He walked, head angled slightly against the lightly blowing rain, eyes lowered and dark. He'd been walking—perhaps running, more aptly—for a while now, sandals scraping against the dirt of the road that led down towards the shore, some ways away from the center of town. The salt hung thick in the air, and he could feel it on his skin. He shrugged, trying to loosen his muscles, glancing around and everywhere with the half-trained eyes of someone extraordinarily skilled. He sensed no threat, no looming specter of police or half-annoyed soldier come to try their luck. It was better this way, though he missed—dearly missed—the clatter of blades and the dank smell of old blood sometimes. The rushing, heady sensation that he was alive, full in his flesh and bones and skin. He wondered, every now and again, when he caught a half-glimpse and thought it was them—but it never was, their roads had separated days and months, maybe years, ago, surely they could not already be running back into each other?—whether something was really very wrong with him. That he could only feel his life burn in his veins when he cut through others like they were paper talismans, burning in the kitchen fire, carrying prayers towards an unhearing deity. And then somehow, the fight—the dark specter of his hunger—would find him, and he'd cut, and burn, and throw all his doubts into the deep, to be left for another day, another night, and another bottle.

He remembered two things, very vividly, and they seared his closed eyes whenever he swayed and ducked and half-danced his way through his bloodlust and his battle—the black crows come to pull at his prone body, and the white sky beneath him and blue ocean above. Maybe he fought to see them again, to feel the half-lingering presence of death standing watch over him. He had clawed his way away once, been called back once—though he'd never let her know that, in his unspoken embarrassment—and now he could never forget them. Maybe he was a ghost, and maybe he would never die. Either theory seemed worth testing.

But, those two. He looked up, at the gently rolling waves, the boat with its metal-tipped prow anchored at the dock, and exhaled. He still had some shore time left, before they would send someone to drag him back (or he absconded, as was usually his wont), and here he was, back at the sea instead. Memory played across his eyes, and the flicker of their forms lingered in his gaze as he stared dully towards the darkening horizon. He wondered what happened to them, whether they were safe, whether they were happy. It was a strange feeling, one he wasn't quite used to, and didn't know what to do about. How do you send good wishes to someone—silently, through the air and water, through the land itself? How do you let them know, that in their happiness, in the fact that they live, you find your peace? It was confusing, it demanded action, and what action he could do—right now, running away from the annoyances of authority like he always did—was limited. He scowled, and cursed aloud, startling the fishermen who'd just pulled in for the day. They glanced quizzically at him, as they yelled out to the women waiting on shore with their baskets and started to unload their shining catches. He didn't bother to look. They would be afraid, and he would not care. So the world went.

He couldn't remember mourning many people—he had lived where they died, and figured life itself was gift enough. He drank, and he dreamt—sometimes of them, sometimes of the crows, sometimes of the two blurring together in a hazy wash. He woke, and he lived, and he felt their presence linger just beneath his consciousness-leaking through to his waking mind when he caught a glimpse of a flying squirrel in the autumnal trees, when he broke down the door of an abandoned dojo and slept on the floor, smelling the years and years of toil pressed into its rotting wood. And he missed them, and he wished they were happy, and too often for his liking, he wished he could find them. Could make sure that they were there in the world, just so that his own presence, as ghostly and wandering as it seemed to be, would be anchored to this life. He didn't want the crows to claim him.

Not yet, anyways.

He pushed a hand into his pocket, pulled out some silver and copper coins—and one large gold coin—counting out in a low tone. Some of this was his own—what he'd grabbed out of the week's loot onboard, at any rate—some of it was stolen, most of it was spent. He still wasn't quick with the figures, but this would be enough to sustain him for a day or two. He glanced back at the boat, idly wondering if he should make his soon-to-be absence known, and rolling his shoulders back, yawned loudly, jaws stretching like an anxious tiger's. He breathed in the heavy salt air again—the familiarity of it soothing him slightly—and began to walk, limbs loose, the scrape of his sandals seeming to echo across the shoreline. He had a sharp sense of direction, one that he'd honed working with the thieves and living out on the banks with the river gypsies, and his intuition led him up and away from the water, away from the scrappy life that had sustained him for this long. He would come back to it, he supposed, but now he had to settle the strange hunger in his heart, the sustained calling for another road, and—he slowly began to recognize—the sharp longing for those familiar faces.

He heard a high keening whistle, and the annoyed yells of policemen, along with, he realized, the raspy shouts of the innkeeper whose front doors he'd smashed clean through running away with the contents of a fellow customer's purse. He grinned, whistled and ran towards them, blood pumping in excitement, brain blinded in glee. He knew his road now, and was all the more pleased for it. He drew his sword, whip-fast, and waltzed through them, his mind blanked, a dervish amongst the devout. His arms and legs moved lazily, knowingly, as he went, topsy-turvy, his hands as agile as his feet, sometimes quicker, and when he woke from his dream, the innkeeper was out cold, one of the policemen was sliced clean through, and the other had wisely kept back, and was bandaging his comrade.

He rubbed the back of his head, feeling the hard bruise under his hair from where the innkeeper's ring-laden fist had managed to land. The dirt was thick in his hair, and his hands were scuffed and scarred, more akin to his feet. He had done well for himself, he thought approvingly. He cocked his head, summing up the single survivor, and deeming him to be of no threat, left, heading towards the main road. It would be a while before reinforcements were sent. The police out in these parts were mostly volunteer, mostly understaffed, mostly cover for the gangs running illegal drugs down to the port. He smiled, still feeling the rush of his blood pumping madly in his veins, and hoped—with little reason—that he would find them soon.