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\f0\i\b\fs24 \cf0 One More Try\
\
\f1\i0\b0 With the closing of those crimson eyes, there was nothing left to answer. Kihara's corpse grew heavier atop Jeuni's body as his grip on the dagger hilt relaxed. Slowly, his hand made its way to his side and came to rest on the dirt floor next to the cot. Unable to do anything, the juggler slipped into a state of uneasy sleep.\
\
---\
\
"Master Huros, wake up," spoke a gentle voice, a gentle prod accompanying it. It was the sweetest of voices, observed the juggler as he turned over, keeping his eyes shut. It was a voice that he could grow accustomed to. Jeuni laughed a bitter laugh as he turned over again, Kihara's death playing over in his mind, reminding him of the fact that that gentle voice would sing no longer. The juggler considered the wake-up call an illusion until a second prod forced him to open his eyes. "Ahh, finally awake."\
\
There she was, kneeling over his cot, her right hand in her lap and her left index finger hovering next to Jeuni's cheek.\
\
"Was it all a dream?" he asked cautiously, his first words upon seeing the girl. There was no other explanation. The events in the Golden Swan, the tavern, and his shack must have all been illusions caused by his fever. Her name probably wasn't Kihara, he reasoned. After all, she looked very much alive.\
\
"Would it be easier for you if it were?" the girl asked, sitting back and folding both hands in her lap. She wasn't clad in the white coat Jeuni recalled her wearing on the day of their meeting, but rather in a light blue dress in the Western style, sleeveless and with a skirt reaching to just above her knees. Her sleek hair was done up in a ponytail and a telltale drop of water on her cheek spoke of recent bathing.\
\
"Would what be easier?" asked Jeuni as he levered himself up into a sitting position. A light headache told him that he had had something to drink not too long ago. He could see daylight through through the cracks in his shack's poorly constructed walls. \
\
"Nothing, nothing," smiled the girl, closing her eyes and tilting her head slightly to the side. "Let's say you've been asleep since you fainted in the woods, shall we?"\
\
Jeuni looked around, blinking slowly, and noticed that lying on the floor next to the beast-man's plate mail was a bloody dagger. Continuing his investigation, he discovered that drops of blood dotted his straw cot and that his black cloak shimmered in places, wet.\
\
"You tried to wash my cloak without waking me?" Jeuni asked with a half-smile.\
\
"Yeah," admitted the girl with a slight shrug.\
\
"I killed you." The juggler looked straight into the girl's face. She had opened her eyes, but they were no longer frightening. Jeuni could still see things he didn't want to see in them, but no longer was he afraid to accept what they held. He had accepted it already, and in so doing attempted suicide.\
\
"Yeah." She wasn't smiling anymore.\
\
"How are you alive, Kihara?"\
\
"That's the first time you've addressed me by my name, Master Huros," said the girl softly, turning from the cot and standing. She paused, then, just as Jeuni was about to ask his question again, she continued. "This may take some explaining, but let's start with the short version\'d1wounds like the one you gave me won't kill me."\
\
"But I felt\'d1" Jeuni shivered as he recalled the sensation of her body twitching against his as she died.\
\
"Perhaps it would be more fitting to say that death doesn't kill me, then. It's certainly true that my body can be destroyed, but unless certain measures are taken I can regenerate it. Look." Still facing the door, her back turned to the juggler, she began undoing the buttons of her top. Slowly she let it fall from her shoulders and upper back, revealing the skin that should have been pierced by Jeuni's dagger. There wasn't even a scar in the smooth white surface of Kihara's back. \
\
"I... see." These were the only words that came to Jeuni as his eyes wandered back and forth between her shoulder blades. He was, of course, still severely puzzled. Shrugging back into her top and buttoning it up, Kihara turned back to face Jeuni. \
\
"It hurt a lot, I guess," she sighed, "and I ruined my favorite coat, but we're both alive. See, Master Huros, I am one of those who have sworn allegiance to the god. I am one of the Holders of the Covenant." \
\
Jeuni sat paralyzed atop his cot, his back to the wall, gaping. The Holders of the Covenant were people who had taken a vow to support a dark deity, gaining in return immortality and powers beyond any magic ordinary men could hope to use. It was said that the founders of Byhr were Holders, and so Jeuni had always imagined them to be graying men. He had never imagined that such a child could be one, nor that he would ever meet one face to face. Much less that he would have his life saved\'d1from himself\'d1by a Holder. It was all too much to process, and his head hurt like he'd been hit with a ton of bricks, so he looked at Kihara dumbly and asked,\
\
"Come again?"\
\
"I'm a Holder of the Covenant. I\'d5m not allowed to tell you about what it means\'d1I don't understand most of it myself\'d1but I won\'d5t die so easily. That answers your question, right?"\
\
"You saved my life."\
\
"A life is not something to be thrown away," Kihara replied, kneeling again. "I won't explain anything further." She didn't need to. Jeuni understood that he had been unstable when he had readied his knife and that it was likely apparent to the girl he'd been yelling at. He didn't want to be dead, he realized after thinking about it. Though he wouldn't mind a few glasses of Western gin.\
\
"So... what do you want from me?" the juggler asked tentatively, shifting his weight and preparing to stand.\
\
"You have it all wrong, Master Huros. You're the one who sought
\f2\i me
\f1\i0 out," answered Kihara. She remained kneeling by Jeuni's cot, essentially keeping him from standing. "I've been waiting for you to calm down enough to ask you some questions myself."\
\
Jeuni opened his mouth to object but then closed it before he could utter a thing. He nodded and then leaned his head back against the wooden wall behind his cot.\
\
"First, how long have you been a wizard?"\
\
"I'm not a wizard," was Jeuni's automatic reply. Kihara giggled.\
\
"Then, what would you call yourself?"\
\
"A drunk. A juggler. Those two, and only those two." Jeuni's voice held a forcefulness he himself was surprised at as he heard his own words. "I'm just a juggler," he mumbled, more to himself than anyone.\
\
"Jugglers sure are amazing these days," smiled Kihara, "to be able to kill the king." So saying, she dragged her arm heavily through the air and extended her index finger, pointing directly at the pile of armor in the corner. Her gaze\'d1and smile\'d1remained fixed on the juggler.\
\
"The 'king?'" Jeuni asked, dumbfounded.\
\
"A big man," Kihara replied. "Come on, Master Huros, don't play dumb, Master Huros. You\'d5ve only killed two people this week, and I'm one of them. So you know who I'm referring to. A real big man, Master Huros. Lots of shaggy black hair. Sharp golden eyes. You know who I'm talking about, right?" When Jeuni did not reply, Kihara continued. "Or is that why you collapsed when you saw me? Was killing him what shook your mind to the point of not eating or sleeping? That's silly, Master Huros. He doesn't hate you or anything, knowing full well that he provoked you\'d1"\
\
"How do you know all this?" Jeuni asked, a hint of fear-induced anger in his voice.\
\
"I'm a Holder," she smiled, her voice almost singing. "I'm special."\
\
"Then do you know the meaning of my dreams?" the juggler asked, caution replacing fear.\
\
"Which ones?"\
\
"H-his blood." Jeuni gulped as he recalled the nightmares. "Forming words."\
\
"He can show you the South," shrugged Kihara. "Isn't that what it means? Why not accept the words at face value?" The juggler was, of course, far more awed by the fact that Kihara was actually familiar with his dreams than by her interpretation of them. "Though, Master Huros\'d1that wasn't a dream."\
\
Jeuni thought to himself,
\f2\i yeah, you're right, aren't you
\f1\i0 as he realized that seeing the scene so many times in his nightmares had eclipsed the actual event. He remembered that he had actually seen, while awake, the streets turn red with the beast-man's blood, and then that blood become words.\
\
"Alright, alright. You're just a juggler, Master Huros," Kihara said upon noticing Jeuni's distress. "Now, what does a juggler do this time of day?"\
\
"I normally go to the tavern for my pre-performance drinking rounds."\
\
"You're so funny, Master Huros," chuckled the girl. \
\
"Yeah? I'm funny, and I'm starving as hell, too," grumbled the juggler. "I think I'll head over there already, eat, drink, the works. You're welcome to come watch if you'd like." From his position on the cot, Jeuni flashed the smile displayed on so many posters around the city.\
\
"Juggling... doesn't interest me." With this, she stood and made herself small in the far corner of the room, giving Jeuni space to stand. He got up, stretched, and made for the door. As he passed Kihara, she wrinkled her nose. "You're going like that?"\
\
"Like what?" he asked innocently.\
\
"You haven't bathed in at least three days," replied the red-eyed girl.\
\
"Does it look like I have a bathtub?"\
\
"There's a river just outside town, silly, only a few meters away," said Kihara, rummaging behind her and producing a towel. "You only had one towel, and I already used it... but it's mostly dry by now, and bathing would be a good idea."\
\
"... thanks," said the juggler, eyeing the girl suspiciously as he took the towel from her. Sweet girl, but a total liar, he noted. The towel was not just damp, it was soaked through. He accepted it anyway, and without a word, nodding slightly as he ducked outside.\
\
"What about a change of clothes?" she called after him.\
\
"These are the only clothes I have," Jeuni replied without looking back. And it was true\'d1he lived in a shack he had constructed himself of junked lumber, on a cot he had assembled himself from straw he'd pilfered from a stable, in the only clothes he'd taken with him in leaving his parents' home. All of what he earned from juggling went to food and drink. That aside he had no expenses, and no luxuries.\
\
Jeuni hung his clothes up to air out on a dead tree next to Kihara's coat and bathed himself in the ice-cold water of the river. He examined his shoulders as he did so; the wounds he'd received in juggling four days before were gone. The bartender was not a good enough cleric to completely fix wounds, Jeuni knew, and the fact that he was perfectly healed served to reinforce the passage of time. He had really spent three days doing nothing but being scared. He didn't have time for that, he realized. Kihara, whoever she was, would have to explain her business to him eventually. Until then, he would carry on as he had before meeting the beast-man, the one whom the girl called the king, and do what he did best: drink, juggle, and drink more.\
\
Drying himself off as best he could with the wet towel, Jeuni dressed in a hurry and headed over to his tavern, the Dancing Cup. There, he learned that, thanks to his absence, collapse, hotel bill, and excessive drinking, he was finally out of the red. He had absolutely nothing now. The juggler was penniless. Unable to stay the onset of melancholy with drink, he lay down on the floor behind the stage curtain and waited as calmly as he could for the time of his performance, occasionally letting a "damn manager" escape his lips and all the while running his thumb along the hilt of one of his daggers.\
\
When the curtain rose and Jeuni strode into view, the crowd was clearly displeased. Seeing his audience so visibly disappointed, the juggler realized that he had let his fans down. He had only thought of himself and his problems for three whole days while hiding from his memory of killing the beast-man and trying to get away from Kihara, and that was unforgivable as a performer.\
\
Jeuni stashed away the three daggers he held and bowed once.\
\
"I'm quitting," he announced, matter-of-factly, still facing the squeaky boards on which he stood. Then, in a tidal storm of boos, he straightened his back and walked off stage, his head still inclined and his eyes still downcast. He reappeared by the bar, nimbly ducked under a chucked tankard of beer, grabbed his cloak off a barstool, and slipped out of the tavern, a glass shattering against the door as it closed behind him.\
\
It was dark out and the cool night air combined with a strong breeze invigorated Jeuni. He had failed, but he had failed before. And, as Kihara had told him the night before, he had the chance to try again. He would be a fool to pass it up. Breathing in the wind, he ran home to the shack at the edge of town. Opening his door, he found Kihara sleeping, curled up in a ball on the floor. Her ponytail was undone and her loose blue hair covered her neck and shoulders.\
\
"Kihara," said the juggler gently as he knelt down and shook her shoulder, fingertips surprised at how sleek the girl's hair was. "Wake up."\
\
She opened her eyes groggily, blinked twice, and then sprung up into a sitting position, wide-awake. Moonlight coming in through cracks in the walls fell on the girl's face. Her eyebrows showed confusion.\
\
"What's the matter, Master Huros?"\
\
"I'm going," was the juggler's immediate response.\
\
"Where to?" she asked dubiously.\
\
"The South."\
\
"Good luck," she sighed, lying back down again.\
\
"You're going back to sleep?!" Jeuni cried, flabbergasted.\
\
"Ah, it was a joke," murmured the blue-haired girl as she got up a second time and stood. She brushed dust from her legs, skirt, and side, stretched, and smiled. "Then, shall we go?"\
\
"First," said Jeuni, pausing in the doorway, "I have a request."\
\
"And what might that be, Master Huros?"\
\
"Sing again," he asked softly, and, without a second thought, she obliged him.\
\
\pard\pardeftab709\ql\qnatural
\f2\i \cf0
\f3\i0\fs20 \'d2
\f4\i A southern wind came to me
\f3\i0 \
\pard\pardeftab709\ri-1179\ql\qnatural
\f4\i \cf0 And it breathed upon me\
It chilled me and I loved it for that.
\f3\i0 \
\f4\i Blowing back my hair, caressing me,\uc0\u8232 It froze me and I loved it for that.\u8232 Telling me its tales, its sad history\'c9\
A southern wind came to me\
And it could speak, and it did\
And its words were fresh snow.\
It saddened me and I loved it for that.\
The wind was a chronicler and I its book\
It came to me, recording in my memory\uc0\u8232 The legend of the frozen south.\'d3
\f2\fs24 \
\
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\f1\i0 \cf0 "Such a beautiful song," he muttered, the romantic in him stirring once more with those sad lyrics. "Who taught it to you?"\
\
"The tune existed in my heart, and the words in the truth," Kihara replied promptly, her smile returning after having abandoned her while she was singing. "It's said that those who know the truth in this world are the most dangerous, but I don't understand things like that."\
\
"Heh. I guess when it comes down to it, you're still just a kid," joked Jeuni, though he had misgivings regarding the way in which she spoke. Her words, and the ways in which she said them, were not those of a child. He decided on the spot that she was just wise beyond her years. "Well, shall we be off?"\
\
Kihara nodded, a strand of hair shifting ever so slightly away from her shoulder and dangling in front of her face. Jeuni stepped outside, waited for Kihara to follow, and then delivered one powerful kick to the door frame. The poorly-constructed shack collapsed with a series of crashing noise and the juggler set off walking south. All he was leaving behind in the town of his birth were a family he hadn't seen in eight years, a single friend, and a suit of blue plate mail. Jeuni Huros left town with the clothes on his back and a set of daggers, heading straight for the forests south of Byhr.\
\
Kihara snatched her coat from where it hung by the riverside, donned it, and followed in silence.}