Heian fic, epilogue
And so the fic has reached its end, and it's still without a title. In fact, I haven't even been thinking about the title anymore - The Untitled Heian Fic has become the title in my mind. Like, “What do you mean it has no title? It's called The Unt... oh. Yeah.” xD If anyone has title suggestions, I'm listening.
Epilogue
An average child, waking up in the middle of the night to the feeling that someone, or something, is standing by his bed and watching him, would draw his covers over his head and lie unmoving, curled into a tight little ball, and wish it would just go away. Abe no Seimei was hardly an average child. He sat up, shot a glance across the room, and frowned.
“You,” he said, more surprised than he would have wanted to admit. “Why are you still here?” As he got no reply, just a long, sad look, he gave a deep sigh and lay down again. “I'm tired. Can't you come back in the morning?”
He closed his eyes and attempted to go back to sleep, but the presence didn't waver. “Listen,” he said, not opening his eyes. “Your opponent was banished from the court. You got a promotion. Everyone's suddenly mourning you, no matter what they used to think. There are prayers and offerings in temples all across the city and the mountains. What else do you want?”
There was a long silence. Seimei took a peek at the ghost and saw it still standing unmoving by his bed. He sighed again. “I'll look into this tomorrow, okay? Please let me sleep now.” He rolled over, and felt the presence fade.
~
“I truly thought you had left for good,” Seimei muttered the next day. “There's been no sign of you at all, for three days.” He had left Tadayuki's mansion the first thing in the morning, not wanting to risk anyone noticing the ghost. He'd said something ambiguous about going to meet Hikaru, which was half true - Fujiwara no Kouyou's mansion was his ultimate goal, but first he had wanted to spend a moment in some quiet place where he wouldn't be disturbed, and think.
Now, after having come up with something of a plan, he was on his way toward the said mansion with the ghost tagging along a few steps behind him. He was deliberately avoiding the busier streets, though the likelihood of coming across someone with the ability of seeing spirits was quite unlikely. “You can't stay here,” he said, thinking aloud. “Not like this. You're just floating around without any connection to anything, invisible and insubstantial to the real world, and the only ones who can see you are those who'd start an exorcism without a second thought. Of course, it would be best if you just gave up and left. Surely you can play go again in some later life...”
He gave the ghost a sidelong look and, seeing the polite but rather stubborn look, shook his head. “You go-players sure are a race of your own,” he muttered. “Obsessed.” The ghost looked perhaps a little apologetic, but didn't lose a step following him. “I'm not sure if this is going to work, mind you,” he went on under his breath, “but I'll try. If it doesn't work... could you please just leave?”
There was, of course, no reply. But, perhaps, the way the ghost looked down could have been taken for some kind of an agreement.
Arriving at the Fujiwara mansion, he was hardly surprised to find there not only Hikaru but Akira as well. What was quite surprising, though, was the fact that the two weren't absorbed in a game. Instead, Hikaru was bent over some papers, a deep frown on his brow and a pen in his hand. Akira was sitting by his side, watching his efforts with a blank expression.
“Oh, hi!” Noticing his new visitor, Hikaru put down his pen - very carefully, as if he were afraid he might break it. “Nice to see you! What brings you here?”
“I just thought I'd drop by,” Seimei said, eying the papers with interest. “Am I interrupting something?”
Hikaru looked down at the papers with a deep sigh. “No... or, well, maybe, but I could use a break anyway. I'm just writing a letter to, umm, you know, the...”
“Lady friend of yours?” Seimei suggested helpfully as his voice trailed off, and Hikaru frowned at him.
“Stop calling her my lady friend! But yeah, her. Explaining things. Though, well, I guess she knows all about me by now, but I thought I'd better send her letter anyway. Akira's helping me with the characters.”
“And checking he doesn't say anything overly rude,” Akira added quietly, which earned him a frown too.
“Yeah, whatever. You people sure are prissy.”
As he sat down next to them, Seimei took a short glance at what Hikaru had so far managed to scrawl down, and looked then politely away. Hikaru's frown deepened.
“Do you two share tips about eloquent silence, or is this too something all proper gentlemen can do?” he asked sullenly.
As he didn't quite understand the question, Seimei decided he might as well ignore it. “So you have found out who she is?”
“Yeah.” Hikaru sighed, and didn't look happy. “One of Princess Hiroko's ladies-in-waiting. Lady Asumi... of the Minamoto family. With some imperial blood, too, from her mother's side. Just figures.”
“Most people would be thrilled about having caught the attention of someone like her,” Akira put in.
Hikaru snorted. “I'm not 'most people'. And I'm pretty sure once she sees this,” he glowered down at his letter, “her attention will fade like a... like... like something that fades.”
There was a moment's silence. “By the way,” Seimei said then. “Have you heard the news? I just heard on my way here that Akitada got an official post somewhere in the northern provinces. Sado, I think it was.”
“What?” Hikaru cried out, enraged, while Akira burst into laughter.
“Come now, it's hardly something he's happy about. Technically it means he's been banished. We won't be hearing from him again... I'll show you Sado on the map some day. A northern province, as Seimei said, an island. When you're sent there, it's a clear sign you're not wanted back.”
“Hmm.” Hikaru didn't look quite convinced. “If they want to banish him, why don't they just, you know, banish him?”
“This answers the same purpose well enough. And this way it's hard to complain - it's an honor, isn't it? To be granted a post in the service of the empire...” Akira looked still quite amused.
Hikaru gave him a look. “I'll never quite understand what's so horrible about the provinces,” he muttered.
“What about you? Have you already decided what you're going to do?” Seimei asked, deciding to change the subject.
Hikaru nodded. “I'll leave to Kawachi with Kou... with my father in a few days.” He pronounced the word 'father' quite carefully, as if still unsure whether he should be using it. “We thought it might be better for me to stay away for a while, let the dust fall down a little. I'll be coming back, though. Maybe after a year or so...”
Akira sighed. “I'm still not quite happy about this, but perhaps it is the best.”
“You could come to visit some day”, Hikaru suggested. “It's not such a long way, and I know father wouldn't mind. He enjoyed playing with you.”
“And I certainly enjoyed playing with him,” Akira stated with a thoughtful look. “I just might, if it's alright for him.”
“That's great.” Hikaru grinned, but turned soon more serious as he looked at his unfinished letter. “I should get this done,” he muttered. “We're leaving soon and there's still so much to do. Like, about my mother... I've been looking for a new place for her to stay. She said she wouldn't mind moving and leaving the house to Akane and Taro, and Akari too, of course, though Akari said she could follow my mother so that she wouldn't have to be alone. Actually, we asked mom if she'd like to stay here, but she's still hesitating... maybe it is a bit grand for her, but there's sure room enough for her to have a whole wing of her own here, and the whole place is quite empty all the time, now that Sai's not here anymore and K... father stays always at Kawachi...”
“This is a beautiful place, though,” Seimei said, without any idea who all these people Hikaru was talking about were. “Hard to imagine anyone wouldn't want to live here. But I shouldn't keep you from writing your letter...”
“Yeah.” Hikaru grimaced at the letter. He picked up his pen again, frowned. “So what's the character for 'going away'?”
“It depends a little.” Akira grasped a pen too, and took another piece of paper. “How exactly would you like to say it?”
Seimei stood up. “Let's talk more when you're finished. I'll wait in the garden.”
Hikaru gave an absentminded nod, doing his best to copy the characters Akira was drawing him. Seimei left the two, but didn't go to the garden as he had claimed he would. Instead, he wandered through the empty rooms of the mansion, until he found what he'd been looking for. A go board.
He knelt down beside it, traced the lines with his fingers. As he looked up, he saw the ghost sitting at the opposite side of the board, as if they were about to play a game. He nodded a little. “If you're sure you really want this,” he whispered, and the ghost bowed. “Let's get started, then.”
He muttered the first part of the incantation he'd prepared. It felt good, even though he didn't really have a clue about what he was doing. It was something of an improvisation, but apparently a successful one. He realized he'd been lucky to choose just this go board. Obviously it held many memories for Sai, of hundreds, if not thousands, of games played on it. He didn't have to build a connection, it already existed.
He took a breath and carried on with the incantation. As he looked up, he realized he barely saw the ghost anymore. Something shimmered in the air, made the opposite wall strangely distorted, but that was all. Slowly, so very slowly, that shimmering spread across the go board. A moment the whole board shone softly, but then the light disappeared, and there was no sign left in the room of anything out of ordinary.
Seimei sat long quietly by the go board. “Rest well,” he whispered, touching lightly the cool wood. “I'm sure you'll have pleasant dreams, of all the games that will be played on this board, and certainly, some day...”
“So here you are!” Hikaru's sudden voice made him start. “We were looking for you.”
He looked up in surprise. “Did you finish the letter already?”
“Already?” Hikaru gave a laugh and sat down beside him. “Finally, rather. We thought you grew tired of waiting.”
“No, I...” Seimei blinked at the go board, caught off guard. He had planned to go to the garden before anyone would miss him, but apparently time had passed faster than he'd realized.
Hikaru didn't notice his confusion. “Gods...” he breathed, stretching. “It really was quite painstaking. But I got it done. In readable handwriting, too! I guess I really do need to practice.” He sighed, heartfelt. “Such a pain... but I was thinking about it... if I wish to return here and make myself any kind of a career, it just can't be helped. I got to learn this stuff. So I'll study while I'm gone. Calligraphy and music and all this other nonsense... maybe poetry, too...” He shuddered a little, but brightened then. “And go. Definitely go, too. And I'll get better, and maybe, some day after I get back here, I'd be ready for that teaching position the emperor offered me.”
“Is that what you want?” Seimei asked, a little surprised. “I wouldn't have thought you'd want to be anywhere near the court.”
Hikaru grimaced. “I know. And it's not like I couldn't change my mind still... but I just thought that if I'm now gonna be a proper gentleman anyway, might as well go all the way, you know? And as Sai always said... at the palace I could spend all my days just playing go, against all the best opponents. That's about as high as you can get, in the world of go. It just might be worth it. Besides...” He fell silent for a moment. “I think it'd make Sai happy, if I got his position.”
He looked down at the go board, touched it softly with one finger. “I think it would...” he started to repeat quietly, but then he took a sharp breath and his eyes widened a little.
“What is it?” Seimei asked, leaning anxiously forward.
“I... I just...” Hikaru gave a little laugh, a bit embarrassed. “It's nothing, for a moment it just felt like Sai was here, right next to me. Must be the board, we played a lot on it...” He tapped it once and shook his head, sighing. “Things didn't end up quite like I was wishing, but... I don't know... I don't know what I was expecting. A story like this can't really have a happy ending, right?”
Seimei snorted. “There is no such thing, to begin with.”
“Do you have to be so pessimistic!” Hikaru exclaimed. “What's wrong with happy endings?”
“There is no such thing as an ending, I meant.”
Hikaru gave the boy a long unblinking look. “You're a pretty weird kid, you know,” he finally stated.
“This from one whose life revolves around black and white stones on a checkered board?” Seimei asked with raised eyebrows, and Hikaru gave a laugh.
“I guess even the great onmyouji, with all their skills and secret wisdom, don't understand everything, huh?”
Seimei was about to reply, but quiet footsteps made them both glance at the doorway, where Akira soon appeared.
“Oh, I didn't know you were still here,” he said to Seimei and stopped in the doorway, hesitating.
“If you two wish to play,” Seimei said, guessing what it was all about, “I don't mind.”
“Are you sure?” Hikaru asked grinning. “We might play long.”
“It's alright. I'll see if I can figure out some universal truth about go that all the wise men have so far missed.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Akira said, entering the room. “But if you're sure you don't mind...” He sat down by the go board, and Hikaru turned to face him. Soon the room was echoing with the constant snaps of stones placed on a wooden board.
Notes:
Northern provinces: when you think about northern Japan (or at least when I think about it) the first thing coming to mind would be Hokkaido. Now, the northern provinces weren't quite that northern. In fact, Hokkaido wasn't a part of the Japanese empire in the Heian times. If you've got a map of Japan, Sado island is about half-way up, or a bit more, on the left side. (Heh, nice coordinates, huh?) It was a common place for exiles... from wikipedia:
“When direct control from mainland Japan started around the 8th century, the island's remoteness meant that it soon became a place of banishment for difficult or inconvenient Japanese figures. Exile to remote locations such as Sado was a very serious punishment, second only to the death penalty, and people were not expected to return.”
I've earlier mentioned how important poetry was, but calligraphy... now, that was Important. A poem of not so great quality could be forgiven, if it was beautifully written, but combining bad poetry with bad handwriting... that was a lost case. “A fine hand was probably the most important single mark of a 'good' person, and it came close to being regarded as a moral virtue.” (WSP)
Hikaru does have a lot of work ahead, if he's going to follow his plan...
But but but. This story is over. :D
Previous chapter
First chapter
Just for fun, here's a short bit from Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book. Not behind the lj-cut, cause this isn't really connected to the fic (just to Hikaru's handwriting) so those not reading the fic can read it too (Nobutsune is a courtier with really bad handwriting):
One day when Nobutsune was serving as Intendant in the Office of Palace Works he sent a sketch to one of the craftsmen explaining how a certain piece of work should be done. 'Kindly execute it in this fashion,' he added in Chinese characters. I happened to notice the piece of paper and it was the most preposterous writing I had ever seen. Next to his message I wrote, 'If you do the work in this fashion, it will certainly turn out strangely.' The document found its way to the Imperial apartments and everyone who saw it was greatly amused - except, of course, Nobutsune, who was furious and after this held a grudge against me.
Epilogue
An average child, waking up in the middle of the night to the feeling that someone, or something, is standing by his bed and watching him, would draw his covers over his head and lie unmoving, curled into a tight little ball, and wish it would just go away. Abe no Seimei was hardly an average child. He sat up, shot a glance across the room, and frowned.
“You,” he said, more surprised than he would have wanted to admit. “Why are you still here?” As he got no reply, just a long, sad look, he gave a deep sigh and lay down again. “I'm tired. Can't you come back in the morning?”
He closed his eyes and attempted to go back to sleep, but the presence didn't waver. “Listen,” he said, not opening his eyes. “Your opponent was banished from the court. You got a promotion. Everyone's suddenly mourning you, no matter what they used to think. There are prayers and offerings in temples all across the city and the mountains. What else do you want?”
There was a long silence. Seimei took a peek at the ghost and saw it still standing unmoving by his bed. He sighed again. “I'll look into this tomorrow, okay? Please let me sleep now.” He rolled over, and felt the presence fade.
~
“I truly thought you had left for good,” Seimei muttered the next day. “There's been no sign of you at all, for three days.” He had left Tadayuki's mansion the first thing in the morning, not wanting to risk anyone noticing the ghost. He'd said something ambiguous about going to meet Hikaru, which was half true - Fujiwara no Kouyou's mansion was his ultimate goal, but first he had wanted to spend a moment in some quiet place where he wouldn't be disturbed, and think.
Now, after having come up with something of a plan, he was on his way toward the said mansion with the ghost tagging along a few steps behind him. He was deliberately avoiding the busier streets, though the likelihood of coming across someone with the ability of seeing spirits was quite unlikely. “You can't stay here,” he said, thinking aloud. “Not like this. You're just floating around without any connection to anything, invisible and insubstantial to the real world, and the only ones who can see you are those who'd start an exorcism without a second thought. Of course, it would be best if you just gave up and left. Surely you can play go again in some later life...”
He gave the ghost a sidelong look and, seeing the polite but rather stubborn look, shook his head. “You go-players sure are a race of your own,” he muttered. “Obsessed.” The ghost looked perhaps a little apologetic, but didn't lose a step following him. “I'm not sure if this is going to work, mind you,” he went on under his breath, “but I'll try. If it doesn't work... could you please just leave?”
There was, of course, no reply. But, perhaps, the way the ghost looked down could have been taken for some kind of an agreement.
Arriving at the Fujiwara mansion, he was hardly surprised to find there not only Hikaru but Akira as well. What was quite surprising, though, was the fact that the two weren't absorbed in a game. Instead, Hikaru was bent over some papers, a deep frown on his brow and a pen in his hand. Akira was sitting by his side, watching his efforts with a blank expression.
“Oh, hi!” Noticing his new visitor, Hikaru put down his pen - very carefully, as if he were afraid he might break it. “Nice to see you! What brings you here?”
“I just thought I'd drop by,” Seimei said, eying the papers with interest. “Am I interrupting something?”
Hikaru looked down at the papers with a deep sigh. “No... or, well, maybe, but I could use a break anyway. I'm just writing a letter to, umm, you know, the...”
“Lady friend of yours?” Seimei suggested helpfully as his voice trailed off, and Hikaru frowned at him.
“Stop calling her my lady friend! But yeah, her. Explaining things. Though, well, I guess she knows all about me by now, but I thought I'd better send her letter anyway. Akira's helping me with the characters.”
“And checking he doesn't say anything overly rude,” Akira added quietly, which earned him a frown too.
“Yeah, whatever. You people sure are prissy.”
As he sat down next to them, Seimei took a short glance at what Hikaru had so far managed to scrawl down, and looked then politely away. Hikaru's frown deepened.
“Do you two share tips about eloquent silence, or is this too something all proper gentlemen can do?” he asked sullenly.
As he didn't quite understand the question, Seimei decided he might as well ignore it. “So you have found out who she is?”
“Yeah.” Hikaru sighed, and didn't look happy. “One of Princess Hiroko's ladies-in-waiting. Lady Asumi... of the Minamoto family. With some imperial blood, too, from her mother's side. Just figures.”
“Most people would be thrilled about having caught the attention of someone like her,” Akira put in.
Hikaru snorted. “I'm not 'most people'. And I'm pretty sure once she sees this,” he glowered down at his letter, “her attention will fade like a... like... like something that fades.”
There was a moment's silence. “By the way,” Seimei said then. “Have you heard the news? I just heard on my way here that Akitada got an official post somewhere in the northern provinces. Sado, I think it was.”
“What?” Hikaru cried out, enraged, while Akira burst into laughter.
“Come now, it's hardly something he's happy about. Technically it means he's been banished. We won't be hearing from him again... I'll show you Sado on the map some day. A northern province, as Seimei said, an island. When you're sent there, it's a clear sign you're not wanted back.”
“Hmm.” Hikaru didn't look quite convinced. “If they want to banish him, why don't they just, you know, banish him?”
“This answers the same purpose well enough. And this way it's hard to complain - it's an honor, isn't it? To be granted a post in the service of the empire...” Akira looked still quite amused.
Hikaru gave him a look. “I'll never quite understand what's so horrible about the provinces,” he muttered.
“What about you? Have you already decided what you're going to do?” Seimei asked, deciding to change the subject.
Hikaru nodded. “I'll leave to Kawachi with Kou... with my father in a few days.” He pronounced the word 'father' quite carefully, as if still unsure whether he should be using it. “We thought it might be better for me to stay away for a while, let the dust fall down a little. I'll be coming back, though. Maybe after a year or so...”
Akira sighed. “I'm still not quite happy about this, but perhaps it is the best.”
“You could come to visit some day”, Hikaru suggested. “It's not such a long way, and I know father wouldn't mind. He enjoyed playing with you.”
“And I certainly enjoyed playing with him,” Akira stated with a thoughtful look. “I just might, if it's alright for him.”
“That's great.” Hikaru grinned, but turned soon more serious as he looked at his unfinished letter. “I should get this done,” he muttered. “We're leaving soon and there's still so much to do. Like, about my mother... I've been looking for a new place for her to stay. She said she wouldn't mind moving and leaving the house to Akane and Taro, and Akari too, of course, though Akari said she could follow my mother so that she wouldn't have to be alone. Actually, we asked mom if she'd like to stay here, but she's still hesitating... maybe it is a bit grand for her, but there's sure room enough for her to have a whole wing of her own here, and the whole place is quite empty all the time, now that Sai's not here anymore and K... father stays always at Kawachi...”
“This is a beautiful place, though,” Seimei said, without any idea who all these people Hikaru was talking about were. “Hard to imagine anyone wouldn't want to live here. But I shouldn't keep you from writing your letter...”
“Yeah.” Hikaru grimaced at the letter. He picked up his pen again, frowned. “So what's the character for 'going away'?”
“It depends a little.” Akira grasped a pen too, and took another piece of paper. “How exactly would you like to say it?”
Seimei stood up. “Let's talk more when you're finished. I'll wait in the garden.”
Hikaru gave an absentminded nod, doing his best to copy the characters Akira was drawing him. Seimei left the two, but didn't go to the garden as he had claimed he would. Instead, he wandered through the empty rooms of the mansion, until he found what he'd been looking for. A go board.
He knelt down beside it, traced the lines with his fingers. As he looked up, he saw the ghost sitting at the opposite side of the board, as if they were about to play a game. He nodded a little. “If you're sure you really want this,” he whispered, and the ghost bowed. “Let's get started, then.”
He muttered the first part of the incantation he'd prepared. It felt good, even though he didn't really have a clue about what he was doing. It was something of an improvisation, but apparently a successful one. He realized he'd been lucky to choose just this go board. Obviously it held many memories for Sai, of hundreds, if not thousands, of games played on it. He didn't have to build a connection, it already existed.
He took a breath and carried on with the incantation. As he looked up, he realized he barely saw the ghost anymore. Something shimmered in the air, made the opposite wall strangely distorted, but that was all. Slowly, so very slowly, that shimmering spread across the go board. A moment the whole board shone softly, but then the light disappeared, and there was no sign left in the room of anything out of ordinary.
Seimei sat long quietly by the go board. “Rest well,” he whispered, touching lightly the cool wood. “I'm sure you'll have pleasant dreams, of all the games that will be played on this board, and certainly, some day...”
“So here you are!” Hikaru's sudden voice made him start. “We were looking for you.”
He looked up in surprise. “Did you finish the letter already?”
“Already?” Hikaru gave a laugh and sat down beside him. “Finally, rather. We thought you grew tired of waiting.”
“No, I...” Seimei blinked at the go board, caught off guard. He had planned to go to the garden before anyone would miss him, but apparently time had passed faster than he'd realized.
Hikaru didn't notice his confusion. “Gods...” he breathed, stretching. “It really was quite painstaking. But I got it done. In readable handwriting, too! I guess I really do need to practice.” He sighed, heartfelt. “Such a pain... but I was thinking about it... if I wish to return here and make myself any kind of a career, it just can't be helped. I got to learn this stuff. So I'll study while I'm gone. Calligraphy and music and all this other nonsense... maybe poetry, too...” He shuddered a little, but brightened then. “And go. Definitely go, too. And I'll get better, and maybe, some day after I get back here, I'd be ready for that teaching position the emperor offered me.”
“Is that what you want?” Seimei asked, a little surprised. “I wouldn't have thought you'd want to be anywhere near the court.”
Hikaru grimaced. “I know. And it's not like I couldn't change my mind still... but I just thought that if I'm now gonna be a proper gentleman anyway, might as well go all the way, you know? And as Sai always said... at the palace I could spend all my days just playing go, against all the best opponents. That's about as high as you can get, in the world of go. It just might be worth it. Besides...” He fell silent for a moment. “I think it'd make Sai happy, if I got his position.”
He looked down at the go board, touched it softly with one finger. “I think it would...” he started to repeat quietly, but then he took a sharp breath and his eyes widened a little.
“What is it?” Seimei asked, leaning anxiously forward.
“I... I just...” Hikaru gave a little laugh, a bit embarrassed. “It's nothing, for a moment it just felt like Sai was here, right next to me. Must be the board, we played a lot on it...” He tapped it once and shook his head, sighing. “Things didn't end up quite like I was wishing, but... I don't know... I don't know what I was expecting. A story like this can't really have a happy ending, right?”
Seimei snorted. “There is no such thing, to begin with.”
“Do you have to be so pessimistic!” Hikaru exclaimed. “What's wrong with happy endings?”
“There is no such thing as an ending, I meant.”
Hikaru gave the boy a long unblinking look. “You're a pretty weird kid, you know,” he finally stated.
“This from one whose life revolves around black and white stones on a checkered board?” Seimei asked with raised eyebrows, and Hikaru gave a laugh.
“I guess even the great onmyouji, with all their skills and secret wisdom, don't understand everything, huh?”
Seimei was about to reply, but quiet footsteps made them both glance at the doorway, where Akira soon appeared.
“Oh, I didn't know you were still here,” he said to Seimei and stopped in the doorway, hesitating.
“If you two wish to play,” Seimei said, guessing what it was all about, “I don't mind.”
“Are you sure?” Hikaru asked grinning. “We might play long.”
“It's alright. I'll see if I can figure out some universal truth about go that all the wise men have so far missed.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Akira said, entering the room. “But if you're sure you don't mind...” He sat down by the go board, and Hikaru turned to face him. Soon the room was echoing with the constant snaps of stones placed on a wooden board.
Notes:
Northern provinces: when you think about northern Japan (or at least when I think about it) the first thing coming to mind would be Hokkaido. Now, the northern provinces weren't quite that northern. In fact, Hokkaido wasn't a part of the Japanese empire in the Heian times. If you've got a map of Japan, Sado island is about half-way up, or a bit more, on the left side. (Heh, nice coordinates, huh?) It was a common place for exiles... from wikipedia:
“When direct control from mainland Japan started around the 8th century, the island's remoteness meant that it soon became a place of banishment for difficult or inconvenient Japanese figures. Exile to remote locations such as Sado was a very serious punishment, second only to the death penalty, and people were not expected to return.”
I've earlier mentioned how important poetry was, but calligraphy... now, that was Important. A poem of not so great quality could be forgiven, if it was beautifully written, but combining bad poetry with bad handwriting... that was a lost case. “A fine hand was probably the most important single mark of a 'good' person, and it came close to being regarded as a moral virtue.” (WSP)
Hikaru does have a lot of work ahead, if he's going to follow his plan...
But but but. This story is over. :D
Previous chapter
First chapter
Just for fun, here's a short bit from Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book. Not behind the lj-cut, cause this isn't really connected to the fic (just to Hikaru's handwriting) so those not reading the fic can read it too (Nobutsune is a courtier with really bad handwriting):
One day when Nobutsune was serving as Intendant in the Office of Palace Works he sent a sketch to one of the craftsmen explaining how a certain piece of work should be done. 'Kindly execute it in this fashion,' he added in Chinese characters. I happened to notice the piece of paper and it was the most preposterous writing I had ever seen. Next to his message I wrote, 'If you do the work in this fashion, it will certainly turn out strangely.' The document found its way to the Imperial apartments and everyone who saw it was greatly amused - except, of course, Nobutsune, who was furious and after this held a grudge against me.