Rozle... rlze? Whatever, you know who you are xD - Thank you so much for helping! My English SUCKS and it makes me so happy that you corrected it! I try to correct it best I can but whatever spell check doesn't pick up, I assume is right (Curse you SPELL CHECK!) Thanks again, please continue do so!

BTW I haven't even figured where this story is going yet, I kind of have an idea for the next few chapters though. Sorry there's no dialogue and the reason I haven't uploaded so long (I didn't even think I would keep doing this but I decided to anyway) is that I'm with my family for New Year. I'm not even in America's hemisphere right now xD

I'm leaving tomorrow for home so I'll be able to upload more :3

"Ehem..." Nam coughed awkwardly into her burnt sleeve, "Um... Heh heh..." she smiled guiltily at her sister who stood before her with her arms cross and eyes in a cold, sharp glare, "Wow, you sure do look great-"

"I don't want to hear it, Jie-chan! I don't know how you managed to mess up this badly! First on your date, now the matchmaker! What will I do with you- You know what? I don't even care!" Mei cried, "You know what? Yeah that's right! I'm done! I give up!" Mei then stopped talking and spun around on the balls of her feet and marched furiously towards the house soon out of sight.

Nam fidgeted, and turned to Yong Soo hoping for some kind of pep talk, but all he did was shake his head disappointedly at her and walk away leaving Nam alone in the crowd.

She stood there watching them, feeling the pitiful, annoyed eyes of the on lookers beating down on her back. And what happened next didn't surprise anyone. A single tear dripped down her cheek from her overly embellished eye. No, it wasn't crying! One tear is not crying!

After wiping away the ONE tear which smeared her black eyeliner into her white face, Nam stomped her foot on the floor and huffed drawing a great many eyes. She tore the ribbon from her hair and let it all fall gracelessly around her, shed the top robe, the sash, obi, and kicked off her tall sandals in the middle of the street. Soon just wearing her thin, tan pants and short, white toga and Nam stormed down the dusty road.

Nam marched angrily through the town until she made it to the empty rice fields, which had just been harvested. She glared down at the grimy, muddy water that lay still in shallow pools below her.

She had never been more furious, just because this... this had to happen, Mei and even Yong Soo were angry with her and she was mad at them for throwing her in with a lion.

Nam had looked like fool running away from the matchmaker and cowering behind her sister like a baby and if there was one thing Nam refused to be; was a fool.

She would not end up like Mei, groomed and prepped for a bride with twenty kids, she most definitely didn't want to live with her parents all her life and she didn't want to be a priestess and those were the only dignified options open to a daughter of a businessman. She didn't want that though, she had heard of great women generals of the South and the respected Queens and worshiped female Gods of the west… But not in her country, here women were wives, and if they weren't wives they were priestess or sluts sold to rich men… why was Nam born like this? She was smart and understood war and she knew things about the world that some men didn't even know.

Nam grimaced and jumped into the rice paddy splattering mud everywhere. Nam wanted to be poet or a soldier, a minstrel, a trader, a shepherd, a traveler, a guide through the mountains… Nam knew those Mountains better than anyone!

She looked up at them from where she stood, ankle deep in the mud. They were peaked high in the sky and daunting and they terrified everyone in the village. Small children were told not go there because of demons and horrors beyond their wildest nightmares.

So, of course, a young Nam had marched into the forest of black pine leading up to the mountains as soon as she was old enough to break out of her crib. She wandered the woods and soon graduated to spending days at a time in the mountains (passing it off as spending a few days helping the monk Shamar clean the temple)

Nam loved the mountains, because all there really was are rabbits and foxes in the woods leading up to the peaks. When Nam got older, she found wandering around in the mountains relaxing. She knew all the paths, all the paths with robbers or animals or drops offs and all the paths safe for carts and horses.

… She felt stupid that it had taken her so long to realize this. A guide! A guide through the mountains. You had to take those mountains to get to the city of Dadu (China's capital) if you went to the east (her home was in the South) and to the North there was a huge city (Shangdu) with people lining up for local guides to take them through. When Nam was young and exploring the mountains she would see the caravans taking their cargo to Dadu and the guides leading the way. She would sit and watch their progress from high up sometimes. It fascinated her.

Nam sat in the mud and smiled wide, a guide through the mountain pass… her brain conjured up the most romantic idea of what a guides life would be like.

But a female guide would never be accepted… no one would pay a her to take them through dark, dank valleys or over harrowing cliffs.

And then another idea hit Nam like a boulder, she could be a man. It was all so simple, so perfect that Nam was disgusted with herself for not thinking it up sooner.

And I mean really, what had being a woman ever done for her?