The world was too vibrant for Sol's liking when he and Yuri emerged from the drainpipe and into the slums of Panamko. He almost wished he had another blindfold; light still filtered in through his own heavy bandanna, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut to avoid straining them. The boy fanned his fingers out, longing to feel them brush against someone else's. Tough luck, since Luma wasn't there with him and Yuri had one hand on his belt and the other was preoccupied with the sheath to his sword. He didn't have time to brood on the fact, though. He didn't have time to do much of anything...

"What's the plan, Yuri?" he asked lifting his blindfold and craning his neck to look the other in the eye.

"Oh, I'm calling the shots now?" Yuri asked, raising an eyebrow. "You seemed pretty keen on not following anyone's rules but your own a little while back."

Sol felt his cheeks grow warm. He let the bandanna fall back over his eyes with the soft thwack of skin-on-fabric and looked away.

"You know your way around here better than I do, is all." he mumbled around the inside of his cheek. "Prejudice aside, a blind man can't navigate a big city he's unfamiliar with..."

Yuri shrugged.

"Point taken." he sighed. "Fine, then. I need to drop by my house and pick something up. Wait here, come with with me...I don't care."

"I'll come with you." Sol said quickly, scrambling after Yuri and following him around the wall that enclosed most of the lower quarter.

'Unfamiliar with' had been an understatement; Sol had to cling to the wall to keep from falling over. He could swear that the city had something against visually impaired and downright klutzy people. The sidewalks were uneven slabs of concrete and dirt that tripped him up with every step he took. Everything was connected haphazardly with raised walkways and ramshackle staircases, and even though he could tell that Yuri was trying his best to make things easier for him, Sol was reluctant to walk at all.

—Skit No. 002: Cats Always Land on Their Feet...Right?—

"Ow!" Sol whimpered.

"Hey...are you alright?" Yuri asked.

"Yeah, I'm fi—shit!"

"Ow! H-hey! Let go of my hand!"

"No way! I can't move, Yuri!"

"Let go!"

"Fine..." Sol grumbled.

"Thank you." Yuri huffed in annoyance. "Come on, let's—Sol?"

"I can't get up..." Sol groaned.

"Aren't cats always supposed to land on their feet?" Yuri sighed.

—End Skit—

It wasn't without much embarrassing staggering around that Sol found himself leaning on the frame of Yuri's door. Even for a lower quarter house, Yuri's place was small. It was backed into the farthest corner of the lower quarter, behind one house and right underneath another. From the door, Sol was sure that if he wasn't so damn short, he could touch the opposite wall. There was a single window above Yuri's bed that looked out onto the empty streets below. Besides the bed, there was only one piece of furniture in the room, that being a wooden chest in the corner.

Sol cleared his throat nervously, endeavoring to resist the impulse to pace the room.

"We shouldn't stick around to long." he cautioned slowly. "What if those guards catch up to us?"

"We'll need to be ready to fight if that happens." Yuri replied over his shoulder as he rummaged through the chest. "I just need to find...there."

"What's that?" Sol asked, leaning forward as Yuri pulled something out from underneath an empty life bottle. "A Mystic Core...?"

"You fight with one, too, don't you?" Yuri asked in response, slamming the chest shut and pocketing the Core.

"Yeah..." Sol replied. "Yeah, I do. Bakeneko Core. I used to fight with a Phoenix Core, but using Light elemental attacks presented a problem."

"Fighting should be easier if we both have one." Yuri explained. He crossed the room in three strides, then paused and offered Sol his arm. "Let's head for Miri Woods, then."

"Scale of one to ten; how dark is it right now?"

"Nine, I'd say." Yuri answered flatly. "You should be fine without the blindfold. I can't even see all that well right now."

"Thanks." Sol muttered. His hands trembled with doubt and annoyance, so that the knot in the fabric held fast when he tried to undo it. The second time he tried, his fingers slipped and he stabbed his right palm with a nail.

"You need help?" the swordsman asked in amusement, bringing his hand halfway over his mouth to mask a poorly suppressed chuckle. Sol gritted his teeth, trying to ignore the remark, and accidentally yanked a strand of his own ivory hair in his haste. After a moment, he surrendered and pulled his hair out of the way of the nape of his neck. Yuri undid the knot effortlessly, and with one hand.

"Th...thank you." he huffed, trying not to sound annoyed. He bawled up the bandanna and shoved it up his sleeve, frowning when he felt a tear in his right glove.

"No problem." Yuri replied nonchalantly.

Sol frowned, bunching up the cuffs of his coat sleeves in his fists.

"S-so, um..." he swallowed awkwardly. "What are we supposed to do now? It's only a matter of time before the Panamko guards come after us."

"Don't you think I know that?" Yuri countered. "Look, we'll be safe as long as we keep a low profile. Hiding out here will give us plenty of time to plan ahead and restock. Besides, you need to learn how to fight if you want to find that friend of yours."

"Oh..." Sol murmured, at a loss.

Yuri's irritated expression softened.

"It's getting late. We should set up camp here. We can start looking for your friend in the morning. Gather some firewood, will you?"

"No need." Sol breathed. "I can start a fire. Magic, remember?"

"Magic...? Sol, you aren't an elf, are you?"

A look of fear crossed Sol's face. He bunched up the hem of his coat, letting his hazy carmine gaze dart around, never meeting Yuri's. His visage betrayed more than he had hoped; he fucked up pretty badly this time.

"E-elves aren't the only ones who can use magic, you know." he croaked. "Traditionally, that was the case, but there are others...there are humans with the magic gene. Mutants, they are. Celestial beings, too! And people who learned it from elves who were willing to teach. And...and..."

"And half-elves?" Yuri offered.

Sol was silent for a long moment.

"You...you can't tell anyone." he whispered finally, leaning on a tree to steady himself.

"They only kill half-elves on the other side of the border." Yuri pointed out. "As long as we stay—"

"Don't, Yuri. Don't even say it. Just promise me I'm safe with you!"

"Fine, fine." Yuri agreed. "I wouldn't gain anything by selling you out, anyway." he paused. Then; "You probably shouldn't use magic unless you have to, though. Not everyone is dumb enough to overlook a detail like that."

"Yeah...I got it." Sol sighed. "Firewood, then."

"Nah, wait." Yuri cut in. "I trust you with this one."

Sol glanced at the man for confirmation, then grinned a catlike grin. He twirled his yo-yo once, conjuring a flame small enough to burn safely.

"Fireball!"

Yuri hummed his approval and sat on the ground by the fire. He patted the ground next to him in an invitation, and Sol glanced away.

"Actually," he declined, pulling at his blood-and-sweat-stained clothes, "we passed a river a little while back. I'm going to head back that way to bathe, if you don't mind."

"I'll come, too, then." Yuri yawned, jumping to his feet.

"Alright..." Sol agreed reluctantly. He gave the ground by the fire one last wistful look before unbuttoning his jacket and starting off towards the river.

Bathing had seemed like a much better idea when Sol wasn't peering into the dark water from the pebbly shore and trying to calculate how deep it was.

The half-blood sat up slowly and eased off his gloves, setting them down at the water's edge. He seemed almost regretful to shrug off his tank-top and fold it neatly next to his gloves. He darted a cautious hand out and slapped the surface of the water. It rippled magnificently, and he pulled his hand away.

"Are you going in, or not?" Yuri asked, setting his sword down under a bush.

"Yeah, of course." Sol replied too quickly, lining his boots up with his gloves and starting on his jeans. (He would cast those aside, if he had to, but there was no way in was taking off his shorts.) When he finally took the garment off, Yuri snickered softly behind him.

"What's so funny?" Sol demanded.

"Your socks." Yuri managed in amusement. Sol looked down, confused, then flushed red as he realized his error. He quickly yanked the long, pink-and-black socks down his legs and kicked them off, letting them fly in some direction or another.

"They're not mine." he lied, shuffling his bare feet in the dirt. "They're my friend's."

"Your boyfriend's?" Yuri teased.

"No! Why would a boy own women's socks—oh."

"That's the part you object to." Yuri remarked with a roll of his eyes.

Sol ignored his temporary traveling partner and slid feet-first into the river. He had to cling to the banks to keep from going under or being swept away by the relatively calm current. His attempts to look uncaring only seemed to add to Yuri's enjoyment of the situation, and he gave up completely.

"Do you not know how to swim, or something?" Yuri asked as he slid in next to Sol, who took the inquiry as an insult and ignored it. When he didn't receive an answer, Yuri shrugged and dropped the subject.

"There was never anyone to teach me." Sol said finally.

"Hm?"

"To swim, I mean."

"No one, huh? Well, sounds like a story for another day."

"I guess." Sol agreed, pulling his jacket into the water with one hand, and, bracing his shoulders against the riverbank, trying to scrub the stains out of the heavy fabric. The last rays of sunlight were fading from the gaps between tree branches above, and Sol could finally see to the best of his ability—not that it mattered much, seeing as how the two probably wouldn't be doing much traveling in the darkness.

He gave up on washing the filth from his clothes after a moment and started on his skin. He doubted that water alone would do the dried blood and dirt on his arms very much good, but he scrubbed at them with his fingernails anyway. When he reached his shoulders, he paused. The boy considered asking Yuri to help him wash his back, then thought better of it with a small grin. The last thing he needed was for the other outlaw to get the wrong idea and mistake Sol's feigned naivete for attraction.

He scrambled out of the river after a failed attempt at scrubbing his back, cold and trembling, and pulled his damp coat back on. Yuri followed after a moment, and Sol turned away, blushing feverishly as he dressed.

"We should go back now." Yuri yawned once both were fully clothed. He turned to leave, but Sol stopped him with a gloved hand on his shoulder. There was a fire in his red eyes that wasn't usually there; a determination.

"Wait, Yuri." he murmured, looking the other right in the eyes and sneering. "We might have to fight soon, and if I can't defend myself, then...I won't always get lucky. If I'm going to keep this up, then I'll need to get stronger. Yuri..." His bracers slid over his wrists with a soft click. He held his arms in front of him, locked in a fighting stance. "Fight me."

Yuri looked almost surprised for a moment. Then, he took a step back and drew his sword in both hands.

"As you wish." he agreed with a smirk, staring right back into Sol's eyes. He slid one foot forward, and their blades clashed.

The night faded with the clink of metal-on-metal.