"Cute." Bodhi gestured to the personified peach pillow resting by Anari's feet. She said nothing, but rather regarded them warily through oversized pupils. Bodhi wondered what shape her spidery essence took behind all that glamour.

The monk shifted their attention to Ritsu and admired the new jewel hanging from his ear.

"Bodhi!" Ritsu waved toward the wall on the other side of the compound. "They've got us separated from the nobles."

The humanae spirit tucked their arms into their sleeves. "I know. I'm going to sneak in and get the pig. You two should wait here."

Anari arched a suspicious eyebrow, but Ritsu caught Bodhi by the shoulder before they could wander off.

"You shouldn't be doing this alone. Those nobles have guards."

Bodhi couldn't help but smile. "You're worried about me, aren't you? That's sweet." They shrugged Ritsu off. "But really, I can handle a few guards."

"Bodhi, wait."

There was a desperation in Ritsu's tone that Bodhi found a little baffling. They paused and looked back with a rather exasperated expression. The sun clone wrung his hands together, his golden brown eyes aimed at the ground.

"Last time I left Ham Song with you . . . . What I'm saying is, the nobles will probably have wine and . . ."

Guilt lanced  through Bodhi's chest. They freed their face of all traces of annoyance.

"I'm a messy monk, I know. I can get like that when I go too long without a proper drink." They sighed. "But I've had my medicine and I'm feeling a lot better now. So it's only fair that I clean up the mess I've made."

Without another word, Bodhi turned on their heels and ran for the wall. They stole into a cluster of bamboo and used it as cover as they easily vaulted over the stone barrier. A rush of adrenaline spiked throughout Bodhi's nervous system as they shimmied down a tall stalk of bamboo. They made almost no sound when their toes touched the garden floor.

The aromas were much richer and more savory on this side of the wall. Peach trees were everywhere, creating aesthetic archways over the long stone benches. For now there was no food across the linked table tops. Only kettles of tea and an abundance of accessories. It was enough to make any tea enthusiast salivate.

But then the conversation became more lively and the attendants straightened their spines when cooks clad in white and starchy aprons brought forth several trays, some of which were so long that they needed four spirits to carry at once.

Bodhi studied the procession carefully, noting that the trays held an array of fresh vegetables and marbled meats. Beads of water clung to the platters of deshelled onions, fresh leeks, daikon radishes, and a perplexing abundance of cilantro. There were baskets of eggs. Thousands of them. Drum after drum of steamed rice. And amidst all that was slaughtered, plucked, and uprooted was a bound and upturned pig. Alive and primed for the inevitable barbecue.

Despite the number of nobles present, Bodhi didn't hesitate. They used their distraction to calmly stroll out from behind the safety of the bushes. Still, in order to minimize the turning of heads, the monk anchored their form like those of the servers even though they weren't dressed at all like one. The nobles, so detached from the lives of anyone who wasn't one of them, didn't turn away from their prim and pompous head nodding and chin-lifting.

When Bodhi was close enough to the overly-dressed stone table, they snuck under the end that was the least populated, and crawled several feet to where that fresh, plump porker was carefully deposited for all to admire until the course was prepared.

Bodhi could hear Ham Song whimpering as they approached. Over the sniveling, there were more coherent voices. As Bodhi crawled and drew closer, they were able to piece together the threads of a very new sort of discussion.

"This is the first year Next Dimension Inc has sponsored this event. What do you think they might be up to?"

Someone, a spirit who was very clearly speaking with their mouth full even though Bodhi couldn't see to confirm, said, "Who knows and who cares? Whatever this Next Dimension's agenda is, I'm just glad that they finally let us use that wall over there to herd out the riff raff. Nice to know that VIP means something to that organization."

Another spirit titterd in agreement. "Indeed. The Garden of Immortal Peaches should always remain an exclusive reprieve for nobles. Not a tack-on exhibit for a select few bedraggled spirits that managed to cheat their way through a gauntlet of gaming booths. Designed by the swine most likely."

At that last jab, there was collective laughter. Ham Song's squeal rang out over the nobles.

"Come now, fellow spirits. We pigs are not all that bad. I mean, what have I ever done to you personally?"

A noble snorted. "Exist."

They broke out in another round of shrill laughter.

Bodhi used the cover of that eruption to knock on the underside of the table where they believed the pig to be and say, "Doing all right there, Ham Song?"

Up above, Ham Song made a sound crossed between a grunt and squeak. The plate rustled as his weight shifted. "Monk? Is that you?"

Bodhi opened their mouth to reply with something witty and refreshing, but Ham Song cut them off with a derisive snort.

"Sweet immortal peaches, of course it is."

Bodhi snickered. "Whatever gave me away?"

"Please. Your breath could fertilize a mushroom faster than fresh shit."

Bodhi was ready to bite back with something as equally crass, but once again, their reply was cut off, this time by one of the nobles.

"Pig, who are you talking to?"

Ham Song's response didn't matter because several hands reached under the table and forcibly dragged Bodhi out. Though they chose not to resist, they weren't about to let these nobles fling them about this garden similar in the way they had let those shark spirits from the noodle house handle them.

Now that Bodhi's blood itched and burned with a healthy dose of rice wine, they were slippery and strong enough to take back their limbs and flip onto the table without disturbing a single kettle or cup of tea.

Ah yes. Bodhi made themself breathe calmness into their twitchy limbs. This was what it felt like to be alive again. They adopted an angular and crooked position that still managed to maintain a level of grace. The nobles gave them some space, mistrust and suspicion creeping across their powdered, glamoured faces.

"Crane style?" One of them gasped, his mouth overflowing with flaky crumbs and sugary dust.

Bodhi made a sweeping gesture, adjusting their stance into one that created an even more protective, elegant cage over Ham Song.

"That's right," they crooned, "so you better stay back. Unless you want your nose to be butter in my palm when I pluck it from your face."

Bodhi was about to go on about how all of them should feel ashamed of themselves for humiliating a pig, (whose very existence was already humiliating enough) but one of the nobles shrieked at the top of her lungs, "Guards! Guards! Someone call the guards!"

Ritsu was less interested in the Jade Pool and more at the prospect of holding Anari's hand again as they strolled through the tranquil enclave. Well, almost tranquil. There was still the knot of sun clones gathered at the wall that divided them from the Garden of Immortal Peaches.

As they walked on in companionable silence, following the aimless yet roughly linear paths taken by the rainbow koi in the pool, Sun Ritsu focused on the peach doll Anari clutched gently to her chest and the weight of the new piercing dangling from his ear.

The monkey edged closer to the spider, wondering how he might find a smooth, effortless way to disengage her glamoured hand from the peach and into his when she came to a stop to admire a turtle on a rock.

"How many provinces in the Ninth Heaven have you been to, Sun?"

He nearly ran into her. "Oh! I – er," collecting his balance and adding to the space between them, he mumbled, "I'm not quite sure."

Immediately, he wished he could take the words back. How could a spirit not know where they've been? But thankfully, Anari did not hold his memory lapse against him.

"When you were in the Immortal State," she said, "you told me that you didn't know your way around the Ninth Heaven like you used to and that everything here has changed so much."

Sun Ritsu reached for the peach in his pocket, pulled it out, and rotated it between his fingers. He grunted. "Sounds like something I might say, but I can never tell when I'm loaded up on holy peaches like that."

Anari's open, dark gaze left the surface of the pool and settled on him. "Then where would you go in the Ninth Heaven if you had the choice?"

Ritsu let the words out before he could second guess himself. "I'd want to go wherever you go next."

The spider blinked at him and her glamour flickered.

Hastily, Ritsu added, "What I mean is... do you have a province that you would recommend? Which ones have you been to?"

A band of color faintly darker than Anari's rich skin tone, edging towards magenta clung just below her eyes as she flicked her wrist and said, "I've been all over. For work." She faltered to carry on the discussion, for which Ritsu wholly blamed himself. He was rotten company.

Before he could apologize for his failure to bring anything to this conversation, the background noise of the sun clones became very urgent foreground noise that demanded all attention.

"What are they getting all worked up for?" Anari muttered under her breath.

The clones, who were already hovering near the gate, were now practically trying to climb over it. They hollered and clobbered each other for purchase up the wall. It was quite the scene watching the outnumbered guards try to hold them back.

The most decorated guard roared at them, "Stay put, you insufferable clones! That side of the gate is for nobles only!"

One of the clones protested, "But we heard them yelling for security! They need our help!"

It was obvious that the clones hardly gave a care for the well being of the nobles. They were intent on proving themselves, using the challenge of a fight to increase their rank.

Some of the shorter clones broke from the crowd to try to find a way around the guards. They spread out across the enclosure, searching for a way to bypass their keepers. One strutted in Ritsu and Anari's vicinity, stopped, and pointed at Ritsu.

"You! What's that you've got in your hand?"

Ritsu looked down at the glistening immortal peach that was a pear just minutes ago.

Anari elbowed him in the ribs. "Hide that!"

But it was too late. The rogue clone's eyebrows shot up in recognition. "Where did you get that peach?"

Ritsu froze. Although the other clone did not speak very loudly, somehow the mere mention of an immortal fruit attracted more and more Suns. The fuzzy peach in his possession was blood on the wind and the monkeys were nothing more than starving wolves.