#musou

There will be Rage, all right. Adjusting the game's camera to prevent Ken from getting pummeled by off-screen enemies should qualify as gainful employment; it's a full-time occupation deserving of benefits. Searching for walls Ken can wreck (an odd proposition since the game offers endless fences that can't be destroyed) proves snoozeworthy and players must perform killing moves on major precise button presses. Quick-time events? Yes, it's time to rage." ~Greg Orlando, PlayStation: The Official Magazine (January 2011, #41)

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The inn chamber she was in was a part of a winehouse. It smelled of stale rice, dried fruits, and jasmine. It had a lock, and the windows did not face the street. Those were enough for her.

With some reluctance, Diao Chan reached for the ointment box and opened it. The heavy, pungent smell of the pale green liquid inside of the box immediately told her that it would more than hurt when applied to her throbbing wrist.

It had been a jagged point of a golden ring. A noble her father had approached in order to secure a connection to a faction who had direct ties with one of the ruling Han officials. The ring had caught her just beneath the joint. Whether it had been a careless grip borne out of too much wine, or a calculated one to remind her of the power of the ring bearer, she could not say. The noble, well past his fifties and wrinkled with stress, had only smiled when he had grabbed her wrist, his ink-stained fingers coiling around her with a certainty of an owner.

'Tis was a small price--and pain--to pay for peace; a sure thing in the role that she played: an obedient daughter, a courtesan and dancer too alluring to not be paraded in front of the powerful, a weapon.

Diao Chan was used to hiding in layers of performance. She had, after all, been trained how to smile and bow at just the right angle, to disarm with politeness and flattery. What unsettled her now was how easily it had happened. and how little she had felt in that moment.

Sure, there was the unmistakable sting of physical pain. But her heart and mind felt as if they had been shrouded in a heavy fog, barely registering things until they were minutes too late. She had merely smiled back at the noble, an assuring one--a smile that spoke what most men would want to hear: "I'm yours, Your Lordship."

Now, alone in the quiet room with only a candle to accompany her, she finally breathed. Breathed, and thought:

I don't even know whose dream I am anymore.

Before her musings could go on any further, the sliding door to her inn chamber slid opened slowly, almost soundless safe for a swishing sound.

Her breath caught at the prospect of having been found. No one should have been able to trace this place, Wang Yun had made sure of it. All the bookings to rooms like these had used many different fictitious names, and brokered by people whose trade was in secret as much as it in public services.

Diao Chan stood up, readying herself to either force a retreat or come up with yet another pretense.

The familiar figure draped in black and shadows that emerged from behind the door was not someone whom she needed to escape from or fo, though.

Standing quietly as if asking for her permission to enter the room was the Wanderer whom she had only had the luxury to know in the past few months. "Ziluan," she breathed his name with a relief.

He stood there just behind thr threshold, looking unwilling to take more than the space offered to him. His dark cloak was loose around his shoulders, and his hair cast a shadow across his face. And yet, she coyld see the quiet sharpness in his eyes: alert, heavy with thoughts she knew he was reluctant to voice as those blue orbs narrowed upon her half-bandaged wrist.

Diao Chan stepped back, the hand that was injured instinctively covered the one that she had yet to fully tend to. "You shouldn't be here."

"...I know," he replied.

"How did you find me?" Her voice remained level, but she felt as if the walls and the flickering candle were listening on them.

Ziluan's gaze flicked slightly to her wrist, to the edges of cloth she had not tied. "You left early," he said, finally. "From the hall. As soon as you were dismissed, you walked away not with the other dancers to the backroom. And too fast."

She had, indeed. In her haste to hide her bleeding wrist then, she had covered it with a dancing fan and the end of her long sleeve, walking too briskly for someone who had meant to float. Diao Chan had no reply at that, so she merely looked away.

"I see more than I remember," he added after a pause.

"And so, you followed me?"

"Yes."

Ziluan stepped forward then, closing the door behind him without a sound. Slow, measured steps--steps one would take when one was approaching a wounded gazelle. He stopped just when he was close enough that she could smell the travel-dust in his garb. He stood still for a moment, waiting for her, perhaps.

"I thought you were avoiding me," she said, softer now, as though speaking might unmake the quiet that had settled in.

That had always been how they were designed to act in public. In Wang Yun's residence, they could become colleagues, friends even. But in the palace lights and court halls, they were supposed to be strangers who happened to serve one master. She was a jade-adorned blade, who was meant to be paraded alone, separate from all others. Any forms of association, even one that was miniscule enough, would jeopardize her status and symbol as 'Diao Chan.'

Ziluan did not answer right away. His gaze scanned the room first before it landed back on her. "Something... just looked wrong."

A bitter smile tugged at her lips. "Everything always looks wrong if you have the eyes to spot it. Yours have always been exceptional. You just never say it."

He did not smile back. Instead, gently, he reached for her wounded wrist.

She flinched at the ghost of his touch, and he stopped. "I won't hurt you," he said, not with offense.

"...I know."

"Let me help."

There was a moment where she almost refused, where her pride, or her ingrained training, or her wariness rose like a tide to pull her away. But something else—something smaller, quieter—made her extend her hand.

He took it, and beckoned for her to sit down.

His fingers were steady as he unwrapped the cloth. He didn’t speak as he examined the bruise, didn’t ask who, or how, or why. She wondered if it was because he knew—or because he did not need to.

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

No was almost at the tip of the tongue, complete with a neutral smile she had practiced for as long as she could remember. But to her own surprise, she managed a small, wordless nod.

Ziluan said nothing. His hands moved again, dipping into his satchel for salve. It smelled faintly of mint and something bitter. "A friend gave me this," he said as he dipped a finger to coat it with the medicine. He gestured with his chin towards the opened box of balm she had prepared on the table. "He vows it's three times more effective than what most people have."

“That is very confident of him,” she said.

The dry jest earned a very small curve at one end of his lips. “I envy such people.”

She blinked at him, unsure how to respond. Ziluan rarely talked about his feelings, or himself for that matter. Having little to no memories of his past, the Wanderer was mostly an observer. The most they had ever talked about was things around them, happenings in their world, and Wang Yun's vision of the future. He had never disclosed his own vision nor personal thoughts, she realized.

It's not that he does not want to, she thought as understanding dawned slowly within her. It's more like he cannot afford to.

And that... That looked to much like her own story it almost hurt.

The silence that followed was only broken by rustles of bandage-work and slight creaking sounds the wind made against the old building. Ziluan finished tending her wound, and in the dimming candlelight and through heavy eyelids, she saw him retracting his hands, resting them atop his knees.

"You need rest." It was as much as a statement as it was an observation. A thought to swat away those kind words surfaced like an old habit. But she chose, willingly this time, to ignore it. Today had been quite a whirlwind. And for the first time in weeks, she felt something loosen in her chest.

The only thing she remembered thinking of before falling into a dreamless sleep was how his hands had moved with a care she had not known in many years. Not since girlhood, not since before names became masks, and touch became currency.

In her defense, she had not meant to fall asleep.

At first, it had only been her eyelids--heavy, reluctant... Then, her breath: lengthening, slowing down. The sound of cloth rustling became distant, then indistinct, then gone. Then, the rest of her and the world pulled back.

Now that she was blinking sleep out of her system, the room was still. A blue shadow clung to the corners of the ceiling, unlit by the lone candle that now was merely a stub of wax, having been snuffed out some time ago. Her body was warm beneath a blanket that had not been there before, the mattress beneath her shifting slightly as she rolled to one side. It was a thin, pitiful thing compared to the plush and luxurious set that the palace offered. But now in this moment, it felt softer than any surface she had known. Kinder, almost.

Her wrist was wrapped in clean linen, more securely this time. Her robe still clung to her shoulders, untouched. And most of all, there was no scent of perfume or wine or such on the air, no trace of someone else having stayed beside her.

He was gone.

Diao Chan stayed in bed for a few more moments than she should, staring at the wood beams above her, tracing the split lines in the ceiling where water had once leaked through. Her hand, the one that was injured, rested against her chest, palm open, fingers slack.

It was such a small thing, she thought, to be clothed, tended, and left alone.

And yet—her throat tightened.

She had been carried. She knew it. Her body had not moved from where he had been tending her on the floor. Ziluan must have lifted her, quietly, without waking her, and laid her in the only bed the chamber had. No words. No suggestion. No grasping.

She touched the bandage with her opposite hand. It felt snug, warm still from his touch even though she knew he must have led hours ago.

He may have watched her fall asleep. He may have simply watched, and not taken.

He had watched and chosen distance.

She turned her face into the pillow and exhaled, feeling her heart thudding heavily against her ribcage.

"Why now?" she murmured to the dark. “Why you?”

Outside, the sky had not yet begun to shift, but she could feel the weight of dawn pressing just beyond the walls. Her time was running thin.

She sat up, slowly, her limbs reluctant to go back into a world filled with base desires, lies, and deceit. Every movement reminded her that the warmth she’d felt had not been a dream. It lingered in the way the blanket held her shape, in the faint scent of dust and iron that he left behind.

She moved to the basin to wash her face. Cold water, sharper than memory. She did not bother to look into the mirror. Mirrors had never been kind to her.

Her fingers paused at her collar. Still buttoned. Still hers.

Had we met in another time... in another life...

She smiled—just for a breath—then wiped it away with the same hand.

There were bells in the distance. Palace bells. A reminder that the woman in this chamber would have to once again don many masks and pretend.

Another smile was back in place. A sweet one, one she knew not many people would be able to refuse, one that was filled with poisoned honey. She was the butterfly of the Han court, now. She was Diao Chan.