[Application]
[series]: The Twelve Kingdoms
[character]: Shushou / Saishou / [later] Empress of Kyou
[character history / background]:
Despite going the route of taking this character at an early point in her history to update her gradually, I will be laying out her full history here.
Shushou is shown in the anime when she has already been ruling for ninety years; at a later point, Ono wrote a novel dedicated to Shushou’s personal How She Got There, entitled Tonan no Tsubasa, which has varying translations such as Wings of Dreams, Wings of Aspiration or Wings of Destiny.
Shushou was born under the name of Saishou about a hundred years before current Twelve Kingdoms canon into the wealthiest family in the city of Renshou, and, by extension, the provincial kingdom of Kyou (called so because it is situated between two of the Great Kingdoms, Ryuu and Han), of which Renshou is the capital. Her father, Sou Joshou, nickname Banko (“Jack-of-all-trades”), is a successful and influential merchant who owns stores all over the country. Her mother is named Hajou, and she has three brothers and two sisters.
She attended an elementary school in Renshou until the day in her twelfth year when her teacher is killed by one of the many youma haunting the country due to the absence of a king. At this point, the kingdom has been without a ruler for twenty-seven years, so all her life Shushou has been living in a country without a king. In her world, that means that monsters - youma - and natural disasters keep plaguing the people. Death and poverty surround her; some of her classmates have lost their parents or don’t have enough to eat.
In spite of this, she’s had a very comfortable life up to now. Every day, she’s been accompanied to school and back by personal guards and all the windows and doors of her spacious home are covered by iron bars. Every meal she’s served is luxurious, as are her clothes.
Still, she is dissatisfied. Living in such splendor, compared to all the people who suffer pains her so much that at times she has a hard time eating all the food she gets, asking herself why this has to be. She studies hard in hopes to go to a higher school in order to become a government functionary, but her father is very much against the idea, not having a great education himself and preferring all his children to join the family business. When asked by Shushou whether he is going to do the ascension of mount Hou, he replies “I am but a mere merchant”.
Of course, he is not exactly unhappy when Shushou’s school is closed. Not so Shushou, however, who that afternoon is again served a huge meal, and when she declares herself unable to eat, Keika, one of the house “affiliates” (basically a nicer term for slaves) and Shushou’s lifelong playmate, loses her temper, pointing out that countless people are starving and she herself often has to go on minimal rations, which in turn ultimately causes Shushou to lose control and throw her bowl of soup at Keika, sullying her worn-out, endlessly-mended dress. Quickly, Shushou apologizes, begging Keika to let her clean the dress and offering her one of her “old” (it’s from the last New Year’s ceremony) dresses in turn.
The next day, Shushou pays a visit to the stables, asking to visit her favorite of the family’s mounts, a moukyoku named Hakuto- basically a huge, flying, white leopard. When the servant overseeing the stables is off looking after other things of a moment, Shushou saddles the moukyoku and unties him, only to go riding off, much to the horror of the family.
“Why make everything so complicated?”, she says. “If the adults won’t do the ascension, I’ll just have to!”
So she travels for a few days across the country, quickly coming close to the inner coast, pointing toward the center of the world and boarding the Black Sea. Not able to make up an excuse believable enough to be unsuspicious and thus fearing to be discovered and brought home, she plans to spend the early spring night in a graveyard. Then, however, she meets Rikou, a traveler in possession of a suugu, which is a huge flying white tiger. He shows himself intrigues by and sympathetic to Shushou’s situation, though he quickly looks through her attempts to lie. They stay at an inn together and in the morning, Rikou goes to a nearby town office to get a certificate for Shushou, stating that she is a servant of Banko’s and has been given the task of transporting his moukyoku over a longer distance. They part and Shushou boards a ship over the Black Sea. Arrived at the other side, however, she is quickly robbed of Hakuto by a sly man accusing her of theft, even showing a certificate of his own. When the scam is brought to light, the man and Hakuto are already too far away to catch up with them, and so Shushou has to continue on foot.
In Ken, a town directly boarding the Kongou mountains and giving way to the Reiken gate, one of the four gates from which you can attain the Yellow Sea, in the midst of which lies Mount Hou where the kirin lives, she meets up with a man named Gankyuu, who makes a living chasing youjuu and taming them in the Yellow Sea, and hired him as her bodyguard.
“No one can rule this country but me!”, claims Shushou boisterously.
Soon, they make their way through the Earth Gate and the Reiken Gate, arriving at the citadel on the other side, which is the last stop before entering the absolute wilderness that is the Yellow Sea. There, they unexpectedly meet Rikou again, who decides to join them.
At first, they travel among a large group of hopeful ascensionists and their many followers. A few days, everything goes well, until the first youma attack. This is when things start to go awry: because Gankyuu flees without even trying to help anyone, seeing it has his chief task to protect Shushou and Shushou alone. People die that night, and Shushou is upset, especially at Gankyuu, because he also refuses to share his extensive knowledge of the Yellow Sea with the others, who make grave mistakes in their ignorance. This goes on for a while longer, and after each youma attack, Shushou grows less tolerant of Gankyuu’s methods, especially after he finds out he uses the others as bait - youma are attracted by the smell of blood - to make an easy escape for himself and those with him. Still, she tries to understand his motives, but he always brushes her attempts off and laughs about them.
Their conflict culminates as they come across a barrier in their path, a path that was trodden into the ground by countless generations of ascensionists. It has the appearance of having been made deliberately by human hand; the koushu, the people of the Yellow Sea (people like Gankyuu and those who live mainly off helping ascensionists) conclude that their predecessors made this barrier as a warning: a very powerful youma must live here. Thus, they decide to make a detour - all except Kiwa Shitsu, who does not want to take the risk of losing their way and precious time. Shushou, at the peak of her fury by now, chooses to leave Gankyuu and Rikou and join Kiwa.
Things go as they have to: they are attacked by the youma. Kiwa takes flight in his wagon, in which Shushou is also sitting, leaving all of his followers behind. This is where Shushou realizes the error of her ways, and what Gankyuu meant when he was unwilling to share his knowledge: because his is a knowledge that cannot even put into words, that does not adhere to general rules that always apply.
“How foolish I’ve been!”
When they take a rest, Shushou leaves him behind, declaring that if she left everyone behind now, that would make her a hypocrite. And so she goes back, finding those that are still alive but have nearly lost all hopes, and gathers them together to find a way out of their situation together. She guides them and intuitively makes the right choices to ensure their survival, and when they find Kiwa’s abandoned coach, she uses the jewels they find to bait the youma, since she has heard that youma get drunk on precious gems. The strategy almost works, too, except that the youma, a monkey-like creature, takes hold of her. While the others manage to put its fur in flames, Shushou is thrown into a far-off ravine. From there, she makes her way through the landscape alone, until she hears a voice, which turns out to be a youma that imitates humans. This is when she is found by Gankyuu and Rikou, Fighting against the youma, Gankyuu is injured, and tells Rikou and Shushou to go their way. Rikou goes, Shushou refuses. And so they make their way through the forests, trying to escape, until they meet a strange boy.
This boy turns out to be none other than Kenrou Shinkun, the patron saint of the koushu. He brings them both to a safe place and manages to practically heal Gankyuu. While all of them talk, it turns out that Shushou isn’t as confident as she pretended to be about becoming Empress; she mainly went because she feels it is her duty - after all, someone who hasn’t actually done something about a bad situation and failed has no right to complain.
Taking their leave from Kenrou Shinkun, Shushou and Gankyuu continue on their way to catch up with the rest of the ascensionists and meet Rikou again - however, they are cut short as a strange group of people approaches them: a few opulently dressed women and a golden-haired man.
The man is Kyouki, kirin of Kyou, and kneels before Shushou, choosing her as his queen.
“Idiot”, she says, furious and sad, “where have you been all my life?”
Ninety years later, we see her again in A Thousand Leagues of Wind, The Sky at Dawn when she agrees to take Shoukei under her wing. She’s been successfully ruling, but is still as ill-tempered as ever, determined to put Shoukei in her place, because in her opinion, Shoukei has neglected her duty as a princess by being ignorant of the people’s suffering and doing nothing about it. She is also shown flippantly kicking her sandal off and making Kyouki fetch it, as well as slapping him for being too merciful.
Later, in the short story Jougetsu, we are told that after Shoukei fled the country and stole some of Shushou’s personal jewelry, Shoukei has planned to return to Kyou to await her punishment. Shushou decrees that Shoukei shall be forever expelled from her kingdom and never set foot on it again, hereby essentially sparing her. This she writes to Youko, ruler of Kei, which is interpreted as a message to take care of her own kingdom instead of begging pardon for one person in another.
[character abilities]:
Shushou is mainly an ordinary twelve-year-old, Twelve Kingdoms edition (this largely means having grown on a tree). The only exceptions to this are her extremely high intelligence and gift of perception, as well as a certain “charm”: she draws people into going with her, no matter who they might be, and she largely keeps the group of ascensionists safe through her sole presence; these are the properties of a ruler who has been chosen by the Heavenly King, for destiny would not let harm come to such a person. They are called housuu, “fledgling” by the koushu, after the phoenix that spreads its wings and flies to the southernmost end of the world.
[character personality]:
Shushou knows what she wants, and she has no qualms about going and getting it. She is equally strict with herself as she is with others, not hesitating to call her elders stupid and cowardly and generally openly expressing her opinions; but in turn also holding herself to high standards. At her young age, there is already a well-defined picture of how the world is supposed to work in her head. What she feels is right may be, but is not always congruent with what others feel is appropriate.
She has the abilities of a leader; able and ready to take command, even of a great number of people older than herself.
Then, she has an acute sense of perception and learns quickly - for example, she picks up a lot of the conduct necessary for survival from Gankyuu by closely watching him alone. While being strict in her views, she is capable of seeing issues in a wider context and looking at the other side of the coin, as seen in her declaration of the situation she’s grown up in and her attempts to understand Gankyuu and the koushu way of life. She is also capable of scheming and lying, as shown when, after having gleaned Keika’s old, stained garment from her, we are shown her grimacing and uttering: “Smells like soup. I should’ve thrown the tea instead”, and then later when she is on the road and revealed to be wearing said dress. This also showcases her resourcefulness.
Despite this, there’s still room for learning; because for all her intelligence, she is still young and thus naive about certain things. This is most evident of her treatment of Gankyuu and, conversely, his treatment of her.
Furthermore, she is also quite emotional at times, prone to mood swings and bouts of temper. Sometimes, she makes irrational and wrong decisions just for that reason alone, against her better judgement. She can be quick to insult others willfully.
The face she shows the public is honest a lot of the time; however, she does not express all of her thoughts. Instead, she ponders to herself and keeps part of that hidden a lot of the time, so she may at times have come to more or different conclusions than she lets on.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: After having lost Hakuto, before arriving in Ken.
[journal post]:
[voice]
- Thank you very much, I am very obliged to you. Have a nice day.
[A short silence, then the speaker clears her throat quietly.]
Might anyone who hears this be able to tell me where I am, and possibly the quickest way to the city of Ken? I would be very grateful.
[third person / log sample]:
Shushou was fuming along the footpath under the lazily downward curving sun. It was a few hours yet until it would meet the ever-so-slightly jagged horizon. From here on out, one could, vaguely, see the other side of the Black Sea, the coast of Kyou’s mainland; and if one were to climb on a vantage point, one might catch a glimpse of its neighboring kingdoms too.
What one could not see was Mount Ryou’un in the capital of Renshou, where Shushou had set out; she had come a long way in a short time.
Which lead up to the problem. Shushou was fuming because of the mean thief who had stolen her mount, a fine and very well-behaved moukyoku she’d known since childhood. Too well-behaved, as it had turned out, for Hakuto hadn’t put up much resistance when the thief fled far and away with him.
This meant a number of things. First, Shushou had been personally attached to Hakuto. She loved riding beasts, always had, so much that she didn’t want to imagine a future without them - an line of thought rife with the privilege of the rich, for sure, but why not think it when she was in the position to? Second, with him she had lost her family’s finest mount, and she had intended to bring him back once she was done with this whole journey.
Third, Shushou was now on foot. This was unpleasant, and she also had a hunch that it would be a severe disadvantage once she entered the Yellow Sea. Logic dictated that fleeing from a youma would have been far easier with a creature that had once belonged to that world.
Her journey leading up to now hadn’t been the most pleasant, but it was a joyride compared to what lay ahead of her. Devoid of life except for its flora and the unholy, the Yellow Sea was the most dangerous place of the world. Yet someone in her position invariably had to brave it to get where they wanted.
For Shushou was going to Mount Hou. The Ascension, this act was called, and it meant climbing on Mount Hou to present oneself to the kirin that lived there and whose sole task, at this point in his life, was to chose a king. And Shushou wanted to become king.
Or more precisely, she wanted to stop being a hypocrite. Ever since she had been old enough to really gain consciousness of her country and its situation, she had felt increasingly sickened by all the adults around her who complained and waited for the advent of a new king, and then complained some more.
They were hypocrites because when asked what they did about it, they just shrugged and said there was nothing to be done about it. This was false. There was something. Doing the ascension.
Only when one went to Mount Hou and was not chosen, Shushou felt, one really earned the right to complain. Only then, one would have done everything that was in one’s capacity. Most people, however, were too comfortable in their own misery, or not even miserable as long as they had enough to eat and didn’t die, and too cowardly to dare crossing the Yellow Sea.
Like her father. Shushou loved her father and loved her whole family, but that didn’t stop her from holding, at least partially, in contempt. She saw them and their faults for what they were and could naturally not always approve. How could she when so much of her own life seemed so wrong to her? She dressed in silk and dined on the finest goods, while a girl as close to her as her brothers and sisters had to mend her clothes over and over, and could not sleep for hunger. While her classmates in school lost their loved ones to youma attacks and went for days without eating. It made it hard for her to swallow her own food, because all that splendor was sickening, and how horribly privileged even that problem was was sickening, and then she had to swallow it still because people told her it would go to waste otherwise. Neither was she allowed to give anyone from her food, it just wasn’t done. After all, people might think it condescending of her and feel insulted. Nonsense, Shushou thought, but she wasn’t in a position to change anything.
Hadn’t been. After all, she might soon be the Empress of Kyou. After twenty-seven years without a king, the odds of a twelve-year-old being chosen weren’t so small, she found. Maybe the kirin hadn’t chosen a king in so long because the king had not yet been born? There was a certain logic to that, at least. Truth be told, Shushou wasn’t entirely counting on it, but yet she kept inwardly telling it to herself, like some sort of mantra, to sustain her through the hardships to come.
They had already begun, and there was much more to come, she knew. A plan was already forming in her mind: she would probably have to hire a bodyguard. She had the money, after all.
Breathing in, breathing out; she got her temper in check, stopped fuming, and kept on walking, eyes set firmly on the wall of the Kongou mountains before her, unsurpassable, high enough to reach into heaven.
[character]: Shushou / Saishou / [later] Empress of Kyou
[character history / background]:
Despite going the route of taking this character at an early point in her history to update her gradually, I will be laying out her full history here.
Shushou is shown in the anime when she has already been ruling for ninety years; at a later point, Ono wrote a novel dedicated to Shushou’s personal How She Got There, entitled Tonan no Tsubasa, which has varying translations such as Wings of Dreams, Wings of Aspiration or Wings of Destiny.
Shushou was born under the name of Saishou about a hundred years before current Twelve Kingdoms canon into the wealthiest family in the city of Renshou, and, by extension, the provincial kingdom of Kyou (called so because it is situated between two of the Great Kingdoms, Ryuu and Han), of which Renshou is the capital. Her father, Sou Joshou, nickname Banko (“Jack-of-all-trades”), is a successful and influential merchant who owns stores all over the country. Her mother is named Hajou, and she has three brothers and two sisters.
She attended an elementary school in Renshou until the day in her twelfth year when her teacher is killed by one of the many youma haunting the country due to the absence of a king. At this point, the kingdom has been without a ruler for twenty-seven years, so all her life Shushou has been living in a country without a king. In her world, that means that monsters - youma - and natural disasters keep plaguing the people. Death and poverty surround her; some of her classmates have lost their parents or don’t have enough to eat.
In spite of this, she’s had a very comfortable life up to now. Every day, she’s been accompanied to school and back by personal guards and all the windows and doors of her spacious home are covered by iron bars. Every meal she’s served is luxurious, as are her clothes.
Still, she is dissatisfied. Living in such splendor, compared to all the people who suffer pains her so much that at times she has a hard time eating all the food she gets, asking herself why this has to be. She studies hard in hopes to go to a higher school in order to become a government functionary, but her father is very much against the idea, not having a great education himself and preferring all his children to join the family business. When asked by Shushou whether he is going to do the ascension of mount Hou, he replies “I am but a mere merchant”.
Of course, he is not exactly unhappy when Shushou’s school is closed. Not so Shushou, however, who that afternoon is again served a huge meal, and when she declares herself unable to eat, Keika, one of the house “affiliates” (basically a nicer term for slaves) and Shushou’s lifelong playmate, loses her temper, pointing out that countless people are starving and she herself often has to go on minimal rations, which in turn ultimately causes Shushou to lose control and throw her bowl of soup at Keika, sullying her worn-out, endlessly-mended dress. Quickly, Shushou apologizes, begging Keika to let her clean the dress and offering her one of her “old” (it’s from the last New Year’s ceremony) dresses in turn.
The next day, Shushou pays a visit to the stables, asking to visit her favorite of the family’s mounts, a moukyoku named Hakuto- basically a huge, flying, white leopard. When the servant overseeing the stables is off looking after other things of a moment, Shushou saddles the moukyoku and unties him, only to go riding off, much to the horror of the family.
“Why make everything so complicated?”, she says. “If the adults won’t do the ascension, I’ll just have to!”
So she travels for a few days across the country, quickly coming close to the inner coast, pointing toward the center of the world and boarding the Black Sea. Not able to make up an excuse believable enough to be unsuspicious and thus fearing to be discovered and brought home, she plans to spend the early spring night in a graveyard. Then, however, she meets Rikou, a traveler in possession of a suugu, which is a huge flying white tiger. He shows himself intrigues by and sympathetic to Shushou’s situation, though he quickly looks through her attempts to lie. They stay at an inn together and in the morning, Rikou goes to a nearby town office to get a certificate for Shushou, stating that she is a servant of Banko’s and has been given the task of transporting his moukyoku over a longer distance. They part and Shushou boards a ship over the Black Sea. Arrived at the other side, however, she is quickly robbed of Hakuto by a sly man accusing her of theft, even showing a certificate of his own. When the scam is brought to light, the man and Hakuto are already too far away to catch up with them, and so Shushou has to continue on foot.
In Ken, a town directly boarding the Kongou mountains and giving way to the Reiken gate, one of the four gates from which you can attain the Yellow Sea, in the midst of which lies Mount Hou where the kirin lives, she meets up with a man named Gankyuu, who makes a living chasing youjuu and taming them in the Yellow Sea, and hired him as her bodyguard.
“No one can rule this country but me!”, claims Shushou boisterously.
Soon, they make their way through the Earth Gate and the Reiken Gate, arriving at the citadel on the other side, which is the last stop before entering the absolute wilderness that is the Yellow Sea. There, they unexpectedly meet Rikou again, who decides to join them.
At first, they travel among a large group of hopeful ascensionists and their many followers. A few days, everything goes well, until the first youma attack. This is when things start to go awry: because Gankyuu flees without even trying to help anyone, seeing it has his chief task to protect Shushou and Shushou alone. People die that night, and Shushou is upset, especially at Gankyuu, because he also refuses to share his extensive knowledge of the Yellow Sea with the others, who make grave mistakes in their ignorance. This goes on for a while longer, and after each youma attack, Shushou grows less tolerant of Gankyuu’s methods, especially after he finds out he uses the others as bait - youma are attracted by the smell of blood - to make an easy escape for himself and those with him. Still, she tries to understand his motives, but he always brushes her attempts off and laughs about them.
Their conflict culminates as they come across a barrier in their path, a path that was trodden into the ground by countless generations of ascensionists. It has the appearance of having been made deliberately by human hand; the koushu, the people of the Yellow Sea (people like Gankyuu and those who live mainly off helping ascensionists) conclude that their predecessors made this barrier as a warning: a very powerful youma must live here. Thus, they decide to make a detour - all except Kiwa Shitsu, who does not want to take the risk of losing their way and precious time. Shushou, at the peak of her fury by now, chooses to leave Gankyuu and Rikou and join Kiwa.
Things go as they have to: they are attacked by the youma. Kiwa takes flight in his wagon, in which Shushou is also sitting, leaving all of his followers behind. This is where Shushou realizes the error of her ways, and what Gankyuu meant when he was unwilling to share his knowledge: because his is a knowledge that cannot even put into words, that does not adhere to general rules that always apply.
“How foolish I’ve been!”
When they take a rest, Shushou leaves him behind, declaring that if she left everyone behind now, that would make her a hypocrite. And so she goes back, finding those that are still alive but have nearly lost all hopes, and gathers them together to find a way out of their situation together. She guides them and intuitively makes the right choices to ensure their survival, and when they find Kiwa’s abandoned coach, she uses the jewels they find to bait the youma, since she has heard that youma get drunk on precious gems. The strategy almost works, too, except that the youma, a monkey-like creature, takes hold of her. While the others manage to put its fur in flames, Shushou is thrown into a far-off ravine. From there, she makes her way through the landscape alone, until she hears a voice, which turns out to be a youma that imitates humans. This is when she is found by Gankyuu and Rikou, Fighting against the youma, Gankyuu is injured, and tells Rikou and Shushou to go their way. Rikou goes, Shushou refuses. And so they make their way through the forests, trying to escape, until they meet a strange boy.
This boy turns out to be none other than Kenrou Shinkun, the patron saint of the koushu. He brings them both to a safe place and manages to practically heal Gankyuu. While all of them talk, it turns out that Shushou isn’t as confident as she pretended to be about becoming Empress; she mainly went because she feels it is her duty - after all, someone who hasn’t actually done something about a bad situation and failed has no right to complain.
Taking their leave from Kenrou Shinkun, Shushou and Gankyuu continue on their way to catch up with the rest of the ascensionists and meet Rikou again - however, they are cut short as a strange group of people approaches them: a few opulently dressed women and a golden-haired man.
The man is Kyouki, kirin of Kyou, and kneels before Shushou, choosing her as his queen.
“Idiot”, she says, furious and sad, “where have you been all my life?”
Ninety years later, we see her again in A Thousand Leagues of Wind, The Sky at Dawn when she agrees to take Shoukei under her wing. She’s been successfully ruling, but is still as ill-tempered as ever, determined to put Shoukei in her place, because in her opinion, Shoukei has neglected her duty as a princess by being ignorant of the people’s suffering and doing nothing about it. She is also shown flippantly kicking her sandal off and making Kyouki fetch it, as well as slapping him for being too merciful.
Later, in the short story Jougetsu, we are told that after Shoukei fled the country and stole some of Shushou’s personal jewelry, Shoukei has planned to return to Kyou to await her punishment. Shushou decrees that Shoukei shall be forever expelled from her kingdom and never set foot on it again, hereby essentially sparing her. This she writes to Youko, ruler of Kei, which is interpreted as a message to take care of her own kingdom instead of begging pardon for one person in another.
[character abilities]:
Shushou is mainly an ordinary twelve-year-old, Twelve Kingdoms edition (this largely means having grown on a tree). The only exceptions to this are her extremely high intelligence and gift of perception, as well as a certain “charm”: she draws people into going with her, no matter who they might be, and she largely keeps the group of ascensionists safe through her sole presence; these are the properties of a ruler who has been chosen by the Heavenly King, for destiny would not let harm come to such a person. They are called housuu, “fledgling” by the koushu, after the phoenix that spreads its wings and flies to the southernmost end of the world.
[character personality]:
Shushou knows what she wants, and she has no qualms about going and getting it. She is equally strict with herself as she is with others, not hesitating to call her elders stupid and cowardly and generally openly expressing her opinions; but in turn also holding herself to high standards. At her young age, there is already a well-defined picture of how the world is supposed to work in her head. What she feels is right may be, but is not always congruent with what others feel is appropriate.
She has the abilities of a leader; able and ready to take command, even of a great number of people older than herself.
Then, she has an acute sense of perception and learns quickly - for example, she picks up a lot of the conduct necessary for survival from Gankyuu by closely watching him alone. While being strict in her views, she is capable of seeing issues in a wider context and looking at the other side of the coin, as seen in her declaration of the situation she’s grown up in and her attempts to understand Gankyuu and the koushu way of life. She is also capable of scheming and lying, as shown when, after having gleaned Keika’s old, stained garment from her, we are shown her grimacing and uttering: “Smells like soup. I should’ve thrown the tea instead”, and then later when she is on the road and revealed to be wearing said dress. This also showcases her resourcefulness.
Despite this, there’s still room for learning; because for all her intelligence, she is still young and thus naive about certain things. This is most evident of her treatment of Gankyuu and, conversely, his treatment of her.
Furthermore, she is also quite emotional at times, prone to mood swings and bouts of temper. Sometimes, she makes irrational and wrong decisions just for that reason alone, against her better judgement. She can be quick to insult others willfully.
The face she shows the public is honest a lot of the time; however, she does not express all of her thoughts. Instead, she ponders to herself and keeps part of that hidden a lot of the time, so she may at times have come to more or different conclusions than she lets on.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: After having lost Hakuto, before arriving in Ken.
[journal post]:
[voice]
- Thank you very much, I am very obliged to you. Have a nice day.
[A short silence, then the speaker clears her throat quietly.]
Might anyone who hears this be able to tell me where I am, and possibly the quickest way to the city of Ken? I would be very grateful.
[third person / log sample]:
Shushou was fuming along the footpath under the lazily downward curving sun. It was a few hours yet until it would meet the ever-so-slightly jagged horizon. From here on out, one could, vaguely, see the other side of the Black Sea, the coast of Kyou’s mainland; and if one were to climb on a vantage point, one might catch a glimpse of its neighboring kingdoms too.
What one could not see was Mount Ryou’un in the capital of Renshou, where Shushou had set out; she had come a long way in a short time.
Which lead up to the problem. Shushou was fuming because of the mean thief who had stolen her mount, a fine and very well-behaved moukyoku she’d known since childhood. Too well-behaved, as it had turned out, for Hakuto hadn’t put up much resistance when the thief fled far and away with him.
This meant a number of things. First, Shushou had been personally attached to Hakuto. She loved riding beasts, always had, so much that she didn’t want to imagine a future without them - an line of thought rife with the privilege of the rich, for sure, but why not think it when she was in the position to? Second, with him she had lost her family’s finest mount, and she had intended to bring him back once she was done with this whole journey.
Third, Shushou was now on foot. This was unpleasant, and she also had a hunch that it would be a severe disadvantage once she entered the Yellow Sea. Logic dictated that fleeing from a youma would have been far easier with a creature that had once belonged to that world.
Her journey leading up to now hadn’t been the most pleasant, but it was a joyride compared to what lay ahead of her. Devoid of life except for its flora and the unholy, the Yellow Sea was the most dangerous place of the world. Yet someone in her position invariably had to brave it to get where they wanted.
For Shushou was going to Mount Hou. The Ascension, this act was called, and it meant climbing on Mount Hou to present oneself to the kirin that lived there and whose sole task, at this point in his life, was to chose a king. And Shushou wanted to become king.
Or more precisely, she wanted to stop being a hypocrite. Ever since she had been old enough to really gain consciousness of her country and its situation, she had felt increasingly sickened by all the adults around her who complained and waited for the advent of a new king, and then complained some more.
They were hypocrites because when asked what they did about it, they just shrugged and said there was nothing to be done about it. This was false. There was something. Doing the ascension.
Only when one went to Mount Hou and was not chosen, Shushou felt, one really earned the right to complain. Only then, one would have done everything that was in one’s capacity. Most people, however, were too comfortable in their own misery, or not even miserable as long as they had enough to eat and didn’t die, and too cowardly to dare crossing the Yellow Sea.
Like her father. Shushou loved her father and loved her whole family, but that didn’t stop her from holding, at least partially, in contempt. She saw them and their faults for what they were and could naturally not always approve. How could she when so much of her own life seemed so wrong to her? She dressed in silk and dined on the finest goods, while a girl as close to her as her brothers and sisters had to mend her clothes over and over, and could not sleep for hunger. While her classmates in school lost their loved ones to youma attacks and went for days without eating. It made it hard for her to swallow her own food, because all that splendor was sickening, and how horribly privileged even that problem was was sickening, and then she had to swallow it still because people told her it would go to waste otherwise. Neither was she allowed to give anyone from her food, it just wasn’t done. After all, people might think it condescending of her and feel insulted. Nonsense, Shushou thought, but she wasn’t in a position to change anything.
Hadn’t been. After all, she might soon be the Empress of Kyou. After twenty-seven years without a king, the odds of a twelve-year-old being chosen weren’t so small, she found. Maybe the kirin hadn’t chosen a king in so long because the king had not yet been born? There was a certain logic to that, at least. Truth be told, Shushou wasn’t entirely counting on it, but yet she kept inwardly telling it to herself, like some sort of mantra, to sustain her through the hardships to come.
They had already begun, and there was much more to come, she knew. A plan was already forming in her mind: she would probably have to hire a bodyguard. She had the money, after all.
Breathing in, breathing out; she got her temper in check, stopped fuming, and kept on walking, eyes set firmly on the wall of the Kongou mountains before her, unsurpassable, high enough to reach into heaven.