形單影隻
Xíng dān yǐng zhīa
Solitary form, a single shadow.
Extremely lonely; solitary.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Sanli watched the beads of water fall from the corner of the roof overhead to the wooden rail of the veranda just beside his face.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
The wood was cool beneath his cheek. The drops as they fell burst, sending even smaller fragments of water out with each impact, across the rail, some coming to rest on his face and cling to his eyelashes.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Sanli's silk robe, the black one trimmed with gold he used for sleeping, hung loosely off his shoulders. Rain sprayed across his exposed back, with a featherlight touch like that of a cautious lover.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
It had been a wet spring. And a wetter rainy season. Sanli wasn't sure when spring had ended and the rainy season began. There was too much rain to tell.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Sanli listened to the sound of drops pattering across the wooden shingles over his head. He was in Ao's room, that had been Kageyama's before. Ao's four stringed lute sat beside him on the cool deck, just out of reach of the spraying drops. He had tried to play it earlier, but had odd touching the strings, and quickly stopped.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
It had been nearly two months since Ao had gone north. Sanli had finished the duties required of him as head mourner, and then returned to the Valley, where none of his family waited for him, save for Ermi and Qingxi. Zhangyu was still patrolling the border, Xiangwu had gone to the capital to join his father and mother, and Erli was somewhere... else.
Sanli did not particularly care where she was, as long as she was not here.
"You're in here again?"
Sanli lifted his head from the rail and turned. Kageyama stood in the doorway. He must have just come back from somewhere, as he was in his military uniform.
Kageyama muttered something to the guard that stood outside, then came to join Sanli on the deck.
Kageyama glanced at Ao's lute, left on the deck. "What are you doing in here?"
"Contemplating the rain."
"How poetic."
Kageyama sat beside Sanli, after stripping off his military overtunic. The weather was grey and rainy, but there was a certain mugginess to the air that permeated the clothes and caused sweat regardless of the cool temperature.
Sanli turned his attention back to the rain. In truth, it was not the weather Sanli was thinking about. Again and again over the past few months, his mind had returned to that moment in Memorial Temple, when Lady Lu had lay dying in her bed, and had beckoned him closer.
The words that Lady Lu had spoken had surprised him. Shocked him, not for the knowledge they contained, but that such a thought had never occurred to Sanli before.
"Your father was a horrible man," Lady Lu croaked into his ear. "Selfish, overbearing, and not even a good leader. He let the kingdom fall to discord while he frittered away his time hunting or with a pretty face. He gave up much of our land, our privilege, our power, just for convenience sake."
"I hated your father, not because of his inability as a leader, or his affairs... but because he cared so little for me that he did not even know how many affairs of my own I had."
Sanli drew back, surprised and a little disgusted, to see a smile on Lady Lu's wrinkled face.
"His name was Lu Man. A distant cousin of your father's. Because of his relation, it was easy enough to have him around the valley."
Sanli was shocked.
"You know why Erli hates you?" The old woman said, a devilish glint in her eyes. "Why she calls you bastard with such disdain?" Lady Lu reached out a withered claw, and patted his cheek none-to-gently. "You're a smart boy, I'm sure you can figure it out."
The rain continued to fall from the roof above. Sanli held out his hand, catching a drop on his palm, then another, then another, not caring if the bandages wrapped around his fingers got wet.
Finally he lay back, beside Kageyama.
"Did you know? About Erli?"
He heard Kageyama shift slightly beside him. "Lady Lu told you?" Sanli nodded. Kageyama sighed. "Yes, I knew."
"Is that why you refused to serve Zhangyu? To become his yah'ying?"
"That, among other reasons," Kageyama said.
"But we look similar, Zhangyu and I."
"Do you?" said Kageyama, with a wry smile. "Or is that what people who do not know the truth have said?"
Sanli thought. It was true, at times Zhangyu and he looked similar... but thinking now, the similarity was more in learned habits, traits, manners of speech that came from growing up close to one another. Not in actual appearance.
"I should be happy, shouldn't I?" Sanli wondered aloud. "This means that I have a better claim to the throne than Erli or any of her children."
Sanli reached out, running a finger through the water caught on the deck, turning them from seperate droplets to one long streak. "But when I found out, I didn't have any wild ambitions to usurp Zhangyu as second prince, or to shame and humiliate Erli for her illegitimacy, as she has done to me for so long."
His fingers left behind the water to trace the carved wood of Ao's lute. "I just felt sad that Ermi is not my real family. And Zhangyu as well, I suppose."
Kageyama smiled. "Another reason why I am here with you now." The kitsune reached out and awkwardly patted Sanli's shoulder. "And family is not decided only by blood."
Kageyama and Sanli both lapsed into silence, watching the drops falling in strings like threads from the roof.
"My prince, Master Rou Chen is here," one of Zhangyu's guard announced from the doorway of the room.
An old, weathered man with a thin beard that ran all the way to his waist stood just inside the door. The royal healer, who had treated Sanli since he was a boy.
"I will leave you two then," said Kageyama, rising. He nodded to the healer as he passed.
The healing master set up his medicine box on the nightstand beside the bed. "My prince, please come here," the man commanded.
Sanli obeyed, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding out his injured right hand. He had long since given up slings and splints, and now only had bandages wrapped around the broken digits to help support them as they healed.
Master Rou unwrapped the bandages, carefully bending Sanli's fingers. "Yes, they have healed very nicely. Perhaps you have some of your ancestor's kirin blood. Although..." The old man frowned, causing the long whiskers of his beard to twitch.
"My prince, have you been using magic on yourself?"
In response Sanli laughed uncomfortably.
The old man's mouth was hidden, but his wrinkled brows pinched together in a frown. "You know that exposing the body to too much magic can be dangerous. Please let it heal naturally, or only use spells to take the pain."
"Yes, master," Sanli did not want to let the old man know that not only had he been using magic to heal himself faster, he had used a spell intended to straighten arrows to make sure the bones of his fingers did not heal bent.
Master Rou would most definitely have given him a lecture for that.
When the old healer had finished his examination he stood, packing away his tools. Then he looked Sanli over once more, made a comment about eating more regularly, and shuffled out again, pausing only to talk to Kageyama in the hall.
The kitsune reappeared in the door once his conversation with the healer was done. "Master Rou Chen cautioned me against letting you fall into 'melancholy' again."
Sanli laughed. "What melancholy? I am always cheerful."
Kageyama frowned at this, coming forward to push the hair out of Sanli's eyes.
"Your hair has grown too long. And you have been having nightmares again, haven't you? You haven't been sleeping well." Kageyama caught Sanli's chin, studying his face.
Sanli quickly jerked his chin away, face heating. It was true, in his dreams Captain Duan's laughing face had appeared again and again, no matter how hard he tried to forget. The feel of the hand wrapping around his finger, knowing pain was coming and there was nothing he could do to prevent it...
But lately he dreamed more of Ao. In his dreams she was always alone, on the plains, a lonely figure on her horse.
I should have gone with her. I should have done more to help him.
"I will move back into this room," Kageyama said, standing. "It will help you to have someone near."
Sanli smiled at his mentor, still treating him like a child. "Why would I want you near? I want Ao."
"Well you'll just have to make do with me for now."
*~*~*~*~*~*
Kageyama left and returned not much later, followed by a servant, carrying some of the things from his room. His shamisen, a trunk of clothes, a wing jug and accompanying cups, and a small travel bag. Sanli knew Kageyama kept his shaving kit and other personal items in the bag. It was made of worn leather, and Kageyama used the kit whether he was traveling on Makabe or here in the Valley.
When Sanli had been a boy, he used to like to take out the polished brass mirror inside the kit, and use it to reflect light out the window for the stray cats of the courtyard to chase.
When Kageyama found Sanli in the same place he had left him earlier, still sitting on the veranda with the rain falling behind him he gave an annoyed grunt.
"That's it. Come on, were going to visit Ermi and Qingxi. I'm tired of your moping."
Kageyama forced Sanli up, into a day tunic and trousers (he had still been in the robe he slept in the night before) and then out the door.
The soldier stationed outside the bedroom saluted them smartly as they passed. The two outside the entryway to the bedroom wing did the same.
"They are all as uptight as Zhangyu. I wonder if he trained them to be that way...?" Sanli muttered under his breath.
"They are not 'uptight'. They are disciplined. You could use more discipline," said Kageyama, dragging Sanli along by the arm.
"Yes, Sho Sensei."
They made their way through the dripping forest toward Rabbit Run. In his rush to get Sanli out, Kageyama had grabbed only one umbrella, and they were forced to huddle together under it.
"My, how romantic," said Sanli, pretending to sway against Kageyama's chest.
"Walk on your own," Kageyama said, pushing him away. "I almost miss the girl, she used to soak up most of your foolishness."
"The girl?" said Sanli, teasingly. "Ao is a 2000 year old goddess. When will you treat her as such?"
"She is still just a girl to me," Kageyama grunted.
After that they walked in silence, shoulders touching. Sanli liked listening to the sounds the rain made rapping on the lacquered paper of the umbrella. Some drops were light, as soft as finger touches, while some rang loud, like small stones were splattering upon the umbrella.
Sanli had always hated the rain, always associated it with the day his mother had died. But recently the sound of it seemed to comfort him.
Around them, the forest also sang with rain, running from leaf to leaf, pattering to the forest floor.
I bet Ao would like this music.
When they reached Rabbit Run, they found Ermi and Qingxi beside a pond in the courtyard, also enjoying the rain. Qingxi's dog sat under the shelter of the veranda, watching it's mistress longingly, but loath to get its long matted fur wet.
"We are catching frogs!" called Ermi, beckoning them over. She stood behind Qingxi, holding an umbrella above them both. Qingxi leaned dangerously over the pond, attempting to catch the bright green frogs with a woven net attached to a bamboo pole. "Come join us!"
Sanli and Kageyama joined them at the edge of the pond. A white and blue porcelain bowl sat beside Qingxi, for her to dump the frogs she had caught into. Except for the bowl was too shallow, and the frogs escaped as quickly as they were caught.
Xiao Qingxi did not seem to mind though. "AWAhh hiiiihiii," she cooed gleefully, reaching her net out to scoop up another hopping creature.
"Oh my, they are very pretty, aren't they Sho Sensei?" said Sanli loudly, squatting beside Qingxi's bowl. He pointed to the bowl. "Qingxi, what a good hunter you are."
The girl was too preoccupied with her net to notice. She was reaching, straining, net cutting the surface, trying to catch—
"My, that's a big one!" exclaimed Sanli, as Qingxi's net scooped up a green frog as large as Qingxi's hand was wide.
Beaming at him Qingxi dumped the frog into her bowl, from which it promptly hopped. Qingxi did not seem to mind though, and just continued to beam at him, face split in a smile.
Sanli beamed happily back.
"Did you both have lunch already?" Ermi asked. When Kageyama replied no, Ermi told a servant to prepare lunch and have it brought to the veranda.
Sanli noticed Ermi had gotten firmer in her directions to the servants. Firmer, but still fair. She is growing up...
"Oh my, I think she wants that big one. The one on it's own on the rock," Ermi exclaimed, pointing to Qingxi, who had stretched her net as far as it would go, trying to hook it over a large brown toad sat on a rock near the center of the pond.
"She'll never reach," said Kageyama, diving forward to grab the back of Qingxi's shirt before the girl fell into the pond.
Sanli and Ermi watched as Kageyama gingerly took the net from the girl, then reached out toward the large toad.
"It is good to see you Uncle Sanli. Qingxi and I have been rather lonely, with everyone gone. University is out as well, so I have had nothing to do."
Sanli straightened up beside Ermi, taking the umbrella from his niece and holding it over her. Except, she isn't my niece.
"Are you looking forward to your second year?" asked Sanli. "It was my favorite. Third and fourth year are too busy."
Ermi did not answer right away, and Sanli glanced at his neice's face. She's not my niece, he reminded himself.
Ermi watched the pond as she spoke. "I was actually thinking of leaving, and going to the central regions. Aunt Wang said there is relief work there, to help those who have suffered as a result of the uprisings. I was thinking I could help."
Sanli felt his stomach drop, first with fear for Ermi, then with the familiar fear of being left behind.
He schooled his expression. "Are you sure it is best to go now? Perhaps after you have learned more at the university it would be better to go."
Ermi smiled sadly and shook her head. "I don't think I will ever be a scribe, Uncle Sanli. Not like you. And I cannot be a soldier like brother. I think this is my chance to help."
"I see," said Sanli. He thought long on what to say but could find nothing. "I will miss you, Ermi."
Ermi laughed. "I will come back! This year we have to do the autumn play! It is a tradition."
Sanli smiled. "I look forward to it." And he would. Ermi was still his family, regardless of blood.
At that moment a large splash drew their eyes to the pond, where Kageyama sat, up to his waist in muddy water. Qingxi laughed wildly, clutching at her stomach.
Kageyama held up the net, the large brown toad struggling within. "Got it," he grinned.
*~*~*~*~*~*