Even though hugging Azuki with one arm while she walked meant she'd be at a disadvantage should anyone jump them, Minerva held him close. His soft head rested under her chin, ears flicking when she sniffled.
Kodak glanced over, but kept silent. His hand returned time and again to the journal stashed in his cloak pocket and his dark brows furrowed in thought.
"You're sad," Azuki said.
Minerva wiped at her nose with a white pocket cloth. She grimaced at the soot and snot smearing the fabric before tucking it away. "A little sad," she admitted. At least a good cry often improved her mood, like a gentle rain bringing back life to the earth.
Paws pressed at her collarbone and Azuki's legs straightened so he could peer at her face. "Would bean buns make you happy again?"
"Maybe." Minerva perused the shop signs, thinking of the bakery with the white buns only a few streets away. They couldn't afford the detour though.
Azuki seemed to sigh in her arms, but hugged her neck with his paws. His purrs vibrated against her chest. When she'd asked him once about the little rumblings kats made, he'd said they helped hurting things heal.
As they entered Chrysanthemum district, the scent of komezu and ginger spiked the air. Bright red paper lanterns hung from the curved, sloping rooftops, providing a contrast to the dark grey of slate and stone. Patrons milled near the doors of restaurants, their figures sheathed in cloth decorated with the patterns of fragile white blossoms.
By night, inhibitions would be loosened and the festival mood would reign while flower fire lit the sky. For now, the city dozed, unused to the habit of rousing at night and sleeping in the day.
Kodak's sudden shout of alarm would have woken the spirits of the dead.
Minerva caught a glimpse of a child's scrawny face with a shock of short black hair before a cloud of dust kicked up. The boy sped away—a multi-colored ball of fluff clinging to his shoulder—with Kodak in hot pursuit.
No one around took much notice. As long as the weight of their coin pouches rested securely in their robes, a starving urchin swiping some other man's treasure didn't concern them in the slightest.
"Are we going to help him?" Azuki asked while he and Minerva watched pursued and pursuer race down the length of the street.
"I'm sure he can handle it." Minerva set Azuki on her shoulder and kept walking. "He has longer legs—he'll catch the little thief in no time."
At the end of the street, Kodak wrestled with the boy less than half his size. The child looked to be around ten summers but it could be hard to tell with those of his class since they often didn't have enough to eat. Under a too-big cloak, tattered clothing hung from his bony frame. Steel flashed in his hand and a feral snarl twisted his face as he fought.
"Stop trying to stab me, you rapscallion!" Kodak held the boy's wrist but blood leaked through his grip and the boy's kat had sunk its teeth into his arm.
"I don't think he's handling it," Azuki said. He leaped to the ground and grabbed the younger kat by its scruff. At first the kitten's hackles rose further but a growl from Azuki prompted it to loosen its bite.
Minerva waited as Kodak disarmed the boy. "Return what you stole from him," she ordered in common speech.
The boy squirmed but couldn't escape Kodak's hold. "Take it," he spat, eyes filling with tears. "It's only a book. I thought it must be a lot of coin from how carefully he guarded it." He took the book from where he'd slipped it into his sash and held it out to Kodak.
"You should not be in the middle ring," Minerva scolded. "If the guard catches you, you'll be punished regardless of theft. With theft, they'll leave you with one less hand if they leave you alive."
Taking the journal, Kodak clicked his tongue at Azuki. "Kat, I need a translation. They're talking too fast."
At that, the thief lifted his head to look Kodak in the face and screeched, "It's a blue-eyed demon!"
Minerva rolled her eyes and stepped behind the boy to slap a hand over his mouth. She cuffed his ear when he tried to bite her. "Don't make us have to cut off your tongue too."
The boy burst into silent tears, beads of salted water wetting his grubby face.
"You're scaring him," Kodak said to her.
"I'm scaring him? You're scaring him."
"You're both scaring him!" Azuki exclaimed, even with the growling kitten still held in his mouth. "Kumiko says to let him go. He won't run away without her and he isn't to scream again either."
With a glance at each other, Minerva and Kodak unhanded the boy. The Hydro prince wrapped a white handkerchief around his hand.
"You're bleeding," Minerva said.
Kodak raised an eyebrow. "I didn't notice. Besides, it's just a scratch."
"Do your human introductions," Azuki continued in a dismissive tone. "Kumiko is telling me what happened."
The boy sniffled, swiping his nose with his sleeve. It didn't improve his face much since the cloth was equally if not more dirty. "I'm Kaji."
Minerva paused for an awkward moment before answering, "Kozakura."
"You're ... you won't really cut out my tongue, will you?" Kaji sobbed.
"No, I—"
Kodak stepped between them and knelt in front of the boy. "She's all talk," he said in halting Pyro common. "Likes to pretend to be scary and mean."
"Are you going to freeze my body and throw me into a river then?" Kaji whimpered. He looked like a shaking puppy caught out in a storm with pleading brown eyes and tanned skin.
Kodak took a moment to process and in the end still couldn't seem to make sense of what he'd heard. "I do what?"
When Azuki set Kumiko down, Minerva noticed the kitten had two tails, but one ended in a short stump. Her fur held a motley of colors, as if her coat had been patched together from several other kats' skins. "Kaji needs money," Azuki stated.
"What for?" Minerva asked.
Azuki sat down, his black tails spreading out in a fan like a peacock's behind him. "His father died yesterday and had debts. His mother is sick and only expensive medicine can cure her. Also, Kumiko is very hungry and would like fish."
So the boy had come to the middle ring in hopes of stealing enough money. Money that could not be found in the lower ring. Not in the abundance which existed in the pockets of nobility.
Though Kaji balled his fists at his sides and squeezed his eyes shut, he couldn't hide his trembling. Minerva tapped her lip with her finger and looked him up and down. So small. Almost as small as I was when I lost Auntie Dina. Yet, in spite of her childhood sickliness, Minerva had been stronger and better fed than this peasant boy with his hollow cheeks and gaunt frame.
"It's okay to cry," Kodak said gently. He smoothed Kaji's tousled hair back with his hand.
Minerva's breath caught and something peculiar stirred in her chest. Not fierce like anger or sharp like hunger. Something warm like the feel of sunlight on bare skin, but something delicate, ephemeral, and just out of reach.
Kaji flung himself at the Kodak and buried his face in the prince's shoulder. Sobs shook his body.
Kodak wrapped his arms around the boy and held him close. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "It's going to be alright." He repeated those words over and over, as if by saying it enough times, he could make them become true.
The poorest beggar crowns their king and the king embraces them.
In witnessing this act of complete humility, Minerva realized she had much to learn. She cared for her subjects because Edina had told her she would be their savior. She mourned for her soldiers because Matsudo had shown her what it meant to be a leader. But she had yet to learn compassion and mercy, yet to learn to be a tempered blade.
She watched Kodak wipe away Kaji's tears with his bandaged hand. He had not repaid wound for wound, pain with pain. Instead, he'd comforted. Kindness had swept away the boy's fear of "blue-eyed demons" and he placed his hand in Kodak's without hesitation. Kaji picked his kitten up and tucked her inside his torn shirt.
"Shall we go then?" Kodak asked.
Minerva startled out of her thoughts. "Go?"
"To the restaurant. Kaji can come eat with us." Kodak nodded to the boy and lifted their linked hands.
At the word "eat" Kaji's eyes widened before turning their pleading glance on Minerva. Kumiko meowed from where her head stuck out of his shirt.
"Kumiko would also like to eat," Azuki relayed. "And I am owed fish." He hopped onto Kaji's shoulder before making the jump to Kodak's.
Minerva sighed and raised her hands in mock surrender. At least a good meal should distract the boy enough that Kodak could make contact with the informant. She would have to keep careful watch to make up for the change of plans. "I'm outnumbered it seems. Let's go eat."
Both Kaji and Kodak roared their approval before taking off down the street and almost leaving her behind.
After she'd caught up, it dawned on Minerva that Kaji trumped her as a conversationalist any day of the week.
"You have very nice fur, excellent one," Kaji said to Azuki. "Your staff must brush you very much and you clean yourself well too."
Azuki puffed with pride even though the luster of his coat likely had to do with his illusionary disguise. "It is quite stunning, isn't it? You are very polite for a young one. Kumiko says you treat her well."
"My mama raises kats to live in noble houses." Somehow Kaji had ended up riding on Kodak's shoulders with Azuki perched on his head. Their combined height made Minerva feel even shorter. "At least ... she did before she got too sick." Though the admission left him quiet for a few minutes, it didn't last long. His mood bobbed up and down more than a fighter using crane stance.
"Why is your hair dark if your eyes are blue?" Kaji asked Kodak in a childishly loud voice. "Aren't demons supposed to have white hair?" No one turned to look at them on the street, the only person within earshot being a hobbling woman who looked old enough to be deaf.
Kodak pulled his hood back over his eyes since Kaji had pulled it down, and then had to repeat the process several times. "That must mean I'm not a demon."
"Can you do cool stuff with water though?"
Kodak didn't miss a beat. He'd found out Kaji could understand high imperial even if the boy chose not to speak it. "Let's not ask questions we don't want answers to."
"But I want answers to this one," Kaji chirped.
"Can you do hot stuff with fire?" the Hydro prince asked drily.
Minerva suspected Kaji had been waiting for that question. An immediate yes was followed by a spurt of what Pyros called "green fire" in that it was uncontrollable but not very hot. But in his elevated position and in a moment where he'd won the game of the cloak's hood, Kaji set Kodak's hair aflame. Before Minerva could alert the prince or it appeared to do any harm, the boy had patted it out. "That was hot stuff, right?"
"Very hot," Kodak said. "Don't do it again."
An odd notion that they must look like a family crossed Minerva's mind but she banished it. The fact they'd run into a child and were now letting him tag along on a vital mission was strange enough without lending more to the coincidence.
For the sake of both her sanity and Kodak's, Minerva lengthened her strides so they could reach the restaurant sooner. And in spite of Kodak's penchant for patience and his apparent knack for entertaining stray children, he also betrayed relief when they arrived there.