The Cuckoo

Chapter 7: Hitting the Old Dusty Trail

"Two things cannot be in one place. Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow."

― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

When the light died down, Anthy found herself alone on the shore. She couldn't say she was surprised, exactly, but there was no dodging the knee-jerk sting of losing a presence that had been a staple in her life for the past few days.

At least the little egg was still with her, though whatever it was seemed to be pacing itself with the hatching process.

"Should've closed my eyes and thought of Kou," she reflected, grim and just a bit bitter. That was how she vaguely recalled this sort of instant transportation thing working at the end of conquered Dungeons in the original story, but she might be totally off-base. This wasn't a Dungeon at all, of course, and Yunan had certainly been able to do as he pleased in her recent experiences, but Yunan was both a Magi and directly in cahoots with the Djinn of that particular Dungeon.

Speaking of which—

"Where. Have. You. Been?!" The aforementioned Djinn himself demanded, starting merely in her mind and ending fully manifested before her, his massive hands planted on either side of her and all four eyes scouring her top to bottom. "I have been sealed away for days. I would have thought you were dead, if not for the fact that I'd be back in my Dungeon if our pact was severed!"

"I figured as much," Anthy mused. "Since you didn't respond when I tried to Djinn Equip before I hit the water."

"Hit the…" Belial swiveled, leveling a truly venomous glare at the scenically placid lake behind them, apparently for its crimes against her person. "How do you get yourself into these messes?"

"Well, you see," she began sweetly. "It all started when an old, crazy Magi kidnapped me from my own home…"

She was interrupted in short order by a massive beast crashing through the grass, bleating ominously.

"Is that the goat?" Belial demanded, aghast. "…it was just a few days apart, wasn't it? Not decades?"

"That's the goat," Anthy agreed, moving to sooth the spooked, suspicious animal before he could do something instinctual and ill-thought, like charge down a fully-manifested Djinn. He bleated again, angrily, but rubbed his face against her hand and stomped off to eat more. "Do I look decades older?"

"Magic can do strange things."

"Magic kept me penned in for a little under a week." Anthy sighed, glancing down at the egg in her palm. The tiny beak had resumed it's tapping. "…there's a cart, back somewhere that way. Help me move it closer to where the border is while I pack up some supplies."

"Do I look like a mule?"

"Do I look like I can move a loaded cart through tall grass?"

They fussed and bickered until he reluctantly did the heavy-lifting for her, and Anthy felt something within her unclench, finally. Ken had been better than no company at all, certainly, but that didn't automatically mean she felt safe with him. She trusted him not to murder her in her sleep, yes, but there was no assurance that he had any stake in her long-term survival the way Belial did.

He was handsome, and he had mostly been a gentleman. But there was no Koubun, no Shinju or Shinrei. No chaperone, no servants, and in short: no chance in hell that she could fully let down her guard.

Wherever he was, she wished Ken all the best. She just wanted, very dearly, to not be stuck here any longer than she had to, and resented him just the tiniest bit for his own easy exit from the stage.

"…oh!" She started as the egg cradled in her palm finally cracked apart entirely, and looked down to find the tiniest, soggiest little creature she had ever seen staring up at her with big, blurry black eyes.

"Well," she said softly. "Hello, you."

It peeped at her, faint and flutelike, and nestled against the curve of her thumb. She could feel it shivering in the midday breeze.

She melted, instantly.

The tiny bird—she felt impossibly small and delicate talons on her palm, beneath the snowy white down that fluffed out more and more as it dried out—stayed cradled in her palm until she could set up a shaded little nest out of an extra shirt and a mostly-salvaged basket. With both hands free, she could then more or less fit the makeshift harness Ken had been working on around the goat.

When that was done, when the cart was ready and a way out of the grass had been grudgingly cleared by Belial, Anthy… hesitated.

The sun was high in the sky, beating down. She wiped sweat from her nose with the front. Of her shirt, scowled, and jammed the wide-brimmed blue hat Yunan had sent. The inside and underside of it were lined in cool, golden fabric. It was unfortunately as comfortable as it was gorgeous, as was the lovely cloak that accompanied it in a similar color scheme.

"Fucking Yunan," she groused, free to speak at full volume and vehemence at long last.

Neither the goat, the bird, nor the djinn spoke out against her for the foul language as she heaved herself up into the driver's seat and tugged at the reins. The goat eyed her for a long moment, considering its options, then began plodding forward.

And, just like that, they headed east. It felt suspiciously straightforward.

Never let it be said that Anthy was any sort of master cartographer.

She could read a map, certainly. She could follow one well enough too, if she had one at hand. But charting a course all on her own, based on gut instinct or the stars? Entirely out of her wheelhouse. She might go so far as to say out of any princess's wheelhouse, save perhaps those who took to the battlefield, like Hakuei.

Frankly, even if she was a master cartographer, she didn't think she would ever be able to retrace her steps enough to figure out just how she ended up in this predicament.

If Anthy had a week, she couldn't list all the things wrong with this picture.

"Do you have much experience guarding caravans?" Sahsa asked, taking point. Her voice was pleasant and barely shook, though one of her hands was tightly fisted in Anthy's cloak. "Any references stopping through we could speak with?" She happened to be the first thing wrong here, though that was a particularly uncharitable way to put it. Sahsa certainly hadn't asked for or deserved the unfortunate series of events that brought them all together.

Two nerve-wracking weeks into her slog in the general direction of her homeland, Anthy had only had Belial, Entei, and little Sekka to keep her sane, even as supplies—most pressingly, potable water—were whittled away with each successive leg of the journey.

Sekka, of course, was what Anthy had named the little bird, who had over their time together grown into a rotund little ball of white and black highly reminiscent of a snow-tit, nearly entirely white save for a few trailing, peacock-like tail feathers that seemed to be growing in and some black at the edges of its wings. And of course, its tiny black feet, beak, and big, glossy eyes.

Entei was what she finally decided to call the goat, but she fully intended to take that to her grave. Or at least, save it until she reunited with Kouha or Judal; they, at least, would appreciate the humor in it.

It was, a little unkind, perhaps, to use Kouen's nickname for an actual goat, but she couldn't help it if the beard he insisted on sporting made him look like one. Everybody said so, he was just too imposing for anybody to say as much to his face.

…she missed the weigh of his presence on the other side of a bookcase. They never exactly spoke all that much, but she missed everything from home these days.

"How do we know you're not just traveling perverts?" asked the second thing wrong with this situation, redirecting Anthy's thoughts from her mental tangent.

Thing One and Thing Two had been the first humans she managed to meet after Ken's sudden magical departure. Sahsa's family had run a caravan for generations, until tragedy—and a band of particularly vicious thieves—struck.

Anthy's cart pulled up to the remains of all of that, and the two survivors trying to give the best send-off they could, to the innocents lost in the carnage. They had lost their camels in the initial fight, or maybe during the retaliation that saw the attackers as brutalized as their victims but luckily for all involved, Anthy stopped to help. Once the dead had been dealt with as respectfully as possible, they had hitched the surviving carts together, and Entei—absurdly—managed to heave the entire convoy of fruit and merchandise back to the city Sahsa quietly directed to her, as easily as the single cart.

Once more, Anthy had to wonder just what those Reim magicians did to their experiments. Or what was in all that grass the goat had packed away.

"Well, no," Thing Four admitted awkwardly. "We… we don't have references here. And we're not perverts! Uh, I don't… know how to prove this, but…" He rubbed the back of his head, looking a bit puzzled, as if he wasn't Alibaba fucking Saluja, Crown Prince of Balbadd and the youngest son of the still-living King Rashid, who had signed a trade agreement with Kou not even two years ago.

As if he had any right to be here, garbed like a commoner and trying to wheedle his way onto their caravan out of the oasis-city Utan.

"Why don't we fight each other?" Cassim, of all people, suggested as he puffed away on a cheap cigar, like he wasn't Thing Five on an ever growing list. "Then you can see for yourselves if we're worth taking along to Qishan."

Not for the first time, Anthy kicked herself for latching on to the first name she recognized on the map Sahsa had brought out. Certainly, it was an outpost with ties to Kou. And she had wanted the quickest way home she could manage, true, but she also should have remembered that the proof of its ties was the Dungeon Judal raised there.

Thing Four, she reflected with bitter humor, was that she had somehow ended up in charge of this entire makeshift merchant caravan Sahsa inherited, by way of taking charge to get them all back to civilization safety and being too damn soft to force the burden of life-changing decisions onto poor Sahsa, who had lost her entire extended family, all her closest family friends, her own best friend, and any sort of sense of direction in life. The only other candidate for leadership at that point had been… well…

"But what if that just makes you strong perverts?" Thing Two asked, her red eyes narrowed to suspicious slits.

"Sheba," Sahsa scolded gently.

Sheba. The name felt like it merited an echo. It made Anthy's ears buzz to hear it.

Sheba was a small child, no more than ten. Sheba's hair was a long, wild mane of dark pink, with the top of her head wrapped, incongruously, in a turban. Sheba was dressed in a vest, pale silk wrapped over her chest beneath, and loose, long pants, as if shoddily disguised as a boy. Hanging around her neck was a heavy gold pendant, wrought into the shape of a flower resembling something similar to a hibiscus.

Anthy, whose last memory of the manga that was less relevant to her life by the year—the day, even—had been the end of the Alma Torran arc, suspected the plant it was modeled after was massive in person, and likely didn't even exist in the current world.

"If they do anything perverted, I'll handle it," Anthy said, finally weighing in on the matter. "But, I don't think we're going to find many swordsmen of their kind willing to do bodyguard work for the simple price of meals and passage."

"No," Sahsa murmured, "we won't." The, that's what's so suspicious she didn't say hung palpably in the air.

"You know many fighters?" Cassim asked, eying Anthy with interest as he took another deep drag, smoke fluttering out of the corners of his mouth on the exhale.

Anthy, who grew up surrounded by soldiers and whose brothers and cousins were almost uniformly Dungeon Conquerors, adjusted the brim of her stupid, stylish hat and smiled brightly. "There was a Dungeon back where I lived, too. I've known a few."

"You and your half-truths," Belial sighed, unheard. He had been particularly reticent, since they found the girls.

"A Dungeon?" Sheba asked, her head cocking to one side curiously.

She was perched on Entei's massive back, so as to better look down distrustfully upon the young men that had heard them talking about the need for a few extra bodies in their convey and offered their services. Between Belial and Thing Three, no opportunistic thieves or brigands stood a snowball's chance in hell of attacking them successfully. But having a couple strapping young men with big, sharp-looking swords was more of a deterrent against those attempts than two young women and a single child crossing the Central Desert would be.

"They're places filled with magic and treasure that started appearing fourteen years ago," Sahsa explained. "Qishan has one, and countless people have sought to conquer it over the years, though none have succeeded. I know… a little bit, from all the places F…Father's travels took us." She took a moment to compose herself, smile faltering briefly. "It's said that the only ones who can are those handpicked as future kings by the Magi themselves."

"Lots of people end up dead, diving into Dungeons," Anthy cut in, before things could digress again. "So, if that's what you two are set on, you must have confidence in your skills." She glanced over at Sahsa and Sheba, shrugging. "They have my vote, but I'll go with whatever you two pick."

They looked at each other, and then Sheba carefully clambered down off of the goat, leading Sahsa back behind the wagons for a quiet conference. Entei took up the task of balefully eying the young men in her place, snorting.

"Thought you Artemyrans were more about giant birds," Cassim commented. "Not tiny birds and giant beasts."

"It's a long story," Anthy shrugged, not bothering to correct him. Sekka peeped from its perch on her shoulder, as if in agreement. She had introduced herself to all of them as Chrysanthi, and she only stood to benefit from any of their misunderstandings. "Speaking of the goat, though, if you actually do try to pull anything, I will break your legs and feed you to him. Understood?"

"Understood," Alibaba said, eying Entei and inching closer to Cassim.

The goat snorted again, apparently appeased by that palpable trepidation.

"Wait, does that mean—"

"Alright!" Sheba announced, bursting back on the scene. Her arm was extended, and pointed halfway between the boys accusingly. "You're in. But! Any funny business and we'll cut you up and feed you to Miss Anthy's goat. Got it?"

"Be ready to leave by sunup, Mr. Ali, Mr. Casimir," Sahsa said, laying her hands on Sheba's shoulders and gently guiding her arm down. "We already have enough supplies to last until Qishan, and… room for one of you in the back, with us. The other will ride up front, with Miss Anthy."

"Settle any debts you have in Utan," Anthy advised them. "If you try to use us to dodge a bill—"

"We get fed to the goat?" Cassim suggested, putting out his cigar against a nearby wall.

"They learn quick," Sheba noted, something approaching approval in her bright voice.

The boys agreed to their terms, and the next morning, they rejoined them. After a bit of discussion, it was decided that Alibaba would be the one sitting with Anthy, ostensibly because their coloring was similar enough at a quick glance to make it seem like it was a family-run caravan, but in truth because he was the one less likely to realize that Anthy, in fact, knew jack shit about driving a caravan.

Entei was a surprisingly stubborn goat, who refused to listen to anyone aside from her, but did the lion's share of the work with only a little bit of brattiness. Thanks to Sahsa, Anthy had a map and a path to follow, and so with a few twitches of the reins and the help of a preternaturally intelligent farm animal of disturbing proportions, they hit the road.

"So," Alibaba said, after morning twilight bled into a scorching morning and an hour of silence finally broke him. "What's Artemyra like?"

"No idea," Anthy told him, idly letting Sekka hop and tumble from one of her hands to the other, reigns looped loose around her wrists. "My mother was sold out of her homeland before she ever met my father."

Alibaba jolted slightly. "Sold?"

"She was bought by a brothel," Anthy said. "And then my father." It should have been tiresome, explaining it again. Instead, it was terribly refreshing, to say the words brashly and bluntly, without the flowery, perfumed turns of phrase and innuendo that palace protocol dictated. Her mother had been bought and trained as a prostitute, and the only thing that kept her from a lifetime of service was the fact that the brutal and imposing Prince Koutoku had bought her first night and reserved her indefinitely on a whim, for amusement whenever he was back in the capital between military campaigns.

"…my mother was a harlot, too," Alibaba admitted, staring at her with renewed interest. "Though, I was, uh, ten or so before my own father came to claim me."

"I was five when Papa took us into his estate," Anthy reflected, feeling a pang in the pit of her stomach as thoughts and memories of home rose, unbidden. "So I get it, sort of."

More than Alibaba could possibly imagine.

They fell into a conversation along those lines, reminiscing about childhood culture clash and sudden expectations, each of them carefully editing out any inkling of royalty or major political importance out of their stories.

Chrysanthi of Kou's capital, Rakushou, was the child of a soldier of some unspecified high rank, and was looking to head home. Ali of Balbadd City was the youngest son of a prosperous merchant, who was looking to distinguish himself and have an adventure before taking up the yoke of the family business. Neither was a lie, technically.

Better to leave them both some breathing room, Anthy decided. Life kept throwing curveballs her way, so for all she knew Alibaba could be one of Kourin's possible marriage candidates, and they'd meet again under their proper, royal identities somewhere down the line.

"What were you three up to?" She asked Sheba, when they made camp and began preparing dinner. It was no Reiman feast, certainly, but the curry Sahsa helped her throw together was better than the dried rations and fruit she and Ken had subsisted on, and she had made due with before Utan. The rice was… good enough.

God, she missed home.

"We talked about Magi and Dungeons!" Sheba said, kicking her legs back and forth excitedly from her perch on one of the wagons. "Is that really how Kings are made?"

"Some do," Anthy said, reaching up to help her hop down. "Some are born, and some make themselves. But treasure and magic always help."

"He doesn't seem to know as much as you two," Cassim noted.

Anthy took a moment to parse that.

"He's just a kid," Alibaba dismissed, both men missing the glare Sheba shot at them as. They dug into their supper. Apparently, both of them were laboring under the impression that she was a little boy, instead of a little girl.

"Sheba joined us only very recently," Sahsa said, serving up a plate for the pouting child who was sulking up against Anthy's side. She, apparently, hadn't seen fit to clear up the misunderstanding for some reason, and so Anthy opted to follow her lead. "Before we decided to head to Qishan."

"Where are you headed after?" Alibaba asked. "Straight to Rakushou, or…?"

"I'm headed that way," Anthy said. "I think after the current stock is sold, Sahsa's going to buy some new camels and see which way the wind is blowing."

"Well, there's always work to be had in Balbadd," Alibaba said brightly. "It's a huge trading city. A Sea port, too!"

"My father brought me there, once," Sahsa murmured, mustering a weak smile. "Casimir mentioned his sister actually works as a maid in the palace at the capital. Is that where you boys learned about Qishan?"

"A-Ahaha, yeah!" Alibaba grinned, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yup. Miriam told us."

Cassim snorted, setting his empty plate aside so he could light up a new cigar. "Something like that," he said, apparently far more at ease with subterfuge than his friend. His dreads swayed in the cool evening breeze, and the light of his cigar flickered shadows across the curves of his cheekbones.

"Miss Anthy?"

She tore her gaze away and smiled down at Sheba. "Yes, sweetheart?"

"What's Rakushou like?"

Anthy spent the rest of the evening and the first part of bedtime describing what she knew from the few times Judal or Kouha took her out on the town in commoner-garb, usually for festivals. She resolutely did not think of blond boys with infectious smiles or well-built brunets who smoked like chimneys the entire time.

"Woah," Sheba breathed days later, as they rolled through the gates of Qishan. "I see it, I see it!" She had opted to sit up front on the last day of their journey, and bounced enough that only Alibaba's grip on her vest kept her from tumbling down.

"We all see it, bud!" He laughed as he hauled her back. "It's a huge tower."

"Miss Anthy, Miss Anthy, look!" Sheba would not be deterred.

"I'm looking," Anthy told her, gently tucking Sekka away beneath her cloak. The little bird was just as excitable as the little girl, and she didn't want either of them to tumble out of reach. "It's amazing."

"I'm gonna go in there!"

Anthy paused, and turned to look at her. Entei continued plodding on, impervious to the stares and murmurs of shock his large frame earned him from the other people milling about the main street. "You're what?" She furrowed her brow, concerned. "What do you need from a Dungeon?"

"You want to get home quick, right?" Sheba stretched. "So, I'll find the Djinn container and ask what's inside to take you back!"

Anthy bit back the urge to tell her that Djinn weren't nearly so obliging, in her experience. "What about Sahsa?" She asked instead. "I thought you wanted to keep her company?"

"She's gonna meet us in Kou," Sheba said, clenching a fist. "And then we can try all that street food you told us about!"

…oh boy.

Anthy made a mental note to pen a formal letter of introduction for Sahsa, just in case she couldn't sway Sheba off this course. If she were the boy that was supposed to be in this position—if she were Aladdin—Anthy wouldn't think twice about leaving her to brave the Dungeon alone, with Alibaba and Cassim. With so many divergences, though, she couldn't trust the creaky wheel of Fate to properly protect the sheltered little girl.

Especially since people—the boys and the Qishan natives alike—seemed willing to buy that she was a little boy. It was a stupid double-standard she was almost numb to, after years at court, but the current world culture was willing to see boys put through hardship more easily than girls. Or at least, more overtly brutally than girls.

She waffled on her decision for a while, as they found a market stall and began peddling. By the noon, when most of the ripe fruit was sold, Anthy was almost certain she'd go in, if only to watch over Sheba. Thing Three could only be so much help, and none at all if Sheba lost her flower necklace somehow. By early evening, when the boys came back with the news that they needed to petition Qishan's Chief to reach the Dungeon, Anthy was just about resolved to stick with Sahsa.

Never take a shortcut when you're in a hurry, as her first father always said.

He also said complimentary meals were usually a trap by fast-talkers, but he had said that in respect to people trying to sell time-shares at the hotel they were visiting at the time, so Anthy didn't think twice about following the. Group to the Chief's estate after they had secured the wagons and Entei.

The proverbial pendulum of her decision was still swaying slightly as Jamil of Qishan welcomed them with open arms and a beaming grin.

"It's been ages since anyone determined actually made a dive," he confided as he oh-so-casually led them through a parlor filled with beautiful tile and beautiful silks and beautiful girls garbed in very stingy amounts of beautiful silk.

It was to be expected, since Qishan had only swelled to its current state of success within the past decade due to the presence of the Dungeon; such was the tackiness of the nouveau riche, after all. Anthy beat back the flash of Koubun-tier snobbery that tried to take hold of her at that thought and tried to keep an open mind as she steered Sheba and Sahsa past the decadent sideshows.

"I've been trying to gather a party together myself," Jamil continued as they settled in at a table. "But, it's slim pickings from local stock, after years of people going in, never to be seen again." His eyes kept drifting to Sheba, and shining with greed. Anthy vaguely recalled him mistaking Aladdin for Judal, and supposed that must be what was happening here.

Things would probably go as they should, in that case. Alibaba's success had largely been supported by having an asshole to serve as contrast for his own superior breeding and training. The only question that remained was if the man before them was as bad as the faint recollections she had. Qishan was a city-state under Kou's protections, after all, and that meant it operated under some of its rules. And Kou had finished phasing out slavery officially, five years ago.

"But enough business talk," Jamil said, clapping his hands. "Bring in dinner! My guests must be famished."

A set of lovely servant girls began ferrying in heaping dishes of lovely, lavish foods. They paled before Scheherazade's hospitality, but the Kou dishes at least looked a bit more in line with what they should, likely due to the strong trade ties in the city.

She idly glanced at the redheaded maid nearest to Jamil as she took her first bite and felt the rice turn to ash in her mouth.

Quietly, she set her spoon down, and looked at the floor.

"Mr. Ali, make sure there's room on the barge for me and Entei, tomorrow," she said faintly.

"What?" Belial demanded.

"Huh?" Alibaba jolted in his seat next to her, distracted from some discussion about his travels with Cassim and Jamil, even as Sheba cheered on her other side. "Are… are you sure, Miss Chrysanthi?"

Anthy took a sip of water that tasted like mud to her, and smiled her best court smile. "Oh, I'm sure."

The sound of the chains around Morgiana's ankles tinkled faintly as she bent to refill her master's wine glass. Anthy could barely hear it, over the rushing sound of pure, unbridled rage filling her ears.

Next Time:"I'm sorry," said the mysterious blonde traveler with slow, measured sweetness, "I think I must have heard you wrong."