Archive of Our Own ^beta

Your grasses up north are as blue as jade,

Our mulberries here curve green-threaded branches;

And at last you think of returning home,

Now when my heart is almost broken....

O breeze of the spring, since I dare not know you,

Why part the silk curtains by my bed?

In Spring , Li Bai (701-762 C.E.)

o

oo

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Autumn, 1291; Khanbaliq

The cardamom was overpriced.

That, in and of itself, would not have been a problem; Kurapika was excellent at haggling, by his mother’s description as stubborn as one of the boulders littering the Mongolian steppe and far too educated in economy and trade to be duped by even the cleverest sales tactics.  The merchants—all of them, whether they were locals, Sogdians, Persians, Tartars, Hindus, or even the occasional pale-skinned Frank—underestimated him the moment he stepped into their stall and opened his mouth.

He’d just left the cloth vendor gaping, having purchased a bolt of vermillion wool for his mother at a fraction of the market value, pleased with his accomplishments for the day.  And then there was the spice merchant.

The merchant’s face was long and haggard, with a sour expression and the deep black hair and eyes that usually meant he was from one of the Hindi nations in the south, and somehow he managed to be the only vendor in the entire marketplace who didn’t speak Mandarin.  Kurapika tried three times to comment on the price of the cardamom, until the man responded with something gruff and wholly unfamiliar.  He ran through the entire gamut of languages he spoke, from the ones he was good at down to the ones in which he only really knew how to say the phrase do you speak Mandarin with no success.  He tried simply gesturing but the man only pointed to the wood tablet declaring the price, resting at the base of the spice mound.

So Kurapika was definitely frustrated, and might have been a little desperate (or possibly vindictive) when he ducked out of the stall to scan the crowd for anyone with a similar appearance, bearing, or style of dress as the man behind the spice counter.

He could have gone somewhere else.  There were probably at least a dozen spice vendors in Khanbaliq and most of them would probably have better prices.

He’d always been a little too proud.

The man in indigo muslin stood out from the crowd like a watchtower, jutting up awkwardly over everyone else’s heads, so it was easy to wind through the milling populace until he was at the man’s elbow, staring up along his impressive height at ink-dark eyes, close cropped hair, smooth brown skin peppered with stubble around the chin.

“Do you speak Bengali?”

There was a baffled sort of kindness in the man’s expression that fueled Kurapika’s certainty, but his extended pause made it sputter.  Eventually, the man replied in a rich but unfamiliar voice and Kurapika realized he’d backtracked too far, into the language of his own tribe.

He switched to Mandarin, and tried again.

The man’s face lit up unexpectedly, in a way that made his eyes shine like the modest gold rings in his ears and made something thump forebodingly in Kurapika’s chest.  “I do.”

The relief that flooded through Kurapika was palpable, loosening in his shoulders, and he exhaled with the smallest curl of a smile.  “Would you mind translating for me?  I won’t take up much of your time.”

“I’ll do my best.”

On closer inspection, the man was carrying an embroidered satchel with a traveling coat slung over it, wearing sturdy leather boots, and his indigo kaftan, while of quality, was well worn in, faded and patched and re-stitched at the seams.  Kurapika wondered, in the brief space of time they were smothered in the crowd before ducking back into the spice merchant’s stall, dim under the canopies and heavy with the smell of cloves, if the man had just arrived from somewhere.

He explained his issue with the cardamom briefly and the man nodded in perfect understanding as though he, too, were a thrifty veteran of marketplace haggling.  “Let me see what I can do.”

Kurapika watched the man approach the main counter and the merchant behind it with a bright greeting, waited while they exchanged what he assumed were pleasantries, and listened with bland interest as their conversation abruptly became more rapid and excited.  The man had straightened up to his full height as the merchant’s sour expression dissolved, and at the same point in the conversation both of them raised their arms in perfect synchronicity, exclaiming something unknown as they clasped hands warmly across the counter.

At that point Kurapika slunk up to the man’s side, hoping his presence wouldn’t diffuse the friendly atmosphere but far too curious to stay back.  “What just happened?”

“It turns out we were born in the same city!  Small world, isn’t it?”

Kurapika made a dubious noise of agreement, shrinking into his own body to remain unobtrusive while the man worked what he hoped was magic but suspected was just excessive small talk, based on how the two carried on.  Their rapid speech was interrupted by notes of surprise or humor, occasional bright laughter, and the man in indigo muslin was brilliantly animated, planting his hands on his hips and throwing his head back when he laughed, like it was something he had to do with his entire body.

Vaguely intriguing as that was, though, Kurapika began to rock impatiently on his heels, thinking about the horses tethered beside the inn and the cost of staying another night.  He could make camp somewhere along the way home, but he’d have to at least get out of the city before the gates closed.  With the time required to prep and pack the horses, what remained was quickly running out.

The tone of the conversation overhead changed abruptly, and Kurapika jumped when the man beside him clapped a large hand on his shoulder.  He looked up through his bangs, at first bristling and then embarrassed by the warm smile beaming down at him, and a sudden heat on his ears and neck made him thankful for the dim shadows under the awning.

The merchant made several drawn out noises of consideration, then said something that sounded conclusive, making a gracious gesture towards Kurapika that seemed promising.

“Sorry,” the man at his elbow said, slipping back into Mandarin.  “I had to butter him up with news from back home.  He’ll give you the cardamom at half price if you buy something else, too.”

“That’s fine.  I need pepper and ginger as well.”

The remaining transaction happened in a flurry of hand gestures, with fingers held aloft and a few aggravated frowns on Kurapika’s part, but it completed at a serviceable price—not ideal, not nearly his best negotiation, but decent.  He left with a full and fragrant bag stuffed into the front of his deel and the man he’d roped into helping him still at his elbow, chuckling over his final exchange with the spice merchant, whatever it had been.

“I appreciate your help.”  Kurapika paused to face him, inclining his head a bit in deference.  “Please, tell me how I can repay you.”

“Ah, you don’t—”

“It would be bad fortune not to,” Kurapika said firmly, folding his arms and waiting for an answer.  “Tell me what I can do.”

He'd asked hoping the reply would be in chao or silver, some kind of good or possibly a meal if the man had just arrived in the city.  The latter would take time, though, which was something Kurapika didn’t have.

The man’s eyes lit up, though, and he reached into the embroidered case at his side, drawing out a bit of carefully folded paper.  Familiar characters marched neatly across the front, and the man held it aloft for him at eye level.  “Can you read this?”

Kurapika blinked.  “Someone’s name?  Zhang Shou, I think.  It looks like an address for a Wu Xing clinic.”

“Yes!  Exactly.  I need to find this place, but I can’t read any of the signs in the professional district.”

“You can speak Mandarin but you can’t read it?”

The man made a face of almost comically exaggerated disgust, mouth drawn down into a scowl.  “Do you know how many characters this system has?  It’s unbelievable!  It’s a wonder anyone can figure out how to read it at all!”

Kurapika sputtered, hand over his mouth, then laughed outright, watching as the man straightened and then looked sheepish, absently scratching at the side of his neck.

“All right, I’ll help you find the clinic,” he said finally, still chuckling a little and waving one hand in dismissal.  “But we’ll eat first. Come with me.”

“Krah—”

“Cuar,”  Kurapika pronounced, slowly and firmly.

“Krar—”

“Cu,” he repeated, dredging up every last reserve of patience, “ar,” and drew out the vowel, carefully enunciating the roll over the consonant, “pikt.”

“Peecktah,” the man said in an exhale, and Kurapika dropped his face into his hand.

“Forget it.  Let’s try your name instead.”

The man rattled off something around a mouthful of rice.  Kurapika squinted at him, frowning.

“Leo?”

“No, Lehhlaaaa—”

“Leeeerah.”

“—thuhr.”

“Throw.”

The man shook his head, the hand not clutching his bowl of food flying through the air at his side, repeating the name multiple times with increasing speed and volume.

“Lerio?”

“How are you even getting that?”

Kurapika smirked a little, prodding at the chicken in his bowl.  “I don’t know, how are you getting krahpeektah out of my beautiful name?”

The man’s expression drooped from sour to sullen as he ate, muttering something into his bowl that might have been my name is beautiful too.  Kurapika watched him, finishing a few more bites before setting his bowl down in favor of the tea at his elbow.

“Say it for me one more time.”

The man peered at him, dark eyes unreadable, then sighed and said it again—simply, casually, without enunciating, the way he might have introduced himself to the spice merchant.  Kurapika listened, turned the sound over in his mind and tried to make it work on his tongue.

“Leorio.”

The man blinked twice, then looked to the side, expression hidden behind his bowl.  “That’s not correct, but it sounds nice when you say it like that.”

Kurapika wrapped his hands around his teacup, feeling a pleased smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.  “You don’t have to use the name I’m called at home.  In the city it’s easier to say Kurapika.”

A length of silence stretched between them, heavy with the steam and smoke and sizzle of cooking meat from the vendor’s grill.  At length, the man—the incredibly tall, modestly dressed and highly expressive Bengali that he intended henceforth to call Leorio—set down his empty bowl and lifted his teacup, tilting it slightly towards him.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kurapika.”

In spite of himself, the smile spread across his face in tandem with a flood of warmth through his chest, and Kurapika figured he could allow himself this bit of fondness, just for one day.  “Likewise.”

The professional district was on the opposite side of town from the market, past the homey quarter of artisan workshops, herbalists, and wine cellars, in a quieter district mostly inhabited by Chinese scholars and bureaucrats who passed the civil service exam and now ran small businesses—accountants, notaries, various services for documents and licenses.  Some of the inhabitants glared at them balefully as they passed, but the proximity to the wealthier residential area meant there were more Mongolian guards passing through or watching over busy intersections, and they were considerably more friendly.  Kurapika paused with Leorio’s paper in hand to ask after a Doctor Zhang Shou at each post, gaining increasingly less vague directions until they arrived at a modest two-story building with red gables, wedged between an antique appraiser and a calligrapher.

“This is it, I suppose,” Leorio said, shifting on the balls of his feet like he wasn’t sure whether to turn and face Kurapika directly or not.  “Thanks for your help.  And—and the company, honestly.”

“Were you lonely?”  Kurapika waited a beat before looking up, sideways, eyebrow cocked at how Leorio hunched his shoulders, and laughed a little.  “I’m only teasing.  This place can be intimidating when you first arrive.  I’m used to coming here with a friend myself, but he’s ill at the moment and we needed supplies.”

“Well,” Leorio said, and the word hung there without elaboration for several seconds while he scratched at the fine hairs on the back of his neck and looked to the side.

“Thank you for the help, and the company,” Kurapika said, and took the initiative to turn towards Leorio and hold out his hand.  “I’ll come by to visit when I’m in town next, so have some black tea ready.”

Leorio blinked a few times, first at Kurapika and then at his hand, then smiled with the same kind brilliance he'd had when Kurapika found him in the marketplace before clasping his hand warmly.  “I look forward to it.”

Kurapika walked back towards his tiny room at the inn with his blood singing in his veins, hand tingling with warmth, and memorized the route towards the gate as he went so he could find his way back, later.

o

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Early Spring, 1292; Khanbaliq and the Mongolian Steppe

The clinic had already closed for the day, so there was no reason for something that sounded like mild chaos to erupt from the foyer while Leorio was taking down the meticulous patient notes that Master Zhang required, terrible as they were, since he still didn’t fully comprehend the Mandarin writing system and had to refer to a book of characters constantly.  It was lengthy, painstaking work and he already had a headache; the pounding on the door made it worse, and the acupuncture apprentice arguing loudly with whoever was doing the pounding sounded like gibberish despite the fact that Leorio was pretty sure it was a language he knew.

Ignoring it only caused the argument to increase in volume.  Leorio growled, one hand raking back through his hair, and dropped his pen, staggering up onto stiff legs to storm out to the foyer.  “Whatever is going on out here I—Kurapika?”

Kurapika was hunched, shoulders drawn up and tense, a fur-lined cap clenched in one fist and the other hand pointing towards the door, towards Leorio, and when he looked up there was something in his expression wholly unlike the boy who had found him in the crowd of the marketplace, who had navigated the city with nothing but a name and a vague address and more determination than Leorio would have imagined in his slight, unassuming stature, wrapped in simple light blue cotton and the lingering smell of horses.

Now he looked fragile, like old ceramic with cracks in the glaze, like he might shatter if Leorio touched him.

“Leorio,” Kurapika said, and the way his voice rolled around the syllables still made something warm flush through his chest, just as it had the first time he heard it.  There was a moment that drew taut, something between them connecting with a terminal snap—and then it passed.  Kurapika straightened, shifting seamlessly from vulnerable to purposeful and crossing the room in three swift steps to take Leorio’s wrist firmly in his hand.  “I need you to come with me.  Now.”

Kurapika was stronger than he looked, practically dragging Leorio bodily to the door and he was out in the street before he knew it.  Under the dim light from the sinking sun and dotted lanterns along the eaves he looked fierce, like the Mongolian warriors who patrolled the streets and guarded the palace and periodically marched out of the city gates in a great throng to overtake some distant city.  Leorio dug in his heels, confused and defiant at once, and attempted to draw his arm back.

“Woah, wait a damn minute!  What’s gotten into you?”

Kurapika’s eyes narrowed.  “I don’t have time to explain, just come with me!”

“Make time!”  Leorio tugged on his arm again, successfully jerking away and rubbing his wrist self-consciously, wondering if it would bruise.  “You can’t just show up unannounced after five months and drag me away!”

Kurapika’s mouth twitched, the arrogant set to his jaw failing slightly, and a slight tremor in his shoulders was the only suggestion of emotion otherwise.  “I need a doctor.”

Leorio blinked, looking him up and down.  “Are you sick?”

“Not for me.”  Kurapika drew his arms in close to his body, stare cutting to the side.  “My friend, the one I told you about, who usually comes to the city with me?  He’s been ill since midwinter.  Nothing helps.  He might be dying, and I need you to come back with me, now.”  He paused for a long, tense moment, voice going soft.  “Please.”

Leorio let out a long breath, one hand scratching back through his hair, and he turned toward the door without further comment.  “Give me a minute to get my bag and tell the Master I’m leaving.”

“Thank you.”

The words were delivered so quietly that Leorio was surprised he even heard them, as though the air had stilled around them specifically so that he could.  It was a strange moment, the heartbeat of space between Kurapika’s voice and the moment Leorio crossed the clinic’s threshold, like every other door in his vicinity had suddenly closed, leaving him only with this one dimly lit path, the end of which he couldn’t begin to fathom.

There were two horses tethered at the city gates, fitted with tack made of leather and thick woven wool in brilliant colors.  The one Kurapika immediately hefted himself up onto was rather nice looking, as horses went—a muted mousy color with a black mane and tail and a splatter of whitish spots across its chest.

The other was completely brown, and Leorio thought there was a specific word for that, but he didn’t know anything about horses and couldn’t say.  In fact, what he did say, with his mother’s embroidered satchel held defensively in front of himself, glaring up at Kurapika in aggravated disbelief, was: “I’ve never ridden a horse in my life!”

Kurapika looked at him as though he’d grown two heads.  “What do you mean you’ve never ridden a horse?”

“I mean exactly that.”

“How can you exist in this world?  Even infants can ride horses.”  Kurapika’s expression shifted from shock to disdain in an impressive fraction of a second.  “Didn’t you at least ride a camel to get here?”

“I came by ship.”

Kurapika made a terse sound and dismounted, taking Leorio by the elbow and hauling him unceremoniously over to the brown horse.  “Well, now you will learn how to ride.  Put your hands here, on the withers, put your foot in this stirrup and swing the other leg over.”

Leorio did so poorly, nearly falling three times while the horse whiffed at his incompetence and Kurapika grit his teeth in impatience before he was successfully astride, and then almost fell face first onto the ground again when the horse started moving.

“Hold on with your legs,” Kurapika said, tugging at the death-grip Leorio had on the reins.  “The horse knows what to do.  Trust him.”

Leorio wasn’t about to say that he absolutely did not trust an animal larger than himself to consider his wellbeing in the process of transporting him somewhere at high speed.  Kurapika’s jaw was set defiantly, eyes flashing, and his hands were still touching Leorio’s, so instead he said “Okay,” in subdued resignation, clinging to the brown horse’s back while Kurapika expertly leapt astride and urged his dun mare into a trot with barely a grunt.

He only fell off once—thankfully not while the horses were at full gallop—when they’d slowed to pass through the arched gates of the Great Wall, and he stopped paying attention to what he was doing to tilt his head back and gape at the massive stone structure in awe, torches roaring on the parapets and the Khan’s banners unfurled and drifting in the breeze along the sides.  He barely realized he was slipping until his back hit the ground, stunned for a few seconds until Kurapika loomed over him with his eyebrows cocked in disbelief.  Somewhere behind him the guards were laughing and exchanging what he suspected were jabs at his expense in their own language.

Kurapika sighed, exasperated but, Leorio thought, vaguely fond, and bent to help him up with the slightest curl of a smile on his lips.

The village they arrived in was an assemblage of yurts pitched in a steppe valley that lay thick with early spring grass, loose herds of horses milling around its edges.  Kurapika didn’t dismount until they were steps from the front of the largest yurt, and he hopped down at the exact moment that a broad-shouldered, terse looking man emerged.  He wore a red jacket similar to Kurapika’s, embroidered around the cuffs and hem, and the two spoke rapidly to each other in their own language while Leorio tried to slide off his horse in a non-inept way.

“This is the chief,” Kurapika said, eventually, pulling him over by the elbow.  “He’s my friend’s father.”  He switched back to his own language seamlessly, presumably introducing Leorio, and Leorio took the few seconds of respite to try and figure out how to appropriately greet the leader of Kurapika’s tribe.

His mental scrambling was moot, however, because the chief’s forehead creased with worry and he gestured for Leorio to follow him as he hurried over to a neighboring yurt, smaller but comfortably warm when he stepped inside.  It was dim, only one small corner of a window drawn back to let in light from outside, and the chief whispered cautiously to a young man curled in a pile of cushions and blankets off to one side.

Leorio watched the exchange, noting the bandages wrapped around the young man’s eyes.  “You said he was ill when we met in Khanbaliq, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but he was nearly recovered by the time I returned,” Kurapika said, hovering near the doorway, arms crossed over himself.  “Several people in the tribe came down with eye infections about five or six weeks ago.  Everyone else has recovered, but he just gets worse.”  He paused, fingers tightening imperceptibly on his own arms.  “He’s losing his sight.”

The chief rose up and turned to Leorio, saying something low and urgent, and although he couldn’t understand the words he was certain of their meaning.  “Kurapika, can you tell him that I’ll do everything I can?”

Kurapika translated, and the chief grasped his hand once, firmly, before exiting the yurt.

The young man in the low bed of cushions was built rather like his father, but with a youthful face like Kurapika’s, and he smiled when Leorio knelt down at his side.  “So, you must be the doctor from India.  I’ve heard a great deal about you.”  Kurapika made an offended noise, still crouching near the entrance, and he laughed brightly.

Leorio grinned back without considering that his patient couldn’t see it.  “Only good things, I hope.”

“You come highly recommended.  I believe I’m in excellent hands.”  He ignored whatever it was that Kurapika hissed from the doorway, low and embarrassed, and reached up curiously until his hand met Leorio’s shoulder.  “Please, call me Pairo.”

“A pleasure.  Let’s get those bandages off so I can see what I have to work with.”

Pairo was wonderfully cooperative as a patient, taking the initiative to prop himself up with cushions so Leorio could access the dressing better and readily responding to all of his questions.  Yes, his eyes were very tender and painful.  No, he hadn’t started out with a fever, that had come on in the last couple of weeks.  No, no one else in the tribe had a fever with the eye infection.

Leorio had an inkling, and started going through the bag he’d brought—his mother’s satchel, the only thing either of his parents ever possessed that he still owned.  It had carried his belongings from Bengal, and now it carried his medical supplies.  “Kurapika tells me that you were ill back in autumn while he was in the city.  Do you get sick often?”

“I do tend to—more than other people, at least.”

“I had a friend like that, also.”  Leorio selected a bottle from the bag, a flask of strong rose wine that his first teacher saw him off with, and began searching through  hand-labeled packets of tea and remedies from Master Zhang.  This was what he had studied for, had traveled all this way for—to gather medical expertise from different places, combine it and use it to cure people.  He couldn’t go back to help the person he wanted to save the most, but here, right now, he could save Pairo.  “If he got sick, we had to treat it aggressively.  So we’ll do the same for you.  Kurapika, I’ll need water.  Some fresh and some boiled for tea.  And fresh bandages.”

Kurapika, who had been sitting quietly through their exchange, made a noise of assent and disappeared through the flap.  Once he was gone, Pairo hummed to himself, swollen eyes staring vaguely up at the yurt’s curved roof.  “Thank you for coming.  I told everyone they were worrying too much, but I think it’s for the best.  You’ll be good for him, too.”

“What, Kurapika?”  Leorio looked up from his satchel and the packets he was laying out, considering a compress to wrap around Pairo’s eyes that should work to draw out the lingering infection.  “Is he sick, too?  He should have said something!”

“A different kind of sick,” Pairo said, contemplative.  “Or an injury, perhaps.”

Leorio’s hands froze in midair, dread knotting in his stomach.  “What kind of injury?”

“A broken heart.”

“Oh.”  He let out a slow breath, wondering at his own reaction, and returned to his previous thought process, out of sync with himself.  “I see.”

He didn’t really see, though—or he just put it out of his mind, focused on the task at hand, because otherwise his thoughts would latch onto it, and wonder.

Pairo began showing improvement almost immediately.  After a few days and nights of dressing, flushing, and redressing, the swelling around his eyes abated, and although he was still feverish he wasn’t in significant pain.  The chief and Pairo’s mother came and went during the day, along with some other people that Leorio was never properly introduced to and wouldn’t have been able to communicate with anyway.  A sharp-looking woman who spoke perfect Mandarin came in periodically with hot food and fresh bandages and peppered him with questions about what he was doing, picking his brain for medical information and brightening in satisfaction at his responses.

It somehow didn’t occur to him until much, much later that she was Kurapika’s mother.

Kurapika himself was scarce.  He usually didn’t appear until after dark, well after Pairo had fallen asleep, and sat so quietly by the entrance that occasionally Leorio didn’t realize he was there until Leorio turned, or Kurapika spoke.  Master Zhang had insisted that he take thorough notes before agreeing to let him leave for what was rapidly becoming multiple weeks, so the majority of Leorio’s free time was occupied with his book of Chinese characters and a steady stream of creative curses behind his teeth.

“Is he well?” was the usual question Kurapika opened with, spoken low and hopeful, satisfied when Leorio responded affirmatively, that he was improving daily.

“Will his sight come back?” was harder, and only asked once.  Leorio could only respond with a vague, I don’t know.  I don’t think so.

On one occasion Pairo wasn’t completely asleep, or had woken at some point, and he said Kurapika’s name—his real name, the one Leorio had struggled to pronounce, and he said it so gently that Leorio felt like he was intruding on something deeply intimate and abruptly excused himself from the yurt.  He ended up wandering the camp aimlessly in the moonlight, arms folded against the chill, until he came across a small measure of familiarity in Kurapika’s horse, tethered on a long line near the edge of the encampment.  There were a pile of belongings nearby, a pack with some provisions and a bedroll laid out in the grass, and Leorio wondered what it meant that Kurapika was sleeping in a cold field with his horse and not in a warm yurt with friends and family.

He didn’t see Kurapika on his way back, but he was gone when Leorio entered Pairo’s yurt and Pairo was asleep, so Leorio was left alone with his thoughts late into the night.

Leorio didn’t quite comprehend the magnitude of his success until the following day, when Pairo’s parents reappeared to help their son to his feet and out through the yurt entrance, slowly and carefully with Leorio just behind them ready to fuss and coddle if he was needed.  There was a seat outside already waiting for Pairo, along with what Leorio suspected was the entire tribe arranged in a crescent around the entrance and cheering exuberantly when Pairo appeared, walking stick in hand, flushed with health and leaning on his father’s shoulder.

Kurapika was there, off to the side but beaming with the first real smile Leorio had seen on his face since they met in the marketplace last autumn.  Something fluttered pleasantly in Leorio’s stomach, and he intended to go over to him but the crowd hushed abruptly now that Pairo was seated and his father had one hand in the air.

Leorio didn’t understand anything being said, but was able to guess when the young woman he recognized as a frequent visitor to Pario’s sickbed stepped out of the crowd and over to his side.  The two clasped hands, smiling in adoration and delight, and a great cheer rose from the tribe.

Kurapika’s smile faltered.

There was a swell of movement, the crowd circling around to congratulate the chief and the young couple, and Leorio lost sight of Kurapika.  He kept looking, though he couldn’t really move from where the congratulatory queue had pinned him to the side of the yurt, people pausing to clasp his hands or say things he didn’t understand. He bowed politely in response, guessing they were grateful to the mysterious southern doctor who saved their chief’s son.

But Kurapika never came through the line, and Leorio didn’t see him again before the evening light began to dim and Pairo needed to be led back to his bed.  And Kurapika didn’t come after night had fallen, once his friend was deeply asleep, to keep his brief vigil and talk quietly with Leorio.

The night was still and cold, but Leorio slept with all the exhaustion he felt.

Pairo was well enough to stand on his own the next time Leorio exited the yurt, having woke up from an unexpected nap on his makeshift desk to find the sickbed empty and Pairo outside the flap, leaning on a walking stick with his red deel draped loose on his shoulders, head tilted back, breathing in the fresh air.  It was cool and moist with rain that had either already passed or was due to fall, the sky a gentle light gray.

“Feeling better?” Leorio ventured, straightening and stamping down the bit of panic that surged in his chest.

“Something approaching excellent, given the circumstances.”  Pairo didn’t turn toward him, but Leorio was pretty much used to Pairo looking in his direction but never really at him.  “All the praise you’ve received here is well deserved.”

Leorio opened his mouth and closed it, scratching the back of his head and slouching a bit.  “I, ah.  Thanks.”

He paused alongside Pairo, facing out toward the edge of the camp, and realized that that was where Kurapika’s horse had been tethered.  At first he thought it was just the horse, then noticed a bit of movement behind her, boots in the tall grass near her legs and the familiar blue Kurapika always wore.  Leorio, with reasonably good eyesight, could barely make him out; Pairo couldn’t possibly see so much as a shadow at that distance.

Regardless, Pairo made a soft, defeated noise.  “I thought I would go talk to him, but I think he’d rather I didn’t.  It's probably for the best.”

Leorio looked from the dappled expanse of the steppe beyond the encampment to Pairo and back, frowning deeply to himself and grumbling.  “Look, I don’t really understand the politics of whatever happened yesterday, but...”  He trailed off as Pairo’s head turned towards him, and he felt himself being slowly but thoroughly scrutinized by that vague, indirect stare.

Eventually, Pairo smiled just a bit, and the expression reminded Leorio of Kurapika.  “You should go talk to him.  He’s fond of you, I can tell.”

Leorio had lied, a little bit.  He didn’t understand the politics, but he most definitely understood what had happened, and that he as a neutral party was now being tasked with tending to Kurapika’s feelings.  He made a soft tuh sound like he was irritated before setting off across the camp to the grassy expanse beyond, but that was also a lie.

This sort of business was messy, when you had a bosom friend since childhood and you both fell in love with the same woman.  Leorio didn’t know much about the latter but knew a lot about the former, and about losing the care and support of someone who knew you so completely.  He imagined it had to be even harder when both parties were still alive, but couldn’t reach out to each other because of the painful rift between them.

Kurapika was petting his mare under her jaw when he approached, butting her nose against his chest and whiffing while he pointedly looked away from the direction of the camp and Leorio.  His hair was mussed, grass clinging to it, and his eyes when they glanced over were sunken with lack of sleep and rimmed in red.

Leorio opened his mouth but found that anything he thought he might have had to say was stuck in his throat, so he closed it and stopped by Kurapika’s side, reaching up to stroke the mare’s black mane.

Several minutes of silence passed before Kurapika murmured, very softly, “Is he well now?”

“Yeah.”  Leorio felt a hard, painful lump forming in his throat and his voice felt rough moving around it.  “He’ll be fine.”

Kurapika made a sound of acknowledgement, moving forward slightly so he was hidden from view, head resting against the mare’s neck.

“Kurapika,” Leorio said suddenly, roughly, not even sure how he was going to proceed but knowing that he had to, that maybe Kurapika would slip through the windblown grass of the steppe and into obscurity, out of his life, if he didn’t.  “You’ll be fine, too.”  He swallowed thickly, only able to see Kurapika’s arm tighten around the mare’s neck in response.  “You will.”

It was several more minutes before anything further happened, only the sound of the horse huffing in something like exasperation breaking the silence.  Leorio took a step backwards, wondering if he’d overstepped, thinking he should be getting back to the city regardless and maybe this wasn’t a problem he could help with, after all.  What did he know about love?

Leorio’s mind immediately supplied the memory of crowds, of the smell of spices and smoke and a cacophony of sound and the feel of a hand closing around his wrist, looking down into eyes bright like brown silk when the sunlight caught the surface, a soft musical voice saying something urgent and incomprehensible.  The way his heart thumped in his chest.

Kurapika moved abruptly enough that Leorio was startled out of his own thoughts, both hands up and half prepared to catch him if he fell—but Kurapika was standing straight, shoulders squared, and Leorio knew him well enough by now to recognize the stubborn edge of his stare.  “I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

“No, you don’t.”  Leorio quickly shifted his already raised hands to defense, taking another step back.  “I’m a doctor and this is my job, you don’t owe me anything.”

“Leorio,” Kurapika said sternly, and even with the harsh tone his voice rolled over the name in a way that made his fingertips tingle.  “Your job was in Khanbaliq, and I dragged you away from it to save my friend’s life.  Which you did.  I am in your debt, whether you like it or not.  I will enter your service to repay it.”

“That’s—that’s really not necessary.”

Kurapika’s eyes narrowed, and the silent stare that followed made the bottom of Leorio’s stomach drop out.  There was a quiver in his jaw, minute but present, that might have been there all along and gone unnoticed.  His voice was almost a whisper.  “Let me keep my pride.”

Leorio felt himself giving in long before he decided he would, or maybe just accepted it as an inevitability.  If he felt like Kurapika was clinging to him—maybe because he was available, maybe because he’d offered comfort, maybe because it meant Kurapika could run away and hide from the things causing him pain until he could face them—then maybe, Leorio thought, selfishly, he could deal with that.  Maybe he could use an assistant.  Maybe he just wanted Kurapika to stick around.

“Alright.”  He lowered his arms, felt more than saw Kurapika relax.  “Do as you like.”

“Thank you.”

Leorio wasn’t sure if he was being thanked for acquiescing, or for treating Pairo, or for something else entirely, but he didn’t ask for clarification.  It was probably all of these, and more, all at once.

o

oo

o

Summer, 1292; Khanbaliq

The city wasn’t necessarily noisier than his tribe’s encampment had been; the noise was just different.  The languages Kurapika heard through walls and open windows were different, the clop of horse’s hooves on stone rather than the soft thud against dirt and grass was different, the way the wind blew around the corners of buildings was different from how it whipped against the edges of a yurt.  Leorio’s snore was different from his father’s.

The last was the hardest to get used to.  Kurapika had little choice, after Leorio apologetically explained his situation to the esteemed Dr. Zhang, but to stake out a length of floor space in Leorio’s room to sleep on.  He didn’t mind, despite Leorio’s protests and insistence that they would at least get him a mat for comfort.  He didn’t mind sharing space with Leorio, even when his more obnoxious personal habits became apparent—discarding clothes over the backs of chairs rather than folding them properly, leaving half-finished cups of tea everywhere, muttering constantly while he worked on his patient notes.  Kurapika had taken over a significant portion of his written work just to be spared the annoyance.

But at night there was Leorio’s soft snore, just unfamiliar enough to keep him awake, and Kurapika stared at the ceiling wishing he could see the stars.  Sometimes he thought about sitting with his mother in front of a cookfire and singing softly with her while she stirred a pot.  Sometimes he thought about his horse, boarded in a stable near the edge of town, and how horribly confined she must feel.  Sometimes he thought about climbing up onto Leorio’s bed, snuggling under the blankets with him and sleeping in the circle of his arms.  It was hardest to sleep on those nights.

The days, at least, were good.  The clinic was busy, sometimes full to bursting, and Dr. Zhang’s dubious acceptance of Kurapika’s presence quickly vanished in the face of his swift crowd management and meticulous organizational skills.  By late spring he was working threefold as a receptionist, secretary, and medical assistant, depending on what was most needed at any given moment, and it kept him too busy to dwell on difficulties like feelings or the minimal sleep he was getting.

It was also around that time that the Frank began coming for treatment.

He was taller than Leorio, twice as wide as Kurapika, with broad shoulders and long, wavy hair the color of fresh straw.  His eyes were blue and piercing and watched every movement Kurapika made as though memorizing it.  He never smiled, but his voice was polite, he was never unpleasant, and his command of Mandarin was serviceable.

He came at first for medicinal tea, then for acupuncture, and was pleased enough with the results to pay what Dr. Zhang seemed to consider handsome amounts of chao for weekly treatments—or at least enough for the Chinese doctor to warm to the idea of serving wealthy Franks.  Leorio spoke to him the most, but he was usually quiet when Kurapika brought tea into the exam room, watching him curiously.

“You wouldn’t suffer so much in the heat if you wore silk or cotton,” Leorio was saying one afternoon, during the first truly warm week of the year.  “You might prefer the clothing from your homeland, but in this weather it’s not practical.”

“I dislike silk.  It sticks to the skin too much.”  The Frank accepted the cup Kurapika offered with a polite thanks and held it in his massive palm, fingers pinched delicately around the edges.  “My son refuses to wear anything from Europe—of course, he’s long grown out of the clothes we brought, and now he’s very concerned with Chinese fashion.  He would spend all of my money on silk and tailors if he could.”

Leorio chuckled and accepted the other teacup, but caught Kurapika’s elbow before he could leave.  “Sit down, have a drink.  I was just telling Mr. Zaoldyck about your language skills.”

“Yes, I hear you speak seven languages.”

Kurapika felt a frown creep onto his face, but he schooled his features into polite neutrality and sat down beside Leorio.  “I speak three languages with fluency and four with competency.  I have limited knowledge of five others besides that.”

The Frank’s eyes glittered with interest.  “Do you speak Sogdian?”

“Of course.  I was the trader for my tribe before I started working for Leorio.”

“How about Arabic?”

“Limited,” Kurapika said, folding his arms and meeting the Frank’s narrow stare with one of his own.  “Why are you interested?  And don’t say there’s no reason; I can tell that you’re not asking idly.”

“Kurapika.”  Leorio’s voice was low, chastising.  Don’t be rude.

The Frank raised his hand.  “It’s fine, doctor; your assistant is correct.  I have a job offer for the two of you, if you would allow me to explain further.”

“Please,” Kurapika said, dubious, and the Frank waited for Leorio to nod as well before continuing.

“I traveled here seven years ago with my father and two of my sons, in the hopes of setting up an overland trade route directly with China on behalf of our family’s company.  Of course, the trip proved to be far too long and difficult for such a venture.  Instead, we’ve been establishing a sea route back to Venice, since trade by sea appears to be the future of business.  My father and oldest son have already returned home.  I remained here to finish stabilizing our affairs, and kept my youngest son with me because I admired the education system here and felt he could benefit from it.

“A few weeks ago I received word from my father.  Unfortunately it seems that trade by sea is just as perilous as by land, if not more so, and profits have been poor.  I’ve been instructed to drop the project and return home, with all of the goods I can manage.  I’m organizing a caravan to do so, and I would like to hire both of you to accompany us.  The good doctor as my personal physician,” he nodded to Leorio, then looked seriously at Kurapika, “and you, as my interpreter and my son’s tutor.”

Kurapika’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.  Leorio sputtered next to him, voice cracking the way it did when he was defensive.  “This is really sudden—”

“Of course, I wouldn’t expect either of you to make such a decision lightly.  I don’t plan to depart for at least two more months, at the soonest.  You are free to turn me down, or commit to only part of the journey; however, if you complete the trip I will continue to employ you in Venice.  Please take some time to think it over.”

“I will, absolutely,” Leorio continued, waving one hand fervently towards his assistant, “but Kurapika can’t leave his tribe.”

Kurapika scowled darkly, shoulders drawing up.  “Don’t presume to make that decision for me.”

“But—” Leorio started, then closed his mouth, face twisting into a pensive frown, and the Frank stood suddenly, handing his teacup to Kurapika before he left.

“I’ll get out of the way so you can discuss it properly.  Thank you again, doctor; I’ll see you next week.”

A polite, tense silence passed until the Frank had excused himself with the apprentice stationed near the entrance and left, then Leorio clambered to his feet and pushed the exam room door shut, bristling and speaking in a restrained hiss to avoid further attention.  “You can’t mean to do this, Kurapika, it takes years just to travel all the way to the western countries.  People die along the way all the time.  You might never be able to come back!”

Kurapika’s jaw tightened.  “Why is that a problem for me but not for you?”

“Because I’ve already left Bengal with no intention of returning.  You still have a home, and you should go back to it.”  Leorio’s eyes lingered over him, deep brown and wavering with some emotion Kurapika couldn’t discern.  He looked to the side sharply when Kurapika’s returning stare didn’t break, clearing his throat and standing straighter from the hunch he took instinctively to accommodate the much shorter people he was perpetually surrounded by.  “It’s been almost three months, I think you’ve repaid your debt sufficiently, or if you’re not satisfied then stay on until Silva is ready to leave.  But don’t make a decision like this lightly, Kurapika.  Go home to your family.”

Leorio’s voice was soft, too gentle, too willingly kind, just like the first time they met.  Kurapika thought about his mother’s voice, with a similar quality, humming to herself while she helped him mend the dun mare’s bridle.  How wonderful it is, that Pairo recovered and the chief gave his marriage blessings.  It warms my heart when young people grow up and find happiness with each other.  Maybe at the summer festivals you’ll meet a nice girl, too.

A knot of frustration and resentment coiled tightly in his chest, and he pushed past Leorio to the door, brusquely, ignoring the hand that tried to settle on his shoulder.  “It’s my decision, not yours.”

The argument didn’t end there, of course.  It continued in small ways, in brief moments, looks, low words, sometimes just in the set of Leorio’s shoulders when his back was turned.  Kurapika buried himself in work just to find exhaustion, so he could sleep at night instead of lying awake with an incomprehensibly deep ache in the center of his chest, feeling like he might be slowly sucked down into it, like his soul was imploding and eventually his body would just go through life automatically without thought or feeling.

Late summer was hot, unbearably hot, and the clinic filled to the brim with patients suffering from it; the argument ended at that point because neither of them had the time or energy to continue it.  When the weather finally broke, the Frank Silva Zaoldyck appeared at the front door with two paper contracts and a notary, and Kurapika signed his expressionlessly while Leorio stared him down.

“We have two weeks,” he said, later that night once the clinic was closed and he was penning Leorio’s reports for the day.  “I’ll go home and visit my family until we leave.  But I am going.”

“You’re running away,” Leorio said flatly, without looking at him.

“I’m not running from anything.”

“It won’t help.  You won’t feel better when you’re on the other side of the world.”

“You don’t actually know what my feelings are, or my reasoning, because you haven’t bothered to ask.  Please at least be kind enough not to make assumptions.”

Leorio didn’t say anything further about it, at least not that night, and not again before they left.  Kurapika rode out to his tribe’s camp the following morning, under weather crisp and clear with autumn on the way.

His mother cried, when he told her he was leaving.  She was inconsolable for the first day, weepy and bitter for the second, and on the third she let him back into the ger and they made dinner together in silence.  She never tried to change his mind.

“I feel like I’m mourning,” she said finally, after they’d eaten.

“But I’ll be alive, even if you never see me again.  The gods will be watching me, and will tell you that I’m well.”

She was much easier to convince than Leorio.  She made him a bundle of clothes, camel’s wool and furs for the winter and cotton for the summer, a packet of trinkets stuffed in the middle that he suspected had been meant for some imagined future wedding.  She picked three horses from her family’s herd, as a gift for his new employer, and three rolls of woven blankets to add to the caravan.  She lectured him on behaving properly in the strange lands he would be visiting, so they would know his people were strong and proud.

He promised to send letters, if it was ever possible.  She kissed his forehead every night and hugged him tightly, murmuring his name like a prayer that would keep him safe.

On the morning of Kurapika’s final day in his homeland the sky was pale blue and cool, low clouds blocking the sun on the horizon and filtering soft light over the encampment.  He meant to leave quietly, retrieving the dun mare first before gathering what his mother had packed and setting up the three horses from their herd on a lead.  He was fussing with her tack, feeling the need to linger deep in his bones, anxiety tight in his shoulders, quietly at war with himself.

He wasn’t surprised to hear the soft thud of hooves in the grass approaching, really; wasn’t surprised to see a flash of red when he tilted his head to the side, barely in acknowledgment.  Pairo didn’t say anything, just drew his bay gelding to a restless pause with a comfortable distance between them.  Kurapika kept his back to him, continued adjusting the saddle far longer than was strictly necessary, and felt Pairo staring.  Heard the shift of hooves when the gelding sidestepped back and forth, impatient.

That meant he wanted to race.

“Should you be doing that with your eyesight as bad as it is?” Kurapika muttered to a stirrup, trying not to care whether Pairo heard him or not.

He did, of course.  “My horse sees for me.  He knows what to do.  The rest is just sound, smell… shadows and light.  It’s not much, but more than enough to beat you to the overlook.”

“You think so, do you.”

Pairo let out a flat hum, self-assured, just to provoke him further.  Kurapika pretended to dismiss it, moving to adjust the mare’s reins, one hand under her chin, watching her dark eyes blink slowly at him, calm and steady.

Then he leapt into the saddle and she flew into a gallop out towards the open plain.

He knew Pairo was pacing him, ready for the sudden start and gleefully drawing level as Kurapika leaned forward and urged the mare to go faster, wind tugging at his sleeves and whipping his bangs across his forehead.  The air was sweet with grass green from the heavy sun, late flowers blooming in the rocky soil, and the sun finally shouldered its way past the low clouds, bathing the steppe in golden light, warm on his back and the crown of his head.  Hooves thundered at his side and Pairo drew just slightly ahead, close enough Kurapika could reach out and touch his shoulder.  He twisted his fingers in the reins, hissed encouragements into the wind shrieking past them, and the mare whickered, dancing away from Pairo and his horse with a burst of speed.

He laughed, and the sound felt almost foreign in his chest.  How long had it been since he felt lighthearted enough for this?

They slowed on a curve of land that rose up into a rocky cliff, the unofficial finish line just at the point where the horses needed to lose speed and not send them all careening over the edge.  The mare cantered along almost arrogantly, stepping high until Kurapika drew her to a halt at the highest point, where the ground leveled and the valley fanned out beneath, spotted with breaking light and boulders and a herd of horses grazing idly, tails flicking.

“That’s 108 wins for you,” Pairo announced, drawing level and stilling at his side.  “And thirty-seven losses.  Been a while since the last one.”

“Never stop keeping track.”

“I won’t.”  There was a sort of melancholic smile in Pairo’s voice, and after a minute of staring out over the landscape Kurapika realized his friend couldn’t see it, and was staring at him anyway.  Pairo took a breath to speak again and Kurapika felt like all the air in the steppe was being sucked away, the moment of happiness during the race melting.

“You don’t intend to come back, do you?” Pairo asked quietly, not expecting or waiting for a response.  “Have I hurt you that badly?”

Kurapika paused for ten seconds, ten heartbeats before he was sure his breath wouldn’t tremble when he replied.  “It’s not about that.”

“Isn’t it?”  Pairo’s voice was laced with disbelief.  “It’s about the doctor, then.”

“Maybe.  A bit.”  Kurapika drew his shoulders up, reminded himself that Pairo couldn’t see him shrugging, but sighed with the gesture anyway.  “Remember when we were kids, and we talked about going to see the world beyond the steppe?  Why we learned all the languages and skills we needed to go trade in Khanbaliq for the tribe.  It was fun, while it lasted.  I always wanted more, though.  I wasn’t sure if you did, so I never said so.”

“But you don’t mean to return.”

“I don’t think there’s a place for me here anymore.”

“That’s not true.  There is a place for you here, because there are people here who love you.  The problem is that it’s not what you want.”  Pairo’s voice had a strange edge and Kurapika found himself looking at him for the first time, at the stare that hovered just slightly over his shoulder, a bit sad, a bit mournful, but there was a soft smile curving his mouth.  “I’m okay with that.  I hope you find the happiness you’re looking for, out there in the world.”

Kurapika’s throat swelled, trying to come up with something in response, but Pairo tugged at the gelding’s reins and turned him about, back towards the camp, before he could find any words.

“Goodbye, Cuarpikt.”

It took multiple counts to ten before he could murmur a soft goodbye in response, but Pairo heard it, even several yards away, one hand raising to wave without looking back.

o

oo

o

Late Summer, 1292; the road to Chang’an

The Frank’s son wasn’t quite old enough to be called a man; an artfully slender boy with skin and hair as pale as Ding porcelain and eyes the same shocking blue as the summer sky.  Kurapika found him unsettling at first, until they were readying the column of camels and horses to leave and he saw the boy staring back at the gates of Khanbaliq wistfully, expression tugging down around the edges of his eyes and mouth until his father barked something and his back straightened, face schooled into bored neutrality.

He dressed exclusively in Chinese silks, rich red and green and violet, with a scarf wrapped around his head to shield his face from the sun.  He never traveled alongside his father, but spent his days in the column walking idly among the pack animals with hands in his pockets, or perched atop a camel with his nose in a red-bound book of Confucian philosophy.

On the day the boy decided to try riding one of the horses Kurapika’s mother had sent with him, Kurapika decided it was time to do the job he was hired for.  He drew up level in the column, falling into gait easily alongside the horse the boy had chosen—a gelding, solid black with a tuft of white on its forehead.  “This is a good horse,” he commented, because it was never not a good time to talk about horses or approve of them.  “He came from my uncle’s herd, about five years old, I think.”

“Oh,” the boy said, something like vague interest in his voice, hands shifting on the bridle.  “What’s his name?”

Kurapika blinked a few times.  “I don’t know.”

“Can I give him one?”

“Absolutely not.”  Kurapika drew his shoulders up and his dun mare shifted sideways accordingly.  “Would you like it if a horse tried to give you a name?”

“But I already have a name.”

“Exactly.”  Kurapika nodded to himself, and the dun huffed as though in agreement.  “The horses came to us from the gods, and they have their own names that are not for us to know.  It’s better not to presume, and treat them with respect.”

The boy made a noise that wasn’t quite agreement or understanding or interest but might have been acknowledgment, his unsettlingly blue eyes trained on Kurapika for a long moment before he turned them back to the landscape.

“So what is it,” Kurapika continued, after a long enough beat of silence had passed.  “The name that you already have?”

“Killua.”  There was the faintest trace of a smile on his lips.  “I know your name already.  You belong to the doctor.”

Kurapika jumped, startled enough that the mare cantered to the side for a moment before winding back into place.  “I don’t—I don’t belong to him, I work for him.  Don’t make those kinds of presumptions about humans, either.”

Killua made that same noise, this time with slightly more interest and slightly narrowed eyes, while Kurapika huffed and bristled and was probably too obvious.  They rode in silence for several minutes, horses keeping a steady and even pace side by side.

“One of the conditions your father hired me under was that I act as your tutor,” Kurapika continued, once he’d stopped feeling offended and remembered why he came to talk to this boy to begin with.  “It seems prudent to start by learning what you know already.  Will you tell me about your homeland?”

“I don’t really remember that much.  It was a lot like the cities here, just with different buildings.  Different foods.”

“Do all the people there look like you?”

“Not exactly.  It depends on what country you’re in, like in the south—”

“There’s more than one country?”  Kurapika straightened, and his horse sidled closer in response.  “How many are there?  Do they all have their own language?”

Killua’s impossibly blue eyes widened, cautiously leaning away from Kurapika’s enthusiasm.  “W-well, I don’t know… maybe fifty—”

“FIFTY?”

“I mean I’m guessing, but—”

“I had no idea there was that much more land in the west.”  Kurapika mused, fingers tracing the embroidery on the reins in his hands, pondering and no longer paying attention to Killua, who was still speaking in the background.  “Are they all ruled by one great lord, like the Khan?”

“I guess the Holy Roman Empire is sort of, but that’s only—”

“Ah, I see.”  Kurapika dropped his fist into one hand, repeating the unfamiliar words to himself and drawing his threads of understanding together into one coherent image of what the distant West must be like.  Killua trailed off, eyes narrowed irritably, but even so it was another few minutes before Kurapika turned back to acknowledge him.  “As part of your education, I’d like to learn the language of your homeland.”

“That won’t do you any good because we’re going to my grandmother’s villa in Venice, not Amsterdam.  They speak a completely different language there.”

“There’s more than one language in the Holy Roman Empire?”

“That’s not—whatever, yes, there are tons of languages, as many as there are countries, probably a lot more, even.”

“Incredible.”

He thought he heard Killua mutter something along the lines of just who is the teacher here? but he didn’t seem displeased.  Kurapika made a few mental notes, then drew himself back to the more pressing subject.  “Your father said he kept you with him in Khanbaliq so you could attend school.  Were you studying for the civil service exams?”

“Studying, yeah, but the Khan stopped the exam thirteen years ago.  The curriculum is the same, though, just in case things change.”  Killua visibly brightened, drawing himself up straight in the saddle.  “My practice scores were the highest in my class.”

“What would you have done, if you’d taken it?  Worked in a government office?”  Kurapika mused, watching Killua’s face contort in disgust.  “Maybe an accountant?”

“Absolutely not.  I just wanted to take the exam because it was interesting.  And I would have been the first European to do it.”

“I see.”  Kurapika grew quiet for a long moment, mentally running through all he knew of standard Chinese curricula, the contents of the former exam, and what he had to contribute.  “You should already have a good grasp of the classics, so we’ll begin with languages.  I’ll teach you Sogdian, the trader’s tongue, which will be useful to you as we travel.  From you, I’d like to learn the language of Venice.”

“Italian.”  Killua made the correction with a toothy smile that wasn’t directed at Kurapika, just somewhere vaguely to the side.  “I guess I could use the refresher myself, and it’s better than just walking and staring at dirt all day.”

“The upside of language learning is indeed that you don’t need a classroom.  Just a friend to talk to.”

Killua made another low noise in response, but this time it sounded like agreement.

o

oo

o

Autumn, 1292; Dunhuang

Leorio had been unaware, prior to this journey, of just how bad camels could smell.  Or how mean-tempered they were, or how uncomfortable it was to spend upwards of eight to twelve hours riding one.  He’d thought to switch to a horse after a few weeks of silent suffering, but the horse wasn't much better: the Mongolian saddles were clearly not intended for people with legs as long as his.  As a result he spent multiple portions of each day walking and quietly envying Kurapika, who was so used to spending the majority of his time on a horse that he wasn’t fazed in the slightest.

They arrived in Dunhuang a bit more than two months after starting out, having made good time on the well-maintained roads through China, and by then Leorio had resigned himself to perpetual discomfort.  The city was lively, though, unlike the poor shadow of Chang’an they’d passed to the north without pausing.  Dunhuang was bright with activity, full with passing merchants and pilgrims queued towards a seven-tiered shrine built directly into the mountainside.

He hung back to eavesdrop on Kurapika explaining the significance of the Mogao caves to the younger Master Zaoldyck, just like he had when they passed by Chang’an and Leorio decided to stay on the camel he was riding to listen to Kurapika’s lilting voice discuss how the city was once the crown of Chinese civilization with their employer’s son.  The boy didn’t have a thick accent in Mandarin like Leorio did; he spoke the language like he was born to it, like he’d never lived anywhere but China in his life.  Sometimes Silva’s face would go stony when his son spoke to Kurapika or one of the hired hands in Mandarin, and whenever Silva addressed the boy directly he did so in a strange, rough tongue that Leorio only guessed was their native language.  That always seemed to spark an argument, and if Leorio was near enough to hear it he removed himself promptly.

Silva boarded most of the caravan near the edge of the city, but for himself, his son, his physician, and his son’s tutor he rented rooms at an inn in the heart of the city.  They were modest but seemed a rich indulgence compared to sleeping on the ground; the room Leorio shared with Kurapika had a broad window that opened over the edge of the market, a small square with the eaves of a restaurant glowing with lanterns across the way, and the air was rich with the smell of spices from the market and cooking food.

They would stay for a week or so, Silva had said, so that he'd have time to peruse the market and make some trades; the pack animals also needed time to rest before they descended into the Tarim Basin and, eventually, the Taklamakan Desert.  That would be the hardest part of the journey, even in the winter, and Leorio had been thinking about it for a while—thought about it again, leaning against the window frame and looking out at the people milling through the square in the failing light.  Behind him Kurapika was shuffling around, taking inventory of his own pack and tossing aside clothes that needed to be washed.

Leorio hadn’t revived their argument yet, but he was still convinced that Kurapika was making a mistake, one he couldn’t reverse if he realized it.  As much as he appreciated the work Kurapika did for him as his assistant—even when Kurapika was sullen and contemptuous about it the way he was about Leorio’s notes—and as much as Leorio wanted to be near Kurapika just to listen to him or appreciate the elegant quiet of his presence, Leorio had to accept that his feelings were selfish.  That wanting Kurapika's care and presence and friendship was second to the life and family Kurapika had left behind, and to whatever wound he was nursing that he thought this journey would heal.

“There are some beautiful women in this city,” Leorio said, without even fully realizing he was going to say it or having a firm goal in mind.  “When I left Bengal, I thought for sure there would be no place else in the world with women as amazing as the ones back home, but it turns out there are incredible women everywhere.”

Kurapika said something muffled that might have been agreement, and Leorio looked over his shoulder to see if he was actually listening.  There was an actual point to the comment: that Kurapika might have lost the girl he wanted to his best friend, but there were plenty of other opportunities waiting for him, if he wanted to go and find one.  He was certainly attractive enough; pretty, Leorio thought, but he wasn’t sure if the local cultures had a different standard for good looks.

When it was clear that no further response was forthcoming, Leorio continued, airily, “Might be nice to have a little company.”

The silence that followed felt strangely heavy, and Leorio jumped when Kurapika shook out an undershirt with a snap fit to break it.  “Do as you like.”

Leorio opened his mouth to argue that he hadn’t been referring to himself, but the argument that came out was the old one instead.  “You should think about turning back once we get to Turfan.  Once we pass the desert it’ll be harder to change your mind.”

“I haven’t changed my mind,” Kurapika said tersely, back still facing him.  “And I’m not going to.”

“Kurapika—”

“You won’t be rid of me that easily.  If you hate my presence so much you’ll have to make more of an effort to prove it.”

Leorio’s throat tightened, arms buzzing with anxiety and the low beginnings of a temper that was likely to start a real fight.  Of course, it was just the opposite—he wanted Kurapika’s presence, craved it, sometimes, and on the cold nights in the tent under shared fur blankets he lay awake for hours wishing he could sleep curled around the smaller body at his side, feel Kurapika breathing against his chest, heartbeat under his palm, hair tickling his nose.

“You do as you like, then,” Leorio muttered, unable to come up with a better rejoinder through the myriad of emotions competing for space in his chest.  They spent the rest of the evening under the weight of a tense silence and the remaining week in snappish discomfort, and Kurapika didn’t speak to him normally again until they were back on the road, which seemed to default their argument to moot.

o

oo

o

Winter, 1293; Taklamakan Desert

Kurapika sent a letter to his mother from Turfan before they entered the desert proper.  It was still close enough to send by the Khan’s postal service, and once they’d crossed it was hard to say how reliable messaging would be.

Silva timed their departure well, so that they would arrive at the Taklamakan Desert in the earliest chill of winter with just enough time to reach Kashgar on the opposite side by spring.  The relief from the heat didn’t come with relief from the dry, dusty air, though, or from the frigid winds that blew down from the Tianshan Mountains; it did nothing for the unstable terrain or the sandstorms that brought the caravan to a dead halt.

The first time it happened they were prepared, at least, and Kurapika pulled the tent from its roll on the back of his saddle to throw over himself and his horse.  The mare was spooked, though, and nearly bolted; it took a full hour with the canvas heavy over their heads and the wind howling in the darkness beyond it to calm her down.

It was possibly one of the worst experiences of his life, that cramped, stifling space, only able to pitch the tent slightly over them with the poles it had been rolled around, with only the skin of water he’d been carrying and a bit of dried food in one of his saddlebags.  He fell asleep eventually, and woke to the sound of voices and the pale light of morning filtering through the canvas.

The sand had banked up all around them, and it took both his tugging and his horse climbing to her feet to pull the tent free, but once he had the smothering fabric gave way to blessed fresh air.  The entire column was doing the same, human and animal alike emerging from the desert coughing dust and shaking off sand.  Leorio was hurrying along, checking on everyone briefly, and Kurapika only had enough time to notice him break into a run before being caught up in a pair of strong arms and crushed against Leorio’s chest.

Leorio said something in his own language that Kurapika was pretty sure he could translate just by the tone.  He didn’t protest being embraced—even though Leorio smelled rather like he’d spent the night wedged between two camels in a bathhouse—just because it was Leorio, and Leorio’s nose was pressed against the top of his head, and, for a moment, stomach swimming with emotion, Kurapika felt like he was the most important person in the world.

“Sorry,” Leorio murmured at length, stepping back and placing his hands more neutrally on Kurapika’s shoulders.  “I didn’t mean—just.  I was worried.”

“Thank you.”  Kurapika felt warm to the tips of his toes even with the chill in the air around them, and reached up to pull Leorio’s hands away.  “You should keep checking on everyone else, though.  Someone might need a doctor.”

“Right.”  Leorio straightened, hands hovering for a moment like he wanted to put them on Kurapika again, just for his own reassurance, then he lowered them and moved away, continuing on down the column to check on everyone as they emerged.

Killua appeared in his wake, face twisted down in a sour expression, hair flattened, hunched inside a thick jacket that clearly belonged to his father.  “That was terrible.  Everything reeks like camel ass.”

“That’s an astute way of putting it.  Are you making yourself useful, or just wandering about making asinine observations?”

Killua stared at him for a long moment while Kurapika attempted to shake the excess sand off of his tent so it could be rolled back up or pitched if Silva decided the caravan should make camp and recover.

Finally, eyes narrowed, Killua said, “Are you making puns.”

Kurapika shook the canvas until it snapped in the air.

“We almost died of sand and camel stink and you’re making puns.”

“I’m celebrating life with linguistic humor.”

“And I’m walking away now before you can turn this into a lesson.  I’m officially taking the day off from tutoring.”

“I suppose I can excuse you on the grounds of suffering a near-death experience.  Go help Leorio unbury the animal wrangler.”

His good mood persisted as the day wore on and a camp was indeed established, while heads were counted, and animals, and goods.  The camel and handler at the very end of the column were missing, and a few volunteers set out to search for them but returned near sunset reporting no sign, dead or alive.  It wasn’t until a couple of days later, when they were back in formation and plodding along the ribbon of barely traversable land between the desert and the mountains that Killua said, “Do you think maybe they were just… completely buried?”

“That’s possible,” Kurapika replied, feeling an echoing morbidity when Killua shivered.

It was not the last sandstorm they weathered, but it was the worst.  By the time they approached the end of the desert the dun mare was visibly weary, wheezing occasionally, and Kurapika started walking with her on a lead to make the remaining road easier.  In a few more days they would be in Kashgar, and they could rest.

o

oo

o

Early Spring, 1293; Kashgar

“Is your horse okay?”

Leorio could read the answer in the way Kurapika’s shoulders drew up, the tightness in his voice when he turned slightly to face him without directly meeting his eyes.  “She’ll be fine.  We just need rest.  The desert was hard on everyone.”

“That’s true, but—” Leorio started, and paused, opening his mouth and closing it again a few times.  “You know what I’m going to say.”

Kurapika latched the gate to the small stable that belonged to the caravanserai where Silva had boarded everyone.  It overlooked an open pasture banked near a river where the camels were lounging in the cool shade of the trees growing there.  Kurapika’s mare didn’t usually like to be penned, and he usually let her roam on her own with the other animals or attach her to a generous tether.  But she was behind the gate now, head drooping low enough that Leorio couldn’t see her.  “Yes.  I know.”

Leorio stepped in front of him before he could walk away, standing at his full height--not to be intimidating, just to show he was serious.  His hands curled awkwardly at his sides, wanting to settle on Kurapika’s shoulders, like touching him would somehow convey his words better than speaking alone.  “Hire a camel.  Take one of the alternate routes back.  It’s warm enough you could even go north and cross the steppe.  You’d be home by late summer.”

“We’re going to rest,” Kurapika said, and met Leorio’s stare with a cool, even, stubborn petulance that kept him rooted in place when Kurapika stepped around him and continued on, back to the squat clay buildings surrounded by pitched tents, fabric flapping in the light breeze.

o

oo

o

Early Summer, 1293; Samarkand

After several weeks of fresh air, fresh water, and an abundance of fresh food at the oasis in Kashgar, Kurapika’s spirits had lifted and the dun mare was breathing easily and cantering around the pasture among the camels.  Leorio grudgingly admitted that she seemed well, which Kurapika chose to interpret as his blessing to continue, and so he and his horse rode out from the Peshawar Mountains with the rest of the caravan as though the weight of the desert had never borne down on them.

By the first weeks of summer, though, the mare’s steps were flagging, and Kurapika began spending most of the day on foot once again, trying to start in the morning as close to the head of the column as possible so that if they slowed too much they wouldn’t be left behind and hopefully Silva wouldn’t notice.  Kurapika wasn’t certain how he would handle the situation, and didn’t care to find out.

Eventually they came to the outskirts of what might once have been a great city and was now a scattered ruin with a small town growing slowly from its center, colored with the peaks and awnings of a bazaar and the turquoise turret of a small mosque.  Samarkand, once a thriving center of trade and commerce, razed to the ground over seventy years before by the Great Khan and his Golden Horde.  Kurapika watched it come into view as he walked, feeling weary rather than hopeful, distracted enough that he didn’t hear Killua approaching until he pulled up beside him and hopped off his own horse to walk in pace.

“Father needs you at the head of the column to translate.  There’s only one caravanserai and they’re already hosting two other groups.  Can you ride?”  Killua looked both of them over, and seemed to reach a conclusion on his own, passing Kurapika the reins to his gelding.  “Take my horse.  I’ll lead her the rest of the way.”

Kurapika made the trade reluctantly, feeling like he was betraying his mare somehow by riding a horse in better health than her.  The head of the column was closer than he thought, and it had mostly come to a halt with Silva and Leorio holding a quiet conversation together and some of the other hired hands hovering behind them.  Before them was a woman in a rust-orange hijab who stood at the mouth of a sunken caravanserai, lively with visitors, a small city of tents scattered in a crescent along the opposite rim.

He greeted her in Sogdian before speaking to Silva about what he wanted to negotiate, and they came to an agreement quickly once Silva offered to send some of his hands into town to get more provisions.  Killua appeared by the time they finished, and without asking his employer for permission Kurapika continued his conversation with their hostess.  “I have a horse who needs medical attention.  Could you refer me to a farrier or a veterinarian in town?”

The woman’s eyes lit up unexpectedly, and she stepped back to lean over the edge of the caravanserai and call out a single word—it must have been a name, because Kurapika couldn’t fathom its meaning.  “My nephew can help you.  He’s excellent with animals, just not at coming when called for.”

Contrary to that claim, a dark, wiry teenage boy hopped up the steps beside her almost immediately, barefoot and peppered with straw that clung to his clothes and the twist of undyed cotton around his head. His wide brown eyes sparkled with excitement as soon as he saw the collection of humans and animals before him.  “Did you come all the way from China?  What did you bring?  Did you come through the desert?  Were there sandstorms?”  He seemed to close in on Kurapika more with each word, practically vibrating, rocking up on the balls of his feet.  “Were there bandits?  Did you have to fight them off?”

“Gon,” the hostess said, making the name an admonishment just like it had been a command when she called it out a moment before.  “His horse needs attention.”

“Oh, sorry.”  The boy didn’t really look apologetic—maybe a little abashed, but he grinned as brilliantly as the sun overhead and stepped past Kurapika, immediately bypassing the black gelding and approaching the dun mare instead, like he could sense which one was sickly without further input.  Killua was still holding her reins, and the boy paused for a long moment to ascertain his presence, like he was gauging how close they were to being the same height.  “How old are you?”

Killua blinked, like that was the last question he expected to be asked, and Kurapika could see him mentally stumbling over a few languages before arriving at the correct one.  “Seventeen.”

“Me too!  What’s your name?”

“Gon, the horse.”

“Yes auntie.”

Kurapika didn’t have the energy to be put out by Gon’s enthusiasm; rather, it was kind of comforting when he carefully led the mare down into the hollow and the cool, stone-lined dugout nestled in the earth below, chatting alternately with him or Killua along the way.  A gated area served as a stable with a handful of pens bedded with fresh straw on either side, one housing a young yak who peered at them curiously between the slats and another occupied by a pair of bleating goats who quieted when Gon leaned over the gate and tossed them a few small apples.  The largest pen at the end was where he brought the mare, tugging the last apple from his pockets for her to much on while he spoke to her quietly, then moved closer to press his ear against her chest and flanks and listen to her pulse and breath.

“There’s fluid in her lungs,” he said finally, stepping back to pet the mare’s nose.  “She’s not suffering, but her heart is struggling.”

Kurapika’s stomach twisted, a sickly knot forming around the worry that had lived there since the desert.  “What can I do?”

The silence that passed while Gon stared into the horse’s eyes, hand moving gently over her chin, said all of the difficult things he didn’t want to hear.  “She’s done all she can to stay with you.  She’ll be comfortable here.  If it becomes painful I can give her some poppy extract.”

There was a moment of unreality that followed, not really like he had listed to the side but more like the world had, while Kurapika remained upright, throat painfully tight, not sure what was keeping him aloft.  Gon moved through the space in front of him, assuring him that it was okay to stay here as long as he wanted before attaching himself to Killua’s arm and dragging him out of the stall and away to some other part of the dugout.

When the rift passed and the world around him became clear again, Kurapika found he could move—even though it felt like everything in his life had just come to an abrupt halt.  The mare whickered and nudged his shoulder, and he leaned his cheek against her neck, like he had so many times before when he needed comfort or support, and he’d never felt the weight of his own selfishness as much as he did in that moment.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, the words rough and painful against the lump in his throat.  “I’m sorry.”

On their third day on the outskirts of Samarkand, Leorio woke up to a bar of predawn light flaring across his face, followed brusquely by Killua’s voice repeating his name.

He managed to get an elbow under himself, squinting.  “What?”

“We need you in the stable,” Killua said, and he cursed.

The air outside the tent was just cool enough to make his arms prickle, and the camp was unnaturally still at such an early hour.  Killua had a stole of turquoise wool wrapped around his shoulders and straw sticking unnoticed out of his hair, eyes and mouth drooping downwards as though he also had been woken far too early.  They didn’t speak for the first several minutes as they wound their way through the tents and down into the caravanserai, but Leorio didn’t have any questions.  Kurapika hadn’t left the stable in the dugout since they arrived, and all Leorio had heard in that time were murmured prayers and low, lilting songs in a language he didn’t know but recognized from the few weeks he spent on the Mongolian steppe more than a year ago now.

“The animal handlers from the other caravans want the body removed and burned,” Killua said, once they were tiptoeing down the stairs.  “They’re afraid of disease.  Kurapika shouldn’t have to see her taken away.”

Leorio’s mouth was dry.  “Right.”

Gon was kneeling just inside the stable gate, hands fisted and pressed atop his legs, head bowed, and Killua shifted aside to stand next to him.  Kurapika’s dun mare was lying in the straw, head pillowed on her human’s lap, perfectly still while Kurapika hunched over her, fingers in her mane, shoulders trembling and tears dripping steadily from his chin.  He’d cast off his blue jacket, left in a thin undershirt, and he looked smaller somehow.  Leorio remembered the night he’d burst into the clinic in Khanbaliq, that moment where he was scared and fragile for just an instant before his arrogance took over, demanding that Leorio return to the steppe with him.

This… was different.

Leorio picked up the blue deel from where it lay, the same jacket Kurapika wore the day they met, and knelt at his side, drawing it around his shoulders and leaving his arm there as well, feeling his breath hitch between sobs.  “She’s gone now,” he murmured, low and gentle.  “Say goodbye.”

Kurapika’s breath cracked, voice coming out in an incoherent whimper, and Leorio’s heart promptly broke in two.

Extracting him from the stable wasn’t quick, neat, or easy; Kurapika was stiff and weak, but he allowed Leorio to draw him away and help him to his feet, clinging to him while they slowly made their way out.  Killua nodded to him as they left and said something low and fond in his fractured, stumbling command of Sogdian to Gon, who was still kneeling and scrubbing furiously at his eyes with one fist, so they were left to walk in privacy.

Kurapika’s bedroll had never been laid out and so Leorio set him down on his own, intending to just tuck him in and let him sleep, but Kurapika’s fingers were curled tightly in his shirt so Leorio sat down with him instead.  Cradled Kurapika in his arms until his kaftan grew damp and Kurapika’s body grew heavy, until Leorio’s fingers carding through his hair lulled him into sleep.

“You’ll be fine,” he murmured, once he’d settled Kurapika on a pillow and tugged a blanket over him, brushing the tears from his face with a thumb.  “You’re strong.  You’ll be fine.”

Silva appeared at the tent later in the morning wearing an expression that Leorio could only interpret as contrite, and he stepped outside to speak with him to at least leave Kurapika some privacy.  The light outside seemed glaring, inappropriate.

“I heard what happened and can’t help feeling some measure of responsibility.”  Silva spoke with decorum, as usual, but today the weight of formality felt exhausting.  “As stated in your contracts, in the event of loss of property, I will readily provide replacement.  There is an excellent selection of Arabian horses at the local bazaar and I would be pleased to purchase whichever one is to your assistant’s liking.”

Leorio felt a fierce rage growing in his chest with every word, and by the time Silva finished he was so angry he felt an eerie sort of calm, only keeping his voice low and even because Kurapika was just inside the tent, still asleep.  “I’m sure you’ve come here with the best intentions, but today is not the time, and don’t you dare say anything about this to Kurapika.  It wasn’t a piece of property that he lost—it was his best friend.  You can’t just replace her!”

Silva looked taken aback, but recovered quickly, nodding.  “You’re right, it’s tactless to make such an offer at this point.  But he will want to ride again—he’s Mongolian, it’s in his blood.  When he does, I’m sure you’ll be there to let him know that my offer stands.”

Leorio watched him retreat and secretly hoped Silva felt something like shame, waiting until he was out of sight to duck back into the tent.  He’d just settled down with a materia medica open in his lap when Kurapika stirred, twisting his head around until he saw where Leorio was.

“I thought I heard you talking,” he mumbled, relaxing back into place, curled on his side.

“I was outside talking to Silva a few minutes ago.”  Leorio reached over instinctively, hand hovering over Kurapika’s head, wanting to stroke his hair in reassurance.  He tugged at the blanket instead, settling it over his shoulders.  “Get some more sleep.  We won’t be leaving here for a while.”

“What did Silva want?”

Leorio lied easily.  “Paying his respects.”

Kurapika didn’t speak, for a minute or two, but there was an edge to the way he breathed that felt like tears.  “It was my fault.”

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

“No!”  Kurapika’s voice was so harsh and abrupt that Leorio jumped, and he sat up suddenly, shoulders hunched, fingers curled in the blankets.  “She was too old.  I knew she was too old.  I was two, when my mother put me on her back, and she was already five by then—maybe seven, I don’t know.  The first thing I remember is holding onto her mane with my fingers.”

Kurapika’s voice was cracking around the edges and Leorio didn’t know if he should try and stop this or let whatever poison was on his mind spill out.  He reached over to touch Kurapika’s shoulders, felt him quivering, and tried again, gently.  “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I knew she was too old!”  Kurapika slammed both fists on the blankets at his sides, but the action was weak and his voice was quavering.  “I knew the trip would be too hard on her!  She should have lived out her last years on the steppe with her herd.  But I was selfish, and I didn’t want a different horse, and now she’s dead because I just had to have my own way!”

“Stop it.”  Leorio kept his voice low, firm, both hands on Kurapika’s shoulders until he looked up and met his stare.  Kurapika’s eyes were glassy, red with tears and pinched with self-loathing.  “If you were able to ask her directly, do you think she would have wanted you to leave her behind?  If you’re going to be selfish and stubborn, then keep going and do what you set out to do.  If you really think you’re responsible for her death, then take her ashes and go home.  But don’t sit here and punish yourself like your grief will only have meaning if you take all the blame.”

Kurapika opened his mouth, and his lower lip trembled, but he didn’t say anything, just hovered there for a long moment before swallowing.  Eventually, his head dropped forward onto Leorio’s shoulder, and he sniffled a few times before mumbling, “Thank you.”

Leorio sighed, one hand rubbing slow circles between Kurapika’s shoulders for a few long, quiet moments before he sighed again and clicked his tongue.  “The hell am I going to do with you?”

“Stop trying to send me away.”

“Alright.  For now.”

Kurapika didn’t remember much of the month or so that followed.  The summer was hot but not too hot, and the evenings were lively with music and singing, bright with light glowing from the sunken caravanserai, and sometimes he would find a bench in the shadows to perch on, warm and sleepy with wine, and watch Gon convince Killua to dance with him and the other young people, some from the caravans and some from town, a myriad of colors and cultures linking arms and spinning in circles.  Sometimes he fell asleep watching them and woke halfway a short while later, recognizing Leorio’s smell and the strong arms carrying him back to his bed.

Once while looking for Killua he inadvertently walked directly into a fight between the younger Zaoldyck and his father, the latter standing awkwardly in the confines of Killua’s tent, whatever he was saying in their native tongue drawing to a sudden halt when Kurapika appeared.  Silva looked like he was going to ask Kurapika to excuse them, politely as ever, but Killua said something that sounded contemptuous and Silva responded with a single word that reminded him of Gon’s aunt saying his name.  He might have dismissed the connection, except Killua countered immediately, in Mandarin, with, “Don’t call me that!” before storming past Kurapika out of the tent.

“Stay for a moment,” Silva said, when Kurapika turned awkwardly towards the exit as well.  “I want your opinion on something.”

Kurapika felt, correctly, that he was about to have a very awkward conversation with his employer, but didn’t see how to avoid that without being unnecessarily rude.  “Very well.”

“I don’t know if he’s talked to you about it, but my son was—is—still very angry with me for making him leave China.  He became very integrated, going to the public school in Khanbaliq.  The goal was to educate him so he could take over the family business eventually, but I see that there have been some unintended consequences.”

“Children rarely grow up the way their parents intend,” Kurapika said, which was something he thought he remembered his mother saying, at some point.

“How true.  And honestly, I don’t want him to be unhappy, which is where I’d like to ask your opinion.  I see he’s become very attached to our hostess’s nephew, Gon.  He’s an excellent caretaker, as well; all of our camels are healthier now than they were when we left Turfan.  I’m thinking about hiring him.”

Kurapika let a considerate silence pass before responding, and when he did so it was without the patience or the energy to be anything but honest.  “I think that Killua would be thrilled.  I also think, however, that if you keep hiring people to be friends with your son, eventually that will come with unintended consequences, as well.”

Fortunately, Silva received this opinion with a self-deprecating chuckle.  “That may be true.  I suppose I’ll have to take responsibility for that.  Thank you, I appreciate it.  I hope you’re well.”

“As well as can be expected,” Kurapika said, and excused himself.

He considered going to snitch to Killua immediately, but found himself seeking out Gon instead, almost like he was desperate to give him some kind of warning.

“I won’t advise you to say yes or no,” is what Kurapika said to him, finally, when he found Gon crouched among the camels, sharing a bowl of fruit.  “Just that whichever you choose, consider the decision thoroughly, because it may not be possible to undo.”

He lay awake late into the night, wondering if what he was feeling was regret.

Of course, when they left a few weeks later, Gon said yes.

o

oo

o

Late Autumn, 1293; Baghdad

Lingering in Samarkand may have been more of a blessing than a curse; the late summer heat bore down on the road through Persia, blistering and unforgiving, but it waned eventually.  Kurapika rode a camel rather than choosing one of the horses his mother had sent for Silva, and spent his evenings in camp crouched in a small ring with Killua and Gon entrenched in language study; Killua was learning Sogdian, Gon and Kurapika learning Italian.  He was functional, but felt like his sorrow had hollowed him out, scraped the edges raw, and left him with a dense, heavy emptiness that weighed on his chest.  When he felt too exhausted and miserable to continue with the day he curled up on his bedroll and lay still without sleeping, feeling Leorio’s presence like a lingering warmth at his back whether Leorio was sound asleep and snoring or still awake and bent over a materia medica or scribbling treatment notes for one of the hired caravan hands.

Sometimes, if Leorio was still awake, he would lean over and tug the covers up snugly around Kurapika’s shoulders, thinking he was asleep.  But Kurapika was always awake, and the gesture always made the raw edges inside him ache.

Baghdad, when they arrived, was little more than a cluster of buildings huddled together in the desert, a pale, struggling shadow of its fabled self growing out of its own rubble, another victim of the relentless Golden Horde.  The people were welcoming, though, eager for news and stories, and to trade for supplies and sell some goods to add to Silva’s growing train of merchandise.  They stayed for longer than originally planned, trying to recover from the heat and avoid continuing on until winter came.

The caravan made its own little village of tents on the outskirts of the city, close enough to hear the call to prayer five times each day, and there was something comforting about its regularity.  Kurapika spent most of his time working through a curriculum with Killua, exhausting linguistics, economics, and history before settling on Killua’s preferred subject of philosophy, where he quickly outpaced Kurapika.  He would have made a terrible bureaucrat, Kurapika decided, and perhaps it was a blessing for the Chinese establishment that he’d never been able to take the civil service exam and terrorize them directly.

Most evenings Kurapika spent under the open sky, watching the glow of sunset fade and the moon wash silver over the banks of the Tigris, until the air was cool enough to drive him back towards the tents.

On the evening before they departed he was picking his way back through the quiet camp, bearing close to Killua’s tent that still glowed warmly from a lamp lit inside, and heard a giggle, voices exchanging something rapid, and then softening in a way that drew Kurapika’s nerves taut.  The front flap had clearly been closed in haste, sloppily, and through the gap in the lamplight Killua was tugging Gon down onto a spread of cushions with him, grinning, Gon sputtering with laughter before they kissed, deep and slow, arms twining around each other.

Kurapika realized he wasn’t breathing and quickly, silently tugged the flap tightly closed, then walked in the opposite direction without noticing or caring where his feet took him.

When he came to his senses and looked around, he was standing by the small patch of vegetation where the animals were tethered, and his heart sank into his feet.  There was no horse to comfort him now, so he dropped to sit beneath a scraggly tree, knees drawn up so he could rest his head on them.

What would he have said to her?  It’s not fair.  I wanted that, too.  That kind of first love, excited and furtive and passionate.  Now all I have is a softer and equally unrequited shadow, because I ran away from the one that hurt more.

“That’s what I did, isn’t it,” he murmured to his knees, around the lump in his throat, miserably.  “I ran away.”

All of his reasoning, his insistence, the things he’d said to convince Pairo, Leorio, his mother, Silva—for why he wanted to go on this journey, a one-way trip into the unknown, but Leorio had been right all along.  It was selfish—he was hurt and he wanted to run away, and sticking to Leorio made that easy the way that pining for him made him feel suitably like a victim of love and circumstance when it was largely just an excuse.

Leorio deserved better.

You deserve better, too, something murmured in the back of his mind.  Something that sounded a little like his mother, a little like how he imagined his horse would respond to him if she could speak his language.  Or maybe like Pairo, seeing him off with a bittersweet wish for his happiness.

He couldn’t undo his choice.  He’d lost everything he knew and loved through time and distance and death and what he had left were the people he’d gathered around himself, people who cared for and relied on him.  He could return the favor and commit to them, instead of just being here to escape.

Kurapika picked himself up from the ground and returned to the camp, finding another tent still glowing with lamplight: the one he shared with Leorio.  The man himself was bent over a small leatherbound volume of something, squinting at its tiny printed text, apparently very involved and surrounded on all sides by his various hand-scribbled notes that coated both sides and every spare inch of the precious and limited paper he’d bought at the market in Samarkand.  He’d given up on trying to write in Mandarin as soon as Master Zhang wasn’t around to insist on it anymore and instead wrote in what Kurapika assumed was his own language, a tight but elegant script.

It took several minutes, despite his resolve, of sitting on his own bedroll before Kurapika said softly, “You were right.”

“Buh,” Leorio said, head jerking up like he hadn’t even realized Kurapika came in.  “I was?”

Kurapika felt the corners of his mouth curling up at his befuddled expression.  “When you said I was running away.  You were right.”

Leorio was silent for a long moment, staring, and then his features softened.  “Oh.”

A long silence followed, during which Kurapika felt a strange peacefulness beginning to take up residence in his chest and Leorio’s expression shifted with confliction.  When he finally drew a breath to speak again Kurapika held up a hand to stop him.  “Don’t tell me I should go home now.  I’ve made this commitment to you and Silva and Killua, and to Gon as well.  I intend to see it through, regardless of whether I made it for the right reasons.”

Leorio closed his mouth, head tilting slightly, as though he were seeing Kurapika for the first time.  “All right then.”

“I’m sleeping.  Don’t stay up too late.”

He said so as much to ensure that the conversation ended there as anything else, but wondered, briefly, lying awake for much longer after that, if Leorio had taken it as a dismissal.  His continued insistence that Kurapika needed to go back felt strained and unhealthy, like a recurring cough, and it lay heavy in the space between the two of them.  There had to be an underlying cause behind the symptom, if Kurapika could only find it.

At some point, just as he was drifting close to sleep, he felt movement near him and the covers were tugged up snugly around his shoulders; he fell asleep wrapped in a pleasant warmth.

In the morning, when the caravan arranged itself into a column and prepared to depart, Kurapika picked one of the horses his mother had sent to ride.  A dark, glossy bay, older and agreeable, who seemed pleased to be given a rider instead of a pack.  The air smelled fresh and cool when they set out, and Kurapika spent the first few hours of the morning letting the breeze filter through his hair and chill his cheeks pink before he drew level with Killua.

“A word of advice,” he said lightly, voice pitched low for privacy.  “If you have a guest in your tent, you may want to make sure you’ve closed the flap properly.”

He wasn’t sure which was more satisfying—the comical expression of abject horror that sprang to Killua’s face, or the way his pale skin turned as red as the Chinese silk he was wearing.

o

oo

o

Spring, 1294; Constantinople

The city walls came into view on a warm day made pleasant by a gentle breeze carrying the smell of the sea.  Silva boarded the caravan outside the gates so the camels could be unloaded and sold, and while he negotiated with the quartermaster everyone else wandered, stretching their legs.  Gon was attending to the tack for the remaining horses, with Killua hovering nearby either helping or being a nuisance—Leorio couldn’t tell which and it didn’t seem like Gon cared either way.  Kurapika was wandering with arms folded, hands curled around his elbows, a subconscious protectiveness in his posture that was nonetheless better than the pensive misery he’d been engulfed in before they arrived in Baghdad.  A weight had lifted from his shoulders at some point, and Leorio found himself equally relieved.

Leorio was distracted for a moment when one of the handlers called him over to collect his own belongings—and, apparently, Kurapika’s by association, because he’d disappeared from view.  Once their respective packs, tents, and bedrolls were separated out from the piles of goods for sale, Leorio went to track down his wayward assistant.

He found Kurapika standing beside a fence that penned a small herd of Arabian horses, tall and graceful with coats that glinted in the warm sunlight.  One of them was leaning over the fence to whicker at Kurapika’s hair, a stately gold mare with a long, pale mane.  Leorio watched silently, heart aching a bit, until Kurapika reached up and stroked a hand along her jaw.  The horse nudged his chest, and the smallest smile appeared on his lips.

At length, Kurapika’s head turned a bit.  “Don’t just hover over there staring, it’s creepy.”

Leorio laughed nervously, but stepped up to stand beside him.  “Is this your new horse?”

“I can’t afford a new horse.”

“Silva will cover the expense.”

Kurapika’s shoulders drew up and the horse butted against his cheek.  “He needn’t do that.”

“It’s in our contracts that he’ll cover any losses sustained during the course of the journey.  This would qualify.  He said as much to me, a long time ago.”  Leorio shrugged, and leaned against the fence, watching the two interact with increasing certainty.  “I told him not to offer yet.”

Kurapika glanced over, meeting his eyes for just a fraction of a second, but it was a vulnerable fraction, a moment that jumped inside Leorio’s chest and made Kurapika look away quickly.  “Thanks.”

Several minutes passed in silence, parsed out by the steady thump of Leorio’s heart and the growing tension around it.  He’d been trying, for months and miles and years now, even, to push Kurapika away, and he was still convinced it was the best thing to do.  “You should take the offer,” he said finally, turning to lean against the fence with one hand and stroke his fingers down the length of the horse’s mane with the other, and remembered another conversation over a horse, so long ago now, when Kurapika was still broken and drawing himself slowly back together only to break again.  Maybe this time he was less fragile—maybe he’d been reworked, refired, and was an entirely new piece, broken bits ground down into the clay, fused with it but invisible.  Leorio’s voice faltered, but only for a moment.  “Take the horse and go home, Kurapika.  We’re traveling over sea from here, so you can take the tent and supplies and probably some of the hired help if you need company.  This horse is young and strong, she’ll make it back.”

He could feel Kurapika’s stare on the side of his face, burning against his skin, and he waited for the argument to start, as it always did.  But Kurapika’s voice was soft when he responded, weighted and uncertain.  “Why do you keep trying to send me away?”

Leorio paused, blinking, unknowingly meeting Kurapika’s stare and then considering in the quiet moment that followed.  “Have I ever told you why I left Bengal?”

“No.”  Kurapika stepped back from the horse and circled Leorio to lean against the fence next to him, watching her trot back to the herd grazing around the far end of the pen.

“I had a childhood friend a lot like yours.  Neither of us had any other living family, so we stayed together, grew up together.  We were poor at first, but his parents had been weavers when they were alive, so he was able to get an apprenticeship, and I found a Muslim doctor willing to let me study with him.  My friend had always been sickly, though, with some persistent illness no one was able to treat.  My mentor suggested going to study in China and sent a letter to Master Zhang to see if he could take on a student.  I thought I could learn something and then go home, and be able to treat my friend.  He took a turn for the worse, though, just before we got the response back, and he died a week before my ship left.  I settled all of our affairs in that week.  I didn’t intend to go back; there was no reason to return when there was no one waiting for me.”

He turned to face Kurapika, arms falling to his sides, drawn to his full height.  “There are still people alive in this world who love you, and miss you.  If you’re able to return to them, you should.”

Kurapika didn’t respond, or look at him, just stared across the herd of horses and into the distance beyond, so after a minute Leorio shifted on his heels and started to walk away, but Kurapika’s voice drew him short.

“What about you?”

Leorio froze in place, blinking.  “What?”

“What about you?”  Kurapika turned toward him, a kind of simple purity in his expression that Leorio couldn’t fathom, something warm in the air between them other than the afternoon sunlight.  “Wouldn’t you miss me?”

Leorio felt his stomach collapse somewhere several feet down into the ground beneath his feet, felt his mouth drop open soundlessly and then close again with a clack of teeth.  He scratched at his jaw and the stubble there, rubbed the back of his neck, and swallowed against the way his heart pounded in his throat.  “That’s different.”

It was different, and he was fairly sure it didn’t count, because the way he loved Kurapika involved lying awake late into the night, remembering the shape of Kurapika’s body in his arms, the way his hair had felt between his fingers.  It was something that wouldn’t be returned, even if he gave it a voice, so it didn’t count.

Kurapika smiled a little bit, though, a pink curve of lips that made all the blood rush to Leorio’s head.  “Is it?”

Leorio wasn’t sure if he mumbled something in response before he walked away, but Kurapika made an answering hum, so he must have.  He tried not to think about it over the next few weeks while they lingered in the city, so tightly packed with other residents and the constant stream of commerce between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, waiting while Silva shuffled the caravan goods onto a low ship trimmed with oars.  Or the couple of weeks after that as they rowed across crystal blue waters, watching mysterious cities appear on the coast and vanish behind them.

He gave up on not thinking about it as they slowly moved into the port of Venice, unfamiliar ocean birds hovering above them and the towering buildings of wood and stone, a cacophony of voices in a language he’d never heard.  It was their new home, and he stood beside Kurapika and watched it approach, one hand curled over his shoulder.

o

oo

o

Early Summer, 1294; Venice

The apartment that Silva gave them had a pair of doors made of dark polished wood and glass that opened onto a small ledge, trimmed with wrought iron and hung with troughs for planting herbs and flowers.  Leorio had taken them over immediately, filling them with clippings from the herbs he brought from the clinic in Khanbaliq, herbs that Kurapika brought back from the market, and trailing flowers that spilled over the edges of the grate.  As the days grew longer and warmer the doors remained open for most of the day and night, letting in a breeze laden with jovial voices, sea salt, stewing vegetables, baking bread.

Kurapika went out into the city on his own more often than Leorio, who was still struggling to learn yet another new language and writing system but had managed to make a few friends in the medical community.  Drawing stares wherever they went tended to grate on Leorio’s nerves, but Kurapika bore it stoically, graciously, with his best Italian and most cautious manners.  The merchants in the market were growing familiar with him, and some of the dock workers he approached to find out if anyone in port was trying to travel to what they called “Cathay.”  He sent a letter addressed to his mother whenever he could.  He had no way of knowing if any of them arrived.

Shortly before the earliest days of summer, Silva’s unintended consequences came to light to his extreme displeasure, and he intended to have Gon shipped back to Samarkand.  He’d gone as far as booking him passage on a ship, but the day before departure the entire villa woke in an uproar because both boys had gone missing, leaving nothing behind but an irreverent note on Killua’s pillow.  Kurapika received a letter two weeks later with a postmark in an unfamiliar language and an apology for taking the black horse, along with two full pages covered front and back with Killua’s scrawling Chinese characters and careful graphite sketches.  More letters arrived periodically, covered in stories of their adventures, pictures of bridges and statues and rolling hills, flowers, city skylines, Gon in profile or curled up sleeping.  Kurapika read them aloud to Leorio and kept them in a box with the wedding jewelry his mother had sent with him, kept his lips sealed whenever Silva complained about the bills he was receiving from places with names like Milan and Zurich.

One afternoon Leorio was leaning against the frame of the glass doors among his collection of plants, staring out at the square below and the people milling about, talking and laughing.  The kaftan he wore most often these days was dark orange-gold rather than indigo, but it was a color that suited him and highlighted the rich tones of his skin and matched the glimmer of the gold rings in his ears.  Kurapika was staring at one of them—and the curve of Leorio’s shoulder—when Leorio let out a sigh, still facing away.  “This is a strange place, but the women here are just as beautiful as everywhere else.”  He paused for a long moment, voice dropping away like he was uncertain of how to finish the train of thought.  “Perhaps it’s time to settle down.”

The twist in Kurapika’s stomach was less pronounced than it would have been a few months before.  He accepted the feeling silently along with the way his throat tightened, and after less than ten breaths he responded as though neither of these things had happened.  “If that’s what you want.  You’ll certainly make an enviable husband and father.”  He turned the page of the book he had stopped reading several minutes before, effectively losing his place but still giving the topic at hand due consideration.  “I’ll have to prepare a suitable curriculum for your children based on the Chinese school system, but of course it will have to incorporate the history and learning of Europe as well, since that will be part of their heritage, and—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Leorio’s voice was low but sudden and strong enough to bring Kurapika to a halt.  His fingers were still pinched around the page of his book, his throat was still tight, his voice strained, and he swallowed heavily before looking up.  Leorio had turned in the doorway, watching him in profile, unreadable.  Kurapika met his gaze defensively.  “I can’t imagine what else you could have meant, Leorio.”

“I mean that—” Leorio started, shoulders drawing up taut, voice harsh, and held that way for a long second before deflating.  Every part of him drooped, tugging itself down towards the floor, and he took a few steps towards Kurapika, lower with each one, until he dropped to his knees on the floor next to his chair, face turned down, and his voice had never sounded so small before.  “I mean that I’ve made it here, and I don’t intend to leave, so you should… you should find someone to love, and settle down.  Or go back home to your family.  You don’t have to take care of me anymore.”

Something sparked, right in the center of Kurapika’s chest.  A small burst, just a flicker, then it began to swell up, cautiously, fearful that it was wrong.  Had he misunderstood everything?

Kurapika shifted on his stool so he was facing Leorio, so he could reach down under his chin, feel the bristle of stubble against his palms when he cupped his hands around Leorio’s face, tilting it up to look at him.  His eyes were deep brown pools, almost black, staring up unsteadily.  Kurapika’s voice was rough in his throat.  “You tried to convince me to go home, back in Khanbaliq.  And again in Dunhuang, and Kashgar, Samarkand, Baghdad, and Constantinople.  I didn’t leave then, and I don’t intend to leave now.”  He swallowed hard, watching the dawning comprehension on Leorio’s face, feeling like something inside him was collapsing.  “I would follow you to the very edge of the world itself, if it meant that I could stay by your side.”

A heartbeat of silence passed during which Kurapika felt his eyes prickling dangerously and the looming possibility of everything going horribly wrong in the span of his next breath, but the next heartbeat passed and so did the breath. Leorio’s hands settled on his arms, firm and gentle, and Leorio leaned up to press warm lips against his, and the feeling of wrapping his arms around Leorio’s neck was slow and simple in the same way all of his shame and uncertainty unraveled until the space inside him was as clear as the summer sky, as though nothing else had ever existed there.

Kurapika felt himself smiling, breaking the kiss just so it could spread across his face, and Leorio smiled back, forehead pressed against Kurapika’s, just like he had one afternoon in a crowded market, years before and thousands of miles away.  He never wanted it to change.