#yila

Lan winced. “Look, Yila,” she said. “You–you’ve done amazing research on the expression of spirit in those selected to the Hunters force, but people need to know why it matters. You need to gain their interest by showing yours!“

“Right.”

Yila said it with such resignation, Lan felt bad continuing the conversation.

“So, how’s your boyfriend?” she asked, changing the subject.

“What boyfriend?” Yila replied, completely denying it.  

The Hunters have been around for generations. They strictly police the island’s spirited population, and have been known to haul away persons too flamboyant with their abilities. Sometimes they’re seen again, and most times they’re not. (Their families like to imagine an island of exiles, all spirited and living in harmony; Yila knows the truth.)

Lan doesn’t know what Yila’s research will mean for the country. Lan is a foreign exchange student at Nali’s national university; she’s studying a year of island diplomacy and literature, and then she’ll go home to the safety of her Walled Cities, where the only danger comes from the exciting Border where adventures go to test themselves.

It’s Yila who risks, here; it’s Yila who must light a fire under her feet and then try to not to burn alive.

And Lan wants to know about Ma Li-an?

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Yila snorts. “He’s my inside source. Into the Hunters.”

“Oh,” says Lan faintly. Her cheeks flush.

“Were you jealous?” Yila asks in realization.

The red in Lan’s face deepens. “I wasn’t exactly trying to hide it,” she admits, almost shy.

It is Yila’s turn to flush. “Oh,” she says, and thinks back on all the jokes that Lan has made about them going on a date, or making a date out of a study break meal… which apparently have not been jokes. “Oh.”

“My research is important to our understanding of the forces we allow to police us.” Yila said coolly, standing straight and proud at the podium. “Our Council of Eight talks about the need to protect our society from the dangers of misused spirit, but my work will lay down the foundation for a new understanding: Hunters are inherently spirited too.”

A tenseness entered the room in the form of furtive glances and uncomfortable shifting. No one whispered, but there was no silence either.

“Obviously,” Yila said, still curt—but she was looking directly at Lan, and Lan saw the bright fierceness in her eyes. She was taking Lan’s advice far beyond what Lan could have expected. “We can all imagine the different implications of such findings. But I would like to be clear about my work: my research is *not* theoretical.”

At the podium, Yila rolled back the sleeves on her blouse, up past her elbows until the curling, seafoam-green tattoos of a Hunter were visible.

“I was a Hunter, once,”  she announced flatly. “And it is my spirit that has allowed me to… retire from the organization. Please allow me to share the research which is, unfortunately, common knowledge to some members of our kingdom.”

Lan nearly fell out of her seat.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” Yila says, her voice low and hesitant.  "But I need you to know, you’re the only reason why I was able to stand up there today. I couldn’t have done it without knowing you would still stand by me, no matter what I said.“

“Yila,” Lan say, so fondly that Yila can’t possibly mistake her. “Your story is yours to tell as you see fit. I don’t have more right to it than your people. Your work is going to do so much good for them.”

Lan holds her arms out to Yila, and Yila steps into the offered hug slowly.

“I am grateful to know you, Lan,” Yila whispers into the embrace.

Lan doesn’t have a chance to reply.

“I am terribly sorry to break this up,” Li-an’s crisp voice interrupts them. “But you need to get out of here. Now. My fellow Hunters are coming.”

"Oh," he says when he sees Yila curled up in an armchair reading. Yila looks peers over the top of her book at him, then looks at Lan.

"Friend?" she asks.

Lan glances at Kan, who at least looks a little guilty. "Colleague. Just dropping by to say hi, I guess.“

"I thought you lived alone," says Kan by way of explanation. He's an asshole, Lan knows, but he has a code and she knows he really wouldn’t have shown up in front of Lan's outside life if he’d known.

"My girlfriend stays with me sometimes," says Lan.

"Ah."

"So is this a social call or a work call?"  

"A little bit of both?" Kan says. "It's about -- the other day."

The other day. Also known as the most hectic day of Lan's life. After finding Kan bound and gagged in a broom closet at private Tasak tech expo that had been stolen from, Lan had had to cancel dinner plans on Yila and work through half the night. She’d even slept in the office—and Kan’s day had scarcely been better.  

"Let's step outside," says Lan.

Yila gives them a little two fingered wave, almost like a salute, and goes back to her book.

"What's up?" Lan says when she shuts the door behind them. She leads Kan out to a little lawn table set with four chairs, and pulls one out for herself. Kan takes the seat across from her.

"So about the Tasak theft, and the Samran thieves,” Kan says. "I know who the thieves were.”

"The two that tied you up and gagged you and left you in a closet?"

"Yes,” Kan grumbles. “Thanks for the recaps.”

Lan smiles and shrugs. "It's not every day that one finds their infinitely more experienced partner in a bind."

Kan glares at her, but it’s just the gentle ribbing he needs to steady himself. "Anyway, back to business," he says loftily. But then his gaze drops and he changes, hesitant again. "I knew them when I was younger," he admits. “The thieves. And they knew I would be with the ambassador.”

"How do you know them?”

"I dated them," says Kan.

Lan takes a deep breath. "At the same time?" she asks, because it's Kan.

"No," Kan snaps. "Do I look like the kind of person who shares?"

"Maybe the kind who wouldn't mind being shared," Lan suggests, not unkindly. Kan, for all his irritating abrasiveness, surprises her with his sentiments sometimes. She thinks there's a slightly different person -- softer, more eager to please -- hiding under Kan's tough older agent exterior.

"Can it, Junior," Kan huffs.

"Alright," Lan agrees. “How’d they know you were going to be there? What did they want — to humiliate you?”

"I --" Kan pauses. “One of them is very good at finding information. They wanted to confront me, and decided to steal the security net shields currently in development while they did it.”

Lan waits. When Kan doesn’t continue, she says, “And?”

Kan breathes out forcefully, almost a harsh laugh. “And,” he mutters. “And I liked seeing them together,” he admits. “It was exciting. Comfortable.”

If she's being perfectly honest, Lan hadn't thought she and Kan had reached this kind of partnership, despite their two years of working together. She hadn't thought Kan could be this serious and honest at the same time. But she’s always ha da knack for helping others say what they needed to.

"I don't want to know anything about what went on in that closet," Lan jokes dryly, to lighten the mood, and Kan flashes her such a grin that she immediately regrets it. Since she's clearly hit the nail on the head.

Yila would roll her eyes; Lan reaches out across the lawn table and says, bluntly but gently, "I've never seen you like this, Kan. Maybe it's time for you to re-evaluate your priorities. Maybe it's time for your friends to do the same."

Kan frowns. "What are you trying to say?"

Lan smiles. "You know Sunla?"

Kan rolls his eyes. "I personally put away five out of the eight Nali ringleaders," he reminds her tartly. “Of course I know the one that got away.”

“Don’t flaunt your laurels at me,” Lan chides. “You had help, from an anonymous tipster."

"Well, yeah," says Kan. “But it still takes a lot of work to act on that. How did you --"

He stops, eyes wide, and stares at her.

"You --" he whispers.

Lan laughs. "Not me," she says. “She is reading in my living room."

Kan stares at the side of Lan's house, then back at her again, words still clearly eluding his shocked brain.

"What I'm trying to say, Kan, is that anything is possible."

After a minute, Kan leans back in his chair and grins. “I like that advice, partner,” he says.