Love and Peace (In the New Age)
rough draft v1

In the valley lived four tribes of raku and two tribes of reynar, and they had lived there for many centuries with barely a whisper from the outside world. Though they did not care for the presence of one another, due to the offenses paid and repaid between ancestors, most years passed in begrudging quiet.
And it also stood that the reynar City of Splendor ruled the valley, and the raku were forbidden all but the barest minimum of weapons, which all belonged to the hunters of their respective clans.
Rikitakawi led them, and they held a hideaway that was of marginal use to most, since even though centuries had guarunteed a mapping of the valley, the hot spring was not well-known, since it could either be full or dry. The area smelled mildly of brimstone, but it was covered over by the exotic flowers that perfumed the area in the summer months. Since the climate in the valley was always cool, and the desire to overdress limited, the Hunters spent a good portion of their hunting time at this secret lodge where they could be alone together.
Riki and Aiko laid in the steam above the waters, suspended by crossing branches and vines. Their tails entwined, they laughed about the vicuna which got away.
“It’s not that funny!” Aiko protested, and though a day ago he would have felt hurt, he could not make such a comment without a wide grin across his face.
“Oh, it isn’t—” Riki said, spreading his dark-mitted paws wide, “until you jumped to the vertical face of the rock for leverage, and your leap looked less like an arrow and more like a wheel—”
Aiko nipped Riki’s hand. “Stoppit! That really hurt—”
“Is your ankle okay now?” Riki said, dropping the amused smirk for a moment.
“Yeah. I thought it was stiff but I’ve been walking on it okay.” Aiko flexed it behind himself, and all his toes so they popped.
“I don’t like seeing you get hurt—”
“I know! But you guys are always teasing me. I’m not a kid anymore.”
“You certainly aren’t.” Riki kissed him.
Aiko flushed, his face warming as he kissed Riki back; though he thought of Riki primarily as a mentor, Riki was truly not that much older than he was. But such things did not matter when it came to the trustbond. Every mutual display of affection strengthened the bond just a little more, and though time weakened it, there were very few times that Riki and Aiko could say they did not feel it.
And in those feeling Aiko knew Riki’s heart was given to someone else, but it also did not matter; he would cherish Aiko all the days of his life. Their bodies, strong and covered in thin summer fur, pressed even tighter into one another as they kissed again.
The trustbond opened their hearts. The trustbond said, listen, and we shall enjoy one another’s company, life and love.
Below them in the spring, Aiko’s sister Deiko lazed in the water, with Urai wrapped in one arm. Urai was mated, and her pregnant belly was indicative of this, though she always seemed more at ease when she was with child than when she was not. Urai was also Riki’s aunt, and much older than Deiko, and again this did not matter.
In contrast, Deiko was quite powerful in stature, moreso than any of the other hunters. With eyes closed her embrace could be mistaken for that of a male should they not know the truth beforehand. And with her powerful arm around her hunting partner, Urai smiled, two parts of her unknowing mind satisfied, the one that wanted her mate to share in this, and the one that was perfectly content with Deiko in his place.
Deiko’s ears twitches to the rustling in the wines above her; though she personally pined after Riki, in her heart she knew she wouldn’t stand in the way of his true mate—not Aiko of course, Aiko was to be relentlessly mocked, as all younger brothers are. Of the few times she’d met Kiti, Deiko had though her quite unnecessarily beautiful. They had not trustbonded then, so jealousy often peaked in Deiko’s thoughts when Kiti came around, but relented when her trustbond with Riki told her this was what he wanted, and he was willing to wait.
Still, it didn’t prevent her from desiring him. The trustbond said, your thoughts are always yours, your feelings are always yours, but for the sake of your bonded, they do not have to hurt or shame you.
Some ways away, sitting on the hunters large hammock where they sometimes slept overnight, Xiro yelped as Lare picked at the fur immediately behind his pointed ears.
“I can get that myself!” Xiro protested.
“Boy, I haven’t seen it unmatted on you yet. Stop squirming unless you want a notch in your ear like mine.”
Not that Lare was careless with a knife, as he was be far the oldest, and the only one of the group who had experience with weapons for more than ten years. And it was not for nothing; his right leg ended at the knee, and so he had been spared when the reynar had all the warriors of the raku tribes under their subjugation removed. With a mere flight of his wrist, he shaved off the fur clumped behind Xiro’s ears, close enough that the black skin underneath became visible.
Xiro twitched uncomfortably where he sat, but he did not protest. He was by far the least impressive of the six hunters, hardly having any magic of his own due to his condition. The pain burst colors in his perception, each kind a nuanced flare outside of the sight of his eyes, but no less visible. This happened with a great many sensations, and it was thought he could see the patterns of life. But it was also because of this, he could not read magic runes easily, as the shapes appeared not as shapes but as intense displays of color.
And Xiro tried his best to keep still, though his mind flared and protested, when he was in the hands of the hunters, most of his mind could stay clam. Among other roko, they might have been seen as outcasts and rejects, but they were of infinite value to one another.
The trustbond said, it does not matter how far you fall outside; if you are willing, you can approach the fire and be warmed with us.
And so it was in the lazy warm-and-cool summer afternoon, under the canopy of shimmering green, the sun too far gone to grow harsh, and the water washed away the hard work of hunting.
There came then a rattling in the bushes. The brush was distinctly louder than that of a squirrel or chinchilla, and Lare was the first to react. He rolled backwards out of the hammock and grabbed the straight spear sunk in the ground. Though he only walked with a peg in place of his missing leg, he had little issue with such an uncomplicated maneuver.
Hearing Lare move, Deiko was up next, startling Urai from her reverie and splashing the water as her tail followed behind her, soaking and heavy. She already had the obsidian sword in her hands, for she was never far from it when outside the Hill of Birds.
Riki sat bolt upright on hearing Deiko, and left Aiko, who scrambled not far behind. They crossed over the vines and each took one down to the woven baskets of supplied, where they each had left their weapons; Riki’s halfmoon poleaxe and Aiko’s obsidian sword, which was the same size as Deiko’s but appeared far too large in the hands of the young raku.
Xiro unceremoniously slipped and fell off the side of the hammock, his face colliding with the ground.
The hunters all moved around the source of the noise in an arc, Lare, Deiko and Aiko with their weapons readied, backs to the hammock and the water. Riki stepped forward. His ears twitched and he sniffed the air.
“Reynar,” he said to the others.
He was aware at that moment of the sinking feeling that had passed between the whole crew, because regardless of the power of their weapons, they would very likely be useless. Not because the reynar were any more powerful than the hunters were, but . . .
“Put your weapons down!” cried a shrill voice from the woods.
“Spirits!” Lare said, twisting a thumb in his ear. “Whine like a child do you, reynar?”
“I am not just any reynar! The voice came again, “I am—”
An arrow loosed, but from behind the hunters, and threaded between them into the woods, before it landed in a tree. The voice yelped, though unsilenced.
“Urai!” Riki said, turning to his aunt. “Do you want us to get in trouble?!”
“I’m sorry,” Urai said, drawing an arow on her bow again which she had left on the ground next to her. “But I really don’t want to get out of this pool right now.”
“You know, you’re awfully reckless for a pregnant roko,” Riki muttered.
“—they shot me!” the voice protested, muffled as he was turned away from the group. “Those ingrate raku shot me!”
“The arrow did not even hit you, master Karu,” said another voice.
It was at those words that Xiro sat up from the dust-covered ground, his eyes alight.
“Karu . . . Oh spirits, prince Karu . . .”
“Who?” Riki asked.
“His uncle is the chief of the Ghost Clan.”
As Xiro began mumbling a number of reynar family relations remembered from pieces of conversations, Riki’s expression sank further. There were two clans of the reynar. There was the Forest of Honey, who if they wanted to make an example of a raku, they would merely string them up by their ankles for a day and a night.
The Ghost Clan were not that nice.
“Oh hell . . . Weapons down! Weapons down now!” Riki commanded everyone.
Lare lowered his spear, as did Deiko her sword and Urai her bow. Aiko kept his sword raised up.
“Aiko!” Riki said.
“I’m not afraid of the Ghost Clan!” Aiko boasted.
Lare stepped over and swatted the back of Aiko’s head. Aiko winced and lowered his weapon.
“Ow! What! Why should we respect them?”
“Because even someone as young and stupid as you shouldn’t have quite so obvious a death wish, boy,” Lare said.
“Our weapons are down,” Riki stated toward the trees. They still held onto their weapons, of course—as Lare said, they did not have a death wish—only with the tips planted in the ground. “Come out and state your business.”
The bushes rustled again, and two reynar appeared out of the trees before the hunters. One was short, the other quite tall, and both wore cloaks that surrounded their shoulders and hung to the ground, their ruddy-orange paintbrush tails poking out the backsides. The smaller one’s cloak was covered in bramble, slightly torn near its hem.
The short one, sharp in appearance with pointed ears, and pointed nose, and pointed teeth, regarded the raku’s weapons with disgust, his lip turning up as though he’d stumbled upon a forgotten game kill.
“What’s the meaning of this, anyhow?!” the short one demanded, “Sixo, why are these raku allowed to carry weapons? Which one of you shot an arrow at me?!”
“I can show him,” Urai said, taking aim again.
“Urai—” Riki held a palm out to her. He turned to the short one. “I am deeply sorry, young master. We didn’t expect a representative of the Ghost clan to be so . . . Erm . . .”
“This far out in the valley,” Lare said before Riki shoved his tail in his mouth. “You must have traveled a day and a night. Where are you camped?”
“Hah! I’m not giving that away so easily—” the young one stated, “my uncle has given me an entourage that I might have an excursion into the hills. I can have anything I want out here!”
“His family wanted him out of the house,” Lare interpreted for the group.
“Shut your muzzle, old man!” Karu stammered. “Out here now, MY word is law . . . And I have the full force of my uncle should you try and take it away from me!”
Riki would have probably shrank, but he did not. He hated this reynar, though he hated them all, and he would not let them see him cower . . . Even as he acquiesced to their every demand.
“And what are you doing here, within sight of the Hill of Birds?” Riki said.
“We’re in sight of the Hill of Birds?” The prince said to his retainer, who pointed with his hand leaving his cloak only to the wrist. The prince squinted beyond the slope into the valley; between the trees, indeed, the village was visible, with its wood-and-thatch huts and plumes of smoke rising into the air. Beyond it, fields of green took on the surrounding hills, covered in barley and potato crops.
“That’s the hill?” The prince almost giggled. “That’s it?!”
“And what’s wrong with our village!?” Aiko demanded, taking a step forward, his arms flexing and grip twisting on his sword handle. Riki warily kept an eye on him.
“It’s so crude, like this camp right here,” Karu threw his arms out toward the arrangement the raku had, which barely consisted of the hammock and a few baskets of salted and smoked food. “I have a hard time believing you could live like this . . . I would have to cut down these trees to build a proper bath house.” Karu bit his thumb. “In fact, I think I’m going to.”
“What?!” Riki said in unison with the other hunters—save Xiro who wasn’t paying attention.
“Yes, that’s why I’m here,” Karu examined his fingers, not even bothering to look at the reaction of the hunters. “I am in need of a good bath and found this place last night . . . It did not even occur to me a . . . Peice of cloth and some baskets might be a permanent camp. In any case, I want this spot.”
There were much more things to the camping site than just the essentials Riki kept in a small divot in the rock—the vines overhead had been deliberately braided, a spotting nest had been cleared in the tops of the trees. Here and there they had notched footholes for climbing . . . It was not entirely fashioned by hand; it was, as the prince said, crude, at least compared to the workmanship of a good weapon. But the clearing had come to be only after years of the plants being pulled and the space curated, vines pulled out to give overhead cover, to keep spying hawks from roosting and to keep the sun from beaming too strongly between the trees on clear afternoons.
It had not occurred to Riki in a very long time how much he loved this place. And suddenly . . .
“Okay!” Deiko said, stepping forward, weapon still down but sizing up her full height to the small reynar. “There are literally dozens of hot springs on this mountain. We have been in this spot for years, and you will kick us out of it . . . Why?!”
“Because . . .” Karu said, “I can.”
As Riki feared, Deiko took a swing at the prince. There was very little Riki could do in such an instance—Deiko could easily outfight every single one of them from sheer force of will alone, and her body was so rock solid that holding her back did nothing.
The prince backed away toward a tree, curling his tail around himself, hands over his head. Sixo had instead, stepped in and blocked the swing with a black spear that had appeared from nowhere. The weapons clanged, and the obsidian edge of Deiko’s sword chipped.
“Ah, spirits of earth,” Deiko mumbled.
“That was very unwise,” the reynar said. “Weapons down now. On the ground.”
Deiko scoffed, but did so, throwing her sword on the ground, where it clattered and another obsidian edge chipped, but she did not care. Riki’s followed hers, as well as the others, all at the feet of the tall retainer.
The prince laughed, his voice breaking recklessly. “You see, you’re all cowards!” He brushed himself off, and tripped over the hem of his own cloak. “Sixo, help me up.”
After this, the prince inspected the weapons which had been thrown to the ground. When the reynar passed in front of Xiro, he stopped, and took a second look, from head to toe. Xiro stood uneasily with his hands clasped behind his back. He looked away, towards and empty spot on the ground between the rocks and trees.
“Where is your weapon, hunter?” Karu demanded.
“He doesn’t carry one,” Riki said, “and I would not continue to press him if I were you.”
The reynar eyed Xiro, who looked away, shaking with a great crescendo of anxiety. To his credit, Karu cut off his inquisition and instead strolled to the pile his retainer had gathered.
“Such ungratefulness . . .” Karu muttered. “My uncle gives you such mercy and you pay it back with such faithlessness. Not content with your . . .” He pinched the canvas hammock between his fingers and rubbed it, “. . . Crude lives . . . Seeking to steal that which isn’t even yours . . . But I’ll let you get away with this insult if you pay me some additional tribute.”
Riki sighed deeply. “And what . . . I hesitate to ask . . . Do you desire, princeling?”
“One of your females,” The prince said, as though expecting hit words to hit as hard as Urai’s arrow did into the tree. “To serve my comfort.”
Riki turned his hands out and gestured to Deiko and Urai, who was pulling herself out of the water with a flat splash. “Have your pick.”
Karu’s eyes shifted and his mouth hung open, bewildered. Obviously, he had expected more protest. But he set his jaw and marched up to the two. He nearly ran into Urai’s belly.
“Oh spirits,” he said, poking it, “Already mated, that won’t do . . .”
Urai rolled her eyes.
“This is humiliating,” Deiko said, though her tone edged more toward flat observation than offense.
“Of course it’s humiliating—you should know your place under our heels, raku.”
“It’s not that, it’s because I don’t find you the least bit intimidating. Tell me, how would you have your way with me? Would you like me to nurse you and tell you a bedtime story?”
“You’re ugly!” The prince stammered. “Both ugly! Spirits, are you two all they have?”
“Would you like a look at the rest of us?” Riki questioned, gesturing to himself and Aiko, who had his paws over his mouth, trying to stifle a giggle.
“I am not interested in males!” the prince spat. He tried to shove Riki with a paw, though Riki was quite stocky and heavy. The prince’s push on him was like a leaf slapping into a wall.
“Yeah, I could figure as much,” Riki said, “What about Xiro, I don’t think he counts either way.”
Xiro was quite obviously male, of course, but he was softer than all the rest, except maybe for Urai. He also stuck out his tongue in disgust, as he wasn’t even remotely interested in sex, even outside the context of it being impressed upon him.
“Would you shut up! Spirits you raku are all the same, so ugly and ungrateful! You think insulting me in funny, a prince of the Ghost Clan? I could have your hands and feet cut off, your tongues and your eyes gouged out! I could have you cut in half, connected only by your entrails, and line you up along the sides of the highway!”
“Oh, you think you can?” Lare said. He had already committed to the idea that they were being forced off, and that there was nothing they could do about it, and so was already unstrapping the hammock from the trees to take it down. “Little tyrants have a little power and think themselves the largest fish in their lake. Lonely, quite lonely, as the other fish want nothing to do with him, and so they find a friend in the gleam of the fish hook.”
“Oh, shut it with your dumb fables,” Karu said. “I’ve had quite enough of you. Get out of here . . . And leave your weapons, I’ll take them!”
“I figured as much,” Riki said. “It’s not the first time you’ve seized our weapons, I doubt it will be the last . . . Come on, hunters. Let’s go.”

The walk was not far to the village. Deiko and Urai each carried the baskets of rations, and Lare and Aiko carried the hammock between them on their shoulders, Xiro walked behind, and Riki walked ahead. Before them the village was quite prominent, with a fence of wooden stakes surrounding its perimeter to keep out the wild animals at night. Some houses yet were outside the village proper, in the farm fields that the hunters passed by on the well-trodden footpath; they would not have had food in them, only farming tools. Every raku always went back to the village for meals—save the hunters, though for reasons entirely their own.
“I suppose we could ask the mystics to make you more weapons,” Deiko said.
“That’s only for Riki and Lare’s weapons though—” Urai said. “Obsidian is easy enough to come by, but what about iron? And my bow—it’s several days out to see your cousins in Cradle Woods, and you know them . . . They’d be livid we lost another bow of theirs so quickly after the last. It’s not easy to make a bow you know, at least one with a decent draw.”
“What’s it matter to them?” Aiko said, shifting the weight of the hammock on his shoulder, “They got dozens of them.”
“That’s the whole problem,” Lare said, hobbling on his peg leg, though keeping pace with the other hunters just fine. “They’re proud of that fact. Of all the raku clans they’re the only ones who got out of the war without having to pay tribute. So all the raku come to them and say, we need bows, we need weapons, the reynar won’t let us have any. On one paw, that feels very much like paying tribute anyway, doesn’t it?”
“And on the other paw,” Urai said, “they’d very much prefer a trade because of that, and we barely have anything to trade.”
“We still have some iron though, don’t we?”
“We need that for the tools—” Riki said. “It’s well and good that the Hill is keen on our help, Aiko, but don’t let that fool you into thinking we can take whatever we like. I’m not about to deprive the crops. That’s our food too you know.”
“I know,” Aiko said with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I still feel like we could have done something. Everyone’s going to be disappointed.”
“Disappointed?” Lare said, “Aiko, the weapons are one thing, but you should be more concerned with the Ghost Clan setting up a camp so close by.”
“Do you think we should scout it out?” Deiko said.
“Probably,” Riki said, “I’m not sure how much help that would be though. The young prince was an idiot. He doesn’t seem like the type to hide his intentions, since he would hardly need to. And his intention was very clearly to make for himself a kind of summer house away from the city.”
“Well the prince, sure,” Lare said. “But he said he wanted a construction over the hot spring, trees cut out and everything. That sounds like a permanent thing, not simply a pavilion. And even if the prince wasn’t intending to use it as a staging ground, it would still be an invaluable thing for him to provide his family, wouldn’t it?”
“Spirits,” Riki mumbled. He stopped for a moment to face the others. “We will probably need it scouted out then. Deiko, are you good for that?”
“I’ll need to make another sword,” Deiko said, setting the basket down for a moment, “Just in case.”
“I want to go!” Aiko said.
“If you do, it’d just be with your sister,” Riki said.
“Oh,” Aiko said. “Nevermind.”
Deiko punched him in the shoulder. He winced and clutched it.
“Well we could have Xiro go,” Urai said, “He doesn’t need a weapon in any case, and he’s got that ridiculous memory of his.”
“What do you think, Xiro?” Riki asked, looking around for him.
Then they all stopped and turned. Xiro was nowhere in sight.
“Um, did any of you see Xiro leave?” Riki asked.
“He was right behind me,” Aiko said, “But I stopped paying attention well before were were out of the tree line.”
Urai folded her arms. “I hate it when he does that,” she said.
Lare looked around the spot they’d taken up. “That boy. Never know if he was eaten by a giant chinchilla or is taking a leak.”

After Xiro failed to show up, the hunters took refuge in Riki’s hut, their other main gathering spot. It was fairly spacious for a single raku, technically a bachelor and without even a lot of visitors; it had many woven seats with wood frames, Riki’s own hammock and a variety of other sleeping mats. Since the hut was empty most of the time, it had also taken to being storage for much of the village, with stacks of cloth, jars of grain, potatoes and dried fish, and quite a bit of useful wood, which Deiko busied herself with. She sat and carved a handle and holster for a new sword; there would be no time to finish it so it would be fairly roughly cut, a haven for splinters.
Aiko and Lare also sat inside, both of them on the floor with Riki. Urai had left to attend to her sizable family, as she always did when she was in the village. Although she was an indispensable part of the hunters, she did have a life outside of them.
Riki wasn’t sure he could say the same for himself.
“I still think we should have cut his throat,” Aiko said.
“Would have been easier,” Deiko said, her words punctuated with the knife chipping off another corner of the wood. 
“Would you listen to yourselves?” Lare scolded. “Have any one of you killed a roko with your own bare hands before?”
The three of them twisted away, uncomfortable.
“But, Lare,” Riki said, “they’re just reynar.”
“Just reynar?” Lare spat, his teeth barely opening away from each other. “That doesn’t change a thing. Spirits of Earth! They’re still flesh and blood and talk to you; s’ hard enough for someone who’s not used to it to kill an animal, but killing roko never gets any easier, and it doesn’t matter the color of their fur or the length of their nose or how many rings they got on their tail. Maybe you can get up enough ire in the moment to deliver a blow, and that’s the only way I know how to do it, but anger only accounts for so much. And you don’t want to mire yourself in anger. It affects you, it gets in your head.” He spat visibly at the floor. “And I can’t even begin to talk about how much trouble you’d bring down on our head should their precious prince suddenly vanish in raku lands.”
Riki hung his head. “Lare . . . I know that.”
“Doesn’t sound like it much.”
“It’s just words, Lare!” Riki said. “That was our place! And each one of us hurts enough from what the reynar took, and they take still! We’re allowed to vent, aren’t we?”
“Now boy, now . . .” Lare took Riki by the shoulders and squared him up. “I don’t mean to tell you not to be angry. I worry about you. I worry about all you young ones. Sometimes I don’t know whether you’re serious or you’re just venting. I don’t want to see you get yourself killed over a chunk of land.  And I especially don’t want you getting ME killed over a chunk of land. I got a lot more living to do!”
“Yeah, I know.”
Lare gently took Riki’s muzzle and clamped his mouth softly around Riki’s nose. Riki returned the soft pressure around Lare’s jaw—a form of affection that was just as intimate but more solemn than a regular kiss, they both rededicated their trustbond to one another.
Riki loved the old man, and though sometimes they felt aloof from one another, the spark of affection had always remained. Lare had been a mentor to Riki, almost the same way that Riki was to Aiko—though of course Lare had far more experience and, until Riki had formed the Hunters, often felt more alone than most.
“What, you two want to be alone?” Deiko smirked.
“Pff,” Lare rolled his eyes as he broke away from the nip. “Do you kids think about anything other than sex?”
Riki had thought about sex a little. Lare winked at him, and Riki didn’t turn all the way back around to face Deiko.
“You have that thing ready?”
“I think so,” Deiko put her mouth to the slot on the side and blew, little flecks of wood fluttering out. “Do you know where they’re hiding the obsidian today?”
“I’ll show you, help you get some decent blades from it this time.”
“I am perfectly capable of chipping the stone myself!” Deiko protested, as she followed Lare out of the hut.
“Well sure,” he said, “if you want to make a lot of dart heads at the same time.”
After they stepped into the village, this left Aiko and Riki alone together. Riki smiled at him and knelt down in front of his companion, and stroked his ears, intending to spend their down time in an amorous way, though Aiko seemed distracted, looking out the window, but not to see what was outside.
Riki wrenched his lips and put aside all thoughts of physical pleasure—which was quite a simple matter, as the two were so deeply trustbonded that emotions flowed to match each other’s mood. There was hardly any effort on Riki’s part to switch between desire and concern.
“What’s bothering you?” Riki sat down next to him.
“They’re gonna tear down the trees up there,” Aiko said. “And I know what all you said about it being a potential reynar fort, but I don’t even know if I care about that, it’s . . . Riki, do the reynar even have trustbonds?”
“I believe so,” Riki said.
“Then what is with the prince’s attitude? Does he not have anyone to trust?”
“Trustbonds are sometimes fragile things,” Riki said. “An excess of fear can cause weak trustbonds to fall apart, and harder to rekindle.”
“I thought that was magic.”
“Magic erodes them too, but it’s easier to avoid excessive magic.”
Aiko thought about this, his short tail undulating behind him like a caterpillar. “Is that why you haven’t mated with Mystic Kiti yet?”
“Erm, no,” Riki said. “That’s because of the law.”
“Yeah but you’re the chief. You overrule the letter of the law. Nobody would charge you if you and Kiti matebonded.”
“I’m not the chief. And it wouldn’t matter regardless—the law is there for a reason. The mystics have to be protected, and one of the only ways the reynar could discover our mystics survived is if one of us matebonded with one of them.”
Riki passionately despised that law. He wanted the war to be over, for the reynar rule to collapse and dissolve, and there would be no more reason for the mystics to hide. As it was though, for fifteen years, the mystics and the villiagers lived separate lives. They’d always been somewhat separate, aloof and strange, with their miredness in the runic magic that Riki only knew through rote practice that most of the Hunters possessed and few others knew.
“You can tell when two people are matebonded?” Aiko asked.
“Yeah. Well, you have to trustbond with them first. And you have to know what you’re looking for. But you can tell that, for instance, Aunt Urai is mated to Kusugi. I guess it’s just something you presume—I mean, when someone’s already mated, it’s more or less like we already have gathered their feelings on so many thoughts they have, that being matebonded to someone else is just another thing on the list we can glean. And you’re feeling guilty right now, aren’t you?”
Aiko flushed. It was very to hide specific feelings when trustbonded; they pushed through clearly, especially between two as close as Riki and Aiko.
“Just thinking . . .” Aiko said, twisting his arms behind his head uncomfortably. “If I were to . . . Um, play with a female . . . And we . . .”
“Have you?”
Aiko flushed harder that Riki thought Aiko’s embarrassment was about to make him burst. “Riki!”
“Sorry, love,” Riki rolled onto his front and looked up at Aiko. “You don’t need to be ashamed.”
“But how would I know? What if I already matebonded with a girl—that’s permanent! That’s scary!”
“You’ve listened to the stories, haven’t you?”
Aiko pursed his lips and tilted his head. He attempted to recall, as most of the knowledge of the tribe was passed down by stories. Some were from villagers, others were from the rare times Mystics visited the village, usually after sunset. They were always rare treats, though it seemed to Riki, as the years went by the younger generation gleaned less from the stories than they were intended to teach.
“Come on, you have to have picked up on it,” Riki sat up, “Like in the story of the Queen and the Stone Soldier, when the Queen beds her potential mates one night after another. When a male and a female attempt to matebond, the climax has to occur in unison or it will not take.”
“I thought that was just for them,” Aiko said.
Riki glared flatly, his shoulders slumped. “It’s a story, Aiko, you have to glean greater ideas from the smaller.”
“I don’t know! It could have been rune magic! The stories don’t tell you everything. The stone soldier was driven by runes, wasn’t he? Maybe he had magic seed!”
“Spirits of Earth, help the poor kid,” Riki said, face buried in his hands.
“Riki, this isn’t as simple as you make it out to be!”
“I know, I know,” Riki said, “You’re still young. But so help me, I figured out this stuff when I was half your age.”
Aiko slumped.
“You’re not matebonded to anyone, Aiko,” Riki said. “You’d know it, and if you didn’t, then I’d know it. And your sister would know it, and she’d make sure you knew it.”
“Yeah okay,” Aiko said.
“So who was it?” Riki asked.
“Riki!” Aiko curled into a ball with his one-ringed tail sticking out the side.
“It was Eroako, wasn’t it? She’s a little old for you, but—”
“Riki!” Aiko shouted, much like a small kit would shout when chased with sticks.
“I’m just teasing you—” Riki pulled Aiko out of his ball with one hand, so Aiko laid with his back flat against the floor, upside-down. Riki kissed him.
“I get nervous I’m going to do something wrong,” Aiko said. “And I’ll get exiled for breaking one of the rules. There’s always so many rules.”
Riki sighed and laid down with Aiko and nuzzled him so their chins hooked around each other. Riki gently scritched Aiko between his ears with both hands. “I know, love,” he said. “I know.”
They laid there for a while not saying anything, though they did not need to. They’d known each other for so long it often felt like speaking to one another was repetition.
And then Aiko sat up.
“What if we asked Kiti what to do?”
“What?” Riki sat up as well. “Why would she be able to do anything?”
“Well, the mystics have a lot of our knowledge . . . I don’t know, it must be buried somewhere in there.”
“You haven’t even been to the Mystic Tower except for training,” Riki said. “I’m certain you’ve noticed how . . . terse they can be.”
“Let them be terse,” Aiko said. He stood up and walked to the woven basket that Riki kept by his hammock, which contained several small personal things. “That’s why I said Kiti. Kiti likes you. I mean, she’s saving herself for you. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to do you a favor.”
Riki didn’t stop Aiko, though he thought about it. Aiko seemed excited over the prospect. It was Riki’s things he was rummaging, but Riki trusted Aiko too much to want to chastise him over something as ridiculous as privacy. He was too smitten.
Aiko ambled back holding the silver key to the mystic tower. The “key” was not a key of course, it did not fit any lock, but it was rather a small charm. It bore on its face one of the few kinds of magic the reynar allowed the raku to perform, a simple healing runestring. But it was not simply that; its top, which had a loop through which the charm could be attached to a string, came free when tugged with sufficient force. It brought with it a thin silver core, on which was etched the runes that needed to be cast to get to the Mystic’s Tower.
Riki snatched the silver core from Aiko’s hands. Since Riki was the not-quite cheftain, he was technically only one of three entrusted with this key in the village. Aiko wasn’t really supposed to know where it was located, but then again, Riki was too fond of the young raku to tell him otherwise.
“Well, come on!” Aiko said.
“Mystic Kiti is probably far too busy to listen to our silly problems,” Riki said. “She might sympathize—I know she would—but this is really unimportant in the scheme of things. We can always fabricate more weapons.”
“Riki, that was our special place!” Aiko ran behind Riki and started shoving his back without much success at budging his thick frame.
Riki sighed deeply and rolled his eyes. “Alright, we’ll go. But we’re only supposed to go after sundown.”

Deiko was gone and back after supper, which the hunters had spent in the dining hall at the same table as one another, going over the things they knew and approaches they might take, but they’d gotten no father than they had before. When Deiko arrived again, Riki was the only one left in the hall, turning the silver key over in his hand.
“What’ve you got there?” Deiko asked from behind. Riki jumped. He immediately attached it to his necklace again.
“Spirits of heaven, Deiko,” Riki said. “I didn’t think you’d be back before sundown.”
Deiko kissed him on the cheek, causing Riki to blush. He had always been fond of Deiko of course, but there were clear and obvious reasons they couldn’t be together.
“They still have the food out?”
“It hasn’t been slopped to the goats yet if that’s what you mean.” Riki said, not meeting her eyes.
Deiko disappeared again and returned, in full sight of Riki, with a bowl of the potato and barley mash, swimming in butter. It was not a regular bowl, but a mixing dish, and heaped high. She immediately began downing it.
“They did not make that easy, let me tell you,” Deiko said.
“Did you . . . Did you happen to see Xiro while you were out?” Riki asked, still pawwing at the key. He tried to pull his thoughts away from Kiti, and back to the matter at hand.
“He’s still not back?” Deiko asked.
“No. And I mean, I’m a bit concerned at this point. You know what happened that one time he vanished.”
“Well it was quite easy to locate him with that big plume of black smoke,” Deiko said between bites.
“And the explosion,” Riki said. “But that’s what concerns me, because the reynar might find him this time.”
“They haven’t done anything like swarm the area,” Deiko reported, “They’re not picking out our farmlands looking for secret stashes or anything like that.”
“Well, that’s good—” Riki began to relax.
“But they are armed. And there’s almost sixty of them.”
Riki tensed. “Sixty?”
“They appear to be servants, although I’m certain they’re guards as well. No slaves, I don’t think anyone would trust the princeling with a raku and for obvious reasons. But there’s still enough bows and spears for all of them.”
Riki sat back. Then he said, “Just a moment,” left and returned with a cup filled with barley beer. He drank most of it down in a single gulp.
Deiko smirked at him. “Are you worried?”
“Worried, of course I’m worried,” Riki said. “What Lare said earlier, I don’t want a war either. Spirits, Deiko, I don’t want to see anyone die. Well, it’d be better for us if all the reynar were dead, but that’s the trick part, isn’t it?” He threw back the rest of the beer.
“Is that why you’re going to see Kiti?” Deiko pointed to the necklace.
Riki grabbed the key almost too quickly. Then her sighed and let go so it hung in plain sight. “It was Aiko’s suggestion.”
“What do you think she’ll suggest, get us some big magic to raze the enemy camp and scatter their bones?”
“I don’t know . . .” Riki said. “I don’t know . . .”
Then Riki thumped his forehead against the table.
“Spirits, Deiko . . .”
“Riki, are you alright?”
Deiko came around the other side, leaving her spoon in her bowl and sat up close to Riki, and put her arms around him. “Chief, come on. Things have a way of working out.”
“If we managed to drive them off, what then? There will be another incident next year, and the year after. We can’t keep delaying this. I can’t keep delaying this.”
“Chief . . .”
Deiko turned Riki’s chin up to face her, and she kissed him. In that moment, he kissed her back, almost by reflex. It had been a pattern with him in the past, as he’d almost always dealt with these stresses by piling on the small pleasures, or in Deiko’s case, the big ones. Yet, he and Deiko had never had intimate relations.
And Deiko knew that.
Riki pulled away. “Come on, Deiko, you know I can’t.”
Deiko leaned in again. “There’s always things we can do that aren’t sex, you know.”
Riki flushed, his face turning even warmer than the beer already made it. “That’s not really the important thing.”
“Oh what, saving yourself for the mystic,” Deiko said. She playfully pushed on Riki, and not expecting her force, he toppled over, colliding with the floor. Deiko jumped down on him and straddled his chest.
“Deiko, come on!” Riki said, blushing profusely and covering his eyes. Deiko was hardly threatening of course; they were trustbonded, and the key word in that was trust. There was hardly a thing Deiko could do that would violate that trust. But that always left room for the teasing, which Riki only tacitly admitted he enjoyed.
“Well let me tell you my plan I thought up,” Deiko said. “Since you and Kiti can’t matebond until we have a war, you and I could become mates right now. Tonight, even.” She twirled a finger in Riki’s chest fur.
“Mm-hmm,” Riki grinned, “Go on.”
“Then when we have the war, I lead a valiant last stand and am heroically struck down by an arrow. Then you can have Kiti if you still want.”
“That’s awfully morbid, Deiko,” Riki said.
They kissed.
“Well sometimes things are morbid,” Deiko said. “If it weren’t for the trustbond sometimes I think I’d want you so badly I’d do anything to get it, but I won’t. So . . . Whatever makes you happy.” She smiled. Then she got onto the floor and laid next to Riki, and continued to strike his chest fur. “Do you think I’d make you happy?”
“Of course,” Riki said.
“I don’t think any girl likes being the second choice though.”
“Yeah,” Riki said. “I’m sorry about it.”
“Still, I could just use my mouth to—”
“Deiko!” Riki sat up again, blushing.
“What, it’s true!” Deiko stated, standing up again with him. “Maybe you can set your mind to that instead of all this unnecessary worry.”
“Maybe,” Riki said, holding up the cup and shaking it, “I should get another beer. You want one?”

Half an hour after the sun had gone, only one of the fire pits surrounding the village had been lit. The night was not a special one, though it did not keep some raku from making it special. Three different raku couples lounged on the benches that surrounded the fire, each in a different state of amorous progression. As Riki and Aiko passed to reach the center of the village, Aiko flushed a bit to see one of his village friends wave to him from a particularly cozy position with her girlfriend. Riki grinned a bit and tugged him along so he didn’t stare.
They approached the unusual spot in the center of the village. Where all around was dust, the center of the village bore a patch of dark green grass, the kind normally only found in the fertile areas of the valley near the rivers. Livestock never touched this patch; there were never led this far into the center of the village unless first cooked. Upon approach, the air seemed, if one looked very close, to warp. Space itself seemed to pull in to a particular point, or rather an indiscernible column. It felt cooler here than elsewhere in the village, even when the temperature plunged after nightfall. 
Aiko waved his hand through the column and giggled. “It feels weird, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t let anyone catch you,” Riki said. It was why they were here only after dark; the reynar had been satisfied that the mystic’s tower had been torn down as part of their peace agreement. It was, of course, still here.
Riki held the key out to Aiko, who also touched it with his hand. They both flashed the runes simultaneously—the image of the runes burned in their perception, always-visible even when not is line of sight of their eyes, for as long as they flashed. It needn’t be a long one, for the spell only affected them.
The tower appeared, expanding out of thin air, and the patch of grass became a ring encompassing it. Along with it, the area around the tower warped as well, the space stretched now appearing in its real dimensions. This made the center of the village much larger than it originally appeared. But while the warping of space was a trick of perception, it was not just a mere illusion. When Riki and Aiko entered the center space, the amorous raku, some dozen paces away, appeared themselves warped, blurring like they were butter which had been spread out to cover more surface of the bread.
Such magic was incredibly difficult to maintain continuously, all hours of the day and night. It was for that reason, Riki had always thought, that the mystics were often such grouches.
Two hundred paces in circumference and reaching six stories into the air, the tower was easily the tallest thing in the village, and not simply for standing at the apex of the hill. It was made of many large stones, only partly carved, and held together with a mortar which nobody in the village had used in centuries. There were no guards posted at the entrance, and had not been for years; there was no point, as only a few village raku actually had passage into the tower and all were trusted.
Well, tolerated.
Riki motioned for Aiko to follow. The entrance immediately gave to a long series of steps, and a landing on which stairs rose the other way, all the way to the top of the tower. Aiko stared up the center, mouth agape, at a hovering light halfway up, bright as the full moon and flooding the whole chamber with pale light.
“Oh, come on,” Riki said, ushering him on with a hand on his back.
“I haven’t seen that before,” Aiko said, “Usually there are just torches.”
“The torches are for when they go to bed,” Riki said, “They have enough to do in here without throwing about the impressive magic.”
The two climbed the steps, passing floor after floor of thick wooden doors on every wall. Each had a single cell, and the only light into the cell was through a porthole on each door, which most of the mystics left shut, even during their waking hours. A few of the doors were open though, and some mystics were about, gathering themselves to breakfast, and whispering and pointing about Riki and Aiko’s presence.
Riki quickly felt self-conscious. Often he only came in when announced, and usually at Kiti’s behest, or her mother’s. Still, they’d already climbed halfway up the tower, passing by the floating blue moon-orb, and continued on.
Aiko was huffing by the time they reached the top, and he leaned forward on his knees to catch his breath. Riki was pleased to see that the door to the high priestess’s chamber was open, meaning he did not have to worry that he was unduly rousing them. He rushed forward to knock.
Before he could, however, Mystic Ikoti, Kiti’s mother, appeared at the door before them in an open mystic’s robe, pale  blue and long enough to drag the floor. It hung from her arms and elbows, none even approaching her shoulders. Like many mystics, Ikoti was taller than the village raku by nearly a head, though in Riki’s case, only half a head.
She had the bearing of a mystic, through which Kiti had inherited most of her physical features, and more than a sliver of her personality. Her fur was almost absurdly smooth and soft, white as snow even in the dim reflection of the tower’s light and the tight of the room behind her. Her mask was lightly colored, and eyes perpetually narrow-lidded and cast down at the ones who entered her domain.
“Chiefson Rikitakawi,” she stated, with only the most mild of surprise. Her eyes twitched to the young Raku behind him. “And . . . Eko something.”
“Aikodore!” Aiko stated briskly, unintimidated by the priestess’s cold demeanor.
“Right, the chiefson’s lover,” she said as if passing over an undesired dish at the mess hall, “I do recall you, forgive me if the name slips my mind.”
“Mystic Ikoti,” Riki said, head lowered and hands clasped, “Aiko and I wanted to speak to Kiti on an important business.”
“Kitikochata is too tired for visitors,” Ikoti said. “She has been in the vision chamber all day and is now sleeping. I blame you, you know, with your diurnal sleep patterns. She has gotten it in her head that the visions are more appropriate in the day than when the spirits are watching.”
“Well this . . . This probably won’t take long. Has she been sleeping long?” Riki leaned around to try and peek past the woman, catching only glimpses of the large raised bed covered in fine cloth, but it was too large and obstructed to see if Kiti or her sisters slept on it.
“I am not letting you interrupt my daughter’s sleep for this . . .” Ikoti said, leaning toward Riki as if to emphasize her height. “ . . . outside business. The spirits are watching, and matters of heaven and earth are more important than these petty squabbles of yours.”
“Petty?!” Riki protested. “It’s these petty squabbles that got us where we are now. It’s why you have to hide in this tower and never step outside except in disguise. And you barely do, at that! The villagers miss you. This past equinox, you had not even come out yourself for the season of stories; you seem more aggravated that you have to put up with us than anything. And yet we’re the ones who are keeping you all safe from execution!”
“I do. Don’t think your help goes unappreciated. We didn’t have to give you your magic, Chiefson. Did you think your training was hard?” She turned to Aiko. “Or you? You are still but magic-illiterate; you cannot fathom how much work went into the chamber, and to create the new skills of a Shadow Ward from nothing! And only five of you undertook the training, when there are hundreds of reynar with magic skills of their own! Do you expect to fight a war by yourselves? You are fortunate I don’t scoff further for your waste of my time, when that’s all you seem to do. We do the important work, and you come running to us with every little problem as though we had limitless resources. Well, we don’t, Chiefson, and among those resources is precious sleep, which my daughter lacks.”
Riki crossed his arms, but he didn’t stand rigidly. Chief or not, he had a difficult time setting his jaw toward such a dressing down. Aiko, however, seemed to take no offense whatsoever to the chastisement, and continued almost as soon as she finished speaking.
“Can we leave a message for her then?” Aiko said.
Ikoti folded her arms and stared at the young raku.
Aiko continued, “A young prince of the Ghost Clan came by and seized our hideout in the woods, near the slopes. And well, we weren’t really sure what we were going to ask, it’s just that you mystics are so smart, we thought maybe you could just give some advice.”
Ikoti stared at Aiko pointedly, and then threw her head back and laughed. “Seriously?” She said, “This is what you call upon Kiti for.”
“Well it didn’t have to be Kiti,” Aiko said.
“Then I give you my own advice: the reynar princes are royal brats, spending time around those like us but trained in the disregard for lives which are not tailored to their own comfort. He has likely not experienced any hardship which could not be handled entirely by one of his retinue. I would take him across my knee and whip his backside until he learned the meaning of pain.”
“What . . . that’s it?” Riki said. “Aiko already suggested we kill him earlier and we discarded that.”
“Kill . . . you villagers are so dramatic!” Ikoti said, rubbing her temples. “It would be highly inadvisable to kill them. There will always be brats and fools in the world. I would know, I am staring at one of each right now.”
“Hey!” Aiko protested.
“But barring that, unless you wish to start a war, your guess is as good as mine as to what to do with the prince.”
“But we need to handle this without starting a war!”
“And if I had the means of dealing with the reynar without a war, I would have given it to you the moment it was in my hands,” Ikoti stated, “because despite what you may think, Chiefson, I did not like living the last fifteen years of my life in a single tower, and I do not like having to raise my daughters in this constricted environment. I would like Kiti to be happy. I would like Kiti to have her choice of mate—though I cannot fathom why she would select you of all roko. Yet it is her choice, and I desperately desire her happiness, and the happiness of all my daughters. So, surprise me, Chiefson. We have already given you much. Put it and that feeble mass you call a mind to some use before you start calling out for the spirits.”
She then pointedly closed the door behind her. Thankfully it was not a slam, as had been the case in the past.
“Well that was stupid!” Aiko exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. “They didn’t even consult an oracle or anything!”
“Yeah,” Riki said, his voice barely cracking a whisper. “Alright, let’s go. Shouldn’t have come here in the first place.”
Riki dragged his tail behind him as they descended the steps again, Aiko trailing behind. He wanted to get a closer look at the orb of light as they passed, and Riki waited for him a few minutes as Aiko attempted to reach it without falling down the shaft in the middle. Eventually he gave up, and they descended the rest of the way down.
“You have any other ideas?” Aiko said.
“Best idea now is to sleep on it,” Riki said.
“Well we don’t have much time. They’re going to tear the trees down, Riki. It won’t be as good of a hideout if it doesn’t have any cover.”
They stepped out of the tower, and its image thinned behind them, collapsing into the thin line, and the distorted roko around the fire pits also snapped back to normal. 
“Well it’s not going to be much of a hideout anymore when the reynar know where—”
Riki was cut off when he ran straight into Xiro.
“Xiro!” Riki said, once the stars faded from his vision, “Xiro where have you been? Everyone’s been worried about you.”
“I came right back as soon as I found it,” Xiro said, speaking quickly, “I knew, I thought if the things I heard were correct, and then I found it, I have to show it to you.”
“Wait, slow down,” Riki held up his hands. “Show me what? Also, how did you know I was in the tower?”
“Deiko told me.”
“Right,” Riki said. Xiro was not carrying a key to the tower, but then again, he did not need a key. Not that the mystics would have taken too kindly to Xiro in their tower; there was more than one reason that Xiro was the only member of the hunters who did not take the Shadow Ward training.
“The thing I found—well you know the history of the spring, right? Sometimes it is empty, sometimes it is full.”
“I . . . I kinda remember something like that,” Riki said. “But there are several springs on the slopes. I didn’t know that was the one we’d taken residence at.”
“It is.” Xiro raised both pointer fingers. “And I thought, if the spring is sometimes empty, the water must go somewhere when it is not there. There is clearly enough water to fill the spring.”
“It would go underground, Xiro,” Riki said, sighing, “That’s where all water goes—”
“Right!” Xiro said, “It goes underground!”
Riki stopped. When Xiro sounded excited about something that Riki thought to be a triviality, Riki knew well enough to sit up and pay attention.
“There’s a system of caves back there, the old soldiers used to talk about it because they used it for supply storage, but they abandoned it because the caves occasionally became spontaneously damp,” Xiro said.
“When did you hear that?” Riki said.
“I was about four,” Xiro said. “It was right before the subjugation.”
“Right,” Riki said. This was normal. “So you thought—”
“I thought maybe they were connected. I mean, if the water runs underground, then it stands to reason that at least some of the caves should take on the water of the springs—and if our springs fills and drains randomly, then perhaps there was a hole in one of the caves. And I found it, Riki! I know it’s the right one!”
“Okay. Can you take me there?”
“Riki,” Aiko prodded him. “I want to come.” He then spontaneously yawned.
“You’re going home, Aiko. Have you even talked to your mother recently? Go curl up with her and get some rest.”
“But Riki!”
“Love, you don’t need to come with me everywhere.” Riki knelt and gave Aiko a tight embrace. Aiko frowned, hugged Riki back, and yawned again.
“Go home,” he said.
“Alright,” Aiko said. “But no leaving me behind next time you do something cool.”
“You just went with me into the mystic tower!”
Aiko dragged himself away. “Yeah, yeah, like that was really special!”

Riki followed Xiro into the mouth of the cave, which was well-hidden among the scrubs and tall boulders of the slopes. They could hear some of the reynar party a thousand paces further up the mountain; the grove and the spring had small dots of light, indicating torches. The cave was far away enough and the entrance small enough that unless a roko looked specifically for it, as Xiro apparently had, it was too easy to miss as the slope seemed sheer.
They made their way in, and Xiro picked up a torch he had somehow acquired. Xiro rarely needed a torch anyhow; among his many talents, he could navigate entirely by sound and smell and did not need his eyes at all, but he was well-prepared enough to anticipate showing Riki his find.
The cave sloped down from the entrance, which was coated with sand and dust, though it ended shortly after and turned to plain rock, which felt dry underfoot. This continued another hundred paces into the cave, when Xiro reached the end, where the wall ended in a lumpy wall and an even deeper pit which had eroded as though water had run over it for a long time. Most of the stone at this end of the cave bore significantly different colors from the rest of the mountain.
Xiro pointed to the crust of white rock that coated the ceiling. Its presence was hardly visible in the dim light, but when the torch passed closer, it gleamed as though wet.
“It’s the mineral that the spring water carries,” Xiro said, “it has the same burst of color.”
“The same—” Riki stated, then realized what Xiro meant. It was difficult for Xiro to be mistaken of his own perceptions, even if Riki didn’t carry the same gift as he did. “The water drops it here?”
“Yes, you can see the crust around the edges of the pool—this is the same thing only more concentrated. That seems to be why the spring sometimes empties and fills again—the minerals sometimes plug this hole, sometimes erode it.”
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s break it open.”
Xiro backed away hurriedly. “I-I’ll leave that to you. I don’t want to mess this up.”
Riki put a hand on his shoulder. Xiro blinked repeatedly, his eyes looking strained.
“Xiro, you did good.”
“I’m . . . It’s not that, chief,” Xiro said. “My hands have been shaking. Sometimes it’s hard to tamp down the thoughts. I don’t know if I could cast the right spell.”
“It’s okay,” Riki said, “I can do this. Go back to my place . . . And spirits of earth, eat something!” he chided, “you just have hunger pains.”
“I did,” Xiro said, “I ate a mushroom.”
Riki stared at him.
“It was edible!”
“Get something substantial, please,” Riki said.
“Y-yeah,” Xiro said. For one who was so adept at observing the world around himself, he seemed less comfortable interpreting his motivations from the inside. He had gone some days without eating anything more substantial than water and had to be reminded often. He seemed, at times, to forget altogether he was a being of flesh and fur.
He turned and left the cave without another word. Riki turned to the crust at the cave ceiling and jammed the torch into a cleft in the rocks. Rubbing his palms together, he shifted his feet into the stance he’d been trained in, closed his eyes, and channeled the powers of the Shadow Ward.
The discipline consisted of several magical maneuvers which he’d memorized; the discipline and motions were there to keep his mind focused in order to recall them to his mind exactly as they had been written. There could be no wavering, no mistakes; it would not work unless he recalled them exactly and fired them off at the precise time he needed, and by now they were second nature. The magic stood ready in waiting in the doors of his mind.
There were several techniques he could call on, though the most useful would be any that could move rock out of the way. A decisive strike, perhaps—though he did not have his poleaxe with him, he could channel the Decisive Strike just as easily through his hands.
The runes came to mind, the proper ones for using his hands instead of a pole weapon. His eyes snapped open, and he jumped onto the outcropping just below the white rock. He flared the runes in his mind just as he threw all of his weight into the palm strike against the ceiling.
The blow shocked the air with a snap. The air distorted outward from the force, and the white rock cracked. Something rumbled in the old stone, and Riki was suddenly doused with torrents of scalding mineral water.

“Well I think it worked,” Riki said as Urai patted his fur down with the balm from her turtle shell container. “There was a lot more water than I thought there’d be.”
“Sorry,” Xiro said, sitting in the corner and fiddling with a woven basket filled with dried fish. He still likely hadn’t eaten anything.
Two of Urai’s younger children had their way of Riki’s place, occasionally glancing in his direction. All of Urai’s children thought of Riki as an older brother, if only because Urai’s oldest was nearly Riki’s age already. The aura of Riki’s hut seemed to instill in them a desire to play hunters, and they stalked each other around the load-bearing poles that held the roof up.
Although Riki had been caught off-guard by the sudden onrush of water, he’d managed to save himself from the most extensive trouble by immediately tapping into his Self-Heal magic. Such magic had very clear limits; within moments, he’d already begun trembling like Xiro had back in the cave.
“You hit your head?” Urai said, checking behind his ears and finding a gash that had healed over.
“I’ll be fine,” Riki said as he chewed on a large fillet of dried fish. “It’s mostly just irritation. I’ll have it healed by dinner.”
“It was still a bit foolish of you,” Urai said, fussing with the balm again. “Should have told us what you were up to.”
“I told Riki,” Xiro said.
“Yes child, and Riki isn’t all of us. You know how headstrong he gets.”
“I am sitting right here,” Riki said.
“And why should I spare your feelings from the truth?” Urai kissed his forehead.
“Ow! That’s still sore,” Riki said.
“And I’m glad you’re safe. Don’t drag yourself back into the village like you did again, you gave everyone a fright!”
“Yeah,” Riki said, “But my flesh was not, as Chike put it, sloughing off my bones like butter on mutton.”
“Forgive us, spirits of heaven, for our hyperbole,” Urai said. She grabbed Riki by his cheek fur again and kissed him.
“Ow,” Riki said, kissing his aunt back. He’d been in this position with her more times than he cared to recall. And though all the hunters were fairly skilled in healing—save for Aiko—Urai always took the lead when it came for the long-term care, as it seemed to be the only thing she ever did from morning to evening.
One of Urai’s children fell over the clay pots, and a lid clattered to the floor.
“Alright, calm yourselves,” Urai told them. They did so for all of three heartbeats before they resumed hiding from one from one another for the next stalking round.
“Did the water pool in the cave?” Xiro asked, almost absently as he messed with the fish in the basket.
“Huh?” Riki said. “Well, there was a pool by the time I climbed out of it, but the torch had  gone out, so I don’t know how much it pooled up in there.”
Xiro grunted and wiped his nose.
“I’m not really concerned about that though,” Riki said, taking another bite of his fish. “I’m concerned what the reynar will do. It just occurred to me, if the water suddenly disappears from the prince’s hot springs, isn’t he going to think we cursed him or something?”
Lare’s head suddenly peeked through the doorway. “Riki?”
“Oh dear,” Riki said, dreading what Lare was about to tell him. “What?”
“The reynar’s entourage is here. They’re not very happy.”
Xiro suddenly grimaced and shrank back into his corner.
Riki sighed. “Spirits, I can’t confront him while covered in burns. He’d think something was up.”
“He already knows something is up,” Lare said, “Chike blurted it out to him.”
“Oh!” Riki said, throwing his arms wide and wincing. “That’s just great! Amazing. Wonderful. We’re going to have the reynar come down on our heads because the kids can’t keep their mouths shut—”
The two of Urai’s kits looked in Riki’s direction when he said that, suddenly appearing very concerned.
“Not you,” Riki said as he stood up. “This is just something we were going to have to deal with eventually.”

Prince Karu examined the dark green patch of grass in the center of the village, between the six central fire pits. He appeared concerned, though his lack of experience betrayed him in that he could not place why the patch of grass was wrong, only that he somehow decided it was out of place in the otherwise dusty landscape of the hill.
His retainer, standing with his weapon straight up, appeared apathetic to the curiosity of either his master or the Raku, who stood beyond the pits. Rumblings passed their lips, rumors of the meaning of reynar interference; hadn’t they done enough? Should they be off with their lives, satisfied with the tribute the raku already pledged them?
“Here I am, princeling,” Riki said as the crowd parted for him. “Haven’t you already seized enough?”
The young prince turned from the patch of grass. “Seized? Oh yes—you were the raku from the spring, which was rightfully mine!” He said, jabbing a finger at Riki so that the sleeve of his cloak billowed, the hem landing at his elbow. “And you would dare deprive the reynar of their property?”
“I swear, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Riki said. It was, in part, the truth, but not specifically about the sabotage—only that he didn’t know what joke or brain disease lead the reynar to assume the hot spring was his to take.
“Don’t be a fool, raku! If you can even open your mouth without your foolish words spilling out! You are covered in burns! Your villagers already told me you dragged yourself back from who knows where, what were you doing? Answer me!”
“I got burned,” Riki shrugged, opening his palms out. “There is more than one hot spring in the valley.”
“Liar!”
“He is telling the truth, prince,” the retainer said.
“Not about that!” The prince screamed at his retainer and jabbing his finger continually in Riki’s direction, “Something he did bewitched the hot spring and he was burned in the process! They are all practicing unlawful magic and I can prove it.”
“Do you have any real proof, or are you just going to lob accusations?” Riki said, “Please, bother your father enough to come down here himself and settle this.”
“I don’t have to!” The prince said, and he pounded his chest. “I can invoke the trial by battle.”
“What?” Riki said.
“What?!” The reynar retainer said.
The raku started mumbling to themselves again in earnest. The trial by battle was only seriously intended for matters of honor, not civil disputes over property. That fact did not seem to sway the young prince, who was ever eager to be made correct one way or another.
“You heard me. I invoke the trial by battle.”
“This really is not—” his retainer started.
“Shut up! I can show they are practicing magic this way, for the only way the raku can save himself against the superior reynar is by witchery. Is it not so?”
The retainer whimpered to himself. The prince had long ago bought into the superiority hook of his people, and his expression indicated he was far from certain as the younger generation.
Riki turned to his side, where all the other hunters had gathered with the other raku; Aiko, Deiko, Lare, Urai and Xiro. They each in turn looked to Riki with an uneasy strain.
Riki turned back. “When?”
“Right now!” The prince declared.
“What weapons?”
“It does not matter. Sixo, what weapon do you prefer again?”
“What?”
“You’re my champion, you idiot! Are you prepared or not!?”
“Erm, by my prince’s words, the raku are inferior to the reynar; surely you can best them.”
“If he’s using witchcraft, I am not taking the fall!” Karu said. “And father will hear about this!”
Sixo sighed and stepped forward into the dusty space between the dark patch of grass and the pit nearest Riki. He motioned to one of the other reynar guards standing nearby, and she tossed down the pile of weapons at the mouth of the pit.
Riki examined them, finding them unblunted, and retrieved his halfmoon axe. Although his skin bothered him, he did not worry about this fight; the retainer looked unprepared for anything, much less a battle with one of the most practiced roko of Bird Hill.
Sixo took up a position twenty paces away from Riki. Riki took position, gripping the metal pole in both hands, axe head low to the ground. The doors of his mind presented themselves to him, the maneuvers readied and waiting.
Sixo unclasped his cloak and tossed it aside, revealing not a tall-but-spindly retainer, but a giant of a fox, with enormous broad shoulders and scars all up and down his muscled chest and arms. He snapped his hand to one side, and in a flash appeared a weapon of his own, a black longspear, which he seized. He twirled it in a blur of motion, before he snapped it into position, spearhead low to the ground and ready.
Riki pointedly swallowed.
“Shall you count down, raku?” the enormous reynar said, “Or will we wait to see who moves first?”
“Have we officially begun?” Riki asked.
“That is up to you. I can wait—”
Riki snapped forward. There was no sense in drawing it out—Riki considered himself no coward. He leaped at the reynar in a flash, burning runes of Fleet Foot in his mind. Drawing his axe back, he’d make the connection quickly, before Sixo had time to—
Sixo blocked Riki’s axe swing simply by planting his black spear in front of his arc. Riki’s arms shook as the metal poles collided. Then Sixo planted his foot in Riki’s chest. Moments later, Riki had smashed into the wood wall of a nearby hut, leaving a splintery dent in the shame of his back. The blade of his pole axe had lodged in it as well.
“Riki, this is a terrible idea,” Deiko said, lifting him up even as other Raku backed away.
“I didn’t see you volunteering,” Riki grunted, getting to his feet. “But I don’t think they’ll allow swapping out at this point.”
“You’re better with technique.”
“I can’t use any of the flashy stuff, they’ll notice.” Riki muttered. That meant no armor—the gleam of the magic on contact would be a giveaway. That also meant no altering space, easily the most useful of his techniques. “And in case you didn’t notice, I’m kinda at my limit for healing.”
“Come on, raku,” Sixo said, not even bothering to move from his spot now fifty paces away. “If you hurry up and surrender we can be back home for supper and your roko can get on with their lives.”
“What’s the penalty again, should I be charged with unlawful magic?” Riki shouted back.
“Execution by beheading,” Sixo said.
“Yeah, that’s not happening.”
Riki charged forward again, his axe down and ready to swing. This time when the reynar moved his pole to block, Riki flashed the runes of Current of Motion. He released on hand from his poleaxe and slipped between the reynar’s legs, spread wide, and Riki would have had a difficult time making such a maneuver had he not just canceled a great deal of the friction involved. Flashing Grounding Point, Riki’s body became much heavier for an instant. He pulled the poleaxe back toward himself, the also-heavy pole colliding with the Reynar’s legs and topping him forward.
Sixo, however, was far more than capable of handling and easy attack such as that, and while Riki had caught him off guard, the next moment the reynar caught himself on the ground and rolled into an upright position again, facing Riki.
“No chance for a time-out?” Riki said, huffing.
“Tired already? After two strikes?”
“Well, it’s nothing I haven’t done before,” Riki said, “But I figured we wouldn’t have to take this so seriously. Maybe we can break for dinner.”
This time, the reynar threw himself at Riki, slicing his spear through the air. Riki blocked it with his own pole, far less impressively than Sixo had done moments before. But Sixo had far more than one attack—Riki stumbled backwards, blocking a series of volleys that came faster than Riki took to recover from the jarring of each successive blow. He had to flash Fleet Foot just to keep up with each of them, and Grounding Point so they didn’t throw him easily to one side or the other.
Suddenly Riki’s foot caught the edge of the fire pit—and while it was empty and without fire, there were still charred remains of the wood and ash that rested on the bottom, which would be unpleasant to fall into.
The spear came again. Riki leaned back to avoid the blow, and his heels came over the lip of the pit. Riki fell backwards, but he had intended to do so; using the side of the pit for leverage, he leaped back with a midair flip and landed, briefly, on the opposite wall of the fire pit. In that moment, he flashed the runes of Body of Leaves and sprang again at the reynar.
The reynar fixed his spear at Riki. But at the same moment Riki made his leap, he also flashed Displaced Image. His own body vanished, and an illusion of his body took its place. The image moved at a different trajectory, enough that Sixo’s spear moved to fixate away from Riki’s real body. The image had no substance, and Sixo’s brow lowered when the edge of his spear clipped nothing but air, instead of Riki’s shoulder.
Sixo likely could have seen what happened, but the crowd could not. Riki released Body of Leaves to gain his momentum back, and slammed his pole axe against the reynar’s head as his real form passed close enough—too close for the blade. It was rather difficult to determine where his real weapon ended when Riki’s body, not to mention a weapon he could not fee, were both invisible. But the metal pole clanged hard, and too fast for anyone a reasonable distance away to see that the illusion Riki’s pole passed through Sixo’s head instead of connecting.
The side of Sixo’s face flashed as his own magic armor caught most of the blow’s force. Sixo staggered, clutching the side of his face. Riki fell to the ground behind him, tucking into a roll and dismissing the illusion at the same time—the illusion’s form similarly rolled back into him, his own body appeared once again, and the illusion vanished. If done correctly, nobody but Sixo should have noticed.
Riki didn’t intend Sixo to live to tell it.
Sixo drew his hand back from his face and inspected his fingers, which lacked blood, but the blow had certainly been hard enough to crack bone had the armor not protected him. Such armor didn’t always negate force—such magic was a great burden to maintain—but spread it out instead, which is why Sixo had lurched at the blow, despite it barely harming him.
Riki shifted his stance again, holding the axe head low to the ground.
Then something changed. Sixo smiled at him.
Was something wrong? Riki’s ears perked at his opponent. He’d wanted Sixo to distrust his own senses, leave just enough doubt that he was better than Riki, without making it too obvious that he’d actually used magic for a battle advantage. But Sixo was a magic-wielder himself, as such things were not forbidden to the reynar. Sixo would not know the kinds of magic that Riki had in his head, as the specific techniques of the Shadow Wards were a secret. But did that matter? Did he recognize the magic for what it was?
Riki chewed on his lip nervously.
“I haven’t had a decent opponent in a while,” Sixo said, “everyone I get to spar with knows the same old moves. Come on, let’s try something new.”
Riki’s eyes went wide. Then, he smiled too, and lifted the axe head up.
The two charged one another, weapons raised. They clashed like two whole batallions, the poles they each carried striking one another more than the head of either weapon had a chance. Riki flashed rune after run to move in the right was, tuck and roll under each high swing, leap after each low swing, increase his gravity to absorb the shock when he could block. Sixo did much the same, though being a full head-and-a-half taller than Riki, he could not duck so easily, instead skipping out of range of any of Riki’s close high swings of either end of his pole. Riki realized this, and moved in close as much as possible, though his weapon of choice was harder to wield in such close quarters.
Riki realized Sixo was serious about treating this like a sparring match. He could absorb a blow easily, but would not let a strike hit him if he could help it—Riki nonetheless got a weak blow to Sixo’s chest with the butt of his axe, and Sixo barely flinched at it. But Sixo nonetheless took the strike as a kind of penalty, and backed off, before charging in for another round.
It was about that time that Riki’s hunger started overtaking him again. He’d not had much time to eat before this ordeal began, and the healing of his burns had taken most of his energy. Spirits, his burns! He’d nearly forgotten about them in the rush of the battle, as he’d grown used to ignoring the pain from his long hours of discipline to memorize the Shadow Ward techniques in the first place. No wonder it took so much more effort to move. If only he’d let them pout a bit longer—
Sixo’s spearhead clipped Riki in the right shoulder. It left an enormous gash. Riki yowled in pain and was tossed with the blow, tumbling end over end across the dusty ground until he landed in the patch of green grass in the middle. The invisible mystic’s door seemed to tug at him, the cool grass felt inviting. Riki struggled to his knees and grabbed his shoulder—Spirits! How deep was that wound? His left hand came back already drenched in blood.
Riki didn’t have a choice. He tried to flash Self-Healing, but he instantly hit the wall as the burning hunger overtook him. It had barely been enough healing to slow the wound, nevermind close it. The gash oozed still.
Sixo should have charged that moment, but he didn’t; he waited for Riki to stand. Not wanting to delay the inevitable any further, Riki stood, blood-drenched hand clutched around his pole axe. He could not use it with one hand. Honorable fight or not, Riki had already lost.
Then Sixo turned to the groud still huddled beyond the fire pits and motioned with his head toward Riki. The reynar guards looked between one another, as though confused.
“Riki!” Deiko shouted. She lifted her obsidian sword out of the pile of weapons. With a great heft, she tossed it into the ring, and it clattered to the ground at Riki’s feet. Riki dropped his axe, and picked up the sword. Most of the obsidian blades lining it had been chipped and needed replacing. But it was nonetheless a one-handed weapon.
Riki raised it at her, fist clenched. All of the hunters raised their fists in turn. Then Riki twirled the blade around in his fingers. The hurt still remained, but he was not down yet.
This time, Sixo charged. And Riki flashed Decisive Strike at once. He was not used to wielding Deiko’s weapon of choice, but he affected the weapon as best he could, and his swing went wide, coming up short as Sixo stopped his charge to avoid the swing. Riki’s right arm flopped uselessly, and Riki grunted. The spearhead came down. Riki flashed Fleet Foot and rolled out of the way, moving much farther and faster than normally possible, and the spearhead shaved off a few hairs of his tail fur. 
Riki did not stop with his roll, instead turning immediately around Sixo. He flashed Body of Leaves and leaped into the air. He flashed Decisive Strike and Grounding Point at the same time, and came down the back of Sixo’s neck.
Hard.
The shockwave cracked the air, distorting the light. Sixo’s armor shattered in flashes of light and dissipated into nothingness. Sixo fell.
Riki landed on both feet, dust flying around him. He did not hesitate however. He tucked and rolled immediately to Sixo’s side, holding the sword’s good edge at Sixo’s throat.
Sixo still breathed. Riki breathed too, their exasparated huffing quite in tune with one another.
Sixo blinked, and looked up to Riki. Riki felt a wash of warmness come over him. The old reynar looked not unlike Lare in that moment, including the warm smile that seemed to embrace inevitability, but also . . . fondness.
“That was well done,” Sixo said between breaths. “Very well done.”
Riki lifted the sword—not to swing, only to pull it away and get a better look at the reynar. His eyes did not bear a mask, and were in many ways unshielded and yielding.
As their breathing slowed together, Riki wiped his own eyes with the wrist of his injured arm, ignoring the pain. He tossed the sword aside, and held the hand of his good arm out to the reynar. Sixo took it in his own, and pulled himself to a sitting position.
Sixo took Riki’s shoulder and inspected it immediately. “Are you alright?” He said, “I was sure you wouldn’t have recovered from that.”
“I’ve had worse,” Riki grunted at the reynar’s prodding. “Did I actually get you?”
“Think I am bruised, and that may be a collar fracture,” Sixo rubbed between his shoulders. “Spirits, that was a well-delivered blow.”
“What do you think you are doing?!” the small voice shouted.
Prince Karu stomped into the ring, his cloak billowing behind him. Sixo stood up and gathered his own cloak off the ground.
At the same time, Urai had also rushed into the center ring. The other hunters followed after, and the villagers as well. Not wanting their prince to be overrun, the reynar guards had broke their formation and move in to attempt to surround the prince before the raku closed the distance.
Urai’s hands were immediately on Riki’s shoulder with a clean cloth. She said something to him about getting a needle and thread, but he could barely hear among the sudden clamor from the crowd. Aiko hugged Riki from behind, and Riki winced. Deiko kissed him. Riki flushed, too exhausted to resist. Deiko also said something about her sword, again which Riki could not hear—he realized his ears were ringing.
Despite that, the reynar prince made his shrill voice be heard over the gathering. “He was using magic! Didn’t you see him? That proves he did something! They’re all using magic!”
Sixo looked to Riki, who tried his best to not look guilty, but failed. Nonetheless, Sixo shrugged with both hands out, then winced and rubbed his shoulder again.
“You can see he has a wound,” Sixo said, “He did not heal it without a charm. If he had unlawful magic, I think he would have needed to heal it, don’t you? And even then, he was at my mercy once, and I at his . . . I think we can call this a draw.”
“He’s clearly holding back!”
“Yes,” Sixo said, “I would agree with that.”
“So!” Karu shouted, “Arrest him!”
“I think that would be unwise at this juncture,” Sixo said, “This raku is his rokos’ champion, and I would not wish to further their ire.”
“Spirits and demons! What good is it to have the raku pay us tribute if we’re just going to let them get away with whatever they like?!”
“I agree, we should not let roko get away with whatever they like.”
“So arrest the guilty one!”
Sixo them seized Karu by his robe and the scruff of his neck, and held him tight under his arm.
“What?! What’s the meaning of this?!” Karu protested, trying to pull himself free from the retainer’s thick grasp.
“I think it’s time we had a discussion with your father,” Sixo said. “Back home.”
“Let me go! You’ll see, they took the hot spring from me! It’s mine—they’re going to fill it again! I’ll be back! I’m not done with you filthy ringtails yet!”
As the princeling continued to rant, Sixo rubbed Riki between his ears with and open palm as he passed by. The entourage of reynar followed behind, taking only Sixo’s spear with them as they strolled the path down from the Hill of Birds.
The other raku were still patting and prodding Riki with their praise an congratulations, that their own chief-to-be was their hero. It made Riki hurt. The prodding on his still-sore burns, yes, but he also did not understand the feeling which had come over him.
When he turned back, he met Lare’s gaze. Lare smiled like he had a dirty secret, which usually meant that he had a dirty secret.
“What?” Riki said, his own voice muffled in his ears. “I thought about what you said. I’m not ready to kill anyone.”
“It’s more than that,” Lare said. “I think you made a friend.”
“What?!” Riki stammered. “Lare, the reynar are still our enemies. I haven’t forgotten that. I just . . . Well, that one reynar seemed honorable. I didn’t want to do him a disservice.”
“You didn’t want to do a disservice . . . To your enemy.”
“It’s not like that, Lare.”
Lare moved in close and talked into Riki’s ear as though he sensed Riki’s hearing had turned poor. “I’m not saying it is. I’m saying, a one-on-one battle is a quite intimate act on its own. Even with magic breaking bonds, there are few things that connect you to a roko more than mutual strife.”
Riki looked at the old roko, mouth hanging open. Had he . . . Had he trustbonded with a reynar?
Riki thought he might be ill at the thought—he hated the reynar. Yet he was speaking warmly to one not moments ago. What did it mean?
Urai eventually pulled him from the crowd back to her own hut, where she kept medical supplies. Riki rubbed and scratched his ears like something bothered them, but it was just the dullness of the too-long ringing. And spirits, was he ever hungry.

Before the moon waxed full, Riki had finally burned through enough energy to heal the last of his wounds, including the gash on his shoulder, returning feeling to it in full. And the hunters had their weapons back, but did not return to their former grove.
They all would have felt disappointed, had Xiro not already set up the cave in which the waters leaked with patches of luminescent moss and crude benches made of wooden planks. The entire end of the cave had flooded, but stopped before the cave fully overflowed, the waters draining back into the earth some depths below. This pool was deeper than the one in the grove, and though the water draining off the spring was initially scalding, the cave absorbed most of the heat.
After a few days, the new hunter getaway was as good as the old, with their stash of supplies tucked into the rocks, the mats covering the floor, the woven hammock hanging between the warm pool and the cave’s windy entrance. By the moss light, it was as inviting to relax in even after nightfall.
One night, as the six hunters laid in a single pile in the hammock, Aiko tucked under Riki’s arm and fast asleep, Riki stared out cave entrance, face lit by the dim and distant stars.
Lare sat up among the close-knit hunters, noticing Riki’s expression.
“Riki,” he whispered.
Riki turned to him.
“What’s bothering you?” Lare asked.
“I keep expecting a reynar to show up at the entrance,” Riki said.
“What . . . To take this away again?”
Riki tapped his teeth. “Not them . . . Just Sixo.”
“Boy,” Lare said, still under his breath to not stirr the soft-breathing sleep of the others, “You can’t let something like that get to you.”
“I had a dream in which he was part of the hunters,” Riki said. “Two nights ago. I keep expecting him to show up because I miss him, for some reason. I don’t understand.”
Lare pulled himself out of the pile by the rope holding the hammock in place. He moved lightly, likely flashing the Body of Leaves to ease his movement, and he landed on his good foot—the peg on his leg laying somewhere else in the cave. He hobbled over to Riki.
“Boy,” he said face-to-face, “Don’t let it get to you. It happens. It’s the nature of things . . . Roko were not meant to be enemies of one another. It is too easy for us to become friends. But don’t let that hold you back, because you’re still feeling the echo of the trustbond—it has more than likely faded to a thin thread, if there is anything left. He will not let it hold him back.”
“But—” Riki started.
Lare held his hand up. “Let me finish. This happens in war too. It is very hard—impossible, I would imagine—to entirely forget the roko at the end of your sword is a roko who is just like you in every way. If someone is a soldier, then they know this already, and they have killed anyway. It doesn’t cause the pain to go away.”
“Then why are there enemies in the first place?” Riki said, his voice taking on a whimper. “Lare, it’s eating me up because I had a dream in which we were friends. I wanted to hold him and kiss him as I do you or Aiko, but I can’t . . . Because of the situation we’re in. I can’t let go of my enmity for the reynar, for all the hell they put us through . . . Why, Lare? Why do we do this to ourselves?”
Lare shrugged. He pulled Riki’s face close, and they kissed. “I don’t know,” he said, finally. “Maybe things will work out one day. Maybe they do in some far away place. Don’t feel ashamed for dreaming, though . . . Spirits know I’ve done more than my fair share. Dream your heart away. Don’t regret giving anyone love, even if they don’t deserve it. You’ll do far more than your share of harm in this world; better to embrace peace where you can. Even if it’s only at night when the spirits are watching.”
They kissed again, a bit longer, before Riki pulled him back into the hammock. Aiko grunted a bit at being woken, but took to the new position quickly and fell asleep again, arms around Riki. Riki held Lare in his arms, and the old raku fell asleep without much further intimacy.
Riki smiled, and nuzzled into Lare’s chest. He relaxed, and his eyelids grew heavy; he had not known for sure what had kept him awake, but he felt free to dream. The world might not have been perfect, but there were times when he could catch perfection in the corners of his eye, or in the scent on the wind.
Maybe some day.