Siinji - Or, Ankūro and the City of the Golden Boughs

15

15

To find a friendship,
Unwanted, denied, foolish,
And become embraced.
- Momiji.

The clawed finger tapped the sheet of paper upon the table and Tuccé flinched at both the tapping and the bandage that still encased the furred hand. He tried to smooth down his beard, but remembered the whiskers had curled and melted in the heat of the lava. And his hair. Both had had to become trimmed far shorter than he preferred.

"No! Look, you have to write it exactly or there's no point in recording it!" The hand hovered over the spare pen, its nib maintained to a shining surface. Unlike the one that Tuccé held.

He had a heavy hand and he had already caused more blobs of ink to pool on the sheets of paper than he cared to think about. His scrawl almost unreadable. He had learned to write only in order to make himself appear more useful to clients that he had accompanied on searches for artefacts. Writing was not among his talents, but using words to his advantage? That, he understood.

"I'm just trying to make it read better. Give it a little polish, so to speak." He rolled his hand, expressing the artistry of his words and another drop of ink fell to the page. "It just all feels so dry. So lifeless."

"It's not a Yarn! That may work for those story collections in Tarkar's Bridge, but this is a recording of history!" The bandaged hand clenched and Tuccé heard the muffled whimper of pain. "Stop. Just stop, for now. We'll start again after something to eat."

Yurivno turned away and Tuccé saw her rest her injured hand in her other. Despite the attentions of the best healers the noblewoman, Kōshitō, could find, that hand still bore the signs, and the pain, from those dozens of sharp needles that had punctured the Kannai's palm. Frustrated that she couldn't record everything she had seen, Yurivno had asked Tuccé for help. Somehow, that little request had pleased Tuccé.

Those self-same healers had had better luck with White Eye's injuries. Yet, even then, the healing had taken a long time, exhausting more than one of the healers, threatening to burn them out through channeling too much of the magical 'Essence'. That strange energy some said came from the decaying life-force of the dead gods. Trying to use too much, channel too much energy, could cause a mage to lose their powers, burn their eyes from their sockets or, at worst, leave the mage a smoking pile of ash. Tuccé thanked the Patrons he had never seen that.

Tuccé had only seen White Eye in passing. Every day, he had wandered around the palatial home of Kōshitō, accidentally passing the old woman's room, catching a glimpse through the crack in the sliding door. At first, he had cringed at every glance. The blackened, cracked and peeling skin almost causing him to vomit, but, over several days, the injuries started to look less severe. To the point where, that morning, Tuccé had seen fresh skin upon that bald head.

They hadn't healed the scars from White Eye's previous life, they would never help with those, but the burns had become almost completely healed. That scar upon her cheek to her forehead remained. The milky-white, blind eye still seemed to penetrate to Tuccé's very soul. Every time he had looked in, since White Eye had regained consciousness, she had caught him looking, staring at him through the gap in the door with that eye.

He had expected Yurivno to have visited White Eye often. They had appeared to have come to some kind of friendship, but, every time Tuccé mentioned the old Kaguta woman, Yurivno's head would dip and turn away. She would say nothing before turning back and begun talking about the wealth of history that sat beneath their feet. Her enthusiasm for that, at least, glowing like Torch Flowers at night.

The only one that seemed to enter and leave White Eye's room, at will, was the noblewoman, Kōshitō. More than a few times, Tuccé had passed White Eye's room to hear the beautiful Kōshitō talking about fencing, tactics, strategies, methods of training and, of course, the Sansui warriors. Tuccé never heard White Eye's replies, if she replied at all, but he did hear the occasional, full-bellied laugh from Kōshitō. The one he had heard after White Eye had humbled her in the courtyard.