歲寒知松柏
Suì hán zhī sōng bǎi
Only when the year grows cold do we see the qualities of the pine and cypress.
Adversity reveals virtue.
*~*~*~*~*~*
I did not make it far.
We had scarce turned the bend in the road when the sky spun around me, the snow whirling doubly as I sank to the ground.
At first I thought my dizziness was caused by my fall from the outcrop with the flint eyed man, and some trauma to my head.
But that was not it. Blood still seeped from my shoulder, from where I had pulled out the bolt. The wound was deep, and I had bled too much.
I should have bound the wound immediately.
It was snowing in haste now. Red ran from my fingers to the snow like dark wine staining white silk.
"Ao?" Zakhar crouched beside me. "Let me carry you."
"No. You are injured as well," I said, indicating the bolt in his arm and thigh, and the countless other cuts. "I will heal, as I always do. Just give me time." I took a deep breath. The cold air pricked the inside of my chest.
"Let me carry you," Zakhar said again. "We should get out of the snow."
"No Zakhar. I do not need- Zakhar!"
Zakhar had ignored me, and scooped me up in his arms as carefully as he could. One thick arm looped behind my back and the other one under the bend of my knees.
"Zakhar! Put me down!" I tried to push out of his arms. "You are injured as well! You do not need to-"
My leg accidentally kicked against the crossbow bolt in his thigh. Zakhar gave a hiss of pain, and his jaw clenched as he fought against it.
"If you hold still, it doesn't hurt. Now hold still," he said through gritted teeth.
I did, surprised by the force in his tone. He had never spoken that way to me before.
Me in his arms, Zakhar continued his slow, limping trudge back to our horses.
The snow had started to stick, catching against small rocks and raised ridges in the road. Zakhar's boot slipped, causing him to grunt as my weight jerked his injured shoulder.
"Zakhar, please put me down," I said softly.
He ignored me. His eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead, carefully placing his boots on the newly icy surface.
I leaned my head back against Zakhar's arm, trying to hold myself as still as possible. The air was icy, and filled with wind, but this close I could feel Zakhar's scent. The warm familiar smell that I had never smelt anywhere else but close to him.
I watched Zakhar's face as he stared at the road before us. I studied the arch of his brow, the curve of his lips. I wondered if those lips were even fuller and pinker than mine.
Above the sky was a mess of grey and whirling white as snow flurries continued to fall, harder and harder. It would be a full on storm by tonight.
The tops of trees poked against my vision with each of Zakhar's steps. Tall, dark spruce, reaching up into the grey storm. They would stand fast tonight, no matter how it snowed, as warm blooded creatures like us scattered to find shelter.
The wind picked up, gusting around us, blowing crystals of snow into my eyes. When the cold wind hit my arm, sticky wet with my own blood, I felt it's chill and shivered.
Zakhar held me tighter against him.
So warm. So safe.
I leaned into his chest and let myself be carried through the snow.
*~*~*~*~*~*
The dark pines of the northern forest were gone, and all around me was bright green.
"Who would think such a fearsome creature could fit in such a dainty little body," Lu chuckled to himself.
I could feel his laughter in his chest, which I was held against. He was carrying me, arms looped beneath my legs, my cheek pressed to the smooth linen of his shoulder.
I jerked awake, wondering how I had ended up in such a position. We had been drinking... up at the old mill, and counting ripples on the mill pond... I must have drunk too much.
"Put me down, kirin. And call me dainty again and you will find my dainty hands around your neck."
Lu chuckled harder. "Of course, of course."
He set me on my feet. My bare toes sunk deep into the cool green moss.
"Where are my shoes?" I asked.
"You threw them in the pond. Said you wanted to see the ripples."
He was not laughing, but I could still feel it in his words, and see it in the lines around his eyes.
I took a step and swayed. Lu reached out and caught my arm. I quickly shook his hand away, standing on my own.
"It is ok to accept help you, you know," Lu told me, his hands held ready to catch me.
"I do not need help. I can stand fine on my own."
"It can feel good to accept someone's help. For you and the other person as well."
I laughed scornfully, taking one step forward. "Hah. People always have a motive. They do not help you for no reason."
Lu sighed. "True. Sometimes the reason is simply that they care."
"Ao?" The voice floated into the green memory. It was Zakhar's voice.
I blinked. The warm green light of Lu's forest was replaced by stark grey and swirling white.
"Ao, we are at the cabin."
I sat before him on Dunya's saddle. I could not remember returning to the horses, or mounting and riding through the forest.
And now we were at the cabin. What remained of it.
In my confused mind, I had been imagining warm yellow windows welcoming us back, a pot of soup on the stove. Sanli on the kang, complaining about neglect.
But of course there was nothing waiting for us but a burnt out wreck.
The cabin above was blackened beyond recognition, but the stables below were mainly intact. They were dug into the hillside, and so the fire had affected them little.
Zakhar dismounted, then turned and helped me. Wearily we led the four horses into the stable.
In'yii and Dunya seemed happy to be back in a familiar place, and the other two horses soon settled beside them.
I helped Zakhar untack the horses as best I could. When we were done, we made our way to the pile of fresh hay stacked high in the corner and collapsed.
I lay back, looking up at the grey sky through the square where the trapdoor had once been. It was snowing still, and odd flakes floated through the opening, growing larger and more frequent.
"It is like winter is back," I said. Zakhar grunted agreement beside me, then rolled over and sat up slowly.
"Here, Ao, take off your clothes and I will dress your wound." His voice was rough.
"There is no need," I replied forcing myself up. "My wounds heal regardless if they are treated or not. Let me see yours."
I reached for the bandages Zakhar had taken from his saddle bag, but Zakhar pulled them out of my reach. "I treat your wounds first," he insisted.
Has he always been this stubborn? I sighed and nodded. I did not have strength to fight further.
Zakhar helped me peel my clothing off my wounded shoulder to expose where the bolt had pierced. The wound had been deep, and I had made it worse by clumsily wrenching the bolt from it. Still, it had at last stopped bleeding, and just needed to be cleaned and stitched.
"I'll make a fire," Zakhar said.
He limped outside, bolt still sticking from his own thigh and shoulder, and then limped back with firewood.
I helped him build the fire, numb sticky fingers struggling to stack the logs in the center of the stable, under the trapdoor hole. We stuffed hay and straw, thankfully dry, between the logs.
Zakhar took his tinder and flit from a string around his neck and set the straw afire.
It caught quickly, tounges of flame lickings around the stacked logs. Orange light filled the dark stables, and a little warmth.
I had not realized how cold I had been until I felt the heat of the fire.
Zakhar took a copper pot from his saddle bag and limped back outside to fill it with snow.
I glanced around the stables. It had been mainly unscathed by the fire. There was still a few barrels of grains we could cook for gruel, and jars of some pickled vegetable. And plenty of hay piled in a corner, for a bed. We could stay here a few days, to recover, before starting north again.
Zakhar returned with the pot filled with snow and set it into the fire. Soon the water heated, bubbles popping steam into the cold air.
Then he took strips of the cloth bandage, soaked it in the water, and used it to gently clean my wound.
His hands were careful, and I remembered when he had cleaned the wounds I had received from the eh'lang, just above our heads in the cabin.
His hands now were just as gentle, so the cleaning was almost a pleasure.
How can such big hands be so soft?
When Zakhar had sponged the wounds on my hand and shoulder clean, he took out needle and thread, and started to stitch them closed.
This he struggled with more. His fingers were too big to grip the needle, and his own arm was stiff from the bolt in his shoulder.
I took the needle from his hands and quickly stitched the wound in my shoulder and hand closed. I already hurt too much all over to feel the needle's sting.
Zakhar watched me as I pulled the thread taunt with my teeth, then bit it off near to my shoulder.
Then I turned to him. "Now I will do yours. Remove your shirt. Here, I will help you."
But as my hands moved to the hem of Zakhar's tunic he brushed them away.
"It does not matter now Ao."
I ignored him, reaching for the hem once more.
Zakhar caught my hands and forced me to look at him. "Ao please. It will hurt more to remove them. Just leave them in."
"Leave them in?" I said, confused. "How will you ride with a crossbow bolt in your leg? We need to remove them as soon as possible, so—"
I stopped at the sadness in Zakhar's eyes. My whole body chilled and then heated, a sick hot and warm sensation. "Z-Zakhar? What did you do?"
Zakhar's mouth, that firm pink mouth, was a straight line. He didn't answer.
Slowly, I sat back, reaching for the pouch I still kept tucked at my chest. Kageyama's poison. I hadn't even thought about it, so caught up in the whirlwind of violence the head hunters had brought and our resulting injuries.
As Zakhar watched I drew out the pouch, and the white bottle from it. Behind me, the fire cracked, and the horses rustled comfortingly in their stall.
I popped the cork from the bottle, and turned it upside down.
Nothing came out.
"I'm sorry Ao. I drank it while you were unconscious," Zakhar's voice was nervous, afraid. "I wanted to stay longer, to make sure you heal safely, but I don't want to risk you getting hurt again. Not by me."
Stay longer. Make sure. He was talking as though he would just be leaving on a trip.
No. No no no no no—
I stood. I could not take it. I could not be here, in this stable, beside the fire with him. The empty bottle fell from my fingers to the straw of the stable floor as I stood and walked out.
Outside the wind bit into my cheeks and cut through my clothes to my skin. I had left my cloak behind. I welcomed the cold, and the numbness it would bring.
The snow had fallen fast. The pines, that had looked so strange standing amid dirt and dead pressed ferns the day before, looked themselves at last, standing in a sea of white.
I started to walk.
My steps were slow, and unsteady, but I kept going. My shoulder did not hurt as it should have. Perhaps it was numb already.
I heard Zakhar following behind me, though he didn't say anything. I couldn't turn to look at him. Couldn't face him.
From nowhere, a sob surged up through my chest. I caught it, leaning against a tree to steady myself before going on.
Zakhar continued to follow me. I heard his breathing become more labored as he struggled to keep up, even with my halting pace.
No. No no no no no...
I kept walking, kept moving. I tried not to think of anything other than placing one foot before the other in the snow.
I did not realize where I was headed until I reached it.
Even under snow, the view was familiar. Or perhaps it was more familiar drowned in white. I recognized the shape of a fallen trunk, the line where the stream ran, a black ribbon in the white. My eyes found the crumbled remains under the large spruce that had been our hide, constructed from snow.
The clearing. So many happy memories here.
I sank to my knees, not caring if the wet snow soaked them.
Zakhar sank beside me. He was silent, and for a while there was just the sound of our breath and the still-falling snow.
I wanted to rage. To curse him for giving up. But I could not. Not so close to the end. I did not want those to be our last memories.
"I've been ready to die for a while, you know," Zakhar finally said. "But I thought I would be drunk." His tone was filled with a lightness neither of us felt.
I said nothing.
"It's strange, I was afraid for so long. But I'm not anymore," Zakhar said. He searched my face. "I think it's because you are here with me."
He is lying. How could he not be afraid? All things were afraid to leave this world. He says it for my sake.
But I sensed there was truth to Zakhar's words, and his voice did not shake. Perhaps he really wasn't afraid.
Or he is a much better actor than I thought him.
Zakhar looked down at my bandaged hand, and tentatively took it in his own ink stained one.
"I- I am sorry Ao."
"What are you sorry for, Zakhar?" I asked, voice weary.
Zakhar's face was pained. "I- I made you care for me, even knowing I did not have long."
This. This is what he worries about. He is about to die, and yet still he worries for me.
I knew by the expression on his face Zakhar felt as though he had wronged me, and needed my forgiveness. When it was I who had wronged him.
You put your faith in me, and yet I can do nothing for you Zakhar.
I went to pull my hand away from Zakhar's. I needed to leave. I could not be here, with him. I could not be here when...
Lu's laughing smile flashed in my mind. "If you can be nothing else, be kind Ao."
I stilled. Then I pulled my hand from Zakhar's and lifted to lay it along his jaw.
"You made me care for you?" I frowned and reached to tuck a stray curl behind his ear. "Zakhar, have I ever told you what my name means?"
"Uhhh..." Zakhar looked puzzled. I leaned forward, ignoring the tug of my injured shoulder, and traced the character of my name in the snow between us. I traced deep enough to see shape of my name, even as the snow fell and obliterated it.
I pointed out the different parts of the character that I used to write 'Ao'. I showed Zakhar the three horizontal lines with a vertical line running through them, symbolizing a life lived or still living. Beneath that the crooked finger that represented 10,000. Then the single line that symbolized one and one only, and beneath that the pair of curving lines for control.
And then starting from the left side of the character and running beneath it all, the dot and switchback line that stood for the road, long and winding.
遨
"'For 10,000 years, I alone have decided my road," I explained, finger tracing along the different lines. "I alone. No one, NO ONE, makes me do anything."
I dragged myself before him.
"I chose to care for you," I said, reaching up to thread my hands into his hair, wet with snow. "As I chose to kiss you after our chess game that night."
I used my hands, threaded into his hair, to pull him down toward me. "Just as I choose to kiss you now..."
Zakhar's lips had just touched mine when he jerked back, wincing at his own injuries. "Ao, stop! The poison-"
"Kageyama's stupid poison can't kill me."
*~*~*~*~*~*