Guro watched the dogs with fascination. "How did you do that?"
"I drew them." Yaki said. "They'll alert us if any other ink sprites are sniffing about. The Kami of the house probably are not loyal yet." Yaki frowned, remembering that crooked wolf in the embroidery shop.
There was simply no time to explain to him how Golden Hills imbued ink with life. Yaki had a dance to prepare for and nobody to help her do it.
--
"I see her!" Chimon peered through a hole in the wall. "Wow, look at those legs!"
Raiju pushed him out of the way. "Let me see! And she's wearing red. Does she know what that means?"
Gama stood behind them, more focused on the nervous churning of his stomach than anything else. They stood in the courtyard of a manor house across the street from the garden he'd found Badger in yesterday. The manor, its Lyndon design now completely out of fashion had its windows boarded up and then broken into. A beheaded statue of a woman in a naval uniform loomed over the trio. The words of the tribe's shaman still echoed through his head. "You were slated to die Gama. If you have a future then it is not with us. The Deathwalker's stars guide you now."
Yet Determined Badger had twisted his heart so hard that he'd lost his nerve. She'd clearly been crying before the spirit weasel found her and he hadn't even been able to ask her what was troubling her. Now some how he was taking her to the Bottom's Ball. How had that happened?
Raiju turned and gestured to him. "Come on take a peek."
"N-no." Gama put on a confident grin. "No need. I'm going to see her up close. Its rude to peep."
"Better get a move on, she looks a little peeved waiting there." Chimon squinted from his position at the hole.
"Right!" Gama said, marching back toward the broken gates where they had left the carriage. "I'll see you both there." Mentally he checked his list of his presentation: sword was at his thigh, hair oiled back and braided. A hand checked his chin for stray stubble. Robes freshly starched, he felt that with every step. Gift. A panicked hand shot to his belt pouch and for the hundredth time he felt its weight. The driver of the carriage nodded at him as he pulled himself into it and swung the door shut. He sank into the plush cushions and closed his eyes to summon up his lists. A list of things to talk about, a list of questions he definitely should not ask. A list of dances he knew, a longer list of dances he did not. He went through them all one by one. He had written them all last night, usually lists calmed him. He had been training to become one of the Steward's tallies, lists would be his present, future and past. It was a good thing he liked lists. He had a list of everything he'd wanted in life. A steady income, to be a chief, a wife (At some point, Maybe Rainbow on the Plain, although lately that been more a maybe not), children and somehow, someway, humiliating Ryouta and his gang of bullies. Getting stabbed by his best friend and now being indebted to Determined Badger Song had not been on any list. And no matter how many lists he made to compensate he could not banish the fluttering in his stomach.
"Good day Miss!" The Driver bellowed loud enough to reach through Gama's spiraling thoughts. Swallowing hard, Gama stood, jerked the latch of the door and opened it. And there she stood, so beautiful that his brain had to indulge a moment of sheer awe. In the park, even looking bedraggled in tear run makeup, she had been stammer inducing pretty, almost a part of the wild garden she had been tending. Now it was if someone had taken the essence of that girl and sharpened it in every way. Her skin paled to draw your eyes to her red lips, that matched the scarlet of the dress she wore, its curves inviting the eyes to roll down her thighs. Then as he realized where he was looking Gama pulled his gaze up where her eyes captured and held it. Dark eyes, predatory like the black lion he had seen in the embroidery shop.
Yaki cracked a smile, "Are we going to a ball or are you going to stare at me till the enshadowed come out to play?"
Gama swallowed and it appeared his eyes bulged behind his glasses. "S-sorry," He sputtered as he hurried down and assumed the traditional position, "I was composing something witty and the sight of you knocked it clear out of my head."
"Oh? Am I that ugly?" Yaki said, unable to resist teasing.
Gama's copper's skin blushed so hard that ruddy red showed through his cheeks. "Ach! No Opposite! Quite the opposite, ah My Lady."
Yaki let herself giggle as she placed her hand in his. "Now you match my dress." And he hadn't noticed that she still wore her ship boots. Pulling, she allowed him to bear some of her weight as she stepped up in to the carriage. The carriage was simple a simple but elegant sweetheart affair, two plush seats facing each other. It contained barely enough room for four people. Gama followed her up and threw himself into the couch opposite her.
As soon as the door swung shut, the carriage jolted into motion.
Yaki breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction. Finally in her element, a party, society and dancing. While the Fox Fire had its fair share of parties, they had been of a far less decoration than she had preferred. Before she left she would have found Gama ridiculous awkwardness as something to slander but she found it rather endearing as he chewed up his lip.
"So uh, Badger." He began, "Where do you come from? Are you with a city tribe?"
She gave him an easy smile, "Gama, I'm not with a tribe. I've never been part of a tribe." Yaki blinked as the truth fell from her lips. "And you shouldn't ask me anymore questions. I'm in the city trying to save someone."
"Who?" Gama leaned forward.
"My sister." Yaki winced, the entire story lay on the tip of her tongue, wanting to be told again. An urge within her wanted everyone to know about the dragon that held her sister's life and had taken Yaki's own. "Once we get in the door you've done your part."
His mouth opened and Yaki reached out to grip his knee. "No Questions," Yaki said, putting her mother's steel in her throat. "You can help or let me out but you cannot ask me anymore questions." Because for some reason I really want to answer them.
Gama shut his mouth and nodded.
"Thank you." Yaki leaned back. Gama looked down at his lap, a thoughtful frown on his face. Yaki couldn't tell if he was truly disappointed or merely thinking hard. Her gaze turned toward the window, watching the city pass by and trying not the think about how the silence made the burning sensation in her chest louder.
The neighborhoods got rougher, the Ball of the Bottoms was never held in a place where true upper-class could trip over it. It wasn't an official event. Unlike the grand the festivals that the Steward threw to mark the seasons and the New year they did not have the city humming with excitement for the month before and afterward. The location changed with every season, a spruced up warehouse on the docks, a mothballed merchant's mansion, a public banquet hall, if it would hold over a hundred people and had a kitchen within a block then it could host a Ball of the Bottoms. It had started as a rebellion, the youngest sibling, who inherited nothing and lived at the mercy of their older siblings, invited the wealthiest of the merchant class to a party and scandalized everyone.
Now, five hundred years later, the Bottoms Ball was the grease that controlled both the wealiest's family's accent into the Noble class and then decent of minor houses that had lost all use to the Steward. Everyone body who was not a somebody but knew somebodies went. Nobody's were allowed to go as long as they had a near somebody to take them.
Yaki had not been to many Bottom's Balls, mother wanted her to marry into a position to inherent something substantial so it had been the Steward's Balls she had plied Mistress Mana's lessons.
"You are in pain." Gama said, breaking the silence.
Yaki shot him a glance.
"It’s not a question." Gama gesturing toward her chest. Yaki found her fingers pressed against her sternum, as if they somehow sooth the too hot heart within.
She snatched her hand away. No point in denying it. Worry knitted his brows and hot thoughts flashed through her mind. He had no right to be concerned, she wasn't his friend or possession. He had supposed to be her good deed
and now he was her dupe, her key. She was using Him. She had even told him that and there he was, worrying about her. This was not acceptable, she was a trained Lady and he was reading as if she were an open book, a sloppy romance with dog eared corners like she'd pass around in the dorms in school.
She closed her eyes and focused on what had been effortless before mother had ripped from the world and bottled her up on that ship. Mentally she pulled herself back from her face, imagining the mask of heavy makeup she wore as separate from herself. Pulling her true face inward, away from the meat around her cheeks and teeth. Her outward face became a mask, a mask that would display what she wanted it to, nothing more. She checked herself in her compact mirror and frowned inwardly as the face in the mirror smiled back. The mask displayed none of the wide eyed innocence of the Flower, instead it's gaze was piercing, a slight smirk hinting that the face knew something that everyone else had missed. Yaki tucked a stray hair back behind her ear as she attempted to adjust the expression, but the cunning essence of the face remained. This was not the Flower, the Flower had died. This mask Yaki named the Lady Cat. It would do.
The carriage stopped. Gama stared, his eyes seeming to swell through his lenses. "Did you..." He hesitated, "Activate a beauty crystal?"
"Think of it as settling a stance." Yaki offered her hand which he took and opened the door. They stepped out onto a plush purple carpet that rolled out of warehouse that bore the sign of the weaver's guild over the entrance. The carpet traveled up a ramp into a repurposed loading dock and into the building through double doors. A man in the traditional garb of the Fool, with a white coat, purple gloves and thick spectacles stood behind a podium. A line of the well dressed stood before him as he checked credentials.
Yaki coiled her arm around Gama's as tightly as boa constrictor and felt a shudder of recognition go through him. "Friend of yours?" She whispered.
"You've met my friends. I don't have many." Gama said, straightening to his full height, pointing his chin out as with it were horn he might do battle with. Yaki let her smirk grow a tiny bit as they moved closer to admittance.
The Fool waggled his white, very fake looking eyebrows as they approach. "Oh Ho Ho, Mister Gama. Where did the likes of you find this a ravishing creature? My dear you have no need of such an ornamentation such as this one. But speak your name and gain your freedom."
Yaki smiled prettily and rested her left hand on her sword, "But then who would guide me to honor in these exalted halls? If I am snared, I assure you it is only with comfort."
The Fool inclined his head. "If comfort is what you seek, then by all means give your name and enter alone. There is many a man within who can provide a pound of comfort for every ounce this poor wretch can muster."
Anger flashed over Gama's face and Yaki dug her nails into his wrist to ward off the retort.
"Ohh but I'll take an ounce of pure gold to a pound of sand any day." Yaki purred and pressed herself against Gama in a possessive manner.
A wince betrayed the Fool but he recovered quickly, "Fiiiinee." He drawled and checked a mark on his list. "Be sure to have her home by midnight, Gamie, I know a magic doll when I see one!"
Gama made a rude gesture and guided Yaki past him. "You didn't even flinch!"
"It’s pointless to rise to insult when someone is dressed as the Fool." Yaki said.
"I thought I was simply the key to get you in the door?"
"You are but I can't abandon you at the door. That would attract attention. Perhaps a dance before I go hunting?"
Chapter 18
The warehouse interior had been utterly transformed. Long lengths of green vines encircled the huge timbers that supported the roof, extending scarlet blossoms that held a glittering glow crystal at its center. Beneath their boot laid a huge Mosaic pattern with tessellated roots twisting together. On it servants in the hues of various houses circulated through youths dressed in finery.
Yaki and Gama walked toward the center of the revelry, where the dance floor waited. The plane bamboo tiles contrasted seemed austere compared to the rest of the landscape but would with stand far more abuse. Above it a stage sat with the standard medley of musicians forming a semi-circle around their leader and suddenly it all clicked in Yaki's head. The musician stood with his dark beard braided into two tails that hung down behind the black surface of his iron wood guitar. He wore a fur lined tunic, over his squat frame. The guitar was an angler instrument, splitting into three points at the base. All the sound poured from a fat crystal positioned where the hole in the body of the instrument should me. A Valhallan bard, he filled the ball with a thrum of low tones, pulsing rhythm of slow graceful movements of the dancers before him.
The vines above and the roots below. The Bottoms Ball was honoring Valhalla tonight. And that meant... She scanned the room and spotted a cluster of them seated at a table in the opposition of honor. Thick fur cloaks draped over the back of their chairs, aping wolves and mountain lions in color.
"I know." Gama said, following her gaze. "Went from having to bribe their way in, to official guests of the Steward."
"Things change." Yaki took Gama's hand and led him towards the dance floor. No wonder the more Lyndon inspired fashion she wore came cheaply. "Come on, before that bard plays something I don't know." Shaking her wrist with the heavy bracelet to remind her which foot to start with she guided Gama into the swirl of skirts.
Gama did his best to keep ahead of her. Smiling widely with that slightly over size mouth. "You dance like you were born doing it."
"Well I had my first lesson when I was three years old, so you’re not far off." Yaki's mask cracked into a genuine smile but her eyes were no longer on him. Instead she scanned the crowd, looking for a particular symbol. There, clustered by the bar were a trio of men who bore the stark characters of house Nishimure, one of the two houses that controlled the foundry. On was huge, towering over the other two, with arms thick as barrels. "Who's that?" Pointing their direction with her chin.
Gama's steps stumbled a moment as he glanced in their direction. As the dance drew them closer together he whispered, "That’s Ryouta Nishimure, stay away from him."
"Wait, he's the one Chimon was talking about at the dueling circle. He's in the Script's Academy?" She said, now pulling Gama along with her. She remembered Ryouta, from a Steward's ball a long time ago, he'd been smaller than most boy's his age at the time. Internally she grinned.
A pained look threaded though Gama's eyes. "He got kicked out of the Naval academy for something. Him, Yoshiaki and Mitsuo. They're all nasty."
"Oh good, then I won't have to feel bad." Yaki rewarded Gama with a peck on the cheek as the music changed and the bard began to bark orders, the dance changing from a couple’s number to one of trading partners. Yaki flowed between several men but really did not see them, focusing on her quarry over their shoulders.
For any woman here, unless they were from a similarly prestigious house, a Nismura would be favorable match. Even if they didn't inherit wealth or positions they'd have a wealth of potential connections ripe for exploitation. Yaki exited the dance, swapping places with a younger girl who looked eager to join. Drifting over to the buffet she studied the three men. Ryouta mostly stared into his drink, still smarting from the humiliation that Chimon reported? The second man had an athletic cut to his shoulders, of three he was the only one who had done much more than wear expensive clothing, his black hair shined in the soft light and his round cheeks sharped by a light contouring. He moved with a confident swagger. It was he who intercepted the women who meandered close to the trio with a rakish smile. Yet if he was flirting he needed more lessons because they to a one wandered off, some smiling, a few rolling their eyes. Yaki judged the group's last member to be the group's omega, from the obsequious bend in back as he chattered up at Ryouta, to the way his hands constantly rubbed together.
Ka Clink Ka clink. Yaki's heart made its way into her ears as she circled them like a very distracted shark, joining the edges
of clusters speaking clusters and scooping up snatches of gossip.
Ryouta finished his glass of a clear cocktail and Yaki pulled herself away from a cluster discussing how the coming war would fair. She made for the bar that the trio guarded. The handsome one flashed her that smile, then cocked his head with interest. He stepped out into her path.
"Why hello." He began and Yaki realized with a bit of a shock the had ice blue eyes in that copper toned face. No wonder all the ladies bounced, he was doubly black sheeped, high on the birth order and an obvious bastard to boot.
Yaki stepped deftly around him, "Drink first." She whispered as she brushed by. He followed in her wake as if led by a leash. She reached the bar as Ryouta did. The bartender quickly focused on Ryouta first. He ordered a Royal beer, a brand as high class as it got for lagers, the appeal mostly that it was too expensive to be served at the tap houses on the docks than its actual flavor. With the Mitsuo closing in on her from behind, she decided to get the conversation rolling without delay. She chuckled haughtily.
Ryouta's head pivoted, dour eyes looking straight through her. "Something funny?"
"If you snuck in from the docks, at least pretend to be subtle about it." Yaki ordered an imported Vahallan ice wine.
The giant's eyes unclouded as his brows knit. Yaki looked up at him with a playful wink and suppressed a nervous swallow, the man had a foot and then some on her. Not as nearly tall as Hawk but tall enough to injure one’s neck if you made a habit of conversing without personal space. "I happen to like beer." He grumbled as the bottle hit the table in front of him.
"My cousin's not going to be one for conversation tonight." The voice of the middle Nishamura came from behind her.
Yaki rolled across the lip of the bar to regard him. "Oh? That's fine, I might not be interested in conversation." The blatant flirtation caused his head to flinch back slightly. To be desirable there are two routes, either rigidly conform to expectations or shatter them. Mistress Mana whispered in the back of Yaki's head. The Lady cat mask smirked and Yaki patted her sword, "Sport suites me as well as words."
Dragon's Cage Page 9
