An Keiran

**An Keiran** (安蕙蘭, *****An Keiran*****?) was the attendant of Sai Enrin, the Magpie Consort during the time of the Flame Emperor. She died from a lung sickness.

## Biography

### During life

Keiran and Enrin were distant relatives, with Keiran's lineage closer to the main family than Enrin's. Keirin was married off to another family, but was sent back home by her in-laws because she was barren. Keiran was in low spirits until Enrin's father, who had been promoted to a high position in government, needed a teacher for his daughter who would educate her to become a consort worthy enough to enter the crown prince's inner palace.

Keiran was twenty-two when she was chosen to become the teacher of the ten-year-old Enrin. In her words, Keiran raised Enrin strictly but fondly, trying her best to dissuade her from reading love stories and mysteries instead of books young ladies should read.

Eventually, Enrin's reputation as a great beauty reached even the emperor, and he decided to make her his consort despite the fact that he already had an empress and wasn't known to be a philanderer. Keiran noticed Enrin's despondency and assumes that it's because she thought she would be marrying the crown prince instead. Keiran attempted to encourage her by telling her that victory was already theirs and that she must take control of the inner palace to support her father.

The next day, a robber broke into the mansion at night and sneaked into Enrin's room. Keiran hadn't heard him even though her room was next to Enrin's because she was asleep. She woke up when she heard the two arguing. When she realized that the robber wanted to take Enrin away, she took out the dagger she kept under her pillow and shouted that there was a robber in the house. Servants rushed to capture the robber, who was revealed to be a bookseller who would secretly bring Enrin her favorite books. Enrin begged her father to spare him, but he was beheaded anyway because her father had to punish him for his crimes and needed to avoid any rumors of Enrin's attempted kidnapping.

Enrin entered the inner palace in low spirits but without any incident. She was made into the Magpie Consort and given Jakusou Palace. However, the emperor didn't visit her even after half a month. Keiran learned that on top of the emperor being busy with building the new dynasty, his eunuchs were deliberately hindering him from visiting Enrin by lying to him about her condition. Keiran writes to Enrin's father to ask him to send her as many gold and silks as he could spare so that she could bribe the eunuchs to put in a good word for Enrin. It worked, and it was announced that the emperor would be visiting Enrin that night.

As all this was happening, Enrin only vacantly stared into the garden while holding a satin pouch. Keiran became angry at her seeming indifference at seeing the emperor tonight and scolded her. When Enrin told her that she never wanted to become a consort in the first place and that she wished he would never visit her. She told Keiran that if she loved the emperor so much, she should become a consort. This enrages Keiran so much that she tried to strike Enrin but hit her pouch instead. Soil spilled out, and Keiran realized that it was the soil from the spot where the bookseller was beheaded. Not wanting to believe that Enrin and the bookseller were involved with each other, Keiran took the soil and went out to the garden, where she proceeded to scatter the soil onto the ground and stomp on it despite Enrin's tearful pleas for her to stop. Keiran wondered where the Enrin she had raised went.

Keiran claimed that she had no memory of what happened afterwards. She found herself sitting on the couch in a daze and convinced herself that everything that happened before was a dream. She tried to find Enrin in order to prepare her for the emperor's visit, but couldn't find her. She eventually found her shoes placed by the pond in the back of the garden. Realizing what had happened, she decided that she couldn't let this incident become too big and threw the shoes into the pond. She then ran back to the palace and told everyone that Enrin had accidentally fell into the pond. The eunuchs pulled Enrin out of the pond, but it was too late.

Keiran insisted to everyone that it was a terrible accident, but a consort still died because of the ineptness of her servants, so Keiran and the rest of the Jakusou Palace servants were punished, as well as Enrin's father. Keiran was sent to the cleansing quarters, where she washed dirty clothes for the remainder of her life. Keiran claimed to hear Enrin's voice in the water everyday. No one else could hear the voice, and people stayed away from Keiran because she scared them. She eventually died of a lung disease in her old age during the reign of Ka Koushun.

### After death

After her death, her ghost immediately visited Ryuu Jusetsu because of her lifelong fixation on what happened to Enrin. She tells Jusetsu the story of her and Enrin and begs her to save Enrin's soul before fading away. Jusetsu could already tell that Keiran was haunted by her guilt of her role in Enrin's death rather than Enrin herself. Jusetsu visits Jakusou Palace's pond and finds Keiran there, looking more dishevelled than last night because she was on the verge of becoming a demon. Keiran is attempting to scoop up the water. She begs Jusetsu to save Enrin, but Jusetsu tells her that Enrin's soul had already crossed over to paradise. She confronts Keiran over lack of actual pity for Enrin. Keiran exposes her real feelings and asks Jusetsu to save her from Enrin's voice that was coming from the bottom of the pond. Jusetsu tells her that the voice from the water is actually her own voice of guilt for causing Enrin's death. Keiran, shaken and disbelieving, ran into the pond and submerged herself in it. Before she disappears for good, she exclaims that she can no longer hear Enrin's voice. Jusetsu uses a shaman technique to trap Keiran in the pond, both to keep people safe and in the hopes that the water will cleanse Keiran's soul.

That night, Hou Shougetsu breaks the spell Jusetsu used and destroyed Keiran's soul, believing that she was too dangerous to keep around. Jusetsu finds fragments of her soul scattered around the area, as though she had been devoured.

## Appearance

Upon her death, Keiran was an elderly woman with gray hair tied into a small topknot. She had an ashen face and deep wrinkles in her face and hands. The skin on her fingers was chapped from a lifetime of washing clothes. Traces of her former high status remain in her demeanour. When she was on the verge of becoming a demon, her fingers grew bonier, her nails grew longer, her hair became messier, her face became more grotesque, and her eyes became blazing.

## Personality

Keiran was a prideful, controlling woman who kept long grudges and resentment. She also seemed to be skilled at manipulating and lying to others as well as to herself. She had a disdain for eunuchs, believing them to be inferior to her. She seemed to be very conscious of propriety and outward appearances.

## Relationships

### Sai Enrin

Keiran disliked Enrin and her father from the start due to them being of a lesser family than hers and yet asking her to act as Enrin's governess. She claimed that she still properly raised Enrin into an outstanding woman despite those feelings and that she came to love Enrin. She devoted herself to Enrin's education and raised her strictly, trying her best to dissuade her from reading the romances and unusual tales she loved and read more proper books instead. When the emperor decided to take Enrin as his consort, she was delighted. However, the night before Enrin was set to enter the inner palace, someone broke into her room. Keiran, who slept next door, heard the commotion and shouted for help. She was shocked when she learned that the intruder was the bookseller who smuggled Enrin's favorite books to her, because she thought of him as a fine young man.

After Enrin was in the inner palace for a month, Keiran became anxious about the fact that the emperor had never once visited her. She learned that his eunuchs were actively feeding him lies to prevent him from doing so, so she wrote to Enrin's father, asking him to send gold and silks she could use to bribe the eunuchs. It worked, and it was announced that the emperor would be visiting Enrin that night. Keiran became angry that Enrin seemed indifferent to everything happening. The two got into an argument when Enrin told her that she never wanted to become a consort, and Keiran attempted to strike her, only to find out that Enrin brought the soil that the bookseller was executed on with her to the palace. Realizing that this meant that Enrin was involved with another man, Keiran got rid of the soil by stomping it into the palace garden despite Enrin's pleas.

This action drove Enrin to drown herself in the Jakusou Palace pond. Keiran was the one who find her shoes, and fearing a scandal, she tossed the shoes into the pond and told everyone that Enrin slipped. Despite this, all of Enrin's servants were punished for their ineptitude. Keiran was sentenced to live in the cleansing quarters for the rest of her life. She claimed to hear Enrin's voice in the water as she washed clothes, all the way up until her death. She resented Enrin for killing herself and condemning her to this fate, feeling that she was ungrateful for all that she did for her. Her guilt and preoccupation over her role in Enrin's death caused her to become a ghost immediately and visit Jusetsu to ask her to save Enrin. It took Jusetsu confronting her with her true feelings towards Enrin that Keiran realized that the voice was in fact her feelings of guilt towards Enrin.

## Trivia

* An's given name, Keiran, was created for the anime. In the novels, she was only known by her family name.
* She shares the same voice actress as Enrin in Japanese.