This was brimming in my head so I wrote a side-story for Yuu and Tani. Enjoy and tell me what you think! Support the official RPG!
__________
What was it about destiny that tied the noose around one's neck so tightly? Destiny had brought her so much fortune since her latest disgrace at the palace...a good man for her husband and the honorable position as the head of the house at the ever famous Okiya of the Fire Nation. How many young buds passed through her hands...to grow into blossoms? To live happy lives as well?
Ahh...she remembered. Fate brought her. Fate brought the other woman into her life, the last one she'd ever want to set eyes on from that day forth.
Yuu Taima.
"She's just come back from reassessing the colonies," her husband reassured. Like her, he'd aged gently, somehow becoming just as endearing with his wrinkles and graying hair. "The war's long been over now, she's taking a short break from it to stay home again."
At first Tani felt only petty jealousy, the kind a child feels, when her husband and everyone else turned bright pink at the gorgeous specimen stepping out of the palanquin. But it had been everyone...she didn't expect anyone to take it further other than a distant respect and admiration.
But how long does it take to grow? Yuu spent time around the council...a lot of time. Her husband worked so hard to convince the high court of his wife's sincere good-will towards the people, of her honor and loyalty. And it was working wasn't it? Hadn't they let her join them for short visits with the royal family sometimes?
It was the longer nights. Not longer because of the coming summer...longer because of her husband. He stayed later and later at work, coming home with sighs and exhaustion. Tani loved him so...but didn't he realize what he was doing?
"Dearest,"
"Hmm? Yes Tani?"
"What's been keeping you these past nights?" Tani asked gently, "You've been so tired, I hope they're not overworking you."
"Oh no, not at all. I want to stay later." he shook his head, "No, it's just...Madam Taima. She's brought forth arguments from the Earth Kingdom colonies that it's a disruption to the financial balance if they just left...they're debating talking to the Fire Lord about it-"
Tani went pale. Madam Taima he said. Not just...Yuu. She'd recieved an elegant title with rarely any work-
No, no, she convinced herself. That musn't be true. She's merely passing things along...she's worked hard too right? It means nothing else...right?
Wrong.
It happened so innocently...in his haste to leave one morning, he'd dropped his seal to enter the council chamber hall. She'd hastened, still wearing casual attire, to the palace. The seal and excuse were well enough. She was so close-
She saw them.
It wasn't even terribly scandalous to a set of ordinary eyes. Her husband stood sheepish before Yuu, chuckling at some small joke she'd made. Yuu twinkled with laughter and her jewelry...no doubt far wealthier than Tani at her current state. She almost glowed with perfection...her courtier's kimono a thing of beauty, her hair not a bit out of place. Her husband was smitten with her appearance, especially as Yuu curled her fingers around his forearm in a friendly manner.
But her eyes were false, mocking. Even if her husband had merely been over the moon for her, it might not have been so bad if Yuu actually reciprocated it.
Yuu's eyes however, spoke almost audible volumes. I'm going to use you and get what I want, the said nastily, hissing like vipers. Then I'll leave and not think a whit for you for as long as I live.
Tani made up her mind then and there, even as she passed the seal to a servant for delivery. She was going to murder Yuu. If she didn't she would regret it forever. So she went home, and with a murder plan in mind, she prepared for her husband to come home and fall asleep.
Tani waited, and when her husband came home, she asked gently if she could go to one of the girl's rooms to care for a fever they had. He seemed eager to go along with the idea, and quickly hastened to his room to sleep alone. Once out of the house, she made a beeline for the elegant quarters of Yuu Taima...just outside the palace walls.
Yuu was asleep, soundly and securely so. Even as Tani peeked in through the crack in her window on the first floor, she saw that Yuu wasn't stirring at all at the impending danger. She was still ethereal...her hair down dark and long on her pillow in a white sleeping robe.
Tani lined the packs of heavy alcohol by the door, a thin puddle forming all around the room. Careful not to step in the flammable liquid, she tipped a bottle onto its side, with a smoking kiseru next to it. Now it would look like an accident.
She lit the alcohol, and quickly it flared up, streaking around the room. Tani ran for it, hiding in a thick bush as the house quickly caught fire. She did not even pretend to hide her morbid glee as she heard Yuu scream.
He came though. He should have stayed home. It wasn't in her calculations. But there he was, running as hard as he could toward the burning building. And without warning, her husband leapt through the flame...calling for Yuu.
Tani stepped out of the bush, intending to drag her husband back if she had too...but it was far too late. With a devasting crack, the entire building broke in two; falling into a flaming, burning rubble. Tani fell to her knees. What...what had she done?!
"Amazing..."
She heard her...but no... It was impossible! She had to have died!
Yuu stepped from the flames, her white robe stained with ash and blood, the entire back burned off, showing curdled, burned skin. Her hair was wild and askew, and she looked almost awed at Tani.
"I didn't really expect you to take this measure," she said in utter fascination, taking steps towards the horrified woman. "You were always so quiet and gentle...but to kill your husband in an attempt to kill me..."
"No! NO!" Tani howled, clutching at her hair, "I didn't mean to! He wasn't supposed to come!"
"Oh but he did," Yuu said insistently, knowing the how terrible that factor was. "And now...what will you do Tani? If you try to kill me again, I'll be helpless with this burn," she clenched at her shoulder slightly, "But then you'll be stuck at a crime scene with two corpses and a burning wreck. It won't look well upon the Fire Lord's opinion of you...as if your previous record had in any case..."
Tani flinched as Yuu gently turned her face to meet her own wide eyes with her hands. "Don't get me wrong. I don't like threatening people so much...their reactions are so predictable when I do it. But if you don't make any agreements with me now then you're going to see your life crumble even further away."
Tani was already crumbling. Her husband was dead....and she hadn't even managed to kill Yuu in the process. Now her sole enemy was hovering over her, looking so perfect even with the heavy burn on her back, looking like the devil trying to steal her soul-
"Take...take care of it." Tani whispered, "Tell no one...make them believe what they will but tell no one. I'll...I'll make you one of the senior geisha," she gulped down the revulsion at such an idea, "And give you comfort forever. Just....just..."
"Alright." Yuu agreed with a nod. Then, taking a deep breath like a singer about to cry an aria, she howled loudly, throwing herself into Tani's arms. She smeared her with ash, giving her the appearance of having stepped from the fire. The palace guards were quickly alerted by cry of distress and the fire burning down the house....
Everything was a blur after that. Yuu was taken tearfully away, and after her health was reassured, she gave a stunning performance to the Fire Lord, explaining how the kind couple discovered how she'd clumsily started a fire in her own house, and how they hurried to rescue her. Then, with fresh, believeable tears rolling down her beautiful face, she wept at how Tani's husband rescued her from a falling beam, instructing his wife and associate to escape while he kept the house from falling down on them.
If Tani hadn't known the truth already...she would have believed it too.
But now her honor was at a standstill. Despite her "heroic" efforts, her husband couldn't build up her reputation at the palace. If only to protect her girls at the Okiya...to protect the long, sacred history of the magical house, she would begrudgingly give into Yuu Taima.
"By the way," Yuu said one day after moving in, "How did you manage to escape your husband so late at night?"
"I said that one of the girls were sick," Tani muttered, not comfortable with talking of the tragic incident.
"I see..." Yuu mused. Then, with an almost curious and eager gaze...
"Then why was he out there..."
Tani couldn't breathe....
"...by my house...."
She begged Yuu silently to stop...
"...So very late at night?"
Tani was crushed...finished.
And Tani might not have cried that moment, that second, if she hadn't caught Yuu's eyes. She didn't want to hear the unsaid message, but it rang through her head, a mocking, unknown telepathy.
You lost to the other woman...didn't you Tani-chan?
END.
Reply
