Warning: blood, violence, attempted suicide, and vomit. (Lan Fan gets rough aw yeah)

Chapter Soundtrack:
"Samishige," from Mononoke.
"Doomed," from Okami.
"Amon," from Legend of Korra.

Ten: Cyanide

"She's going to be all right, you know."

Ling began to turn, and then stopped himself. Alphonse Elric was watching him very, very carefully out of the corner of his eye. There was a look on his face Ling didn't like in the slightest. There was something decidedly knowing, decidedly pitying that reminded him of the looks that Heinkel and Darius used to give Ed when Ed waxed poetic—well, as poetic as someone like Ed Elric could get, which was gruff and sputtery and red—about Winry Rockbell. (He'd been sharing Greed's eyes almost constantly at that point, instead of being trapped in the box he'd been set in the first few weeks of sharing his body with the homunculus, and he'd laughed into his sleeve and wondered why Ed hadn't just admitted it already.) Actually, no: it didn't just remind him of those looks. It was that look.

He sipped his tea. "I don't have a clue what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't." Al smiled, the corner of his mouth quirking up. Then he turned his teacup around in his palm, over and over. Behind them, Shan Yao was arguing with Mei Chang again—he could hear the words alkahestrical community and stupid plan being tossed around, so he was pretty sure it was still what they'd been fighting about over an hour ago: that is, whether or not Mei should dip her toe into investigating the Fengs' need for an alkahestrist. "You know," Al said, and Ling snapped back to him. "You're kind of horrible at lying."

"Excuse you." Ling frowned. "I'm excellent at lying."

"At a lot of things, sure, but not about this, and definitely not about Lan Fan."

Ling ruminated on that for a moment. Then he grinned. It was the "please, you have to be joking," smile; not one he used very often, but once you figured it out, that kind of smile was difficult to forget. "Your personality has somehow managed to get even more interfering since the last time we talked, Alphonse Elric. You might get worse than your brother, someday."

"And what's wrong with that?" Al sniffed. "If it means I can stop the people I care about from doing stupid things to themselves and to the ones they love, then I'll be as interfering as I like, thank you very much, Imperial Highness."

"Hey," Ling laughed, and somehow managed to ignore the way the phrase the ones they love rang like a struck bell from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. "Can you manage to say that in a way that doesn't sound like you're scraping something off your shoe?"

"Maybe if you stop being dumb." Al finished his tea, and set the cup on the bookshelf. "You're not getting past me, Ling. I've known you for ages. Anyway, anybody who saw either of you in Amestris would have been able to figure it out."

Ling hummed. Considering everything that had happened in Amestris, the idea that Al had decided to fixate on the romantic inclinations (or lack thereof) of his companions would have surprised him, if it hadn't been Al. He turned, and cast a side-eyed look at Mei. "Speaking of things that we've known since Amestris: just how is my sister, Elric?"

Al turned pink. Then he coughed. "Mei is fine. Stop changing the subject."

Ling shrugged, and swirled his tea in the cup. Al sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with one finger. "I know that the rules in Xing are…very different, in regards to how people think, and feel, and…love." He shifted uncomfortably. "Mei's told me about the Twelve Precepts of Heaven, but even if I hadn't heard about those I would know that there's more than just you two and your stubbornness keeping this in stalemate."

Stalemate, Ling thought. It wasn't quite the best sort of word for it. Stalemate implied that one of them had made a move in the first place. Instead it seemed as though they were the sort of ceramic statues that had been popular a few centuries ago, trapped in place, staring at each other, immobile and frightened of thoughts they could not acknowledge. He pressed his lips together. Alphonse went on. "There are rules, and there are laws and things, but I would have thought you of all people would have been the sort of person to not care about those. Besides," he added, leaning his back against the wall and tilting his head at Ling in half a question, half a judgment, "it's not just you that's being ridiculous, it's Lan Fan, too. I had to sit through years and years and years of my brother and Winry dancing around each other, don't make me suffer through you two as well."

Ling ran his forefinger along the curved line of the teacup. Mei was gaining ground—that, or she was shouting Shan down, and Shan hadn't quite figured out how to stop a petite imperial alkahestrist from getting her way without just sitting on her. His mouth quirked a little. "Lan Fan too, huh?"

Al blinked. "You mean you didn't know?"

"I would be lying if I said that." He would. He truly would. The look on her face on the rooftop, the way she'd gone so completely still, watching him with those eyes, joy and terror all in one. The way she talked around his name. Young lord. Majesty. Eminence. Master. He closed his eyes, and rested his cup on the desk.

Of course he knew. Of course he'd known. I made her cry and I can never do anything about it. He'd been so careful for so long to pretend not to know, the same as he'd pretended not to know himself, that it had simply settled itself into the very core of him. Somewhere inside, all that knowledge had spiraled together into one hard knot of impossibility, despite one, starkly indisputable fact. No one will ever mean as much to me as Lan Fan does. Whether it's as an ally, or something more, that will never, ever change.

But even knowing that, there were lines. Lines he cared nothing about—how could he care about them, when they were the very thing he'd decided he would destroy?—and never had done. Lines that, for some reason, meant everything to her. And that, of course, was why there was one thing that had to remain impossible.

"Now isn't the time for this." He tucked his hands into his sleeves, and then clenched them into fists. "If you're wanting to play matchmaker, Al, go back to Amestris and talk to that colonel and his lady lieutenant. There's nothing you can do here."

Al flinched. "Ling—"

"You know nothing," said Ling, and his voice was low and fierce, the kind of voice he didn't use, not ever, because you could hear the rawness in it and rawness meant vulnerability and if there was one thing he could never afford to be, it was vulnerable. He stared at Alphonse Elric, and he let the helplessness and the frustration shine through. "You know nothing of us, nothing of her or of me."

"Li—"

"Do you think," he said, and he dropped his voice even further, tried to get the sudden broiling rage in him under control, "that if I could, I wouldn't have? Do you honestly think that of me? You know me too well for that." I was Greed personified. I could have done nothing less. "But she doesn't want it, and that is what stays my hand. She is the rock my chain is leashed to, and always has been." My translation and my translator. "Don't you dare lessen either of us by pretending that this is a matter of rules."

Al looked as though he'd just been punched in the stomach. Ling turned away from him, drew a breath, and let it out, long and slow, the fury with it. There was still a hard little knot of rage in him, just under the skin, and he hid it behind a smile. "Mei. Shan. Stop being ridiculous and sit down. The hood is off our bird and the hunt is in progress. Please tell me you have something to smooth the way for her, even if it's only a little." He took a breath. "I won't have one of my most precious allies knifed in the back because we weren't able to keep up."

13th October 1918
3rd year of the Dawn Emperor

She only noticed the Emperor was leaning against the fence when she rolled onto her back and spat the grass out of her mouth. Lan Fan swore under her breath, and stared up at the sky. It was slate gray today, with clouds billowing up from the south; a sea storm blown off course. It would start raining soon. Just in time for the Gathering, too.

He'd masked his qi. Lan Fan scowled. He'd actually masked his qi until the moment she'd come off the horse, when he'd either been too worried or too amused to keep doing it. Why he'd mask his qi near her was a question that she couldn't answer—maybe he just hadn't wanted to distract her—but it irritated her that she hadn't even been able to sense a single glint of him. She needed to be better, if she was going to go back to being the Emperor's Shadow. She had to be able to see through tricks like that.

Then again, he, at least, knew all her tricks, and how to get past most of them. He was the Emperor, after all.

Lan Fan sat up, and picked grass out of her hair before getting on her knees and bowing. She could hear Changchang whuffing at the other end of the arena, cantering back and forth, tossing her head. She kind of wanted to throw a rock at the damn mare. Thankfully she'd been bareback, so she didn't have to worry about fixing the saddle. How she was going to get her hands on Changchang again, though, was an entirely different question. "Health and strength to your eminence."

"She threw you surprisingly far, considering." She could hear his voice shaking in his effort not to laugh. "Congratulations on airtime."

"Thank you, your eminence." She kept her hands tight on her kneecaps. She wasn't about to embarrass herself more by rubbing her aches. Her hips hurt from the rough cantering and her back from the third hard landing of the morning, and only a pair of sturdy gloves had kept her flesh hand from being flayed open by the rough twine bridle. (It was the only one Changchang would accept.) "I aim to please."

"The same, I think, as everyone else in this place." The Emperor leaned his elbows against the railing, watching Changchang. "It goes get tiring at times."

Lan Fan's brow furrowed. "What, the pleasing or the airtime?"

He blinked at her. Then he grinned, and Lan Fan felt her insides turn over, the way they always had when he grinned at her that way. "Was that a joke out of you, Lady Ma?"

She shrugged, and rolled back up to her feet. "If it was, majesty, I don't think that anyone will believe you. I find this…place to be entirely too heavy for joking around."

"You know, I think it was. Your whole face went softer as you said it, and you smiled. Not with your mouth, but with your eyes."

Lan Fan shrugged. The Emperor rested his chin on the back of one hand. "I don't think I've seen you smile, Lady Ma."

Behind her, Changchang exploded into a gallop, kicking and thrashing and just being generally idiotic. Lan Fan watched her for a moment, and then came to stand beside the Emperor, five feet away as tradition so carefully required. She leaned against the fence. "There are few things to smile about here, Imperial Majesty."

The Emperor's Shadow (something pierced her heart, quick and sharp as a needle) was hovering nearby. If she squinted, she could see him tucked into the shadows behind one of the outcroppings on the stable roof. Too far away to be of use, she thought, with a private, professional sneer, and too low to view the terrain properly. Then she felt guilty, because what was the point of holding up a doppelganger to her own standards? It served neither her nor the doppelganger well at all, and it just made her feel small and petty and scared. She cleared her throat. "I apologize. That sounded…dissatisfied."

"Are you dissatisfied?"

"Not particularly." She drummed her fingers against her thigh. "Everything here has been…extraordinarily unique."

"Sounds ominous."

She flushed. "That wasn't what I—"

"I know. I'm only teasing, Lady. Don't worry so much." I'm only teasing, Lan Fan. Don't worry so much. Lan Fan swallowed hard, and closed her eyes for a moment. Feiyan Ma, she told herself. I am Feiyan Ma. And when she opened her eyes again, she was. Unfortunately, Feiyan Ma was only Lan Fan out of a mask, so it didn't help things very much.

He'd managed to get away with only the Shadow at his side. To see her? No, that was a silly, vain, selfish thought, not to mention inherently ridiculous. To get away from the pre-Gathering meetings, that was more likely. Considering the vast majority of them were with families that had tried to murder Master Ling, once upon a time, she could understand why he wouldn't exactly want to be in the same room with them, especially as they bowed and scraped and sharpened their knives behind their backs. "What brings you here, Imperial Majesty?"

"A desperation to cling to sanity." He gave her a sidelong look. "And you?"

"A desire to preserve hers," she said, and jerked a thumb at Changchang.

"Not going well, then?"

"It depends." Lan Fan crossed her arms over her chest. "She doesn't try to bite me when I go into her stall anymore. She just likes to toss me more often." She scowled at Changchang. "I think it's her own brand of vengeance."

There was a sputtering noise. Then the Emperor was laughing again, and she knew him well enough to know that this wasn't his fake laugh; this was the one that meant something. A little coal inside her chest kindled and glowed. He covered his mouth with one hand, but his grin was still peeking out from between his fingers. "I knew coming out here would make me feel better. I saw you from the window and wondered if it might not be that way."

The tips of her ears flushed. "I'm happy to oblige you, Imperial Highness."

They fell into silence, Lan Fan watching Changchang, the Emperor staring off into the distance. She let out a breath, and twisted her fingers into the chain of the Firebrand medallion again.

It had been two weeks since her meeting with Alphonse Elric, and despite her best efforts, nothing much had changed. She hadn't heard from Xiaoqing since she'd brought her to see Peizhi. Peizhi, as soon as his week was up, had been collected by Xiaoqing and her father, Owais; they were keeping him in the Autumn Moon until further notice, and frankly, Lan Fan couldn't see Xiaoqing letting Peizhi slip through her fingers again. The Fengs hadn't yet decided they were bored of her; she'd had a dove wake her this morning by dropping a sealed envelope on her head, a note from Lien Hua to inform her that they would be going to get clothes made for the Gathering's Opening Ceremony, and that she would be coming along to a) get her own robes made, because a deel was out of the question, and b) to provide an unbiased opinion. What sort of opinion, Lan Fan wasn't quite sure, but it didn't particularly matter, considering she was still being invited places.

Peizhi had yanked her aside before Xiaoqing and Owais had come to collect him, dressed in clothes that she'd found for him in her old trunk. They were too big for him, and baggy, but they still fit him better than what he'd been wearing before, and once the air started getting colder, they would give him a little extra padding so he wouldn't turn into an icicle. The sleeves had hung so far forward over his hands that even the tips of his fingers had disappeared. "Milady," he'd said, "Milady Ma," and she'd turned away from talking with Owais to find both hands stretched out, as if he had thought to grab her and then second-guessed himself. Lan Fan had glanced at Owais, and then crouched down to look Peizhi in the eye.

"Yes?"

He flushed a little, and scuffed a foot along the ground. He was barefoot. They hadn't been able to find shoes his size, and even then, she doubted he would have accepted them. Most people in Xinjing ran around barefoot regardless of whether or not they could afford shoes. Then he scowled at her, and pointed at her with his good hand. He really did have eyes like an Elric, she thought. Not gold, but the same exact fierceness. Like flame. "I'll repay you one day, lady," he said. "I swear it. I swear it on Changchang, I'll pay you back."

Lan Fan's lips parted. Peizhi glared at her, stuck his hands in his pockets, and said, "I swear it," one last time before scuttling off towards the gates. Xiaoqing had run after him.

For some reason, it was sticking in her head. The look on his face. It reminded her of the Elrics, but it also dug deep into her gut, a memory she couldn't shake. I'll pay you back for this, she'd said, her eyes on the coverlet, her grandfather sitting by her bed. She'd been so small, then, her wrists so tiny. The Huo tattoo on her hip had throbbed under the bandages. I swear it to you, honored grandfather. I swear I will repay you for this.

"Lady Ma," said Master Ling, and she blinked.

"My apologies, majesty. I was…thinking."

He waved that off. "I just wanted to ask you something, that's all."

Lan Fan tilted her head. "If I might be able to do something for you, majesty, I will. You don't have to ask."

"That's a dangerous thing to say." He drummed his fingers against the railing. "If I was to ask you to do something improper, you'd be bound by your word, then."

"You wouldn't ask me to do anything like that," said Lan Fan.

He blinked at her, slowly. Then the corners of his mouth twitched, and he hid his face behind his bangs. After a moment, he cleared his throat, and said, "I was actually going to ask you if you would be willing to accompany me on morning rides. The Gathering is…stifling at the best of times. I would appreciate a companion, and as you're a horsewoman, I thought of you first."

She swallowed her heart again. For some reason it had leapt up into her mouth. "Not my cousin?"

"I believe the Commander would get a little short with me if I asked his pregnant wife to go riding with me in the mornings."

"My cousin does as she wishes, Majesty." Still, if this offer was what she suspected, then it would make sense for Lan Fan to be the rider, and not Suyin. Suyin wasn't the spy amidst the Feng, after all. She bowed at the waist, giving him a nomad salute, left fist on her right breast. "But I would be honored to accompany you, if you so wish it."

"I would," he said, fervently, and let out a breath. "I was worried that you'd say no, and I'd be stuck with Jinhai Liu, and that would defeat the whole point." He shrugged. "If I'm trying to get away from the ministerial haberdashery of the Gathering, it doesn't make sense to bring one of them along with me to nag."

She hummed an agreement. Even if she had been Feiyan Ma, and not Lan Fan Huo, she had a feeling that she would have noticed how much the Emperor had disliked Jinhai Liu. He'd been insulting the assistant of an assistant of a financial minister so subtly that she'd thought she'd been imagining it until she'd noticed the slight mocking twist to his mouth. Lan Fan still wasn't quite sure if Liu had noticed at all.

On the opposite side of the arena, there was a snort. Then Changchang, ears forward, tail high, spun, and ran at them. It was something more than a gallop, more like an all-out sprint, and Lan Fan wrapped her fingers around the railing against her hips and waited. It wasn't the first time Changchang had decided to try this kind of intimidation technique, and it wouldn't be the last; it was best just to stand still and not present too much of a target. Besides, she was fast enough to get out of the way if she absolutely had to. At the very last second, when she could smell horse and cut grass and overturned earth, Changchang veered and cantered in a wide circle around her favorite tree. She had come so close that the ends of her trimmed tail had stung Lan Fan in the face. Lan Fan blew her bangs out of her eyes.

"Your temper tantrums are not appreciated," she told the mare, and Changchang actually pranced. Her tail went up, her ears pricked forward, she picked up her feet, and she practically skipped across the arena, every inch of her radiating her self-satisfaction. Lan Fan couldn't help it. She snorted, and covered her mouth with her hand. If Changchang was willing to tease, that meant that at least she didn't quite see Lan Fan as a threat anymore. Maybe I'm just a toy to toss around, now.

"I take it she hasn't done that before," said the Emperor. Lan Fan shook her head.

"I don't think she's been willing to play like that in a while."

"That was playing."

Lan Fan blinked at him, and for the first time realized that having a warhorse charge at you might be daunting if it hadn't happened to you before. Her throat closed up. "Your eminence, I'm so sorry, I didn't think—"

"It's fine." He raised a hand. "I've…definitely seen more intimidating things in my life. It just…took me by surprise."

She thought of Greed and Father, of Wrath and Pride, and held her tongue. Lan Fan licked her lips, and then said, "Please excuse me for a moment, your eminence."

He nodded. Lan Fan took off at a trot, cornering Changchang and seizing her by the reins. In the two weeks she'd spent working with Changchang, it had finally come to the point where the mare didn't exactly shy away from her anymore. She had a feeling Peizhi had helped, even if it was only a little; maybe it had been the smell on Lan Fan's clothes when she'd first started trying to help Changchang, or maybe it had been Peizhi crawling into the stall the day before he'd left the Imperial City and whispering to Changchang for an hour, but the mare had…not quite softened, but loosened a little.

It didn't mean dealing with her had become any easier, though. Changchang sank her teeth into Lan Fan's metal fingers, and Lan Fan pinched her ear hard enough to make her squeal. "Stop it. You can't hurt them and all you're going to do is learn bad habits. There's a difference between being a warhorse and being rude."

"Do you think she can understand you?" Master Ling asked curiously, and Lan Fan blinked, because he'd jumped down off the fence and was coming to meet her by Changchang's tree.

Changchang snorted, and her eyes rolled once, but Lan Fan jerked on the reins again. "Calm, Changchang." She made an apologetic face at the Emperor. "My apologies once again, Imperial Majesty. She mistrusts most men. I…believe the ones who mistreated her were male."

"I see." He stood for a moment, hands on hips, out of reach of Changchang's teeth, and watched the mare. Changchang snorted through her nose, and did an anxious little dance that nearly crushed Lan Fan's foot beyond repair. Lan Fan ran her human hand down Changchang's neck, digging her fingers into the flesh just beneath her mane, making soothing noises as Master Ling backed even further away, hands in his pockets, watching them quietly. Months, she thought. This would take months, fixing Changchang.

"It's all right," she said. "It's all right, Changchang. His Highness won't harm you. I promise you that."

Changchang was panting wildly. She swiveled her head so she could stare Lan Fan in the face, and Lan Fan stroked her cheek. "It's all right," she said again. "It's all right."

Then Changchang stepped on her foot, and Lan Fan bit the inside of her cheek so hard that she drew blood. It was only when Changchang had removed her foot and Lan Fan had remembered how to speak that she finally said, "I speak to her because I like to think it calms her. I don't know if that's true or not, but I like to think so. It…" She licked her lips. "It makes me think I can get through to her, someday."

He nodded, and for the first time Lan Fan realized that she was speaking to the Emperor, and she wasn't feeling guilty for it. Something hard and knotty, like a problem too big to solve, dropped into her stomach, and she turned away before he saw something in her face.

I am Lan Fan Huo. She mouthed it to herself as she ran her fingers down Changchang's flank. I am the Emperor's Shadow. I am not Feiyan Ma. She had slipped too deep into her own character, which was something she could afford to do with anyone but this man, her master who could probably read the tenseness in her shoulders and know exactly what had caused it. She swallowed her words back down. I must remember where I stand.

The fake Shadow had come forward to the railing of the arena, watching them carefully. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Jian Zhang, too, standing in the doorway of the stable, smoking as always. The Fengs were there, she realized, and her heart bounced right back into her mouth again. Xinzhe was talking to Jian Zhang, but Lien Hua was watching her, his arms crossed over his chest. She couldn't tell at this distance, but she thought Lien Hua Feng might be smiling. Master Ling must have seen something in her face, because he glanced over his shoulder, and then looked back.

"I see I'm keeping you from your friends," he said. "And from your mare, it seems."

"No—" The word felt sticky in her mouth. "No, never, your eminence—"

"You don't have to lie to me, Lady Ma." He gave her a court smile. "As much as I would like to stay and talk to you, I actually do have things to do, so with this I will bid you a good afternoon. Shall we meet, once again, at dawn tomorrow?"

Lan Fan gulped. Something twisted in her stomach. She thought it might be frustration. Or, for some stupid reason, guilt. Then she bowed, her hair (which she'd braided that morning, sloppily) flopping forward over her shoulder. Changchang, for once, didn't take the opportunity to bite her in the ass. "Yes," she said. "Imperial eminence."

She kept her eyes lowered and her face closed until he disappeared around the corner of the stables, the Shadow with him. Lan Fan wrapped the reins tight around her metal hand, heaved herself back up onto Changchang (who squealed again and gave a hop to try and shake her off) and leaned forward to whisper right in the mare's ear.

"Don't ever let me be so stupid again."

Changchang reared her head back, and hit Lan Fan so hard in the nose she tasted blood. Lan Fan wrenched her head around, and set her to the gallop. If she was going to forget her place in the world today, at least she might help this horse relearn hers.

When Lan Fan finally dismounted, knees shaking, eyes smarting from the wind, Lien Hua tucked her arm through hers and shoved a handkerchief in her palm for the nosebleed. "You never responded to my dove this morning, so I came to find you," she said, as Lan Fan dipped the silk handkerchief into a horse trough and swiped at the crusted blood under her nose. "It's not like you have papers or anything to go over, so you can't say no. Besides, you haven't left the palace since we went to that stupid party, and I want your thoughts on something."

Lan Fan blew her nose twice, rinsed the handkerchief as best she could, and then wrung it between her hands. Then she folded it, carefully. "When?"

"Whenever you're ready. You stink of horse, so maybe bathe first." Lien Hua wrinkled her nose. "And don't worry about returning the handkerchief. I have another."

Lan Fan shoved it into her pocket. It felt damp against her legs. "Where will we be going?"

"There's a seamstress at the Feng house, so only to Zhuque." Xinzhe set his wrist against her shoulder. Not his hand, just his wrist, the vulnerable part with all the veins against the seam between girl and metal. Lan Fan had sensed him coming, so she didn't jump, but the touch startled her anyway. "Better bring backup, or Lien Hua will have you be her clothing critique for a decade. I think she wants your advice because you don't know any fashions. Since you're only a horse-wife, you can't tell her when she looks like a walking cake."

Lien Hua gave him a cyanide smile, and then drove her fan into the sensitive spot between his ribs. Xinzhe choked, and Lan Fan, seizing her chance, pulled away. "If you'll excuse me, I have to go untack my horse."

Lien Hua slid her arm through the crook of Lan Fan's, and set her lips to Lan Fan's ear. "Ignore my brother, swallow-girl," she said. Her breath was hot against Lan Fan's skin. "He likes to think he knows what he's talking about."

Xinzhe glared at Lien Hua. Lien Hua smirked back, until Lan Fan, as politely as she could, untangled herself. "I'll meet you in an hour," she said. "If you'll excuse me."

"Don't forget, swallow-girl," said Lien Hua, and winked before tucking her arm through Xinzhe's and pulling her brother away. For some reason, Lan Fan had the sense she'd just been outmaneuvered, but how, and why, she had no idea.

She bit her lip, and made her way back into the stable.

Changchang smacked her in the face again when Lan Fan took off the reins, and managed to nearly crush her against the wall of her stall before Lan Fan finally managed to wriggle free. She wasn't sure if it had been the approach or the emperor or something else entirely—she hadn't lied when she'd told Lien Hua that animals could key into the Dragon's Pulse with more acuity than any human after all—but it left her sore and aching when she finally limped back down to the tack room, and hung the bridle on the spare hook in the very back. She hadn't yet dared to try a saddle or a blanket or even a halter on Changchang, simply because she wasn't looking forward to the fight that would bring. Just a rope and that damn twine bridle was all Changchang seemed to be able to handle.

Jian Zhang caught her at the door, his pipe empty. He looked…rough, somehow. Like someone had tried to attack him, and he'd fought them off. Or like he hadn't slept again. She frowned.

"Are you all right?"

"'m fine." He waved that away. "I had a thought, though, for the mare, that I think'll be helpful."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "She…was better, today. At least a little. Playful."

He smiled, ever so slightly. It was more of a deepening of the lines around his mouth than anything, but it felt like a smile. "That's good. She's not fighting us as hard as we anticipated if she's playing."

"She also stepped on my foot, bit me twice, and threw me three times."

"It's a matter of perspective." He pressed a small book into her hands, handwritten and handbound, and Lan Fan cocked her head at him in a question. "Read that before you come out to work with her again. Especially the piece on Columbine. It might be of some use."

There was a title inscribed in blue ink on the first page. Notes on Horse Training. Someone had dogeared a page on training. Jian Zhang closed the book, and closed her fingers over it, flesh and metal alike.

"Read it," he said, gruffly, and then he turned and walked away from her without another word.

She stared after him for a moment. Then Lan Fan tucked the book into her sash and set off at a modest trot for the Bamboo Gardens.

The room seemed emptier without Peizhi in the bed. It wasn't that he'd stayed for very long, only a week or so, but at the same time it had been one more person in a set of rooms that could be holding twelve, and it had helped the suite seem less empty. Niu Lu was out somewhere, and there was a note from Suyin Yao on the table. Dinner in the Commander's rooms at seven. Don't be late. Lan Fan crumpled the note in one fist, and tossed it into the garbage can before she stripped her shirt off over her head, tossing it to the floor.

Her back was all bruises, above and below her chest bindings. She'd been feeling them throb since the first throw of the day, but it was one thing to feel it and another thing to see the patches of yellow, green, blue, and purple flesh, from her shoulderblades to her hips. She wouldn't have any bruises if she'd been able to drop and roll like she normally would have, maybe one or two sore spots, but the point of being Feiyan Ma was that even if she was a good rider and even if she was a steppes warrior, she wasn't the same sort of caliber of fighter as, say, the Emperor's Shadow. So now, instead of landing on her feet every time Changchang decided to be an idiot and toss her off, she had to hit the ground hard, but not in any way that might actually injure her. That meant bruises on her ass and on her shoulders and having to sleep on her stomach every night until the mare decided to stop chucking her around like some kind of toy. Getting crushed against a stall wall hadn't helped either.

Her foot was fine. Thankfully, Changchang hadn't kept her weight long enough to break any toes. She still limped a little as she kicked off her loose pants, wrapped a thin robe around herself, and tied the knot loosely around her waist. She needed to go to the baths, to clean up, to get ready. Instead she just took a breath and sank down onto the end of her bed, undoing her braid and running her fingers through her hair. There was still grass in it; she rolled a strand between her fingers.

Maybe this time. Maybe this time she would get enough time to herself to explore. Maybe this time she would find something worth her while. Maybe this time. Her fingers caught in an impressive little mat at the back of her skull, and Lan Fan started peeling it apart, frowning at herself. She was almost positive that there was nothing of real value in the Feng mansion; at least, nothing that they would be willing to leave around with a stranger wandering the halls. There was always a chance that they had slipped up, though.

She seized a comb off the bedside table, and began hacking away at her hair again. Since it was one of the alkahestrical combs, it just turned her hair red, rather than actually doing much to the knot. Lan Fan swore, and tore into the drawers. The Gathering was in two days, and she still had nothing more than a surface understanding of how the Fengs functioned, and even what their intentions were. The triplets were always extraordinarily careful to not discuss family business while she was in the room, and while that was typical for most of the Fifty Families, it was scraping at her like a burr in her sock.

She felt a prick of danger on the back of her neck before she heard the door open, and Lan Fan went icy still. Someone was in her rooms. It had been the back door, the one into the garden, and she supposed she was just lucky that they had decided to come in through the main room rather than the side-door into the Bamboo Gardens from her bedchamber. She slid her hand under her mattress, to the kunai she kept there, and drew it slowly. She was still wearing her knife sheaths, but having one more blade in her hand made her feel safer, somehow.

She was home early, she realized. Usually she stayed out with Changchang until at least ten o'clock. It was only nine-ish, but her back had been too sore for her to keep riding, and her meeting with the Emperor and the arrival of the Fengs had ruined her schedule.

Spy. Her heart kickstarted. Lan Fan twirled the knife in her fingers, and rolled up to her feet. Her bathrobe would do, for fighting in. It was loose enough for her to be able to move. For once, her automail was at full capacity, even without a tune-up. She had just sharpened the extendable elbow-blade last night. She flipped the catch on her automail, and padded to the main door. She'd left it open, just a crack, and through it she could see movement. There was a crack, and a rustling sound. Someone was bending over her desk.

Black clothes. A hood and scarf. She drew a breath in through her nose. There was a faint trace of sage on the air, of sage and iron. Had they not sensed her? It didn't seem like they had. She masked her qi, sure, but not enough to erase her presence entirely. If they had any sort of ability to qi-sense, they would have realized she was here by now.

They'd come in through the garden-side doors, and the desk was on the exact opposite side, near the front door. The bedroom door was to the left of the spy, then. He would be able to tell if she opened it, and then he would run. She would probably be able to catch him, especially now that she could pick out his qi—burnished bronze and struck matches resting heavy in the back of her throat—but she'd rather not have to run through the palace after him.

There was a click, and the man in black made a soft triumphant noise, rocking back on his heels. He'd undone the lock on one of her drawers. She kept everything important under the loose floorboard beneath her bed, but still. Feng? She thought. Someone else? If they were Feng, it might be better for her to leave the man to his own devices and discover that Feiyan Ma had nothing to hide, but if it was someone else…she rolled the idea around in her head. Out in the main room, the man had already gone through a handful of the fake papers she'd been supplied with. Most of them were in Xingese, but a few were in transliterated Saatii (a gift from Suyin) and he wouldn't be able to read them. She heard a hiss, and then he'd set all the papers back into the drawer before closing and locking it again. He stood, and then she saw the half-mask.

Lan Fan slammed the bedroom door open, and let the kunai fly. The spy swore, and went to move, but her first blade had pinned his pant-leg to the floor; as he tried to wrench it free, she threw a second knife, a third, a fourth, and then all four of his limbs were pinned to the wall, and Lan Fan had unsheathed her automail elbow-blade. She set it to his throat. "Hello," she said. "Find something interesting?"

He was wearing a mask. She could smell the sweat on him, hear his heart beating. She wrenched off his half-mask. It wasn't the man she'd fought at the Chang party. He wasn't Xingese, either, or Qarashi. Maybe another one of the desert tribes, though why one of them would be wearing a Firebrand medallion, she had no idea. She closed one fist around the medallion and wrenched it off his neck, ignoring the way he winced when the chain broke. This one had a catch, like Xiaoqing's. Without taking her eyes off his face, she thumbed it open, and dropped the pendant to the floor, holding the little scrap of paper inscribed with his name up by his cheek.

"Sakari Kazuki," she said. "You're Nohin?"

He smiled at her, baring all his teeth. He was missing two right in the front. "What do you know of the Nohin?" He slipped into Nohinra, and her ears stung, because it had been so long since she'd heard it. It echoed, like words out of a dream. "Omae wa saa, nanimonoda? Fen no inu ka?"

She pressed her automail blade close against his throat, but he didn't shut up. "Sore to, maou no bicchi ka?"

She punched him in the gut. The Nohin man grunted, and when she pulled away, he hung from her knives like a sacrifice on a cross, spitting and gasping. Nohin. Saatii. The Firebrands. She kicked Sakari's pendant under the desk. "Tell me what you want with my things," she said, and when he swore at her under his breath, she hit him again, this time in the face. She felt his cheekbone give under her fist. "What do the Firebrands want with me? On whose orders did you come here?"

He laughed, and she hit him again. Blood ran down his lips and chin. She'd broken his nose. When he spat at her, blood streaked down her jaw. "Yappari," he said, "omae no you na onna wa saite da."

She seized him by the hair, and then drove her metal fist into his gut. He let out a pained noise, like he'd been stepped on by an elephant. Lan Fan wiped the blood off her cheek. She had fancied that when she finally managed to get a lead, her blood would be boiling, but all she felt now was cold. Chilled, like she'd been left in the icebox too long. She scowled at him.

"I won't ask again," she said. "And if you make me, I'll start taking off your fingers"

Sakari stared. Then he smiled. There was blood on his lips. "Huli was right about you," he said. "You're a hellcat, horse-wife. No wonder they keep you around."

It felt as though someone had just drawn a finger up her spine. Lan Fan seized him by the wrist, slammed his hand palm-down against the wall, and set her last kunai to his thumb. "Last chance," she said, and dug the tip into the flesh. "Who is Huli?"

The blood was still pouring out of his broken nose. Sakari spat again, this time onto the floor. She heard one of his ribs creak, and realized she must have cracked a few with her last blow. "Five seconds," she said, and slit a line down his thumb with the blade. He let out a hissing breath.

"A hellcat," he said again. "He wanted me to tell you something."

She pricked the flesh under his nail with her knife. "Tell me what?"

He leaned forward as far as he could. She could see the muscles in his neck twitching, like something had possessed them; she wondered if something was wrong with him. Then she felt his breath against her face. "Huli says hello," Sakari whispered, and there was a crunch from inside his mouth. The scent of cyanide stung at her nose. Lan Fan swore, and lunged for his throat, but it was too late; she saw his esophagus work, saw the pill go down. Sakari smiled.

"Son of a bitch," she snarled at him, and punched him in the stomach. Once. Twice. He heaved. When she drove her knee into his gut, he puked. She could still see the shell of the cyanide pill lying amidst the vomit, bright blue and tiny as a bead. Lan Fan closed her eyes and sighed. There was no telling if he'd actually managed to ingest more than a miniscule amount, and there was no way to tell if he'd survive now, but she had a better chance of learning more about the Firebrands if Sakari, at least, stayed living.

For the first time, Sakari looked frightened. Lan Fan twisted her automail arm, and the elbow-blade sheathed itself, smooth as silk.

"I'll speak to you soon, Nohin-jin," she said, and then she drove her fist into the side of his head, and went to change her clothes. She couldn't go to the Feng manorhouse stinking of blood and vomit.

A/N:

*Translation from Nohinra/Japanese:

Omae wa saa, nanimonoda? Fen no inu ka? Sore to, maou no bicchi ka? /Who the hell are you, anyway? Are you a Feng dog? Or are you the devil's bitch?

Yappari, omae no you na onna wa saite da. /Women like you are the worst, after all.

So you guys know when Lan Fan says "you wouldn't ask me to do anything improper" that Ling gets all these naughty images in his head, right? Because he's Ling. Oh, Lan Fan.

Speaking of Ling, I'm glad you guys like him in SotB; he's incredibly difficult to write, and I was going back and forth on this chapter SO MUCH because of it. He's my baby but I want to punch him in the face sometimes.

A few notes from last chapter: The title of Ed's book (Alchemy and Rasayana: A Comparative Study) was suppsed to be written by Edward Elric, St A, or Edward Elric, State Alchemist, but because there was a bunch of periods in there, FFnet deleted it. Silly FFnet.

Another thing: Lan Fan can sense qi signatures for a mile around her if she is not connected to the Dragon's Pulse. If she is, she can go a great deal further than that. I'm debating about going back and editing some things, so if I do, I will let you know.

So I've received a few requests from reviewers who tagged along from Domina Esques (I am SO GLAD you guys are here oh my god) to do some review responses in the Author's Notes, so here we go. Um. I'm kind of out of practice with these, I've been writing too many oneshots lately.

Starcrossed-Writer: I'm not ignoring your PM, I swear. I'm just...really busy. Also I suck at answering PMs regardless if it's here or on Tumblr or...anywhere. So be patient with me? Also ah thank you for all your reviews, both here and elsewhere-you made me happy. Also the Dragon Pulse thing is something from the canon, I'm just fleshing it out a little more with what I know of Asian philosophy, history, medicine, and mythology.

TheClumsyThief: There will be more about Lan Fan's backstory, don't worry. ^^ I'm glad you enjoyed!

Fang-delight: A lot of the stuff you're reading in regards to qi-sensing and backstory and stuff I have been thinking about for a while. ^^ Thank you~

Also someone asked a couple of chapters ago but I am a senior in university and that is why I have no life.