"You want to call it for today?" Duster asked as he watched the sun sinking lower in the late afternoon sky. "We can start up again bright and early in the morning."
Kumatora let out a frustrated groan. "What's the point?" she asked. "We might as well face facts: it's gone." All that time and energy wasted. She'd gotten so close to her prize, but it slipped from her grasp like so many names and faces from her half-remembered history.
The duo had once again reached the spot where the river met the sea, having found nothing but muck, reeds and the occasional bit of refuse. Even if the water hadn't been freezing, the high cliffs on either side river for most of its length made a search nearly impossible. Their efforts were doomed from the outset.
"Don't lose hope," Duster implored his companion.
"If I have to walk through this pig farm once more I'm gonna leave with a lifetime's supply of bacon," Kumatora threatened as she kicked a rock over the cliff. "I swear: we could search up and down this stupid river a hundred times and never find it. For all we know it's washed out to sea or buried under the mud or in the belly of that snake. It is gone."
Duster hated to admit it, but the princess was probably right. "It's just as well. That egg didn't seem to do Claus any good."
"Yeah, no kidding," Kumatora acknowledged. That was another reason she was ready to give up on the search: she was in no rush to have her head messed with.
Duster blew out a short puff of air as he rolled his shoulders. "Well, even if we didn't find the egg, this trip wasn't a complete write-off. At least Lucas can help you fill in the blanks. He told you all about those people. What were they called again?"
"Magypsies," Kumatora answered grouchily.
The thief gave her a cheery smile. "See? That's more than you knew a few days ago, so it's not like this has been a total bust."
"Yeah, yeah," Kumatora said with a nod. "It's no substitute for having lived it, though. Besides, there's a lot of stuff even Lucas doesn't know about them."
"I guess that's true," Duster had to admit.
Kumatora didn't say anything back right away. She simply stared out at the rolling waves, her brow knit and foot tapping. Her whole body was surging with nervous energy that had nowhere to go. "Come on," she finally said, waving him along. "Let's get back to the inn before my fingers go numb."
"Don't forget, Hinawa and Flint invited us over for dinner," Duster reminded her.
The princess twitched at that revelation. "Crap. Do we have to?"
"If we don't they'll keep asking," Duster warned her.
Kumatora snorted in annoyance. "Jeez. You fall in a river and the next thing you know you can't get a minute to yourself."
"I know, right?" Duster asked with a chuckle. "The nerve of some people: trying to thank you for saving their kids' lives."
"Don't you start with me," Kumatora frowned. "I didn't sign up for the hero treatment."
Duster gave in with a patient smile, knowing there was no use arguing. "If you insist."
There was something so infuriating about getting her way without a fight. "Fine," Kumatora huffed. "We'll go. But if they try to give me a fruit basket, I'm out."
Duster chuckled at the thought. "I wouldn't worry about it." No matter what Hinawa was cooking it was sure to be better than what they'd get from the inn. His mouth was already watering at the possibilities.
As they began to pass over the bridge back into town, Duster motioned for Kumatora to wait up for him.
"Did you see something?" she asked quizzically, her eyes darting over the water.
"No, afraid not," Duster said with a hiss of pain. "Sorry to get your hopes up." He leaned against the railing and reached down to massage a knot in his leg. Between the cold and all the walking over rough terrain, the last few days were catching up to him.
"Don't worry about it," Kumatora said, recognizing the issue and joining him against the railing. "Want me to see if I can do something? A little psychic surgery to take the edge off?"
Duster chuckled. "No need. It'll only be a minute or two. If you want you can go ahead without me – maybe grab a change of clothes before dinner." The truth was he'd prefer to be alone for this. His leg rarely bothered him, but when it did he hated having anyone else see it. Duster refused to be thought of as an invalid.
Kumatora didn't go anywhere, but she also didn't turn away or give him the pitying look he'd come to expect whenever someone saw him in this state. Instead she met his eyes with the same endearing confidence as always. The first time he saw that look was after a performance about a month ago; she showed up out of the blue looking for a thief to help her scale Snowcap Mountain. Duster normally wouldn't have involved himself in such an outlandish adventure, but his bandmates insisted on lending a hand. He was glad they did.
Needing to take his mind off the shooting pain in his leg, Duster asked the question that had been on his mind the last couple days. "So I hate to ask, but what's next for you?"
"If you hate to ask, then don't," Kumatora answered briskly.
"Sorry," Duster apologized. "Was that out of line?"
Kumatora sighed. "No. I just wish I had a better answer than 'I don't know.' It makes me sound like I don't have a clue what I'm doing."
Getting a laugh out of Duster was not hard for Kumatora. "Does anybody?" he pondered.
A grin graced Kumatora's face at the thought of everyone else being as screwed up as she was. "I sure hope they do. If not we're in a lot of trouble."
"Fair enough," Duster said with a nod. "Well, you don't have to decide right away. I wouldn't mind a few days to kick back before we head off to whatever comes next."
"We?" Kumatora asked, almost impressed by his presumption.
"Yeah, we," Duster asserted. "I'm not about to leave you in a lurch. Whether you want to stick around here or head back to Saturn Valley or take a spaceship to the farthest stars in the sky, I want to come. OJ says we need to go on tour anyway."
"A spaceship, huh? I'll hold you to that." Kumatora leaned back to look up into the clear blue sky above. She'd come this far. What was a few more light-years?
He'd said it as a joke, but with how crazy their journey together had already been, Duster realized that prediction was not outside the realm of possibility. "These Magypsies you're after must be pretty special," he concluded.
Kumatora didn't answer at first. It should have been simple enough to say yes, but when she thought about it she realized it wasn't true. "Not really," she eventually confessed.
The thief hadn't been expecting that. "Why not?" It seemed strange to go to so much work for something if it wasn't important.
"Well, I don't even know them," Kumatora explained. "I mean, I guess I did know them, but not anymore. None of it even felt familiar when Lucas told me what he knows." That whole conversation had been a great big disappointment for her. "I thought finding out about my past might help me make sense of everything, but it's a bunch of people I don't know and will never meet."
"So why keep looking?" Duster wondered.
"That's a good question." Kumatora had no answer to it. "Do you want to know something interesting about them?" she asked, changing the subject.
Duster was happy to let Kumatora steer the conversation. "Sure."
"Lucas was telling me that they were great psychics," Kumatora went on. "They lived for thousands of years and could master any kind of PSI technique there is . . . all except for one: PK Love. Isn't that strange?"
"What's so special about PK Love?" Duster asked. He'd seen what Kumatora could do on many occasions, but still couldn't grasp all this psychic mumbo-jumbo. It mattered to the princess, though, so he was willing to listen.
"Only a chosen few can learn that technique," Kumatora continued. "Lucas says that those who did could wake up the Dragon. Since the Magypsies were the ones in charge of keeping the Dragon asleep, they couldn't exactly learn it themselves."
So far it seemed straightforward enough to Duster. "Makes sense."
"But I've been thinking there's another reason," Kumatora explained. "See, Lucas told me that the Magypsies didn't really care about people. Our lives are too short and inconsequential for them to notice. It does make sense, I guess. How much could you care about anyone after you were alive for ten thousand years? Think of all the people who'd be born, grow old, and die in that time. A single human lifetime would be nothing."
"What does that have to do with PK Love?" Duster asked.
"The clue is in the name, knucklehead," Kumatora joked. "You need a lot of love to learn that technique. That's why only a few people can do it, and why the Magypsies never could. I think they were too detached to love anyone."
Duster shook his head. "How sad. Living for that long doesn't sound worthwhile without love."
"How's that for a kick in the teeth?" Kumatora asked. "I must've loved them, but I guess it wasn't mutual. And now here I am busting my ass to try and remember people that wouldn't remember me." Kumatora couldn't help but laugh.
Duster put a hand on Kumatora's shoulder to offer some small comfort. He was surprised when she didn't shake him off.
After a few seconds of looking down at her boots, Kumatora kept going. "The stupid thing is this all started because I thought I'd lost something. I thought if I found it I'd be . . . I dunno . . . whole, or whatever. So much for that."
"Hey." Duster gave her a little shake and looked her in the eye. "Don't lose hope."
"Yeah, yeah." It was easy enough to spout off about hope and love and anything else. Kumatora was done making time for pseudo-philosophical nonsense.
"Listen," Duster persisted. "This might not be what you want to hear, but finding out where you came from isn't going to make you whole. Neither will some stupid egg or even love. Whatever you need to feel complete isn't somewhere out there. I think it's a lot closer to home."
Kumatora rolled her eyes. "Could you get any cheesier?"
"I could always try," Duster said with a grin. "I hope you're not lactose intolerant."
She gave him a playful shove. "Get up, ya moron. We'd better get ready for dinner."