AAHH 12 KINGDOMS AU yes please. I love it, Ono Fuyumi is also my fave author and now I've read nearly all of her works (well, some are the manga adaptation) Only Way Out also made me read Ghost Hunt manga which is perfection. Though, since Miyuki and Sawamura are emperor and kirin does that mean there'll be no romance/smut between them? (I don't know if it's forbidden or not but I think it'll be very unlikely thing to do. Probably won't end well too, like Jokaku and Keiki (tho it's onesided))
But I rather like that, emperor and kirin are soulmates but they don’t have to be defined by romantic/sexual relationship. They’re still soulmates. They can date/marry other people and still be soulmates. (well, probably only the emperor since kirin probably don’t date/marry) oh, and you’re also my favorite miyusawa fic author. I love your works!
I’m no expert since I’ve only seen the anime and read the TokyoPop translated novels (which I know have some wonky translation choices), but my impression is that… it’s not forbidden so much as kirin just aren’t made to be romantically or sexually attracted to people. They’re made to recognize and serve the king, and to be merciful and benevolent so as to guide the king on the correct path (whether or not the king listens to them is of course the wild card). That’s their nature and how Tentei intended them to be. Kirin are pretty much tied to their ruler, they wouldn’t be interested in anyone else, but I can and sometimes will read them as uhh king-sexual in some instances though so in that sense yeah 12K!MiSawa smut could totally happen. My headcanon is that they’re ace/aro as a rule but some might be attracted to their ruler.
It’s also explained in Skies of Dawn that rulers don’t marry/can’t have children after they ascend, so the only time you’d have a married ruler with a family is if that carried over from their human lives (like with Shoukei’s father, he was chosen as king when she was 12 and she became immortal for the duration of his reign). But rulers can definitely have lovers if Shouryuu is any example.
Someone I knew once mentioned that it wouldn’t be right for kirin to have sex since they’re entirely pure creatures, but that’s ridiculous to me for all kinds of reasons. The whole “sex = impure” concept in general I’m inclined to toss right out the window, and also let’s bear in mind this is a world where sex is 100% pleasure and serves zero – ZERO – purpose in procreation. BABIES ARE BORN FROM A WISH BETWEEN MARRIED COUPLES AND GROW ON TREES (it is my ideal world, where pregnancy is a horrifying alien concept). But sex definitely still happens! So it’s entirely recreation, not procreation, and yeah there are still shitheads forcing girls into sexual slavery but sex is not inherently impure or else Enki wouldn’t be casually having chats with Shouryuu in the garden of a brothel. Kirin are highly sensitive to what’s considered evil in this world – they don’t like blood in general but blood shed in violence and hatred makes them particularly ill. I would assume if sex is a bad thing they’d have the same reaction to it in their vicinity. They don’t, so it’s not, and incidentally it’s not a bad thing in the real world either. /rant
Long story short I’m pretty sure Ono Fuyumi intended for the kirin to be non-sexual creatures but there’s nothing stopping me from writing unicorn porn if I want to. (ETA: IN HUMAN FORM I MEAN I have not yet developed an actual bestiality kink.)
