“On This Day, a King Is Born” 🜁⭐

Steam rises slowly from the mountain. It is not common mist. It is ancient heat… imperial heat.

Until a few hours ago, your life was simple.

Perhaps you were training with a wooden sword, repeating movements that brought you peace. Perhaps you were clumsily sewing a small doll for your younger sister, Erika, focused on something other than the weight of the world.

It is a good starting point. Simplicity makes symbolic projection easier.

The bells rang.

Not as an alarm. Not as a call to war.

They rang to be heard.

The Red Throne was there, of course. It always is. Never hurried. Never surprised.

The celebration began, and with it, the stillness.

The soldiers remained alert, straight, as if even the celebration had to be recorded in their bodies. They did not relax their posture. They took note with their eyes.

The Empress’s heralds, the Saonji, danced with ancient, precise, inherited movements. Each step celebrated the coronation… and at the same time reminded everyone who had authorized that moment.

The nobles drank wine. Good wine, I must admit. They spoke of tradition with soft smiles, measuring how much that ritual would benefit them later. Nostalgia is a useful currency when one knows how to spend it.

Between shadows and corridors, the eyes and ears of the Empress adjusted their masks. The Kosaka shifted positions. They were not watching you. They were watching the watchers. As expected.

Small hands wrote without pause. The Kozeki, focused, recorded every word, every gesture, every breath worthy of the archives. None of this would be only a memory.

A brief glimmer lit the air. The Lotte, with simple, joyful spells, accompanied the celebration like children playing with magic… Magic is always welcome when it does not interrupt power.

Incense rose in gentle lines. The Houhou, small and solemn, purified the space with silent devotion. Not for the celebration. But for what would come after.

Several Shijima, brush in hand, captured the moment on canvas and parchment; others took up instruments and let music fix the memory where ink could not reach.

The armor of the Ryuuge stood guard with almost excessive solemnity. Expensive armor. Absolute presence. A Ryuuge adviser watched as if the day were an equation with too many variables.

And at your right, as the principal witness, the Hatsuse assigned to Thermal Citadel.

Small. Silent. Logical.

She observed the celebration like someone who already understands her role, as if the word queen were not a title… but a function that time itself would eventually confirm.

The Empire celebrated. The Empire watched.

And in the midst of all this, without having sought it, without having asked for it…

a King had been born.