Junko was taking things far better than most of the Joe team were. She was good at listening, and she'd spent hours listening to the men and women of Tommy's unit talking quietly amongst themselves. She didn't have Tommy's ears, but she still heard enough to know that the Joe team were worried. They had jobs to do, after all, and families and friends and all sorts of ties at home, not to mention the fact that without them, it would be far easier for Cobra Commander to wreak havoc on a large scale.
They didn't even know how they'd gotten here. And even though they skirted the issue…they said things like 'when we get home', and 'when we figure this out', and 'if we got here we can get back'…underneath every conversation that was the almost unspoken question of what if we don't get back.
And that question was scaring them. Junko could even see it in Tommy; she knew that little wrinkle between his eyebrows.
Junko, on the other hand, had no family. She'd had acquaintances and women she was friendly with at the geisha house, but they'd never been exactly friends. She remembered a couple of the other women thinking her strange for religiously keeping up her martial arts training in the garden.
But they all probably thought her dead now. Really, the only strong tie she had left was Tommy, and he was here too. All in all, for her this hadn't been the worst thing in the world.
Still, she felt out of place. The men and women of the Joe team were a tightly knit unit, one that functioned as flawlessly as a well-tuned engine. Everyone on the team knew everyone else. Everyone on the team knew their roles without being told. Three hundred individuals, each on their own odd to the point of being startling (Seriously, one of them had an eagle, and dressed like every stereotype of Native Americans she'd ever seen). Still, when under stress, they locked together into one smoothly functioning machine, and Tommy fell into place just as instinctively as any of them did.
But then, however much he claimed that he was a ninja, not a soldier, he was a soldier, far more than she thought he realized. He'd served throughout Vietnam, and some part of the strange sort of culture found in the army had soaked through that (sometimes infuriatingly thick) skull of his. Even Billy, who'd learned the Threefold Arts of Smartassery, Snark, and Sarcasm from Tommy right along with sword skills and stealth , had served with the Joes for some time and fell in with the rest of them.
Junko wasn't a soldier. She'd never been a soldier, and had no desire ever to be a soldier. The Joes didn't know quite what to make of her. Oh, they were polite and friendly, but they were still a group, one that she didn't wholly understand was very definitely not a part of.
She had been quite happy to be welcomed at the Water Gardens. The Joe team, soldiers that they were, hadn't seemed at all bothered by sleeping rough. Junko, on the other hand, could count on one hand the times she'd ever not slept in a proper bed. She didn't mind hard work or hard training, but she liked them followed by a proper meal, a hot bath, and a soft bed.
She'd wanted a proper bed. And a bath. And a change of clothes. Not necessary in that order.
Prince Doran, bless the man, had happily provided all three.
Junko sank down into the big copper tub until the hot water rose to her chin, then ducked under to wet her hair and began attempting to wash the sand out of it. The servants who'd brought the tub up and hauled the water had added rose water, and she sighed happily. So far as Junko was concerned, baths were one of the greatest acheviements of civilization.
The door creaked. She reached for the knife sitting alongside the soap reflexively.
"Just me." Tommy was still wearing the surplus BDU's he'd found last night. It was strange to see him in the uniform, but he hadn't particularly wanted to keep wearing his bloodstained uniform. He shut the door behind him, and then eyed her with more than a little approval.
Junko ducked under again to rinse the suds out of her hair, then surfaced and began very carefully shaving her legs with downright frightening razor she'd been provided with when she asked for shaving utensils. It was one piece, forged carbon steel, just as murderously sharp as any overpriced safety razor she'd ever used, and looked rather like a miniature meat cleaver.
She quite liked it. She carefully navigated the area around her knee and decided to take it with her when they left. "What did you find out?"
Tommy gave her the most innocent look he could. "Are you implying that I would spy on our gracious host in an attempt to figure out his ulterior motives and glean any information I could about how we suddenly ended up in a renaissance fair?"
Junko smiled. "Even if you hadn't already been doing it on your own, I think your General Hawk would have asked you to."
"True. Snake Eyes is still at it." Tommy settled himself on the edge of the bed. "Not as much as I would have liked. Nothing about how we ended up here. I did find that Prince Doran has sent for his brother, and is expecting him here from their capital city in a day or two. A lot about the tangled mess that passes for politics in this place, and that I think Prince Doran is hoping we can help him avenge the murder of his sister."
Junko raised her eyebrows.
"Don't ask unless you want a long story. It leads right into that tangled mess of politics I mentioned." He shook his head. "I thought the inner machinations and plots and back-stabbing in Cobra were bad."
"Less incest in Cobra, I imagine."
"Probably true, but I never really knew about Tomax and…" Tommy broke off, and shot her a look. Junko smirked as he grinned. "You little minx. You were poking around too."
"I just did a little eavesdropping and maybe glanced through Prince Doran's papers when no one was around." She finished shaving, stepped out of the bath and began drying off. "It took them quite a while to heat all this water and haul it up here. I got bored."
The glint in Tommy's eyes sharpened. Junko smirked back. He always liked it when she demonstrated competence and sneakiness.
"Don't even think about it." She pointed at the tub. "Until you have a bath too. You smell like…well, like a man who hasn't had a bath in two days."
"I'm doing good then. It's been four." He obligingly stripped off the BDU's and headed for the tub. "Not usually much chance to shower on missions. You should have smelled me after I got back from LRRP's when I was in the army. My uniform could stand up by itself."
Junko wrinkled her nose at that thought as she pulled a robe on. Dornish bathrobes were remarkably similar to those on Earth; the design, after all, was really very simple. Take a blanket, add arm holes and a belt. Of course, this one was made from flowing, beautifully draping silk while hers on Earth was terrycloth, but that was really the only difference.
She glanced over as Tommy ducked under, surfaced, and began vigourously soaping his hair. She let her eyes linger, and then walked over to the door and locked it.
He glanced up at the sound of the key turning in the lock. She smiled at him. He grinned back, that cocky, smug little smirk that she knew so well, but the look faltered suddenly.
"I..." He scowled suddenly. "Should we? I mean, they don't exactly have the Pill here, do they?"
"I talked with Doctor Greer." She tossed the key onto the little table that held the as-yet-untouched wine the servants had left; Tommy wasn't a big drinker, and neither was she, but the maids had insisted. Junko, recognizing attempts at hospitality when she saw them, had given in gracefully. "He gave me a shot. We're good for three months."
The grin returned. "Excellent."
If it hadn't been for the weirdness, the nagging worry that he'd never get home, and the fact that the people here hadn't yet discovered flush toilets, Dusty would have called this place heaven.
The horses of Dorne bore a striking resemblance to Arabians, from their stamina and speed to their high-set tails and dished faces. Dusty had spent enough time among the Bedouin people to become a very good rider, and he quickly managed to talk himself into a hunting party the day after they arrived at the Water Gardens.
Twelve hours, fourteen empty wineskins, and six dead dune antelopes later, the riders of Dorne had proclaimed Dusty to be a "Dornishmen in a Northman's body".
He sauntered back to dinner that night in quite a good mood, still wearing the keffiyeh he'd made himself earlier. The Dornish riders had been very impressed that he'd tied it without their help, even if it was a slightly different style from those they wore.
General Hawk and his 'bodyguards' had been invited to dine privately with Prince Doran. The prince had arranged for the rest of the Joes to eat in the main hall along with his own men at arms, which suited them just fine. They were used to mess halls anyway, and this wasn't too far off, even if Lifeline and Doc did keep casting dubious looks at the food and muttering dire warnings about exotic diseases and parasites.
Dusty collected a trencher and a helping of antelope stew and eyeballed the room looking for a seat. He spotted Scarlett, Ace, and Ripcord playing low-stakes five card stud. Most of the Dornish riders were keeping well separate from the strange invaders, but one bold man had been tempted by the prospect of gambling and was now frowning intently at his cards. Ace was watching him with the sort of expression that Dusty had seen owls eyeball fat field mice with before. Dusty recognized the men as one of his new friends, and made his way over.
"So." The rider said at last, just as Dusty was settling in. "If I have four kings, that is good, yes?"
Ace's face fell. Scarlett sighed. Ripcord said a bad word and tossed his cards down. "Beginner's luck."
The rider, Kegan, nodded happily. "That is good!"
"Dammit." Ace sighed. "Yes, but you don't want to tell us, see, because then we all fold early and you won't win as much. If you have a good hand, you want to keep us raising as long as possible, so you get as much money out of us as you can. And if you have a bad hand, you still want to pretend like you have a good hand, and try to make us chicken out and fold so you still win the pot."
"Ah. But I still won this hand." Kegan folded his arms, smug in only the way a military man winning at gambling can be.
Ace glared at his cards again, and set them down, sighed, and pushed the little pile of pennies, nickels, and odd-looking Dornish coppers across the table to the rider. "I had a damned flush, too." His eyes glinted as he swept the cards back towards himself and began shuffling. "Ante up, boys and girls. I mean to get my money back. Hey, Dusty. You going native on us already?"
Dusty brushed grit off of his robes. "I'll have you know that I brought down that antelope you're eating. I believe thanks are in order. Deal me in."
Ace flicked cards in his direction as Dusty dug through his pockets and came up with some small change. Dusty eyed Scarlett, then the Dornishman, then Scarlett again.
"They don't care." Ripcord caught the look. "The founder of this country was a warrior queen or something."
"Queen Nymeria. She led ten thousand ships to conquer Dorne, and her blood has ruled here ever since." Kegan nodded. "In the north they frown upon women taking up arms, but this is Dorne."
"She sounds like a person I could get along with." Scarlett raised. "Dusty, what the hell is moving in your keffiyeh?"
Dusty unwrapped a fold and gently extracted Ruby. All four other people at the table slid away in alarm as he placed the scorpion on the table, fished a bit of meat out of his stew, and set it in front of her. Ruby snapped it up in her pincers and began nibbling.
"Dude, what the fuck?" Ripcord yelped.
"Relax. She's not going to hurt you." Dusty held out a hand; Ruby skittered onto his palm. "See? She's friendly. I didn't want to leave her in my room. Breaker threatened to smash her with a boot."
Kegan took a closer look, shook his head, and sat back down. "The red and black ones are not so dangerous for most people. A few will react badly and die, but only a few. If it was a brown one it would be dangerous, but the red and black ones do no more than hurt if they sting you. Does your friend often keep venomous animals in his clothing?"
Scarlett sighed. "Not since the tarantulas, but that was still one time too many."
"He is mad, then, but he rides like a son of Dorne." Kegan favored Dusty with a wide, white smile. "And he knows the desert like one born to it."
Dusty accepted the praise with a good-natured shrug. "I was born to it. Now, Kegan, the important thing to remember about playing poker with Ripcord is that he bites the inside of his cheek when he has a shitty hand."
"I do not."
"Dammit, Dusty." Ace scowled over his cards as he discarded two and drew. "I've made two car payments off of him with that. I'll raise a penny."
Dusty settled Ruby back in a pocket of his headgear, glanced at his hand, discarded one, drew, and checked Ace's bet. "Won't have to worry about that for awhile, at least." His voice came out more bitter than he'd intended.
Ace, Scarlett, and Rip's faces darkened too. The five played in near silence for a few minutes.
"It must have been powerful magic that brought you here." The rider Kegan broke the silence at last. "Sorcery of that sort has been gone for a thousand years and more. But times are getting queer again." He raised the bet, a thoughtful sort of look on his face. "The lords in the north go to war. The red comet burned the sky not so long ago. The prince's maester say that the glass candles are burning again." He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "And they say that in the East, the last daughter of the line of the dragon kings has hatched dragons from stones."
That did not have quite the impact he expected.
The Joes blinked at him for a minute.
"Dragons." Scarlett's eyebrows climbed. "And sorcery? That's a thing here?"
"What?" Ace gaped. "Dragons? Like, big flying lizards?"
"Breathe fire, eat virgins, destroy villages?" Ripcord stared. "You guys, is he serious?"
"The Targaryens would never have conquered Westeros without their dragons." Kegan gave them a strange look. "Does your world not have dragons?"
All four Joes shook their heads.
"You are fortunate, then. The three dragons of King Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters left four thousand men dead and ten thousand maimed at the Field of Fire. They are terrible beasts. But," He added this with a note of pride. "They never conquered Dorne. The last dragon died more than a hundred years past, but they say that the Targaryen princess has powerful magic, and that she hatched three dragons from stone eggs."
The Joes stared at him for a few moments. Then they looked at each other.
If Dusty hadn't just ended up in the middle of the Middle Ages on a planet that was most definitely not Earth, he wouldn't have believed it. But he had, and the man sounded sincere. He watched his team mates coming to the same mental conclusion as him, and it was Ace who perfectly summed up all four of their thoughts.
"Well, shit."