When she came to, something wet and cool stroked her forehead. Memories of a night blurred by time came to her; tossing in the throes of fever, her mother's hands at her brow. Yuffie let this illusion play out until her head cleared. She said without opening her eyes, "Someone please tell me I didn't just pass out."
"Are you okay?" Tifa muttered near her ear. Her warm breath puffed over Yuffie's skin, contrasting uncomfortably with the cold cloth she – because it was Tifa; who else would it be? – had been running over Yuffie's forehead.
"Guess I just got a little overwhelmed," she replied.
Cracking an eye, she sought out Tseng. He stood directly to the right of the bed, closest after Tifa. AVALANCHE was also in attendance. She let out a small, quiet groan. They had questions.
"Tseng, you've probably already figured this out, but I need you to stay close to me. People will want you dead. Unless you're having second thoughts, in which case, your only options are suicide and assassination. So you could, like, go stand on the roof for a while if you're feeling blue. I'm sure some bullets would find you eventually."
He didn't respond, his gaze making her uneasy. He seemed searching, as if he sensed something off.
"Yuffie," Red XIII said very quietly, almost as if he were not sure he should proceed, "we felt something odd when your father passed."
She swallowed. When he passed. Past tense. She hadn't yet accepted what happened in her father's sickroom, and she felt snared between the time of his life and now, after his death. She could not seem to bridge the gap in her mind.
Tifa's hand squeezed her shoulder gently, bringing her back. Yuffie hesitated. Something told her not to divulge information secreted and coveted by generations of Wuteng royals. She felt the mental rub, her instincts and conscience straining against each other, but she lied anyway.
"As Dad died," she said, the lie flowing from her tongue with ease, a lie like I don't know where your materia is, only much bigger, "the spiritual status of ruler passed to me. Rulers of Wutai don't really have coronations or anything; the throne passed to me, and you felt it." She sighed and leaned back into the pillows, hoping they wouldn't question her half-baked lie. Yuffie herself was not quite sure what had happened to her.
She wondered what she could do with this newfound power. Could she speak to Leviathan? That was a right she could only make use of now that her father had died. Before, he had been the link.
They must be preparing his body right now. Her eyes pricked. Her hands rose almost of their own accord and began to rub at her temples.
"Hey, guys…"
Tifa sensed her shifting mood and stood from her bedside. "All right, everybody out." She looked down at Yuffie. "Do you want me to stay?"
Yuffie shook her head. "No, but thanks anyways." She looked up at the man to her right, who stood solemnly against the wall. "Tseng, you can leave if you want, but I'd feel better if you stayed with me for right now."
Actually, she wanted to be alone, but even with the Turks and AVALANCHE around a creeping sense of paranoia warned her to keep Tseng close. She herself had already faced one attacker, and he would be highly at risk now – even more than she normally was, as the White Rose. He was ex-Shinra, and not everyone in this broken nation would be happy to accept him with open arms.
AVALANCHE filed out. Only when Tifa called a last good-bye and closed the door behind her did Yuffie relax into the pillows
She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, almost snapping her neck at the sheer weight of her headdress and elaborate hair-style. "Ouch," she muttered.
Forcing her head forward with her hands, she began working at the mess of tangles. The headdress, bedecked with white beads and held in place by pins, had become a snarl in all the commotion. She tugged experimentally on a pin dripping with pearls. It didn't budge.
Her fatigue coupled with the events of the day tipped the scales on her fragile emotions. She was angry suddenly, and gave the stuck pin a hard yank. It came away but took a few strands of hair with it. "Ow," she breathed, then sat back, mentally scolding herself. Her head pounded.
Yuffie didn't hear him approach, but her eyes snapped open when she felt him touch her. She looked into his inscrutable eyes, and he looked back impassively. "Um," she said.
She only realized what he was doing when he showed her the pin he had untangled from the area by her temple. He dropped it on the night stand. It made a small plink as it hit the wood. "Sit still," he said.
"Okay," she said, voice faint.
She tried to help him a couple of times, a little unnerved at the idea of him with his hands on her head. "I can do it."
Really, Yuffie was exhausted, and she didn't feel capable of tackling her hair. But he was behaving oddly like a gentleman, and she was nervous. It had struck her that Tseng was basically a stranger, and that she had deliberately let him into her intimate personal life.
She sent a prayer to Leviathan that she had made the right decision.
After a few minutes of trying to assist him and just managing to get in the way, she gave in and let him disentangle her. He seemed content to be silent, and she really did not have the energy to do anything but enjoy the reprieve from questions.
After about ten minutes, he leaned away from her and gathered the pins in his hands. Pearls stuck out between his fingers. "Where do you want these?"
She waved a tired hand. "Just dump 'em on the vanity. They'll be fine there."
A pause. She watched him study the items on the dressing table – makeup, jewelry, a creased paperback. He opened a drawer and carefully deposited the pins, then trailed his hand absently over the cover of the book.
"Thanks," she said, feeling out of her element. "For helping with that."
He met her gaze in the mirror, his back still turned. She tried looking him in the eyes, but his shoulders seemed like a fence she couldn't get around. "You're welcome."
"What time is it?"
He flicked back his sleeve and glanced at a modest watch on his left wrist. "Eight p.m."
Not just eight – eight p.m. Yuffie almost sighed. She'd have to locate the stick and take it out of him before her head started spinning.
A disturbance at the door stopped her thoughts. Quicker than she thought possible, Tseng was standing in front of her with his right hand inside his kimono. Note to self: Tseng's definitely packing.
"—will let me in to see her, now stand aside! The Third Mighty God commands it!" The door opened as Shake burst in, several annoyed-looking guards close behind him. "Yuffie! Are you okay?" He made a move toward her, but then his eyes lit on Tseng between them.
"Oh."
Yuffie scowled, less-than-pleased. "Shake. What the – what are you doing?" She remembered the guards watching and nodded to them. Dismissed, they filed out.
Shake watched them leave, then turned. "I saw you faint at Lord Godo's bedside, and I tried to get to you, but he got to you first." His statement was directed at Yuffie, but his eyes bored holes into Tseng.
Unsure of how well she masked her surprise, Yuffie leveled her voice. "So?" She really wasn't in the mood for Shake.
He crossed his arms and finally stopped staring at Tseng, directing his gaze toward a point over her shoulder. "I was worried."
She knew under his bluster he really was concerned for her. She glanced at Tseng and, without a word, he stepped to the side. His hand fell from his robes, but he watched the conversation with acute attention.
Shake's mouth thinned as his gaze darted from Tseng to her. "About your father."
"What about him?" Her stomach churned. Dad.
"We're sending him off tomorrow."
She passed a hand over her face. "Thank you for coming, Shake."
He seemed to recognize the dismissal. "You're welcome. Get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow."
Shake closed the door behind him. She was just becoming worried when the silence would become awkward when her stomach growled. "I'm hungry. Are you hungry?" she asked.
"I could eat," Tseng said.
"Good. I'm starved. Do you mind if we eat in… our rooms?" It was to say "our." Yuffie wasn't used to being a part of anything but AVALANCHE, much less a marriage.
"Not at all."
When their food arrived, Yuffie sat on the cushions with Tseng, at the temporary table prepared by the servants. The mapo doufo smelled spicy and delicious, and Yuffie tried not to dive in like she usually did. She was aware of Tseng watching her, so she tried to thank the serving boy and let him leave before plunging in headfirst.
"Thanks, Shiro," Yuffie said. "You can go."
Yuffie picked up her chopsticks and then proceeded to drop them as Tseng whipped a sleek gun out of his kimono and pointed it at Shiro's head. The blood fled from the young serving boy's face as Tseng grabbed Shiro's arm with his free hand, the one not currently wielding a deadly weapon.
Yuffie's eyes widened to Da Chao proportions, and Tseng said, "Tell me what's been done to the food."
It was then that Yuffie noticed several things in quick succession. Shiro's hands trembled visibly at his sides. She spied sweat on his brow, strange in the cool evening air circulating from the windows and the relative ease of his task.
"Does the meal displease you, my lady?" he asked, staring at Yuffie beseechingly.
Yuffie looked at the once-delicious meal, sickened, coming to the realization that from now on, she was going to have to be more on her guard than ever. This made twice in one week. "Shiro," she said, her voice much calmer than she felt, "tell the emperor what you know or this day's going to end badly for you."
A bead of sweat dripped off the end of Shiro's nose. He winced as Tseng pinched his arm. "What did you put in the food?"
"I didn't put anything in the food," he said, his voice quivering with fear. "I might've seen..." He trailed off here, his throat seemingly too dry to make noise. Tseng shook him a little. "I might've seen the cook put something in it," he said hoarsely.
"Which cook, Shiro? Be more specific," Yuffie said, losing her patience. She was livid that this was happening, and in her own wait-staff. The few attendants serving the Kisaragi family were well paid, with good benefits. This was a betrayal.
"The head cook," he gasped as Tseng twisted his arm.
"Guards!" Yuffie shouted. They clamored behind the door, bursting in a short second after her call.
"My lady!" the one named Souta barked.
"Please take Shiro for questioning. And the head cook as well. My food's been tampered with, and I want to know who did it."
To her surprise, Tseng spoke first after they dragged Shiro out. "If you're still hungry, I suggest we step out until we find replacements for your staff."
"I guess I need to expect death around every corner, then," she said, dejected. Her own people, trying to kill her. She had been prepared for hostilities, but to put a familiar face to the continued attempts on her life saddened her and made her nervous.
"You will become accustomed to it."
Great.
She sighed. "I know a lady who owns a restaurant not too far from here."
"She's someone you can trust?" he asked, leading the way out the door.
"She's an old friend."
The Jade Dragon was located on the fringes of the upper class area of downtown. It was a favorite setting for romantic gesture, featuring at least one proposal per week. Sometimes minor celebrities ate there when they wanted discreet servers and a fine dinner. Many an opportunistic business man had taken their clients to the Jade Dragon in order to impress.
When Yuffie entered the front doors—shaped like the mouth of a giant serpent, complete with fangs—the many people eating there began to take notice. Yuffie was fairly certain it wasn't her presence causing the commotion among the diners. Even as a young princess, she'd sneak out and go to all sorts of places around Wutai. People had grown accustomed to her moving among them like one of their own. No, Yuffie suspected the commotion was over her new husband.
Her two guards tensed at the obvious attention as people kneeling at tables began whispering to each other, their mouths moving indistinctly in the low candlelight. After almost having Poison a la King for dinner, she took some comfort in the throwing stars tucked into her kimono and the materia slotted into the discreet bracelet on her left wrist. Tseng helped too, standing close at her side.
He seemed to be taking the attention well. If nothing else, she appreciated that. He did not outwardly react as people's attention shifted, and Yuffie tried not to do so as well. Being Empress of Wutai really added a new, somewhat scary dimension to going out in public.
A hostess appeared from somewhere in the back, and when her eyes landed on Yuffie and Tseng, they widened. She scrambled to grab menus from her stand and bow at the same time. "It is an honor to serve you tonight, my Empress."
Yuffie cleared her throat. She wasn't sure if she would ever get used to the constant formality. "Can you tell Daiyu Yuffie—I mean, the Empress—is here to see her?"
The young hostess scurried away, up the stairs to the second level of the restaurant. To the left side of the house, a sculpture of Leviathan's head poured water from the second story to a small pool below. Koi darted ghostlike under the water. In a few moments, a woman descended the stairs next to the waterfall. Her dark hair spilled from a loose topknot, almost blending with the blue-on-black diamond pattern of her kimono. Yuffie found herself as usual struck by Daiyu's beauty.
Daiyu's gaze met Yuffie's. She had the angular eyes of the Wuteng, but they were pale blue instead of dark brown or black. Yuffie wondered, for the five hundredth time, at how Daiyu was still single. But she knew the real reason. Daiyu wanted no one to own her. She would not risk her personal freedom and her own success for the sake of any relationship.
"Your highnesses," Daiyu said, with a voice like bells and running water, "I am honored to serve you this evening." She bowed, her long sleeves trailing the carpet.
"Daiyu," Yuffie said, and she couldn't help a genuine smile. "It's been a while."
"It has, my lady," Daiyu replied, rising gracefully. "I am sorry to hear about your father."
Yuffie looked around at their interested audience and made a decision. "Can we take this somewhere private?"
"Of course. This way, your highnesses."
She led them upstairs and past the more private area of the establishment, to where a screen covered one part of the wall. Behind that was a door and behind that door was her office. Yuffie bade her guards wait outside the door.
Once they were inside, she enveloped Yuffie in a brief hug. Tseng did not even twitch at the sudden movement, but his eyes did not leave them.
"Daiyu," she sighed. "I'm so glad to see you."
"You have yet to introduce me to your husband, my lady," said Daiyu gently, gesturing toward Tseng. She bowed. "It is an honor to meet you."
To Yuffie's surprise, Tseng bowed back. "It's my pleasure," he said.
Daiyu seemed to think for a moment, her red lips pursing. Finally, she said, "May I have permission to speak freely, my lady?"
Yuffie hesitated, then nodded. She knew that the woman was usually the picture of decorum.
Folding her hands into her sleeves, Daiyu pinned him with her intense stare and asked, "Will you protect my lady above all others?"
"I will," he said without missing a beat.
"How can I know I have your word?"
He paused, and Yuffie felt the silence weigh on them. "It's my duty," he replied.
"Will that be enough? If you fail in your duty, how will you be punished?" she asked, eyes flinty.
"So, Daiyu!" Yuffie interjected, in order to break the staring contest that had begun between the other two. "I have something I need to talk to you about."
"Yes, my lady?" she said, her voice heavy with deference.
"This doesn't go beyond your office, cross your heart and hope to die–"
"I would sooner die than betray the Kisaragi family," Daiyu said fiercely.
Yuffie quieted. "I know. That's why I'm telling you this. I think someone tried to poison me tonight."
Daiyu's eyes narrowed, and her beauty took on a dangerous air. Her hands shifted in her sleeves. "You will eat here tonight, and in future, I will supply your kitchen staff."
Yuffie brightened, clapping her hands together. "Thank you so much!"
She smiled. "Anything for the Kisaragis, my lady. You have treated my family with the utmost respect and care throughout these long years. Your mother..." Daiyu's mouth twisted in a rare display of real emotion. "Your mother was very dear to me."
Her stomach growled, again. When was the last time she'd eaten?
"You must be famished, my lady. Come, come, let me serve you the best way I know how, with a hearty meal."
She unlocked the door and swept out of the office with them trailing behind, leading them to a secluded alcove. She took their orders personally, then left to prepare the meal with her own hands.
After a beat of silence in which Tseng stared at her, he opened his mouth and spoke. "Might I ask what your relationship is with Daiyu?" She thought his speculative frown might be curiosity.
She was momentarily surprised at his open question. "Yeah, you're probably bursting with questions. Okay, well, maybe not. You're never really bursting with anything, that I've noticed." Yuffie closed her mouth and attempted to get a handle on the nervous chattering.
He cleared his throat, arranged his chopsticks so that they were even straighter than they had been before, a feat which amazed Yuffie, and then asked, "How do you know her?"
"My mother," Yuffie started, then stopped when her eyes alighted on something in a far corner of the restaurant. By the waterfall, seemingly-engaged in a meal of steamed rice and meaty dumplings, sat a very familiar bald man. His leather gloves had been laid aside, resting neatly next to his chopsticks, the fingers curled slightly under as if tensed for action. The sunglasses on his nose were out of place in the dim restaurant. "Were you going to tell me you had Rude tailing us?"
He did not sit the way normal people did. Even now, Yuffie's foot bounced under the table, and she idly toyed with the corner of her napkin. Tseng, however rested one hand lightly on the table. The other vanished under the tablecloth. He was mostly still, but his eyes moved constantly around the room, rarely settling on her face for very long before jumping elsewhere. "I didn't think it was necessary."
"You don't think my guards, and me for that matter, are enough? Speaking of guards, who's watching Rufus?"
"There are members of the Turks outside of the ones AVALANCHE has battled," he supplied, ignoring her first question.
"Oh, wow, Rufus sent me his best," she said, struggling to keep her eyelashes in check. They so desperately needed to be batted.
"Rufus wishes to help me protect my young bride," Tseng said, and his voice curled and wrapped around the word "bride." She blinked and looked away from the sharp edge of his gaze.
"Whatever. If it makes you feel better to have baldy sliming around, then fine."
After a moment of silence, she groped for a way to salvage the conversation. "My mother found Daiyu in a brothel," she said, voice pitched low. It would not do for the general public to know of Daiyu's past, not after all she had done to earn her life as a successful business owner. "My mother used to disguise herself and sneak off into the city during the early days of her marriage to my dad. She was seventeen and Daiyu was fourteen when they met in one of the skeezier parts of the city."
Yuffie fiddled with the napkin in her lap, nervous. She had never told anyone about Daiyu—either folks knew about her, or they didn't.
"The way Daiyu tells it, Mom bought her freedom a few weeks later and took her back to the palace, where she put Daiyu to work in the kitchens as a maid. She was the best cook the palace ever had, and when she turned twenty, she set out to make a life for herself. After working in the palace, she opened the Jade Dragon and it turned into what you see today."
Tseng said, "It sounds like your mother was an interesting woman." His eyes seemed luminous in the light from the floating candle in the table's centerpiece.
"I didn't know her very well, but people tell me amazing stories," she said. She did not mention how that had been an obstacle for her as a teenager, living up to the phantom presence of her mother in Wutai. "Anyway, Daiyu was always around when I was little. She was a good friend of my mom's before she got sick."
"Is she dangerous?" he asked unexpectedly.
Yuffie's looked into Tseng's eyes. She took her napkin from her lap and placed it back on the table, then took a drink of water, still scanning the restaurant for anyone approaching. No one seemed to be paying attention to them, and they were out of hearing range anyway.
"Daiyu… knows people. She has connections that she's made… there's a reason the Jade Dragon stays untouched even though it's on the edge of some bad parts of town. I don't really know the extent of her contacts, though."
"Ah," Tseng said. "I see."
Daiyu had sworn she was not involved in any illegal activities when questioned by Gorki and, at a few points, Godo, but she did not readily reveal who supplied the intimidating bodyguards to her restaurant or the funding which jumpstarted her business in the first place. Yuffie suspected she had several ties in old-money families from back when she served in the brothels. Though Daiyu had never confirmed these notions, she had, once, delivered a secretive smile when Yuffie asked if she ever heard from any of her old clients or friends.
The meal was delicious, and Yuffie left feeling full and delighted. She stayed that way the entire car ride back to the palace. Upon returning to her rooms with Tseng, though, she remembered the possible attempt on her life, and her mood dampened a bit. Then she saw her giant, neatly-made bed, and barely restrained a groan.
A long night stretched out before her imagination.
She yawned and stretched. "Tseng, uh, this is gonna seem a little weird but could you, uh... could you get this thing off me?"
She turned her back to him, feeling oddly vulnerable as she displayed the complicated knot of her obi. She hastened to explain herself. "It's not meant for anyone but the groom to untie."
"Of course," Tseng murmured, and she felt him tugging at the tie. After a few moments of silence, in which she grew more and more tense with nothing but the enormous bed within her view, Tseng finally managed to free her from the knot.
"You can, ah, you can go to the bathroom and change if you like. But you have to spend the night here. The walls have eyes and ears, and if people don't see you staying here, they're going to talk. They don't have to know we're not actually enjoying our wedding night." She tamped down her embarrassment. I am an adult. "The staff put your clothes in the wardrobe earlier."
After he had disappeared into the bathroom, Yuffie scrambled out of her heavy wedding clothes, tossing them into the basket in her expansive closet for the maids to retrieve in the morning Then she high-tailed it into bed. She had just settled into the covers and rolled her face away from the door when Tseng reentered. She heard the rustle of cloth and felt the mattress dip.
"Good night," she muttered, turning the knob on the bedside lamp.
"Good night, Empress," he said, his voice lacking any sort of sarcasm. Yuffie winced in the darkness.
"You can just... call me Yuffie when no one else is here."
"All right."
Then she remembered something, and she sat ramrod straight in the bed. "Crap."
A subtle movement alerted her to Tseng beside her. His light clicked on, and she only just suppressed a yelp when he drew a gun from under his pillow. His eyes were locked on her.
"Uh," she croaked. "It's okay, I—sorry, I was just remembering something. You can put that gun away."
Holy Leviathan, do not startle the Turk, Yuffie. Duh. Slow, careful not to startle him, she planted her bare feet on the floor and crouched beside the bed in order to better reach between the mattresses. A dagger in an elaborate case followed her hand out, and she sat on the bed, withdrawing it from its sheath.
The light flashed off the blade as Tseng asked, "What are you doing?"
She wondered at his ability to sound so intimidating with such a silky voice. "I don't know how much you know about Wuteng culture, being out of the loop and all, but—"
"I know enough." He was not in the mood for games.
"Yeah, yeah, you know enough." In her anxiety, she cut the knife through the air with each gesture. "The point is: I don't think you know about consummation of marriages."
After she said it, she gathered her courage in a few short moments and finally laid eyes on him. His face looked tighter than usual, his mouth a slash in his skin. "Go on."
She took a deep breath, her lungs hurting with the effort. "Okay, so, here's the thing. They're going to look for evidence tomorrow that we consummated this marriage."
"Who is 'they'?" He sounded none too pleased.
"The head maid, most likely."
"What constitutes 'evidence'?"
"Blood. We're supposed to bump uglies, and I'm supposed to bleed like a little virgin bride, and then our marriage is air-tight. No one can contest it. I mean, they can kill you or me, ha ha, everyone knows that yippee hooray, but at least no one can contest it once I do... this."
On the last word, Yuffie pulled back the coverlet, cranked her sleeve very far up her arm, and slashed the underside of it with her dagger. Careful not to cut too deep, she let herself bleed on the sheets between them.
"Ah, shit," she said, again. "I mean crap. Rulers of Wutai shouldn't say shit, but I didn't pack any goddamn bandages for—"
"Be quiet." His voice dripped authority and disgust as he pried the knife from her quivering grip and squeezed her arm hard. "And be still."
Oh, he's mad. Hey, I'm the one bleeding here.
He set her dagger aside, on the bedside table, and cupped one hand under her arm to keep it from dripping on the covers. "Sorry," she said, and tears clawed at her eyes. It felt like years ago that her father had died before her, even though it had only been a few hours. She blinked and stared at the light beyond his shoulder as he ripped his sleeping robes into strips then laid the pieces on the bed.
"Do not ever," he said, his voice like Da Chao's fires, "keep information from me like this. I can't help you if I don't know what idiocy you're planning."
"You know, I'm not helpless," Yuffie said as she tried not to blub all over him. He held her arm in a firm grip as he bound it with the cloth strips.
He did not answer, and when her eyes darted to his face, his gaze collided with hers like a hammer. He was blazing mad, and she barely succeeded in not flinching.
"If you wish to stay alive long enough to help this pit of a country, then you will not keep your plans from me in the future. Now, hide that knife again and wash your hands."
"What about your torn robes? Will they think we just got a little too frisky?
"I'll take care of that. Now do what I said, and let this be a lesson to you."
Feeling like a put-out child, she slipped the dagger in its previous hiding place and headed for the bathroom. "Fine." At least I don't have to sleep in the wet spot.
When she returned and slipped into bed, he had turned the light out and was lying with his back to her. Yuffie did not know how long she stared into the darkness around them, the shadowy silhouettes of the furniture in her lavish room, the slight moonlight from the gauzy curtains at the window. Eventually, after she had long given up on forcing herself, she drifted off to sleep still acutely aware of his presence at her back.