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

16

Part 4
16

Return, once again,
To that place of deep despair,
And find what you seek.
- Rasakūn.

Returning to the fishing village, they found that Drellis and his small army had already left. Yurivno felt thankful for that. The man scared her, him and the thought of what he and his employer would do if they managed to get their hands on the mythical weapon in the ancient Kannai city.

Now, she waited for Tanou in the stonemason's littered room. She watched as Ankūro ranted and raved, strutting around in an exaggerated pompous walk, curling her face in a mockery of importance, grunting 'Sansui', 'Sansui', 'Sansui', before turning to a shocked Tuccé. Ankūro pointed to herself and shouted her name, pronouncing each syllable, before throwing up her hands and stalking away.

"I only asked if she really was a Sansui." Tuccé's face had lost colour. "Then she just exploded."

"Are you certain that's all you said?" Smiling, Yurivno wondered if she should follow the old woman. "She's very upset."

"Well, I said, 'Are you a Sansui?', and she said, 'Ankūro. Not Sansui'. You know, how she does." His eyes flickered away as Yurivno raised an eyebrow. She knew he had said more. "Alright. I asked why she wore the jacket and she muttered, 'Comfy. Good jacket'. So, I asked why she wore a Sansui jacket, won't another jacket be just as good? And that's when she started ... all that. I didn't understand a word of it."

He scratched his head, sitting down, cross-legged, upon a cushion. He looked uncomfortable, frowning in the direction where Ankūro had stormed away. Yurivno had started to like Tuccé, especially after his heroics in the catacombs, but he had difficulty dealing with others where gold wasn't concerned.

"It's obvious it means something to her. It's important." She flexed her fingers, itching to remove the bandage. She needed to write down her findings, but the hand still felt off, somehow. "Maybe it's a reminder of a lover, or a son who was Sansui? Maybe she is Sansui and doesn't want to talk about it? Regardless, you need to respect her choices. She chooses to wear it and that's that. Stop prying."

His hand reached to his head again, but the shortness of his hair seemed to bother him. He lowered his hand and scowled again, shifting his legs to find a more comfortable position. He still hadn't become used to Kaguta ways. On the journey back to the fishing village, he had asked many questions about Kaguta society. Most of those questions related to Kōshitō and Yurivno could tell the noblewoman had left an impression on the desert dweller.

As much as she had tried to pass on as much as she had learned in her short time upon the island, it all seemed to slip from his mind with ease. The only time anything became retained was upon talking about the island's money and business practices. He had followed every word of that with intense fascination. She could imagine him storing the knowledge away to use when he returned to the mainland.

"And why does she always insist 'Ankūro' when you mention Sansui to her?" Leaning back, he supported himself on his hands, pressed against the battered reed matting, his elbows locked straight. "That's strange, isn't it?"

"You know 'Ankūro' isn't actually her name, don't you?" She laughed as Tuccé's head snapped around. "She says she's 'Ankūro Siinji', but that just means 'Walker, fifty'. It's more of a description than a name and I don't think she's even fifty anymore."

Tuccé considered that for long moments and Yurivno took the silence as the end of the conversation. Rising to her feet, she began to move around the room again. She had already wandered around the room several times while they waited for Tanou to return and had found no sign of the second tablet, or the rubbings she had made. The bench before the sliding wall of the room seemed as untidy as ever, with scraps of stone and clay littering the surface.