Chapter Four: Carry the Colors Again

A/N: This chapter's song is "The Real Thing" by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis (from the soundtrack of The Road, even though I've never seen it). Also "Dust Clears" by Clean Bandit because I just couldn't decide.

"I…" Her mouth wouldn't work correctly, her tongue sticking to her teeth and her throat parched. "…Adisa?"

"I dreamed of you, for weeks, every night." He wiped his face with his hand, his breathing rough and uneven as he stood. "I can't tell you how relieved I am that you're safe."

"I don't remember meeting you," her words were measured and cautious. "How do you…?"

"I don't know." He answered her question, his hands still gripping hers even now, almost too tightly for comfort. "I dreamed, and I knew I had to find you, even though I'd never seen you before and didn't even know where to start. I just went to where the dreams got stronger." He smiled at her, a self-deprecating chuckle in his throat. "Everyone said I was insane. But here you are. Saying… saying my name."

Here he stood. Jin Adisa, her ever-faithful and steady companion, finding his way back to her side when she could only remember that someone was missing. Looking at him now, memories and emotion crashed and disintegrated the fog she'd been wandering through, everything he was and had ever been to her, returning like the dawn light through the darkest night she'd ever imagined.

"You're so young," she touched his cheek, afraid he'd disappear. "Your hair is lighter. And you're clothed."

"Yes," he answered, leaning into her palm. Breathing out his words like the final confession of a dying man. "Yes. Empress."

"I'm no empress," she sighed. "Not this me."

He contemplated it, and she noticed for the first moment how exhausted he looked. How far had he chased his dreams in those weeks?

"It doesn't matter, I think." He proclaimed. "I know you, and I know you as Empress."

"Is it that simple?" She tried to smile. It was almost too much, remembering him and all the years he'd spent as her companion, her growing anger with herself for daring to forget him piling atop her fresh irritation with Kuno and his particular brand of idiocy.

He put his hand over hers, blinking hard, breath warm against the skin below her wrist. His scent was just the same, that dusty papaya with just a hint of leather. "I have dreamed a lifetime in a few short weeks. All of it, every moment, had to do with you. I walked beside you, worked with you, fought by you, brought down your foes and lifted you as high as I could. Then I – I lost you." His voice jumped, and he looked away. Trembling. "The pain of it drove me near to madness, even in dreams. I… found you, though. It's okay. You're safe."

"I can't remember, Adisa," she whispered. "Seeing you brings some back, more than I've remembered before, but before I walked in that door I didn't even remember your name. Something's wrong with me, and now I know for sure that I'm not just imagining it."

"I'll help," he declared. "Tell me what you need, and it's done."

"I don't know." He'd offered without her even asking. It was just the same. "Right now, I'm trying to get Papa out of debt, but I've been just barely double-crossed and that's occupying me in the meantime…"

"Your father?" He perked. "I thought he was dead."

"You remember?"

"I remember it hurting you. So… yes?" He answered her, but looked behind her. She turned, dropping her hand from him, to see that the innkeeper had returned, dusting his palms on his clothes. The man's eyes darted between Adisa's firm grip on her hand and her face, questions dying in an anticlimactic haze of apathy.

"Need a room?" he grunted at her. "Food? Fresh pot of soup about to come off the fire."

"Ah… no, thank you." Having Adisa on her side tipped her decisions toward action; rather than stopping here to rest, she would do so after she had claimed her father's dues. The keeper waved them off and meandered into the kitchen. Business would continue.

She didn't need to ask if he was coming. He fell in step beside her as she left, nothing to carry but the clothes on his back. He really left it all behind to search for me.

The thought quieted her, and she studied the assorted stones of the main road they walked on, just one pair in the growing throng of humanity drifting and pushing in every direction. Fresh fish, the hawkers cried at them as they passed, shops opening and the smell of breakfast in the air. Caught just this morning. Three for the price of two. Hairpins, hand-carved by the masters. Her hyena's head swiveled, eyes bright as he drank in the lively atmosphere. They paused for him to buy a grilled squid impaled on a stick. But always, always, those eyes turned back to her.

"When's the last time you ate?" he asked her, chewing mechanically on a rubbery morsel. "This was a little overcooked…"

"I don't know, a couple days ago." The last of her father's dried strips of fruit, a distraction for her hands in the company of strangers.

"It helps you blend in if you eat more regularly."

"I know. I'm just… I'm not hungry."

He shrugged. "You rarely are." He wiped his hands on his clothes and sighed. "Well, it's not like anyone's near you long enough to notice anyway… Oh, Empress," his mood lifted as he called her title.

But it wasn't her title. Not anymore.

"Adisa, stop calling me that. I told you, I'm not Empress. As far as… now goes, I've never been one." Just the daughter of some failed merchant, trudging in the mud that once belonged to her. The rhythm of their steps counting out the number of times she'd think it. No-bo-dy. No-bo-dy. Two sets of three to make a pair, ending on either foot as the rhythm went. "Don't call me that anymore."

"I… yes." He made the noise as if he understood, but she knew he didn't. He smiled at her, gently. "Well, it wouldn't do for me to simply call you by your name. Do you have something else you would prefer?"

The crowd pressed against them, close enough to hear their conversation but too apathetic to care. It would thin out soon; the road to the port was just on the other side of the market, and her prey along with it.

"I don't know. Just do what you like." If I give him orders, he'll just keep calling me Empress. Let him make his own mind up.

"Hmm." No-bo-dy. No-bo-dy. Her shoes were filthy. It didn't bother her this morning. She didn't care this morning. The only thing that changed was… him. He showed up, and called her something she wasn't. Couldn't he see it?

"Mistress." His eyes sparkled at her when she glanced at him. He nearly whispered it, tasting the word.

"…If you like. Am I your mistress, then, Adisa?" The spring sunshine peeked over the edge of the buildings, their tall skeletons doing nothing to keep its light away. She looked away. "I can't pay you what I could… before."

"I don't have anything to spend it on." His voice was sincere.

"Sure you do. You always went out and bought ridiculous things to dress me up in or some exotic sweets that you'd end up not eating anyway." She snorted. "I ended up eating them for you half the time."

"Did I?" He cocked his head. "I don't recall… why would I leave you? Surely not for just that?"

"You left all the time," she answered matter-of-factly. "You were my right hand. Don't you remember any of that from your dreams?"

"No," came the blunt reply. "I just remember the times with you."

"…do you remember something in particular that made you so willing to drop everything and find me?"

"All of it. It blurs if I look at it too hard, but you were there. It was all for…" His voice dimmed as the person next to him nearly shoved him into her. He neatly dodged the feet pressing in closer and walked nearer to her, their arms brushing. He leaned in toward her to hear her speak.

"How long have you been dreaming about me?" He'd said it had only been a few weeks… this devotion was not new, but the intensity of his need to be near her, to see her…

"What?"

"How long were you dreaming about me!" She lifted her voice, hoping it was enough to hear her over the voices and clatter of feet surrounding them.

"..What?" He repeated it, and leaned closer to her. She waved him away. She'd just ask him later. It wasn't worth yelling.

He smiled at her.

Resting by my feet, your hopeful heart watches me. Your rapture remains.

oOxXxOo

Her nose itched. She resisted the urge to scratch. "You heard me, Kuno. Pay me the rest of what I'm owed, or return the furs."

She leaned closer to the twitchy tiger, careful to catch his eyes. "I'm not in the mood to play today, little cub."

Adisa was at his leisure nearby, needing nothing more than his self-assured presence to deter the guards from approaching any closer. Kuno had spat at them, calling them worthless and cowardly, but they'd already faced her before, when she'd had nothing more to pick with them than simply the right to come. Strangers milled about on the fringes, curious to see if there would be violence.

"Who- who do you think you are, to come here and bully me so? I paid you, no, your father exactly what… ahem, exactly how much these goods are worth, minus fees and expenses for guardianship!" He puffed himself up, the tigress bored above him, crouching on his goods in his cart. He'd been so easy to find.

"Bluster all you like, but you were not in charge of guarding them. I was." She examined her claws, letting the light catch on them just so. She may not care for them well, but they were sharp, and they were hard. "You stole them from me." She tsk'ed at him, her sarcastically motherly tone unable to blanket the hard glint of her eyes. "It's wrong to steal, Kuno."

"If you were guarding them, why did you let them get stolen? Am I to watch them for you for free while you bathe?" He attempted to outmaneuver her, believing himself capable.

Adisa sighed. And here I'd hoped I'd have time to eat with Mistress before the noon crowd comes… it was a wistful thought.

"By that logic, you now owe me more." She smiled at him. "Who watched the carts and the oxen every night while you and your… men…" she lingered, as if to remind him that they were paid guards, "ate meals in the inn and took baths of your own, slept in warm beds behind locked doors…?"

"By my calculations, mistress, that is nearly three weeks of overnight service, minus your own absent time of course," Adisa's voice cut in smoothly. Kuno's eyes bulged at him.

"And here I was, nice enough to simply do it gratis." She sighed, dramatically, but she was just so terribly bored by it all, these thin strips of wet paper that tore if she so much as breathed on them. "But now that I've been so rudely accused…" She flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Adisa, darling, please make a note of what we are owed beyond the down payment. We don't want to forget that they've already given us some, it would be rude to ignore it."

"Yes, mistress." He bowed, plying his trade in the most natural manner.

His trade being, of course, functioning as her right hand. He did everything a good hand should do; it gives and it takes away, it offers gifts and forms a fist, it grips hidden things in the dark and tells you the shape of it. It holds both tool and weapon. Yes, he was a wonderful hand.

Kuno tried again. "And who is this? A bandit from the woodwork, no doubt, lured here by your plot to steal what I've rightfully earned!"

A swing and a miss, she mused. "I wouldn't speak of him so," she warned. "That man is utterly loyal to me and me alone. If I told him to destroy you, he would. Quickly." She spoke, of course, of the old Adisa; the one from her memory that smoked beneath her window and sang songs when he knew she couldn't sleep. The new one was too new, but she had a feeling he was exactly the same. "So please, try not to insult him. It hurts my feelings."

"I have the rest, mistress." Adisa's voice rang above the sound of coins. "Sir Kuno, would you like to count out the amount and ensure we haven't missed any?"

The man below her gritted his teeth. She watched as his hands clenched and unclenched, but did not move. What will you do, little cub? Will you squeal and squabble, force a fight you can't possibly entertain the hope of winning? Or will you recognize your defeat and allow us to go on our way?

Quickly now, I'm growing tired of waiting. She thought it, but found herself saying it also.

"…No." He forced the word out, his shoulders stiff. "No, I don't need to count it. Just leave."

"Oh, are you sure?" Adisa's voice was crestfallen, a genuine-sounding hurt tastefully woven in. She knew him too well to believe that he felt it, but skilled… that he definitely was.

"If he said so, he must be sure," she pretended to reassure her hyena. "Come, let us go find Mr. Chen."

"Oh, alright… I just wanted to be sure he wasn't going to find a mistake later and blame us for it." His face exuded innocence.

"Don't worry, I'm sure he won't. …right, Kuno?"

"…You… don't worry about it." He gave in, the tension turning into fatigue and slouch.

A pity that he realized how outclassed he is. I would have liked to bring a piece of his traitorous and shattered body home to his family to demonstrate the foolishness of what he's done. His own cowardice, and my father's words, are all that protects him from me.

"I'll be willing to come back and discuss it with you if you change your mind." She smiled at him for the last time, just a moment too long, ensuring her true message came through for him. If you press, I will crush you.

"Ah…" breath escaped Kuno's lips unconsciously as he caught her eyes. She dropped her smile at the look he was giving her, and she carelessly dropped herself from the wagon onto the ground. Without a word, Adisa obediently followed her along to the pier.

"I need a bath," she complained to him, safely out of earshot.

"Oh? Before or after we pay Mr. Chen?" He dropped his act as well, watching her.

"After, but… ugh, let's just make it soon. Just being near him makes me feel slimy." She rubbed her arms, vigorously, though the sun was warm enough today to be comfortable even near the water's spray.

"He did not seem to be dirty," he missed her meaning, cocking his head at her. "Did I… not notice something?"

"Yeah. He… ugh, he was looking at me like he wanted me to hurt him. Like he was scared, yeah, but also like some part of him was getting off on the whole thing." She shook her head to free the thoughts from her brain. "How do you even handle an enemy who wants you to hurt him?"

"Hmm." He touched his chin. "I don't know that he's an enemy, per se, but in any case… I suppose all you can do is ignore it?" He held out his hands, palms upward. "Just hope he doesn't get the idea of provoking you for, ahem, gratification."

He chuckled, darkly. "He really will die then."

She smiled with him. He did know her best, after all.

You tremble in pain, holding your breath to stay still, hoping your black hopes.