The Twelve Kingdoms: Dreaming of Paradise

ocean.
    "What's that?" said Fuukan from the window, waking from his reverie. "You that down about Ryuu falling short of your expectations?"
    "The meeting of my expectations is neither here nor there." Rikou sighed. "But it is a disappointment. The dynasty had such a promise of greatness."
    Ryuu had that spark of greatness in her. And yet in a mere—at least what to Rikou was a "mere"—one hundred and twenty years, Ryuu had failed.
    "When you stop to think about it, dynasties like that never lack the ability to disintegrate overnight."
    "Now you're just stating the obvious. The good man from Sou has no doubt seen them come and go by the gross."
    Rikou laughed. "And so this man of Sou has. I guess a young colt like yourself wouldn't understand." When Fuukan quizzically hiked up an eyebrow, he added, "Sou being the longest-lived of all the Twelve Kingdoms."
    "Oh, is that it?" Fuukan answered with a wry smile. He turned and looked out the window.
    "That's what it comes down to. A man of En couldn't grasp this sense of oppressiveness. Even only a hundred years, you have least have one example standing before you."
    But Sou had none to follow. And after eighty more years, even the legends would be left behind. No other dynasty had lasted that long.
    "I think about it every time a dynasty comes to an end. I stand beside the deathbed and can't keep the thoughts from my mind: no dynasty lasts forever."
    And Sou and En were unlikely to prove the exception to that rule.
    "When I think about it in those terms, it makes me catch my breath. No dynasty lasts forever. An immortal dynasty is impossible. And if all dynasties must surely die, then Sou must surely die."
    "Nothing lasts forever," said Fuukan, still looking out the window.
    "Nope," Rikou chuckled. "No matter how I look at it, that's what it comes down to. And still I can't imagine the end of Sou."
    "Naturally. Nobody can imagine his own death."
    "You sure? I think I could picture it. Getting drawn into some meaningless quarrel and losing my head in the process, or getting turned into youma food during one of my wanderings."
    Fuukan laughed and turned around. "Imagining the variously possibilities and imaging the moment itself are not the same thing."
    "You could have a point." For a moment he let his thoughts spin. "You're right. It's a non-starter. Nothing comes to mind."
    It was difficult for Rikou to imagine the conditions that would cause the Royal Sou to stray from the way. But insurrections could arise no matter who the king was. Thinking along those lines, he imagined the faces of the retainers in his mind's eye. Among all the princes of the kingdom, he couldn't connect any of them with the word "treason."
    "But when it comes to En," he muttered, "I can well imagine it."
    "Oh?" said Fuukan curiously.
    Rikou smiled. "I have no problem imagining that. Taking the Royal En's temperament into consideration, I don't think it'd ever end with him straying from the Way. There is some question as to what understanding he has of the road ahead. But the law has been laid down, and he's not going to accidentally drive the cart into the ditch. No matter what two-bit criminals try to take him on, he's not the type to go quietly. En will only fail when the Royal En decides to let it."
    "I see."
    "And you can count on him doing it just for the hell of it. No big reason. One day, out of the blue, with no malice aforethought. Considering how persistent the man can be, though, once having resolved himself, I doubt that he would immediately spring into action. Yes, he'd make a wager."
    "A wager?" Fuukan inquired with a dubious look.
    "Exactly what the word means. A bet with Heaven. For example, that you'll run into a certain person you rarely see a hundred times. Every time fate smiles upon you and you meet, you win. Every time you don't, you chalk one up for Heaven."
    "Oh, that kind of bet." Fuukan laughed.
    "Whatever he settled on, he'd do it whole hog. En would be wiped off the map. The ministers, the people, the Taiho. The capital and the cities. En would be turned into a pretty but empty field."
    "Killing the Taiho would be as good as slitting his own throat."
    "But not right away. He'd kill the Taiho and declare war on Heaven. Whether Heaven would take him out before he'd razed the land and salted the earth—that's the kind of wager he'd love to make."
    "And who do you think would win that one?"
    "Push come to shove, I think he could pull it off. But it'd prove so unbearable