名副其實
Míng fù qí shí
The name matches the reality.
Be something in truth as well as in name; be worthy of the name.
*~*~*~*~*~*
When we returned to the fire, it was to have a large quail thrust at each of us.
"Get plucking," said Kageyama.
"Why should I?" I pouted. I hated the task. So many feathers.
"If you want dinner, you'll do as I say," Kageyama replied, going to stir a pot sat over the fire. The kitsune took some herbs from packets of paper beside him and sprinkled them into the pot.
With a grimace I began, until I noticed that Zakhar was doing nothing besides whittling away at a piece of wood he had brought with him.
"Zakhar, my dear friend..." I began, smiling slyly.
Zakhar looked up from his knife and his piece of wood. "Oh no," he chuckled. "You're not getting me to do that for you."
"And why do you not have to do anything?" I protested.
"Because I was the one who shot it," said Zakhar, gesturing with his knife at the dead bird sat in my lap. I looked down, finding the arrow hole in the neck, where it would avoid damaging the meat.
It was a difficult shot, regardless of the range. I looked up, surprised.
Zakhar laughed again, chipping off a piece of his wood. "You thought I was just a pretty face, huh? These big hands not very good with a bow?"
I said nothing, but my answer was apparent.
Zakhar squinted down at the wood he was shaping. "Up here you have to be a good shot. Or you starve."
Of course. This was where Zakhar had been raised. He would be well used to surviving on the plains, and all the trials that came with it.
Sullenly, I began pulling feathers from the dead bird.
"Are those birds plucked yet?" asked Kageyama. Sanli handed him his bird, which was already bare and pink. The discarded feathers swirled in the wind, blowing around the tent poles of our half erected tents, and then away, like ships dispersing to the sea.
Kageyama took a cooking knife and began cutting up the first bird, and Sanli turned to me.
"I'll do the rest of yours, if you go prepare the tents," the prince said, holding out a hand. He glanced up at the sky. "We should be quick. It looks like rain."
Gratefully I passed him the quail, then went to finish setting up our tents.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Despite the clouds and the prince's prediction, it did not rain.
The clouds cleared just before sunset, and the sun disappeared in a burning glory of reds and oranges and yellows swathed across the wide sky.
We sat around our own fire between the two hills and watched the fire spread from the western horizon across the sky, and then recede again, a wave back to the sea.
Our bellies were warm, and filled with quail soup. The soup had been exceedingly good, but I did not want the Kageyama to think I admired his cooking, so I kept my enjoyment secret.
We turned in soon after sunset. I lay in my tent, a small construction made of tarp hung over bamboo poles. The tarp was waxed and oiled to keep out wind and rain, and smelled faintly of rushes and wood smoke. Beneath me a sheepskin roll was spread, which not only served to pad the hard ground, but also protect from the cold. Above me I had pulled a large roll of bear fur Zakhar had generously gifted me.
Beneath my furs in my small tent, I lay and listened to the sounds of the men readying to sleep in their own tent, which was not much larger than mine.
"Bloody hell Sanli, you can't spread your bed roll in the middle like that, or there isn't enough room for Kageyama and me," Zakhar complained.
"Put Dunya's saddle out then. It's not going to rain, and I'm tired of smelling horse all night long," said Sanli.
"We'll put YOU out if you keep kicking in the middle of the night," I heard Kageyama mutter. Zakhar laughed.
After more rustling and muttered complaints, the men fell quiet. With night, the wind, that was ever present on the wide open plains, finally died. All was still and silent, save for the occasional whicker from one of the horses where they were tethered nearby.
And then the cold came.
I had thought, with the warmth of soup in my belly, it would not be as bad as it had the nights previously. But as the warmth my body had gained from the fire and the soup faded, the cold was worse than ever.
It started as a chill on my forearms and the front of my thighs. Then the chill sank, through skin, through muscle, to my bones, where it settled, like stones on the bottom of a pond.
It had been near a week since we had set out from the temple, and I had been cold ever since. My body longed for the warmth of the temple hot springs to burn away the cold that had set into my bones, as well as the stink of travel.
Even the small bath house at Wo You nai seemed like a distant paradise in my mind.
I sighed to myself. It made no difference longing. I would not have a bath, or be warm, for a long time to come. I somewhat regretted my decision to come north. But it was too late to go back now. I willed myself to sleep.
There was a faint crack from the dying fire. The sound of a hoof fall against the frozen earth as one of the horses shifted in its sleep. Far away, a distant bird screeched, its voice like a knife in the cold silence. I pulled the bearskin more tightly around me, and curled my legs up to my body.
I lay curled that way for I don't know how long, sleep evading me. Feeling the night get stiller and colder around me.
I am so cold. Surely, humans die from cold like this.
But I was not human. I could not die. It did not matter. I just needed to sleep.
I tried, I truly did. I willed myself to fall asleep. I counted clouds in my head, thought thoughts of soothing streams and smooth wind. But still my body stayed rigid with cold, awake.
I can endure this no longer.
I sat up and undid the ties that held my tent flaps together with trembling hands. Slipping my feet into my sheepskin boots and pulling the bearskin rug around my shoulders, I crawled out into the night.
There was no moon, but the stars were so bright their light alone illuminated the earth. It looked like they were falling from the sky, like bright white needles hurtling down toward earth.
That was the reason it was so cold tonight. With the clear sky came the cold.
My breath emerged in the air in front of me, a ghostly plume. I did not hesitate a moment longer. Going to the men's tent, I reached beneath the flap to tug the ties loose. When I had made enough space to fit through, I slipped inside.
Immediately I knelt upon something warm. "Ao?" Sanli's voice softly enquired.
I saw the little prince sit up, in the middle of the other two men.
"Move over," I said. Sanli tried to oblige, in the limited space of the small tent. I crawled toward him.
"What is she doing? No!" hissed Kageyama from the right.
I ignored him and settled myself down, between Zakhar and Sanli.
Zakhar snorted as I lay beside him and rolled over. "What is— gah, Ao?!" He jerked away.
"It is too cold. Share your blanket with me," I said.
"What are you- how did you- why are you in our tent?!" Zakhar stumbled over his own words.
I felt an arm wrap around my middle. "Here, you can share my blanket," said Sanli as he pulled me towards him.
"I want to sleep beside Zakhar. I am sure he is the warmest of you three," I protested, but I let the prince draw me to his side and tuck his thick wool blanket around me.
"Actually, Sho Sensei is probably the warmest," said Sanli. My ear was pressed to the prince's chest, and I felt his voice as well as heard it. "What do they say, Sho Sensei? Some kitsune have fire in their blood?"
"She is not sleeping anywhere near me," snapped Kageyama from Sanli's other side.
"Lord Kageyama, I am continually confused by you. Surely you have seen enough of the world to not be so embarrassed by it," I said. My voice was muffled by the prince's blanket, but still the mirth could be heard.
"Hah! It is you who have not seen enough of the world," the kitsune cut back. "Or you would know that a woman sleeping alone in a tent full of men is not wise."
"I will take my chances. Should you all decide to ravish me, at least I will be warm."
Kageyama choked. "Have you no shame?!" he cried. I felt Sanli shake with laughter beside me.
"None at all Lord Kageyama. In fact I quite like—"
"Sanli, shut her up or I'm taking her back to her tent and tying her to her damn bedroll," Kageyama warned.
"Tie me? Oh my, Lord Kageyama, I did not take you for the kind of man who enjoys such play-"
"Cover her damn mouth!"
Still shaking with laughter, Sanli reached out and pushed my face gently against his shoulder, to silence me.
I did not mind. He was warm, and smelled of wool and wood smoke. And pine, strangely, as there were no trees around for li upon li.
Unable to contain my own humor, I laughed into the coarse material of the prince's shirt. Behind me I could hear Zakhar chuckling as well.
When my laughter finally stopped, Sanli drew me away from his shoulder.
I gave a deep sigh. "Well, goodnight Zakhar."
"Goodnight Ao," Zakhar's deep voice replied.
"Goodnight little prince," I said.
"Goodnight, Ao," said Sanli, from beside me. I could hear his smile.
"Goodnight Lord Kageya—"
"GO TO SLEEP!"
With a final chuckle, I turned into Sanli's chest, and, warm at last, drifted off.
*~*~*~*~*~*
I continued to sleep in the men's tent.
The following morning we rose and traveled all day. We passed hill after hill, following the rough trail over and around in endless smooth curves until I thought the monotony of the landscape alone would kill me, without help from the biting cold wind that constantly howled in our faces out of the north.
When it next came time to set up camp, I took my bedroll to the men's tent and placed it between Sanli and Zakhar's along with the bearskin Zakhar had lent me.
"Oh no you don't..." began Kageyama.
"I will come in the night regardless Lord Kageyama. You may as well let me start here, and save a lot of warm air."
"What was the point in bringing an extra horse and your own tent then?!" Kageyama exclaimed. But he gave in.
I spent that night, and the next, and the night after beside Sanli, the bearskin covering us both.
As we traveled human habitation grew sparser, until it disappeared all together, and we would travel from morning to night without seeing another soul. Kageyama told me we had deliberately chosen the lesser used route to the northern border, to avoid Green Kingdom soldiers and official messengers.
The landscape changed from one of small, unremarkable hills, to one where great valleys and rock formations divided the land, cut there by nothing more than a small stream of water running in the same place for millennia upon millennia.
Finally we reached the bridge.
Made of the same black rock that could be found jutting up from the landscape, the bridge was colossal, in height and length, towering up into the sky and disappearing to a pinpoint across the impossibly wide river. It looked as if it had been made for giants instead of normal sized men.
And it had, in a way. The bridge was a relic from an ancient time before Yan and the others. Before even the Old Gods had established their reign. Back then, before the Old Gods created the circle to keep their rivals in check, mu'ren could roam the land as they pleased, in human or true form.
As our horses clopped across the bridge I imagined the paws and claws of ancient mu'ren tribesmen and warriors padding along the black stone beside us.
Having come from the ocean, I had little knowledge of the old history of the Inner Empire. Most of what I knew now Lu had taught me. I knew the bridge had been made by mu'ren tribal lords of the north to support business with the south. The construction had been one of the great feats of the ancient world, not simply because of the size and scale of the endeavor, but because it required the collaboration and cooperation of mu'ren tribes that had spent centuries at war trying to kill each other.
Even more than colossal architecture, that in itself was a feat.
Still, I doubted those ancient mu'ren had done much of the work. Despite the fact that the bridge was carved with the shapes of giant mu'ren, I knew that most likely it was the humans belonging to their tribal lands that had slaved to build this monument.
Whatever its past, in the present the bridge was in ruins. The proud arches carved with howling wolves and soaring hawks and other common northern mu'ren had crumbled and fallen. In some places pieces so large had crashed down onto the bridge that they had caused cracks and holes in the stone of the road.
But still, the bridge served its purpose, and as we made our way across it we passed more people than we had seen in the all the days since leaving Andanqiu combined. Travelers, traders, and a few families who looked like they were fleeing something, their lives wrapped in bundles on their backs.
One burly trader, face colored red as his cart, yelled out a greeting at us as we passed.
"Five is a holy number!"
Kageyama nodded and spoke our greeting back. The trader pointed the direction we were going.
"My lords are heading the wrong way! Winter is near."
The trader and all the people we passed were heading south. As they should be in this season. We were the only fools heading north.
The bridge was so vast, and navigating around the fallen chunks and cracks so time consuming, that it took near a day of travel to cross.
After the bridge we continued north, our road even lonelier than it had been before. We went a week without seeing a single soul.
Wherever we went, the landscape was the same three shades. The grey of the sky, which sometimes, but rarely, showed blue. The black of the great rocks that jutted up in canyons and crevices. And the beige of the dead plains grass, at times so pale from sun and wind and rain that it resembled the ivory of worn bone.
A bleak landscape, without life.
During the day, the wind would accompany us ceaselessly, until I thought I would go mad with its howling in my ears. At night, blissful, still night, it would fall silent, and it was like the world around us froze, from the icey air to the stars in the sky. It stayed that way, until the sun rose the next morning to thaw it out and bring back the accursed wind.
It was not only figuratively that the world froze. At night, the ground would freeze, and in the morning when we woke, patches of soft brown earth would be riddled with bursts of sparkling white, where frost had taken root in the night.
One day, we rose early and began a trek across a wide valley that would take most of the day. The sky was light grey and stormy, as it had been nearly everyday since we started our travels north, but still no snow or rain fell from it to the plains below.
It was on our way across that broad plain that Zakhar named my horse.
We had been crossing a particularly rocky outcropping, and Little Light and Makabe had fallen behind, till finally Sanli and Kageyama dismounted to help guide the horses around the rough patch.
My piebald proved to be as surefooted as Dunya, who had been raised on the plains. My mare followed Dunya and the toughened plains pony that carried our extra baggage closely, and soon we were through the rough terrain.
I reigned my piebald beside Zakhar, we both turned back to wait for the prince and the kitsune.
"That's a fine horse," Zakhar commented, nodding to me. "How did you come by her, anyhow?"
I recounted the story of how I had come to acquire the piebald.
Zakhar laughed uproariously. When I got to the bit where the soldier had run out into the courtyard after me, blood streaming from his broken nose, he was near crying. "I would pay a good amount of coin to see that soldier's face as you rode off on his horse," he guffawed. "So what did you name her?"
When I told her I had given the horse no name, Zakhar looked shocked.
"It's bad luck not to name your horse," he said. I had never heard of such a superstition. It must be northern thinking. "We should think of a name..."
"A name for what?" Sanli asked as he and Kageyama reached us. They both swung into the saddle and we went on, Kageyama and Makabe in the lead, and the rest of us ambling on behind.
Zakhar explained what we were doing.
"I want to name the horse!" said Sanli.
"Be my guest," I said.
The prince looped Little Light's reins around his saddle horn, knowing the horse would obediently follow Makabe. Then Sanli reached back and drew charcoal and paper from his saddle bag. He started trying out character combinations, saying them to himself quietly, a look of concentration upon his face.
"You do not need to think so hard," I said, amused.
"These things take precision," said Sanli, chewing on his coral colored lip. Charcoal had smudged its way across the sheep leather of his mittens and coat, and somehow found itself onto his brow. "What about Taohua? Peach Blossom," he asked. "In reference to the horse that bore the Jade Emperor west."
"Peach blossom?" I asked, and snorted. The horse in question was famous for its loyalty and nobility. I looked at the brown ears of the horse I rode, watching them twitch every which way, and thought of the animal's stubbornness. "I do not think that suits."
"Hmmm..." Sanli said, and returned to sketching out names.
He tried several out, but all of them seemed too sweet, too ornate for the obstinate animal beneath me.
It was then Zakhar spoke. "What about In'yii?" he asked.
"In'yii?" I repeated, my mouth slipping around the strange sounds.
"In'yii. It means 'frost' in one of the northern languages" Zakhar explained.
At first I wanted to protest. But then I looked at the piebald's coat, brown with large patches of bright white swathed across it. Just like the earth of the plains in the morning.
And I thought of the horse's frosty nature. Indifferent to all around her.
"I like it," I said.
"What?" protested Sanli. "Hold on, I have many more names. Meiyi, Xiaohua—"
"No," I said. "I like In'yii."
Zakhar grinned at me from Dunya's broad back. "In'yii it is then."
*~*~*~*~*~*