愛子 – Day 1
Plumbing her thumbs onto the gazebo, enrolling turbs of begonias accross the barricade, Aïko was pandiculating in the garden, in the Garden of Hesperides, a few galoping horses from the Heosphoros.
Upon the resting voyagers, Ladon was circling the ecliptical pole in his eternal pool, scouted by lines of rampant tawny owls. Nightwings had kept a late espial of sort, all eyes onto the odd couple transitioning.
It was a reign of a false dusk above the gazebo, a tapestry of planetary clouds. Staring at alpha Draconis, the traveller of the night mumbled, covered by the shouldering mist of his gaslamp : Doko ?
Absorbed by the tin note released in the invisible, brought to her nose like the attic’s fragrance of her forgotten kitchen garden, Aïko had pulled herself to her escort.
Even in a peaceful stance, Rodahuscha was nothing more in size than a washed up balooning whale; fronting the blue cobalt pigments of two collapsing horizons. On the last steps of his mumblings, laughing then bursting into susurrations, Rodahuscha stared at the two-pieced Bailanese papery he was matching to coordinate.
One of the Thirteen Travellers, as once hailed in grander occasions, was thinking the way back from Ladon’s tail, drawing his sighs from a star map without clear cardinals; as they were turning blind in Hesperides, for days adrift. Despite his toolery and an odd-spanning life, Rodahuscha was very much a vagabond, missing crucial inklings about this anchorage. The Garden demonstrates an inner tendency for mocking wanderers.
Three pebbles and a twine should tell you anything about your latitude, from the casting shadows; although orienting required great manoeuvers in the Rabbit’s Vision. Looking down at Aïko’s trinkets layed onto the gazebo’s concrete, he envisioned – was there a clue in her wreathing ?
He had picked up the baton from Grandfather; carrying the Child safely into the new season, walking among the phaesant’s eyes of spring she had pointed along a tweet. Sugoi ! she had ventured courteously, to the intense figure nodding among the midday walks – they were utterly lost.
A procession appeared under the path of Espaliers, a path they would be crossing the morrow. Bellringers were casting the Ol’night away.
All travellers around the Hesperides had to come to some sort of agreement : Omotenashi is not entitlement.
It is soon time for a curfew, the voice issued. Dreams don’t await. Rodahuscha lighted his orange incense, bringing a cloudy protection as they went unnoticed behind a veil. This incense, made from ashes of my Great Great Ancestors, would shift the mind of every foe we encounter. It has power against dark strategies.
The Child ran in a robe of night, slipped into her portable futon matress, hid behind her wool. The rigorous sight appeared over her canopy; covered her toes. Rodahuscha had always prepared the mattress, bringing her trinkets back below her buckwheat pillow, which made her feel safely guarded. In front of her gargantuan warden, she urgently let slip a feigning yawn. With his torned eyes he looked upon her obedient display. Time had arrived for our bedtime story.
Do you know the tale of this shikibuton, how it bestowed upon you ? She gave her utmost shake. It is a fascinating tale, from my formidable perils. I bargained my Equestrian tak from the Three Gorges Damn. Pause. She was asleep…
Despite his growls, the long-eared owl waited everlasting hours, awaken in a deep deprivation, for her to sleep serene. Biting his mangalorian rolls, he gandered seemingly. Outside stood roaming illusions, rovind around the wall of the incense, trying their game of influences on a novice shelter. Some even tried to cross. The Child needs safe passage, something as seemingly present said from the dangerous scene. He nodded pensively.
Aïko had stitched and protective embroidery, offered by his old poet chum – the novelized and celebrated prince Tanaphon – showing expensive bridal talisman of the South-East. Emperors themselves were deemed worthy of its knotting. It binds the soul from dreaming too far from the wherry. If you really believe in this stuff. It is quicker to scare a Child than waste a precious breath. Nothing will pass the fence.
In the silence Rodahuscha felt it, from the Kingfisher star; the fertile winds of Year caressing her forehead; nourished by rays of unseen magnitude. I promised I would, and I will, he said out loud. I served no hoax. Did anyone ever complained about a trade with a great Son of Agonya ? It would add terrible trust to the name of my beloved parents. An ironic silence ensued the taunt. Oh, you are just wind.
As he turned his head back, he saw the cosmic eerie light pointing westward. Spring Equinox is upon us, he recalled, from Aïko’s pointing of the phaesant’s eyes. Aïko had showned me. She saw the calendar inside the soil, despite being less that a cycle. This instinct is good. It would be good compass for their next adventure. They needed an exit by the tenth solar term. Yesterday, the Sun reached celestial longitude of sixty-three degrees.
They aimed the Inn of the Thirteen Travellers; to meet Blondel and the others before reaching the Kotorii. Many exit paths would be crowded, as Grain in Ear would soon zenith. Planters would cross the mountain passes, searching for soils and good harvest. It was a tradition of great worship in Hesperides. If you believed in this stuff. Already, razoring roads attracted yellow eyes in the forests.
During bedtime on the gazebo, the Child looked at the night’s arch, pointing in secret her childish thumbs at the Heavens. They were turning from left to right at each swings from her carrier’s map. Focused as he was on Bailanese papery, the Carrier never saw which direction the skies were revolving.