Sake of such a fine quality gave the little cave a relaxed and festive air, and in no time, both Jyuusan-hime and Ensei found it easier to laugh than to hold it in. Now, she took a turn at regaling him with "war stories" of her childhood, growing up with the Shiba Clan at the knee of Ryuu Shiba, the former patriarch of the clan, and a general whose fame rivaled Advisor Sou's.
To her delight, Jyuusan-hime realized that Ensei reminded her not really so much of Jin as of Old Man Ryuu, Jin's grandfather. The resemblance in manner and appearance was so strong in fact that she started teasingly calling him "jichan" while the sake warmed her blood and loosened her reserve. It wasn't that she was exactly drunk, but Ensei decided he should probably stash the canteen out of site before either of them progressed any further and woke up sorry the next day.
"Hey, I have something for you," he informed her, trying to distract her from her hunt for the sake, which had now turned to an awkward and suspicious search of his person. Inviting as that prospect was, his conscience nagged him not to take advantage of her somewhat impaired judgment, so he opted to redirect her attention instead.
"Oooh, a present from jichan?" she beamed excitedly and clapped her hands like a spoiled child, making Ensei laugh.
He dangled a small, thin stick with holes dug out on one side, suspended from a piece of blue ribbon, in front of Jyuusan-hime's sake-brightened eyes.
"Aha! So that's where my hair ribbon went!" she glared at him.
"Aw, c'mon, you're gonna love this," he assured her, scooting next to her, cross-legged, by the fire.
Her pained expression revealed that she highly doubted that.
"Ok, here's one for you and one for me," he explained and handed her a stick and kept an identical one for himself.
"Two pieces of my hair ribbon?!" she exclaimed with outrage.
"Blow," he instructed, brushing off her indignation.
"Huh?!" she stared at him aghast.
"Blow into it," he repeated. "Right there, on the end."
She stared at the dirty stick, looking first at one end and then the other.
"Ha, like this," he sighed impatiently, taking the stick from her. "Open."
Her face flushed, but he had poised the stick in front of her mouth expectantly and, incomprehensibly, she parted her lips.
"Good girl," he grinned and popped the stick between her lips.
She felt completely ridiculous. "En-shei…" she mumbled around the stick in her mouth.
"Mm…nah bro," he mumbled back, balancing his stick between his teeth. He followed his own garbled directions and blew steadily through the thin stick, covering the holes intermittently with his fingers. A low, sweet sound slipped out like a bird's song.
"Heh-heh, how's that?" he beamed proudly, holding the miniature flute in his fingers. Jyuusan-hime's eyes widened with surprise and she grinned in spite of herself. He spun the lithe stick deftly through his fingers the way he spun his staff in his hands. "You try it now."
She pursed her lips around the stick and blew hard and long, emitting a sharp, piercing screech that rattled their eardrums. Ensei quickly jammed his hands over his ears, and felt his fever wracked head spin.
"Whoa, whoa!! Ok!" he winced, cringing with one eye squinted against the shrill clatter slicing through him.
Horrified and humiliated, Jyuusan-hime stared at Ensei in shocked dismay.
"Is that some kind of Ran family anthem?" he scratched his head, remembering her brother Ryuuren's unique musical style. He took her flute away to see if he had somehow made it defectively. He blew into it and the gentle warble of a nightingale came out the other end.
"I want my hair ribbon back!" she sulked, turning her face away to hide the mortification crawling up past her eyebrows.
"C'mon, Kotori-san," he slapped her on the back good-naturedly. "You just need some practice. I've been playing one of these since I was a kid."
"I'll pass, thanks," she turned away, flexing her tingling shoulder muscle where he'd slapped her, resisting the urge to stab him with both flutes.
"Hang on, now," he caught her fingers in his to stop her retreat. "Actually, you played it just fine for its purpose," he told her, handing the stick back to her.
"Which is?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow and forcing herself with a deep breath to ignore his warm, rough hand resting over hers and making her fingers tingle.
"It's an alarm whistle," he said. "We lost each other in the forest during that last battle. I don't think either of us wants to go through that again," a strained look shadowed his expression and her stomach churned, remembering the dread she felt. "If we lose each other again or if one of us is attacked or in case of any emergency, we just give this a blow as hard as we can and alert the other."
A surprised grin spread over her face. "Oh, I see!"
She held it to her lips and gave a small blow and the reedy sound came out in a soft squeal that made her grimace.
"Blow hard…like when you're yelling at me," he advised with a teasing smile.
She blushed at the reference to her temper, but did as instructed, puffed up her cheeks and blew hard into the whistle. The sound came out high-pitched and loud, echoing around the cave and out into the surrounding forest.
"Wow!" she exclaimed and giggled at the spinning in her head, the ringing in her ears and the tingling on her lips from the whistle's vibration.
"Ah, there you go! Good job!" he patted her shoulder and his hand slid casually through her hair and squeezed the back of her neck in encouragement. He heard her breath catch and felt her shoulders hunch tighter under his hand. She glanced at him briefly before darting her eyes away, but he could easily see a ruddy blush staining her cheeks. "Sorry…heh, Hime-san says I have no manners. She's trying to reform me, but I think it's a losing effort," he winked at her.
"Oh…no…I'm just…uh, still a little sore from the fight," she assured him with a strained smile and squeezed his hand.
Maybe the sake was playing tricks on his mind, but he had started to notice a strange inequity in their relationship. Jyuusan-hime had no hesitation about touching him, so much so that her informality with him surprised him regularly. Yet, if he as much as brushed against her, she would react as she just had—a quick gasp and a jump, as though he were made of jagged glass.
Even at that moment, she sat with one hand holding the whistle up to her eyes, examining it closely, and the other one casually hooked around his fingers braced against the ground, as if holding his hand was commonplace and comfortable for her. Intrigued, he shifted his weight, and when he did, he adjusted his hand so it lay over the top of hers, not holding her, just resting over it. Not two seconds passed and she slid her hand out from under his and brushed her hair back behind her ear.
His brow furrowed, and he tried to remember if he had hurt her, been too rough, too personal, too anything, but nothing came to mind. Still, he admitted, he wasn't exactly the best judge of proper behavior. The idea that she might be afraid of him churned his stomach. She'd seen the aftermath of his battle with the assassins, and he had to wonder if it colored her view of him, made him seem dangerous. He was glad Shuurei had never seen him do more than knock people out. He regretted that Jyuusan-hime had.
"Aha! Jichan, look here," she said suddenly and leaned over to him, holding the whistle up where he could see. Her arm wedged against his and her breast just brushed against his chest as she settled against him. Her hair slipped back and swept across his chin when she lifted her head up to show him her whistle. "This hole isn't punched through all the way. That must be the problem."
He smirked at her insistence that the whistle was defective, not her playing, even though he had played it just fine himself.
"Ah, ok, let me fix it," he indulged her, and she leaned her hand absently on his thigh for support while she eagerly watched how he bored the hole through with his hunting knife.
Ok, no, he decided emphatically with relief and amusement, she definitely wasn't afraid of him. In fact, she draped against him like he was her favorite chair. Still, if he moved toward her, she would instantly tense and draw away. She was afraid of something—something that she desperately needed to keep under her control.
"This is great, Ensei!" she said excitedly after he had made the correction to her whistle and gave it back to her. She blew gently and the sound came out slightly less jarring. "See!" she exclaimed and blew again.
"Here, try this," he said, still testing his theory. He drew her hand up to the whistle still held in her mouth and positioned her fingers on it, so his fingers guided hers over the small holes on the top. He could feel her hand trembling under his and he watched the growing discomfort in her eyes. "Ok, now blow again," he said quietly. When she did, he nudged her fingers under his, so one finger moved off a hole while another moved on. The sound changed, came out less shrill, and Jyuusan-hime's eyes widened.
"Ah, so that's how you do it!" she exclaimed. "Show me again! Can you make different sounds?" she asked and the next several minutes passed in lighthearted laughter and music lessons. Her hand no longer trembled under his. It was a start, he thought with satisfaction, but then a question tumbled over it—the start of what? Her voice jerked his chaotic thoughts back to her.
"I guess I'll have to forgive you then," she sighed wearily.
"What did I do now?" he drew back, affronted.
"You dug through my gear and stole my hair ribbons," she accused playfully, struggling to keep her smile hidden.
"I did not!" he stated emphatically.
"Oh? Then how did you get my ribbons?" she interrogated him, arching her eyebrow suspiciously.
"Erm…uh…from your hair," he muttered under his breath.
"What was that?" she leaned closer to hear him.
"From your hair," he said and his eyes shifted to hers.
"From my hair?" she frowned in puzzlement. "Oooh, from earlier when you dried it?"
"Uh…yeah," he nodded and scratched his cheek awkwardly.
"You kept them?" she asked, tipping her head a little, as if trying to work out an intricate puzzle.
He cleared his throat. "Ha-ha, well, you never know what you'll need out in the wild."
"Hair ribbons?" she asked incredulously.
"Uh…whistle ties," he answered, holding his whistle up by the ribbon, trying to ignore the heat in his cheeks. "You can tie it to your belt. Handy little things," he added and spun the tiny instrument around his finger on the ribbon. "You can keep it on you all the time. So…if you ever need me, just whistle."
Her eyes, glimmering like polished river stones in still water, lingered on his long enough to draw an awkward grin from him. "Am I off the hook?" he wheedled, looking like a guilty child.
"I suppose," she grumbled with a warm, indulgent smile. "Except now I can't tie up my hair," she complained, sweeping a few wisps back from her face.
"Eh, it's better down like that anyway," he remarked off-handedly.
"Silly," she beamed and turned her face away. "When my hair's down, it gets tangled in everything."
His eyes flickered over the long rivers of black silk spilling over her shoulders and down her chest to pool in her lap. "Does it?" he asked in a low voice, remembering the way it snaked around his fingers, binding him to her.
Before his sake-slowed brain could think better, before he remembered her nervousness at his touch, he had picked up a thick strand of her hair, cradling it across the palm of his hand. He stroked his thumb over it and watched the firelight dance over its gleaming surface as it quivered under his caress.
"You don't need ribbons," he said quietly and heard her soft gasp when he shifted his body close behind hers.