"All seven of us…in here?" Yun said skeptically. Standing was fine, but he was unsure how all of them would sleep in the tiny house.
"Understandably, if the young lady should require different accommodations -" the elder began.
Hak and Ki-ja both adamantly denied.
"And don't worry yourselves with performing for us," the chief added, "My people have no need of your songs or dancing."
"But we must -" Yona began.
"If you wish to repay us, you will leave at first light," he snapped, "And you will remain here until then."
As the elder and his attendants left, the man's arm brushed against Jae-ha's. The green dragon felt his skin crawl and he had to try very hard not to leap away from the old tyrant. Instead he fixed the man's retreating back with a glare.
"So much for getting to know the people around here," Yun said.
"I still want to try," Yona insisted, "There is definitely something bad happening here."
Jae-ha walked passed them to the bookshelf in the corner, glancing around the room as he went. Every object brought back a memory. Most were painful. A few were happy. All of them tasted bitter.
"Still, I'll have to do some asking around myself if we plan on making any dinner," Yun muttered, looking over the sparse utensils in the room.
"Ki-ja could help you," Yona suggested, "But…maybe keep his arm out of sight."
"You cannot wander around a place like this alone, Princess," Ki-ja said.
"I'll go with her," Hak assured him.
"And we can take Zeno and Shin-ah," Yona said, "Maybe they'll pick up on something we can't. And Jae-ha -"
"Zeno wants to stay here," Zeno interrupted her, "Zeno wants to look at the books." And he pointed to the corner where Jae-ha was standing, idly flipping the pages of one of the old storybooks.
None of the rest of the group was very comfortable leaving Zeno anywhere alone. Two thousand years old or not, he tended to act more like he was ten.
"And Jae-ha can keep an eye on Zeno then," Yona revised her plan.
"You hearing her, Droopy Eyes?" Hak called to him.
"Hm?" Jae-ha looked up, "Oh. Yeah. Ok."
Hak cocked his head, and for a moment he looked like he was going to speak again. Jae-ha had been unnaturally quiet all this time, and it was starting to bother him. But Yona tugged his sleeve and they followed Yun, Ki-ja, and Shin-ah back outside. As they left, Ao hopped off Shin-ah's shoulder and scampered across the room to Zeno.
With the others gone, Jae-ha let out a deep sigh and slid to the floor, his back against the wall. He was still holding the book he'd flipped through and so he started to look over it again. The pages felt brittle in his fingers, like they could shatter if he wasn't gentle, or crumble into dust and drift away. The words barely stayed with him; he wasn't really seeing them. But the pictures were familiar and they calmed him a bit.
"Are you going to tell them?" Zeno finally said.
Jae-ha looked up and saw Zeno sitting with his back against the adjacent wall. Ao had climbed into his hands and was now receiving a good ear scratching.
Zeno knew. Of course, Zeno knew. He always seemed to sense things the others couldn't. And despite his often childish antics, he was indeed very mature and wise.
"I -" Jae-ha started to speak but the words caught in his throat.
Ao peered up at him then, and jumped off of Zeno's palm to scurry over to the green dragon. She sat beside him, just watching, and gave him a happy little, "Pukyuu."
"Why haven't you told them we should leave?" Zeno asked him softly.
"Because," Jae-ha tried again, "I…I never thought I'd be back here again. I never wanted to return, not even when my successor is born."
"Doesn't seem like there has been one," Zeno commented.
"No, it doesn't feel that way," Jae-ha agreed. He would sense the birth of a new ryokuryuu, just like Garou sensed his birth. The children they saw before were normal. By the looks of things, everyone in the village was.
Zeno reached up and grabbed a book from the shelf and began to turn its pages as well. Meanwhile, Ao was nudging Jae-ha's hand gently but persistently. When he looked down at her, she was offering a peanut.
"No, Ao," he told her, "Thanks, but I don't need it."
"Pukyuuuuuu," the squirrel insisted, bouncing excitedly.
He sighed, a sound that had half a chuckle in it, and took the peanut from her, slipping it into his pocket.
"Ok, fine," he said, "Thank you."
The little critter seemed to nod, satisfied, before pattering away to Zeno again.
"So you won't tell them," Zeno said, scanning a large map in the book he'd dragged down.
"What's the point?" Jae-ha asked, "We'll leave in the morning and they'll never have to know."
"And I'll never have to see this godforsaken place again," he thought.
Zeno nodded. Jae-ha felt that the yellow dragon wanted to say more, but he didn't. Instead Jae-ha saw the map he was looking at and a thought suddenly struck him.
"Zeno-kun," he said.
"Mm-hm?" the boy looked at him cheerfully.
"Do you know," Jae-ha asked, leaning forward and reaching out to point at the book, "roughly, about where we are on this map?"
Zeno laid the book down between them and studied it for a moment.
"Hmm," he hummed. Then he pointed down and traced a finger across a section of the page, saying, "I think…considering the way we've been walking, we must be somewhere around here."
He was indicating a spot in the northeastern part of Kouka, just above the Wind Tribe's border into the south of Fire Tribe territory. There were a few hills drawn here and there, and a river that branched off into two paths.
Jae-ha knew from what Captain Gi-gan had taught him where certain other cities were. He could point out Chi'shin and Awa and the capitol. But he had never known where his own village was located, and so this was the first time he'd ever been aware of the distance he'd put between it and himself.
Awa was on the western coast. He'd crossed nearly the entire country. He remembered those weeks after he escaped only as a blur of trees, fresh air on his face, hunger, the bright sky, fear, and the intense need to keep moving. Always moving. Never look back.
"Ryokuryuu?" Zeno's brow furrowed slightly.
Jae-ha realized he'd spaced out again and shook himself.
"It's nothing," he said, "Just…we sure are a long way from home."
