson had taken eight drinks of tea now, which was a subtle message of opportunity that was conveyed when explicitly stating so would be rude or impractical. But how was this supposed to be an opportunity?
"The Order saw fit to burden me with the two neophytes out there to present you with four priestesses in the room." Tyrson said. Her hands floated into the air in front of her to encompass the room around them.
Rei tilted her head, not sure how to take the admission. It was still confusing why Tyrson would admit such a thing. All the power in the symbol was in them not being acknowledged.
"Politics." Tyrson said, as if she could read Rei's mind. The older woman tucked her arms together into the sleeves of her robe and a small frown developed on her face as she stared at the tea set.
"There is discord in the House of the Dragon." Tyrson continued, now almost whispering.
Rei nodded, not trusting her voice to be steady enough to grace the comment with a verbal reply. The ongoing feud between Takashi Kurita and his son Theodore was widely-known in the Combine. The continuing court intrigues engaged in by Marcus Kurita were also destabilizing. But both were deliberately not spoken of. To do so could only promote disharmony and dissension.
"The Keeper is unsatisfied with that arrangement and wishes to make it known in as public a manner as she can." Tyrson stopped, raised an eyebrow at Rei. "She does not, however, wish to be seen as promoting discord. A delicate balance. You allow her to strike that balance."
Rei's mouth went dry. The Keeper of the House Honor of the entire Order of Five Pillars was interested in her?
"Kervil is not in need of a new priestess. A jumpship traveling through that system very soon is. The Keeper wishes to use you as a message to both the Coordinator and Hanse Davion. Only a very junior priestess will do."
Whatever iota of moisture that might have still existed in Rei's mouth disappeared, and she painfully swallowed. She was being used as an insult. Constance Kurita was playing a dangerous game, so half-blatantly insulting the Coordinator. Takashi Kurita would take note of the slight, no matter how it might be able to be formally explained as aimed at Hanse Davion instead of him. Inviting the Coordinator's ire was not typically something a miko would be demanded to do.
At least it explained why her protests had been taken so seriously.
Rei considered her tea for a long moment. When she had reached a decision, she inclined her head towards Tyrson.
The remainder of the meeting passed in a pleasing silence. Rei almost regretted it when she had to escort Tyrson to the exit and reengage with the other two priestesses. She kept the disdain she felt for the two undisciplined priestesses from coloring her actions, but only just.
She didn't know why, but now this felt like the right thing to do.
**********************************
The fasteners that secured the grate over the air return slowly wormed their way out of their tracks. Silently, the entire grate shifted until the only thing supporting it were the pair of black-gloved hands on the inside. Worming its way forward, the figure those hands belonged to slowly exited from the air duct it had hidden inside.
One leg shakily stretching out to rest against the closest of the room’s five pillars, the figure completely removed itself from the air duct. Its entire body seemed to shake and contort in extreme effort as it held itself up just below the grate. It kept the grate it had removed balanced in one hand as it rotated in place, and then reattached the fasteners.
Only when that was done did the obvious fatigue it was under affect it and the black-clad figure dropped from its position. Despite everything, it slowed itself as it fell, and impacted the floor with only a soft whuff of displaced air. Even this would have been too much sound in any other instance, but this was an irregular moment.
Lifting up the stylized cat-mask that he wore over his face, the figure quietly sucked down air that wasn’t loaded with the byproducts of the coal that still smoldered in the center of the room.
Had he known it was going to be a formal, ceremonial meeting rather than the work-session he had suspected, he would have found another place to observe. But his passage underneath always distorted the sound to an almost-indecipherable degree, and the Guardian’s redesign of the ceremonial room after N'goto had left had eliminated the shadows behind the fifth pillar he’d grown too dependent on.
He’d gotten lazy and stupid. Bored with his seemingly endless observations, he’d become secure in the knowledge that nothing would disturb them. The head of their Miharu No Seishin had suffered the same failing years before, and carelessly walked in front of an oncoming bus. That carelessness had landed the Guardian in the charge of the Order of Five Pillars temple instead of in the more benign safekeeping of the Nekakami. He and his four companion spirit-cats had much to make up to the Guardian for.
He swallowed down an urge to puke, and rolled onto his side. His heart was beginning to work more normally as he let the concentrated near-hibernation he’d forced onto it fade. He could tell because it was pounding in his ears every time it beat and pumping white-hot pain into his extremities. On the bright side, the head-splitting migraine that had been developing was beginning to recede.
In the future, he would have to be more careful. Even focusing his ki had only barely been enough to keep him alive. Another stupid mistake like that, and he would never have to worry about his charge's safety again.
He mentally groaned as he floated onto his feet and padded across the room to the exit furthest from where Tyrson and the Guardian had left. She was about to get put into a position where it would be much more interesting to even try and observe and protect her. He never would have thought himself a coward, but suddenly the boredom and inaction forced on him by the last years he’d spent skulking about the Order’s temple didn’t seem so bad.
Sendai, Draconis Combine
20 June, 3028
The three other women were gathered in the center of the room around the tea-making table, none having spoken a word yet. It would break with tradition for discussion to start before drinks were poured. A formality, but like all formalities an essential one.
According to tradition, the most junior Miko present was charged with performing the tea ceremony. Usually, the senior priestess would carry out the ceremony, to better emphasize that the Order was socially superior to their visitors. But since the visitors today were also members of the Order of Five Pillars itself, it was the rank of those present that mattered and had to be adjusted for. A situation which only presented itself among meetings of the Order's priestesses or when the Order met with representatives of The Dragon.
Bending at the waist, the Miko in charge of tea--and incidentally the topic of the meeting--carefully fanned the coals on the underside of the table. She focused on the act to the exclusion of everything else, trying not to notice the unlucky number of people in the room and instead place her attention on how to balance how much air she blew onto the coals. They needed more than they currently had, but if she was too enthusiastic they would begin to burn instead of slowly smolder as she wanted.
Rei Hino focused her efforts and only moved the fan with careful, deliberate motions that allowed her the most control over its effects. She still had trouble balancing the heat versus the flames. It seemed as if every time she was charged with tea, the coals became restless at her mere presence and blew up at the slightest provocation. No matter how slowly she fanned them or how little air she let actually pass in, they always burst into fiery displays that had no place in what she was doing.
If she were forging a sword, perhaps the massive pyres of fire she created would be appropriate. Or if she were meeting with particularly despicable people she wanted to subtly show her displeasure towards. But for tea meant for her superiors, that much heat was unnecessary, wasteful, and insulting.
At the moment, being wasteful or insulting was the last thing she needed. With three senior priestesses of the Order of Five Pillars gathered together in the room, the last thing she needed was to make a mistake that would reflect poorly on herself and N'goto's training of her. Particularly considering the topic under discussion.
Rei nodded in satisfaction as the coals, for a change, obeyed her wishes and flared to a black-outlined red-hot glow that was perfect.
As if to spite the thought, a small sputter of orange tried to come to life in one corner. It burned for an instant, but was lacking in fuel and air and burned itself out almost as quickly as it had come. But the fact that it had come was enough.
Her nod died at almost the same time as the flame. Acceptable then, but not perfect. Not perfect by a long shot. She didn't know how she was supposed to do it!
Putting the mistake behind her as best she could, Rei transferred the pot of water onto the grate above the coals. She gave it one quick, light swirl to make sure it would steep evenly, then leaned back into the proper position--head bowed, back straight, and knees together underneath her.
Tyrson was ignoring her, which was comforting. If the Illuminatus didn't notice her, it meant she had done nothing incorrect that would draw her attention. Tyrson's nonverbal vote of confidence was reassuring, even if Rei wasn't entirely certain she deserved it.
Less comforting were the stares focused on her by the two other priestesses accompanying Tyrson. They did not even have the courtesy to try and hide the critical eye they had on her, and Rei felt a twinge of sympathetic embarrassment on their behalf. Amazing that one could rise so high without learning basic courtesy!
When the tea was ready, Rei kept her eyes on her task as she poured it for everyone at the table. She forced her mind to obey the same dictum. She admired many things about the Order. Its inner political workings was not among them. Especially when they had been used to shuffle off her mentor to what should have been an honored position in near disgrace. Being 'promoted' to a position in the orbit of Marcus Kurita, no matter how close it might be to the Coordinator, was a deliberate slap in the face.
What she couldn't figure out was why she was being sent to duties elsewhere rather than stepping-in for her old master as tradition dictated. That thought occupied center-stage in her mind as she set the teapot back upon the table.
"Konichi-wa Tyrson-sama, you honor this humble shrine with your visit. How was your trip?" Rei said after taking a courteously small sip from her cup.
She hid a flinch of anger in her lips behind the cup as Tyrson allowed one of her lessers to answer the question. It was going to be one of those kinds of meetings, then.
"We experienced only minor inconveniences. There was a delay of some days in Sulafat because the helium-tanks on our jumpship required repair and refueling. The captain had grown careless in his maintenance concerns and damaged the jumpship through his negligence. We shall have to hope his second-in-command takes better care of the Dragon's infrastructure." One of the two lower-ranking priestesses said.
"Indeed." Rei responded simply, not willing to grace the verbal trap with any further response.
Her master had been reassigned in disgrace. It was no accident that Tyrson's retinue had decided to share the story of a disgraced leader as their opener. The message was obvious: Serve the Order better than your former master did. The question was what N'Goto had done to deserve such a harsh condemnation.
Rei kept her face impassive as she lowered her teacup and listened politely to the other priestess as she continued. N'Goto had done nothing but serve the Order for as long as Rei had known her. The elderly woman had taken the time to train her in the Order's ways after her first master had been struck by a bus. N'goto might as well have been a mother to her, and the same to at least three dozen others on Sendai! The shrine's attendants and maintainers were made-up of everything from street-urchins and the family-members of dishonored DCMS personnel to the relations of out-and-out yakuza.
Now the Order had thanked N'goto for the sacrifices she'd made in taking in such a wide variety of what otherwise would have been little use to the Combine by shuffling her away. Heaping shame on her as if she had done something wrong by teaching the Order's ways to those in need of them! As if she deserved to be punished for making the Order stronger!
Her own proposed reassignment to be the head miko on another planet, in that context, was more insult than compliment. They thought her a protege of a disgraced priestess who needed to learn the Order's ways further before being promoted to further duties.
She, however, knew there were things of greater importance she should be doing. She could feel it.
"This is a very good brew." Tyrson interrupted, her voice lighter and airier than her juniors. There was the barest trace of an accent behind the Japanese, more guttural and less flowing than it was usually spoken.
Rei jerked upon the realization that Tyrson had spoken because her cup had gone empty. She bowed slightly as she grabbed the teapot and refilled the Illuminatus' cup, thankful that the slight bow allowed her to hide the blush that colored her cheeks at the mistake. Usually tea at these kinds of meetings was little more than a decoration, and she'd already refilled Tyrson's cup once!
She should have been paying better attention.
"It is, isn't it? The best part is that we need not import it from off-planet, either. The locals grow enough to trade with us in return for their ivory." Rei answered, doing a much better job than the other two junior priestesses had of hiding her barbed point behind properly courteous words.
"Sometimes it is the smallest blessings of a place which make it a pleasure to serve there." Tyrson continued.
The words themselves were harmless enough, but now the implications of what Tyrson was saying was clearly worrying the two others with her. From the only half-concealed glances they exchanged with each other, they had expected to speak for their superior throughout the entirety of the meeting.
Rei caught the veiled message clearly, and had to wonder why Tyrson was so friendly to her argument. The elderly Illuminatus was well-known for her conservative bent, which in the Order of Five Pillars was an extraordinary accomplishment. But she was offering implicit support to Rei's point by being so complimentary and accepting. So much so it was throwing off the two inferiors at her side!
To be honest, it was throwing off Rei as well. But she was much better at concealing it than the other two.
The two junior priestesses got themselves under control better in the next few moments, however. With their next words, things returned to the pattern that had been established before. The two underlings spoke to Rei in place of the senior priestess, all while Tyrson did naught but sip at her tea.
Though Tyrson did wave Rei towards her compatriots almost-untouched cups when the conversation began to turn to the actual reason for the meeting.
"The Order has new duties it wishes to ask of you. The senior priestess for Kervil has become indisposed. The Order recognizes you as deserving of her position. Would you be willing to set your affairs here on Sendai in order and make this journey?"
Rei hid a huff of disappointment and offense behind a careful sip of tea. So rude! Worse than that, so shaming for them to bring up the actual business of the meeting so quickly. Tradition dictated at least another fifteen or twenty minutes of courteous small-talk before the actual topic of the meeting was broached. Even then, as host it should have been her who began such discussion by inquiring as to the purpose of their visit. They were skipping over all of that as if it didn't matter in the slightest.
She might have considered her own reaction as excessive, but Tyrson also broke her own facade to tilt her head at the two junior priestesses beside her. The newest members of the Order seemed to have a disconcertingly low degree of patience and a serious lack of respect for the traditions of the Order. Rei knew she shouldn't criticize the two priestesses in such a way, as they were about the same age as her. But they conformed to the stereotype so well she couldn't help but notice it.
She quietly took one hand off her teacup and rubbed it against the side of her robes. This was the part where things would get interesting. She had been exchanging polite but irate messages with other members of the Order for a number of weeks now. She had seen the insult against her master and herself and, mostly at the behest of N'Goto, had been arranging things to her benefit in contesting it for weeks now. Rei never wanted to be involved in the politics of the Order, but she could appreciate it when someone who knew the ins-and-outs as well as N'goto did talked her through how to take advantage of it.
"I have a great number of commitments here on Sendai which demand my attention at the moment, Masood-san." Rei said. Not a refusal, that would be rude. But a negative placeholder that would put the onus on them to either make it into an explicit order or rethink themselves.
She didn't have much hope in them actually reconsidering. But she could force them into shaming themselves by having to break with tradition and order a priestess into a new temple. It was the most extreme protest she could give for her 'disgraced' former master, and N'Goto was worth whatever dishonor she might acquire in others' minds by her own actions.
"Whatever minor concerns the people of Sendai have can be dealt with by the new head miko." The second protege of Tyrson said, crossing her hands over each other in her lap. She hadn't so much as taken a sip from her cup yet, a calculated insult if Rei had ever seen one. But it was almost juvenile in its obviousness. A more accomplished and subtle message would have been to pantomime drinking but let her cup remain full in spite of the act presented.
"The concerns of the Dragon's subjects are never minor. I would be remiss if I did not attend to them as quickly as possible." Rei responded without missing a beat. She tried not to feel smugly satisfied at the purple hue that rose from the other woman's neck at the words, but failed entirely. Where had the Order found such a pair of bumbling ingrates like these, the Periphery?
Tyrson slowly raised one hand and cut-off whatever retort either of her two juniors might have had. She made a small circular motion with her index finger. Clearly trained to react to the gesture, both of the other two priestesses rose and shuffled their way to the shoji-panel door that led out of the tea-room. Masood gave a heated glare before exiting and closing the door, but Rei ignored it as easily as she had every other rudeness the pair had focused on her.
She had to grudgingly admit that the silent way they manipulated the door was commendable. She had expected them to slam it in the same manner as a child throwing a tantrum.
The silence that developed was interrupted only by the soft bump and whisper of Tyrson's teacup floating through the air and being set against the table. Tyrson took a slow, quiet breath and the beginnings of a smile crept onto the edge of her lips.
"Better. Much better." She said, half-closing her eyes.
She went silent again after those three words. Tyrson's entire world became centered around the teacup in front of her, and Rei began to feel like an intruder in her own temple. She dared not say anything to interrupt the Illuminatus' thoughts, and did her best to settle in herself.
Everything seemed to conspire to stop her from copying Tyrson's easy relaxation. A slow fire began to creep up her right leg in protest of maintaining the knees-tucked posture she'd held. There was a bothersome whistle of air from the ceiling where the vent to the rest of the temple and the outside was located. The biting smell of the burning coals seemed to curl into her nose instead of drifting out of the room as it should have.
Tyrson took one final, somewhat-barbaric gulp of tea from her cup and set it back onto the table with a loud clink. She visibly breathed, then pushed the teacup further into the middle of the table. Before Rei could stop her, she picked up the kettle herself and refreshed her cup.
Rei leaned back at the unorthodox assumption of control over the ceremony and replayed the preceding conversation in her mind. There had been four priestesses present until Tyrson had dismissed them, a symbol of disrespect and ill-will in most cases. But Tyrson had taken eight drinks of tea now, which was a subtle message of opportunity that was conveyed when explicitly stating so would be rude or impractical. But how was this supposed to be an opportunity?
"The Order saw fit to burden me with the two neophytes out there to present you with four priestesses in the room." Tyrson said. Her hands floated into the air in front of her to encompass the room around them.
Rei tilted her head, not sure how to take the admission. It was still confusing why Tyrson would admit such a thing. All the power in the symbol was in them not being acknowledged.
"Politics." Tyrson said, as if she could read Rei's mind. The older woman tucked her arms together into the sleeves of her robe and a small frown developed on her face as she stared at the tea set.
"There is discord in the House of the Dragon." Tyrson continued, now almost whispering.
Rei nodded, not trusting her voice to be steady enough to grace the comment with a verbal reply. The ongoing feud between Takashi Kurita and his son Theodore was widely-known in the Combine. The continuing court intrigues engaged in by Marcus Kurita were also destabilizing. But both were deliberately not spoken of. To do so could only promote disharmony and dissension.
"The Keeper is unsatisfied with that arrangement and wishes to make it known in as public a manner as she can." Tyrson stopped, raised an eyebrow at Rei. "She does not, however, wish to be seen as promoting discord. A delicate balance. You allow her to strike that balance."
Rei's mouth went dry. The Keeper of the House Honor of the entire Order of Five Pillars was interested in her?
"Kervil is not in need of a new priestess. A jumpship traveling through that system very soon is. The Keeper wishes to use you as a message to both the Coordinator and Hanse Davion. Only a very junior priestess will do."
Whatever iota of moisture that might have still existed in Rei's mouth disappeared, and she painfully swallowed. She was being used as an insult. Constance Kurita was playing a dangerous game, so half-blatantly insulting the Coordinator. Takashi Kurita would take note of the slight, no matter how it might be able to be formally explained as aimed at Hanse Davion instead of him. Inviting the Coordinator's ire was not typically something a miko would be demanded to do.
At least it explained why her protests had been taken so seriously.
Rei considered her tea for a long moment. When she had reached a decision, she inclined her head towards Tyrson.
The remainder of the meeting passed in a pleasing silence. Rei almost regretted it when she had to escort Tyrson to the exit and reengage with the other two priestesses. She kept the disdain she felt for the two undisciplined priestesses from coloring her actions, but only just.
She didn't know why, but now this felt like the right thing to do.
**********************************
The fasteners that secured the grate over the air return slowly wormed their way out of their tracks. Silently, the entire grate shifted until the only thing supporting it were the pair of black-gloved hands on the inside. Worming its way forward, the figure those hands belonged to slowly exited from the air duct it had hidden inside.
One leg shakily stretching out to rest against the closest of the room’s five pillars, the figure completely removed itself from the air duct. Its entire body seemed to shake and contort in extreme effort as it held itself up just below the grate. It kept the grate it had removed balanced in one hand as it rotated in place, and then reattached the fasteners.
Only when that was done did the obvious fatigue it was under affect it and the black-clad figure dropped from its position. Despite everything, it slowed itself as it fell, and impacted the floor with only a soft whuff of displaced air. Even this would have been too much sound in any other instance, but this was an irregular moment.
Lifting up the stylized cat-mask that he wore over his face, the figure quietly sucked down air that wasn’t loaded with the byproducts of the coal that still smoldered in the center of the room.
Had he known it was going to be a formal, ceremonial meeting rather than the work-session he had suspected, he would have found another place to observe. But his passage underneath always distorted the sound to an almost-indecipherable degree, and the Guardian’s redesign of the ceremonial room after N'goto had left had eliminated the shadows behind the fifth pillar he’d grown too dependent on.
He’d gotten lazy and stupid. Bored with his seemingly endless observations, he’d become secure in the knowledge that nothing would disturb them. The head of their Miharu No Seishin had suffered the same failing years before, and carelessly walked in front of an oncoming bus. That carelessness had landed the Guardian in the charge of the Order of Five Pillars temple instead of in the more benign safekeeping of the Nekakami. He and his four companion spirit-cats had much to make up to the Guardian for.
He swallowed down an urge to puke, and rolled onto his side. His heart was beginning to work more normally as he let the concentrated near-hibernation he’d forced onto it fade. He could tell because it was pounding in his ears every time it beat and pumping white-hot pain into his extremities. On the bright side, the head-splitting migraine that had been developing was beginning to recede.
In the future, he would have to be more careful. Even focusing his ki had only barely been enough to keep him alive. Another stupid mistake like that, and he would never have to worry about his charge's safety again.
He mentally groaned as he floated onto his feet and padded across the room to the exit furthest from where Tyrson and the Guardian had left. She was about to get put into a position where it would be much more interesting to even try and observe and protect her. He never would have thought himself a coward, but suddenly the boredom and inaction forced on him by the last years he’d spent skulking about the Order’s temple didn’t seem so bad.