Sea of the Wind, Shore of the Maze, Prologue by Kaze no Umi Meikyuu no Kishi Book 1 Page B

water with a plop.
    "Have you heard the story of Sairin?"
    "Sairin? Nope."
    "A long time ago, there was a kirin who liked to look pretty, called Sairin."
    "That's a woman because she has Rin in her name, right?"
    "Right. Sairin was always very envious of the nyosen's hairstyle, so she would always complain that  she wanted the nyosen to brush her hair into a topknot."
    "And then she got a topknot with a hairpin, like you?"
    Teiei nodded as she was sewing clothes. "Right. We combed her hair with pomade and tied it up into a  tight topknot, and then we inserted all sorts of hairpins. Unexpectedly, when evening came and she  transformed in order to get back to the palace, her mane was still bound in a topknot and there was no way  for her to straighten her neck, so it became crooked."
    Taiki giggled.
    "That must have hurt."
    "Right. So you have to be careful. If you transform with your hair in a topknot, it will hurt a lot."
    "All right!"
    Taiki and Teiei both laughed. Following that, Teiei lowered her head to look at the clothes beside her  hand.
    Ever since that incident with that Goson from Ba Province, Taiki always had at least two or three  nyosen by his side. Because when the nyokai encounters urgent situations, the only thought that goes  through her mind is to protect Taiki, sometimes she will injure herself needlessly and cause injury to Taiki.
    Just like on that day, after Sanshi had cleaned her body once, she had still not been able to completely  wash off the smell of blood. Taiki didn't tell the nyosen and let Sanshi be by him until he fell asleep like in  the past. As a result, he had gotten a fever by the next day.
    (It would be better if Taiki had shirei...)
    Teiei quietly thought to herself.
    Relying only on Sanshi to protect Taiki isn't enough.
    At times like these, she felt like the ten years that Taiki had been away from Mt. Hou was really too  long a time.
    The Yellow Sea around the Five Mountains was a habitat for youma, and ordinarily, a kirin would use  his spare time to walk along the periphery of the Yellow Sea and tame youma, turning them into his shirei.
    At first he would find a few smaller youma at the foot of the Five Mountains to test out his skill and tame  them.
    (However, Taiki's already run out of time...)
    Moreover, Taiki also didn't know how to tame youma, and there was no way Teiei could teach him,  because this should have been an instinctual skill that a kirin was born with.
    (If only he had come back five years earlier.)
    Kirin are born in beast form and in their first five years, do not change their appearance, since they  don't have a horn yet. They don't know how to speak and don't quite understand everything a nyosen says,  like a small bird that has just hatched.
    However, newly hatched birds can't fly, but kirin already know how to gallop through the air when  they are born. Small kirin can only follow their nyokai around, wandering blithely through the Five  Mountains, as they search for youma and tame them for their own amusement. Small kirin grow up only  drinking their nyokai's milk, so they build up a resistance to injury and blood.
    Though it is a little different for every kirin, they begin to transform every now and then to human  form and speak the human language after an average of about five years. After another period of time, their  transformations will last longer, until one day the sharp tips of their horns will emerge from their foreheads.
    That is also the time it stops nursing, and from then on, they can show their complete human forms.
    Thus, from the time they stop nursing, most kirin just know naturally how to transform and how to  tame youma, and they don't need anyone to teach them. Though they are not considered fully grown until  their horns are completely developed, they basically already possess all the skill that a kirin should have.
    Also, it isn't until this time that the flag can be raised.
    After a kirin stops nursing, their