Oops I accidentally wrote out the entire backstory of my main Warrior of Light from my fic For Love and Life, the Hingan Au Ra samurai knight Achiyo Kensaki. It turned out even more tragic than I was expecting, tbh. 

I was halfway through the first chapter before I figured out Percival is basically Din Djarin LOL. He looks like 5.0 trailer Midlander, but wears the level 30 Steel tank armour set.

Warnings for: awkward sex education, attempted sexual assault, character death.

 

Part 1: Hingashi

The tiny Raen girl clad in a pink kimono walked a wooden doll over to a stuffed dragon plush. “I, Shirogane no Arinari, bring you greetings, Kiba-sama, and I thank you for your gracious invitation to visit you in your magnificent palace.” She looked expectantly at the older Hyuran lady sitting beside the stuffed dragon. “That’s you, Oba-chan. You’re Kiba-sama the dragon.”

The older lady smiled. “As you wish, Ojou-hime. Welcome, Shirogane-sama. Your arrival was long-expected, and we have prepared a lavish banquet for you. Come and rest after your long journey.”

“But the banquet is poisoned,” the little girl said, excitedly. Her long, straight, shiny silver-green hair flowed over her slender shoulders and she pushed it back impatiently. “Kiba-sama has a treacherous lieutenant who wants to bring war to the dragons and the people, so this person – um – Tadamitsu – tries to kill Shirogane.” She banged down another doll beside the first doll. “But it doesn’t work because Shirogane’s immune to poison-”

“That’s awful!” said the woman. “Achiyo-chan, you come up with the wildest stories!”

The little girl thumped her dolls against the tatami mats. “Shirogane doesn’t know, though, so he goes to kill Kiba-sama. But then Kiba-sama’s sister Shima-sama comes and throws herself in front of Shirogane’s blade, and Shirogane realizes that he was about to kill an innocent person-”

The woman rose and went to the door of the room, listening.

“Oba-chan?”

“Shh, Achiyo-chan. Just a moment.”

Achiyo tilted her head too, little white scaley ear nubs angled towards the faint sounds from the courtyard.

“Why are you barging in here?” she could hear the guard captain saying. “Kensaki no Tamehiro is away-” That was the name of her father, the samurai of Yamamatsu-jo, the tiny mountain castle she lived in.

“Kensaki no Tamehiro is dead, and his wife with him,” came a harsh answer, and Achiyo stood up, eyes wide. For a moment it was as if she had been struck blind. “Tatewaki no Hiromitsu has been appointed samurai of Yamamatsu-jo.”

The old lady turned, looking stricken, and came to embrace Achiyo. “Ojou-hime…! Oh, oh no! Poor Ojou-hime!”

Achiyo let her hug her, but she found herself very calm. Despite that moment of shock, it was ridiculous to say her Otou-san and Okaa-san were dead. She didn’t know why they were saying it, but it wasn’t true.

 

But it was true. She was brought before the new samurai, who looked at her with cold, uncaring eyes. She bowed her head as she had been taught, so she wouldn’t have to look at him anymore. 

“Where is the rest of the Kensaki clan?”

“Kensaki no Tamehiro was the last of his line,” said her Oba-chan, kneeling beside her with head bowed even lower. “Kaisuri no Ayame, his wife was before she married. She might have cousins. I do not know where.”

The samurai sighed. “It’s a waste of men, but… send four messengers to find any trace of the Kaisuri clan. Tell them to be back in six weeks, at the beginning of harvest. Old woman, you can take care of the girl until then.”

“And if they cannot be found?” asked Oba-chan, her voice wavering.

“It doesn’t matter to you either way,” said the samurai. “I have no need for a nurse-maid in my household. You will be dismissed, whether or not the girl goes to family – or to fend for herself.”

Somehow that was the point that the situation sank in, and Achiyo looked up in slight panic at the samurai. “What happened to my parents? Where are they?”

The samurai winced at her wide-eyed, unblinking stare. Oba-chan was forever trying to teach her how not to stare, told her that her pale blue-green eyes were best in small doses, but she forgot in this moment. “They were murdered by bandits as they returned from Bukyo. The guards were overwhelmed, and Kensaki taken by surprise. Meiken-dono’s men dealt with the bandits, but it was too late.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry, girl.” Then, as if regretting his brief moment of softness, stood. “Take them somewhere. Not the family quarters.”

“If no family can be found for her,” Oba-chan said desperately, and risking grave punishment, “she’ll die – she can’t survive on her own!”

“I’m sure it will work out,” the samurai said coldly. “And if it does not, that is not for me to change. What do you want me to do, keep her on with no name or clan?”

“Even as a lowly servant – I would teach her – though perhaps you might take her into your own family – even as a concubine-”

He made a faint face of distaste. “She’s a child. I know some would not balk at such a thing, even welcome it, but I am not one of those people. Out!”

 

When the messengers returned empty-handed six weeks later, her fate was sealed. There was nowhere for her to go. Oba-chan didn’t have the resources to look after her herself, especially now that she had no job. She’d overheard the new guards talking about how it was a waste of time to look for the family of a useless little kid, that if she died too no one would care. She didn’t think they knew she could hear them. Well, now it had been proven truly a waste of time. Oba-chan was sent away, and the samurai was heard to say “It’s kinder for them both.”

Achiyo had to wonder what sort of kindness he was talking about as she lurked on the outskirts of the village in the oldest yukata she had that still fit her, barefoot, starving. She had been ordered not to enter the village, and no one was allowed to talk to her or they were punished. So she wandered into the forest, crying, both for her parents and for herself. There was nothing else to do.

When it rained, she was wet. When it was dry, she burned in the sun. And it gradually became colder as autumn drew on, and mountain nights left her shivering and chilled well after the sun was up. She slept very little, day or night, curled inside a hollow log for warmth. The one thing she did not lack was water; there were good streams all around the village. But for food, she scavenged refuse heaps for scraps. She didn’t dare steal from fields and gardens; her parents had taught her how hard the peasantry worked to provide them all with food, and she wasn’t allowed to take that. They might hurt her or shout at her. Even though she was so hungry she could barely stand, she couldn’t risk it.

She prayed to all the kami to save her from this misery – that either someone would give her what she needed, or that death would come quickly. She might have been surprised that a wolf had not taken her yet.

So when the village’s merchant came to her – the first time anyone had spoken directly to her since she was turned out of the castle – and asked if she wanted something better, she listened.

 

“Stand up straight,” the merchant told her firmly. “You want to make a good impression, don’t you?”

She did, but she was so hungry… and she didn’t know what this was for. Still, she did her best. If these people who were coming to take her away were going to give her food and clothes and a place to stay… maybe even, she dared hope, someone to take care of her. Not a new Okaa-san, or Otou-san, that could never happen. But a new Oba-chan… If these people would give her a respite from the misery she had been in for the past two moons, then she definitely wanted to make them happy.

There was a big Roegadyn man coming up the road, with guards with him. The man was richly-dressed, but she shivered as she looked at him. She did not like looking at him. He gave her a bad feeling. Was this the person she was supposed to impress? She looked at the ground.

“This is the girl?” said the big man, looking down at her; he was nearly three times her height. She looked at the ground harder. She didn’t like how he looked at her, walking around her. She clutched the ends of her sleeves and willed him to be nicer. “Half-starved, that’s not unexpected. Unusual colours. Let’s see your face.” He pulled her face up harshly, tracing the edges of her cheek scales with a broad thumb, and she tried not to burst into tears. “Good eyes. She’ll do, even in a Bukyo okiya.”

“Do what?” asked a strange, strongly-accented voice, and everyone looked to see a weirdly-dressed ijin Hyur just standing by the road, watching them; not as tall as the Roegadyn, of course, or as tall as her father, but tall for a Hyur. He wore metal plates all over his body, and had a strange, straight sword on his belt. “Why you make girl cry?”

The Roegadyn ignored the ijin and turned to the merchant. “I’ll give you two thousand for her.”

“Hey!” The foreigner didn’t like being ignored. “What you do with girl?” He glared. “You buy her for okiya? No.”

“Stay out of this, foreigner,” said one of the guards. “We’ll arrest you if you interfere.”

“I interfere, then,” said the foreigner, a hand on his strange sword. “She not go to okiya.”

“What is okiya?” Achiyo asked in a small voice, and the Roegadyn reached down and slapped her. That did it for her, and she really did begin to cry silently.

The ijin drew his sword, and so did the guards. “Let her go,” said the man, and there was an edge in his voice that told Achiyo he really was going to fight all of them, that he wasn’t afraid. “You want death over small girl?”

There was a long silence, and then the Roegadyn growled. “So be it. I’ll make sure you regret this.”

“W-wait!” said the merchant. “Surely we can still come to an understanding…”

“This interloper has just made her far too expensive for the okiya. You’ve all wasted my time and money.”

“But not your life,” said the foreigner, and put his sword away again. “Go make everyone sad far away.”

The Roegadyn stormed away, and the merchant rounded on the foreigner. “How dare you!? She could have had food and shelter! And the village could have used that money!”

“She belong to you? You father?” asked the ijin, glaring down at the merchant. Wasn’t it obvious? He wasn’t an Au Ra like her.

“Me? No! She has no family anymore.”

“Then she belong to her. I not trust you. I take her.”

Achiyo slowly lifted her head to look at the foreigner. He was scary; he was covered in metal, he had hair on his face, and he was big and strong and being aggressive towards the other adults. But he was a lot nicer than the Roegadyn.

“You can’t just – that’s kidnapping!”

“What you think?” The foreigner leaned down towards her, and she braced herself and looked back at him bravely. “You want big man take you to Bukyo?”

She shook her head and took a step towards him.

“Her choice,” said the foreigner to the merchant. “We go.” He beckoned to Achiyo and began to walk down the road, in the other direction from the Roegadyn.

For a moment, Achiyo looked back at the village. She had never gone outside it before. It was all she had ever known. And now suddenly, in the blink of an eye, she had to leave. But she knew the foreigner was right. If she stayed, they would only try and sell her again, or she would starve to death.

She glanced at the merchant, saw his scowl, and turned and hurried after the foreigner.

 

They walked until Achiyo couldn’t see even the smoke from the village anymore. The foreigner had not said a word to her the whole time, had barely looked back to see if she was following. She began to lag behind. She was not strong, and she was starving, and she had no shoes; her feet and legs were starting to hurt. They were going uphill into the mountains and that made it even harder.

“Walk more,” said the man over his shoulder, and she obediently broke into a painful trot to catch up to him with his long stride. She was afraid if she complained he would be angry. She was going to pass out soon… Would he be angry then?

But he stopped at the sound of her uneven footsteps and turned to look at her. “No. Stop.” She stopped. He looked at her, properly, for the first time, at her filthy yukata, matted hair, dirty scratched bare feet, and his face filled with horror and shame. “No shoes?”

She shook her head.

He sighed and looked up and down the road, scanning the tree line. He seemed to see something he liked, and walked – more slowly – to a grassy spot under the trees. There, he took off his pack and tossed it on the ground, then pointed at her. “Stay. I get wood.”

She sat gratefully, trying not to cry at how much her legs and feet and stomach hurt, how dizzy she was. She was definitely starting to rethink her decision – but how could she go back? She was in the middle of the wilderness with a strange man who did not seem to care at all for her, and she could follow the road back and get sold to the bad-feeling Roegadyn, or she could run away another way and probably get into worse trouble. After she could run again, because she certainly couldn’t at that moment. She tried not to cry. But she was so tired…

The Hyur got back with an armful of wood and started building a fire, clearing the grass and piling dead leaves in the middle of the clearing. “Godsdammit, I’m so stupid. Risking your stupid neck, for a child with no shoes… Of course little girls can’t march like an adventurer, especially without sodding shoes. And I made her walk all this way… As if I didn’t have enough trouble taking care of myself…”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and started to cry, sobbing uncontrollably.

He dropped the sticks he was holding, looking shocked. “You speak Eorzean?”

Was that what he had been speaking? All she knew was that it sounded different, but somehow she still understood it. But she didn’t speak it, so she shook her head, trying desperately, uselessly to hold in further sobs. And even if she hadn’t understood, his tone of voice was perfectly clear. She was still a burden, and now she was a burden on someone who was already having a hard time.

“Hey, hey, sorry, sorry,” said the man, and awkwardly reached out to hug her. “I make fire, make food, you feel better.”

She didn’t want the hug, was as awkward about being hugged as he was to hug her, and she was glad when he went back to building the fire. “My name Percival. Your name?”

“Achiyo,” she mumbled, wiping her eyes with her dirty sleeves. Tears still flowed but her sobs had dwindled to little hiccoughs.

“Achiyo what?”

“Kensaki no Achiyo.”

“Achiyo Kensaki, got it.”

Was he… not as smart as he seemed? “Kensaki no Achiyo.”

“Eorzea says Achiyo Kensaki. I from Eorzea.”

“E-o-ru-ze-a?”

“Eorzea.”

“Where is Eoruzea?”

He looked off to the west. He had strange blue-grey eyes under a thick shaggy pile of unkempt brown hair. “Sunset, long long way.”

“Why did you come to Yamamatsu?”

He shook his head with a funny little smile. “Hungry?”

She nodded vigorously. The last of her tears had ceased as he distracted her. He cooked the food strangely, old vegetables and dried meat, but it was food, and it was cooked, and she devoured it shamelessly with her bare hands rather than use the weird prongy utensil he offered. He stared at her for a minute, still only half-done his own portion, then silently offered it to her.

She couldn’t eat someone else’s food, and shook her head.

“You hungry, yes?”

She was still hungry, but that was his food. It wouldn’t be fair to eat it. He hadn’t expected to feed her too, surely.

He shrugged and kept eating.

She lay down in the grass near the fire and fell asleep almost instantly. But she woke crying out and struggling when she felt him moving her a few minutes later.

“Hey, hey, not sleep here,” he said, backing off. “Sleep in bed.” He pointed, and she saw he’d set up a bedroll.

“But that’s yours,” she said.

He shrugged. “I sleep on ground before. Go. Sleep in bed.”

She was too tired to protest further, and it was… after sleeping on the ground herself for so long, it felt almost as comfortable as her old futon.

 

The next day her feet and legs ached so much she could barely stand, let alone walk. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” the man – Percival – was saying to himself as he packed up camp after breakfast. “Shouldn’t have walked so far yesterday, not like this. We’re lucky she didn’t step on a sharp rock or a thorn – stupid!”

“Baka?” she offered, and once again he jumped.

“You not speak Eorzean… but you understand?”

She nodded slowly. “I don’t know why. I never heard it before.”

He smiled ruefully. “I guess I can’t even whine behind your back, then. Well, Achiyo, how about this? As long as we’re travelling together, I teach you not just to understand Eorzean, but to speak it, and you teach me to speak Hingan better.”

She nodded. “Yes.” He hadn’t used an honorific. Even as young as she was, she guessed he didn’t know what leaving one off meant.

“All right. And I guess I’ll… I’ll have to carry you the rest of today. Until we find somewhere we can get shoes for you. At least you’re small. Why didn’t you say anything?”

She didn’t know how to answer that question. Adults decided what she was going to do, and she did it. Complaining about it, especially to scary strangers, wasn’t a good idea.

“Are you sure you understand me?”

“I do understand you,” she said.

He grimaced. “Well, you’re tougher than you look.”

 

He carried her on his back without significantly slowing down. It was uncomfortable for her, being so close to his greasy hair, hearing every panting breath he took, smelling his weird foreign smell. But she didn’t have to walk. At the next village, he bought food, then found a place to stay for the night and told her to stay put while he looked for work. She stayed in that room, bored but obedient, looking at the things in his pack and seeing how they were similar but different from the things she knew. The cooking pot, the clothes, the weird objects he used instead of chopsticks. She found a comb at least and started working on her hair which kept her occupied for several hours.

The host of the house tapped on the door and brought her dinner, a freshly-cooked fish. “Jou-chan, were you kidnapped? Should we kill that scary ijin? We can get you safely home.”

She shook her head as she tried not to inhale her food rudely again. She just wanted to forego chopsticks and tear into it with hands and teeth like an animal, heedless of the bones. But she’d been raised better than that in front of strangers. Yesterday had been an aberration. “He is taking care of me. Don’t hurt him.”

“What happened to your parents? Your family?”

She bit her lip to stop from crying. “They’re dead.”

“I understand why you’re with him then, but it isn’t right, a foreigner taking one of ours…”

He was the first person who had been remotely kind to her in over a moon. “He is taking care of me.”

And when Percival got back, he was very tired, with a new yukata and a pair of little geta for her, and another bedroll. With hardly a word, he handed them to her and collapsed into his own bedroll and passed out. She was not as tired, from not having walked nearly as much that day, and in the privacy of her own bedroll she could silently weep. It was a relief – she had enough food, she had shelter, and so the shock and the stress of everything that had happened could finally impact her.

 

The next morning, Percival scraped the last coins out of his purse for breakfast, and watched her as she ate. “You’re too skinny. Skeletal, even. What happened to you?”

“My parents died,” she said, and put down the onigiri she was holding. She didn’t want to eat while she was thinking about them. Her throat closed up and she couldn’t swallow. “No one would take care of me.”

“Arseholes,” he said under his breath. “Who were your parents?”

“My father was the samurai of Yamamatsu-jo. The new samurai looked for my family, but they couldn’t find them. So I had to leave.”

He looked angry. “I thought samurai had status. And no one would take you in?”

“No one has room for a useless kid,” she said, and started to cry. She didn’t want him to be angry at her. And now he was saddled with the ‘useless kid’. “They said if I died, no one would care.”

“No one’s useless,” he said, and clenched his hands, grinding his teeth. “How could they say that to a child!?” She hid her face in case he was going to hit her, and he saw and immediately relaxed. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not upset with you, Achiyo. I’m upset with your village. Aw, you’re going to make me cry in a minute. That’s unbelievable, though. It must be even more rough if you’re not a samurai’s kid. Can’t imagine it, though.” He rubbed his eyes.

“They told me it was normal.”

“That’s not normal. Not in Eorzea, anyway. At least, it shouldn’t be normal. I think it happens in Ul’dah.”

“What is Urudah?” Distracted, her tears began to slow.

“It’s a city in the desert. It’s too big for me. Full of rich Lalafells who think they’re superior to everyone else.”

“What are Raraferuzu?”

“Lalafells.”

That was a hard word to say, and she really had to work at it before he told her they were a people no taller than she was when fully grown. She’d never seen them before. They certainly didn’t come to Yamamatsu.

“Who are you?” she asked. “Why did you help me, when you didn’t want to?”

He looked uncomfortable. “It’s not that I didn’t want to. I just wasn’t expecting to have to. But I didn’t go on this journey for it to be easy. Let’s see… I’m Percival Byers, from Gridania, a city in the forest. I’m a mercenary – a person who fights monsters, and other people if necessary, for work. Or whatever odd jobs people have – got you those clothes by helping with farm work yesterday. Maybe ‘adventurer’ is a better term. And as for you… I just couldn’t watch a child get sold into slavery. Sex slavery, no less.” He made a grossed-out face.

“Sex is how we get puppies and kittens, right?” she said, remembering what her mother had told her when she saw two dogs doing something weird, and he sighed.

“I… will tell you later. Yes, but that’s not all of it. Anyway, I don’t regret it, so don’t think for a minute that I do. Maybe we’ll find someone who will be able to adopt you. But I’ll take care of you until then, got it?”

She nodded.

 

Life gradually got more stable and predictable. He was a quiet man, she found, and that was fine with her, because she was a quiet girl – especially now after everything. Some days they hardly said a word to each other. But some days, he spoke to her in halting Hingan, and she taught him more as well as she could, although sometimes he started using childish words because he was listening to her. And he started teaching her to speak Eorzean, its strange sound clusters and grammar full of little words that seemed so useless to her at first. It took her a very, very long time to say his name correctly – with the R and the S and the V and the L; her first attempts sounded more like ‘perushibaaru’ and he groaned at how bad it was. But that was one of the hardest words she started with. He wouldn’t let her use any honorifics with him, either.

Teaching her reading and writing was even more difficult. She had only really learned kana, and now he was teaching her an entirely new set of symbols. Yes, it was a smaller set, but the rules were really confusing, and when would she ever have to use it? He was also not the most patient person, and gave up pretty quickly. Though that only made her stubbornly decide to keep at it secretly, writing letters in the soft snow that fell around them, trying to spell the words that he taught her to say.

Oba-chan had been teaching her numbers besides kana, so Percival continued teaching her numbers, and what to do with them, and that was easier – up to a point. But he helped her practice with the coins in his purse, until he just put her in charge of their finances; the responsibility scared her and made sure she didn’t make many mistakes. In turn, he wasn’t very good with using chopsticks, and kept using his own strange pronged metal tool instead. She kept trying to show him, though.

People kept thinking he kidnapped her, and it was upsetting for both of them, when they had to explain who her true parents were and that they were gone. He had to defend himself, verbally and sometimes even physically, and people didn’t seem to understand her when she said she would not leave him. He fed her, clothed her, protected her, taught her, sheltered her – after he bought a tent, at least, which was imperative as winter set in. He worked so hard to keep both of them alive, and never raised his hand nor his voice to her, even when he was frustrated, and she was grateful. 

Though she was also grateful when a mother would watch over her as Percival went to work, or an older child, the people who treated her gently and let her play with their toys. She didn’t make up stories anymore. But she listened when mothers told stories to her as they did housework. Their voices were not as good as her mother’s, and their hair not as pretty as her mother’s long silver hair. She missed that voice, missed her mother making up funny words to make her laugh, the games they had played together. She missed her mother’s garden, a refuge of cultivated beauty, her family’s most privileged luxury that had no practical purpose. Even in winter it had been lovely. Thinking about it made her very quiet and sad.

As they travelled, she mostly followed him closely; she didn’t want to cause trouble for him. But sometimes she got distracted, or was clumsy, and he had to save her, or fix what she had broken, or patch up her scrapes and bruises. He learned very quickly that the slightest sign of displeasure from him would result in tears from her, and he had to keep a balancing act between correcting her, without emotion, and being patient and lenient with her mistakes. At least she was never wilfully misbehaved. She was too afraid that disobedience would mean he would leave at any moment.

He was very very good at his job, she observed; he could easily outfight anyone who challenged him, or any monster that attacked him, even samurai and tengu, and he was strong, and brave, and stubborn. He could have worked as a hired sword not just for a samurai, but for a bugyo, even the emperor if they would overlook his foreignness, and she was confused by him wandering between the smallest towns he could find and doing odd jobs for people who could not pay him much, and who sometimes seemed rather ungrateful for his efforts.  But when she worked up the nerve to ask why he wasn’t working for richer people, he answered shortly “Because I don’t want to,” and said no more.

It wasn’t long before she had picked up a straight stick and put it in her obi in imitation of the sword at his waist. It was different from her father’s sword, and she asked about it.

“It’s a knight’s sword,” he told her. “Like a samurai, but different. It helps me out here; I’m good, but the fact that they don’t know how to counter makes me even better.” He looked her up and down. “You should probably learn a bit about fighting, in case people attack you while I’m working.”

That idea scared her a little, but she wasn’t against learning to fight; her father had done so, after all. So he showed her, with her stick, how to fight with a knife, or even without, what she should do if someone grabbed her from behind, or tried to grip her arm, or if they pushed her over. How to break a man’s nose – or balls, if she had to, how to hurt someone enough to escape. If she could hurt him, he said, she’d have no trouble hurting someone who actually wanted to hurt her. “You’re not physically strong, but you’re small and nimble. It’s what makes kids – and Lalafells – dangerous. Use that to your advantage.” 

He taught her to Teleport at a tenkonto in a larger village, which drew some attention – most children didn’t learn to Teleport so young, they didn’t have the strength. Some people grew to adulthood and never had the strength. But he ignored the stares, and kept at it until she could at least blip to the tenkonto from the other side of the market. “If we get separated ever, Teleport to the nearest aethery- tenkonto and I’ll find you. Don’t move from there. You see how tiring it is, save your energy; I’ll come get you if I have to Teleport to every tenkonto in Hingashi.” 

She paused. “Why didn’t my parents just Teleport when they were attacked?”

“Maybe they couldn’t get away,” he said, but that didn’t help and she broke down in tears. “Shh, shh, you don’t want people to think I’m abusing you?”

She did not; did not want anyone to take her away from her guardian, and hastily choked it all off and pretended to smile.

He bought her a knife. It seemed he slept a bit better after that.

 

Spring came. The trees burst into bloom, one kind at a time, each more thickly covered in blossoms than the last. Achiyo sat on the edge of a stream with paper, pen, and ink that she had… borrowed from Percival’s pack, and carefully wrote a haiku – in Eorzean.

The winter is gon
But I am not aloen now
I kan move forward

She drew clusters of sakura around the edges of the page, and then ran back and handed it to Percival. She was teaching him about hanami.

“Hm? What’s this?” He read it and his eyes widened. “You… You wrote this?”

“Yes,” she said and nodded vigorously.

“Don’t know why I asked, it’s not like anyone else around here wrote it. So you didn’t give up, huh?”

“No,” she said, almost vibrating with the hope that he liked it. She still wasn’t sure. “Did I make any mistakes?”

“Sure, a couple, but you wrote this all by your…” He trailed off, then bowed to her. “I apologize for before. I’m very impressed. Good job.” He was smiling, smiling proudly, and that broke through the veil of sorrow that she carried with her and she smiled back. “Ah, that’s a good look for a little girl. Here, I’ll show you more. And I won’t be a jerk this time if you don’t get it right away.”

She’d already had a pretty good reward in his praise, but she was happy to learn more. Happy for more chances to please him, to earn more praise.

He ruffled her hair and promised to make something nice for dinner. “You’re going to be, what, nine this year?”

“I began my ninth year a couple moons ago,” she said. She’d been born in the midst of the snows, her Oba-chan had told her, and while she knew the exact day of the calendar, she didn’t know what day it was in the present – but she was pretty sure it had passed a little while back.

“Already nine, huh. Well, let’s hope this year goes better for both of us than last year.”

 

They stopped in a low-land village for a while, on the edge of a plain that filled a valley leading down to the sea. Here there were many other children, and their parents allowed her to play with them while Percival was looking for work in the area for a couple sennights.

But that was difficult for her. She had not often played with other children her own age before, when she lived in the castle. She had no practice. At first she was too shy, hiding from them, lurking on the outskirts of their play, but they seemed nice enough, curious about her, and they asked who she was and where she was from. And that gradually led her out of her shell, though she was never as comfortable and loud and boisterous as they were. It was very exciting at first, especially with everyone running around after a wooden ball and kicking it around the dusty street. But gradually cracks began to show. 

She didn’t talk enough, and they called her scared. She talked too much and took over conversations, and they called her selfish and annoying. So she stopped talking at all, and then they called her creepy. They also found her face annoying, the way she stared. Especially if she was upset, she would stare unblinking, trying not to show she was upset – not showing anything at all. And that bothered them, it seemed. They wanted her to show reactions. But if she reacted, it was too much, and they called her a baby.

That caught on even when she wasn’t being emotional. She was smaller than most of them, even the Hyuran children her own age. They said her hair and eyes were weird colours, even though there were three siblings with blue hair and one girl with emerald green hair; her own silver-green wasn’t that strange, was it? There were only a few other Raen children in the village, and the Hyuran children took advantage of her outsiderness to poke her ear horns, to pull her tail, until even she realized they were bullying her. She didn’t think she was supposed to fight back against them like against adults, so she ran away. They thought that was funny and chased her.

She managed to hide in the room she and Percival were staying in, and she didn’t come out. She had not told Percival what had been going on until that point; she didn’t want to worry him while he was looking for work. But she couldn’t hide this from him now; one look at her face, and he asked, and she poured out her insignificant woes. He was angry; maybe they weren’t that insignificant.

But talking to the parents of the other children didn’t change anything. So they moved on. He lamented that she should have friends her own age; she personally decided that life and the kami had not decided to bless her in that way. Yes, she was lonely with only him for company. But her experiences with children so far had not been pleasant. She got along with adults better.

 

They were walking through a region filled with rice fields when someone else on the road hailed them. “Travellers, huh?” Two men, in samurai armour.

Percival put out his hand to keep Achiyo well behind him. “Yes.”

One of them spat on the ground. “A foreigner. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I’m not looking for a fight,” Percival said. His Hingan really was pretty good now.

“You better not! I’m Bakaro of the War-fed Blade! This is Urabito of the Dented Helm! We-”

The other samurai elbowed him. “I told you, stop telling people that’s my title! I’m Urabito of the Moon-horned Helm, and that’s final!”

“That takes so long to say though.”

“Like ‘War-fed Blade’ is any better-”

“What do you want?” Percival said sharply. Bickering or not, the two samurai were dangerous to them, and Achiyo could tell from how they stood, how Percival stood in response.

The first samurai snickered. “Kneel, foreigner, and we might let you and your girl pass.”

“No,” Percival said.

“Good!” said the second samurai. “I needed to see if my sword is still sharp.”

“Then you’d better not hit my armour,” Percival said sardonically, and drew his sword and shield smoothly. “Stay behind me, Achiyo, and watch for reinforcements.”

She had seen him fight a couple times, but usually monsters. People were scarier. And these were samurai.

They weren’t very good samurai, as Percival slew first one and then the other. She gasped and hid her face from the dead men. She did not want to see dead bodies, even if they had been trying to hurt them.

Percival quickly cleaned his sword and shield, put them away, and picked her up, moving steadily down the road. “It’s all right. They won’t hurt us. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“People have a lot of blood in them,” she said in a small voice. That was the worst part about seeing people die, was seeing the blood run out of them. This was what her father had done? Not attack random people on the road, she was certain of that – but to fight and kill people…

“They do,” he said. “It would be a grand world if no one wanted to hurt or kill each other. But they do. So what can we do? Someone has to stop them – or at least protect those who don’t fight.”

Yes. That was what her father had done. He had protected Yamamatsu during the wars that had only recently ended just before she was born. His sword was bright and shiny, and she had secretly loved to watch him practice with his soldiers, but she had loved even more when she got to sit on his lap and show him a new hair-styling technique Oba-chan taught her, braiding his long dark green hair and winding it into loops. That had always made Okaa-san laugh. She missed when he would read to her, even if he refused to do the dramatic voices that Oba-chan and Okaa-san did. She tightened her hold on Percival.

“Yes, I’ll protect you,” he said. “That’s what I do. I don’t want you to see violence and death. But if someone threatens you, I’ll do what I have to.”

She nodded.

Camp that night was quiet, as it often was; she curled up near him, wanting to reach out and yet not daring to. Memories ran past her, memories of her parents and Oba-chan and her happy life that had vanished as if cut away, and she cried quietly.

He saw, and picked her up, settling her in his lap. “What’s wrong? Still thinking about those guys?”

“No,” she said, between sniffles. “My parents. It was a year ago.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and held her closely.

 

After another winter, they went to the island of Shishu, and Achiyo saw the port city of Kugane for the first time. It was huge! And it was so hot in summer, the humidity even more clinging than on Koshu. She could not comprehend so many people living in one place at one time. The main streets were so noisy and crowded, and parts of the city smelled nice or strange or terrible or everything at once. There were so many bright colours, and in some places there were so many pretty things to look at. And so many foreign things, too! And people – Namazu, Lupine, Kojin, or travellers from even further, Elezen and Miqo’te and finally those mysterious Lalafells. She’d heard that Bukyo, the capital of Hingashi, was even greater, though lacking utterly in Lalafells, but she could not imagine it.

Percival got a cheap room on the outskirts of the city, with worn tatami mats and the rice-paper walls not exactly in pristine condition. But it was shelter, and he sighed as he sat on the edge of the engawa, watching people pass on the street not far away. “I hate cities.”

Achiyo sat beside him in a place where he mostly hid her from view, but she could look at the people too. “It’s overwhelming.”

“It is. Gridania isn’t like this at all.”

“What’s it like?” she asked, trying not to sound too eager, because he so rarely talked about his homeland.

“Fewer people. Smaller. It’s more forest than buildings. Or they build the buildings into the trees. Everything’s green. Not so humid – or so hot. I think we’re further south here.” He thought for a bit. “One benefit of being in Kugane, you and I stand out much less. Especially me. They do allow foreigners here.”

“Wait, if they don’t allow foreigners outside of Kugane, how have you been travelling all this time?” Was that one reason he avoided Bukyo?

“Being very persuasive,” he said, and changed the subject. “Anyway, cities are just as dangerous as the world outside them… but you can find things there that you can’t find anywhere else. And since this is your first time here, how about we go see a play and then get something really nice to eat?”

She knew that was an extra cost, that he was splurging for her sake. He wouldn’t do anything like that on his own account. …But that sounded amazing and she really wanted to accept. “Yes please.”

He took her to a play about yokai, of samurai who befriended them and then challenged each other to duels with their yokai companions instead of with their swords. She was drawn in to the story, how a tormented neko-yokai with no master was fighting all the samurai to free their companions; she wept as the youngest samurai, Satoshi-san, gave his life for his nezumi-yokai friend. She was shocked and overjoyed when the neko-yokai, humbled in the face of this sacrifice, restored the samurai to life and promised to end his interference in the other yokai’s lives.

The experience left her reeling. She had seen plays with her parents, but little ones in the village, with simple costumes and sets, barely any music. This had been so real she had believed it all. Percival thought the story wasn’t very good, she could tell, but he didn’t say anything to her. After that, the wonderful sushi and kara-age for dinner was a welcome relief. Although it tasted so good that she ate too much, and was nearly sick afterwards. 

“Do I cry too much?” she asked as she lay holding her belly in their room again.

Percival looked up from polishing his greaves, surprised. “No. Why?”

“It didn’t look like most of the other children there were crying when we left the theatre.  And I feel like I’m always upset about stupid little things. Don’t I cry a lot?” She remembered what those children had said, too.

“You do cry a lot,” he said, turning his attention back to his task. “Is that too much? I don’t know. I don’t know how much is the right amount of crying. And you have a tough life for a kid. Maybe you should cry more.”

She had to giggle a little, that was such a foolish thing to say. “I don’t want to.”

He gave her a little smile. “Good. Keeping clean hankies is a pain.” He polished a bit longer. “Nothing wrong with being sensitive, I think. Sometimes it can make things more difficult. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad, or wrong. Not all of it is little stuff. Maybe the big stuff makes the little stuff harder.” He paused again. “You feel what you feel, how do you change that, even if you want to?” His voice had sunk to a murmur, and later she wondered if he was talking about himself.

 

The older she grew, the more she became used to her life, her circumstances. One thing she could certainly never say was that her life was boring now. Certainly, the aspect that involved endless walking could become a little dull, but the places they walked she would never have seen while living in Yamamatsu-jo. Certainly her parents might have someday taken her to Bukyo, and Percival avoided that place like the plague, but she could not say if they would likewise have taken her to the far reaches of the island just because it was there, seeing the travel-worn icebergs in the northern seas; she doubted if they might journey all the way around holy Daitenzan, the great mountain of Koshu, just because it was possible.

Hingashi was a beautiful, beautiful land, and the older she grew, the more she loved it. Its small wonders, the groves of rhododendrons and trickling mountain streams, and its great magnificent sights, the massive cool green pine forests, the eternally-snow-capped mountains, by sunlight or moonlight. Glittering waterfalls dotted with aether crystals, ancient bamboo groves that dwarfed her to insignificance, the broad body of the Hakutei river that seemed almost like a sea in itself. In spring, the cherries and plums bloomed like pink-white clouds come to earth, in fall the maples flourished crimson as sunset, in winter the snows painted the world purest white. In the midst of it all rose Daitenzan, always visible from every part of Koshu, the mightiest mountain in the world, a perfect cone with brilliant white snow.

Surely the wildernesses were haunted by kami and yokai, but Percival did not believe in yokai – except maybe for these ‘Moogles’ of his homeland – and of kami believed in his own Twelve. So she very rarely saw yokai on their travels; they must have sensed Percival’s unbelief and avoided such negative energy. Maybe she saw a kitsune in a field, but when she told him, he would scoff and claim it was just a fox. But at least wandering the length and breadth of Hingashi taught her of new kami, all the kami in Hingashi, not just Ryujin-sama and Suijin-sama that her parents had venerated. Every region had their favoured kami, and she made sure to venerate them all, so that she and her guardian would have their favour and protection while in their domain. 

Percival wasn’t interested, but he encouraged her to learn what she could at the temples and shrines that they passed. “Your horoscope said you were water-aspected, right?” he asked at camp one night.

“Yes, like my Okaa-san. My Otou-san’s horoscope is air.”

“I still don’t get horoscopes… but your patron would probably be Nymeia. You don’t strike me as much of a Thaliak-type.”

She pondered that, but what did Nymeia have to do with her? Ryujin-sama was much more active, at least here in Hingashi. “What about you?”

“Me? Azeyma. I want to know what there is under the sun.” He looked away into the distance, which was a sign he was thinking about things he didn’t want to talk about.

He came back from his reverie. “Why do you think I came to Hingashi, after all?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She was not always good at knowing when people were lying, but she knew Percival well enough by now to know if he just came all the way to Othard out of idle curiosity, he was not being fully truthful. The way he drove himself so hard, the way he avoided powerful people, the way he stopped to help helpless folk who might not even be able to thank him – he was running from something in his past that pained him. And he could not outrun it because he carried it with him. She didn’t even understand it in so many words, she just knew it. But if she asked, he closed off and did not talk for hours.

He could not stand her staring eyes as she verbally sidestepped. “Well. Azeyma didn’t hurt my decision.”

“Amaterasu-sama will watch over you for Azeyma-sama while you are here,” she offered, and he smiled at the weak gesture of support. “I will ask her to.”

 

Hingashi was not overly large, even Koshu, and though Percival was not attempting to return to Yamamatsu, he could hardly help travelling through the prefecture it was part of. Thus it was that they were only a few days travel away from her hometown when they met an older man on the road, grey-bearded, riding a donkey slowly the same way that they were. She would have thought nothing of it – they passed fellow travellers often enough – but he looked at them and squinted, and then suddenly asked: “What is your name, young lady?”

She blinked at him, wondering if he was from Yamamatsu and remembered her, or if he was just a chatty traveller.  “I am Kensaki no Achiyo.”

“Who’s asking?” Percival said, a hand on his sword.

“Kensaki? Truly?” The man stopped and got down from his donkey, then his face broke into a big grin. “Kensaki no Tamehiro-sama’s daughter, of course!”

“Y-yes…?”

“I heard about your parents three years ago, I’m so sorry, young lady. I served under your father in the wars, and only left his service when I got married – ah, before you were born, certainly.” He bowed, as if she were a samurai herself. “Mizuhiki, at your service.”

“It’s n-nice to meet you,” she said. “W-will you tell me more?” Her memories of her parents were already dimmer than they had been, and she didn’t know anything about them from before she was born. She desperately wanted to know more, even if she knew it was going to make her cry horribly.

“I would be glad to. And you are…?”

“Percival Byers,” Percival said. “Her guardian, for now. Where are you headed?”

“I’m on my way to Okadani. That wouldn’t be too far out of your way, would it?”

“Any way is a good way,” Percival said easily. “Lead on.”

Mizuhiki-san got back on his donkey to travel, explaining he had a bad leg, and they set off to his village. They talked a little as they walked; she explained that Percival had been her guardian ever since she had been orphaned, and told a little about their journeys. Mizuhiki laughed and said that she was more well-travelled than most great lords in the realm.

They arrived at Okadani-mura, and Mizuhiki-san returned his donkey and took them to his home, a humble but comfortable house. By the time they had finished dinner, Achiyo could call Mizuhiki-san Oji-san, and his wife Oba-san, and they sat around a kotatsu with tea late into the evening.

Oji-san sighed. “I remember when I heard the news about Tamehiro-sama and Ayame-dono… they died far too young. You have to understand, the country was still very unsettled three years ago. It still is, somewhat, though the samurai and lords are regaining control of the prefecture, little by little. Travelling Yamamatsu to Bukyo and back should have been perfectly safe, especially for a samurai, especially one of Kensaki-sama’s skill. But in the mountains, in the forests, it must be tempting for lawless folk to think they could hide and prey upon travellers. Indeed, perhaps they might have let lesser travellers go, but Kensaki-sama might have been attacked with intent to kill because he was samurai, because he had a blade.”

Achiyo was already trying not to cry, and shifted closer to Percival minutely. He put a warm hand on her shoulder, and that steadied her, though she wanted more. She was in her eleventh summer. She couldn’t ask any of these people for a hug, she was too old for that.

“Poor Achiyo-chan,” said Oba-san. “Anata, talk about happier times. Don’t make her cry more.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Oji-san said. “Let me see. How long has it been? Kensaki-sama…” He stopped to chuckle. “He was my master, but I didn’t get to know him until I was called to muster to follow him to the wars, when he was still a very young man. He was so awkward, he could barely hold a conversation with anyone. I thought he hated me for a moon before I figured out why he wouldn’t talk to me, or hardly anyone else in our camp, when we were not training or in battle. He would clam up when he was embarrassed, or folk were speaking about things he wasn’t sure about – which was, at the start, just about anything that wasn’t swordfighting. Indeed, Achiyo-chan, another samurai told Kensaki-sama it was a good thing he was pretty, or else Ayame-dono wouldn’t have taken the time to get through his shell.”

“He did not seem so as my father,” Achiyo said to herself.

“I believe that was your mother’s influence,” Oji-san said. “She was very quiet, of course, but behind her gentle grace there was hiding a sharp wit and a strong will. She was patient and persistent, and that drew out your father over time. I watched them come together, and it was obvious from the start that they admired each other. When the fighting stopped and we all went home, I still lived in Yamamatsu, and I was one of the chief guards at the wedding. The whole village celebrated for three days and nights!”

Oji-san mostly knew about her father’s skill in battle; they had both fought side-by-side at the end of the wars, and so she heard much about his skill, his honour, his devotion to duty – even if he tended to be a bit scattered about other things in his life. Oji-san had more than a couple of embarrassing stories to tell, in among the heroic ones. Tripping over a tentpeg and landing headfirst in a puddle because he was staring at her mother, for instance. How he heard a rustle in the undergrowth and fearlessly charged the enemy, only to find it was a disgruntled deer.

He hardly had time to tell all these stories at once, and so Achiyo and Percival stayed for several days. He and his wife were reasonably well-off in their retirement, and Achiyo had not eaten or slept so comfortably in some time. She was almost reminded of home – not that it was as luxurious as her memories suggested her past life had been, but the feeling of security and safety that it brought up was akin to before.

Still, home was gone forever in reality, and she was reminded of it when one day she happened to eavesdrop on Percival and Oji-san conversing on the engawa. She froze and huddled close to the wall, tucking her tail in, making sure she wasn’t casting any shadows they might see, and hardly breathed as she listened.

“There’s been a question on my mind the past day or two,” Percival said. “Would you adopt Achiyo? You know who she is, you could provide the stability that I cannot.”

Oji-san sighed and did not answer for a minute. “I’m an old man, Byers-san. The question has been on my mind as well. But my wife and I… we are getting by, by ourselves, but taking care of a growing young girl would be difficult for us. I’m sure you would be happy to have her off your hands-”

“No, no,” Percival was quick to deny, and knowing he was more blunt than polite made Achiyo believe him. “She’s a good girl, doesn’t cause much trouble. I’ve gotten fond of her. But I can’t stick in one place for long, and that’s not a good situation for a child. And you’re the first people I’ve met who I could trust not to exploit her.”

“I know,” Oji-san said. “But even should we manage to feed her, and clothe her, and give her the respect and kindness she deserves, what of her education? What if we pass away before she is of age? She will have to work hard to live a good life here. Even if we put aside the fact that she is a samurai’s daughter I fear the greatest future we can offer her is that she becomes honourably married, and not necessarily to one of her true station. Though she may grow into a great beauty and capture the heart of a samurai the way her mother did – but no one should plan for that.”

“Agreed,” Percival said. “What future can I offer her? I’m trying to teach her useful things, but there’s a lot I don’t know, especially about this land. I dunno, getting honourably married isn’t the worst thing that could happen to her, as long as she agrees to it, and I don’t know if I can make even that happen for her. ”

“I should honour the memory of her parents, and my former master, by doing this small thing for him. For him whom I served loyally for years, who trusted me with his life. But what I offer may not be enough. Would that Kensaki-sama had more family to look after his orphan! Have you asked her yet?”

“No. I thought there would be little point in worrying her over a decision like that if you were going to say no.”

“Then let us leave it in her hands,” Oji-san said. “A choice between two lives, both difficult and full of hardship.”

“Speaking of hardship, why did her village kick her out after her parents died?” Percival asked suddenly, anger in his voice.

Oji-san was slow to answer; he was not sure of the answer himself, or he did not like it. “Hingashi has been slow to recover since the wars. Taking care of an unrelated child in uncertain times is a terrible risk. Or perhaps the new samurai of Yamamatsu did not want her to challenge his position when she grew up. She would be in her right to, even if he was appointed by the bugyo so as to not leave the land undefended. Though it would be difficult for her to succeed if she did not know how to fight, or any army at her call; still, it would cause problems for him. …It is not uncommon to abandon orphans in times of strife. It is only unusual that Kensaki-sama did not have more relations.”

“I know,” Percival growled. “That doesn’t make it easier to accept.”

She’d heard more than enough, and she had to creep away as quietly as she could so she could think about her decision before they asked her. She didn’t know what she wanted. These older people were very kind, but she didn’t know them yet. And they didn’t really want her, even if they liked her parents. Well, Percival didn’t really want her either, or at least he hadn’t when he first picked her up.

But if she then considered that to be moot, that if they both didn’t really want her they cancelled each other out, what did she want? To wander impoverished through the realm at the heels of a foreign mercenary, or to settle in a quiet home with strangers to work hard? That made the choice sound obvious, didn’t it?

And yet… she had to think about it, and overthink it, as much as she could.

So when they all gathered for dinner and Percival said to her “I have a suggestion for you to think about, Achiyo,” she could be calm and not upset or emotional about what he said next. “What would you think of staying here? For… for good?”

She still couldn’t let on that she’d been eavesdropping. “You would not be staying, would you?”

“No. It would be too easy for law enforcement to track me down and deport me or worse. I mean, I would visit, when I can. But think about it. It wouldn’t be any easier than tagging around after me, but it would be stable, and predictable, and they knew who your parents are, and what you need to know to be a functioning adult in your people’s society.”

She looked at Oji-san and Oba-san. They nodded. “We are old, but you are welcome to stay. We would do our best to raise you.”

The adults were all looking at her, waiting expectantly. “Do you need time?” Percival asked. “We’re staying another couple days, you can think about it.”

It would have been intimidating if she hadn’t been ready for it, but she raised her head and looked at each of them in turn. “Thank you, but I had been thinking about this for a little while.” It was borrowing their own language to say something not wholly true, yet not untrue either. “From the stories you have told me, my parents were brave and strong. My father would be courageous and my mother would be determined. If they had the freedom to, they would have gone adventuring.” She looked at Percival. “I want to go with you. If you will still have me.”

His eyes widened, and then he smiled. “All right.”

“You are welcome to visit whenever you wish,” Oji-san said. “And when you go, you will go with the bravery of your father, and the wisdom of your mother. Honour them always, hold your head high as the daughter of samurai, and good fortune will be with you always.”

 

They stopped at a town market for food, and Achiyo’s eye was caught – as it always was – by the pretty things sold there. Little lacquered boxes, and enamelled hairpins, and bright sprays of silk flowers, pretty things for ladies.

Percival caught her looking. “You like flowers, huh?”

“I like sakura,” she said, but turned away and came back to his side. Those things were for well-off ladies, and she knew exactly what their financial situation was; she was in charge of it.

Percival did not move on; he came and leaned over the table. “Which one?”

She pointed. “We can’t afford such a thing…”

“I didn’t ask if we could afford it, I asked which one you like. How much do we have?”

She told him, and he shrugged. “Let’s do it anyway. I’ll take this one, ma’am!”

Achiyo didn’t even have time to inhale to protest further before he had dropped the little cluster of sakura into her hands. “There you are. Pretty flowers for a pretty little girl.”

Her eyes were wide with delight as she turned it over and over, admiring it from all sides. It was just scraps of painted silk, coated with a light glue so they wouldn’t fray, bound to little wires and then to a wiggle-pronged hairpin, but they had been cleverly made to look as real as possible, and she had not had anything this pretty since she had been cast out. Even the shopkeep smiled to see her look so happy. She impaled her white cotton headband with it so it would stay securely, then looked at him in joyful confusion. “But you never buy frivolous things.”

He shrugged. “I don’t buy them for myself. Kind of kicking myself for not thinking before now that maybe you’d like a few material possessions now and then, just because I live frugally. But life should be enjoyed, and if having a pretty ornament makes you happy, then it’s worth the cost.” She smiled happily. “See, it’s already worth the cost for me.”

She blushed, and was aglow for the rest of the day, and Percival smiled whenever he looked at her and saw her smiling.

 

She got her first period in the middle of the wilderness in winter, which was pretty terrible timing. They had stopped for a break to relieve themselves and there was blood in her loincloth – so of course she screamed. She didn’t feel injured but she was bleeding!?

Percival came running of course, but turned around quickly once he figured out she wasn’t actually under attack and was still partially undressed. “Uh. It’s okay. You’re okay. Don’t worry.”

“I’m bleeding!” she wailed, stock still in case moving made things worse. She could feel it trickling down the inside of her leg and that was gross.

“I know. It’s, uh, normal. I… I don’t know what to do about it. Just don’t panic, okay?”

She was panicking, but she put herself back together and came back to the path a few minutes later, wondering how she was going to sit down or lie down from now on. But Percival didn’t move, thinking hard. And very red. Eventually he opened his pack and pulled out the satchel of healing supplies, handing her the bandages. “Here, stuff those in your underwear, it’ll keep it from getting on your clothes.”

He was still red when she came back from doing that, and they began to continue on their way. His body language was awkward, like he wanted to crawl into himself rather than talk about it, but she needed to know, and he knew she needed to know, so he talked. “You really should have a woman tell you about this, because I don’t know very much. All I really know is that the bleeding means that you could have a baby, but you don’t have a baby.”

“Me!?” she exclaimed, on the verge of tears. “I’m twelve.”

“No one’s going to make you have a baby at twelve!” he hastened to assure her. “It’s… Okay, you know all those drunk guys we see at taverns with their members hanging out?” She did know, and it was gross, especially… It was gross. “Women have a hole down there, and a man’s member goes in when they have sex, and if the timing is right, that makes a baby. If the timing isn’t right, nothing happens. And then blood comes out of that hole when you don’t have a baby because… reasons. I’m not explaining this very well…”

Now they were both scarlet and avoiding eye contact. She was pretty sure she was going to start steaming in the cold, melting the snow around her.

“So do women just bleed for the rest of their lives?” she squeaked out.

“No! No, it should go away in a few days. I think. But it’ll happen again next moon. Every moon for the rest of your life, I think.”

“That’s terrible!”

“Yeah, sorry. Look, next town we get to, we’ll find a woman to tell you properly. But the upshot is, you’re not dying, you’re just… growing up. You’re going to be okay.”

She really hoped so.

 

Time passed; years flowed by. Percival kept wandering, finding work where he could all over the land. Achiyo followed him, growing to probably her full stature – which just meant that instead of reaching Percival’s waist, now she almost sort of reached his shoulder. She was now awkwardly thin from growing so quickly, and no matter how much food he managed to eke out of his earnings, her arms and legs looked like twigs under her yukata. She had grown from a solemn little girl into a solemn young woman.

People still kept accusing him of abducting her, and they were both, quite frankly, tired of it. The only thing weirder was that now people started asking if they were married, something that disgusted Percival without fail. Even though people seemed to accept this much more easily than the idea that he might be her guardian. Certainly, it might be easier for a foreigner to escape Kugane if he had a Hingan wife, so it did make sense in a way.

“D’you want to try Doma?” he asked one summer evening in a tavern in a moderately-sized town. She was fifteen, probably, skinny legs kicking under the bench, her pale silver-green hair cut to chin-length with a knife. He had not visibly changed. Maybe a little more weathered around the eyes. “I wonder if the work there would be better. I didn’t think it would, you know, with how the Empire’s been bleeding them dry, but we’ve basically run out of new places to go here. And if nothing else, there we’d both be foreigners, so they’d stop saying weird things about us.”

She didn’t answer for a long minute.

“No? Bad idea?”

“I don’t want to leave Hingashi,” she said. Just the thought was horribly upsetting, though by now she had enough control not to show it in her face. “Doma sounds scary. I need to think about it.” But if he thought it was for the best, then she would do her best to also think that.

“It doesn’t have to be right now,” he said. “But I feel like we’re running out of options here.”

He wasn’t trying to scare her. Just to make his own feelings clear. She nodded. “What if I called you Otou-sa-”

“No,” he said quickly. “I’m not your father. Maybe it would help what people say about us, but maybe it wouldn’t. And it doesn’t feel right.”

He’d been acting like a father all this time, even if a very different one than her birth father. But she accepted his words.

She got up and went to relieve herself at the washroom in the back of the tavern; getting catcalled by drunks on the way. She ignored them as she always did, and Percival snapped at them. Just in case, she checked the knife hidden in her obi when she went to leave the restroom.

She’d barely stepped out when someone grabbed her arm and dragged her down the hall, throwing her forwards into a dark room before she could do more than make a startled cry. She just registered that she was in a storeroom when the door slammed closed behind her and the latch was slapped shut. A lamp flared up, revealing three or four large men around her, all reeking of sake. “Got you, pretty girly! Come play with us, not that ijin bastard.” The one with the lamp beckoned her forwards, leering.

Her heart was pounding; there were three of them in front of her and one of them behind her by the door. The walls of the storeroom were solid wood in an effort to keep out rats and thieves, so she couldn’t just break through a rice-paper wall. Her throat felt frozen; she was too afraid to scream.

“Cute little lizard. No need to be scared, we’ll make you feel-”

Someone’s hand closed on her wrist, and she screamed, her self-defence training instantly firing off and making her elbow him so he let go of her. She screamed again now that her voice was free, Percival’s name, hoping he’d hear and come save her again. They were all trying to grab her now, and she cast Flash as Percival had taught her and dove past their blindly grasping hands, deeper into the storeroom. But where could she run – where could she hide? Her heart thudded in her chest, her tail twitched nervously behind her, her breath came in little gasps; she was lost in unthinking panic.

There was a heavy crash on the door. “Achiyo!” Percival’s voice called. “Achiyo, are you in there?”

A man caught up to her and she screamed again, drawing her knife and slashing at his grasping hand. She only meant to make him let go, but it was a good knife and somehow his whole hand came off. He shrieked, and another man came up behind and tackled her, grabbing at her hand with the knife, trying to make her let go. They struggled for a moment, because she was fighting with all her might, and the knife ended up in his stomach somehow. With every move she made, a cry escaped her. The door was shaking as Percival threw himself at it repeatedly, and then it broke in with a crash. Someone grabbed her tail and she fell to the floor, but she slashed backwards as she fell, keeping that one away from her. Then Percival’s sword burst through his chest and he fell limp.

The last drunk took stock of the situation and decided it was wise to quit the scene as quickly as he could. The wounded man stumbled after him, clutching his bloody wrist stump and moaning.

Achiyo was hyperventilating loudly, and Percival sheathed his sword and approached her cautiously. “Did they hurt you anywhere? Did they touch you wrongly?”

She shook her head, scarcely able to speak. “Th-they t-t-tried but they f-failed. I-I am… n-n-not h-hurt.”

Her pretty lilac-coloured yukata was covered in blood, but he pulled her into a hug anyway. “Hey. You’re okay. They didn’t get you. You did great.”

“I k-k-killed someone,” she gasped, shuddering against his armour.

“You did what you had to. It was him or you.” He paused. “But we have to get out of here. Sorry we don’t have time to think about it. We’re going to Doma. Tonight.”

She was too much in shock to protest, but the logical part of her brain took over, an eerie calm descending over her. “I-I need to change my clothes.”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

They found the tavern empty from the noise of the disturbance; no doubt the town’s militia would be coming to arrest trouble-makers in a moment or two. Percival grabbed his pack from under his seat and they Teleported to Kugane. There was no time to change.

He hated Teleporting, but the resulting weariness didn’t work against them at least as the Tenkonto guards came to inspect them and ask about the blood. Percival spun them a tale of being attacked in the wilderness, which was much more legal than being attacked in a town, and begged the guards to let them go so his ward could find an inn to recover in. They took one look at her obvious shell-shocked state and let them go.

“Sorry to use you like that, but it’s the fastest way out,” he said as they headed to the docks.

“I understand,” she mumbled, clenching her hands in an ineffectual attempt to keep from trembling. She was still in a fluster as they walked to the docks, but Percival told her to be slow, and calm, to act like everything was normal. 

“Bottle it up. We can decompress later, when we’re safe. We’re not safe right now.”

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for him to get some transit-for-work deal aboard a moderately-sized merchant vessel bound for Doma, and they were at sea in a few hours.

 

Percival was put to hard work as a sailor, and Achiyo was put to lighter work helping the cook prepare food and bandage the minor injuries that occurred in daily life at sea. She was wary anytime anyone looked at her now, but she wasn’t the only female passenger on board, only the poorest. Nothing happened – though she tensed up at a couple crude remarks from sailors, until Percival glared them into silence. She had never been at sea before, but she was not affected by the rolling waves, even below-decks; she did not feel sea-sick at all.

Even here, she could not feel safe. They had to sleep in a common room so there was no privacy. She had to keep her feelings inside. She had to.

But between the recent attack, the precipitous flight, the unfamiliar surroundings, and the fear that swirled inside her, she was an overfull jar waiting to spill, and when she accidentally cut her finger while slicing dried fish with a blunt knife, that was it for her. Things were fine and under control one minute, and then the next there was blood pouring down her finger and tears pouring down her face.

“It’s not that bad,” the cook said. “Go bandage yourself up. Maybe when dinner’s ready we’ll see if you can have a healing draught.”

But she couldn’t stop crying, though she was trying very hard even as she tied a bandage around her finger, and abovedecks she heard someone say “Percy! Your girl’s crying.”

“Oh, stop crying,” the cook said roughly, but that only made it worse, and he gave her a smack on the head, which really didn’t help.

Percival came into the galley and gave the cook a cold stare. “Do that again and you’ll lose the hand.”

The cook rolled his eyes, but didn’t interfere as Percival walked to her and enfolded her in a hug. He was shirtless and sweating profusely, and yet she clung to him as the only comfort she could reach in this moment. “It’s too soon, Achiyo. Just a bit longer. Just hold on until tomorrow, all right?”

She couldn’t control it; she’d been trying to control it since she had found herself trapped with those men, and she couldn’t anymore. But for him… She was still trying so hard, and within minutes she had managed to put the stopper back on the jar, shuddering to sniffling silence in his arms.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said into the top of her head. “I promise. I’ll figure out something. I’ve got to get back to work now, so do your best, okay?”

She nodded, and he let go of her, patted her shoulder, and headed back out. She took a deep breath and went back to work with a tight silent calm that had the cook looking at her like she was some kind of alien creature.

At dinner, one of the other women on board, a merchant’s wife, actually took an interest in her now. “Poor girl, what happened today? I heard you were crying?”

Achiyo could not speak without risking breaking her composure, so she only nodded. The woman saw her hand and the bandage.

“Cut your finger, hm? Ah, well, that can happen, especially at sea. Come, sit by me. How old are you?”

Achiyo had to show her with her fingers.

“Fifteen? Ah, poor thing, so young and so put upon. You must travel a lot, with your… I suppose he is your guardian?” She had figured out Achiyo wasn’t talking right now, but she didn’t seem to mind, smiling kindly at her and chattering cheerfully regardless. “It must be a rough life – but you get to see the realm, don’t you? I’m sure you’ve seen much more than I have – my husband plies his routes and that’s all. Someday I should like to go all the way to the Azim Steppe, I have heard it is a sea of grass as the Ruby Sea is of water. But we’re hoping for a child next year, and that will make it hard to travel with a fussy little one. Sometimes I see Xaela jewellery in the market, they’re the most fascinating things – but that’s not the same as visiting at all. Someday!”

She talked at Achiyo all through dinner, and after, and Achiyo slowly relaxed. She couldn’t smile, didn’t want to talk, but she was immensely grateful to the woman for helping her.

She was able to tell her when they disembarked the next day, with a low bow. “Thank you so much for your kindness yesterday. I was overwhelmed with my circumstances, and you gave me peace from my feelings.”

“I thought that might be it,” said the woman with a smile. “I hope you have a good journey from now on, you’re a sweet girl.”

“Thank you. I hope you have a safe journey, and that you may see the Azim Steppe one day.”

“Thank you, and good fortune be with you!”

 

Part 2: Doma Castle