各奔東西
gèbēndōngxī
Spread out east west
To part ways

*~*~*~*~*~*

I had lived thousands of years, watched dynasties rise and fall, watched the land and the ways of men shift and change, but for all my long time on this earth, I could probably count the people who I could call 'friend' and who would call me friend back on one hand. And I doubt I would even need to use my sixth finger.

Lu would be one of those fingers. In fact he would probably be my thumb. Short, thick (the happy fool), and yet closest to my heart.

I had met Lu before he had become The Green King, before he had been a 'god'. When he had been just Lulin, a useless lout whose greatest joy was to drink too much with friends and listen to the rain on the trees.

It was on such a rainy day that I met him. Such a night actually. I had been living in the eastern ocean, but had grown tired of the taste of the sea and had come to try what the land had to offer.

We met by chance in a wood near the small town that would later become the metropolis of Zhanghai. The wood was dark with night and loud with wind and rain. The leaves had chittered in the background like the chatter of a huge crowd.

We had each instantly understood the other was not as they seemed. Lu had looked me over and said "How about a duel?"

I had favored the short sword at that time in my life, and one hung by my side. I ran my fingers over the braiding on the grip. "Oh?" I said. "Where is your weapon?"

Lu had laughed. "Not that kind of duel," he said and reached to his back. I tensed, waiting for him to draw his weapon. Instead he drew from his back a giant clay bottle, corked at the top with wax. "This kind. You drink, I hope?"

Suspicious, I had lowered my hand, but still kept it near my sword. "Why should I drink with you?" I asked.

Lu shrugged. "Why not? It's a wonderful night for it. And besides, do you need a reason for doing something?"

He spoke well. "No," I said, and grinned.

That had been the first of many drinking 'duels'. I can't remember who won that first competition. In fact, I can't remember who won any of them. Then again, neither could Lu. So I guess we were at a draw.

Then he had become a god. Despite the immortality it granted, The Green Throne had taken its toll on him, and he had seemed to age. No more time for walking in rainstorms and drinking late into the night. No time for befriending dangerous strangers in dark woods. He never said as much, but I think he regretted becoming a god.

I know I did.

After I was made a human, Lu was one of the few who still acknowledged my existence. All the humans and lesser mu'ren who had served me abandoned me, as did the other four. But Lu, Lu stayed.

Sometimes, when I was tired of roaming, I would find him, and we would drink, just like old times. Except for the both of us were changed. He was a king bound by responsibilities. I was an outcast, bound by my past.

After drinking and reminiscing, carefully avoiding some things and forgetting others, we would part again, he to his responsibilities, I to my road.

And then, about 300 years ago, he had met her.

If Lu had been a tree, endlessly giving shade and nurture to those around him, she had been a squirrel, greedy and eager to take what he could offer. I imagined she had some kind of a tragic backstory she spun for him with extra spice, and he felt obligated to help her. He had been a fool for sad stories.

Lu fell in love with his stupid, squirrely human bride, and decided to become mortal so they could live out their short lives together. Raise children together. Grow old together. Die together.

What a pathetically pretty end.

After Lu died, I avoided The Green Throne and those it passed to entirely. It may seem petty, but I could not help resenting his offspring. They had taken my friend from me, in a way.

These days, I rarely thought of Lu. Being the selfish creature I was, I usually missed him when I had need of him. But on occasion, I found myself missing the sound of his voice, his faltering, slow smile.

His strange green eyes.

"Why are you traveling with the Prince?" the snake had asked me, again and again in that cave. And suddenly I understood.

*~*~*~*~*~*

I opened my eyes to an empty room in what appeared to be an attic. The strong smell of mint and other medicinal herbs hung over everything. The herbs themselves hung from the beams above me like dried papery bats.

The attic walls sloped in either side in the shape of the roof, and for a second, confused, I thought I was back in Mengxiang in Lao Bang's great thatched house. Then I remembered we had left Mengxiang a week ago, and traveled to the coast.

I was lying in a small wood frame bed with a patchwork quilt pulled over me. I slowly sat up and lifted my hands for inspection. My rings were still in place. The cuts and bruises on my arms and legs had been carefully bandaged with strips of clean white linen. A few bandages had dark circles of rust brown where my blood had seeped through.

Excellent, I thought. That meant these were my initial bandages, and whoever tied them hadn't had a chance to change them and see that my injuries beneath were already near healed.

My ankle twinged painfully. It was still mending.

Save for the bed and an old wooden chair beside it, the attic was empty. A rickety looking bannister stood across the room where stairs led up into the attic. The wood of the walls and beams overhead was old and warped, but clean, and in the light coming through the window near my bed, I could see the gleam of the wooden floor that meant it had been recently washed.

I looked to the window. It was cloudy, but the light seemed to suggest mid-morning.  Outside the window I could see nothing but the tops of trees, bright green and fresh with the rain that had been falling so frequently this season.

That green. The color triggered my memory. Lu's eyes had been that color. Green like fresh leaves, vibrant like life.

Sanli's eyes were a different shade. So dark green as to be almost unnoticeable. Like the washed out color of pines on a misty day.

Different shades, but still, similar.

And there it was. The snake's answer. Why was I with the prince? Because he reminded me of a man long dead.

I tried to remember Lu's face, his strong square chin, the firmness of his jaw. His eyebrows like lines that stayed straight even when he smiled. In contrast Sanli's face was softer, more fluid, almost beautiful. His always present smile was different from Lu's rarer grin. More like a mask that Sanli wore for convenience than an honest expression of his feelings.

But just like their eyes, there was something in the quality of the two men's smiles that was the same.

Really though, eyes and smiles aside, there was little obvious resemblance. I guess I could be excused for not realizing sooner that Sanli was one of the Green King's descendents. One of Lu's descendents.

This new realization put me in a awkward situation.

Idly I traced the patchwork squares with one finger. The quilt had faded so much that the patchwork squares were all white, save for a few pale yellow and pink patches, the color barely perceivable.

Originally, my aim with Sanli had been similar to with any other attractive man I met. But could I really do that to Sanli now, in good conscience, knowing he was Lu's kin?

Probably. My conscience had always leaned a little toward the bad side.

Still, the thought of bedding and shedding Lu's family bothered me. And without that motive, what reason did I have to continue traveling with the three men? For companionship? Not something I desired. The food and shelter? It was nice to eat and stay at inns for a change, but if I really wanted to I could earn money and do so on my own, without Kageyama's constant complaints in my ears.

And after what had happened with the snake, it seemed as though the three men brought their fair share of trouble with them. I didn't fancy ending up in the clutches of another assassin eager for information on Sanli's movements.

I tugged idly at the loose sleeves of the oversized cotton shirt someone had dressed me in. I suspected my old clothes, bloody and shredded, had been thrown away.

It was true, traveling with the men had given me a distraction from my boredom. Many times over the past weeks I had lay down to sleep and caught myself looking forward to what the next day would bring. More bets and antics with Zakhar, more ways to annoy Kageyama, more side-eyed glances at Sanli.

But was a little distraction enough of a reason to risk all the trouble that continuing to travel with the men could bring?

I was still undecided when I heard footsteps creaking on the stairs. Hurriedly I lay down again and pretended to be asleep.

The footsteps came beside my bed and then stopped. The old chair squeaked as someone sat in it. I waited, trying to figure out who it was by the sound of their breathing.

"I know you're awake," Kageyama's voice said. Ch.

I opened my eyes. Kageyama sat there, watching me. It looked as though he had recently shaved, and his hair was washed and combed back into a tight bun. His clothes had been changed as well, his usual black, but of a finer tailoring and material than before.

I shifted and sat up to face Kageyama, my back connecting with the hard wood of the headboard. I remembered the last time I had seen him he had worn blood splattered across his face as a painter wears paint.

Casually, like it was often there.

"Why are you here," I said, surprised and rude. "Where are Sanli and Zakhar?"

"They went ahead," Kageyama said vaguely, expression blank.

"Oh," I said, dismayed. "Why-, how did you all know where to find me last night?"

Kageyama crossed his legs, hands in his lap. "Zakhar said he had mistaken how much money he had in the purse, and he wanted it back. He dragged us halfway across the county in the dark to find you. When we got close enough, I smelled the blood."

"Oh," I said again. I would have to thank Zakhar when I saw him. And repay him.

"You're in the home of the closest herbalist we could find." Kageyama informed me, without me asking. I probably should have asked where I was first. That was what a normal injured and disoriented person would have done. "The poison the snake used was beyond the herbalist's knowledge, so Sanli performed a seal to remove it from your body. You probably feel a little weak."

"I do," I agreed, not really listening. I was already thinking of ways I could track down that snake. Zhen. "My attacker got away, I suppose? The Dashe?"

Kageyama hesitated. "He did, unfortunately," he said.

Good, I thought. I want to kill him myself.

Kageyama continued. "The poison he used should have killed a person," he said, leaning back in the chair. His dark eyes were fixed on me.

"I'm lucky I guess, that Lord Sanli was able to get it out in time," I replied, thoughts still on revenge. The snake had said he had a day job... perhaps I should start by looking for acupuncturists in the area before we caught up to Sanli and Zakhar.

"Yes... except he wasn't," Kageyama continued to stare at me with hard, glass eyes, which I finally met when I realized something was wrong. "Your heart stopped beating for near 10 minutes. I heard it."

I froze. We both said nothing. I couldn't think of anything to say.

"Maybe," said Kageyama, leaning forward in the chair, elbows on his knees as he studied me. "You're simply some kind of mu'ren I haven't encountered before. Or perhaps a human under some spell."

I realized the time for pretending was past. I tried to think of something to explain away my unusual, eternal state, but before I could Kageyama surprised me with his next words.

"What you are doesn't concern me." He put his hands under his chin, eyes on me, always on me. "What I want to know is who you are working for and why you approached Sanli."

Hah. My mouth sneered before I could stop it.  "Will you interrogate me too, Kageyama Sensei?" I said, thinking of Zhen, prodding me with needles and questions, and my own voice, screaming, echoing off the walls of the cave.

"Why did you approach Sanli?" He repeated the question calmly, as though I were a quarrelsome student refusing to participate in class.

"I liked the way he looked," I ground out. "Not a crime."

"On whose instructions?"

"My own."

Kageyama sighed.

He stood and I jerked backwards, then cursed inwardly as a smile spread over his face.

"I see you finally figured out what I am. Good, perhaps you'll start taking my words more seriously."

As I watched, he reached his right hand to his side as if to draw a sword. Instinctively I tensed, but then my mind corrected my instincts. There was no sword there for him to draw.

Ignoring this fact, this unarguable state of the world, Kageyama curled his hand around an invisible hilt and slowly drew a sword from the air.

I watched, too transfixed to be alarmed, as the blade appeared from nowhere.

The sword was a tachi, the typical curved battle sword worn by warriors of the Eastern Isles. It was unadorned, with a worn wooden grip tied with leather and a bronze, oval shaped guard inlaid with the barest decoration of curling vines. It was the sword he must have used to kill the saw pig. The sword he had held yesterday by the fire, surrounded by fallen bandits.

Now I knew why I had never seen Kageyama draw his blade, or where he kept it. Because he didn't keep it anywhere. It hung, waiting for him, in some space beyond this one.

Kageyama sat again, laying the sword across his knees. The metal of the blade shone, dull in the grey light coming in the window, and I could see the myriad of scratches that had been polished away till they were no more than ghosts lingering on the smooth metal.

The sword looked old, well made and well used.

"I have two things for you," said Kageyama, drawing my attention back to his face, though I kept the sword and his hands in the periphery of my vision. It seemed small, that blade, but I had seen the damage the weapon could do."The first is a letter from Sanli. It's in that envelope at the end of your bed."

I noticed for the first time a paper envelope near my feet, which I had initially ignored as another pale square of patchwork. I reached for it and emptied it hurriedly over my hand.

Grey ashes and bits of charred paper fell onto my open hand and the bedspread like burnt snow.

"He made me swear to give it to you, and I could not refuse," said Kageyama smiling as he flicked a hand to his chest where the Green King's seal was scribed. "But he forgot to specify what condition to give it to you in." Damn fox.

"He also requested I give you this," and with that he pulled a large purse from where it sat beside my bed and threw it on the quilt beside the ashes. It clinked enticingly and I pulled the drawstring open. It was completely full of coins, the majority of which were gold.

"What is this for? To keep my mouth shut?" I asked angrily. "I already told you I don't want money for my silence."

"You seemed fine taking our money on the road. And I believe Sanli intended it as an apology for what befell you on account of traveling with us. But you can think of it however you want." He shifted and the blade flashed. My mind recalled the clearing last night outside the cave, filled with bleeding, downed bandits.

"And, " said Kageyama, reaching to pick up a second bag of coins, even larger, which he threw next to the first. "Here's my gift to you. And there will be another bag like that waiting yearly at this address should you swear to stay away from Sanli."

I went to protest, then hesitated. That much coin? Yearly? I could do... whatever I wanted. Buy a house, no buy an estate, somewhere far away from people, live quietly for a time.

Forget the feel of needles twisting in my flesh and green eyed princes who reminded me of dead men.

"Here's some additional incentive to stay away: if I see you or hear of you in any way connected to Sanli again, in words or actions, I'll kill you."

I glared at Kageyama. I wanted to tell him where he could put his threats. But then I hesitated, a little voice that spoke all too rarely in my mind urging caution.

Kageyama seemed more level head then most mu'ren I knew, including myself. But if there were any characteristics that all mu'ren shared, it was unpredictability and lack of adherence to human conventions.

Beheading an injured girl lying in a bed? Most mu'ren wouldn't hesitate. A kitsune?
They would probably laugh while they swung the blade.

I had yet to try and recover from beheading. And despite my earlier attempts to escape it, I had grown attached to my immortal life.

Slowly, as though it would bite me, I reached out and took the money.

Kageyama's smile as I gave in needled me so badly I almost chucked the bag of coins in his smug face. "Wise choice. Head south once you leave here. That snake thinks you dead. As long as you stay clear of Zhanghai you should be able to live a very comfortable life. Safe travels, girl."

As he spoke he had stood and sheathed his sword back into the air. The rasp as it slid back into an invisible sheath confirmed it had a sheath somewhere. Then without a backwards glance at me Kageyama crossed the room and started down the stairs.

I struggled in bed. I would not let him leave like this. "You shouldn't make threats you don't intend to keep, Kageyama Sho. They wear thin after a while," he ignored me completely. I was already gone from his thoughts. "Instead make promises. And I promise you this—"

He had disappeared from view down the stairs, so I shouted after him from my bed: "I will always do exactly as I please!"

It made no difference, he was gone. I heard a brief exchange of words downstairs, and the voice of an old woman, probably the herbalist. The opening squeak and then slam of a door.

I slipped from the bed to the cool wood of the floor, gritting my teeth as my weight landed on my healing ankle. I quickly shifted to my good leg and hobbled over to the window.

Below I heard horse hooves, and Makabe rounded the side of the house, already at a canter. I watched Kageyama steer the black horse down the path leading up to the herbalist's house and down to the main road below.

When he reached the main road, he turned north and kicked Makabe into a gallop, and soon both horse and rider disappeared from my sight.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Three days later I left the herbalist's house and turned my limping steps south.

The Rainy Season was truly gone now, mist and rains replaced by sunny days that dawned bright and grew steadily hotter as the sun rose high.

The first few days I traveled slowly and stopped early, my ankle still weak. But soon the magic that made me eternal did its work, and my ankle returned to the condition it had been before the break. No trace of limp remained. I traveled south on two strong legs.

I started sleeping rough again, despite the fact that my pack bulged with coin and I could have afforded any inn I passed. I chose instead to camp at night away from towns and villages, in the woods somewhere I could see the sea. Often I would not even make a fire, simply scavenging fruit or plants from the woods or catching fish and eating them raw.

One such campsite I stopped at overlooked a natural bay. Once the sun had set and the night came, in the time before the moon rose, the stars took over the sky, like a thousand jeweled fish swimming above the sea.

I watched the stars, reaching out to trace familiar constellations with my finger until I fell asleep.

The next day I stopped in a small town to buy supplies.

As I was waiting for the ironsmith to finish sharpening the short knife I used for harvesting plants or cleaning fish, I noticed that the narrow building beside the ironmonger's forge was a bookseller.

Signaling to the ironsmith that I would wait nextdoor, I entered the book shop.

The shop was one long narrow room. The single window at the front of the shop was dingy, and did little to light the room, so the back of the long room faded away into shadows.

To my left was a low wooden counter behind which the store keep sat, writing inventory in a large notebook with ink and brush. The wall behind him was nothing but shelves, lined with precious books, some handwritten and some press printed using carved wooden blocks. Some of the most valuable books were locked behind wooden lattice doors, the titles on their spines peeking shyly through the lattice work as if afraid to be read.

To my right the wall was also nothing but shelves, this time covered with less valuable spools of parchment or rolls of bamboo strips with characters carved into them. Some scrolls were stacked at the base of the shelves, and I carefully stepped over them as I made my way to the counter.

As I approached the store keep put down his charcoal and looked up at me suspiciously. "Can I help you?" he asked, seeing a young man in rough homespun and assuming I had little use for books. Little did he know I had probably read most of the printed books on the shelf behind him. The older ones at least.

I looked around, still not sure why I had entered, and then asked. "Do you have a copy of the Royal family tree?""

"Of course," the shopkeep said derisively. "You can find one just about anywhere."

"Well can I see it?" I asked.

"Are you going to buy it?" he asked back. I wondered how he kept any customers.

"Not until I see it," I replied. Reluctantly he reached under the counter and fished around, then drew out a long parchment which he unrolled on the wood of the counter. He anchored the corners with stones and then hovered like an owl, waiting to snatch the parchment away from me should I prove unworthy.

I ignored him and studied the tree, following the lines branching down like roots till I found the current generation. I searched and found Sanli's name. He was the younger brother of the current head of the Lu family, the Regent or acting Green 'King'.

I breathed in sharply and bit my lip. If I was reading this twisted tangle of roots correctly, the man I had just spent a fortnight traveling with, the man I had almost kissed on a roof in Mengxiang, was third in the line of succession, after his older brother Xiangli, and Xiangli's only son.

Prince, I had called Sanli when I first saw him in Nan'ye. Hah, the irony. He really was a Prince.

Then I noticed something else and frowned. "This can't be right," I said, pointing to Sanli's name. Beneath it the years of his life were written. 732 GE -750 GE. "According to this, the Third Prince died 18 years ago." I met him. I travelled with him. He isn't dead. Not yet.

The shop keep tutted and shooed my hand away to look. He thought for a minute then brightened. "Oh that. That was the old Third Prince. He died near 20 years ago now. A few years after he died, the family adopted one of the old Lord's bastard sons into the family, and just gave the boy the same name as the dead prince. Since he wasn't a legitimate son, he was never added to the family tree."

"Oh," I said.

"Well," the shop keep prodded. "Aren't you going to buy it?"

"No," I said, and left.

*~*~*~*~*~*

❤️ Fanart by.... me!