Chapter Text
Tanda woke that morning feeling very alone. It was autumn, and the leaves of the trees around his little hollow were just beginning to turn. It had been a hot summer; the heat didn't seem ready to let go, and up until today the weather had remained stubbornly warm. But during the night it got chilly, and Tanda awoke shivering and...alone. The hut just seemed so empty anymore. It was odd: for two years he'd been so used to solitude, and even before then, Balsa had never stayed more than a few weeks at a time. But after sharing his home with her, and with Chagum, for so long, he had gotten used to having her beside him... to having her...-
He shook himself and rose, feeling angry with himself for allowing his memories of the hunting cave to permeate the present. The summer had been difficult enough to bear; he did not want to think what the winter would be like. He splashed water on his face, rekindled the fire, and went outside to gather a few vegetables from his garden. A couple of carrots, an onion and bamboo shoots - he chopped them mechanically, his thoughts returning incessantly to the past several months... the months since Balsa left. Juxtaposed in his memory were Chagum's tearful farewell to them both and Balsa's lack of anything like it - her silhouette fading down the path after they left the palace, with nothing but a "Well, I'm off to Kanbal. I'll return once I've settled some things there." How he wanted to scream at her sometimes! How he wished he could curse her name and never, ever think of her again.
And Chagum! The prince had, for a whole year, been like a child to them. But the last time Tanda saw him was when the funeral procession for Prince Sagum had passed, and Tanda dared to lift his eyes while he knelt prostrate, and he glimpsed Chagum inside one of several immense palanquins that followed the body of the First Prince. That was it. And he knew that really would be it: the royal family never left the palace, and commoners never entered.
Angrily Tanda stirred the stewpot, only to smell what he was cooking and realise he had automatically made the vegetable soup that was Balsa's favorite. His heart stung as he thought of her sleeping beside him in the hunting cave, her warm body curled around his, her breath soft on his neck. And then she had left, just like that, as if there were nothing between them. He could not hate her; but he hated himself for needing her so badly.
He had to get his mind off of this, he thought, feeling desperate and miserable. The whole summer had been like this: a constant struggle to keep the past at bay, to hold back his grief over a future he had thought certain and had lost, like so many times before. With a heavy sigh, he stood and climbed the ladder to the loft, where he gathered a few bundles of dried herbs from the rafters. He was descending the ladder when the sound of hoofbeats reached his ears. At once the man hurried to the door; if someone was riding that hard to his hut, there must be a medical emergency. He didn't admit to himself how glad he was of the distraction.
Once outside, however, Tanda slowed and finally stopped. As he watched, a sleek brown horse thundered up the road, drew up sharply and came to a halt just a few feet away. The rider dismounted in one fluid motion, caught the horse by the reins, and walked the last few steps to where Tanda stood. Then, without a word, the man went down on one knee and bowed. "I bring a letter for you from the palace," the man said.
Tanda frowned, trying to place the visitor. Then his face lightened. "Oh!" he said. "I remember! Jin, right?"
This seemed to startle the messenger, whom Tanda now recognized as one of the Imperial Hunters; the herbalist hadn't seen any of them out of uniform, so the man's casual attire had thrown him off. The Hunter straightened, surprised and a little awkward, and held out a cloth bundle. "Master Shuga sends his regards... as does Crown Prince Chagum."
"Chagum?" Tanda started, feeling the gloom suddenly lift from his mind. "Is he well? No, no, first come inside - let your horse graze a bit. I want to know everything. I've just made breakfast. Come inside, for goodness' sake," he said, seeing confusion in the other's expression. "You're a welcome visitor. It's my honor to show you some hospitality."
Jin tied the horse's reins back so the animal wouldn't get its foot caught while it browsed and followed Tanda into the hut, looking so wary that Tanda almost wanted to laugh. "It's not an ambush," he said. This made the other man redden slightly, embarrassed, and Tanda smiled and ladled a bowl of soup for him. "Here," he said, holding it out. "I insist."
The hunter took the bowl gingerly, as if expecting poison, and glanced around the hut's interior with a mix of curiosity and trepidation. Tanda felt something similar towards his guest, though he had interacted with this man a little on the road back from Sahnan and found him reticent and a bit sad but friendly enough. He noticed the other ate with the polished manners of an aristocrat, not the carelessness of a soldier or a thug. Tanda got himself a bowl of soup and drank about half of it before he couldn't hold himself back any longer. "So, how is the prince?" he asked, unable to keep the eagerness from his voice.
"I brought two letters; one is from him."
"Yes, but how is he? The letter can't tell me everything."
Jin set the soup down and considered this. "His highness is well," he said slowly, "but I believe he misses you and the spearwielder greatly."
"How do you mean? He's- he's happy, isn't he?"
The hunter frowned, thoughtful. "I don't believe 'happy' is a word I would use. His highness is... melancholy. The prince seems out-of-sorts and speaks of the past winter often. I do not believe his highness is adjusting well to palace life, after knowing the freedom of being a commoner."
Tanda sat back, astounded at such a frank answer from one of the Mikado's men. "I see," he said, feeling his heart go out to the boy, far away as Chagum was. I feel the same as you, he thought. Oh, Chagum, if only we could return to the hunting cave and live there together, with Balsa, forever. If only we could be a normal family. "Is there nothing I can do for him?"
"I am afraid the most I can offer is to pass along whatever message you may have for his highness. The Mikado wishes Prince Chagum to have no further interaction with commoners, least of all Balsa-san and yourself. He will not allow the prince to mention anything of his time outside the palace. It is... a point of contention."
Tanda sighed. "I suppose I expected as much."
Jin said nothing. He waited silently, and Tanda realised that court practices for guests - or anyone, really - must be very different from outside Upper Ougi. Only when Tanda made to finish his own soup did the young man do the same, and he did not ask for more or say anything at all until Tanda spoke again.
"What do you think?" he said.
"What do I think?" Confusion.
"The soup," said Tanda, nodding at the empty bowl. "It's my favorite recipe. It's Balsa's favorite as well."
"Oh! I'm sorry, I misunderstood. It's very good. Thank you for sharing."
"You can have more if you like. I... I made more than I need," Tanda said, feeling a pang; he had automatically cooked enough for three.
The hunter bowed slightly. "Thank you. I will have more, if it's not an inconvenience to you." At last his expression changed; he gave a bashful sort of half-smile and confessed, "I actually haven't eaten since the day before yesterday, and I promise this is much better than anything I've had in the past month. I know the prince misses your cooking as well. I've heard his highness mention it to Master Shuga."
"Ah, that's right, the star reader sent a letter also!" Tanda reached for the package he'd taken from his guest, and he unfolded the cloth to find a pair of letters sealed with wax. Chagum's was so lengthy that the wax was cracking from the strain of so many pages rolled together; when he broke the seal and glanced through the sheaf of papers, Tanda realised the boy had been writing to him and Balsa nearly every day since they bid him goodbye. The herbalist felt his throat constrict. He stared at the pages for a long time, battling emotion. He did not want to shed tears before this warrior. He did not want to shed tears at all. Quickly he turned to the other letter, the one from Shuga. He recalled his first meeting with the star reader, on the banks of the Aoyumi River, and wondered what the letter would say. Probably some sort of cultural question.
As he read, Tanda forgot about his guest. The Hunter was uncannily unobtrusive. Shuga had written asking, as Tanda had guessed, about Yaku herbology - the one thing Shaman Torogai, with whom Shuga met regularly, was not as expert at as Tanda, her student. Tanda went upstairs to gather a few herb samples to send to the star reader. He got caught up and by the time he came back down, it had been almost an hour. But Jin was still sitting near the door, studying his surroundings while he waited. "I'm so sorry," Tanda said, "I forgot you were here!"
The hunter gave a small smile. "It's no problem. That happens a lot."
Suddenly Tanda noticed something he had missed before. A dark, rusty-brown spot had appeared on the sleeve of the man's drab blue yukata; it certainly wasn't spilt soup. "Can I see?" Tanda asked, holding out a hand.
The young man responded with confusion until he, too, noticed the spot. "Oh, damn, I thought I'd fixed that." Reluctantly he held his arm out to Tanda, who rolled the sleeve up to reveal a bandage with a much larger bloodstain. Tanda did not ask; he removed the bandage without hesitation and raised his eyebrows. "Did you stitch this up yourself?"
Jin frowned. "I did."
"Are you left-handed?"
"No...'
"Well, that's your problem. You should have had someone else do it. These stitches are uneven and not consistently tight. It's no wonder the cut's opened up again."
"There wasn't exactly a doctor available. I did the best I could." Jin sounded a bit resentful. Tanda sighed.
"I'm not going to ask how you got this," he said, "but I will ask how long ago."
"Two days or so."
"Hmm." Tanda turned his visitor's arm this way and that, examining the wound and its amateur repair job. "I'll fix this up quickly," he said at last. "It's not too bad, fairly routine for me." As he rose to fetch the correct tools, the herbalist had to resist, yet again, thinking of Balsa - of how simple something like this was for him to heal because of how many similar injuries Balsa had come to him with. Balsa, his medical classroom. Balsa, whose body he knew inside and out. Balsa, who would have finished that entire pot of soup with gusto and told him how good it was and...
Tanda winced and tried to focus on the task at hand. He cut the shoddy stitches and pulled out the thread, then cleaned the cut with disinfectant. He was surprised: the disinfectant must burn horribly, and the cut was deep, too; but the hunter did not so much as flinch. Only one other patient Tanda had treated had been so unfazed by pain. Again Tanda sighed, heavily, wondering if there were anything on the face of the planet that didn't remind him of Balsa in one way or another.
"Do you treat all guests this attentively?"
Tanda started from his daydreams. "If someone arrives here needing medical attention, I help them," he said dismissively.
"Still. You certainly didn't have to share your breakfast. You didn't even need to invite me in. Surely it was not all to get a little extra news of the Crown Prince."
"No. It's just the Yaku way. And... your timing was fortuitous."
To Tanda's surprise, the hunter nodded knowingly. "You must get very lonely here, so far from town. Especially without them."
"I suppose I'm quite transparent," Tanda said with a sad laugh.
"Not at all. I'm just trained to notice things. We were all surprised when the spearwielder went to Kanbal. She obviously has feelings for you; that she would leave instead of acting upon those feelings struck us as uncharacteristically cowardly. Running from love, as it were."
"Oh, goodness," Tanda said, pulling the first stitch tight. He knew he was blushing. "You've been gossiping about us at court?"
"Ah, pardon me, not the whole court. By 'we' I mean the Hunters, nothing more. But yes, we've been gossiping about you and Balsa since the prince returned. Quite a lot, actually." He smiled. "It's been a slow summer."
Tanda felt his face growing hotter. "I don't suppose you know what she's been doing there."
"No, I'm sad to say. We only do domestic intelligence. The Mikado has a different set of spies for other countries."
Tanda continued to sew, his stitches small and neat. "I just don't know what I did to make her leave," he said after a moment, feeling suddenly so desperate to talk that he didn't care to whom he was talking. "I'm a good caretaker, a good provider. I've always been. I'm a decent enough lover that she's never complained. She just witnessed how good a father I would be. I'm faithful and thoughtful and loving. What more does she want from me?"
Jin seemed to deliberate, as if deciding whether Tanda meant the question as rhetorical or not. But when Tanda said nothing more, the younger man spoke. "It might not be about you. Balsa is a warrior - perhaps the greatest warrior alive. She has never met an opponent she couldn't best. Perhaps the idea of being cared for by you - settling down, giving up a warrior's life - feels like a defeat for her, like surrender. If she admits she needs you, well, that could be equated with weakness. Especially because she's a woman. Our leader, Mon, has called off many an engagement because he felt he was becoming dependent on the woman he was to marry, and he's forty-five and still a bachelor. Balsa is even more of a warrior than he."
"But Balsa and I have known each other since we were children," Tanda protested. "It's not like an arranged marriage or some sort of court alliance."
The young man nodded. "I do not presume to know the spearwielder's heart, or even anything about love. I only know the difficulty of transitioning from the brutality and precariousness of a warrior's way to the mundanity and monotony of civilian life. In my own experience, peace and security can be jarring." He watched the needle as the herbalist pulled the last stitch through and knotted the thread. "I do hope that she comes back to you, though. You make a good match."
"Are you married?" Tanda asked.
"No." Did he detect a note of sadness in Jin's voice? Tanda thought of the Hunters' leader, the man with the scar under one eye and the serious manner. Mon had a permanent sorrow couched in his expression - not blatant, just something in his eyes. Tanda had glimpsed that same sadness in Balsa's eyes. When they had been at the cave that winter, and she had tried to explain why she couldn't settle down, how she was like a fighting cock that knew its purpose in life only when it was battling another...
"All done," said Tanda abruptly, rising. Jin thanked him with a small bow, and Tanda went and washed his hands, trying once again to shake away his thoughts. Balsa was not like these men, he told himself. Balsa was not a killer, not anymore. Balsa might struggle with... with some similar issues, but she wouldn't keep pushing Tanda away for another fifteen years! No, she would come back from Kanbal - soon, Tanda thought - and then, at last, she would stay with him and never leave again. She would be by his side once more. She would stop fighting... or at least stop fighting him. They would be happy.
"Tanda-san, I can take messages back to Master Shuga and Crown Prince Chagum now, if you wish, or if you prefer I can return after you've had more time to craft your replies. I don't know how long it will be before I can get away from palace affairs, but not more than a few weeks."
The herbalist turned to his guest, glad to be pulled from his contemplations. "I'll write them now, if you don't mind waiting. Though there's not much to do here, I'm afraid, and it may take some time to write my replies. And... I wonder, do you think you could take a short message now and come back in a bit for a longer one? I'll have more for Chagum after I've had a chance to read his letter in full."
"Of course. I'm sure that the prince will be happy to hear from you as much as possible. His highness could use something to lift his heart. I'll take as many letters to him as you can write."
"Thank you. Uh... make yourself at home, I guess." Tanda frowned a moment, feeling like a bad host, but the Hunter seemed unconcerned by the prospect of waiting, so Tanda brushed away his guilt and hurried to craft a response for Shuga, and a short, heartfelt note for Chagum, promising more soon. He folded up the herbs he had collected into a paper packet and wrapped them in the cloth with the letters. "This one is for Shuga as well," Tanda explained as he closed up the parcel. "You can tell him the explanations are in my letter."
The Hunter bowed low. "Thank you for your kind hospitality, for the soup and the medical treatment. You... don't know how much it means. And his highness will be overjoyed to hear from you. I'll return by the end of the month to collect your next message. Thank you, Tanda-san."
The herbalist rubbed his neck, embarrassed at the other's formality. "It's no trouble," he said awkwardly.
As the horse and rider disappeared down the forest lane, Tanda sagged. Alone, once again. But this time, at least, he had a book's worth of news from Chagum. It might be pale comfort... but it was a comfort nonetheless.