Daisy in the Fringe

Dear Diary,

When we got back, Dusty was riling people up.  She’d spent the afternoon at the archivists and she said she met the archivist of love, one of them fellers who studies how people act when they get together.  She joked that Geoffry and me might want to go ask him some questions, but Geoffry whispered in my ear that he’d rather learn with me than ask anyone else, and besides we got them books that Aphrodite (girl not goddess) gave us if we want to learn something new.

I blushed at that and was ready for Dusty to tease me on it, but she’d already picked her next target.  She told Dorothy that the Love Archivist had told her that Dorothy was betrothed to someone else.  Well, that brought out a real to-do: it turns out Dorothy was going to be married to this feller as part of a ritual to bring back gods, she was gonna have his babies and then get sacrificed and they was preparing her for that when we met her back in the crater.  She said she was happy to be with us now, but soon after she went off to her sleep cubicle to be all alone and she stayed there the rest of the night.

I reckon Dorothy must be awfully lonely.  I mean, we’re in a strange place with strange customs, but at least we have other people with us who know our ways.  Dorothy is the only one around from her home and there ain’t nobody around who knows how she grew up or the foods she eats or the gods she worships or anything.  Oh, she’s got Hank for funning with, but she ain’t got anybody she can even talk her own language with.  I tried to imagine how I’d feel if I was here in Nihon all alone, without Geoffry or Dusty or anyone, and I realized how hard it must be for Dorothy.  I’m gonna have to make an effort to be extra special nice to her tomorrow cause I’m thinking she could use a good friend around about now.

After a bit, Lady Michi came back.  She’d been sent for by Prince Nobunga, and he’d done something terrible to her because she was hurting all over and even bleeding.  Geoffry fixed up the physical damage pretty quick, but her heart was still hurting.  Seems that Prince Nobunga had gotten much worse all of a sudden, that his wife was in town and he’d gotten more beastly.  Everyone guessed that maybe the dark presence that Dusty saw in him might get stronger when his wife was around.  We decided we had to do something.

Dusty went off and got a message to Prince Yoshimune, the Monk Prince.  He’s gonna bring his mind-walkers to town to see if they can do something about that dark presence.  But it’s gonna be a few days before he can get here.

Meanwhile, we’re gonna hunker down and keep everything safe.  But we’re worried that maybe word will get out that we know about Prince Nobunga, and someone might take offense at that and do something about it.  We reckon that’s probably why that samurai was slandering Dusty and all, but since that didn’t do them any good, who knows what will happen next.  It sure is troubling, and we’re gonna keep a watch tonight and sleep with our swords handy.

Dear Diary,

Geoffry and me just got back from a nice quiet day alone in town.  (Well, alone except for a samurai guard, anyways.  I sure am getting tired of having guards underfoot wherever we go!  I’d never make a good princess – I get too tired of being surrounded by guards and servants all the time.)

I wore my white sundress with the pink trimmings, the strapless one that’s kept up with elastic around the bodice.  It flows so prettily in the breeze, and Geoffry said he just loved how it looked on me.  He also took every chance to brush my shoulder all day long and walk extra close to me, so I reckon he really must have liked it.

We went to someplace called Rikugien Park.  It’s on the outskirts of the city where there ain’t so many big buildings.  In much of the park you can’t see anything of the city at all which makes it easy to imagine yourself out in the countryside.  Well, out in the countryside if the countryside were so pretty, anyways.  All the landscape was so well managed – the grass was all trimmed to a perfect length, feeling spongy underfoot, and the flowering bushes were bright and cheerful without a dead blossom anywhere in sight.  It must have taken a lot of work, but all we saw of that was a couple little old men with small clippers trimming plants here and there and keeping everything nice.

The park had a little lake with an island in the middle of it.  We went out in a boat and visited a small shrine on the island.  It was pretty, a soft-brown wood with one of them funny little arched tiled roofs that the temples have here.  We lit a stick of smelly stuff to the local gods before wandering off down a pretty little path.

We found a soft tussock of grass on a slope looking down over the lake and lay down and watched the clouds fly past.  (I was worried about getting grass stains on my dress, but Geoffry took off his jacket and let me sit on it, then put his arm behind me and let me rest my back on him so I wouldn’t get stained at all.)  The sky was a deep blue like my Geoffry’s eyes, with the occasional puffy cloud setting off the color.

We talked for a long time about all sorts of things.  About my friends from home, and how strange visiting Hawkinsville had been, and all the things Geoffry wanted to do someday.  I told him how Annie had stayed in Antioch after the wedding and gotten a job as a waitress, and he told me about his two best friends Daniel and Benjamin who he’s known from grade school right on up through medical school.  All that talk got me homesick for our friends and for a place where everyone don’t turn their head to look at the gaijin walking by, where a girl can lie on a hillside with her feller without a swordsman keeping an eye on everything.  It’s been nice visiting Nihon, but I suppose I’m just about ready to go back.

But it was awful nice to have a day out with Geoffry, even if we can’t be completely alone.  Having him ask me about myself, being so curious and really wanting to know what I thought, sure was nice.  I don’t reckon I ever had anyone so interested in me, who wants to know all about me.  And Geoffry’s about the smartest feller I know, which makes having him pay me so much mind even more special, though I can’t help but feel that all my prattle must bore him at least a little.

I wish life could always be like that, lying on a pretty hill under a clear blue sky with my Geoffry’s arm around me keeping me warm.  Though maybe without any samurai around.

We finished our day in the city at a pretty restaurant called Cherry Blossom.  It was paneled with rich wood and the waitresses were all dressed in pretty pink kimonos.  We sat at a quiet table and had some tasty Nihonese food.  I even tried some of that raw fish that they eat here.  It was pretty good, little pieces of fish on small blobs of sticky rice, with other pieces of fish rolled up in rice and seaweed.  I wasn’t expecting to care for it, but it was really good.

Geoffry kept smiling at me all through dinner, his eyes bright in the dim lights.  He didn’t even mind when I laughed at him struggling with them chopsticks they use instead of fork and knifes here.  I got the feel for them pretty quick, but Geoffry was a mite clumsy, which was awfully endearing on him.  But by the end of the dinner, when we had ice cream flavored with odd Nihonese fruits, he had figured it out.

We finished our day in the city strolling through the brightly lit streets under the twilight sky.  I felt like I was glowing, and I wished we didn’t have to go back to the court and complications and sleeping all alone in a little cubicle.  But go back we did, watching the last rays of the sun over the water from the ferry.  A pretty ending to a wonderful day.

Dear Diary,

Geoffry and me went to see Jugotai-sama to ask him about Harmony of the Tao.  He told me some of what happens in Nihon to someone with the Harmony.  They’re expected to use their ability to help people in one way or another.  Lots of them become sword saints like him: mighty warriors who serve princes.  Some become healers, or teachers, or care for people in other ways.  And he heard how when a Roman gets the harmony, they’ll usually join the Knights of Isis.  But he couldn’t tell me anything more.

I sure am confused about all this.  I want to do the gods right and use my gift as they would want.  I reckon that means that I need to help people, but I don’t know just how to go about doing that.  Who is it that I should help and how?  Should I be spending my time helping Geoffry help people, being his nurse and all?  Or should I become one of them Knights of Isis, whatever that means?  Or should I do something else entirely?  I just don’t know, and I sure do want to.  It feels like I’m being called, but I don’t know for what.

Meanwhile, Lord Toda don’t have any ideas of how to rush the protocol office on the decision about married folks sharing quarters.  He said he can set up special “conference rooms” where we could go to have “private conferences,” and Hank and Dorothy jumped at the chance to “confer.”  But I don’t know: a room set aside just to “confer” seems kind of sleazy to me.  And it ain’t exactly modest to be excusing yourself to go off to a “conference room” – I heard one of them samurai guards snicker as he saw Hank grab Dorothy’s hand and drag her to a room, and the guard at the “conference room” was smirking with an ear close to the door while he was standing there.  I mean, I reckon I’ll go and “confer” if Geoffry asks – he is my husband after all.  But it just don’t feel quite proper.  (And I hope that someone cleans out the “conference room” once Hank and Dorothy are done with it – I sure don’t want to “confer” in a dirty room!)

And oh, everyone was talking with Lord Crispin on the radio.  They’re talking about all the politics around here and whether we’ll be official ambassadors or just try to make nice with the court.  But all that’s kinda boring, and I can never keep track of all that politics stuff anyways.

Dear Diary,

The Iron Falcon landed this morning!  Lord Crispin hired Captain Olo to be our embassy ship.  His job is to stay here and take us home when we say it’s time.  That’s nice, but I reckon it’s even nicer to have Captain Olo around.

And what’s even better, the Nihonese are sending in some folks to clean out the Falcon.  That’s just in case one of them important princes or such want to visit the ship: they figure she’s too grimy for a prince right now.  And much as I love the Falcon, seeing as she was the first ship I ever flew and all, I reckon they got a point.  It’s gonna be nice to see her sparkle: I did some cleaning on her once myself, but didn’t have time to do all that was needed.

We’re gonna see about taking Captain Olo and his crew to town some day.  He don’t want to go yet, though: he ain’t ready to let the Falcon out of his sight, not with all the Nihonese around.  But I reckon we’ll take him one of these days: I want to see Captain Olo dancing at one of them clubs.  I bet he can dance a real treat!

Dear Diary,

Not much to say about today.  The ladies of court was all so impressed with Dusty’s honor that they invited us shopping in town.  We visited some nice new stores and they bought her an extra-special kimono in deep blue silk with abstract patterns in green thread that look like lily pads.  She looks a treat in it.

We stopped by some of the city clothes stores and I got some new boots, purple soft leather with an open toe and a high heel.  They look a treat with capri pants, and Dusty said that when I wear them I strut like a peacock.  They look like they’d be fun to dance in – I’ll have to wear them out with Geoffry some time.

Other than that, things are just rolling along.  We’ve put in a request to let spouses share a room together cause with Lord Agrippa dead we should be able to make our own rules about such things.  But they got a protocol office here that’s got to decide that, and it’s likely to take them a week or so to figure it all out.  I sure do hope they decide soon cause Geoffry is starting to look a mite peaked again now that it’s been a couple days since our trip to the city.  Anyway, he’s awfully distracted and can’t seem to take his eyes off me whenever I come by and he’s always reaching out a hand to brush over me, which I reckon is all awfully nice but it’s keeping him from thinking hard on important things, so I suppose it would be best if we get to start having alone-time together.