Winter in Venice is much colder than winter in the Fujian province of China - while most people acclimatize quickly enough, the bitter chill of February chases some people up and down the twisting streets, into whatever shelter they find most pleasing.
In one case, it's whichever shelter seems nearest to hand.
A small oriental woman, still evidently in the first bloom of her youth, slips into the minimal protection of the front stoop, pulling open the door and using it as a shield against the nippingly frosty wind that's pursuing her.
What is she? Well... Shabby, baggy jeans are paired with a Spice Girls t-shirt and an oversized denim jacket that must have been made for someone well over six feet, while sneakers whose stitchings have partially burst are on her feet. A New York Yankees baseball cap has a black ponytail pulled through the back of it, and she looks thoroughly uncomfortable with her own garb, plucking at it a bit now that she's gotten out of the cold to some small degree.
It's the water that does it, seeping chill into the bones much as it works its way between stones. Water is everywhere in Venice. From above, how beautiful the city must look -- dark rivulets and labyrinthine waters snaking through white of frost. Not unusual to see snow in February...
This time of year, the courtyard of Ca'Tre Sorelle is empty. None of the crowds that fill it in the spring, summer and even the fall linger now. Sure, they sipped coffee, the residents of the two buildings that share this courtyard, but when snow fell, even the most stubborn of them relented for the indoors. There are hanging lights, lanterns that glow red and gold and blue. The gold hovering above the wooden door you just opened, and now you stand in the old palazzo -- now an apartment building.
There's no concierge or anything so formal. Folks trust here, you found the door open. And it's warm. Past the entry hall ahead, there is warmth and voices. The formal gathering room of the old palazzo is now a communal gathering place for all the tenants. A stone hearth is there. There is still the smell of left-over dinner. Something of laughter.
There is a stairwell just before one would reach that main area, that leads upward to the next three storeys of Ca'Tre Sorelle, the House of the Three Sisters. From that direction, you might note the presence of music.
Music... Perhaps, if she weren't so cold, she'd resist its call. But put music together with warmth, and the smell of leftovers, and you have a nigh-compelling combination. If you were to add in tea, now, she'd be helpless, and drawn in like a puppet - but as it is, it's not needed.
Creeping in with a cautious, wary glance around, her footfalls are almost soundless - indeed, they would be soundless, except that the sneakers fit her as poorly as the rest of her ensemble, and the heels slip off, then back on, with a faint popping sound, shhhing against wherever they touch.
Upwards she creeps, light on her feet, something in her jeans bouncing about and making her pause to yank the waistband up. And once upstairs, she pauses, sniffing the air experimentally, before peering round the lintel shyly.
The music can be heard clearly, because the blue door at the end of the hall is cracked open. Not open wide, thrown about, but at least half-ajar. The music is guitar, light, quick, Italianate, and from the door there is both the glow of warmth, the promise of fire, and a scent trail of baked bread. The neighbors don't mind the music -- in fact, there are other doors likewise ajar here and there down the second floor hallway. Maybe you can hear people washing dishes. Pieces of conversations. Even someone singing the words to the song she knows...
The blue door stands at the end of the hall, leading to a corner apartment, one of the few that is both upstairs and downstairs. It isn't a large apartment, but it is one of the most prized of Ca'Tre Sorelle. Not that you would know that, of course...
It's sufficient bait to lure the girl into the apartment, by degrees - first her head, with a long pause before committing her shoulders, and so on, until she's finally irrevocably inside. She looks to the left, then to the right, following food-scent and warmth and listening for notes as if they were water, that they might form droplets to fall, liquid and solid, onto her ears.
That blue door, thus, though...
There's something there, it follows her and she it like sun chasing shadows. With a decisive little wriggle, she slips inside, coming to a stand-still, head canted as she tries to figure out what it is she's smelling, what she's hearing, and what she's feeling, folding her tiny hands in front of her, against her belly. Cautiously, she speaks.
"Herro?"
She blushes, then, at the unintentional slip, and tries again. "Hello?" A soft, polite voice, the sort of voice which would never dream of being raised too loudly, in anger or in haste.
The song halts with a plucking note, held and then when fingers move off of the frets, and likewise the guitar off of his lap, it stops altogether. Kit leans against the small sofa befitting the small living room/kitchen and, grinning, calls out, "Hello?" Barefeet -- yes, even in this weather, he has nothing on his feet, pad quietly as he moves from sofa beside tiny fireplace across rugs -- the nicest thing in the whole place -- where steps then go quiet and he peers around.
You are met with a wild-curled, not-unattractive Venetian, somewhere around 5'9-ish, his skin perpetually light brown. His eyes foggy grey and his face open of expression, warm, instantly accommodating. He is not dressed for winter, in linens and a t-shirt, but there is thermal under it all, and he is wearing a blanket like a robe at the moment, looking oddly Roman. "Hello," he says, "... may I help you? Are you looking for someone?" He knows you do not live here, because everyone who lives here knows everyone else.
It gets a duck of her head, and for a moment, you might think she's about to turn and flee - a hint of wildness to her eyes, her skin the pale that is attributed traditionally to those of the 'higher' classes of China, eyes wide and shiny black. Her hair is just as glossy, pulled back through the opening of the cap in impromptu ponytail, and while she is shabbily dressed, her fingernails are long and immaculate.
"I smelled your music," she explains in a hushed voice, with a little shake of her head. There's ... something animal to her, but the tension is overlaid and underlaid both with calm, sandwiched like liquor between sheets of glass, sluicing through and away. "And I needed to stop anyway. Are you a god?"
She asks it in a tone of hopefulness, her forearms folded against each other, hands holding close to the joints of the opposite arms. "Or perhaps a monk, or a hero?" Such odd questions, flavoured with a hint of desperation. "If you are one of those, then it is you I am looking for. Otherwise..."
Monk. Hero. God. He puts his hand to his mouth, a full, Italianate mouth. "Why don't we start with some bread or... do you drink? I have a little spiced wine. If you have been out in the weather..." You may need it. Kit steps back, opening the door widely, and eyes crinkle in curiosity, eyebrows shooting up. "I'm not a god," he speaks the truth in that. "And I'm definitely not a monk," a chuckle, and then he covers his mouth with a hand again. "And, even though I may be too cryptic to be a hero -- not nearly forthright enough -- who knows. Are you here to test me?" He sounds hopeful.
Finally! Something to do!
"Christopher," he offers finally. "I usually go by Kit. Not a very heroic name. A better thief's name, but..." a sigh, a smile, a wink, "... what God gives, who can question. And you?"
This prompts a careful, polite bow, hands together, and she straightens. "This one is known as Jing Xiu, if it please you." For a moment, she gets that vague look of considering fleeing, the discomfort vivid in her eyes before it vanishes. "It is an honour."
Her shoulders droop, and she looks around the room, consideringly. "I will drink wine with you," she agrees sedately, "and eat bread if you have no rice. Cryptic?" That gets a tilt of her head, which sends the baseball cap to the floor, a solid fold of her jeans swishing, and she goes scarlet as she follows the cap downwards to scramble and pick it up.
"Apologies... ah. Cryptic?" The hopeful look returns. "Test you? I do not know, unless you are... changing, from one to one. Are you a fairy, then?"
"No, actually.... Jing Xiu," he repeats, his pronunciation almost good, and he bows his head to you likewise, and then turning to close the door. He does not close it all the way. "I do not have rice, I am sorry. But I do have pasta left over, a little stew and bread, if you would like. My kitchen is very meager," he seems to apologize, but it's just a statement of fact, "...but it's all edible." He pads into the kitchen and begins to rummage for bowls...
The apartment is two-level, mostly windows on both levels in truth, and the living room is furnished by the one sofa, crowds of pillows and cushions with Eastern designs, piled upon Eastern rugs -- Morocco, India, Turkey. Gifts from the places he has traveled.
"You are needing a God, a monk or a hero? Are you on a quest?" Most people might think you a little off for asking. Kit is not one of those sorts. He accepts what you have said, he doubts not that you are in need of such. And besides, he loves a good story...
"Need? I ... I do not know if I need." She echos it with a faint smile, relaxing a little, slipping out of the sneakers before she comes any further in - and she's without socks, her feet small and slightly arched as she pads on the balls of her feet noiselessly forward. "This city is very vast and strange." And, though she won't admit it, easy to get lost in...
Poking her nose into the kitchen, leaning up against the wall and holding the edge of the doorway with both hands, she sniffs experimentally. "I am here to live, now, until I am free to go, or bound somewhere else. I have no quest of my own, though. Are you looking for a quest, then?" She lifts her chin, eyes bright and curious. "I do not know if I am, or whether I am a road. But I am looking to fulfill my promises..."
"I never look for quests. Quests... have a way of finding me..."
Just ask the four headed guardians of Archangel Michael who follow me wherever I go...
"It's a talent," Kit grins, and he holds forth a bowl, Italian porcelain only slightly chipped, and modestly full with stew. Seafood and tomato based. "You are moving to Venice, well..." he begins wide-eyed, "... I am certain you will find what you seek here. Venice is crowded with quests. Even getting from one side of the city to the other..." He smirks, delighted, and the ribald slant of his mouth makes a teasing sort of grin. "I have been here a few months now. It has already grown on me..."
Jing Xiu sniffs at the stew, holding her hands out cautiously to take the bowl. Both hands, not just one, as if uncertain of the weight. "Oh, no, I am not moving here. I already have moved here." A bloody literalist as well, evidently. "I am not looking for quests, though. I am looking for ..."
A look of frustration briefly flickers over the girl's features and she bows her head, settling to kneel on the floor with the bowl held cradled in one hand, while the other rummages about in her jacket.
"Looking for the final piece," she finally says, pulling a set of exquisite ivory chopsticks out and plucking a tidbit from the stew, moving it quickly to her mouth.
"The aspiration," she concludes, lifting her gaze. "Do you see? If you are not hero, or saint, or ... any of it, you have a feel that you could be. But I am not the marker of destinies, the eight immortals preserve us."
Looking for aspiration. And you have found him. Kit's eyes soften then, the foggy grey of them going a bit misty, and he moves toward the living area portion of his chamber, the piles of cushions on rugs. Sitting cross-legged there, he fixes his gaze on you.
"That is the nature of Aspiration. Hoping, and giving ... a jolt to hope. It is ... the passion of a wish, Aspiration," he says sing-song. "Jing Xiu," Kit tilts his head, curls half-veiling his eyes, "...the search for Aspiration is a journey within the soul. Venice or no Venice. What is it... that you aspire to do?" Keenly interested, he sits forward. "What has brought you to the floating city?" And he smiles again.
Confusion is easily read on her face, bright eyes clouding for a moment as she puts her chopsticks to her bowl daintily.
"I came here because of my bindings," she says after a moment, laying the bowl down in front of her. "At the birth of last year, the master of the estate sold his family's blood and birthright to a wealthy collector. This collector, he was not satisfied with things as they had always been, and he had my bindings taken apart and and then put together again."
Jing Xiu traces a character against the floor with her fingertip. "My purpose, it remains unchanged, but it ... woke me up. And I am here, now, and I see that many things have changed. I do not know how to change them back, and I do not know how to move forward from this balance."
Looking back up, she smooths her hair back between her palms, slick like water. "The rules have changed, and I have not. I was looking to learn the land, here, when I found you, and felt your music."
Full mouth puckers and dark eyebrows knit together in translation. Elements of what you say dissembled, spread before him like tinker-toys, and one-by-one put together again for understanding. And still, he is not sure he follows you.
What we have here is a Wandering One...
With a commitment of some sort...
Who speaks in better riddles than I do and that is saying something. O, were I yet a raven soul, I could converse! Sweet Lord, for one feather!
"Well," Kit says at last, eyebrows relaxing and mouth spreading a bit, in a wayward sort of smile, "...then we will have to sort it out. If you were looking for Aspiration, I can lead you there...but as for getting to know Venice." Brightness crosses the foggy grey of his eyes like lightning and he winks. "I'm better than the tourist board. Let's begin at the beginning, Jing Xiu," Kit says, "What is it that binds you?"
Jing Xiu hesitates, perching there on hands and knees for a long moment in silence, eyelids heavy for a moment in her consideration. How much of what she says is intentional enigma, and how much is inexperience, unfamiliarity with the ground she is on? Perhaps the Orient's inscrutibility is not so intentional...
"I am bound to service," she says finally. "To tend to the place where the little spirits gather, you see, yes? It does not matter to me if they claim allegiance first to the lord Amidata, or the teachings of the Teacher; or if they are disciples of the foreign mystics, or known by their wooden hand-gongs. To me, it is one and the same..."
Her eyes shine as she speaks, the heavy fold of her jeans shifting for a moment; then her expression droops slightly, expression crestfallen. "It has been some time, you see, since I was needed. And then my bindings, they were taken apart, and I thought I would be free... but instead, they were reconstructed, and I was brought here. So I will serve."
She sounds gamely determined, but not entirely pleased, with a hint of the melodrama of youth. "But if I am to serve forever, and ever and ever, why, then, there must surely be an answer for me as there have been for others, yes? And there is nothing to keep me from looking for that answer, myself, though... well. Here I am." She picks her bowl back up, aiming the chopsticks with precision for a shrimp she spots, nimbly lifting it to her lips.
Your determination is your Truth, and though I'm not truthmonger, nor is my stew a truth serum, I believe you. I haven't the slightest idea what you're saying, but I believe that you believe it with all you have. And that is enough for me.
Afterall, who am I to question faith?
"I, too, am bound to service," Kit utters after a time. "So I understand what it is, to have a binding." A pause and his eyebrows lift as his grin widens and slants. "Answers, unlike heroes, monks, and even Gods, are harder to come by. But... we will see...For now...please accept my invitation to stay here. It is a very stormy night, I will not take no for an answer. You simply must not be out in it. Please accept my hospitality. I have a bed upstairs, you are welcome to it... I will sleep comfortably here..."
Kit rises and as he does the smile twists enigmatic. As if he knows something. Or as if he thinks he knows something. His hands fold. "I am going to make some coffee... I do not have much in the way of good tea, but I have a nice enough oolong..."
This seems to please her, but she responds hesitantly. "Very well, this young one accepts the elder's hospitality, though this one has no wish to impose." The food's vanished - either she was very hungry, or she's very good at consumption via osmosis.
Jing Xiu pauses for a moment, tilting her head this way and that, then asks in a diffident tone of voice, "Will it be necessary for me to remain bound to these strange conventions, in this place, as beyond these walls?" The fold of her jeans shifts as she does, a slight twitch of evidence to her discomfort.
She brightens, though, at the mention of tea. "Oolong would be most pleasant, thank you. Jasmine would only make me homesick, I fear. Would you like me to prepare?"
"Ah...no," he says, not entirely sure of what that's going to mean, but then he grins, "Make yourself at home..."
I can't wait to see this...
As he is heading to his small kitchen, your offer to make the tea stops him. Well. Yes. Why not? Kit bows and gestures over to his tiny kitchen. The kettle is already on the stove, the stove is gas. The tea is in the pantry, well... the shelf above the stove. It's not really large enough to be a pantry."
With an exhale he heads back to the sofa, taking up the guitar he had set aside. He places it gently in its stand, located in a corner, and then goes to the tiny fireplace, stirring what's left of the fire. "Please.... be comfortable. My home is your home tonight..."
She rises, climbing to her feet and bowing again, with a shy smile that causes dimples in her cheeks. "I will be right back, then," she promises. And she darts out the door, quick as any swallow aiming for a ledge, leaving her baseball cap and sneakers behind in her wake.
She isn't back quite right away - it's nearly fifteen minutes before she returns. And now she's clad in a black silk robe with heavy sleeves, belted with brocade cord, still barefoot, her long hair braided and coiled up, tied in a scarf. She looks much more comfortable, moving easily with the same silent lift to the balls of her feet, into the kitchen.
"I am sorry it took me so long," Jing Xiu apologizes, as she looks over the stove and kettle with quick, alert gaze, looking for the tea and pulling it down. "But it helps me think... mm. How does one use this?"
She continues to eye the stove with consternation, recognizing it for what it is... but not how to use it. "You have let your fires go out? Do you need me to fetch an ember?"
Quick -- Quick -- Quick...
While your little feet sounded out the measure of your steps until they ended...well, wherever you stopped... the cherub -- for that's what he is -- quickly closed his eyes. Not attuned to you, he knows nothing about you, nor can he grasp who... or better yet what... you may be, little girl who moves quick like swallow. But he can, and therefore does, trace his Master's sigil on the nearest wall. Finger dragging the stucco and plaster in quick calligraphic swirls. "Just in case," he whispers to the stucco there...
And then, as you return, he is moving to the tiny fireplace, crouching and stoking, stirring up embers allowed to go dormant. "No no... it will rise, and then I will toss my last song sheet on it for sustinance." Laughing softly, he rises. To do just that. "Oh!" he catches your look to the stove. "You just turn the knob one tick to the right... and on the third pop, turn it one more..."
Paper, with the markings of a song in infancy is crumbled and tossed into the embers. Soon, there is a growing and glowing flame...
"How clever!" The exclamation is quiet, but bright and cheerful, and curious little hands turn the knob as indicated, watching with wide, unblinking gaze as the heat springs forth from it. "Oh, this is delightful."
Kettle is filled, teapot prepared, kettle placed over heat, and she settles down on her knees with her palms resting on her silk-clad thighs, watching. Maybe she's never heard about watched pots never boiling...
Jing Xiu is not lacking in sociability, though, calling over her shoulder. "Are you, then, a poet? You should not burn your works. How will they be heard, then? Or is it a prayer strip?"
He is lacking in wood, but there are chips and charcoal. These are added in slow measure, until the fire is burning healthy. There is a golden push of light, trailed by fingering warmth. "Oh, it was just a note or two. Something that will better feed the fire than the guitar," he smiles back at you. "And I am not disciplined enough to be a poet. That takes a passion and purpose for which I have little patience. That, and I can't really rhyme."
How thirsty stucco and plaster are. The little light from the little fire passes from wall to wall, and there it lingers, flickering. Making the hanging mobiles of Murano glass, brilliantly and brightly colored sparkle. And taking a long match, Kit goes to the arched window, and he lights each equally brightly colored votives. "I am a musician. And a music teacher. I teach children how to sing," how to hope, how to dream. "Some of them aspire to be opera singers." The smile lingers and he looks to you. "I cannot teach them that, but... I can teach them that it is something to reach for. They should reach for such things. And... you? What is it that you are hoping to find?"
A flicker of some regret echos in her eyes for a moment, before she drops her gaze to stare at the heating element. Jing Xiu rearranges her small hands, one on top of the other, with slow, graceful motions.
"Destiny, or fate... I do not know which you would call it, but it is what will be. The outcome is uncertain, but I must find it." There's a world of passionate intensity behind it, leaving little room for that small regret.
The kettle begins to boil, and in a flash, the small woman bounces back up to her feet in one smooth movement, turning the knob with exaggerated care back the other way. One, two, three clicks. "It is a noble thing, to teach. And to learn..."
"Aspiration," he begins as he returns from all of that votive lighting, "...is the real lesson. Music... is merely one of the surest tools. And I like it." Kit settles on a group of pillows. "It sounds like you are starting a journey, Jing Xiu. Venice... is a good place to start. I find that the city holds itself up on such aspirations. Finding one's way. If you can find your way through the labyrinth waters of this city, there is no road you will be unable to walk. That's the legend anyway." Sometimes, I forget it myself. Sometimes, when I am tired of being guarded. Protected from myself. When I get angry with the Interrogation. Sometimes, when I feel like I am walking on the limbo-edge between Heaven and Hell. But, recalling it, I am heartened.
I need my own gondola. That is my dream. My first dream. To sail through the water-streets. To help others find their way. I'd give you a lift too, Jing Xiu...
Blinking his eyes, Kit twists a smile. "Destiny or Fate. I suppose that is the outcome. The rest... is just understanding ..."
She doesn't turn right away, concentrating on pouring the steaming water into the smaller pot, rinsing it and then filling it, with a sort of quiet, intense concentration to her task. "Journeys begin in Sorrow and separation. End, when lovers meet."
Prophecy or poetry, the haiku is neatly turned for improvisation, if it is not merely quoted from memory.
"It is a very strange and alien place to me, and nothing like the province to which I was born. But if the August Heavens decree that I must, then I will..." With a shake of her bound hair, Jing Xiu puts all the items onto a tray, carrying it daintily towards you. "Some things are not meant to be understood."
He is not certain whether he agrees with that or not. He wrestles with notions of Mystery and Understanding. Mystery, the tools of his trade. Understanding, the hoped-for end result of All. As you bring the tea with all of your Eastern care, Kit settles cross-legged, hands upon his thighs, rather yogic on his Indian rug and Turkish pillows. "I do not pretend to know how the heavens move, or why, or what it means when Destiny taps you on the shoulder and sends you to a place," he pauses there, thinking of his own journey.
What is in your book, Yves, listed under my name. Do you want me to redeem hell from within? Sometimes I wonder. I left an archangel in my wake. What happens now...?
"I think you will find Venice to your liking. There are many Eastern influences here. Maybe, in the end, it will not seem so foreign. I can take you to a museum," Kit offers, "... maybe it will help with homesickness." Lips and eyebrows quirk. "I am happy to play tour guide..."
Lips curving into a slight smile, the girl settles down to her knees again and begins rearranging the tea items ceremoniously, the silk shifting against her thighs as if something independent moves beneath it. "The younger is honoured by the elder's offer, but would not wish to impose?' It's a question more than a statement, hesitance in her voice even if her face remains oh-so inscrutable and enigmatic.
"But if you know where I could find that which I seek..."
"It is no imposition, in fact... I consider it an honor," he bows his head. "As host to guest, and as citizen of Venice..."
But he falls into your ceremony. Watching how graceful the exacting motions are. Each thing set down according to ancient order, passed down to contemporary hands. He is silent during your ceremony, grey eyes lilting from motion to motion, marking underlying patterns. Lastly lifting to your face.
"I have a small home," he notes, "after tonight, I will also help you find more suitable lodging." Women need space. Lots of space. Or at least space that they can claim. Two gatherers in one small apartment would lead to ruin! Kit smiles, waiting to take the tea only after you give your signal. And he grins then, quiet laughter following. "I will do my best. I do not know...that I can be a guide of Destiny. I am more at its mercy. But ... hmm... every journey, as they say, begins with a single step. Getting settled here in Venice, perhaps this will put you on your path. What do you... think you would like to do?"
"Oh, I have a home!" Her voice is bright with laughter, certain of this, at least. "It is not a place I could bring guests of this ... " She flounders for a moment, searching for the right word while she goes through the motions automatically, almost instinctually. "City," she finally settles on. "It is not appointed in a way that could be understood by most, I think. But it is mine..."
"Fate's flow is very strong, but the Seven Immortals have made their promise," Jing Xiu says quietly, with a fervent undertone to her voice as she settles back, folding her hands in her lap. "To do? About what?"
The seven immortals, "I am not familiar with them. The Seven Immortals," he says, taking your sign -- your hands folding around a cup -- as his sign that he may do the same, and so he does. Hands curl around the cup, holding it for the added warmth -- the fire only provides so much -- as much as for the promise of taste. "My faith is in the One." He smiles, but it is a welcoming smile. Tolerance and openness to the faith of another. All gods are, in the end, the same One. "What promise did they make?"
Curiosity always carries him through, and plucking your words like random notes, he begins to compose a song of it in his mind. Perhaps in the end it will make for a coherent tune, an understandable tale. Kit sips, finally, at the tea. He holds it close to his face for a minute after, feeling the warm steam...
Laughter, bright and quick, spills out for a moment, at the question. "The Ba Xian? They are the ... " She considers. How to explain, how to explain. "I am not a priestess," she apologizes, "only a lowly tender of stones, piled one on another. But I will try to explain. Youth, age, poverty, wealth, populace, nobility, male and female... in all things, one to each, they are."
Jing Xiu lifts her cup to her lips, sipping at it meditatively while looking off at the fire from a safe distance. "Cao Guo-jiu, Han Xian-zi, He Xian-gu, Lan Cai-he, Li Tie-guai, Lu Dong-bin, Pa-Hsien... the Eight," Jing Xieu says softly. "Each of them cast a stone and bid me watch over it. In return, I would be given a fate commensurate with my guardianship, and thus be freed, as so many others like me have."
He blinks...
Tea cup held steady. While brain tries to understand. What she is saying. How's that for haiku?
Kit blinks again, hands lifting the tea unceremoniously to his mouth and almost missing. But he makes it, and he sips it. Black eyebrows knitting together as if in perplexion. And a clearing breath skirts steam away, over the surface of the tea and over the lip of the porcelain cup. "So... there are others like you?"
If so, and if they show, I will need more aspirin...
The cup is lowered, the eyebrows cocked, the head tilted, "I am ignorant of the ...immortals and the taks of which you speak, but it sounds as if you move through honor. You have done your duty by them. Now, you await your chance at freedom. Surely, you will come to know that by Being... you are already free..."
"Oh, yes!" That prompts another spill of bright laughter, dark eyes regarding you with amusement. "Many... there ever have been. You never have seen us, before?" Jing Xiu tilts her head, expression curious now. "I ... am surprised."
She touches the cup to her cheek, mindful of the warmth. It leaves a faint red mark against her skin, which gradually fades. "As long as those stones remain, I am bound to them... I have but slept this little while, as I was bid. I thought my freedom at hand, but the stones, you see, they remain one atop the other, and my freedom can only be won through one of those whom I now seek. If it is time, then I will find them."
Her voice is stoic, a furtive fear of optimism lingering behind the mask. "If it is not time, then this one will relearn patience..."
The more you say, the less I know. The farther one travels, the less one goes. Is that not how it is, the paradox? He blinks, he blinks again. There must be 3 times 3, for 9 in all until he sips at his tea and his furrowed brows relax. No, I cannot understand you. I will not be able to converse with you in your metaphor. I will have to craft one of my own.
I cannot transcribe what you say literally, for it has no literal meaning. What is the boundary of the puzzle then. The number eight. Stones in piles. Destiny. Fate. And in the end, freedom.
He exhales, his mind aching, finding no solution. But he smiles through it, leaning forward and setting his mostly empty cup upon the tray. "I do not recollect meeting any of you. Well... not in the flesh. Not that I know. Perhaps I bumped into them while buying fruit at the local bazaar, but not recognizing, turned upon my own way."
Jing Xiu tilts her head back, this time her laughter soundless, lips parted to reveal neat, even white teeth, as sharp in appearance as she is otherwise dainty. "You may well have done so," she admits. "It is not our way, to reveal ourselves... certainly not for what we are."
Jing Xiu sets her teacup down, delicately. "We tend to be priestesses, or dancers, or occasionally, nuns... or other opportunities as they appear. Invariably, our end is always either tragic, or very happy indeed - there is no room in the middle, for such as we."
And you, in saying, have already said that you are more than you seem. "So... if you had to describe what you truly are... nun, or priestess, dancer being occupations... but what you truly are," he murmurs, head tilting, "...how would you describe it?" And he smiles. "I would hate to bump into another one of you and not know..." Grey eyes glitter as with a wink, sparkle with humor. And with curiosity.
But you speak of unhappy ends. Of tragedy. And it softens the humor. His face, placid, approaches expressionless. "I hope your story ends well, Jing Xiu..."
That gets a wide smile out of her indeed, looking almost as though it'd split her head in half. "This one thanks the elder for good wishes, and shares in that hope." As for what she is... that's harder to answer, and she hesitates, a consideration going on behind her eyes.
"There are those who would say my name describes me well," she offers after a moment. "But ... well, I am equal parts woman, and equal parts animal, and I play at both, as the seasons seem to suggest. Why," she suddenly grows coy, "what would you believe?"
Winding the smile, slow spreading warmth, and grey eyes twinkle with a little mischief. "That is the thing about erstwhile answerers of the dreams of children. We believe, readily, almost anything." But he leaves that there and, rising, lifts the tray and his nearly empty tea cup. "I will go ... clean my room. I was not expecting company," a teasing self-admonishment. "If you are hungry, there is zuppa... lentil and onion. Please, as I said, make yourself at home..."
"It is a cold night. I will have blankets for you upstairs. I will show you the bath, too... I am lucky... I have one in my apartment to myself..." he begins as he sets the tea aside and makes for the spiral staircase in the corner. "Is there anything else you need? Please.... do not hesitate to ask..."
"I would not wish to impose. You have done much, promised much, already..."
She's very light on her feet, rising with a grace that belies the heavy silk robes. "Besides," she adds humourously, "I should get back to my task, and make quite sure noone has stolen away my stones..."
Peeping back down, midway on the staircase, he blinks again. "It is no imposition... but I understand about the stones," he smiles then. "I have a small collection myself. I do not know what I would do if any of them were to come up missing..."
He pauses a half instant and then, "We will meet tomorrow, though... yes? Perhaps... at Ca'Pesaro... for lunch...? We will talk more then..." And his body follows where his eyes have tended. Back down the stairs and into the living room.
A moment's hesitation. "Ca'Pesaro... ? By all means." She comes to a decision quickly enough, that brilliant smile that's almost a grin appearing, then she presses her hands together and bows. "Until then."
Kit sweeps in his own bow, his head and eyes upturned, the grin warm. "Until then..."
And she slips out, quickly, leaving behind the tea, and the baseball cap, and the sneakers as sole proof that she wasn't some moon-spun hallucination, and little else in her wake, save perhaps a faint lingering scent of jasmine.
Posted by rowan at May 18, 2003 11:54 AM
