Yes, it's late.  I'm sorry.

Next chapter is the last chapter.

Please enjoy!

Raye

---------------------------------
Starlit Reflections: Dark Quarter 

by Raye Johnsen
raye_j@yahoo.com

*****
	Fushigi Yuugi is copyright Watase Yuu, Flower Comics,
Studio Perriot, Pioneer Entertainment, Viz
Communications and other interested parties.  The
characters and situation are used without permission
for personal entertainment only, and no copyright
infringements are intended.  No profit is being made
from this fic; if there was, Tasuki and Tamahome would
lighten me of it, as soon as they could.
*****

Chapter Seven: Reflections - Urumiya


	Urumiya was always singing - he hummed in his sleep,
he sang while he played, and he played his harp as he
rode.

	"Why do you *always* make music, Urumiya?" I demanded
one day.

	He chuckled, and replied, "Because music makes people
smile, and I love doing that."

	He rode off before I could ask him what he meant.

*****

	I did not recognise any of the districts Iname
carried me through.  That was not the thing which
worried me.  What disturbed me was the fact that what
signs I could read were of taverns, the streets were
unswept and the people I could see around us were
unkempt.  We rode past several street corners, with a
young woman no older than I standing on each, wearing
rags artfully torn to suggest more than they showed. 
I saw them smiling up at other, unaccompanied, men. 
Their expressions did not reach their eyes.

	When Iname and I rode past, they did not look up at
him with the feigned sympathy and alluring promise
they showed to other men who walked in company, the
sidelong glances that said, clearer than words, 'You
poor dear!  Were you alone, I would be happy to walk
with you instead....'  As, indeed, they would be happy
to now, for a few coins.

	Instead, from Iname they hid their eyes, but stared
at me - and in their gazes I read unfeigned sympathy. 
As if, however wretched whoring themselves was, I was
in a far worse position than they.

	As we rode deeper into the underbelly of Tolan, the
fear awoke within me that they had the right of it.

	We eventually came to a halt outside a tavern.  I
could hear the sound of drunken carousing within,
despite the fact that it was only midafternoon.

	"I'm not going in there," I announced flatly.

	Iname lifted one sculptured brow at me.  "Oh?"  His
tone was light, as if I defied him uselessly.

	"No," I said decidedly.  "You can go in and conduct
your business.  I'll stay here and make sure nobody
steals the horse."

	He blinked.  "Nobody," he replied, "would *dream* of
stealing *my* horse."

	"So I'll be perfectly safe here, waiting for you," I
replied cheerfully.

	"You don't have anything to worry about inside," he
tried coaxing me.

	It didn't work.  "I don't mind waiting out here," I
told him.

	"I won't let anyone interfere with you," he tried
again.

	"In an area like this," I replied, "it is better that
you should look after yourself.  I'll be safe out
here, so you won't have to worry about me, and be free
to guard yourself."

	He chuckled.  "You *really* don't want to go in, do
you?"

	"Not on your life," I replied.  "Iname, please.  Go
easy on yourself.  Just say I won the argument and go
in?  It'll be terrible for your reputation if you're
seen having to physically drag a girl somewhere."

	"But this is where the boss is," he muttered in an
agonized tone.  "He's going to want to see you...."

	It all came together then, in a picture that was
shocking in its simplicity.  Iname was involved in
crime!  And whichever criminal he was involved with
was inside the tavern.

	I drew in a deep breath.  "Maybe so, but I don't want
to go in there," I reiterated.  "I *won't* go in
there.  If your employer wants to meet me, he can come
out."

	Iname gave me a sidelong look.  "All right," he
conceded.  Slipping off the horse and handing up the
reins to me, he fixed me with a stern glare.  "You
won't go anywhere," he ordered.

	"I wouldn't dream of it," I replied sweetly, crossing
my fingers.

	As soon as he had disappeared into the shadow of the
door of the tavern, I gently pulled the horse back
into the shade and cloaked both of us in shadow.

	If I could remember to do this when I really needed
to, and not when I was not actually in immediate
danger, then my life would have been a lot less
exciting.  I smiled to myself.  After all, hadn't the
doctor himself said that I would make the times
interesting?

	It's always disappointing when people live down to
your expectations, and this time was no exception.  A
slender man, who looked to be in his early thirties by
his face, and in his eighties by the cynicism and
bitterness in his eyes, stalked out the door and
stopped dead just over the lintel.  The stream of
profanity he spat was most unimaginative.

	He gestured abruptly and two men came out, dragging a
third - Iname - between them.  The first man hit him,
hard, across the face.

	"Where the hell is she?"

	Iname coughed.  "I don't know, I swear!  I left her
here - she said she'd stay-"

	He was cut off by a vicious short punch to his solar
plexus.  His eyes bulged and he began gasping for
breath.  The older man began stalking back and forth
before him.

	"Do you know... boy, do you have any idea how much
the flower of Tolan is *worth*?  No, of course you
wouldn't, someone as brainless as you.  She'd fetch a
pretty penny from the Emperor of Koutou, after we'd
finished with her."  His ugly laugh was echoed by the
thugs holding Iname up.

	That got a reaction from Iname.  "But you said -"

	His master backhanded him so hard the two specimens
of street trash couldn't keep a grip on him, and he
flew backwards, hitting the wall.  Fortunately, the
sound was only a low-impact (thump) and nothing more
sickening.

	"You're a little idiot, Genbu Shichiseishi," he
hissed, kicking Iname's ribs for emphasis.  "You seem
to think that I'm a 'nice' person.  Allow me to
educate you, once and for all.  Do you think my stable
of whores serve because they *want* to?"  He kicked
Iname again.  "Do you think the owners of my pretty
jewels *give* them to me?"  Another kick.  "Do you
honestly think people give way to me because they
recognise my superior worth?"  He squatted over
Iname's body, picking him up by the collar and pulling
his face up so close that flecks of spittle flew from
his lips to land on Iname's face.  "I am a pimp and a
thief.  I am an extortionist, a rapist and a murderer.
 I commit grievious bodily harm for fun and profit.  I
took you in off the street because it struck me as a
good idea at the time.  You are nothing to me, little
boy.  And now you've failed me."  He stood up, letting
go of Iname's shirt and snapping his hands, as if to
flick the dirt of Iname's person off them.  

	He glanced at the two thugs standing silently,
watching the entire scene.  "He's yours.  He's
outlived his usefulness."  

	The two exchanged glee-filled glances, but did not
move until their master had fastidiously stepped over
Iname's prone form, passing back into the murky depths
of the tavern.  Then they both moved ponderously
toward his body.

	As they passed me, I slipped from the horse's saddle,
walked up behind them as silently as I could, fisted
my hands together, and brought them down as hard as I
could on the back of the closest one's head.

	He went down like a crashing wave, falling first to
his knees and then onto his face, spreading out all
over the street.  The second thug tripped over his
arm, hitting the cobbles hard and obligingly knocking
himself out.

	I daintily led the horse over to where Iname lay on
the street.  For a slender man, he was *very* heavy! 
But after a few minutes of heaving and pushing, I
managed to get him slung over the horse's back.  With
several backward glances in case another lackey-thug
came out of the tavern - because, while they couldn't
see into my shadow-cloak, they might very well see a
patch of shadow moving about, and that could be just
as damning - I began to pick my way down the street,
leading the horse away.

	While I did what I should've done in the first place,
and found my way to a crowded street, listened to the
people around me, and began to follow them to the
cattle-merchant's quarter, where I had left the
others.  Hopefully Hatsui would have bespoken us rooms
in the inn where he had settled to spend his
afternoon.

	As I glided along in the shadow of the prosperous
sheep merchant who was returning to his hostelry after
a profitable afternoon at the market (all of which I
gleaned from his boasting to the young lady, probably
one of his wives, who rode beside him), I thought
about what had happened this afternoon.

	Iname *had* brought me to a criminal - but that
criminal had clearly been important to him, and it was
obvious that he had believed that no real harm would
come to me there.  And now, it seemed, I was no longer
the only Shichiseishi who could never go home.

	Even beaten and unconscious, he was attractive.  I
fell back a little, so I was no longer at the horse's
head, but at his shoulder.  The gelding tossed his
head, but was otherwise content to follow the other
horses.  I reached out, and gently touched Iname's
cheek.  He twitched, and opened bruised-looking eyes. 
"Huh? Where-"

	"Ssshh," I whispered.  "It's all right.  I'm here,
you're going to be all right."

	"Uruki?" he questioned.  "Uruki, I'm sorry, I-"

	"Ssshh, it's all right, I understand," I soothed. 
"Don't talk, I'm taking you somewhere safe."

	"He wanted-"

	"I know very well what he wanted," I replied, a sharp
note in my voice.  "I *was* there."

	"You were...?"

	"I *did* say I'd stay, didn't I?  Now shush."

	Iname subsided, but I didn't lift my hand from his
face.  Touching him was soothing to the feelings
rolling through me, somehow.

*****

	I followed the merchant all the way back to the main
street of the cattle district, where I saw a
dreamy-eyed Namame leading an equally dreamy-eyed
Takiko through the crowd.  I shed the shadow-cloak
when I saw them, cutting across the path of I don't
know how many other people to come up to them.

	Despite the chaos that I left churning behind me,
they still didn't notice me as I dragged Iname and his
horse up to meet them.  "Hello!"  I said brightly, and
watched them both jump.

	"U-Uruki!" Namame stuttered.  "What - what a
surprise!"

	Takiko blushed as she said, "Namame and I went for a
walk."

	I eyed the circlet of wild daisies that rested on top
of her glossy black hair and replied, with the
straightest face I could, "I hope you had a nice
time."

	"We did," Namame answered dreamily.  "There's the
nicest little grove -"

	"Who's *that*?" Takiko interrupted him, pointing at
Iname.

	"This is Iname," I said.  "Do you know where the
others are?  It's important."

	"Um - I think they're at the Golden Lion Inn," Namame
said, "where we left them this morning."

	"Then let's go," I said, swinging round and stopping
to stare.

	The street behind me was absolute chaos.  No less
than three carts had crashed into each other,
spreading out over the street.  Two others had
attempted to avoid the crash and had crashed
themselves, into buildings at the side of the road. 
People had climbed out of the wreckage and were
screaming at each other.  Others were sneakily picking
up packages off the road and leaving quietly.

	"What happened?" I demanded.

	Iname began to snicker.

*****

	"OW!" Iname yelled, some time later.

	"Don't be a baby," Hikitsu told him briskly, pulling
the bandage tight.  "Your wounds aren't that bad.  The
worst you have are some bruised ribs."

	"It still *hurts*," he complained.

	"How did you get so beaten up, anyway?" Hatsui
demanded, from where he was leaning against the wall
of the room he'd bespoken.

	"He stood between some street thugs and me," I said
quickly.

	He looked at me, at Iname, and then back at me.  "I
told you not to go," he said flatly.  He clearly had
heard the truth I was not saying.

	"And *I* told *you* that I would go," I hissed back.

	"You don't know anything about Tolan," he said
angrily.

	"Did I ever say I did?" I replied, my voice
venomously soft.  "If you were so concerned for me,
you *could* have come with me."

	Tomite stalked between us.  "That's enough," he said
harshly.  "If you can't be civil, you can leave the
room."

	"Fine," Hatsui snapped, and stalked out, slamming the
door behind him.

	"What's *his* problem?" I asked the air.  

	Hikitsu, Tomite, Namame and Takiko all looked at each
other.

	"That's fine, *don't* tell me," I complained.  "I
only seem to set him off every time I turn around, why
*should* you tell me!"

	Takiko sighed.  "I'll tell you later," she promised.

	Iname stretched.  I determinedly did not look at the
play of his muscles under the skin of his bare chest. 
"I'm sorry,"  he said apologetically.

	"Don't apologise," Hikitsu told him.  "We're your
star-brothers and star-sisters.  This is what we do."

	Iname winced.  "Yes, but... but what I did is going
to hurt all of you.  I - I *used* to be a criminal."

	"*Used* to be?" Takiko asked in a sinking voice.

	"I, um, quit.  About half an hour ago.  Well, not
really 'quit'.  More 'got kicked out with prejudice'."

	"And your ex-associates are probably going to be
showing up to inform you of their opinions," Tomite
finished dryly.

	Iname shrugged and winced at the motion.  "More or
less, yes."

	I couldn't stand it anymore.  Standing up, I filled a
cup with iced tea.  "Don't do that," I ordered,
walking over and sitting down on the bed beside him. 
"Now sit still and drink this."

	"Yes, Mama," he replied, taking the cup.  "What is
this, lizard's brains and toadskin?"

	"No, it's tea," I said seriously.

	"For such a funny girl, you have *no* sense of
humour," he said tiredly.

	"Funny?  *I'm* not funny," I said blankly.

	"All right," he said agreeably, and drank.

	Everybody else found something to look at for the
next few minutes.  I sighed and eventually gave up. 
"I'm going to bed," I announced, and did.  Takiko
followed me a few minutes later.

*****

	Iname had warned us about his previous associates. 
As it turned out, the Koutou assassins got to us - or
rather, the inn - much faster.

	It was my fault, of course.  When I had uncloaked in
the street and greeted Namame and Takiko, we had all
of us used our Shichiseishi names.  Ears had listened,
and rumour spread.

*****

	"Wake up, Uruki! Wake UP!"  Takiko was yelling. 
Takiko *never* yelled.

	"Huh? Wha'?" I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

	"The inn's on fire!"

	I lurched out of bed and sniffed.  Smoke, thick and
heavy with food scraps, the tang of alcohol and the
stiff resin of the pine wood that made up most of the
furniture in Tolan.  I said a word that I'd learnt
from Long that princesses weren't supposed to know.

	"Come ON, Uruki! We've got to get out!"

	Takiko was practically dragging me out the door, but
I was by no means reluctant to leave.  Burning in my
bed was *not* how I intended to end my days.  We ran
down the main stairwell, colliding with Hatsui and
Namame at the bottom.

	"Tomite and Hikitsu already have the horses - we have
to leave!" Namame yelled over the panicked crowd.

	"Where's Iname?!" I demanded.

	"With them! Come on!"

	They didn't need to tell me twice.  I ran out into
the street, into chaos.  People were everywhere. 
Horses were screaming and people were yelling as they
tried to pile all their worldly goods into carts and
wagons.  I looked around wildly, searching for three
faces.

	"We're over here!"

	I looked up to see Iname on his gelding, leading
Mei-Mei.  I ran over to them, and hoisted myself into
Mei-Mei's saddle.

	"What are you doing riding?" I demanded.

	"I'm glad to see you're safe, too," he grinned, and
kissed me.

	I'd never been kissed before.  Before that moment,
I'd always believed kisses were light things, touches
of light affection between a husband and wife.  I'd
never known they were lightning along the nerves,
tsunamis of shocking pleasure that hit faster and
harder than any wave... and over far, far too soon.

	I stared after him in shock, hand touching my lips in
amazement.  He'd... I'd...

	I gave up thinking as a bad idea and rode after him.

*****

	We eventually made camp about five miles outside of
Tolan, having ridden the horses hard for about an
hour.

	"There were too many people in the street for it to
be only our inn that caught fire," I said, as we all
sat in a circle around the small campfire we'd built. 
It sat in the centre of a ring of dirt, the blocks of
sod that had lain around it carefully cut away and
stacked behind us.  Tomite was determined not to be
caught in another fire, and I was in full agreement
with him.  I rubbed at the dirt on my hands, and tried
to chip it out from under my long fingernails, without
much success.

	"It wasn't," Hatsui said, taking a break from glaring
at Iname.

	"It wasn't my fault," Iname said defensively. 
"Whoever it was torched every inn in the district!  If
they'd been sent by - my old boss - after me, they
would've just hit *our* inn.  It's bad for business to
get rid of *every* establishment."

	"So much for anonymity," Hikitsu said, smiling.

	"I'm not going back," Takiko said firmly.  "Do I have
to do the ceremony there?"

	"I don't think so," I replied.  "It's just that the
main temple is where the holy scroll that contains the
instructions to summon Genbu is kept.  I wouldn't
think that you *have* to be on hallowed ground."

	"So we need that scroll," Hatsui said, too calmly.

	"We'll think about it in the morning," Namame
declared.  "I, for one, am too tired to think clearly,
and this needs planning."

	Tomite and Iname glanced at each other, while we all
curled up in travelling blankets and cloaks.

	The next morning, when we awoke, the pair of them
were nowhere to be found.

*****

	Hikitsu was not worried.

	I wish I could say the same of myself.

	Iname had been viciously beaten less than a day
before.  Why he wasn't a bloody pulp I had no idea -
much less riding and running and doing Genbu-knew
*what* else... he needed to sit still.  He needed to
rest.

	He needed to tell me why he'd kissed me!

	I was not prepared to sit still and watch Hatsui,
Namame and Takiko discuss plans to get the scroll.  I
had to get up and do something.

	Hikitsu was busy decocting.  When I asked, he told me
all about a small flower that could be turned into a
tincture for bruises and an ointment for sprains - the
one that he'd been painting *my* bruises with all
week.  Apparently we were camped right next to about
three bushes of them.  Hikitsu believed in grasping
opportunity by the throat, and this was no exception.

	The process stank to high heaven.  So I gave myself
the task of finding firewood for his decocting-fire. 

	It isn't exciting, but that's what we did all morning
- Namame, Hatsui and Takiko sat around our fire,
trying to think of a way to get into and out of Tolan
without our hidden enemy spotting us, while Hikitsu
shredded innocent flowers, boiling them over a small
fire (set downwind from everybody else by mutual
agreement) and I hunted for and gathered up firewood. 
All the while we waited for Tomite and Iname to show
up and tell us what on earth they'd been doing all
morning.

	Then they rode into camp with the holy scroll.

	Takiko was absolutely stunned when she was suddenly
presented with the rolled-up scroll of black paper. 
"Here you are!" Iname said as he presented it,
grinning like a schoolboy.

	"YOU!" I shouted, from all of two metres away. 
"Where have you BEEN?!  Don't you know people have
been WORRIED about you!  BOTH of you!"  I added
belatedly, turning to Tomite.

	Iname grinned.  "I-"

	"You SHOULD have been resting!"  And then I turned to
Tomite.  "And what were YOU thinking, taking him off
like that?!"

	Tomite blinked.  "Me? I-"

	"You're living with a healer, you should know better!
 And you never told anyone where you were going!"

	"I told Hikitsu!" Tomite replied defensively.

	"Hikitsu...." I said, turning towards him.

	"You need to calm down, Uruki," he said, without
looking up.  "Tomite wouldn't let Iname break his
neck.  Would you?"

	I didn't wait for the idiots to answer.  "You're ALL
idiots!" I informed them (just in case they didn't
already know) and stalked off.  Calm down?  As if I
were overreacting!

	I sat down beneath a tree and hugged my knees to my
chest.  I stayed like that for a few minutes.

	"I'm sorry," Iname said, behind me. 

	I didn't answer.

	"I'm - not used to girls worrying about me."

	"Get used to it."  I said flatly.

	"You're not going to give me anything, are you?"

	"Oh, let's see.  You took me to a nest of thieves who
planned to rape and then sell me.  Then, when I
actually bothered to try to help you, you called me
'funny'.  *Then* you-" I paused, and quickly
continued, "-you vanished without any warning and now
you show up and expect me to be - I don't know! I
just-"  And I hid my face in my knees.

	He sat down beside me.  "This is about me kissing you
last night, isn't it?"

	"Yes.  No.  I don't know!  You make me so - so
*crazy*!  And I-"

	He kissed me again.

	There really should be words for this in the language
- how differently a boy can kiss you, how one kiss can
scorch you while another is slow, rising, irresistable
heat....

	He stopped, and I realized that there's one thing all
kisses have in common - they're all far too short.

	"I'm sorry," he whispered.

	"Why?" I asked, dazed.

	"In that case, no, I'm not!"  And he kissed me again,
sweet and hot.

	This time we were interrupted by Hatsui clearing his
throat behind us.  He was staring at Iname, but his
words were directed at both of us.  "You'd better
come," he said shortly.  "Takiko wants you back at the
camp."

	I sighed.  "All right," I conceded, standing up and
brushing at my overtunic.  Hatsui stood to one side to
let me pass.

	His eyes on me were bright and - pained?  I blinked. 
"Are you all right, Hatsui?" I asked him, concerned.

	"I will be," he replied quietly.

	I couldn't help but worry about it, all the way back
to camp.

*****

	On reflection, if all the Shichiseishi had followed
Urumiya's lead, life would have been *so* much easier,
not to mention less exciting, for Takiko.

	He'd tracked us down and ridden into our campsite
while Iname and I were exploring our differences.

	On the other hand, any way of finding a Shichiseishi
where I didn't have to get hit on the head or
terrified into doing something blatantly stupid was
definitely a good thing.  In my opinion, anyway.

	"You were not easy to find," the young man sitting
beside the campfire was saying as we walked up.  "That
isn't a bad thing, though, what with all the Koutou
spies around, trying to track you down and kill you."

	"Koutou spies?" Takiko asked, horror in her voice.

	"Why, yes," Urumiya replied.  "It was a Koutou spy
who torched all the inns in the quarter where you were
staying last light.  Didn't you know?"

*****

Author's Notes:

	1. I admit it - I have no idea what the Chinese or
Mongolian gesture is that negates the spoken word. 
Crossing fingers is very much a Western gesture.

	2. In the real world, I'm placing Tolan in the
southeastern corner of Mongolia.  The main vegetation
in that area is pine- and fir-tree forest.  Most of
the wooden goods made in that area are made of pine or
fir - and that includes their furniture.

	3. Long fingernails were a sign of beauty in Ancient
China.  Both men and women would grow their nails as
long as they could, and fingernail protectors were a
fashionable necessity.

	4. Arnica does grow in tundra.  And, yes, making
arnica tincture and ointment the old-fashioned way
*does* smell awful.  The finished product doesn't
smell that nice either.  It is, however, the best
bruise ointment in the world.

	5. I've been saying this all along, but I just want
to clarify this for everyone: black, not green, is the
colour of Genbu.  The anime does portray His
attributes and His power as a green aura, but that is
not accurate, and probably due to the fact that it's
*hard* to draw a black glow as opposed to a green one.
	This is why Uruki describes all the Genbu
Shichiseishi's symbols as 'black' or 'black fire' or
'glowing blackly'.  They *are* black.

=====
raye_j@yahoo.com
http://www.thejohnsens.com/index.html

"In the end, you're always by yourself.  You're all you've
got.  That's the point."
   - Whistler, 'Buffy, The Vampire Slayer'

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