Title: White Butterfly 22
Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: http://www.geocities.com/taliasen1256.html, http://www.Seraphim-grace.livejournal.com. If you want it ask.
Feedback: Always appreciated and replied to.
Rating: 18.
Pairings: Crawford x Ran others to be notified later.
Warnings: Het, yaoi, vast cast.

Lord Fuji was a tall imposing man who arrived two days after his son left for the Taira estate. He looked at the entire house with a look of disdain before his retinue took over the main hall and decorated it with his own screens and lamps. He wore a stiffly pressed kataginu and a scowl as he looked at his daughter. "Your hair," he said, "were you afflicted with a fever?"

"No, my lord," Rukia said calmly, kneeling on her cushion with her face implacable and her hands still among the many layers of Aya’s kimono. Both Saya and Maya sat at her sides, wearing matching white with the knots on their obi-jime on either side of their waist to tell them apart. In Kyoto they called them they ayakashi aneki because they looked so alike. Most people were intimidated by the two of them, especially when they dressed to distress, but Lord Fuji showed no sign of it.

Crawford sat on his cushion, sipping sake and wondering if he could excuse himself and not be considered rude. The sake was warming his blood nicely enough that he regretted sending Aya to the Taira rather than listen to his father in law’s overly formal complaints. Occasionally he would reach unto the table and lift one of the very tiny meat buns that Baba had made for their visitor, but mostly he just listened and drank the very fine sake that the area was famous for.

"Then what reason do you attribute for the abomination that is your hair? You are a princess of the House of Fuji and you wear your hair like a chattel of the sea." Lord Fuiji’s face was as impassive as stone. "Tell me, Crawford, do you like your wife’s hair such?"

"I do not care how my lady wears her hair, I do not understand why such a thing should affect me, if she wished then she may wear one of the wigs that she brought with her, but I would rather she wore her own beauty than the artifices of the courtesan." Crawford did not care for the Lord of the Fuji house. He had married Rukia at the suggestion of the emperor and he was fond of her in his own way, she could be witty and was brilliant. She was lovely in the manner of tiny things, and just as deadly.

"Only prostitutes and sea bitches wear their hair short, and such a woman should not represent either the houses of Fuji or Crawford." Rukia’s youngest brother, Yuuta, said. He had a cross shaped scar on his forehead and lacked either Fuji Syuusuke’s pale softness or Fuji Rukia’s bird bright beauty. He had hard eyes and a foul turn to his mouth.

"And now so does the princess of the house of Fuji." Crawford said, "she spent months at sea, and then years in Europe at the behest of the emperor, may the goddess shine on him, rather than carry the lice of Italy to Nihon and the court, she cut away her hair. It is growing now, but personally I like the way it sits against her cheek."

"And what kind of husband," Lord Fuji drawled, picking at the ebi on the platter in front of him, "allows his wife to visit such a distant and almost mythical land for such a period of time without him?"

Rukia laughed, "well, my lord, I was hardly likely to stay for a few days now was I?" Behind her Saya and Maya smiled at her wit, and her elf, Farfarello, seemed to bristle. "I was to investigate for my emperor, I do my best for both the glory of the emperor and the House of Fuji."

"It should speak only when it is spoken to." Yuuta said formally, speaking over her. "It should answer only the questions directed at it."

"My wife," Crawford drawled, "is not an it, she is the Lady of House Crawford and pregnant with my child though it is yet to thicken her waist." Rukia only opened her eyes slightly to hide her surprise that she had not known, but at the same time she knew her husband was Onmyoji as much as Negotiator and if he said she was with child then his strange gift had told him.

"Finally," Lord Fuji drawled, "you have only been married for ten years, daughter, though I think, perhaps, that you have spent maybe a whole month in your husband’s company."

Crawford laughed, "you have three wives do you not, my lord?" His tone dripped sarcasm, "how do you sleep at night when you do not trust the women who manage your estates."

"They do not manage my estates, they stay in the house under the control of men that I trust."

"None of my father’s wives, or his concubines, are trusted with more than that task for which the gods invented women." Yuuta said in a dark voice.

"And yet," Crawford said, "none of the houses will allow you to marry their daughters no matter how much you offer, even the minor houses will not offer their children." His smile was serpentine and cruel, "and I am reliably informed that even the servants of your estates will not allow you near their daughters." If Rukia had contained her surprise at her impending motherhood she couldn’t restrain it at Crawford defending her to the extent of offending a powerful lord.

"At least some of us have interest in their daughters." Lord Fuji said, "and not their sons like some I can mention."

Crawford laughed again, emboldened by the sake which was thick in his throat, "but some of us like both the sons and the daughters, for one must marry where one is told by politics, but one can find pleasure where it is offered." He looked at Yuuta, "of course then it must be offered."

"Perhaps, Lord Crawford," Lord Fuji said, "the sake that this area is so known for has made you coarse where you intended no insult."

"Perhaps," Rukia said, "my husband reacted only to the insult given to the mother of his child."

Yuuta sneered, "perhaps it should wait until such a child is born to make that kind of statement."

"She is my lady," Crawford said politely, "this is her third pregnancy, but I have checked the auguries and this child will be carried to term." Rukia went quiet and lowered her eyes at the admission, her father was right Crawford’s tongue had been loosened by the sake, she could see the alcoholic brightness in his eyes and the slackness of his tight lips.

"My lord," Saya said, "the hour grows late and such correspondence awaits for the morning as the emperor commands."

"My lord Fuji," Maya said, "allow me to guide you to the room that we have allocated for your retinue."

Lord Fuji drank down the sake in a few quick swallows, before he overturned the cup placing it lip down on the table. "Come, Yuuta," He said standing up, "we shall awaken with the dawn, Aneki," he addressed the twins, "we shall eat in our room tomorrow before taking a constitutional about the lands the Takatori have allotted you." His smile was vindictive this time, "for if you have a daughter, daughter," he sneered at Rukia, "then these lands revert to house Fuji."

"Actually," Crawford said bluntly, "these lands belong to the Fujimiya, the last son of which is bonded to me by oath and fealty, therefore those children born unto my wife have no claim to these lands, only those children born unto either the Fujimiya boy or the Fujimiya-hime." He poured himself more sake, "Farfarello, I realise that you are not mine to command, being the elf of my lady, but perhaps you will stand guard over her father and brother tonight, to make sure nothing happens to them whilst they are my guests."

Farfarello smiled baring a mouthful of sharp white teeth. "By your command," he said in his thickly accented way, "I shan’t sleep a wink making sure that they are as safe as my lady’s babe."

Naoe wanted to accompany Aya to the Taira estate despite the terrible weather, and no amount of coercing, bullying or demanding seemed to be able to make him stay. So Baba was forced, as much by Crawford’s seeming inability to deny the boy something he wanted, as Naoe’s supposed devotion to his duty to let him go. She did however send him with a tincture for his chest, and many heavy clothes and the instruction, delivered to Fuji-sama with hands on hips and a stern gaze that really should have turned him to stone, that he was to ride in the carriage with them and ideally swaddled in blankets.

If Fuji or Aya had a complaint about being jammed together in the carriage, with the boy between them, they certainly made no mention of it, or at least where she could hear.

Aya fussed over the boy almost as badly as she did, making sure he was well covered and warm, because every time he coughed Aya’s heart seemed to stop in his chest and it went on and on and on. The spatters of blood in the handkerchief Naoe did not conceal as well as he thought.

The Taira lived in a vast estate called Gifu. At the heart of it, surrounded by lush manicured woodland, was a great castle that was at least six stories high. As they passed over the drawbridge and through the main gate Aya was glad to see the torches lit against both the cold and the dark before he allowed Ken to disembark with Naoe in his arms.

The Joshu, a large thin woman, bundled up against the cold in many layers of kimono, greeted them at the door, with confident gestures, passing Naoe over to the guards to have him bathed, to get some warmth into his bones, because the child had no fat on him at all, and what was Lord Crawford thinking sending him out in this weather, she didn’t know, but gaijin will as gaijin are.

It seemed to take moments from the door being opened to them before they were placed around a large brazier with tea being pressed into their hands and food laid out for them. Fuji laid back on the tatami with a self satisfied sigh. "I can’t say my arrival to the Fujimiya house was dealt with this," he paused, "quickly."

"They were expecting us." Aya qualified, "Baba is always annoyed when visitors show up out of the forest with no warning. I think she’s half convinced that they are youkai or youma, or worse yet she’ll have to feed them."

Fuji laughed as Ken warmed a towel over the fire. "Miho, in the kitchens," Ken said a little conspiratorially, "said that Baba had once annoyed the four gods of the wind with her manner."

Fuji laughed, "I believe it," he said sprawling out as the warmth soaked slowly into his body.

"The other rumour is that she is the mother of the Horimono-hime and that’s why she’s demon-blessed."

Aya laughed out loud at that, but Fuji turned on his side to look at Ken without changing his normal mercurial expression. "The Horimono-hime?" He asked, thinking of the strange doll he had found back at the Fujimiya house.

"She’s the bride of the demon king," Ken said solemnly, "she is a princess of the Fujimiya, because everyone knows that they’re descended from Izanami of the house of Windowless rooms, and she gave up her maidenhead for tattoos so that her husband would know her and she can perform vile sorceries. I’ve been told," he leant in to whisper although both of them could hear him well enough, "That she takes unwanted children to eat and that you can ask a boon of her but that she sets impossible prices."

Aya laughed, and Fuji followed his example, but Fuji’s sounded a little forced.

"She’s a priestess," Aya qualified, "she lives in a temple in the woods called The House of Sleep, she does take unwanted children, she finds homes for them, and the boon you mention, everyone knows that she will bless love matches, that she will make it so that when one dies so does the other."

"And the tattoos?" Fuji asked with his mocking smile.

"That’s true, that’s why they call her the Horimono-hime - the tattooed princess. She’s related to me, like a second aunt I think," Aya said, "but I don’t think I’ve ever met her, I know she’s not married to the king of demons though, she’s just a priestess in an out of the way temple whose faith is marked with ink on her body, that’s all. I’m sure lots of regions have legends just like her."

Fuji continued to smile but it was clear he was thinking, what it was, Aya didn’t know.

"Ran-nii" the girl enthused, she was heavily pregnant with her hair in loose ringlets and bright red cheeks. She almost caught him in a flying glomp then remembered about her pregnancy and stopped herself.

"Mitsuki-sama." Aya said kissing her on both cheeks like she was his sister, she appeared to be a year or so younger than him, but there was an inner glow and beauty to her. She had huge brown eyes like cherry stones. She looped her arm through Aya’s to let him lead her, the other arm she looped through Fuji’s without care that she didn’t know him.

"Fuji-sama, this is Mitsuki-sama, the wife of Takuto-ouji the heir of the Taira, Sano’s older brother."

Fuji’s smile never changed although Aya was learning to tell his moods apart, Fuji was thinking, he was planning, cataloguing, learning in preparation for something. "Enchanted, my lady, I am a humble son of the house of Fuji, I am Sysuusuke."

Mitsuki beamed at him, staring up at him, because she barely reached his shoulder, "then you will be Shuu-nii." Fuji’s smile for a moment looked hard, but then softened.

"An it please my lady." He said, "I am a calligrapher of her imperial majesty’s court, might I have the honour of painting you for her, she likes to see the ladies of the realm in case she has call to summon them to Kyoto."

Mitsuki just batted her hand, "I am not the kind of girl invited to Kyoto," she said, "didn’t Ran-nii tell you? I was just a singer in a troupe that passed through before Takuto decided he would make me his wife." She looked at her belly for a moment with genuine love before she smiled to herself. "But welcome to Gifu, it’s been so long, Ran-nii, so very long, I’m sure you’ll be as much home here as you ever were."