Starlit Reflections: Dark Quarter

Fushigi Yuugi is copyright Watase Yuu, Flower Comics, Studio Perriot, Pioneer Entertainment, Viz Communications and other interested parties. The characters and situation are used without permission for personal entertainment only, and no copyright infringements are intended. No profit is being made from this fic; if there was, Tasuki and Tamahome would lighten me of it, as soon as they could.

Chapter Seven: Reflection ~ Urumiya
 

Urumiya was always singing - he hummed in his sleep, he sang while he played, and he played his harp as he rode.

"Why do you always make music, Urumiya?" I demanded one day.

He chuckled, and replied, "Because music makes people smile, and I love doing that."

He rode off before I could ask him what he meant.

I did not recognise any of the districts Iname carried me through. That was not the thing which worried me. What disturbed me was the fact that what signs I could read were of taverns, the streets were unswept and the people I could see around us were unkempt. We rode past several street corners, with a young woman no older than I standing on each, wearing rags artfully torn to suggest more than they showed. I saw them smiling up at other, unaccompanied, men. Their expressions did not reach their eyes.

When Iname and I rode past, they did not look up at him with the feigned sympathy and alluring promise they showed to other men who walked in company, the sidelong glances that said, clearer than words, 'You poor dear! Were you alone, I would be happy to walk with you instead....' As, indeed, they would be happy to now, for a few coins.

Instead, from Iname they hid their eyes, but stared at me - and in their gazes I read unfeigned sympathy. As if, however wretched whoring themselves was, I was in a far worse position than they.

As we rode deeper into the underbelly of Tolan, the fear awoke within me that they had the right of it.

We eventually came to a halt outside a tavern. I could hear the sound of drunken carousing within, despite the fact that it was only midafternoon.

"I'm not going in there," I announced flatly.

Iname lifted one sculptured brow at me. "Oh?" His tone was light, as if I defied him uselessly.

"No," I said decidedly. "You can go in and conduct your business. I'll stay here and make sure nobody steals the horse."

He blinked. "Nobody," he replied, "would dream of stealing my horse."

"So I'll be perfectly safe here, waiting for you," I replied cheerfully.

"You don't have anything to worry about inside," he tried coaxing me.

It didn't work. "I don't mind waiting out here," I told him.

"I won't let anyone interfere with you," he tried again.

"In an area like this," I replied, "it is better that you should look after yourself. I'll be safe out here, so you won't have to worry about me, and be free to guard yourself."

He chuckled. "You really don't want to go in, do you?"

"Not on your life," I replied. "Iname, please. Go easy on yourself. Just say I won the argument and go in? It'll be terrible for your reputation if you're seen having to physically drag a girl somewhere."

"But this is where the boss is," he muttered in an agonized tone. "He's going to want to see you...."

It all came together then, in a picture that was shocking in its simplicity. Iname was involved in crime! And whichever criminal he was involved with was inside the tavern.

I drew in a deep breath. "Maybe so, but I don't want to go in there," I reiterated. "I won't go in there. If your employer wants to meet me, he can come out."

Iname gave me a sidelong look. "All right," he conceded. Slipping off the horse and handing up the reins to me, he fixed me with a stern glare. "You won't go anywhere," he ordered.

"I wouldn't dream of it," I replied sweetly, crossing my fingers.

As soon as he had disappeared into the shadow of the door of the tavern, I gently pulled the horse back into the shade and cloaked both of us in shadow.

If I could remember to do this when I really needed to, and not when I was not actually in immediate danger, then my life would have been a lot less exciting. I smiled to myself. After all, hadn't the doctor himself said that I would make the times interesting?

It's always disappointing when people live down to your expectations, and this time was no exception. A slender man, who looked to be in his early thirties by his face, and in his eighties by the cynicism and bitterness in his eyes, stalked out the door and stopped dead just over the lintel. The stream of profanity he spat was most unimaginative.

He gestured abruptly and two men came out, dragging a third - Iname - between them. The first man hit him, hard, across the face.

"Where the hell is she?"

Iname coughed. "I don't know, I swear! I left her here - she said she'd stay-"

He was cut off by a vicious short punch to his solar plexus. His eyes bulged and he began gasping for breath. The older man began stalking back and forth before him.

"Do you know... boy, do you have any idea how much the flower of Tolan is worth? No, of course you wouldn't, someone as brainless as you. She'd fetch a pretty penny from the Emperor of Koutou, after we'd finished with her." His ugly laugh was echoed by the thugs holding Iname up.

That got a reaction from Iname. "But you said -"

His master backhanded him so hard the two specimens of street trash couldn't keep a grip on him, and he flew backwards, hitting the wall. Fortunately, the sound was only a low-impact (thump) and nothing more sickening.

"You're a little idiot, Genbu Shichiseishi," he hissed, kicking Iname's ribs for emphasis. "You seem to think that I'm a 'nice' person. Allow me to educate you, once and for all. Do you think my stable of whores serve because they want to?" He kicked Iname again. "Do you think the owners of my pretty jewels give them to me?" Another kick. "Do you honestly think people give way to me because they recognise my superior worth?" He squatted over Iname's body, picking him up by the collar and pulling his face up so close that flecks of spittle flew from his lips to land on Iname's face. "I am a pimp and a thief. I am an extortionist, a rapist and a murderer. I commit grievous bodily harm for fun and profit. I took you in off the street because it struck me as a good idea at the time. You are nothing to me, little boy. And now you've failed me." He stood up, letting go of Iname's shirt and snapping his hands, as if to flick the dirt of Iname's person off them.

He glanced at the two thugs standing silently, watching the entire scene. "He's yours. He's outlived his usefulness."

The two exchanged glee-filled glances, but did not move until their master had fastidiously stepped over Iname's prone form, passing back into the murky depths of the tavern. Then they both moved ponderously toward his body.

As they passed me, I slipped from the horse's saddle, walked up behind them as silently as I could, fisted my hands together, and brought them down as hard as I could on the back of the closest one's head.

He went down like a crashing wave, falling first to his knees and then onto his face, spreading out all over the street. The second thug tripped over his arm, hitting the cobbles hard and obligingly knocking himself out.

I daintily led the horse over to where Iname lay on the street. For a slender man, he was very heavy! But after a few minutes of heaving and pushing, I managed to get him slung over the horse's back. With several backward glances in case another lackey-thug came out of the tavern - because, while they couldn't see into my shadow-cloak, they might very well see a patch of shadow moving about, and that could be just as damning - I began to pick my way down the street, leading the horse away.

While I did what I should've done in the first place, and found my way to a crowded street, listened to the people around me, and began to follow them to the cattle-merchant's quarter, where I had left the others. Hopefully Hatsui would have bespoken us rooms in the inn where he had settled to spend his afternoon.

As I glided along in the shadow of the prosperous sheep merchant who was returning to his hostelry after a profitable afternoon at the market (all of which I gleaned from his boasting to the young lady, probably one of his wives, who rode beside him), I thought about what had happened this afternoon.

Iname had brought me to a criminal - but that criminal had clearly been important to him, and it was obvious that he had believed that no real harm would come to me there. And now, it seemed, I was no longer the only Shichiseishi who could never go home.

Even beaten and unconscious, he was attractive. I fell back a little, so I was no longer at the horse's head, but at his shoulder. The gelding tossed his head, but was otherwise content to follow the other horses. I reached out, and gently touched Iname's cheek. He twitched, and opened bruised-looking eyes. "Huh? Where-"

"Ssshh," I whispered. "It's all right. I'm here, you're going to be all right."

"Uruki?" he questioned. "Uruki, I'm sorry, I-"

"Ssshh, it's all right, I understand," I soothed. "Don't talk, I'm taking you somewhere safe."

"He wanted-"

"I know very well what he wanted," I replied, a sharp note in my voice. "I was there."

"You were...?"

"I did say I'd stay, didn't I? Now shush."

Iname subsided, but I didn't lift my hand from his face. Touching him was soothing to the feelings rolling through me, somehow.

I followed the merchant all the way back to the main street of the cattle district, where I saw a dreamy-eyed Namame leading an equally dreamy-eyed Takiko through the crowd. I shed the shadow-cloak when I saw them, cutting across the path of I don't know how many other people to come up to them.

Despite the chaos that I left churning behind me, they still didn't notice me as I dragged Iname and his horse up to meet them. "Hello!" I said brightly, and watched them both jump.

"U-Uruki!" Namame stuttered. "What - what a surprise!"

Takiko blushed as she said, "Namame and I went for a walk."

I eyed the circlet of wild daisies that rested on top of her glossy black hair and replied, with the straightest face I could, "I hope you had a nice time."

"We did," Namame answered dreamily. "There's the nicest little grove -"

"Who's that?" Takiko interrupted him, pointing at Iname.

"This is Iname," I said. "Do you know where the others are? It's important."

"Um - I think they're at the Golden Lion Inn," Namame said, "where we left them this morning."

"Then let's go," I said, swinging round and stopping to stare.

The street behind me was absolute chaos. No less than three carts had crashed into each other, spreading out over the street. Two others had attempted to avoid the crash and had crashed themselves, into buildings at the side of the road. People had climbed out of the wreckage and were screaming at each other. Others were sneakily picking up packages off the road and leaving quietly.

"What happened?" I demanded.

Iname began to snicker.

"OW!" Iname yelled, some time later.

"Don't be a baby," Hikitsu told him briskly, pulling the bandage tight. "Your wounds aren't that bad. The worst you have are some bruised ribs."

"It still hurts," he complained.

"How did you get so beaten up, anyway?" Hatsui demanded, from where he was leaning against the wall of the room he'd bespoken.

"He stood between some street thugs and me," I said quickly.

He looked at me, at Iname, and then back at me. "I told you not to go," he said flatly. He clearly had heard the truth I was not saying.

"And I told you that I would go," I hissed back.

"You don't know anything about Tolan," he said angrily.

"Did I ever say I did?" I replied, my voice venomously soft. "If you were so concerned for me, you could have come with me."

Tomite stalked between us. "That's enough," he said harshly. "If you can't be civil, you can leave the room."

"Fine," Hatsui snapped, and stalked out, slamming the door behind him.

"What's his problem?" I asked the air.

Hikitsu, Tomite, Namame and Takiko all looked at each other.

"That's fine, don't tell me," I complained. "I only seem to set him off every time I turn around, why should you tell me!"

Takiko sighed. "I'll tell you later," she promised.

Iname stretched. I determinedly did not look at the play of his muscles under the skin of his bare chest. "I'm sorry," he said apologetically.

"Don't apologise," Hikitsu told him. "We're your star-brothers and star-sisters. This is what we do."

Iname winced. "Yes, but... but what I did is going to hurt all of you. I - I used to be a criminal."

"Used to be?" Takiko asked in a sinking voice.

"I, um, quit. About half an hour ago. Well, not really 'quit'. More 'got kicked out with prejudice'."

"And your ex-associates are probably going to be showing up to inform you of their opinions," Tomite finished dryly.

Iname shrugged and winced at the motion. "More or less, yes."

I couldn't stand it anymore. Standing up, I filled a cup with iced tea. "Don't do that," I ordered, walking over and sitting down on the bed beside him. "Now sit still and drink this."

"Yes, Mama," he replied, taking the cup. "What is this, lizard's brains and toadskin?"

"No, it's tea," I said seriously.

"For such a funny girl, you have no sense of humour," he said tiredly.

"Funny? I'm not funny," I said blankly.

"All right," he said agreeably, and drank.

Everybody else found something to look at for the next few minutes. I sighed and eventually gave up. "I'm going to bed," I announced, and did. Takiko followed me a few minutes later.

Iname had warned us about his previous associates. As it turned out, the Koutou assassins got to us - or rather, the inn - much faster.

It was my fault, of course. When I had uncloaked in the street and greeted Namame and Takiko, we had all of us used our Shichiseishi names. Ears had listened, and rumour spread.

"Wake up, Uruki! Wake UP!" Takiko was yelling. Takiko never yelled.

"Huh? Wha'?" I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

"The inn's on fire!"

I lurched out of bed and sniffed. Smoke, thick and heavy with food scraps, the tang of alcohol and the stiff resin of the pine wood that made up most of the furniture in Tolan. I said a word that I'd learnt from Long that princesses weren't supposed to know.

"Come ON, Uruki! We've got to get out!"

Takiko was practically dragging me out the door, but I was by no means reluctant to leave. Burning in my bed was not how I intended to end my days. We ran down the main stairwell, colliding with Hatsui and Namame at the bottom.

"Tomite and Hikitsu already have the horses - we have to leave!" Namame yelled over the panicked crowd.

"Where's Iname?!" I demanded.

"With them! Come on!"

They didn't need to tell me twice. I ran out into the street, into chaos. People were everywhere. Horses were screaming and people were yelling as they tried to pile all their worldly goods into carts and wagons. I looked around wildly, searching for three faces.

"We're over here!"

I looked up to see Iname on his gelding, leading Mei-Mei. I ran over to them, and hoisted myself into Mei-Mei's saddle.

"What are you doing riding?" I demanded.

"I'm glad to see you're safe, too," he grinned, and kissed me.

I'd never been kissed before. Before that moment, I'd always believed kisses were light things, touches of light affection between a husband and wife. I'd never known they were lightning along the nerves, tsunamis of shocking pleasure that hit faster and harder than any wave... and over far, far too soon.

I stared after him in shock, hand touching my lips in amazement. He'd... I'd...

I gave up thinking as a bad idea and rode after him.

We eventually made camp about five miles outside of Tolan, having ridden the horses hard for about an hour.

"There were too many people in the street for it to be only our inn that caught fire," I said, as we all sat in a circle around the small campfire we'd built. It sat in the centre of a ring of dirt, the blocks of sod that had lain around it carefully cut away and stacked behind us. Tomite was determined not to be caught in another fire, and I was in full agreement with him. I rubbed at the dirt on my hands, and tried to chip it out from under my long fingernails, without much success.

"It wasn't," Hatsui said, taking a break from glaring at Iname.

"It wasn't my fault," Iname said defensively. "Whoever it was torched every inn in the district! If they'd been sent by - my old boss - after me, they would've just hit our inn. It's bad for business to get rid of every establishment."

"So much for anonymity," Hikitsu said, smiling.

"I'm not going back," Takiko said firmly. "Do I have to do the ceremony there?"

"I don't think so," I replied. "It's just that the main temple is where the holy scroll that contains the instructions to summon Genbu is kept. I wouldn't think that you have to be on hallowed ground."

"So we need that scroll," Hatsui said, too calmly.

"We'll think about it in the morning," Namame declared. "I, for one, am too tired to think clearly, and this needs planning."

Tomite and Iname glanced at each other, while we all curled up in travelling blankets and cloaks.

The next morning, when we awoke, the pair of them were nowhere to be found.

Hikitsu was not worried.

I wish I could say the same of myself.

Iname had been viciously beaten less than a day before. Why he wasn't a bloody pulp I had no idea - much less riding and running and doing Genbu knew what else... he needed to sit still. He needed to rest.

He needed to tell me why he'd kissed me!

I was not prepared to sit still and watch Hatsui, Namame and Takiko discuss plans to get the scroll. I had to get up and do something.

Hikitsu was busy decocting. When I asked, he told me all about a small flower that could be turned into a tincture for bruises and an ointment for sprains - the one that he'd been painting my bruises with all week. Apparently we were camped right next to about three bushes of them. Hikitsu believed in grasping opportunity by the throat, and this was no exception.

The process stank to high heaven. So I gave myself the task of finding firewood for his decocting-fire.

It isn't exciting, but that's what we did all morning - Namame, Hatsui and Takiko sat around our fire, trying to think of a way to get into and out of Tolan without our hidden enemy spotting us, while Hikitsu shredded innocent flowers, boiling them over a small fire (set downwind from everybody else by mutual agreement) and I hunted for and gathered up firewood. All the while we waited for Tomite and Iname to show up and tell us what on earth they'd been doing all morning.

Then they rode into camp with the holy scroll.

Takiko was absolutely stunned when she was suddenly presented with the rolled-up scroll of black paper. "Here you are!" Iname said as he presented it, grinning like a schoolboy.

"YOU!" I shouted, from all of two metres away. "Where have you BEEN?! Don't you know people have been WORRIED about you! BOTH of you!" I added belatedly, turning to Tomite.

Iname grinned. "I-"

"You SHOULD have been resting!" And then I turned to Tomite. "And what were YOU thinking, taking him off like that?!"

Tomite blinked. "Me? I-"

"You're living with a healer, you should know better! And you never told anyone where you were going!"

"I told Hikitsu!" Tomite replied defensively.

"Hikitsu...." I said, turning towards him.

"You need to calm down, Uruki," he said, without looking up. "Tomite wouldn't let Iname break his neck. Would you?"

I didn't wait for the idiots to answer. "You're ALL idiots!" I informed them (just in case they didn't already know) and stalked off. Calm down? As if I were overreacting!

I sat down beneath a tree and hugged my knees to my chest. I stayed like that for a few minutes.

"I'm sorry," Iname said, behind me.

I didn't answer.

"I'm - not used to girls worrying about me."

"Get used to it." I said flatly.

"You're not going to give me anything, are you?"

"Oh, let's see. You took me to a nest of thieves who planned to rape and then sell me. Then, when I actually bothered to try to help you, you called me 'funny'. Then you-" I paused, and quickly continued, "-you vanished without any warning and now you show up and expect me to be - I don't know! I just-" And I hid my face in my knees.

He sat down beside me. "This is about me kissing you last night, isn't it?"

"Yes. No. I don't know! You make me so - so crazy! And I-"

He kissed me again.

There really should be words for this in the language - how differently a boy can kiss you, how one kiss can scorch you while another is slow, rising, irresistable heat....

He stopped, and I realized that there's one thing all kisses have in common - they're all far too short.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Why?" I asked, dazed.

"In that case, no, I'm not!" And he kissed me again, sweet and hot.

This time we were interrupted by Hatsui clearing his throat behind us. He was staring at Iname, but his words were directed at both of us. "You'd better come," he said shortly. "Takiko wants you back at the camp."

I sighed. "All right," I conceded, standing up and brushing at my overtunic. Hatsui stood to one side to let me pass.

His eyes on me were bright and - pained? I blinked. "Are you all right, Hatsui?" I asked him, concerned.

"I will be," he replied quietly.

I couldn't help but worry about it, all the way back to camp.

On reflection, if all the Shichiseishi had followed Urumiya's lead, life would have been so much easier, not to mention less exciting, for Takiko.

He'd tracked us down and ridden into our campsite while Iname and I were exploring our differences.

On the other hand, any way of finding a Shichiseishi where I didn't have to get hit on the head or terrified into doing something blatantly stupid was definitely a good thing. In my opinion, anyway.

"You were not easy to find," the young man sitting beside the campfire was saying as we walked up. "That isn't a bad thing, though, what with all the Koutou spies around, trying to track you down and kill you."

"Koutou spies?" Takiko asked, horror in her voice.

"Why, yes," Urumiya replied. "It was a Koutou spy who torched all the inns in the quarter where you were staying last light. Didn't you know?"