Siinji - Or, Ankūro and the City of the Golden Boughs

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This word or that one?
The one gives revelation.
The other, despair.
- Momiji.

Tuccé had joined her, wrapping the robe around him and tying the belt tight. With his hands on his knees, he leaned over to look at the the open, encoded journal and frowned. Yurivno also stared at that journal, chewing upon one of her claws as she tried to work out how to proceed. She had felt so confident in her translation skills, especially of ancient Kannai, that she never thought she could have translated something wrong.

Yet, there it was, among one of the shorter passages within the journal. A mere thought of her father's that he never followed up on and, as Yurivno thought about it, she couldn't help but think that her father had the right of it. Tuccé sighed, crouching down and smoothing his pointed, black beard.

"You know, apart from coming to tell you about your father, may his memory remain with us, I also wanted to know what was in that journal." The desert dweller held his robe closed, showing a little dignity, at least. "It intrigues me. What secrets it held? Whether he thought well of me? Or not?"

"It's more like a diary and letters to me." She picked up the journal and held it so that Tuccé could see. "But this passage concerns me. While in the temple, he found a relief, and translated it as well as he could."

"I do remember him saying he wished he had your talent for languages." Frowning, Tuccé concentrated upon the page and shook his head. "Not that he spoke to me as a friend often. I fear I may have insulted him as I have you. But, you seem concerned."

Lowering the journal, Yurivno looked back towards the pools. The old woman lay on her back in the water, as relaxed as Yurivno had ever seen her, unconcerned with anything. The old woman had a way about her that seemed to relax Yurivno. A confidence and an attitude of pure intent. Yurivno doubted the old woman could help with this, however.

"My father was an accomplished translator, himself, and he saw something that I did not." Despite the man's obnoxious nature, he was the only one Yurivno could talk to about this. "The ancient Kannai word for 'weapon' is very close to another word. The slightest change of angle upon the letters and they are easily mixed up and ... I think I mixed them up."

She dropped her head, her ears flattening against her skull and her tail curling, swishing the tip against the ground. She still had not covered herself, but Tuccé didn't give her naked body a second glance. He appeared to have genuine interest in what she had to say, watching her face as she paused.

"I'm sure anyone would have made the same mistake." A surprising look of sympathy crossed his face. "You seem like a very intelligent woman, I expect it's a mistake that has confounded scholars for centuries. I suspect it changes something important?"

"Well, the thing is, it may not be a mistake, or it might be. I just don't know unless I saw this relief my father mentions. He didn't take a rubbing of it, did he?" In a vain hope that Tuccé had held back something, she watched as he shook his head. "Then we must proceed regardless. Finding the lost city will be enough."

A splashing sound came from the pools and both Yurivno and Tuccé turned to see Ankūro step from the pool. Yurivno cringed at the sight of the scars that criss-crossed the woman's body. So many that Yurivno doubted much normal skin remained. The old woman had suffered a great deal in her long life, that seemed obvious.

Doubling up, the old woman picked up her towel and began drying herself as she approached Tuccé and Yurivno, not caring about her nakedness or her scars. Her cold, white eye glared at Tuccé for a second and Tuccé's head dropped as he shuffled a little further away from Yurivno. The old woman jerked her chin at the journal in Yurivno's hand.