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After her line about not following strange men, it was rather anticlimactic when Kino pulled up to the inn that night and saw Shizu's buggy parked off to the side. Hermes hmphed. "How did they get here so fast?"
"Well," Kino said, dismounting. "We did stop for lunch. And who knows? Maybe they knew a shortcut." She patted Hermes and walked inside, the little bell over the door tinkling cheerfully. The innkeep was friendly and gave Kino a good rate for the night, though she balked at the idea of a motorrad in the room. "That's all right," Kino said. "Is there somewhere in back that I can keep him?"
"Um...there's a lean-to by the garden that would probably have room?"
"Ah. Thank you!"
Hermes sighed resignedly when she told him. "Another night out in the wind. All wet with dew in the morning...."
Kino chuckled as she hauled a few heavy iron rakes out of the way to clear more space. "Now, now, I keep offering to put a cover over you--"
"But then I can't see!"
"--and you complain about THAT as well." She wheeled Hermes inside and made sure he wasn't in danger of being scratched or of something falling on him in the night. She waggled a finger at him as she unstrapped her pack. "I've come to the conclusion that you are just grumpy."
"I am not!"
"Are too. A grumpy motorrad. The world's grumpiest!"
"Kiiiino!"
Kino laughed and patted him affectionately as she headed inside, the dust from her passing swirling in the long afternoon sunlight.
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She took dinner in her room, for no definable reason, her guns disassembling and reassembling themselves as she ate. She could have stayed in her room all that night, but Kino had the suspicion that that would have been too childish, even for a reason that she was carefully not thinking about. She walked outside after dinner, as the sun was starting to go down. The breeze was warm, and she found a nice flat wall bounding the field next to the inn. She hopped up on top of it, admiring the way the light slid from yellow to orange, giving the trees along the road a false autumn. It really was a very pretty country.
When the bottom of the sun was just touching the horizon, he sat down next to her, his sweater sleeves pushed up to his elbows. There was a scar, light and neat, along the edge of his forearm, golden as the sunset fell on it.
"Tell me something?" he asked.
"Hmm?"
"How was your murder better than my revenge?" It was just the right tone: curious without being accusatory.
"Mm...." Kino was silent for a long moment. Not because she didn't know how to answer, but merely so she could find the right words. There were a lot to choose from. 'Because it saved you from having to look at yourself in the mirror and see the man who killed your father' was on the tip of her tongue, but it wasn't the truth. Not the whole truth, really. "It wasn't," she finally said.
The wiind ruffled through their hair. Shizu just looked at her for a long moment. "Then why did you do it?"
Kino tilted her head, eyes following the dance of two butterflies over the field. "I was selfish. I once met a couple, you see, who was heading to this country. They'd heard that it was a beautiful place that welcomed travellers. A few months later I met the wife again, heading back. Her husband was not with her, and her eyes were empty. I asked if she'd visited the country that she'd mentioned before. She said that she had and that it was a beautiful country that I should visit." Kino stretched her legs out in front of her, then let them drop, her heels drumming softly against the stone of the wall. "I learned what happened the other day. They were forced into the tournament, and the wife surrendered to her husband and was allowed to leave. Her husband was killed in the next round."
Shizu watched her some more. His eyes may have widened just a touch. "And so...killing the King...and the law you made...."
Kino smiled slightly, drawing up one knee and clasping her hands around it. "Oh, that was my revenge. I'm sorry that I stole yours. You did have an older and closer claim, after all. But...really, I was selfish. I wanted it for myself." She looked up, her voice earnest. "I hope that you can forgive me. Though I can understand if you can't."
Shizu stared at her, his expression unreadable, and Kino had to wonder what he saw.
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In the last bit of twilight, she looked slightly earnest, polite, peaceful and placid as the deepest lake.
He couldn't see past her surface. Couldn't decide whether she was the most fascinating person he'd ever met or the most frightening. Or perhaps both at once.
Kino turned to look at him. "Well?"
Shizu started, thoughts in disarray. "Uh..hmm?"
"Do you think that you can forgive me?" Her eyes were serious, almost black in the semi-dark.
How had he mistaken her for a boy?
"I think so," he said slowly. "I was angry at first, but.... It is like a boil lanced inside me. That he is dead is...good enough. Anything else would just be...selfish. I cannot begrudge you for it. I...would have done the same thing."
"Ah. Good. I am glad." She smiled at him in the dark, hopping off the wall, and Shizu had to wonder what would have happened if he'd said no. The thought was...a bit chilling. But Kino was talking again, her hands resting on the sunwarmed stone next to him. "I probably won't see you in the morning. Hermes and I leave early."
"I see." He tended to leave early as well, but he had a feeling that it would not be early enough. A need struck him, to ask again if she would accompany him. He bit back on it. It would be, he suspected, like trying to capture water in his hands. "Perhaps we shall meet again."
"Perhaps. Safe travels, Shizu." Her smile was bright, and he was a bit shamed when he realized that she had probably known what he was thinking and was grateful that he had not pressed.
"Safe travels, Kino." He watched her walk away, watched the inn door open in a slash of warm light and swallow her.
Yes. Like water through his hands.
Though he did catch himself thinking that one might be better served trying to collect water rather than capturing it. A bowl of earth, perhaps, smooth and wide and large enough to hold an entire deep, still lake....
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Hermes sounded suspicious. "...what are you doing here?"
Risu laid down beside him with a grumble. "...no dogs allowed in the inn."
"Hah!"
"Hmph."
Silence, for a long moment. "Are they done talking?" Hermes asked.
"Yes."
"Are they...."
"No."
"Ah."
Riku shifted his paws, laying his head down on top of them. "...you were afraid that they would?"
"Well...they are human, after all."
"Indeed. Not THAT kind of human, though."
"Well, yes, of course."
"We're much more discerning than that."
"Much more."
"Hmph."
Out in the garden, the crickets began to sing.
~End