Tasuki woke in the early morning grayness, the palace already thrumming to life and full of hushed sound and motion before the coming day. It was going to be a cold one for Konan, the air sharp with autumn and smelling of distant smoke. Ten years ago, maybe even five years ago, Tasuki would have been pounding on Boushin-sama's door, demanding that the Emperor not waste such a day shuffling papers. But this morning he just groaned protest, pulling his coverlets back over his head. His bones ached with the change in weather, and Tasuki bitched into his pillow, knowing he wasn't going to go back to sleep.

How was this fair? You get old and your body starts predicting the weather but you're too damn grouchy to do anything IN the weather, so what's the point of knowing in advance? Any information is useful information, Kouji would have said, but Tasuki growled, determined not to think of Kouji today, no matter that it was autumn and the world smelled the same way as it had when he was young, in the mountains. Some grief never went away.

"Tasuki?" Chichiri blinked at him sleepily, silver-streaked bangs dangling into his good eye. "Aren't you supposed to go riding with Boushin today?"

From the Tasuki-lump in bed next to him came a string of decidedly impolite words.

Chichiri sighed with an air of long-sufferance and aimed a little zot of ki at the general posterior area of the blanket. "Get up! He'll come tromping in here in his spurs if you don't. Still acts like he's seventeen, no da."

"Lucky Bastard," Tasuki grumbled, groping for his shirt in the near dark. "Why aren't YOU up yet? Isn't it time for a morning chant or something else monkish?"

"After all this time I still don't know where you get your ideas on the proper behavior of a monk." Chichiri rolled back over in the blankets, passing a hand wearily over his face.

"Neh. You're usually up by now." Tasuki rattled his beads, trying to untangle them.

Chichiri half-shrugged with one bare shoulder. "I'm tired."

Tasuki hesitated, slowly smoothing the sash on his coat. Chichiri seemed to be- faded. He shook himself, offering a wry grin. Hells, it was probably just the early light. "Well, get some rest then, why don't you? Take the day off. I'll get Boushin out of your hair and you'll just have his whelps to deal with." Anyone else speaking that way about the royal family would probably get free lodgings in the palace dungeon, but Tasuki's tone was laced with affection. The palace that had been such a lonely place for Hotohori now rang with the voices of children. Boushin and his empress loved each other devotedly and four daughters and three sons brightened the halls with their voices. Now they played tag in the courtyard where Boushin's father once challenged the ensorcelled Lord Tamahome, his friend and rival for the hand of Lady Miaka, and delivered unto him a blow that would have been fatal were it not for the great love of his Miko and the intervention of Lord Mitsukake-

Tasuki shook his head, grinning wolfishly. Even his thoughts sounded like a theatre narrator. He'd been there then, standing in the rain and seriously wondering if he was going to get through watching without throwing up; it had hardly been poetic. But the public ate it up, couldn't get enough of it. Good thing he and Chichiri were around to keep the record straight, or else gods only know what kind of doggerel would be spread about them.

Thirty-seven years ago, on Mount Taikyoku, Chichiri and Tasuki had made a promise to Hotohori that his son would not be without protectors. Chichiri had become a much-needed advisor to the prince and a comfort to the Empress Houki, greatly to the surprise of everyone involved. Although the love they bore each other was strictly that of best friends, Chichiri did much for the easing of the Empress's grief over the loss of her young husband. Tasuki and Chichiri had been by her side when, shortly after the birth of her youngest grandchild, she died peacefully in her chambers after a short illness. Only they had seen the one that came to fetch her.

The Seishi knew that Hotohori wasn't there to talk to them, but the emperor still paused next to his friends long enough to murmur his gratitude. And to the commoner turned monk and the former bandit, the Fourth Emperor of Konan bowed.

Tasuki eyed the mirror without seeing it, musing on these things. He seemed to be musing a lot lately, but it didn't keep the small flares of white from his flame-colored hair. Tasuki flashed the mirror a wicked grin. One thing about being a Seishi, if you lived long enough to age you did a damn good job of it. He still looked damn fine, only the faint creases at the corners of his eyes and the grizzling of his orange mane hinted at his nearly sixty years. His shoulder ached abruptly, and he scowled. That and his damn bones; he swore they were getting more insistent every day. Still, he could still get up well before dawn and go riding all day, come back late in the dark and stay up half the night drinking, right? Yeah. Damn straight. Tasuki glanced back at his warm bed, his friend and lover curled up and snoring faintly, and tapped his fan against his thigh, frowning.

"Who am I KIDDING?" He mumbled wearily, and crawled back into bed to wait for dawn.

"So, what do you think, Tasuki?" Boushin, at thirty-nine, was a ruler in his prime, the very image of his father. There were moments when, in just the lift of his head or the lowering of an eyebrow that he would so resemble Hotohori that Tasuki found himself looking about for Tamahome, ready for a brawl. It was with a sweet sort of ache that he would come back to now, and remember that he would not meet Tamahome in this world again.

"Eh?" Tasuki, his horse cantering idly next to Boushin's, started. "What was that?"

"You're slipping, Jiji." Boushin teased, flipping his ponytail over his shoulder. "I was just informing you that my eldest daughter is rather madly in love with the young prince of Kutou. Do you think marrying them is a good idea? Beyond the obvious alliance reasons, of course."

Tasuki snorted. "I'm the wrong person to ask advice on matters of state. Talk to Chichiri about it."

"I'm not asking about a matter of state, Tasuki." Boushin reached over to grasp the wrist of his friend and mentor.

Damn strong grip that kid's got, Tasuki thought. My hand's gone numb.

"I'm asking you as a man who loves his daughters, and I know you love them as your own. What should I tell Li?"

"When it comes to women, sire, permission is useless. They'll do what they want and get YOUR head on the block for it." Tasuki rubbed his shoulder absently, taking a deep breath of the clean air. "Heh. But if she loves the boy, Boushin, let her marry him. I always was a romantic at heart, and I've a soft spot for weddings." He reached up to twist off a spray of ruby leaves, and tucked them into his horse's plain leather bridle.

"I had hoped," Boushin said with an impish grin not at all suited to an emperor, "to marry my daughters to sons of yours."

Tasuki threw back his head in the boisterous laugh no stage actor could ever mimic to satisfaction. "I'm sorry to disrupt your plans by not having any!"

"Pity," Boushin smirked, "that you never found a decent wife."

"Never bothered to look," Tasuki sniffed.

"Perhaps if I had had sisters-"

"Marry one of Hotohori's brats?" Tasuki looked aghast. "Suzaku's tail, boy, do you know what he'd DO to me? Have my head!" Tasuki mock-shuddered.

Boushin faked the scolding look he used for his youngest daughters. "Tasuki-sama, you shouldn't speak so poorly of the dead."

Tasuki raised an eyebrow. "If they didn't speak twice as poorly of me, I'd consider it."

"You and your spooks," Boushin teased, urging his horse into a trot. "Sometime they're going to jump out at you and turn ALL your hair white!"

Tasuki reared his mount just for the hell of it. "HA! That'll be the day!"

"Race you!" Boushin already had a two-length head start.

"You'll never beat me, you know!"

The two horses pelted along the trail, leaves blowing in their wake. Chichiri may have been an advisor and tutor but it was Tasuki that had taught Boushin and his sons to fight and ride and hunt and get roaring drunk. His ministers had blanched at the impropriety and his father of honorable memory was probably out cold in Nuriko's non-corporeal lap from the shock. Still it was a fact that Boushin was a better ruler for it; he understood how his people thought and felt and under him Konan had flourished.

"Eh, Jiji, you're getting slo-" Boushin turned to toss the jibe over his shoulder, and reined his horse so hard it nearly threw him. Tasuki's horse had slowed to nearly a walk, and Boushin had just a glimpse of the Seishi before he slumped forward over his horse's mane, and then fell onto the trail.

"Tasuki!!" Boushin leapt from his mount and went to his knees in the debris of autumn, gathering Tasuki up in his arms. "Tasuki? Are you alright?"

Tasuki's eyebrows came together in an impatient scowl. "Damn, boy, if I was alright I wouldn't have fallen off the blasted horse! Stupid critter, I never liked them." Tasuki half-closed his eyes, his face pale.

The emperor glanced around, getting their bearings. "We're not far from the palace, I'll go get Chichiri and-"

Tasuki looked over Boushin's head, and smiled faintly. "No, Boushin, you needn't get Chichiri." His tone brought the younger man around to face him, and Tasuki knew the expression. Hotohori had worn it for Nuriko, and Chiriko, and Mitsukake. "Boushin, maybe you're right. I should have had sons." He smiled, and it was as if he was painted on glass, fading in Boushin's arms. "But I was lucky to have a good friend," Tasuki lifted his hand; it obviously cost him a great deal. "Who was willing to loan me his. Couldn't have loved you more if you were mine. He's proud of you. So'm I."

"Tasuki?" Boushin caught the Seishi's hand, pressing it to his face. Tasuki felt, distantly, the warmth of tears on his palm. "Tasuki!"

But Tasuki was already looking beyond the grieving emperor, his eyes narrowing in recognition. "The hell you guys been?" His voice was little more than a whisper, and Boushin had to strain to hear. "Couldn't live without me, no da? Heh. Knew ya loved me."

"Jiji?" Boushin breathed, almost afraid to look up, half-hoping and half-terrified he would see what Tasuki saw. But the glade was empty to his eyes, strangely still and warm as Konan's very finest spring day. The light seemed too gold, almost reflective, and strange shadows moved on the grass like fish beneath the surface of the water. "Tasuki?"

Tasuki, eyes closed and smiling, did not respond. Somewhere beyond the sky there came a sharp, shrill cry, as of a bird of prey. In the arms of Boushin, fifth emperor of Konan, the very last Shichiseishi exhaled, and was still.

"Your majesty?"

Boushin turned away from the confused tears of his children, and moved over to speak to the minister in the doorway of his inner sanctum. "Yes?"

"We, we found this in the breast pocket of Tasuki-sama's coat… and thought you might know best what to do with it." He held out a wrapped silk parcel, faded with age, and placed it in the emperor's outstretched hand.

Boushin dismissed him with a word of thanks, and with a kiss on the head for his children, sent them along to be comforted by their mother and nurses.

When Boushin had arrived at the palace, his hair cut short as a sign of his grief and Tasuki's still form cradled against his chest, the palace was already in mourning. Chichiri it seemed had no desire to be the last of the Seishi for long. They'd found him quietly smiling, curled on the floor before the altar of Suzaku. Boushin, who knew something of such things, suspected that the shock of feeling Tasuki's ki vanish as he died had been too much for Chichiri. Not that the gentle Seishi hadn't known what the day would bring; his staff was already in its place of honor in the temple of Suzaku, resting against the deity sword like two friends grateful to see each other.

Now, alone in his chamber, Boushin carefully unwrapped the small treasure that Tasuki had kept close to his heart. Inside was an image he knew as well as his own face. The crumpled picture his father had carried inside his armor on the day of his last battle and now rested in the temple was a twin to this one he held in his hand. The magic images were a gift of the Miko to her Seishi; Boushin was sure there would be another one found in Chichiri's spare belongings.

The only other item in the parcel was cool and soft, and Boushin blinked at it in momentary confusion before the story behind it came back to him. The long purple braid was bound at both ends by threads that he knew somehow had come from garments of the other Seishi, and the sheer reality of its weight in his hands made tears blur his vision. He lifted the braid to his face, and smelled snow and chrysanthemums.

"Nuriko." The Seishi that had loved his father, the first one to die.

Reverently, Boushin wrapped the coil of hair back up, and placed it next to Tasuki's fan on the table beside him. There was a spot in the temple reserved for them. Then Boushin buried his face in his arms and wept.

"You kept the BRAID?"

"Shuttup."

"Tasuki-chaaaan! I didn't know you CARED!!"

"ACK!! Chichiri! Get 'em off me! What's so damn funny!?! RRRRRRRRRR!!!"

"Your FACE, no da. You should see it."

"Hello," Came a new voice, a bit apart from where the six friends had spent the last minute- or was it a year?- at their reunion. "May I join you? Of COURSE! After all, you are SO utterly cool! Ah, of course, of course, they all say that- I heard you were being bothered by that obnoxious Genrou, thought I'd come straighten him out! Oh, him, no trouble, he's just getting used to being dead and-"

"KOUJI!!" Tasuki shot to his feet, interrupting the traditional greeting of his fellow bandit. "You're here!"

"Of course!" Kouji put a hand on his hip, and grinned. "Where else would I be? Your pals are good company, ya know."

"Mmm, we are." Nuriko grinned, not detaching himself from Tasuki's arm. "He told us ALL kinds of things about you."

"What?" Chiriko blinked around, confused. "*I* don't remember anything? What kind of things? Nuriko!"

Nuriko cleared his throat. "I'll tell you when you're older."

"I'M FIFTY YEARS OLD!!" Chiriko retorted, and had to be calmed down by Mitsukake.

"Hey, you guys done bein' lovey-dovey?" Kouji jerked his thumb in the direction of Mt Taikyoku. "Coz the old bag wants ta see ya."

"OLD BAG?!" Taitsukun thundered, appearing directly behind Kouji and sending him, with a yelp, into the arms of his best friend. Tasuki gave him a reassuring pat.

"Now, then," Taitsukun continued. "Chichiri. Tasuki. Your friends have been very patient. I know you've just gotten here, but do you know what you want to do now?"

"Hell yeah!" Tasuki whooped, brandishing his fan and glad to be feeling nineteen again. "Make sure that goofball Tama is treating Miaka right!"

"Niyan!" Mitsukake's cat of the same name agreed, from his perch on Chichiri's head.

"Make sure I come too-" Kouji leaned in to Tasuki's ear, his green eyes glinting dangerously, "So I can keep this boy in line."

Tasuki swallowed hard.

"Well you KNOW what I want," Nuriko grinned.

The Emperor blushed.

"Well then," Taitsukun tried to pretend she wasn't smiling. "Time for you bunch of reprobates to quit cluttering up my mountain!" she waved her hand, and the air began to sparkle. "Off you go."