Dinnertime was usually a tranquil hour for Tseng and Yuffie. The late evening light streamed through the windows, casting twisted shadows behind their water glasses and tableware. Yuffie's gaze flicked between her noodles and Tseng several times. She took a deep breath and made a decision.

"So," she began, and her cheer sounded only slightly forced, "tell me about yourself."

His hand stilled on the stack of papers he'd been flipping through. "Sorry...?"

"I said," and this time her voice contained a little more forced, "tell me about yourself. Your favorite color, your pet parakeet named Gertrude, your growing stamp collection."

He stared at her, eyebrows high in disbelief. "Why do you want to know?"

"Tseng," she said, waving her chopsticks dangerously close to his face, "why's everything have to be the Solish Inquisition with you? It's called conversation."

"You've never seemed inclined to know before now," he murmured, appraising her.

She flushed and tried not to fidget with the thick green tablecloth. "We're working together for the next year or so. We sleep in the same bed. I should know more about you."

He smiled a tiny smile, then looked her up and down. She felt pinned like one of Hojo's specimens under his gaze. "I have never had a parakeet, and I would never name my parakeet Gertrude," he said with a hint of disgust. Her eyes fell on a stray hair lying across his forehead.

"Gertrude's an awesome name. You're just a stiff." Immediately after she said it, Yuffie was horrified that she had spoken to Tseng in the same way she might Cid or Vincent.

True to form, he did the unexpected. "Yes, well, I'm a stiff you married." He smiled with just a hint of smug.

"Oh, burn. You got me there."

There was a semi-awkward silence. She itched to smooth that rogue lock of hair back over his forehead. He noticed the path of her eyes and re-arranged it himself. She looked away, uneasy again. Yuffie wished she could get over Tseng making her uncomfortable.

He rose, set aside his napkin, and smoothed his robes. "I once had a dog named Fritz, when I was very young. I enjoy playing chess in my free time."

When he turned as if to leave, she blurted, "But you didn't tell me your favorite color."

His black eyes lingered once more on her, and slowly, he said, "I have work to do for the next few hours. My favorite color is red." Then he was gone.

Her kimono today was a bright, healthy red embroidered with white waves.

.

Half an hour after she had entered their bedroom and dressed for sleep, Tseng arrived. Before he had a chance to close the door, she asked, "What kind of dog was Fritz?"

He was not at all surprised by her eagerness, his face placid. "Mid-size mutt."

"What did he look like?"

He stepped behind the privacy screen, and she tried not to imagine him disrobing, which was becoming increasingly difficult as of late. "Skinny, white with brown spots on his face and body."

To distract herself, she settled at the dressing table and looked for her mother-of-pearl comb amid the clutter. "What happened to him?"

"What is your middle name?" he shot back.

Her post-shower tangles did not want to give up. The comb's teeth snagged in her hair, and she winced. "Don't you Turks have a whole file on me? I bet you read it during the day when no one's there."

If it were Cid or Vincent or Reeve, she'd leer and say, "I bet you touch yourself to it," but she preferred to end her evening without a bullet between the eyes.

"I do have some information on you, yes, but it doesn't list your middle name."

She blinked. "Oh. I don't have a middle name. Guess Godo and Mom thought 'Yuffie' was awesome enough on its own."

"I suppose your name does not need adornments. Everyone recognizes your achievements these days."

"I don't really like the way you said achievements," she said, and decided taming her hair was a futile effort. She threw down the comb just as he came out from behind the screen.

To her immense surprise, he moved toward her and plucked her comb from the tabletop.

"What are you…?"

"Do you trust anyone else to do this?" His voice played with the word trust, elongating the sibilants, crisping the t's.

"I don't know if I trust you either," she said, only half-joking.

"Clever," he whispered over the top of her head, stirring her hair at the crown. They lapsed into silence while he combed her hair gently, picking through each snarl with meticulous effort. Yuffie gave up wondering at each strange new turn her life took and decided to enjoy the surreal encounter.

"Should I trust you?" Only when he stilled did she understand she had actually said it aloud.

"That is for you to decide, Empress. Know that your life is literally in my hands."

She wondered what had loosened his tongue tonight: was it their conversation at dinner? The atmosphere—the low lighting and the heater in the corner, dispelling the chill of descending winter?

"My life is in no one's hands but my own," she snapped, feeling like he was needling her on purpose.

"Your life is in the hands of many." His voice, smooth, soothed her. "Will the servants poison your food?" She began to protest, but his hand ghosted down her bare neck and the words died in her throat. "Will the guard lapse his station and allow an assassin into the grounds? Will a passing driver swerve and strike you in the street?"

The comb clattered to the table, and his hands snaked into her hair, kneading her scalp. "I could snap your neck now, if I were so inclined. Every day you do not die, your life is in many, many hands, Yuffie."

She stiffened at his first serious use of her name, and his hands fell from her. "I'm tired," he said plainly. "Will you require further assistance tonight?"

"No." Her voice came out barely above a whisper.

When they climbed into bed and he clicked off the lamp, she watched his back in the night, turning to face his direction. She fell asleep that way, studying the lines of his body in repose. She memorized the slope of his shoulders, his arm, the curve of his spine and the gentle arch of his legs.

.

Yuffie found herself outside his office the next day around noon. Before she could knock, he opened the door, and a look of surprise flitted across his face as his eyes lit on her. "Good afternoon, your highness," he said, and there was a question in his tone.

"Did you, uh," she fumbled, feeling oddly like a little girl asking a boy on a date, "are you hungry? I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch with me."

"I was just going to eat, actually," he said. "Where do you usually take lunch?"

"Either in my office or in our personal dining room," she said. "Where do you usually eat?"

"In the gardens," he replied.

"Oh. Isn't it cold?"

"I wear a coat."

"Oh."

"Come with me."

When he had instructed the kitchen of their whereabouts, he led her to a stone table close to the meditation pond. Koi rushed to the fringes, and he watched them with a pensive expression. Yuffie's breath clouded around her mouth and nose.

She grinned when the servants came out carrying hot cocoa and warm sandwiches. "Eastern food today?"

"I like variety." With this statement, he reached into a bag on the table and pulled out a few slices of stale, crumbling bread. With a flick of his arm, the brilliant koi swarmed, devouring his offering in a bubble riot.

"They seem used to you." Yuffie looked at him as he turned and placed the bag in her hands.

"I come here at the same time every day." She pictured him sitting alone in the garden like a Wuteng showpiece, ink-dark hair sharp against the autumn sky.

He put a sandwich on a small plate and handed it to her. "What's your favorite color?"

"Orange."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Orange?"

"Don't say it like that! Orange is way cooler than any other color."

"Orange is a warm color," he retorted, then took a bite of his sandwich. She was surprised he did not cut it up with a knife and take bites with a fork, but no, Tseng ate sandwiches like any old commoner.

"Pedantic," she muttered.

Both eyebrows arched this time. "I didn't think you knew words like 'pedantic.'"

In the weak winter sun, the smell of mud and decomposing leaves and warm cheese, Yuffie tossed half of her sandwich at his chest. It left a trail of mustard behind as it slid down his robes. Tseng's head tilted down slowly, then his eyes pinned her from underneath his suddenly dangerous brow.

"Hey, uh, you got something on your shirt." She pointed with one finger and stared with wide eyes.

With admirable serenity, he swiped a finger through the mustard, reached out, and brushed it down her neck. She laughed to suppress her initial shiver at his touch. He watched her for a moment, and she got the feeling he had seen anyway. "Did you ever have any pets?"

"I had a fish once. I killed it when I tried to take it tree-climbing."

He stared. "How recently…?"

"I was, like, six, okay? And I cried for three days when Mimi went belly-up, so don't you judge me. I put her in a bag and everything. How was I supposed to know fish are easy to kill?"

He finished wiping the mustard from his finger and held up two placating hands "Very well. What," his voice shifted in tone just a fraction, and she perked to attention, "is your favorite memory of your father?"

Yuffie was taken aback by the question. "Um."

Seeming almost alarmed, he said, "I apologize. I shouldn't have asked that."

"No, no, it's okay. It's just..." She scrubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. "I don't know if I can pick a favorite."

"Please, forget I asked such a personal question." His eyes had widened just slightly, lending him a wary air. Yuffie thought to herself that if there were one commonality all the men she knew shared, it would be the inability to handle tears.

"I want to answer it now, though, so you might as well enjoy it. Let's see..."

She lapsed into memory, her eyes trailing the bricks in the perimeter wall. Her gaze wandered through visions of her father boosting her over and following her, phantasmal images of him levering her into the huge oak tree stealing over her. A hundred different recollections barraged her, and she looked down at her hands and pulled her fingers, cracking each knuckle one at a time as she thought.

"You don't have to answer right now," Tseng said.

"It's going to take me some time to answer that one, sorry."

"No apologies necessary." He shook his head. "I'm the one sorry here."

She smiled a tiny, wavering smile, and their conversation shifted.

.

A month had passed since her father's burial, and Yuffie thought it was high time she visited his grave to pray for guidance.

Tseng and two guards accompanied her to the crowded memorial yard. People in Wutai did not bury their dead like Easterners, giving them instead to the river as she had done with her father. After each loved one found way to the sea, their relatives would pay funeral homes to build a shrine in the memorial gardens.

The afternoon light was warm on her clothes despite the occasional gust of winter wind. Her father's plot had been built among centuries-old royal memorials, and so their driver wound them along the tiny road and into the forest of elaborate, gleaming towers, obelisks, miniature pagodas, and statues. She felt a shiver roll down her spine as each new shrine slid past the car's windows.

At the heart of the memorial garden—where some shrines reached fifteen, even twenty feet tall and featured multiple stories—the car rolled to a stop. Yuffie opened the door for herself and stepped out, a luxury she had not been able to enjoy recently. Her heavy kimonos often made it difficult to step out of cars, especially her father's old vehicle with the low, luxurious seats. Today, though, the kimono she wore had been retailored to be a little more useful than her previous ones. Instead of a dress-like free-moving hem, she had given the order for the bottom to be split like loose, airy pantlegs. They offered her freedom of movement and an illusion of formality.

She tipped her head back as Tseng exited the other side and her two guards got out. Her father's shrine, like many in the gardens, came as part of a pair. Twin dragons, one a rich purple and the other forest green, curved and twined together from the bases to the tops of two small stone towers, each around six feet high. The towers joined at the base, forming a small room with a wide arch. Godo had had this shrine commissioned when Lady Kisaragi died. It was not the fanciest of the memorials in the garden, but it was lovely all the same.

Yuffie nodded her acknowledgement to Tseng. He had discarded the traditional robes today in favor of a sharp black suit—working gear. She was reminded of his Turk persona, and it seemed to create a distance between them. Oddly, she preferred his ceremonial robes, though she hated wearing the apparel herself.

He stayed beside the car as she walked up the small set of stairs to her parents' shrine. Acutely aware that she was still within his line of sight, Yuffie knelt before her father's official shrine portrait. It formed the centerpiece of the inner decor and hung adjacent to a picture of her mother. The two of them looked serious, regal, but their eyes pointed just slightly toward each other.

The shrine smelled like dying flowers. "Dad… how did you do all this? This place is a dump. I'm working on fixing it, but the media attention and the marriage don't exactly make this easy."

She bowed her head till it rested on the cold stone floor. "I hope you're watching this and laughing a little at me. Someone needs to laugh around here. I'm doing everything I can—I think it's getting better here. Not as many people are starving, anyway. We're making jobs, I just need it to happen faster. I need food on people's tables and roofs over their heads.

"This sucks. You know what else sucks? I think I might be starting to like Tseng. He looks like a goddamn model, so that doesn't help. And he had a dog named Fritz. I can't help myself, there's something about tall men with long, girly hair that I just flock to, I guess. I'm such a sucker.

"I don't think he likes me very much. He has no reason to. He's like twelve years older than me, and I have dude-hair and the loudest mouth this side of the Planet. He's kind of talking to me lately, though, so that's a start."

Yuffie was going to say, "Dad, I miss you so much," but a kunai pinged off the rock wall and missed her nose by a bare inch.

"Oh, shit," she breathed, already leaping into movement. There was a small stone bench below the portraits. Luckily, it was not molded to the floor, as her kick proved when it turned over with a crash. Flowerpots, handmade gifts, and paper goods scattered as she dove behind the bench for what meager cover it offered. She heard several more cracks as the metal daggers collided with the stone.

From the front of her robes, she retrieved five small throwing stars and held them deftly between each knuckle. She chanced a quick peek over the bench, her eyes landing on Tseng crouched behind the car, his handgun out and ready. They made eye contact and he gestured, two quick points at ten and two o'clock. She ducked again, just in time as two kunai flew over her head and stuck in the facsimile of her father's chin.

There were two attackers, then. And her guards were out of commission, lying on either side of Tseng with their faces frozen in eternal surprise. She and Tseng were on their own.

"This is my life," she muttered.

The angle at which the attackers had positioned themselves presented a problem. Yuffie and Tseng would have to split up, heading in opposite directions and therefore compromising the defense a united front would supply. Unfortunately, one or both of the assailants had demonstrated a formidable ability with long-range weaponry, and they could not take the chance of turning on one and receiving a back full of kunai. She slid on her belly to the right corner of the bench and peeked around, hoping to get a look before more knives came her way. Tseng's eyes flicked rapidly from her position to the two attackers, and he did not look pleased.

When his gaze landed on her, he held up three fingers. He didn't need to tell her what was coming next. When the third finger went down, she scurried clumsily from behind the bench, flicking three throwing stars in what she hoped was roughly the right direction. The memorial garden had become thick over the years, and it was like a maze filled with perfect hiding places.

As she loosed the shuriken, the report from Tseng's handgun sounded. At least, she hoped it was Tseng's handgun—it could be his opponent's. She sprinted out the doorway, trusting in his ability to defend himself and scanning for good cover. When a kunai whizzed by close enough to ruffle her hair, she made a quick decision and ducked behind a giant stone crane with wings outstretched, a memorial she recognized as belonging to her great Aunt Wu.

She didn't hear anymore kunai, and she thought her opponent might have thrown all of them. She scrambled for more of her throwing stars just as more gunfire sounded and a sword came swinging around the corner. Yuffie barely dodged in time, letting her body go limp to fall out of the way. The blade struck the monument and was followed by a figure in black. She didn't have time to think before the katana was coming down toward her face. She rolled and it stuck in the soft soil.

The assassin—and she was sure it was an assassin now, dressed in black with face covered—took a moment too long dislodging the blade, allowing Yuffie to find her feet again. With one quick hand, she pulled a curved knife from a sheath inside her sleeve. Another one rested flat against her opposite wrist, but the assassin had recovered the sword and swung again. She sidestepped, grabbed the other blade and blocked the next blow with crossed knives.

"You know, all I wanted was to pay my respects to my father," she spat, their weapons stuck in an unsteady deadlock "and now you gotta crash my party."

She hopped back, and without her resistance the katana swung toward the ground. The end barely missed her chest. She jumped and her feet came down on the blade, knocking it from the assassin's hands. Each of her advancing blows missed him, until he ran around one corner of a shrine and escaped her sight.

She pursued him into the thickest area of the memorial gardens. Twice she thought she had cornered him, then a kunai would fly her way. By the time she avoided it, he'd have disappeared again. Finally, Yuffie realized her attacker had led her far enough that she'd lost Tseng. She needed to finish this.

The assassin darted into view for just a second before vanishing behind a pagoda with a low, tiered roof. Instead of following him directly, Yuffie took a running leap and sprang from the low rails beside the stairs to the first eave. She needed to move before he figured out her plans, so she slowed her pace and crept around the corner of the roof. There was not a lot of room to maneuver, but she saw the top of his black-swathed head as she came round.

Yuffie didn't stop to think. She raised her dagger and jumped on him. It sank cleanly between his shoulder blades, and he crumpled beneath her.

She hadn't heard gunfire in a minute or two. Pulling the knife from her attacker's back, she struggled to determine from which direction she had come. The seconds ticked on as she wandered, and she made a split second decision.

"Tseng! Where are you?" Yuffie shouted. She hoped a stray bullet would not find her before she found Tseng.

No answer met her, but she heard the gunfire. Then, she recognized the dragons of her parents' monument. Only, it was their backs. Somehow she and her opponent had circled around to the other side. She couldn't see Tseng and assumed he had taken cover somewhere out of sight.

She crept, knives out, around the side of her parents' shrine. Something blunt pressed against her temple at the same time as an arm went around her neck. "Drop your weapons," said a cold voice, feminine voice.

Shit, she thought, stomach dropping. Yuffie had wrongly assumed the other assassin would still be opposite her original position.

Her assailant began to drag her away just as Tseng appeared from behind a miniature Da Chao with the intention of firing another shot. Even from a distance, Yuffie could tell he had been hurt. He was shooting with his left hand, and he seemed to be favoring the opposite side.

As the assassin began dragging her away, he spotted them, eyes widening. Yuffie thought if she made it out of this alive, Tseng might kill her himself for getting caught.

The woman holding her captive called, "Lower your weapon or Lady Kisaragi dies."

She took a deep breath, expecting some sort of negotiation. Instead, Yuffie was surprised when Tseng lifted his gun in his left hand and fired in less time than it took for her to blink. The grip holding her went slack, and body hit the ground with a thud. She whirled, then turned away when she saw the mess he had made of the woman's face.

She cleared her throat in a delicate manner as Tseng reached her at a light jog. "Nice shot."

"Are you hurt?" he said, searching her with his eyes.

"I'm totally fine," she said, waving a hand. "How'd you know it wouldn't miss?"

"I don't miss."

"You're right-handed, though."

"I don't miss," he said again, eyes gleaming, a small smile making an appearance.

She warred with herself: roll her eyes, or let herself look impressed? Yuffie settled for the first. "I wonder why she didn't just kill me."

"She was taking you somewhere," Tseng said.

"She might have been using me as leverage for the other guy," she said. "No way she could've known I already took care of him."

He knelt and rifled through the woman's pockets with his left hand. "Perhaps," he said, and she wondered at his thoughtful tone. Standing up again looked difficult for him. "We have to leave."

She was distracted by the thick trails of blood dripping from the fingers of his right hand to the ground below them. "Tseng, your arm!"

"That is also an issue, yes." He swallowed, and she noticed the sickly pallor of his skin. "I'm in no shape to fight in the event of another assault."

Yuffie didn't say that if he died, he would be even more disqualified from battle. Instead, she said, "Get in the car. I'll drive." Genuinely concerned at how pale he looked, she ushered him to the car. She worried she couldn't a good sense of his blood loss under the dark clothes.

She swallowed the expression, not wanting him to see her concern. "Try not to puke everywhere. Da Chao knows I've done it enough already."

Yuffie wove through the sluggish downtown traffic, cutting off a couple of angry drivers in the process. She winced at every pothole and bump jostling Tseng in the passenger seat. She squealed to a stop at the palace gates. It occurred to her to try driving across the lawn straight to the front steps, but she didn't think Tseng would appreciate the jostling. Plus, it would be all over the news.

Tseng looked a little spacey, and she worried he might be losing too much blood. "Come on, we're here. Let's get you to Chekov," she coaxed as he struggled to move from the deep, normally-comfortable bucket seat which now confined him.

The front guards helped her get him out of the seat. One of them tucked himself under Tseng's arm. "Your highness, what—"

"No time for questions, get him to Chekov now!" she barked. "You," she said to the other, "get some help."

Due to the unique nature of Wutai's ancient, battle-hardened culture, the palace had a hospital wing. After several agonizing minutes of moving Tseng in that direction, two guards materialized with a stretcher.

"No," Tseng managed to say as his tired eyes lit on it.

"Get on the stretcher," Yuffie growled. "Now."

When his brows lowered and he tried to shake his head again, she said sharply, "Tseng. It's faster. Please."

After a moment, he nodded and they eased him onto the stretcher. A minute later, Chekov met them at the door. "What's happened this time?"

"He's been shot in the shoulder," Yuffie said breathlessly.

Chekov sighed like they were little kids causing trouble and ushered them in. She had served as the palace's medic-in-residence since before she was one of the Mighty Gods. It was a position she had trained for since a very young age.

She began stripping away Tseng's suit jacket and white undershirt. Yuffie did not see the wound until Chekov peeled the cloth from Tseng's right shoulder. She stared.

"The bullet is lodged in his shoulder. I'll have to get it out. Hold him down."

He tensed beneath her as she touched him, then arched his back as Chekov stuck a needle in the destroyed flesh near his wound. He relaxed as the area began to numb, the local anesthetic taking effect.

"Brace yourself, Emperor. It will not block the pain entirely."

Yuffie sucked in through her teeth, a long hiss as Chekov dug deep into the wound to retrieve the bullet. Tseng stiffened but made no sound until she was finished, when he let out a small sigh of relief and tipped his head back against the bed, his face tight. Yuffie stood and pinched one of the sleeves on Tseng's discarded clothes, frowning at the amount of blood smeared on her thumb and index finger.

"Chekov…?"

"Now, he needs stitching.

"What can I do?"

"Stay out of my way," she said, brusque. This was Chekov's territory. There were no obstacles to backflip over or targets to pin to the wall with shuriken here. Yuffie started for the door, meaning to leave until Tseng's stare snagged her.

A bit of blood had smeared across his chin somehow, standing out starkly against his pale face. It lent him an odd air of vulnerability. Yuffie was struck by the thought that of all the people who could have been there for her today, Tseng had been the only one. She had the Mighty Gods, and she had her friends only a phone call away, but as far as someone to save her ass, Tseng was it. That meant she had to be the one to watch Tseng's back.

After a moment of deliberation, she strode forward and took his hand, seating herself in the chair beside his bed. He tensed. Besides lying awkwardly across him, she had never initiated contact with him before this moment. He met her eyes again, and she stared him down, unblinking.

"I can leave if you like," she said, falsely nonchalant.

He shook his head, and she could see his exhaustion in the sluggish movement. Chekov moved the needle through his skin, and he barely seemed to notice. She hoped the anesthetic was working.

"It's a good thing," she began quietly, then hesitated and tried again. "It's a good thing she didn't kill you."

He chuckled, a slight rumble of his chest and nothing more. "I agree."

"Don't go dying on me, okay? I'd be kind of screwed if you did."

"Do not concern yourself over me," he said, voice weary beyond his years.

"Well, if I don't… who will? I have to protect you."

"I thought I—" He looked over to Chekov pulling the needle from his skin and winced, then looked back to Yuffie. "—was protecting you."

"Who gave you a stupid idea like that?" At this, a rare, genuine smile spread across his face, and her stomach twisted. "Figures you only smile like that after you scared the shit out of me."

"My apologies, my—" He hung there for a brief moment. "My apologies, Yuffie."