Chapter Three: My Unfortunate and Inseparable Friend

A/N: I do have a request for you, my dear readers. If you find it inoffensive, please spread some awareness of my story to places that you think it belongs; by this, I mean not only communities and friends, but also any other website you believe would benefit the story's growth. I trust that you will show it with respect to the people you are recommending it to; I don't need to tell you that the way it is presented will reflect on the story itself. I thank you ahead of time for your service. I can't say that it isn't a selfish desire to want more exposure, but I can tell you why exactly I make this request. When I finish this series, should I prove to be reliable and talented enough, I hope to create a free visual novel. Having some semblance of a fanbase as an author would help my confidence immensely, and would hopefully help gain some traction with getting my foot in the door. While I have your attention, I would like to thank all of you again for sticking with me this far, through so many sudden and long breaks. This week's song accompaniment is "Still Here" by Digital Daggers.

Like a spattering of paint, Lixue mused. A broken pearl necklace. The moon hides her face in shame.

Contemplating the innumerable stars above her, the tigress leaned against the frigid stone of the parapet and concentrated on relaxing. She closed her eyes, the clouds of her breath catching the moonlight. Paper lanterns, fragile flames crushed by the rain. Smoke from embers three days gone, stirred by the wind.

The footsteps approaching her were soft, but the wind was asleep. The heavy and confident step of her father.

"You shouldn't be up at this late hour."

She didn't open her eyes. "An hour that you also are awake for."

"I'm not going anywhere tomorrow." He sat beside her, sighing as the wall sapped away his warmth. He was not kin to fire, testified by the blanket he had ensconced himself in, and found himself again wondering at how his daughter stayed so comfortable.

They lapsed into silence, companionable and distant both. She watched the moon again, and he watched her, wondering at her thoughts.

"Do you remember anything else?"

"A little." Strange, feeling so open and yet so shut away. He was not her enemy… rather, it was like a long lost friend, so long separated that it was closer to the pain of loss. They were there, but they were gone. She had missed her father so sharply, grieved his death so deeply, and now that he was beside her, the feeling crept along her skin that she was speaking to a corpse.

"It's difficult for me, too," Chao scratched his arms, his skin protesting the heat of his bath. "To have my daughter change so much overnight… well, you're still my Lixue." He smiled at her, his clumsy reassurance unnecessary.

She gave him a small smile. It might be unnecessary, but it was never unwelcome. "There are things that don't match up between the memories," she pondered aloud, picking at a dried bit of grass on the ground. "I think that if I seek out the differences rather than the similarities, I'll remember more. Kind of like… like pulling out rocks at the bottom of a pile and having ones at the top roll down."

"What kinds of differences do you see so far?" He pulled out his pipe, carved from a human femur by the claws of his daughter. She had brought it back from her first Hunt, years before her time, clumsy claws cleaning and shaping the bone. She had done it for his birthday, and he had kept it with him ever since.

He packed down the dried leaves he retrieved from a pouch in his hanfu, and leaned it toward her.

She spoke softly, thoughtfully, as she pressed her finger to her fangs to extract some of her fire before pressing it to the leaves. "Things like Kuno are on this side." She withdrew her finger as the vegetation started to smolder. "Then there are things that are on the other side, but they're hard to think about. Slippery. I only remember one thing, really, and it's no use at all. Just some words."

"Anything could be useful," came the reply, smoke curling from his tongue. "Look, I'm a dragon." He crossed his eyes and blew the smoke from his nostrils, grimacing at her in his best impersonation of a snarl.

She couldn't help but giggle a little. Of all his quirks, that particular trick was one of her fondest. It always made his throat sore after, but he adored the sound of her happiness. It was one he didn't hear often.

"Then do the words, 'it's a song I only want to sing with you' bring to mind anything?" She looked at her hands, twining the edge of her clothes between her fingers. They were simple words, but… painful to say.

"Hmm." He drew from his pipe again, running his palm along the familiar scuffs of her imperfect carving. "Maybe I was mistaken."

"Too bad." She shrugged in a flippant way, but he knew the edge of bitterness in her tone to be disappointment.

"Well, let's not give up yet. Do you remember if it was you or someone else saying it?"

"Someone else. I'm pretty sure, anyway. When I hear it, it's deeper than my voice."

"So it's probably a man. See there, we've already ruled out half the possibilities!"

She wanted to humor him, acknowledge the efforts he was putting toward cheering her dark mood, but was simply too fatigued. From the moment she had woken up in her strange-but-not-strange bed, she had been tossed about and shaken like a limp doll: strangers in her home, claiming things they had no business claiming; her father, long mourned and missed, alive and all wrong but nonetheless the same as the day he died; the constant tickling on the back of her throat of ash, a memory she couldn't quite grasp that was tied very strongly to this place; plucking at insignificant details that pulled long strings of knowledge free, poisons and weapons, language and future history; those ten words that squeezed her heart so tightly that it threatened to leak from her eyes, but formless and surrounded by void; wresting herself free from things that a dutiful daughter should perform; two different memories for every event, one through feral eyes and another through tameness…

So many thoughts and people and faces and mismatches and sounds and memories that surrounded her and pricked her fiercely, a million thorny vines encircling her that gave her no room to move without feeling their bite, driving her mind in every direction, that she could not help but feel drained and ready to froth with the madness of it all.

He watched the clouds darken over her expression and let his smile drop. She had never been simple, but this Lixue had an air of complexity and torment that he didn't know how to clear away. She looked at him sometimes like she was half-expecting him to vanish into thin air, and he didn't know how to assure her that he was going to stay. So many things she knew, that she claimed she had learned from him, that he had never even begun to learn… it was complication itself and every time she said it, her expression would turn to quizzical pain, her scent overtured even more strongly with yellow lotus, and he eventually stopped asking her. This other him was like a god to her, to hear her talk about him; it almost seemed like someone else, someone who thought of everything and prepared her for anything… though her opinion of her mother was wholly unchanged. Now she just seemed disappointed in him. It was strange and very uncomfortable.

"Well… do you remember anything else?" He prompted her, dropping his eyes from her face, preferring the stuttered silhouettes of the trees against the ink of the sky. He loved it here, nestled between the mountains and surrounded by forest. You could hide away from the world here and all of its pain. He had hidden her, too, but it found her anyway. It crept in and stole her away, a thief in the night.

"I feel like… there's someone waiting for me, somewhere. That won't go anywhere without me." She rested her head on her shoulder, trying to pin down her thoughts. "Important, but not family, or something. Someone to rely on."

"A mate?" It would explain her scent, though why her body would reflect a change in her soul was beyond him. She had no mating mark on her body that he could see, but there was a fondness in her voice that spoke to this missing person's importance to her. She was always bad at categorizing these things, though, and would likely misinterpret her own feelings.

"I don't know." Useless feelings cluttered her mind, bittersweet and harsh. "I think I'm going to go to bed."

"I would say that's wise." He held the smoke in his lungs before letting it float lazily upward.

"Where am I going to be escorting the wagon?"

"Just follow Kuno, he knows where to go."

She scowled. "If he was going, why was he so upset about me? It's not terribly hard to guard one more in such a tiny caravan, especially with his small army."

"Well, you don't let him know you," he chortled. "He was, in his mind, keeping you safe from your own impulses. Besides, I wasn't planning on sending it before you offered to guard it, and he's going in that direction."

Her scowl didn't disappear, but it did soften. "I hope he doesn't think this is a good time to try and woo me."

"I can't say that he doesn't, but he's a good man. You don't have to be friendly, but please try not to be rude. He's still been good to us, whether you remember or not." He watched for her nod, grunting in contentment when it came. "I've also a gift for you."

"Oh?"

He pulled the warm leather book from his sash, missing its warmth immediately as he handed it to her. She ran her fingers over its spine, the plain binding wrapped in a rawhide string. She flipped it open, and looked at her father curiously. The pages were blank.

"I've seen you writing bits of haiku in the dirt," he explained. "I had this lying around my office and thought you'd like having something more permanent to write in."

"Thank you, papa." She kissed his cheek, her smile genuine. "It's perfect."

"Glad you like it." He stood, brushing himself free of the dirt and putting out his pipe. "Now, you've got a long day tomorrow. Go get some rest."

You belong with me, faint and familiar friend… now, and forever.

oOxXxOo

"No," she flatly refused, again. "Stop asking."

"It's just a shame that such a pretty color should be subjected to trail dust." Kuno's wheedling tone did nothing for the tigress' foul mood.

"I prefer to walk, Kuso." Her dreams had been thick with rotting petals and ash-black rain. She rubbed her nose to rid herself of the imaginary tickle.

"It's Kuno, dear lady." He sighed at her, gesturing upward in a sign of defeat with a lighthearted laugh. "I suppose I should be happy you aren't refusing to accompany us at all, considering that one of my own guards is now out of commission." The guard he was referring to being, of course, the one with the twisted ankle that was recuperating under Chao's care. The unspoken words of "because of you" were tastefully absent, but nonetheless hanging on the end of his statement.

She let out her breath slowly and relaxed, leaning against the wagon as he turned to face forward, speaking to the driver of the ox that would be pulling their wares. He had been a little hostile towards her since her actions yesterday, perhaps feeling cheated out of a strong mate… but he could not truthfully accuse them of reneging on their debt. This (hopefully final) caravan of her father's would benefit them both, and with the money saved from her guardianship, her father would hopefully have enough gold to fund a proper certification for diplomacy. Kuno had no logical reason to call off this arrangement, though she worried he might do just that partway there, just to spite her… or perhaps out of the fear that had begun to visibly mark his face when she came too close.

She was just fine keeping her distance. It would perhaps be even easier on the open road, though the fact that one oxen team was being split across two loads meant their pace would be cut nearly in half. She spotted her father's approach and straightened up.

His smile was kind and open, and she felt it warm her. It would be some time before she saw it again, and she wanted to remember it to help against the doubtlessly infuriating barbs that would be coming her way. She would obey his request for politeness, at least outwardly. It was just good that neither of them spoke anything other than their native tongue. Kuno believed her mispronunciation of his name to be a mere childish expression of defiance; what he would do if he found out what exactly she was calling him, she didn't know, nor did she particularly care.

"Are you sure this is what you want to do?" He handed her a tightly wrapped bundle, recognizable as provisions for the trip. Water skins, flint, a knife for skinning and butchering her kills, a large pile of salt to help preserve food. Fruit pounded and split into strips, dried with a bit of sugar. A treat. A barrel of dried fish and another of water would be accompanying them in the wagon, but you never know.

"I'm sure, papa." She beamed at him, projecting her confidence into her voice to reassure him. He seemed to understand that she wasn't who he had raised, but sometimes his strange and overprotective desire to hide her away showed its face. "I'll get these furs there safe and sound."

"Have them send me the money by courier," he reminded her. "I don't want you to be a target any longer than you have to be."

"I remember." She tucked the bundle into her pack, next to her journal. He'd also made sure she'd brought some money and an oil-treated cloak to protect against the rain. A perfume sachet that he had made from outgrown clothes, for luck.

"Be safe, my daughter." He hugged her, kissing her on the top of her head. "I know you want to protect it, but remember that no amount of money is worth your life. I'd rather have you home than rich."

She breathed his scent, its spicy richness of cloves and honey alleviated by the smokiness of his ever-present pipe. It was familiar and if she closed her eyes, she could pretend she was a cub again, being held against his chest as he cooed to her of bravery and integrity, great and clever tales from around the world. Her eyes, then barely opened to the world, wide and drinking in every word.

"I'll miss you too, papa." She pulled away from him, his hands giving her arms a final squeeze before stepping away.

It was only much later, when the tallest tower silently submerged behind the leaves, that she dared drop her smile. I'm the one walking into danger, but I'm the one that has to do the reassuring. She sighed, adjusting the pack on her back, earning herself a suspicious glance from the driver. She stared at him until his eyes found their way elsewhere.

oOxXxOo

In comes disbelief, out goes regurgitation, a cycle of spit.

"What are you writing?"

She looked up, brush still on the page, the speaker's shadow from the fire casting her journal into darkness. She could not continue until they moved.

It was Kuno.

"Just some poetry." She shut it, not caring that the ink was not yet dry. "Can I help you?"

"Can I see it?" His question was more than a little stupid; if she had minded his reading of it, she wouldn't have shut it. Even though it was hardly a secret, she didn't want to share it with him. He didn't deserve it.

"I'd rather you didn't." She kept her voice neutral. Be polite, be polite. "Is there anything else you needed?"

"Why don't you want to show me?"

"Does it matter? I said no."

He gave a harrumph of displeasure, but left it at that, stalking to the other side of the fire to eat with his handful of guards. None of them had spoken to her beyond absolute necessity in the six days since they walked through her father's gate, and that sat just fine with her. They spoke between themselves when they thought she couldn't hear – she could always hear – and their conversations were always dull and stupid. Kuno was one of the worst, especially when he tried to sing. Her father's songs were off-key, but his… he couldn't carry a tune if he were absolutely made of buckets, and he always forgot the words, substituting random noises that sounded similar whenever he drew a blank. Her general dislike of him wasn't helping her view of him, either, something that she was willing to admit to herself. She couldn't say anything, muzzled by her father's request for politeness, so she simply stewed at the rear of the wagons and tried not to glare.

These days strung together, endless walking and curious eyes, the demons taking care to be no more suspicious than the other merchants that often frequented these roads, human or otherwise. Bandits were absent from her path, reducing her days to nothing more than piles of ox dung and a thin layer of dirt perpetually present on her skin. Her most fierce foes tended to be men who refused her coin simply because of her sin of being a woman. When refused service, she always decided to go without instead of asking Kuso to step in on her behalf; these were usually conveniences, warm baths and clean beds and the like, things that she would like to have but would not die without. She would not stoop, would not see that smirk on his face that was sure to come. She never asked, and he never offered. Her baths were in the river and her bed was in the wagon, atop the furs that she guarded, the quiet huffing of the grazing oxen and cricketsong of the dark instead of the drinking and bright din of the men inside of the walls.

It was better this way.

oOxXxOo

The thin crush of ice on the surface of the lake melted away at her touch, its bite frigid enough to draw bumps on her skin. She grit her teeth and submerged her head, the thin material of her zhongyi clinging to her form. In any other situation, she would have shed it, but she felt uneasy more and more over the last few days. When she was gone, she knew the others spoke of her, careful of her location and their gazes dark whenever she looked their way. Something was up, and it blanketed the two-wagon caravan, a carpet of smog just over her head. Kuno's mood was as cheerful as the day they had set out, three solid weeks of travel seeming to be no more troublesome than a particularly vigorous walk, either unaware of or unbothered by the mood around him.

She resurfaced, dragging her claws through her hair and breathing deeply. The cold continued to sap at her, sipping her air and reminding her that while it may be spring, winter still held a few more breaths in its lungs.

It was then, looking up at the gray-cloud sky, that she realized it.

Surrounding her was an unspoiled, utter stillness. Glancing at the silent row of trees on either side of the water, she cut her bath short, picking her way through the mud bank back to her pack and her clothing. Her thoughts then turned to the wagon – perhaps now, while she was not around, thieves had come. She threw on her hanfu, relying on her heat to dry her as she swiftly and silently returned, irritated at the possibility of missing out on the only bit of action to come her way in weeks. It was the perfect place, too; the proximity of the river to the road was ideal for making camp, the trading post just out of eyeshot ahead, wagons on the road plump with goods, the trees close enough to conceal an ambush but open enough for the feeling of security.

She fell into a crouch as she approached their silent camp, eager to see which way to make her grand appearance, stalking in the shadow of a gingko tree to peer between the leaves of a squat bush. The silence piqued her hunter's blood, step, stop, breathe, listen, step, stop, breathe, listen – but her prey must know she approaches, and stays silent, hoping to thwart her. She circled to the bush, lowering her eyes to below its leafy arms, holding her breath so as not to rustle her cover.

Puzzled, she stood, approaching the only occupant of the empty mud of the campsite, embers fresh amid the ridges and sloughs of wet dirt – her pack, with something on top of it.

A note. The paper is dry, her skin making a light rasping as she read, and a scowl creeping into her features as she progressed.

My dear Lady Xing,

Do not be alarmed. My men and I have agreed that your guardianship is not necessary. Your father's cargo is in good hands; we will ensure that it reaches its destination. His debt will also be repaid, as we will be in the vicinity. Please find in your pack the purse containing the money Chao expects you to return to him, minus the fees for a guard and travel expenses, after the amount deducted for the debt to be repaid.

My personal recommendation for what you should do now is to return home, as you are so fond of walking.

It was signed in a flourished hand, Kuno's smugness apparent through the ink.

"That half-baked ass biscuit!" She swore, tearing through the pack to find the coin he spoke of, her language growing more colorful as she found it, nearly half as much as the furs were worth. "Bastard son of a tied-down diseased sow!"

She'd been nice. She'd not complained, nor shirked, and let the others be; and yet, this was her farewell, a muddied pack and a smirk in the form of a letter only half-acknowledging her. She paced in a jagged circle about her pack, staring and gritting her teeth. This was a time of choice.

On one hand, she was being given free rein to simply leave, go home with the money, and in doing so, let Kuno have his tiny victory so he'd leave them alone. Time saved, and honestly, he and his ilk were a pain.

On the other hand, she had no guarantee that he would actually hold up his promise to pass along the coin to repay her father's debt. She knew how much those furs were worth; if he simply pocketed the coin, she would not only not have been there to prevent it, but the debt would still remain without a way to kill it.

The sun traveled to the other side of the sky as she contemplated. Did her distaste for Kuno outweigh her suspicion of him? In either case, waiting here did not hurt her any; she could move more freely now, without having to mind her expression on the off chance someone thought she was scowling at them. If she decided to go home, it would still be earlier than if she had gone all the way, and if she followed Kuno, a day's distance would put his mind at ease and allow her to tail him with little effort.

They were but five days' travel from the port. He must think himself through the worst of the bandit country if he was releasing her now instead of just days after their departure.

As night fell, she stood, her mind made up. Dusting the pack off, she set down the road, following the trail of the man who made the mistake of stepping beyond the line. What his punishment would be was an idea not yet formed, her approach much more solid. She would trace their steps, keeping the trail a few hours old, following her quarry to their destination and waylaying them just before the town. Hopefully he would allow her to simply use shock and awe to win back her father's goods – a hope that was feeble at its strongest, but she wanted to be able to say that she tried to keep things civil.

Passing through the silent husks of a destitute village, faint lights glowing through the windows, her mind began to wander, the absence of light and distraction allowing her other memories to nudge their way out. She stopped by the well, staring at the object, kneeling before a certain stone to pull it away. Inside, a thin metal box, the first faint signs of rust taking away its shine. It looked as she thought it would.

Studying it, she carried it to a little house with mismatched rocks on the roof to keep it from blowing away, rapping on the doorframe with her knuckles. Shuffling and a voice asking who comes at the hour. A weary old woman smelling of dried roots, peeking at the stranger with suspicion, the box given without explanation or ceremony provoking tears and thankfulness, love letters long thought lost of a husband now buried. The tigress, mystified and silent, leaving without asking for reward. Reward given anyway, a miniature jade pendant depicting Bai Hu on a thin bronze chain. For protection on your journey.

She discovered two extra sets of hoof prints in the trail of Kuno. He had purchased extra beasts to haul faster, perhaps out of fear, or preparation of purchase at the port. With morning, she had nearly caught up, so she decided to take the day to rest and get some sleep. The villages were more condensed the closer she came to the port, one cropping up every few hours, denser and larger in every iteration.

This inn – no more than a bar with a few extra rooms upstairs – was her best bet for an undisturbed rest and perhaps a bath. As she expected, the bar was sparsely visited at this early hour. All the better. Fewer eyes to witness her presence. There was but a single man sitting near the fire, the innkeeper motioning to her that he'd be with her in a moment as he disappeared into the kitchen. She studied the bar's patron, who was staring into the fire with a pensive expression. He was rather handsome, his clothes showing off the breadth of his shoulders and the petite tapering of his waist. The firelight turned the dark brown of his ponytail into the color of blood, his curious eyes that now turned to her so dark that it could nearly be mistaken for black.

She stiffened as he stood and approached her in a single motion. He fell to his knee before her, grasping her hand.

"Empress," he sobbed.