Ink Stained

59: kyoto, day two*

京都市、二日目

Pai tossed and turned the whole night, but she wasn't able to get a wink of sleep by the time she heard footsteps pattering about outside her door as the Palace woke to a new day. Her room didn't have any windows, but she didn't need them to know that the Palace was bathed in sunlight. She wondered what it looked like, but she was too physically drained to get up and go see for herself.

The good thing about not sleeping for as long as she knew she needed was that she fended off any chance of having another nightmarish memory haunt her. They came irregularly, but when they did, it was hard for her to even pretend to function normally the next day.

The bad thing was that she was so, so tired.

She stayed on her futon, blanket tangled around her body, spread-eagled as she examined the minute cracks running over the fine wood of the ceiling above her head. Her mind was empty as a desert plain, her body running on automaton as she breathed slowly. A part of her wondered what she would do for the day. She could laze about, but she knew she would quickly grow bored of it.

She was supposed to be acting as Shiori's handmaiden, but Shiori had to be present for the next two days for the signing of the treaties by Kouta's side that day. 'To look like some pretty eye-candy,' she had indignantly stated. Handmaidens didn't attend such things, and if Pai had gone to it, it would have drawn unnecessary and unwanted attention to her.

She figured that she could always go out and ask one of the attendants if she could be of any help to them, but she'd probably wind up being more of a nuisance for not knowing what to do and having to be shown the ropes. That was the last thing she wanted.

Pai didn't know what else she was supposed to do in the meantime. She'd thought that she and Shiori would spend most of this trip together. That they weren't left her untethered and a little wary of venturing out on her own.

When she could no longer stand idleness, she pushed herself up from the bed. Since she couldn't exactly fulfil her imaginary role as handmaiden, she might as well go out and explore Kyoto city on her own. She had always wanted to, since she was a young girl flipping through history books and looking at the breath-taking pictures of Japan's imperial palaces and shrine temples. Pai had also snagged a tourist brochure from the airport, so she knew where she wanted to go.

Her hair was a mess to deal with, again. She kept forgetting to fix it before going to sleep. After dealing with that, she pulled on a pair of black tights and another oversized t-shirt – this one maroon – whose sleeves reached her elbows. Her socks were mismatching, one purple and the other blue, but she didn't mind. She packed all the things she thought she could possibly need for a daytrip out in the city to wherever she ended up going; her phone, wallet, headphones, Kindle, sunglasses, lip balm that Shiori had recommended to her that made her lips look a pretty shade of natural pink, a water bottle, and a thin picnic blanket she rolled up tight and stuffed in her bag in case she found a park to spend time in.

She walked down the many corridors to the entrance of the Palace, sticking close to the walls and trying to avoid making eye contact when she could, bowing respectfully when she couldn't. Pai had thought to just go out and look around the main village, but the very idea of doing so, all by her lonesome, terrified her.

It wasn't that she minded being alone. It was more like she was scared of someone attempting to talk to her when she was on her own and couldn't hide behind someone, like Daichi, to make the conversation for her, as he'd done the day before yesterday.

Her stomach broiled with heat. She knew that by today, most – if not all – Hengen accompanying their Kings were somewhere in the village. They were in the Palace as well; she could tell from the way some people wore clothes starkly different to what the Tengu who worked in the Palace wore. Everyone else she knew was busy, and she wouldn't know how to begin looking for them in the vastness of the Palace on her own anyway.