Disclaimer:
Tenchi Muyo characters belong to AIC and Pioneer, elements from the book
“The Woman Who Loved Reindeer” belong to Meredith Ann Pierce and Tor books,
and I’m not in this to make money.

Part 3

“This really should have happened a long time ago, Ryoko.  You were never
meant to be away from us.”  Sasami said.

Ryoko made no reply, but a wash of guilt came over her.  She knew that if
she had accepted Tenchi and Aeka’s invitation to come live with them at the
very beginning, Aeka might still be alive.  She could have protected Aeka
from the malicious intentions of Kagato, and Aeka would never have gotten
pregnant or been in any danger in the first place.

But now it was too late and Sayuri was born, and Aeka dead.  Ryoko squared
her shoulders bravely, smiled at Sayuri, who was sitting on Sasami’s lap,
and went back inside for the rest of her clothes.

Tenchi had asked her again to come and live at the palace soon after the
battle, for the sake of Aeka’s daughter.  That had been in winter, soon
after Startika.  It was spring now, and the blossoms were dropping, the air
was sweet.  Ryoko had arranged the sale of her house from her bed in the
hospital, along with the furniture and linens.  She wouldn’t need them while
she was living in the palace.  Her clothes and jewelry, and Sayuri’s things,
were all she needed.

The ride to the palace was silent and strained.  Sasami drove the transport
the forty miles across town, and Mihoshi provided her with the Galaxy Police
escort due a First Princess of Jurai.  Ryoko sat in the passenger seat,
Sayuri in her lap.

Tenchi was away again.  He was always finding ways to leave the palace now;
it reminded him so much of Aeka.  Ryoko hadn’t been able to go to Aeka’s
funeral, but she had watched it on the holoscreen from her bed.  It looked
like the whole planet of Jurai was there to mourn the graceful, gentle
princess’ passing.  Tenchi had watched in silence, a numb look on his face.
His whole world had been destroyed.  Aeka had been his whole world.

They arrived at the palace before noon, all of Ryoko and Sayuri’s worldly
possessions in tow.  Servants leaked out the doors in twos and threes,
taking charge of the moving and getting Ryoko’s things set up in her new
room.  Ryoko walked along, carrying Sayuri.  Washuu had done a beautiful job
repairing her, but she still had pain when she did too much flying or
teleporting.

“Can’t do either of those things without your appendix!” Washuu had told
her.  “I fixed it up for you, but don’t go pushing your luck.  I can’t
replace it if you bust it again.”

So Ryoko walked.  It was an odd sight to those who knew her well.

The palace was as grand as it had been the day Ryoko had been there for
Tenchi and Aeka’s wedding; the high marble halls, the paintings, the
draperies, the crystal chandeliers hanging from intricately carved
medallions on the ceilings.  But something was gone, something bright and
sparkling and lively had departed, leaving the halls cold and dusty.  Ryoko
could feel that as she put her clothes in the wardrobe, as she dressed
herself and Sayuri for dinner, as she walked laughing and chatting with
Sasami to dinner, Sayuri in close tow.

Tenchi was back in time for dinner that night.  He made a polite apology to
Ryoko for not being there to greet her, but his heart wasn’t in it.  He
looked gaunt and thin, like a man who had been used hard in his brief life.

He managed a few mouthfuls of food when it was brought out.  Ryoko watched
him, puzzled, as she ate heartily of her own food, and helped Sayuri to do
the same.  He was not recovering from Aeka’s death well.  Not at all.

“Why don’t you eat?” she asked abruptly when his nearly-full plate of food
was cleared to make way for the next course.

“I guess I’m not hungry today,” he managed.

Sasami ratted him out.  “He’s like this every day.”  She sipped her tea
without looking up.  “At every meal.”

“We’ve tried to reason with him.”  Washuu cut into her fish filet.  “My
conclusion was that he would eat when he got hungry.”

“When he got hungry?  Look at him!  He’s hungry!  His body needs food!
Tenchi, you’re going to eat every bite of that fish, or I’m going to force
it down your throat.”  Ryoko stood up.

“Ryoko,” Tenchi sighed, sounding exactly as he had when he was a teenager
growing up on Earth.

“Do you really think this is what she wants?  For you to starve yourself to
death, to feel sorry for yourself until you waste away?  Don’t be
ridiculous.  Take a bite, Tenchi.  Do it.”

“I am not-” Tenchi stood up and slammed his hands palms-down on the table.
“-Fifteen years old anymore, Ryoko.  And I won’t be threatened into doing
what my wife would want me to do by the very woman who is the cause of her
death.”

Ryoko’s jaw dropped.  “HOW exactly did I cause her death when I tried like
hell to keep you ALL as FAR behind me as possible!?  Why did you go out of
your way to find Kagato when all we had to do was get my baby and get the
hell out?  WHO are YOU to-” Rage choked her.  “If you ever-!”  She cut off
the threat stillborn and snatched up Sayuri and Sayuri’s dinner plate and
retired the bedroom she and the toddler shared.

Out of the corner of her eye, as she made her sweeping exit, she saw Tenchi
sit down, pick up his chopsticks and take a bite of fish.  It was a small
victory, and even in her anger she was grateful for it.

“He ate the whole fish filet,” Washuu told her later, “and the rice balls
and the soup, too.  He didn’t eat the shrimp but you know he’s never been
crazy about shrimp...” Washuu paused and took a drink of tea.  “Anyway,
Funaho really got onto him about the way he talked to you.  Misaki would
have but she was in tears...”

Ryoko picked at the dinner Sayuri hadn’t felt like finishing.   “Maybe I
shouldn’t have moved in here.”

“It did him good!  Really, I think it did.  His blood pressure has been
closer to normal all day and he’s been drinking more water.  You’re a
healthy change in his lifestyle.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“The two of you should never have been separated.  I know you and Aeka had
your differences, but I really think in another few months Tenchi would have
asked you to be his second wife.”

“That’s not the point, Washuu.  The point is he asked her first.”  Ryoko
flopped back on the bed and looked over at her sleeping charge.  “Anyway,
that’s all ancient history now.  I don’t need Tenchi like I used to.  But I
still care about him and I want to see him healthy.”  It was a lie, and they
both knew it, but Washuu didn’t press the issue.

A soft knock sounded at the door.  Sasami peered in.  “Can I come in?” she
said.

“Yeah, sure,” Ryoko said, “just don’t wake up the baby.  Where’s Mihoshi
tonight?”

“She has the graveyard patrol.  Probably sleeping like a baby and letting
Yukinojo do all the work,” Washuu said.

“That’s too bad.  If she were here we could get out the sake and have a
slumber party like the old days.”

“What’s to stop us now?” Sasami said, bringing a bottle of
pretty-good-quality sake out from behind her back.

And so they spent Ryoko’s first night at the palace drinking and laughing
like schoolgirls, chatting and reminiscing; and in the way of spirits, Aeka
was with them.

Eight months passed, and Tenchi was eating better.  He lost the gaunt look
he’d had since Aeka had died.

The press had gotten wind that Ryoko had moved to the palace with her baby.
Papers bore headlines like “Widower King Takes Mistress” and “Dishonor To
Memory Of Queen Aeka”.  People had started to sneer at Tenchi and Ryoko.

The girls were all crowded on Tenchi’s bed, watching him get ready to go out
again.  It was just like old times.

“You don’t really have to go to this meeting, Tenchi,” Ryoko said.

“I do.  This stuff is important.”  Tenchi fixed his colors across his
shoulder and turned toward the mirror and Ryoko.  “How does it look?”

“Like a bunch of party streamers.”

“Be nice.”  Tenchi straightened his colors, looked critically at them, and
took them off again.

“That’s better,” Washuu commented from her corner of the room.  “Those
yahoos don’t deserve your colors.”

“They’re people, too.”  Tenchi was ill at ease...during the time Ryoko was
away, he had gotten used to getting dressed by himself again.

“You could have fooled me, considering what they’re putting in the papers
recently.  ‘Space Pirate To Steal Jurai Crown’?”  Washuu rattled the paper
impatiently.

“That’s just tabloid stuff.  They do it because it sells papers.”

“But it’s so mean!”  Mihoshi pouted.

“Don’t go to the council of nobles, Tenchi,” Ryoko said.  “That whole
‘meeting’ is ceremonial bullshit.  They can live without you being there.”

“Please stay home today, Tenchi,” Sasami begged.

“Yeah, please,” Mihoshi said.

“Please?”  Washuu grinned.

So instead of being a responsible prince of Jurai and going to the meeting
of the council of nobles, Tenchi went to the beach with a bunch of girls.
They took pictures and splashed in the cold ocean and ate heartily of
Sasami’s carefully prepared picnic lunch, and headed back to the transport
windburned and merry at long past dusk.

During the drive home, Sayuri dozed in Ryoko’s lap, and Ryoko studied the
child’s tiny face.  She hadn’t started to look like Aeka until she got a few
months older.  Her amber-colored eyes, which fluttered as the child drifted
in and out of wakefulness, were developing a mauve tint around the edges,
and upon close examination they could be seen to have the exact same shape
as Aeka’s.  Likewise, evidence of Aeka’s chiseled, tidy little features
could be seen in Sayuri’s appearance; the nose, the lips, the jawline, the
brow.  It was clear that Sayuri was royalty.

Kagato’s genes showed through in Sayuri’s silvery hair.  Ryoko and Aeka had
bathed together enough times for Ryoko to know that Aeka’s natural hair
color was blue.  Kagato’s hair had been silver, but Ryoko had always thought
age the culprit in that.  It seemed this wasn’t the case.

Sayuri squirmed in her sleep, frowning and muttering “Ka-to.”  Ryoko ran her
fingers through Sayuri’s wild hair, humming under her breath.  Sayuri sighed
and relaxed.  “Roko,” she mumbled.  Ryoko smiled.

Tenchi watched them in silence from the back of the transport.  He watched
Ryoko, who had abandoned him right after he got married even though she
claimed to love him, cuddle and love the baby of Aeka, the woman she had
claimed to hate for years, and Kagato, the man who had kept her captive and
cruelly abused her for the entirety of her young life.  Ryoko loved Sayuri.
Ryoko loved Sayuri more than she had ever loved Tenchi.  And Tenchi couldn’t
figure out exactly why.

But it was Ryoko’s way.  It bothered Tenchi a little, but he had certainly
gotten used to stranger things.

When they got home, Sasami went to wash the lunch dishes and start on
dinner, Washuu went to her lab to do mysterious Washuu-things, and Ryoko
took Sayuri to her room and they had a nap.  Tenchi went to his own room and
began to undress, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he looked at the
mirror and saw Mihoshi lying on his bed, quite naked.

“Hello, Tenchi,” she said gravely in her little-girl voice.

Tenchi looked her reflection over...her tan as deep as ever, and the tan
lines stood out over the curves of her breasts and the dip of her mons.
Tenchi discovered that he was right all along; Mihoshi was a natural blonde.

“Aren’t you going to turn around?”  Mihoshi said, again, very quietly.

“I don’t think I should.”  The mirror he was facing was chest-high on him,
and as long as he faced the wall, Mihoshi couldn’t see the growing bulge in
his pants.

“Tenchi,” Mihoshi said, stretching luxuriously on top of the futon, “your
grandfather once gave me his blessing to marry you.”

“My grandfather is in Japan.  On Earth.”  Tenchi’s face was growing red, he
could see it in the mirror.  “I’ve been married already, Mihoshi.”

“You can be married twice, Tenchi.  But if you don’t want to marry me, you
could just keep me as a mistress, I wouldn’t mind.  I just want to be with
you, Tenchi.”  A pleading note had crept into Mihoshi’s voice.

Tenchi closed his eyes and swallowed hard, begging whatever gods there were
to give him strength.  “I don’t want to take advantage of you, Mihoshi.
You’re a good woman, and you should have a good husband who will love you
the way you deserve to be loved.”

“You mean you don’t love me?”  Her voice trembled.

“Not like that, Mihoshi.  I’m sorry.”  And he truly was.

Without turning around or opening his eyes, Tenchi heard Mihoshi get up,
gather her clothes and leave the room.

Mihoshi didn’t eat much dinner that night, and she went to bed early.
Ryoko, chopsticks in one hand and Sayuri in the opposite arm, watched
Mihoshi leave the dinner table with her head down.  Perching Sayuri on
Sasami’s lap, she got up and followed Mihoshi without a word.

Tenchi was startled in his bedroom for the second time that day when he
retired for the night and saw Ryoko there.  Unlike all the times he had
caught her in his room back on Earth, this time her face was not seductive
and inviting, but angry.

“Mihoshi says you didn’t even turn around and look at her,” Ryoko stated
flatly.

“Ryoko, I can’t help what happened.”

“You could have at least looked at her.”

“I did look at her.  I could see her in the mirror.  Believe me, it says a
lot for my sense of self-control that I didn’t turn around.”

“You hurt her feelings, Tenchi.  I know how much it hurts to be refused like
that...by you...and she’s not tough like me.  You had no excuse to be so
short with her.”

“I told her the truth, Ryoko.  I told her she deserved someone who would
love her.”

“How can you not love her?  She’s all but thrown herself at you since the
day the two of you met and it’s been ten months since Aeka died.  Tenchi,
you can’t grieve forever.”

“Are you saying I should have taken Mihoshi to bed even if I don’t love her
like that?”

“No.  But...”  Ryoko floundered.  “...But you didn’t have to be rude.”

“I wasn’t rude!”

“All right, then!”  With a mix of embarrassment and self-righteousness,
Ryoko turned on her heel and left a very confused Tenchi behind her.

The truth was, Ryoko knew Tenchi couldn’t have been rude or mean to Mihoshi;
he just didn’t have it in him.  She had wanted confirmation that Tenchi
wasn’t just refusing Mihoshi in memory of Aeka.  She wasn’t sure why, but it
seemed infinitely important.

Ryoko flopped back on her bed beside Sayuri and closed her eyes and thought
for the millionth time how much she wanted to kiss Tenchi every time he
spoke.

end pt 3