A.N.: One important fact which is obscured by diplomatic language, royal dragon practices, and the fact that ocean dragons lack a familiar (to us) word  for 'mother' and 'daughter: Chihao, the Third Prince of the Southern Continent, is the mother of Kaimyou, Goukou's third son.

1.

Hisui told him that afterwards it would all be as before, and Hisui was right. It was like sloughing off a fever and its phantom frets and terrors: once back in health, he wondered what he'd been so afraid of when ill. The world was fresh and green again; the morning sky blue, his ocean's waves steady and purposed as ever. Kaiei joined him at council meetings and sat, silent and attentive, learning the ways of governance from his father and his father's ministers. The old unspoken understanding between them had returned, and now Goukou sailed through his days with his son's steady presence like a freshening breeze at his back. The murky storm-cloud period between Goujun's death and Kaiei's Final Dance was like something he'd dreamed. 

Goushou and Gouen too had come through the thunderheads the better for the upheaval. Shaken by the fury of the sky, each seemed to have taken from the other the one characteristic he'd lacked. Goushou, happy in his new fatherhood, supported Goukou without question: a welcome if occasionally disconcerting alteration. Gouen in turn was more forthcoming with his brothers: less pliable, less the indulged youngest; older in spirit and more willing to show his heart plainly even when it diverged from Goukou's own. Goukou had no complaints. His son was now a man, and he could hardly expect his brother to be any less.

But there was still one cloud on his spirit, and that was Hisui himself. Or not Hisui, exactly: Hisui was irreproachable as ever. But those passages with Hisui when Goukou had been, well, other than himself, could not be forgotten. Everything else he could dismiss as the phantoms of the mind-- fears that had proved groundless, impulses he'd smothered which had died of that suffocation. But what he'd done with Hisui was still perfectly clear in his memory, and therefore must be clear in Hisui's. It could hardly affect their relationship as king and chancellor, the faces they wore before others, and indeed with each other in their private conferences. But it was impossible now for Goukou to relax into the old relationship, to be himself with his Third as before; to keep Hisui by him during siesta (it was years since they'd spent a night together), enjoying the easy consolation of the simple Forms and sleeping afterwards with the certainty of Hisui beside him. 

That constraint was surely misplaced. He felt it would disappear if he might just speak to someone about it-- but who? The person who could best reassure him was the source of the problem. Goukou's mind twitched in constant frustration. Talk to Goushou? No, he was too unconventional. 'If a king chooses to lie below his servant, why should that trouble either of you?' Gouen? His mouth twisted wryly. Where Goukou himself was concerned, Gouen wasn't unconventional *enough*. 

Goujun might understand, he thought. Goujun was a realist: he could see the necessity of that time and balance it against the present need for propriety. That in turn would allow Goukou to accept what he'd done and put it behind him. But Goujun was… elsewhere. 

Goukou sighed deeply. He got up from his chair and paced down the room, the only way to ease the small cramping of his heart. Kongyo and the secretaries rose from their desks automatically. Goukou waved them back down. He went to stand by the window that looked out upon his ocean and tried to reason with himself.

I haven't lost Hisui as I have Goujun. My good servant is spared to me. So what is this grief? 

He turned and paced again. 

I keep the servant, but I have lost my friend. Loss upon loss, and the smaller smarts the more because of the greater. I must bear it until it ends; and if it doesn't end, still I must bear it.

If only he had the consolation of the Forms: that would lighten his burden. But somehow the Forms were not the satisfaction they used to be. His favourites, the modest and well-behaved young men he took to his bed, were not what his body desired these days. He ran a mental eye over the faces of his servants and chamber gentlemen. Somebody was missing from their company; baffled, he felt he was forgetting someone perfectly obvious, but he couldn't put a name to him. Who was it, that comforting reassuring presence? Goushou, he thought; and shook his head. Someone else-- steadier, solider, not as changeable. Not careful Hisui; not obedient Goujun; not even Shantsu his Older, whose kindness he'd experienced so recently. Someone else, and no one he knew. Maybe only a wish of his heart given a phantom form in his mind; a figure composed of those he'd been closest to throughout his life, but not to be found in any one man. 

He returned to his chair, sighed again, and motioned to Kongyo. "Continue."

"Yes, your Majesty. The Count of the Southern Reaches asks permission to wait upon your Majesty towards the end of this month, but at that time the Red Dragon will be here with his sons. Can your Majesty vouchsafe him leisure?"

"Certainly. The Count is a man of sense and will understand if I must scant my presence to attend to family." He paused and tapped the arm of his chair. "I'd forgotten Goushou was coming. I wonder if he's mentioned it to Gouron? I'll write him--" No, that might put him under constraint. "Send my cousin a message that Goushou's family will be visiting; say I'd be happy to see him if affairs at the Western Ocean permit his coming." If he wishes to see Goujun's sons again, he may; and if the sight is too painful for him, he can stay away without reproach.

He finished the day's work; dined with his sons; took tea on the terrasse in company with Kaiei, and played a round of chess with him; and then went to his chambers. Kenson undressed him for the bath. Goukou gave him a signal with his eyes; hesitated a moment and then said, "And Jourin." Kenson bowed and Goukou went off to the bath place.

It's unkind to Jourin to use him thus; but unkinder still to exclude him from my company. Let him have what little of the king he can. Then he wondered at himself. It wasn't his custom to consider his servants' private feelings. 'Jourin's love for me is Jourin's own business; if it makes his service sweeter or more bitter, that is his concern, not mine. He will not thank me if I make allowances for it in our dealings together. Tractable though he is, he will resent being indulged like a child.'

And so he greeted Jourin casually as ever when he found the young man waiting in his bed chamber. He nodded Jourin into the bed first and lay down beside him. Kenson covered them, extinguished the bedroom lights, and by the moonlight through the curtains slipped into bed last of all. They knew now not to expect him to call for any of the threesome Forms; but tonight he had no desire for any Forms at all. "I will sleep, gentlemen. Lie closer." Jourin hemmed him on his left, Kenson on his right. Their weight and breath was a presence in the night: not enough, not the thing he wanted-- whatever that might be-- but almost. Goukou yawned, turned a little to his right side, and felt Jourin edge closer, almost the bulwark he sought against the obscure loneliness of his heart.

2.

To Goukou's pleasure Gouron sent word he would come, and arrived most opportunely two days before Goushou's party. Goukou was in audience at the time or else would have gone to the battlements to greet his cousin immediately. "Bring the Regent to my sitting room once he's bathed and refreshed himself," he told the chamberlain, and returned to his work with a lifting of his spirits.

When Gouron was announced , Goukou rose at once and came forward to greet him.

"Do not kneel," he said. "Let us be kinsmen together without ceremony. I am very glad to see you again." He embraced Gouron and then found himself reluctant to let go, so satisfying was the feel of his cousin's broad body. 

"I am glad to see you too, my lord." Gouron's face was sharper and more angled than Goukou remembered.

"Are you well these days? The western ocean must keep you busy."

"I am well, I thank you, and not overly busy. The realm is peaceful and its ministers skilled at their duties."

Perhaps he has too much time on his hands, not too little, Goukou thought. His own domestic troubles these last months had served at least to blunt the pain of Goujun's loss-- no, of Goujun's absence. But Gouron had had no such distraction, only the customed routine of Goujun's palace, empty now even of Goujun's sons. Goukou took him by the arm and led him to the chair placed sideways to his own.  

"How do your sons fare these days?"

"They grow before my eyes. Kaiden will bind his hair next year, and Kaijun is well started on his studies."

"Kaijun would be-- seven now? I think he was born when I was treating with the third Southern prince, who afterwards bore me Kaimyou."

Gouron nodded. "Turned seven a few months ago. And how is your own littlest one?"

Goukou smiled. "Not so little now. Kaishin runs about the nursery the day long, poking and prying and giving his gran'fers grey hairs."

Gouron laughed. "Kaifuu was like that too. Always on the run and into everything. Like having a waterspout in the palace, his gran'fers said." He sighed unthinking. "It will be good to see the boys again. Goushou-sama writes me of their progress, but of course it's not the same as seeing it myself."

Goukou took his hand and pressed it. "I've missed you, cousin. We barely had a chance to speak at Kaiei's Final Dance, and I had much on my mind at the time. Stay by my side, at least until Goushou arrives, and let us make the most of our time together."

"I wish that of all things, my lord." Their eyes met. 

"It's nearly siesta. You'll want to sleep after your journey, no doubt, but it would hearten me to have you sleep beside me."

"My lord is always kind. I will be happy to." And that, Goukou thought, was more than courtesy.

The chamber servants came and went, leaving them curled together under the silken coverings. Gouron's broad frame filled his arms, bringing again that exquisite sense of peace. How strange, this feeling of long-ago happiness that came merely from holding his cousin to him. Gouron's steady strong arms clasped him in return-- secure, anchoring, safe. Goukou nuzzled at Gouron's neck. What is this memory--  where have I known this before? Not with his slender brothers, or slight Shanten-oh, or even exquisite Hisui... In childhood, sleeping by his gran'fer? But Gouron was not that: his questioning talons slid down Goukou's back and to his leg, light above the thin fabric of the sleep robe. Goukou shifted a little to let his hands in. "Hold me only," he said in Gouron's ear. The large warmth enfolded his emerged root. Desire wrapped him, mist-like and unfocussed, and he left it that way, for with Gouron he dared not desire too clearly. Big and warm and flesh in flesh-- an old content absent for too long, finally back again. He sank into it as into the summer sea, and lay with the lapping waves of arousal washing his spirit, grudging slumber, even after Gouron slipped away into sleep.

3
So it was that Gouron was with him when the Count of the Southern Reaches was announced the next day. The Count's two servants stayed kneeling by the door while he came forward and prostrated himself before the King's chair.

"Rise up, my lord, and take your place beside us. We have not seen you since our brother's funeral, I think."

The Count expressed his thanks and seated himself. 

"Indeed no. And in the ordinary way of things this person would not intrude on a house in mourning. I hope the king will forgive my calling on him before Lord Goujun's first year service."

"Goujun's case is a little different from the usual. We did not see fit to postpone our family celebrations for it, and I do not refuse to see old acquaintances just because my younger brother is from home."

"There speaks the largeness of the ocean kings. This person guested recently at the Southern Monarch's Court, where her Majesty had occasion to speak of the Oceans' generosity. She sends her greetings and hopes your Majesty is in health after the trials of the last year."

"I thank the Monarch for her concern. We have weathered the storms somehow, and may hope for clearer skies from now on."

"As do we all. This person was asked to bring a small token of the Monarch's esteem to the King of the Eastern Ocean." He gestured to the servants. One man came forward on his knees and gave a bronze decanter to his master. The Count in turn went to one knee and presented it to Goukou with both hands.

"Wine of the Southern Continent, from the Monarch's own vinyards. She hopes it will please your Majesty's tongue."

"It most certainly will," Goukou said in delight. "Come, sit again, Count, and we will drink together."

Cups were brought for them. The Count unstoppered the decanter and poured for Goukou and Gouron, and on the former's insistence, for himself. 

"Excellent, excellent," Goukou said, savouring the bouquet. "We are in the Monarch's debt. She and her family are well?"

"They prosper indeed, thank you. The Fifth Prince is currently carrying, and the Eighth gave birth to her first child this last year."

"Good news to hear. And the lady Chihao?"

"She also is in health. I had occasion for some private talk with Her Highness, and the conversation naturally turned to Goujun-sama's fate. Hearing that I was bound to these waters she entrusted me with a poem for your Majesty." The Count took the envelope from the breast of his robe and proffered it in both hands. Goukou broke the seal and read the contents, written in the Third Prince's strong script:

'The gale has passed, the wind has fallen still.
The sun shines tranquil on the gentle waves.
But underneath, the troubled waters heave. 
The sea wrack whirls in darkness, all confused.

What force can calm the anger of the deeps
And make the turbid waters clear again? 
Oh let the wind come back to us, and blow
A gale to sweep the heaven and oceans clean.'

"This is kind of Chihao-dono. I think I heard that her last Dance was with the Tenth Prince of the Yellow River?"

"Yes. The child from that meeting is now three years old. A bright and inquisitive girl, just starting her first lessons. And if we are on the topic of children, may I ask after your Majesty's own sons? Her Highness would be happy to have news of the Eastern Ocean."

"Certainly. You will have heard that my heir danced his Final Dance this year, and his next brother bound his hair the year before. Little Kaimyou grows strong and well. I have good hopes of him. He has a bent towards study; the taste for it must come from his Southern Kingdom blood, for I am a sad scholar myself."

The Count made noises of demurral, but Goukou waved them away cheerfully. "No, no, I make no claim to learning. That field I leave to the king of the Northern Ocean, who contrives to be scholar and warrior both. But it is a pleasure to have a son who loves his books, and I look forward to the day when Kaimyou is a man and may lend me his advice on deep matters. Speaking of that, does Count Lirong still act as the monarch's chancellor?"

"She does, though she has had to delegate some of her duties these last months. An unlucky blow during a formal tourney broke her wing, and the bone is slow to heal."

"I am most sorry to hear it. I must send a letter of condolence. You will be passing by the court on your way back?"

"Should your Majesty have any letters for that destination, I would be honoured to deliver them."

"Then I will trespass on your kindness. But what of yourself, Count? How do your own sons fare?" and so the conversation veered off into other matters, and then to more minute talk of politics in the kingdoms, and the meeting passed in pleasant courtesy. 

4.

Back in his apartments, Goukou signalled to an undersecretary.

"A letter from the Third Southern Prince. Make a copy and take it to the Chancellor. I shall need an answering poem before the Count's departure." He read the poem a second time before handing it over. "And draft me a sympathy letter to Count Lirong; injury in a tourney; I will add a personal message when I copy it." In the back of his mind was a diffuse impression, of muffling cloud cover breaking up in the wind that blows before dawn-- not light yet, but clear skies when there should be light to see by. He turned to Gouron. "Cousin, let us bathe and go rest."

He floated in the steamy water, thoughts roving idly on this and that in formless happiness. Gouron sat unspeaking beside him. At length Goukou registered an oddness in that silence. 

"Is something the matter?"

"No, my lord."

"Gouron, you promised to be a brother to me. Speak like a brother, then, and tell me plainly what's in your heart. Do you think it unfitting that Chihao-dono seeks news of her son?"

"It's not for me to have an opinion of the Third Prince's actions. But is that all that the Count came for?"

Goukou blinked. "What else? Travellers break their journeys here purposely to pass on greetings and news from the lands and rivers. Don't tell me that none such ever stops by the Western Ocean?"

"Not from the Northern First Prince, asking after her sons; nor from the dragons who bore my own children."

"I suppose it's not customary, but I can't think it surprising. Carrying the egg inside your own body-- surely the child must feel like a part of oneself? And if a boy, once born that part is lost to the female parent forever. A sensitive woman might well grieve the loss of her sons." Gouron made a doubtful sound. "After all, the common dragons live with their children of both sexes, and I never heard of one ignoring a child because it was of a different sex to themselves."

"The common dragons are different-- must be. To raise a female child, to concern oneself with her education as with a son's-- It borders on the indecent."

"I can't see myself doing it, true, and true too that I've never given thought to how my female offspring fare. But I see nothing odd in Chihao-dono retaining an interest in her son."

"And you do not doubt that she does."

"Of course not. Gouron, what is this?"

"My lord asks me to speak my heart and so I shall. Surely the Southern Monarch and the Third Prince are making overtures to you, seeking to claim you as a Dancing partner when the mourning period is over?"

Goukou's brows rose in surprise. "I suppose Chihao-dono may have some such thought in the back of her mind. Her last child is growing up and she'll be desirous of another. But if I treated every letter from the continents as an overture, I'd be laughed at for my vanity, and rightly so." 

Gouron looked away. "If my lord says it is so, I must accept it."

"Why are you angry, Gouron?"

"Lord Goujun's first year ceremony is not yet past. If the Southern Court has no thought of match-making, well and good; but they should have realized that personal messages at this time must give that impression."

Goukou sighed inwardly. Grief and loneliness makes him resentful, and there is little help for that in argument.

"It may be so. But remember. We-- all four of us-- were removed from earth at the whim of Heaven just when we should have been getting our sons. The Monarchs repine over those lost years as much as we do; we all want to make up for lost time. But consider too how intricate the process has grown since the olden days, when my father could send yours to the eastern monarch with a direct proposal, and receive a straight yes or no in reply. Now one must first see how the wind blows and which way the tides run before making the most preliminary of overtures. And this sounding of the waters is part of what our visitors do, besides passing on news and gossip and any information we might need to know. Is it not so at the western ocean as well?"

"Not that I have noticed, but your servant is not a subtle man."

Goukou sighed again.

"You know, your own sons are almost grown. You should Dance again-- indeed, should have these many years past."

"I had no leisure for it while Lord Goujun was in Heaven. I had his realm and his sons to see to."

"But the realm is at peace and the boys are in my brother's keeping," Goukou argued. "Take advantage of this interval to get your own children. Kaifu will be back at the Western Ocean before you know it, to take up the regent's duties, and he'll need your presence and advice then. Who have you had overtures from recently, and does your interest incline to any of them?"

"No, not to speak of." 

"None of them appeal to you? Why not?"

Gouron spoke reluctantly. "I've had no overtures these last years, nor for a time before that."

"What fault do the land dragons find in the regent of the Western Ocean?" Goukou asked in indignation.

"That the regent of the Western Ocean has no leisure to spend at their courts."

Goukou had no answer to that. Deep in thought he took himself out of the water and Gouron followed after. Once back in the bedroom, and wrapped in thin night robes, he took Gouron into his embrace.

"Dear cousin, you bring me consolation always. I would give you what ease I could in return. What would please you most?"

"My lord need have no care for his servant's feelings. What the king wills of me, that I will do."

"Yet you are not my servant, here only to satisfy my body's needs. You are my dearest kinsman whose sorrow hurts my heart, and hurts it the more that you keep yourself closed to me. We have asked many sacrifices of you, and I fear that so much giving for so little recompense has wounded your soul too deeply."

"How could that be so?" Gouron protested, distressed and angry. "Duty is my pleasure; I seek no reward for filling the role I was born to."

"Like Goujun, my strong right arm." Goukou's heart panged him. "He expected no reward; loyalty and duty were as natural to him as the air and water about us. But he turned from us in the end. He remained in Heaven where peril threatened him and would not come back to his ocean, and often I have wondered what the Heaven-dwellers gave him that we did not."

"He stayed in Heaven because he saw his duty to be there," Gouron insisted. "It offered him nothing that his kin could not; he took no pleasure in being in that place. How can my lord think such a thing?" He drew an unsteady breath. "Surely you do not blame yourself for his going?"

"It sounds foolish, I know. But still... Do men always know what transpires  in the hidden places of their hearts? Goujun may have had thoughts that he himself knew nothing of. Goushou doubts my love from time to time, and says so; but others are not so blunt as he. How do I know when I am asking too much of a man?"

"My lord is starting at shadows. You are the king; you can never ask too much of your kin and subjects, for all we are belongs to you."

"There speaks Goushun's son indeed." And Goushun, he thought, succeeded in getting a full measure of sons, for all the time he devoted to my absent father's kingdom and to propping my own early years. One need not always choose between duty and desire.

Feeling happier, he kissed Gouron and flick-flicked a tongue against his horns. "Do not hold back," he said. "I would have you aroused as I am." His hand moved over Gouron's sheath, fingertips as light as his tongue-tip above. What he wanted was to be inside-- within that large flesh, pressed against the generous body that supported and swallowed him at once. But Gouron is a man like myself and finds his greatest pleasure lying above, and I cannot give him that. 

"My lord, will you not come above me? I think that is the desire of your heart."

"The desire of my heart is to be free of the bonds that bind us both, but I see no way to it. Your soul may delight in doing its duty but your body will not."

"The pleasure of my body I can see to myself." There was a smile in Gouron's voice. "But who else can give me the pleasure of filling the king's commands but the king himself?"

Goukou had to laugh

Jun2010

And you will consider this as well. 

The Count's porters had brought fifty casks of Southern wine 

Yet the absence of your brother must be a grief to his family, as it is to all dragonkind.

hisui writes reply poem
gouron comments on overtures so early

'gouen will have had his invitations as well'

(At Goujun's Death- Rivers, Heaven, Kaiei)
 
Goukou		  Goujun		Gouen	   Gouron
Kaiei 18 	Kaishou 10 (Chifan) Ye	Kaigon 8 Blu	Kaizan 14	
Kaisou 13 wh	Kaifu 7 Re	Kairen 5 Go	brother 11	
Kaimyou 6 sil Chihao 3-south	 	Kaimin 1 Cop	 brother 7 	
Kaishin baby gr 1.5 yrs?	 	 		

Chihao 3rd south;
Chifei 3rd west; Goushou's 3rd dance, also Gouen's sil; 
Chifan 1st north mother of gojun's 2;