Archive of Our Own

When Sin Yau came to, she found herself staring at the wooden rafters of an unfamiliar building, one that had not been thoroughly cleaned in a very long time. Motes of dust floated in the golden light spilling through the window. A thick layer of dust coated the wooden beams that extended across the roof. Even the air smelled old and musty.

Sin Yau's mouth felt dry and her throat ached, her head throbbing as she tried to sit up. She had little more than a minute to take in her surroundings before the room started to spin around her. She leaned over the makeshift bed on which she was lying and began to retch, but nothing came out.

"Sin Yau." A figure appeared by her side and then Sin Yau was guided back into a sitting position. A soft, cool hand brushed against her cheek. "You're awake?"

"Water," Sin Yau managed to say.

The figure disappeared momentarily and returned with a bowl of water, which was placed against Sin Yau's lips. Sin Yau drank clumsily, spilling water on herself, and when one bowl wasn't enough, a second was provided to her without her asking.

When the room finally stopped spinning, Sin Yau lowered the bowl and blinked slowly, trying to take a look at the stranger in front of her.

No, not a stranger.

Only Wu Ting Fong, that foolish, headstrong girl with her wide eyes and too-soft heart.

It all came back then, how Ting Fong had hesitated when the target reacted to the poison, how Sin Yau had called Ting Fong's name as the poison choked her like a hand slowly squeezing around her throat, how Ting Fong only pulled through at the last minute and fed Sin Yau the antidote before Sin Yau began convulsing in the throes of death.

If Ting Fong hadn't been there, Sin Yau would have died, but then again, if Ting Fong hadn't been there, Sin Yau would never have ended up in this predicament in the first place.

Still, it was difficult to be angry with the pitiful creature. Ting Fong was like a wounded animal Sin Yau had rescued without meaning to, nursed back to health, and now Sin Yau was stuck with her. Given the way Ting Fong still thrashed in her sleep from whatever haunted her at night, Sin Yau was resigned to the fact that Ting Fong was not ready to be released back into the wilderness just yet.

"How long was I out for?" Sin Yau asked. Her head was slightly clearer than before, but she felt sore all over.

"Two days," Ting Fong replied.

It was only then that Sin Yau realised she was wearing nothing except her undergarments. Not since that unfortunate encounter with Hong Siu Lung and that wretched frog had anybody seen Sin Yau disarmed and without her clothes on. If she weren't so worn out from almost dying, she would have been mortified.

"Wu Ting Fong," Sin Yau said, employing the tone she usually reserved for her opponents shortly before they ended up dead, "where are my clothes?"

Unlike Sin Yau's opponents, however, Ting Fong simply stood there and stared at her with those stupid, wounded animal eyes.

"You threw up all over them, and then you ran a high fever. You were burning up and your clothes were soaked with sweat and vomit. I had to take them off and cool you down with a wet cloth. I had a spare set of undergarments, so I —"

Now Sin Yau was truly mortified. Not only was she wearing nothing but undergarments, they were not even her own undergarments. Sin Yau's first instinct was to disappear, but she was fairly certain her legs would not carry her very far, and the last thing she needed was for Wu Ting Fong to save her again.

Ting Fong frowned. "You don't have to be embarrassed. You've seen my body as well. When you saved me from that man with the potions, you took me to the river and you bathed me and dressed me, so in that regard, I'd say we're about even."

"Ting Fong, I know you're trying to help, but it's not particularly working."

Ting Fong's lips quivered as she took a step back from the bed. "I know it's my fault you almost died, and I'm sorry about that. I was only trying to make amends for not being brave enough to kill that man when I could have."

Sin Yau sighed. It did not seem as though her headache would be going away any time soon. "It's not that easy, killing a person."

"You make it look really easy."

Don't be like me, Sin Yau thought of telling her, but seeing Ting Fong's injured expression, she decided not to bother. Wu Ting Fong was never going to be anything like her. She was too soft, too spoiled, too unaccustomed to spilling blood and having her blood spilled.

Now that Sin Yau was no longer dying, she was hungry. "Do you have any food?"

Ting Fong's face lit up. "I can make you some congee!"

"Can you give me back my clothes first?"

"Of course. They're drying outside in the sun. Clothes first, then congee."

Fortunately for Sin Yau, Ting Fong was a much better cook than hired murderer.

These children were monsters, Sin Yau thought as she climbed onto a shelf that was meant to hold baskets of dried fish and pickled vegetables, not the weight of a grown woman. The top shelf should be high enough. Surely, those demonic beasts could not jump that high.

The children often brought home various animals and insects they found in the woods — grasshoppers, cicadas, too many rabbits that ended up as supper, even a snake once — and Sin Yau had no problem with any of them. In hindsight, she should have laid down some ground rules, but it had never occurred to her that any human being in their right mind would bring a basket full of frogs into their own home.

Now those vile creatures were everywhere and Sin Yau was outnumbered. She counted at least one frog on the table, two by the hearth, and too many others on the floor, all of which regarded her with murderous intent.

Sin Yau bemoaned the fact that she only had one dagger with her, wishing fervently that she had let the children keep the snake. Perhaps it could have eaten the frogs.

"Why are you up there with the pickles?"

Ting Fong stood in the doorway, unaffected by the fact that Sin Yau was in mortal danger. She took a step forward and one of the frogs leapt away from her foot.

Sin Yau heard herself scream.

"It's just a frog, Sin Yau."

"It's seven of them!"

"I stand corrected, it's seven frogs." Sin Yau watched in horror as Ting Fong grabbed the one on the table with her bare hand. She cringed, imagining the slimy, bumpy feel of the frog's skin. "My brother and I used to catch these in the creek all the time."

"What kind of heathen upbringing did you have? Shouldn't you have been learning 琴棋書畫? How to sew?"

"That's what my father wanted, but I was too busy playing chuk guk with the boys instead." Ting Fong held the frog up towards Sin Yau. "This one is kind of cute."

"It absolutely is not! Get it out of the house!"

"You know, I can make braised frog legs. It's delicious. My cook used to make that for us when I was small."

"I don't want any of those disgusting things near me, alive or dead, and certainly not in my stomach. I'm not going anywhere until you get rid of all of them."

"Then I hope you like pickles, because you're going to be up there for a long time," Ting Fong said, taking obvious pleasure in Sin Yau's suffering.

"Wu Ting Fong," Sin Yau said in despair, and for the first time since she rescued Ting Fong from the Alchemist's cellar, she heard Ting Fong laugh.

Sin Yau had lost all feeling in her legs from crouching by the time Ting Fong caught all seven frogs, stuffed them back into the wicker basket in which they had arrived, and disposed of them outside.

"Very, very far away from the house," Ting Fong reassured her as she helped Sin Yau back onto the ground. "Now I know what you're afraid of."

"I am not afraid of them," Sin Yau clarified. "I just happen to dislike them immensely."

"All right then, in that case I guess you won't be scared if I tell you that there's one right by your foot."

There was no frog, but at the time Sin Yau didn't realise it, because she had already jumped onto Ting Fong with a loud shriek, sending both of them tumbling onto the floor. Ting Fong's laughter rang out, clear as the mid-morning sky. She sounded so happy for once that Sin Yau could not bring herself to be cross with her.

The following week, the children returned with a wild boar they managed to herd into the garden, where it promptly began to chew on the leaves of the radishes that Ting Fong had lovingly planted a few weeks earlier. Ting Fong was incensed.

This, Sin Yau could handle.

"I hope you know how to cook boar," she said, and went inside to get her bow and arrow.

When she wasn't on a job, Sin Yau made a trip down to the river every week, sometimes with the intention of bringing home fish for dinner, but other times simply be on her own for a bit. She had lived a solitary existence for as long as she could remember and, from time to time, the noisy chaos of the children could be too much.

After breaking up a fight between the two oldest girls over who had to mind the baby, who screamed the whole time, indignant at being forced to sit his own filth, Sin Yau decided that it was time for a trip to the river.

She had barely left the perimeter of the village when she heard someone call out her name and instantly regretted stopping in her tracks to look behind her.

"Are you going fishing again? Can I come with?" Ting Fong's face was pink with excitement as she caught up to Sin Yau.

Sin Yau could have turned Ting Fong away, but even though it had been months since Sin Yau took her in, even though the wounded animal look in Ting Fong's eyes had mostly disappeared, Sin Yau still found it exceedingly difficult to deny her anything.

Sin Yau nodded begrudgingly and they began to walk together in companionable silence, through the meadow with the soft grass and wildflowers that Ting Fong loved, then a little ways into the woods before arriving at the river. The water was calm but deceptively deep, which was why Sin Yau never told the children about the swimming hole a little further south, where Sin Yau occasionally bathed on hot nights when everybody else was asleep.

Sin Yau located the tree under which she had buried a thin willow branch, wrapped in oilcloth to keep the moisture and insects away. Retrieving the branch, she tied a long thread of silk on its end, tested its strength, then fastened onto it a small fishhook made of bone, which she baited with a wriggling earthworm fresh out of the ground.

"Watch out," Sin Yau warned Ting Fong before she cast the rod into the river. The hook hit the surface of the water with a small plink.

"What do we do now?"

"We wait."

For someone who had spent their first few days together unresponsive and unwilling to engage with Sin Yau, Ting Fong was determined to make up for lost time. Barely a quarter-hour had passed before she broke the peaceful silence. "Can we go swimming?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"We'll scare the fish away."

"We won't swim here. We can go to swimming hole after you finish catching the fish."

Sin Yau narrowed her eyes at Ting Fong. "Do you even know how to swim?"

"There are rivers where I come from, you know." Ting Fong rolled her eyes. "Steward To taught me how to swim. He wasn't supposed to, but then again, he did a lot of things he wasn't supposed to. Who taught you how to swim?"

"Nobody," Sin Yau said, because it was the easiest answer.

"You don't know how to swim, do you?"

"Of course I do," Sin Yau snapped. "The sea taught me how to swim."

"The sea?" Ting Fong repeated, eyes round with curiosity. "You're from the coast?"

"Maybe."

"Why do you have to be so mysterious with me?"

"I'm mysterious with everyone."

If anything, Sin Yau was less mysterious with Wu Ting Fong than anybody else in this world. Sharing close quarters with Ting Fong meant Sin Yau had grown used to somebody else encroaching on her personal space. By now she was accustomed to Ting Fong catching glimpses of her while she dressed herself in the morning, and more than once she had caught Ting Fong watching her intently as she bound the thick, heavy band of cloth around her chest before donning her clothes and armour.

Fed up with it one morning, Sin Yau had asked, "What are you looking at?"

Ting Fong's expression had been one of bemusement. "Why do you still pretend to be a man? It's just us here, me and the kids and 啞大叔."

Because we live in a world where men hurt women, Sin Yau had wanted to say. A world where a woman holds less power, commands less respect by nature of her own existence.

Instead she had simply replied, "I'm used to it."

But she started wearing her hair down more often and, if she was feeling generous, she even let Ting Fong put one or two tiny braids in it.

"Sin Yau?"

"What?" Sin Yau glanced over at Ting Fong, who was now lying down and studying the clouds.

"What's the sea like?"

Sin Yau paused, trying to come up with a way to explain the blue of the ocean, the way its vastness stretched beyond the horizon, the way the waves glittered under the sun. Her own memories of the sea were hazy at best and she tried not to recall them too often for fear that they might wear out and slip away from her.

"You’re surrounded by water, and it goes on forever. Nobody knows where it ends. Nobody has ever gone all the way to the other side and returned to tell about it."

Ting Fong considered this. "That sounds like the grassland, only with water."

"I suppose you could put it that way."

"I would like to visit the sea someday." Ting Fong let out a soft sigh. "Hong Dai Gor told me about the sea before. He said there are people on the other side of it, and they have pale skin and blue eyes and hair the colour of gold."

Sin Yau was surprised by the mention of Hong Siu Lung.

"Are you missing your Hong Dai Gor?" she asked, mostly teasing, then felt a pang of guilt when Ting Fong's face darkened.

Sin Yau did not know what happened to Ting Fong, nor did she believe Ting Fong would ever be willing to let anyone find out. All she did know was that, on some fundamental level, Ting Fong was still infatuated with Hong Siu Lung.

Hong Siu Lung had that effect on people, or on women at least. They were attracted not only to his good looks, but also his worldliness, his strange type of chivalry, his quick wit. In the deepest recesses of Sin Yau's mind, she allowed herself to admit that she was also fascinated by Hong Siu Lung: his cleverness, his ability to capture rainbows, and most importantly, the way he did respected her not any less after discovering that she was a woman. Hong Siu Lung was the only man in Sin Yau's life who, knowing who she really was, still saw her as an equal.

They stayed in uncomfortable silence until Sin Yau decided to give up on fishing. The fish, likely irritated with her for her comment to Ting Fong, were refusing to bite.

"Fine, let's go swimming," Sin Yau said, which seemed to do the trick. Ting Fong's expression brightened as she climbed onto her feet and headed towards the swimming hole.

Abandoning the fishing rod, Sin Yau followed her through a thicket of trees until they were standing at the edge of the pool of clear, green-blue water. Ting Fong stripped down to her undergarments, and as much as Sin Yau hated to be exposed in broad daylight, she decided at this moment that the risk of her drowning under the weight of her clothing was higher than being ambushed by the significant number of people who wanted her dead.

"There better not be frogs," Sin Yau grumbled as she lowered her body into the water, and was met with a splash of water in her face.

"I'll protect you if there are any," Ting Fong said, swimming ahead.

Sin Yau closed her eyes and began to swim. The water was crisp and cool and perfectly still, nothing like the sea she remembered. As she dived deeper towards the bottom, she tried to recall what it was like when she was a child, before the Organisation, before Master, before she became Sin Yau.

The other children under Master's tutelage — all boys — had been named after desired abilities: Sin Kung (善攻), attack; Sin Chat (善察), watchfulness; Sin Chi (善智), wisdom; Sin Yung (善勇), courage, whereas Sin Yau was named after her gentleness. Master considered it not an asset, but rather something that she would have to work twice as hard to rid herself of.

Sin Yau remembered drowning once: the blind panic as the waves dragged her under, the salty burn of the water as it filled her mouth and nostrils, the sturdy, sun-worn pair of hands that pulled her out of the sea, a deep, kind voice telling her that she was going to be all right.

Deep in concentration as she tried to recall the man to whom the voice belonged (her father, she thought, because the voice was certainly not Master's), Sin Yau met resistance when she attempted to swim towards the surface for air. She pushed harder, attempting to move her body upwards, but the leg of her undergarments was caught on something and no matter how hard she kicked at the water and pulled at the cotton trousers, it would not budge.

Sin Yau could not hold her breath for much longer. Blind panic set in again, but this time, her father would not be there to rescue her. She flailed her arms as the pressure in her lungs rose, the lump in her throat growing harder and harder to swallow, her heart swelled and threatened to burst out of her chest and then —

There was a hand around her calf, holding her still. A moment later, she could feel her leg being freed from her trousers and then at last, she was able to propel herself up towards the light at the surface.

Sin Yau had never been happier to be greeted by the sky when she thrust her head out of the water. She was still gasping for air when Ting Fong surfaced a moment later, and half-holding, half-dragging each other, they made their way back onto the ledge.

"What was it?" Sin Yau asked when she could catch her breath again.

Ting Fong was still panting, chest heaving with each intake of breath. "Fallen tree. Your trousers were caught on one of the branches, all I had to do was rip the cloth away."

They stayed next to each other like this for a long time, neither of them speaking, hands clutched around the rough edges of rock until the sky began to change colours, blue bleeding away into pink and orange.

It was dark by the time they hauled themselves out of the swimming hole and made their way home.

They stopped by the farm before they left for 齊國. The children were fast asleep, so they could not say goodbye, which was probably for the better. Sin Yau left 啞大叔 with enough coins to last him and the children for another year, by which time she and Ting Fong would be back, she promised.

啞大叔 made a sorrowful sound and pressed a bundle of cloth into Sin Yau's hands. Later, she would discover that it contained half a dozen sweet potatoes, enough to carry them over for a few days, and some dried fruit to sweeten the bitterness of their journey.

On the road, they were husband and wife. Sin Yau and Ting Fong had practiced their story so many times that they were nearly convinced of it themselves: they had come from 齊國 to work as labourers, leaving behind their young son, who had recently fallen ill. They were now desperate to return to their home state to see him.

It was too dangerous to travel only by night, so they took the most roundabout way they could, foregoing busy trade routes for lesser travelled paths. At first one of them kept watch while the other slept for two or three hours at a time, but this arrangement left both of them too exhausted to walk very far during the day. Now they went to sleep at the same time, often in the same bed. Sin Yau always made sure that Ting Fong slept on the inside, near the wall, so that if somebody attacked, they would have to take out Sin Yau first.

Ting Fong slept fitfully, even after all this time. Sin Yau could not let her attract unwanted attention when the nightmares came for her, so whenever Ting Fong began to toss and turn, crying softly in her sleep, Sin Yau wrapped her arms around Ting Fong and held her until she quieted down.

It was pure dumb luck that they managed to lie their way onto Sister Phoenix's ship, which would take them to 齊國 in half the time it would've taken them to travel on foot. Never mind that they would have to cook and clean for the entire crew and its passengers. It was free room and passage and, with Sister Phoenix's dance troupe as a cover, they had better chances of remaining unnoticed by the Organisation.

"How old is your son?" Steward Ma asked when he showed them the small room where they would be allowed to stay.

"Five," Ting Fong replied without hesitation. "He was only two years old when we left him. He must not remember us anymore."

"He will warm back up to you in no time," said the portly old man with reassurance. "Although mine never did. I was gone for too long. You shouldn't make the same mistake."

At supper time, Sin Yau accidentally spilled soup on one of the oarsmen and noticed his calloused hand. She decided not to tell Ting Fong what she had discovered; it would hardly make a difference anyway. Sin Yau could easily take care of him on her own.

They lay on separate cotton pallets this time, Ting Fong's still next to the wall. Sin Yau closed her eyes and listened to the slow, steady sound of Ting Fong's breathing, waiting for the ambush.

When the oarsman arrived, Sin Yau was ready for him. Although she was the better swordsman, he had the advantage of additional height and strength, and the ensuing clang of metal against metal woke Ting Fong. Before Sin Yau could tell her to stay out of it, Ting Fong was raising her sword and joining in the fight.

They chased the oarsman into the next room, and for a brief moment the two of them had the upper hand, meeting each of the oarsman's strikes with their own, swords glinting in the watery light of the moon.

The oarsman suddenly leapt into the air, spun around, and struck Ting Fong with his foot, sending her tumbling onto the ground. Distracted as she turned to look at Ting Fong, Sin Yau received a sharp kick to the chest, enough to knock her breath out. Before she could register what was happening, she was falling, crashing against something, then she was on her back and staring up at the oarsman's blade as it made its way downward.

In the split second before Sin Yau's life ended, all she could think about was whether Ting Fong had enough time to escape.

The blade never completed its downward trajectory.

Sin Yau heard the oarsman's last gasp as Ting Fong's sword pierced through his body.

He did not die right away. Sin Yau watched as he choked on his own blood, emitting a final, gurgling noise from his throat before his eyes glazed over. She glanced at Ting Fong, who stared at the dead man with eerie calmness, hand still wrapped around the grip of her sword.

"Ting Fong." Sin Yau took her by the arm and attempted to remove the sword from her. "Ting Fong, it's all right. You're all right. Like I told you, it's not easy to kill someone, especially the first time."

Ting Fong turned her gaze away from the man she had just murdered. When their eyes met, Sin Yau did not see fear, or shock, or shame, only relief. "You're wrong, Sin Yau. It was hardly difficult at all. He was going to kill you and I could not let that happen."

Sin Yau was not at all sorry to watch the body of the oarsmen sink into the dark, unforgiving waters. She could not remember the last time she was sorry for causing the death of another person, and this one was particularly deserving of his own death. She was only sorry that his blood had ruined Ting Fong's dress, the blue one with dark red trimming that Ting Fong looked so pretty wearing.

It was almost two years before they returned to 秦國 for Ting Fong to see her father, and more than that since Wu Ying Yuen had last set eyes on his youngest child. Sin Yau observed the tearful reunion between father and daughter, all the while ignoring the pit in her stomach as she wrestled with the notion that it was time for her to let go; the wounded animal was fully healed.

Wu Ying Yuen held a feast to celebrate his prodigal daughter's return. "I can never thank you enough for looking after my daughter," he said to Sin Yau when he found her in the atrium near the servants' quarters, where she sought respite from the noise and laughter reverberating through the grand hall.

"It was not easy," Sin Yau said and he laughed.

"Nothing about Ting Fong is easy," he said.

Sin Yau gave him a tight-lipped smile, feeling inexplicably bereft.

The next day, when the celebrations were over, Wu Ying Yuen broke the news of Hong Siu Lung's death. Sin Yau had heard the rumour many months ago but chose to spare Ting Fong from it until it could be verified as the truth.

The truth was that Hong Siu Lung had drowned in 魏國 while trying to flee Duke Shun Ling’s men. In the end, the muddy waters of the Yellow River had claimed his life, an ordinary death for an extraordinary man.

Ting Fong was inconsolable for days, sobbing into Sin Yau's lap as Sin Yau gently stroked her hair, wallowing in grief for the man she'd loved — whom they had both loved, although if what Sin Yau had felt for Hong Siu Lung was love, then she had no words to describe the affection she had come to feel towards Ting Fong, the fierce desire to protect Ting Fong from suffering, to see that she was happy and safe.

Sin Yau remained at the Wu family manor for another month, feeling strange and out of place, until she could withstand the feeling no longer and decided it was time to move on. Not wanting any fanfare, she informed Ting Fong's father of her departure the night before she was set to leave and asked him not to inform Ting Fong, as she would do it herself.

In the morning, when Sin Yau went to Ting Fong's bedchamber to say goodbye, she was surprised to find Ting Fong already dressed, not in the fine silk blouses and skirts that her father had prepared for her but in plain hemp garments, the ones she wore at home with Sin Yau.

"You're late," Ting Fong said, annoyed. "We should have left shortly after sunrise. The sun is already overhead."

"We?” Sin Yau shook her head. "Ting Fong, you cannot go. You've only just come home."

"I don't belong here." Ting Fong gestured to the room around her, the manor, the grand State of Qin itself. "I've never lived here before and I don't care to start. Come on, Sin Yau, let's go. Daylight is wasting."

Nothing about Wu Ting Fong was easy.

"Do you even know where we're going?" Sin Yau asked.

Ting Fong sighed as if Sin Yau was the most obtuse person in the world. "Usually I just follow you, so I sure hope you know where we're going," she replied, impatient. "Come on, now."

They stopped briefly at the farm, where 啞大叔 greeted them with a sound that resembled joy. Only he remained; the children were long gone, the younger ones having been adopted, the two older girls working as servants for the wealthy, the eldest boys conscripted into the army. The garden was overgrown with weeds. The fields lay empty. The house, once full of bodies and noise, stood large and silent.

In the kitchen, Ting Fong pointed to the empty top shelf. "Remember when I saved you from those frogs?"

"I thought we agreed never to speak of it again," Sin Yau said, but even then, she was smiling.

They didn't belong here either.

So they continued their way, heading east at first and then, later, south into 楚 territory. Ting Fong did not like the sea. She found it too cold, a damp, bone-chilling cold that a girl from the grassland was not used to. On the other hand, Sin Yau did not like the grassland, where there was little tree cover and the freezing winters caused her old injuries and healed fractures to ache.

Like everything else that was good in her life, Sin Yau stumbled upon their home by chance. A modest dwelling in a small clearing in the woods, where the trees provided plenty of cover and firewood for their hearth. A nearby stream offered fresh water and fish in the spring. There was plenty of game that put Sin Yau's hunting skills to use and a still-fertile field for Ting Fong to tend to her vegetables.

Half a day's walk could take them to the nearest town, where Sin Yau went to trade when she caught more game than she and Ting Fong needed, or if warm weather brought about an abundance of wild fruit. Within weeks of arriving, Sin Yau learned that the blacksmith preferred pheasant over wild boar, the merchant's wife had a weakness for persimmons, and the apothecary was more than willing to give her a sack of rice in exchange for freshly picked medicinal herbs.

If the townspeople were ever curious about the two women who lived together in the woods and kept to themselves, they never let on, and they never asked Sin Yau more than what she was prepared to divulge.

Enough time had passed that Sin Yau and Ting Fong stopped pretending to be husband and wife. While Sin Yau still found male clothing to be more comfortable and convenient, she had long given up on binding her chest in the morning. She no longer tied her hair back in the male fashion, allowing it to flow loosely down her back instead.

Ting Fong's nightmares rarely visited her anymore, but out of habit she and Sin Yau still shared the same bed. On a few occasions when Sin Yau retreated into her own bed, she woke in the middle of the night to Ting Fong crawling in beside her, pressing her body against Sin Yau's.

Sin Yau never slept better than when she had the warm weight of Ting Fong in her arms. It took years for her to unlearn the habit of always being on the alert, always hovering on this side of consciousness, but eventually, she learned to sleep deeply, soundly, and if she startled awake from the dream where she was alone in the rough seas, Sin Yau only had to cast her eyes on Ting Fong's sleeping body next to her and she would know with certainty that she could swim to shore.

More often than before, Sin Yau found herself recalling memories of her past life by the sea: warm waves lapping at her toes as the tide came in, her father mending fishing nets while she watched, him pointing at a rainbow in the sky after a thunderstorm and telling her that it was a sign that the worst was over.

Sin Yau shared these memories with Ting Fong as together they planted rows of seeds in the garden, hauled their dirty clothing down to the stream to wash, removed the husks from the chestnuts that Sin Yau gathered deep in the woods. Ting Fong always listened with rapt attention and then told stories of her own childhood, which usually involved her trying to bully Steward To into letting her do something forbidden by her father and then throwing a fit when he refused.

"Imagine if you'd known me then," Ting Fong said. "You might not have liked me at all."

Sin Yau snorted as she pried a chestnut out of its spiky shell. "Who says I like you now?"

Ting Fong half-heartedly threw a chestnut at Sin Yau, who grinned and wondered about the person Ting Fong used to be, before whatever tragedy that happened to her had inadvertently brought her into Sin Yau's life. Perhaps Ting Fong would tell her one day. When the time was right. When enough time had passed that whatever it was would seem to have happened to somebody else entirely.

Ting Fong liked to lie outside on clear nights to gaze at the stars because it reminded her of being a little girl growing up on the plains. Sin Yau always lay by her side and listened to her explain the constellations, even though she could never quite see the stars being anything beyond stars.

On the night of Mid-Autumn, with Ting Fong by her side, murmuring a story about a vermilion dragon rising in the east, Sin Yau finally remembered. She turned to Ting Fong and said, half-dazed at the memory, "Ming Yuet."

Ting Fong stopped and looked at her quizzically.

Sin Yau pointed at the pale moon above them, round and luminescent as a pearl. "明月. That was my name. My mother," she swallowed as she heard her mother's voice in her head, the first time in too many years, "she told me I was born under the full moon."

Ting Fong studied her for a long moment. "Do you want me to call you that from now on?"

"No," Sin Yau said resolutely. Ming Yuet died with her parents when she was seven years old. "I just wanted you to know."

Ting Fong did not say anything. She simply took Sin Yau's hand and held it to her heart, and it was enough. Beneath Sin Yau's palm, Ting Fong’s heart beat, strong and steady, and at once it was all Sin Yau needed, everything she could ever ask for.