The time had come to see her friends off. She had a country to run, and they had lives to get back to. Tseng had vanished to his room earlier that morning when he understood her intentions to bid them goodbye. She was more than a little grateful for his discretion.
If he spent all his time conveniently out of sight, she might just get used to married life.
Yuffie had taken AVALANCHE to the palace grounds, where the Shera waited for them to board. The hulking metal ship seemed like a strange beast amid the faded splendor of Wutai. In the background, Da Chao towered over their group as they stood in front of the boarding dock.
"Cid, you old coot," Yuffie said, slapping him on the shoulder. "Don't get cancer and cark it, okay? I'll be really pissed if you do."
"Not really much chance of that now," he said, the end of a toothpick suffering mutilation between his teeth. "Shera ain't lettin' me smoke anymore. And if she catches me doin' it, she whups my crusty old ass." He studied her in her royal regalia, his blue eyes softening a bit. "Hey, kiddo. You gonna be okay with that guy? I'm real sorry 'bout your pop and all."
She opened her mouth to reassure him that she would be fine but found she had to close it again as tears welled up in her eyes.
He reached out in a show of affection she'd rarely seen from the gruff pilot and ruffled her hair with his work-roughened hands. "Ah, who am I kiddin'?" He laughed, the sound breaking just a bit in the middle. "You're gonna kick ass, Yuff. And when you find out who poisoned your pa, you just call me up and we'll make some plans, all right?"
She nodded, then stumbled forward into his open arms, breathing in the smell of smoke-stained leather, airship fuel, and men's soap. He hugged her hard enough to make her vertebrae crack, then set her back down with a pat on the head. When he had moved aside, Barret stepped forward.
Barret was next. He grinned and jerked his head at Cid. "He's gettin' sentimental in his old age," he chuckled. He swooped in on her and picked her clear up off the ground with the ease of someone used to caring for a little girl. "Don't be a stranger. Marls'll need a babysitter sometime."
"Thanks, Barret," she whispered. I can't start crying now, or I'll flood all of Wutai by the time they're gone.
Cloud did not need to embrace her the way Cid and Barret had. Yuffie saw it all in his eyes, deep as the blue sea around her island home. He looked upon her with a mixture of pride and affection. "I guess this is 'bye for now."
"Got any epic parting lines, Spikey?"
He reached out one hand and laid it heavily on her shoulder. "You know where to reach me."
"Yeah," she rasped. "Yeah, I do."
"Don't hesitate to call." His smile widened until she saw the faintest flash of teeth, and then he was gone.
Reeve squeaked his way to her in his shiny leather shoes. He half-winced, half-smiled, like an awkward teenager, and melancholy surged within her. She nearly tackled him in her haste to give him a hug, and he laughed when he got his breath back, circling her with his arms. "Hey, I know I said I was sorry before, in the gardens," he started, but she pulled back and socked him in the arm before he could finish.
"Shut up, Reeve," she said. "I'm starting to think maybe you've saved my life. So don't apologize, you big idiot."
He smiled then, his boyish face lighting up with relief, and he stepped out of her arms. "Keep in touch, okay? We'll do lunch soon, and you can tell me all about how much more paperwork you have to do than me."
"We'll have a paperwork contest, and I'll win," she agreed.
Nanaki padded up behind Reeve on silent cat-feet and nudged Yuffie's hand with his head. She threaded her hands through his mane and said, "Thanks, Nan."
"No thanks are necessary, Yuffie. I will visit again as soon as my duties in Cosmo Canyon allow."
"Don't be a stranger, you big lug."
He rumbled in his throat, a feline chuckle, and then licked her hand with his rough tongue. "I am the last individual you have to worry about being a stranger, my friend. Be well." He slipped under her fingertips and away, his silky fur greatly missed under her skin.
"Yuffie," Vincent said with a voice like old velvet, "when you need me, I will be here. Call me when the time comes."
"How do you know I'll need you, huh?" She lifted one slim eyebrow. "Gettin' a little too big for your leather britches there, Vince."
He smiled then, a slow creep across his face that took her breath away in its purity. "Take care of yourself. Find who killed your father, but..." Here his voice trailed away into thoughtfulness before continuing. "Listen to someone with experience. Do not let revenge obscure your view of the world. Help your country and live."
Vincent brushed his fingertips down the back of her hand and left her with Tifa. Yuffie's face crumpled then, her last bit of resolve deserting her, and Tifa gathered her up and soothed a hand across her back.
"It isn't goodbye forever, you know," she murmured. "I mean, I have to come back and make sure Tseng's treating you like royalty. And we have to bring Marlene and Denzel when the place is safe again. Which reminds me. Yuffie, please, be careful. Someone's out for you, and whoever they are, they got your dad already."
She sniffled into Tifa's hard shoulder, then pulled back, wiping her eyes and nodding fiercely. "I'll make them pay what they did to my pops."
She chucked a hand under Yuffie's chin, her eyes flinty. "I know you will, your highness. Call me soon, yeah? Or I'll chew my fingers off worrying."
"I will."
And with that, the last of them was gone, leaving her in a lavish, rug-strewn room with her guards and herself. She wondered: what now? Trailing back to her rooms to spend the rest of the day in a lonely stupor—she figured she deserved at least one day off from all this madness—she decided.
First thing's first. She had to find her father's killer.
And when she found them, she'd make them regret ever crossing her.
Finding Godo's killer was proving to be more difficult than she had initially imagined. Staniv and Gorki had no more information to report to her about who had poisoned Godo. They only knew that the poison was an old one, favored by the courts back when Wutai was a flourishing empire a hundred years previous. More than one member of the old royal families had been taken by this poison.
Gorki's forensics team had done an adequate job deciphering the available information. The poison was created from the crushed stamen of a rare flower called the Osai Kurayami. Records indicated its decline had occurred due to aggressive harvesting, and it could hardly be found these days. Staniv had little to offer her from the official records—most information about the flower and its poison had been destroyed in the years following its decline, to ensure it could not be used again.
But somebody remembered the Osai Kurayami. Whoever they were, they had access to records that even Yuffie's palace did not possess. She thought if she could uncover where the information had come from, she might be one step closer to finding her father's killer. If Shinra hadn't burned their libraries during the war, she might know where to start.
With no leads and no suspects, she had nowhere to go but the council chamber, where she would accomplish other goals while she waited for a trail to emerge.
"What I'm saying to you is, we're not gonna get away with it this early in the game." To emphasize her point, Yuffie slapped her open hand on the thick table. It made a nice noise to accompany her fervor.
"There's simply no money for this unless we raise taxes on the rich," Chekhov said, for the third time.
Eyes flashing, Yuffie rounded on the older woman. "So you've said. But do you really think we'll be able to do that without rioting in the streets?"
"Or more assassins in the palace," Shake muttered.
"And has it occurred to you, your highness," Staniv drawled, "that for the first few months, the Eastern agricultural buyers are going to purchase our crops for a pittance? Quality has been so poor in past years that they are not likely to pay correct prices until our farmers prove their mettle."
Yuffie massaged her temples, the cloth of her kimono grinding between her elbows and the wood of the table. "Believe it or not, yeah. I've thought of it."
"If you don't raise the taxes on the wealthy, then your only other sources are the middle class and the poor. Mostly the poor, considering they are the greater number here, Empress." Chekhov's sharp eyes glittered from their bed of crows' feet.
"Again—rioting in the streets."
"The rich it is, then," Gorki concluded, obviously tired of the argument.
They had been pursuing this topic for nearly an hour. Yuffie insisted the only way to bolster agriculture in Wutai, and, therefore trade, would be to supply the farmers with equipment that had not been obsolete for twenty years. However, their coffers were already low. More cobwebs took up residence there than gil, these days. The logical course of action would be to raise taxes, but the target of these tax increases would not be pleased. She and her council would have to choose carefully.
After a moment of looking over her counsel wearily, Yuffie deflated. "Fine. The rich it is. If we're all in favor, this concludes today's meeting."
So, after a long day of endeavoring to meet her own guidelines of do not fall asleep in front of The Five Mighty Gods and stop drumming your nails on the table in front of Tseng, Yuffie looked forward to getting some much-needed rest.
She knew it would never be that easy, though. She thought constantly of the man asleep next to her. She had been a tossing, restless sleeper once upon a time, but that had gone the way of the Ancients—along with her own room in a little house on the outskirts of town.
"Good night, Tseng."
"Good night, Empress."
Try as she might, she could not get used to his constant formality. She didn't imagine "Yuffie" spilling from his lips would suit him any better, but "Empress" was grandiose, and "my lady" rubbed her the wrong way.
Sleeping in a bed with Tseng for the second night in a row, however, seemed just as impossible as the first night. After struggling to sit still for more than an hour, she thought she might go for a walk. Tseng's breathing deepened as she used nearly two decades of ninja training to sneak from the bed without waking him. It took her three quick steps to get to her slippers, and then she was out in the hallway closing the door as gingerly as possible.
The knob clicked into place almost soundlessly, and she almost went boneless with relief. She had snuck away without waking the head of the Turks. Still got it, baby.
In various hidey-holes around the palace, Yuffie had stashes of equipment intended for different purposes. Lock picks in one false-bottom drawer, dark clothing in a moving wall panel in the wine room. One thing her father had always told her was to be prepared.
Really, she just wanted to take a rooftop stroll through Wutai. She knew if Tseng found out, he'd be Da Chao levels of furious, but her feet itched. The news of her father's poisoning had not quite stopped circling her mind like a Giant Hornet.
She picked up boots and clothes from behind a particularly ugly painting of her great grandmother Akane Kisaragi, then headed for her secret roof exit. The night air was like a cool hand on her face. It smelled like winter approaching.
She would need to hang from the second story to drop into the gardens. Before she could make the move, Yuffie spotted movement in a far corner. She squinted, wondering if she'd imagined it. With the recent attempts on her life, she didn't want to take any chances.
The light of the crescent moon did little but accentuate the shadows among the foliage. Wait. There. Scaling the wall. She wasn't sure how he'd gotten past her guards, but she'd catch him for sure. Would it be another attempt on her life, or was this person escaping in search of some sort of information?
This person might have something to do with Godo's death. She slithered on her belly to the edge of the roof, praying she wouldn't be too loud on the drop.
By the time she hit ground, the intruder was over the wall. She only caught a glimpse of him as she scrambled up and over, managing to scratch her knees up in the process. She followed as quietly into the trees surrounding the garden wall, being as careful as possible not to break any twigs.
She tracked the sneak from the forest at the back of the palace and into the where the trees broke for cityscape. Maybe twenty minutes passed as he weaved through quiet residential streets where almost no one roamed. The first time she lost him around a corner, she found him again. The second time, he took a curve ahead of her and when she followed, she found herself at a crossroads of more than three different roads and alleyways into the heart of the city, where people were starting to show.
Yuffie could not find him, and she was just about to turn around and go back to her rooms disappointed when a hand clamped down on her wrist from the shadows. She hadn't screamed in surprise in years, so instead she swung her body into a strike toward her assailant's legs.
Deftly, her attacker dodged in the dark, pulling her further into the shadowed area of the alley. Her other wrist was seized as she went for the throwing star in her breast pocket. She reared back to try for a headbutt.
"Be still."
Tseng's voice cut through her struggle like a knife. She froze. She could just make out his features in the dark.
"How did you find me?" she whispered.
"I followed you from the room when you left."
She was disgusted with herself for being caught, and for being somewhat intimidated by Tseng. She might have thrown him off, but his grip was like iron. "I really need to quit underestimating you."
"And I need to quit underestimating your eagerness to put yourself in danger." He turned her toward the palace. With a deft twist, she extricated herself from his grip and managed to put some distance between them. He stood opposite her, his face stony. "Come back to the palace."
"I'm in the middle of something." She walked closer and tried to sidestep him. At this rate, she'd be lucky if she could pick up the trail again. "I should get back to it."
"You shouldn't be here alone."
"I'm perfectly capable of handling this on my own."
He pushed past her in the direction he had come from. "Then what am I here for?"
She considered his position. Yuffie wanted so badly to disregard his feelings and continue her search, but… the intruder was long gone, it was late, and she really was at risk by herself. And was she imagining it, or did Tseng seem miffed she had ditched him?
She frowned and ran to catch up with him. His steps slowed somewhat, and they walked side by side in silence.
Finally, Yuffie said. "I wanted to be alone, and I saw him leaving the garden. I didn't think, I just followed him."
"I was under the impression that your safety was of importance to you. Apparently, I was mistaken."
She sagged. "You're right. I'm sorry."
"Do you want to die before you find your father's murderer?"
Okay, now he sounded like her father. She felt her issues with authority bubbling up and had to bite her tongue. "I get it," she said tersely.
This seemed to satisfy him, for he lapsed into silence. She followed him through the woods like a shadow, impressed by how quietly he moved across the debris-strewn forest floor. She didn't recognize the clothes he was wearing, and she realized he had stuffed stashed in a hidey-hole of his own somewhere.
The guards at the main path to the palace looked shocked to see the two of them as they approached. As their eyes flicked between her and Tseng, wide, she knew this would be all over the palace by morning.
"I really have to get a better re-entrance strategy," Yuffie muttered, and to her surprise, Tseng laughed. Short but definitely amused. After that, their walk to the rooms seemed far less tense, and they took turns undressing and slipping into bed as if it were old habit.
That night, she had no trouble falling asleep despite Tseng's presence.
.
Over the next week or so, Yuffie and Tseng fell into a sort of awkward routine. They moved clumsily around each other, managing mostly to keep to themselves. Despite this, Yuffie still could not get accustomed to sharing a bed with Tseng. Most nights, she fell asleep with no trouble after exhausting days in the council room, on the phone to diplomats and Reeve, arranging finances for the palace with Staniv, and countless other mind-numbing activities. She was starting to understand how important it could be for a ruler to have, if not a loving partner, a trusted confidante. She wished she could have just married Tifa. At least then I could have awesome, not-poisoned fried chicken for Thursday dinner.
Yuffie had thought that maybe her respite would come in the form of sleep each night. Of all things, sleep seemed the easiest to her, a brief escape from new stresses, old stresses, and a hoard of expectations pressing at her mind morning, noon, and night. If she could curl into the sweet embrace of sleep, she could stop thinking for at least a few hours.
However, even just getting ready for bed in the evening was unsettling. By the middle of the week, she had managed to get a privacy screen installed so they could change without playing the bathroom shuffle. Even this, which seemed relatively simple, made her tense. Add the lack of conversation between them, and she felt on edge. She was usually the first back in the room, Tseng arriving from his office and going straight to the shower in the connecting bathroom. Yuffie would sit in bed and fidget, endeavoring not to think about the fact that there was a rather attractive (if cold, stiff, and ruthless) man naked behind the door.
Her novels hadn't helped; most of them were trashy romance stuff. All the lurid descriptions of quivering flesh just made her blush now that she didn't have a room to herself. Her only recourse was to sit on the bed picking nervously at her nails until he emerged, changed, and asked politely if she was ready to "retire."
Some nights she would lie awake and stare at the canopy above their bed, at the beautiful embroidery done by some ancestor of hers, and she would be unable to take her mind off the fact that any tossing or turning would disturb her bedmate. Yuffie had been a restless sleeper her entire life, flinging herself about in any manner of positions throughout the night. Often, she would wake with her head where her feet had been upon falling asleep. There was no way of knowing if she still did so now, but she wondered at times if her childhood habit of conversing in her sleep might have carried over into adulthood.
The third night, she woke thrashing from dreams of her father dying in front of her, his skin withering from his bones and his eyes bursting from his sockets like overripe grapes. Sweat cooled on every inch of her body, soaking her nightclothes, and her hair stood in all directions.
When she relaxed a bit, she noticed Tseng watching her, the tension easing from his body slowly. He looked ready to spring into action, and she breathed out her terror. She was learning that the slightest unusual movement would send Tseng reaching for the handgun under his pillow.
"Sorry. Nightmares."
He didn't ask what they were about, nodding instead. Before she turned completely over to drift back to sleep, his voice met her ears. "You might try clearing your mind completely before falling asleep."
After a moment, she said, "Thank you." He didn't reply.
As she got comfortable again, she had half-formed images of him shooting her out of surprise one night and resolved herself to getting little rest in the coming days.
.
Her first attempt to enter the public sphere in a casual manner was a mistake. The press had been lenient in the wake of her father's death and funeral, but they fell on her like a pack of dogs when she tried to step out to Turtle Paradise for a drink.
"Your highness, do you believe the rumors about your new husband's supposed loyalty to the underground Shinra move—"
She didn't know where to go. They had surrounded her in seconds. She was suddenly nervous in the press of bodies.
"—heard that AVALANCHE has not spoken to you since you married a dog of the—"
"Rumor has it that you have a bun in the oven, your majesty. What do you have to say about that?"
Staniv and Chekhov ushered Yuffie back into the palace after their recent outing into the city, dodging and weaving through the throng of reporters like experts. She didn't know where they came from.
"Hey, Staniv," she said, the tightness of her voice belying her calm face, "how come Godo ruled for thirty years and no one gave a shit about him?"
"Because you are making changes, my lady. The world watches Wutai once more."
.
Next to Tseng's choice of reading—what looked like a chess strategy manual—Yuffie's A Fistful of Kisses seemed a little, well, embarrassing. She did her best to hide the cover from him as she read, but Tseng never looked up from his page.
"I don't know how you can be so absorbed in that," she muttered, feeling sullen. Reading had never been her first choice on a list of Super Special Fun Things to Do in Wutai.
He spared her a brief glance. "I don't know how you can be so absorbed in that."
She lifted her chin a bit, but he didn't notice. She missed her father suddenly, like an ache that went down to her bones. For all their problems, he would've teased back and forth with her. She had fond memories of their playful arguments. There was none of that banter with Tseng.
Just that day, she had passed him in the hallway, each heading to some separate destination in their business. He had met her eyes but not said a word, even as she struggled with how to react to such a mundane occurrence as meeting her own husband in the hallway. Should she wave? Say good afternoon? No, she never said good afternoon. And why wave if they were going to pass two feet from each other?
As he passed, she lifted her right hand, then halted, caught by her own indecision. A stunted half-wave issued from her disobedient limb, and she grimaced more than smiled. He had simply nodded to her and continued striding confidently, efficiently through the hall. After he had disappeared out of sight, Yuffie had paused to bang her head against the wall for a full thirty seconds.
The only other person she had had so much trouble communicating with before Tseng was Vincent, and her solution to that had been climbing all over him, asking too many questions, and stealing his materia at every interval. It hadn't worked very well at all, really, and she doubted she could get away with it at twenty-five like she had at sixteen.
She fell asleep wondering how hard it would be to learn chess.
.
"Our special guest today, for the first time ever, is the White Rose of Wutai!"
Exuberant applause sounded as Yuffie stepped from the back halls and onto the stage. The bright lamps beat down on her in her kimono, and she felt a bead of sweat trickle down her back. She tried not to look directly at any one of the hundreds of audience members.
Three steps took her across the small space to the cushy blue chair awaiting her. Opposite her sat Wutai's most popular daytime talk show host, Mori. He was middle-aged, but he had a youthful face. He had a round, boyish face and a quick smile, with a thick mop of dark hair. Wutai loved Mori.
When his representatives called Staniv to set up an interview with her, she didn't think twice.
"How are you today, Lady Kisaragi?"
She swallowed, trying not to feel nervous. She thought her plans were solid, and she had thought a bit about what he might ask her. Mori could be sharp when it came to guests with whom he disagreed, but she knew enough from watching his sow to feel that he would support her endeavors. He often donated to charity, and had founded an organization for housing orphan children.
"I'm doing great, Mori, how about yourself?"
"Splendid! Let's get straight to business so we don't run out of time today, as I'm sure we have lots of audience questions for you. Would you mind telling us about your plans for renovation to the education system in Wutai?"
"Well, you see, I have this idea that our education system here is a little backward. I think we sometimes place too great an emphasis on tradition." At the collective intake of breath, Yuffie smiled with great cheer out at the audience. "Oh, no, no, please don't get me wrong. Tradition is Wutai's bread and butter. Tradition makes us strong. But in these modern times with our fast technology, I think it's important to have courses on global relations and the global economy. After all, in a way, aren't we all living under the same roof?"
"Splendid ideas, your highness. Now could you tell us about…"
.
"What's it like, sleeping next to him?" Though it was clear Shake attempted to sound nonchalant and conversational, his voice could not quite hide the vitriol.
"Like sleeping next to anyone else," she said. "Chill out."
After a moment of tense silence, Shake said, "Does he ever touch—"
She threw her bowl of noodles in his face and boxed him on the ears, ashamed and triumphant at his howls of pain.
.
Yuffie debated with herself. Ask him to pass the soup, like a polite human being with good breeding and a modicum of sense, or save herself the awkwardness and just reach over him instead. Of course, she'd have to go to the trouble of tying up her fancy sleeves so they wouldn't drag through the bright red sauce on his chicken. Yuffie thought she really should never wear white, considering she always ruined it, either by her own hands or by cosmic mishap.
To ask, or not to ask? Surely it wouldn't spark conversation, but that was the problem. She wanted to spark conversation with him. Trouble was, nothing she said seemed to interest him. He was always either reading at the dinner table—files, books, official-looking documents—or staring so thoughtfully into his food she thought it might catch fire. Which would be a waste of the Jade Dragon's chef's talents.
After debating far too long, Yuffie rose, walked to around Tseng to his other side, picked up the serving bowl, and returned to her seat.
Finally, he looked at her, his eyes torn from the open file in front of him. "You need only ask me to pass it."
She shrugged. "Didn't want to bother you."
Mockingly, he said, "Would you pass the dumplings?" After she complied, he said, "You have something on your sleeve."
She sighed, feeling like a three-year-old caught in an adult's body.
.
Daiyu welcomed Yuffie first with a bow, then with a private embrace behind the doors of her office. She traced her clever fingers over the bags under Yuffie's eyes and frowned as she tipped her queen's head up by the chin.
"I have heard," she said quietly, "what you plan to do with the school system. I am truly impressed."
Yuffie clutched her temples. "Can we not talk about business here? Please?"
"Very well. How is your husband?"
"Can we not talk about my husband either?"
Daiyu nodded, her glossy black hair swinging over her shoulders. "What is your desire, my lady?"
"Call me Yuffie, and give me another hug."
.
In frustration, she threw her makeup across the room with window-rattling force. Compacts and cases and wells of color burst and starfished across the wall. She studied the beautiful splatter and resolved not to wear makeup anymore.
"I will call the maid," Tseng said, having entered a moment after her outburst, his body drawn tight for possible danger.
"Leave it."
He watched her for a moment, then bowed out. "As you wish, my lady."
.
Yuffie's finger lingered on her cell phone in the dim light of an abandoned hallway. She hovered over the glowing "3" on the numpad, contemplating speed-dialing Reeve. She imagined what she might say to him. Or maybe Tifa, just one number away at 4.
Hey, Reeve. How've you been? Oh, me? Well, I've got no one to talk to, and I don't think I've ever been so lonely in my entire life. Wutai's poor as hell, my dad's been murdered, and I'm constantly under the public eye. Me and Tseng are getting along great. I'm totally fine!
Instead of calling anyone, she put her head between her knees and stared at the carpet. For a long time, her eyes followed the swirl and swing of the beautiful, nonsensical pattern. She couldn't summon the energy required for tears.