Rounds 1 and 2 of the January Game.

[dagas_isa]

When Inori finally settled down and the hypothermia began to melt from her bones, Jin asked the question that all of them had, even Persei who babbled in the corner about the next day's fishing.

"Why?"

Why would a woman, crippled and dressed in little more than cast-off summer rags, climb out of their little cave and into the coldest night of the year? Why would she wander a night's length until her body could no longer move? Why would she struggle when sensible people finally took her home?
Jin waited for that answer.

"I have to see my sister."



It was the night that wasn't.

Millions of Shadows surrounded Utame, to wait for the invasion command. They looked so harmless in their natural forms, like lanternbugs in the twilight. Yet, they crowded so densely against the tower's walls that their blue-green glow reflected off the sky. Night and day made no difference now.

It freaked Kozan out.

Shadows did not kill. They did not have the bodies or the power to cause harm to humans. Instead, they filled eyes and ears with illusions and false memories.

To protect his people from the Shadow's tricks, he needed to protect himself.



Kage sees clearly the sadness ahead of him, but now, flying through the air, arms outstretched, and his love, flying too, next to him, it feels wonderful. At last, he knows what it means to be human. Mortality. Piece by piece his body crumbles. His work as a human is done. He has fulfilled the role fate gave him.

So he goes up, in his native form. He flies so much higher and faster than any Shadow can dream in this gray sky.

He keeps the momentum long enough to break through to the blue. Then he falls to die.



Zomi's Other slinked about the edge of her mind. Not forcing the control as she usually did, but subtly, as though she needed to convince Zomi of something.

This was never a good sign.

"What do you want?" Zomi asked the being within her.

"I want you to recover. Your time is growing even shorter without you even realizing."

Zomi had realized. Her other at least made a mistake about that. Sometimes she'd hit a wall of exhaustion so deep that even sleep would not cure it.

"I know you object to feeding off human energy, but your enemy is gaining strength, your strength."

Oh, by the Traveller! Zomi realized the trick the other tried right now.

"What if I prefer to let my enemy win?" She argued with the voice in her head.

"Then everything will be in vain. You came so far, and yet you'll let something as simple as a few sacrifices stop your recovery." The Other had too much passion behind its words. "Especially when you did far worse of your own will."

Zomi lashed out. "I didn't mean that. Take it back! Take it back!"

The other laughed. "Not until you do as I say."



They bonded over festival dolls, actually.

Landra touched the blue cotton of a doll's coat. "My father gave me some like this, when my brother and I were still young enough to raise." It was the very picture of a Saidenese noble, long, dark hair twisted into an elaborate bun, and designs of flowers on white silk thread vining up the front of the coat. "Not Saidenese dolls, but some from the tribes way to the north."

Zomi smiled. "What did they look like?"

"He gave me a set of them," Landra closed her eyes and remembered, "A mother, grandmother, and daughter. He told me later that my mother forbade him from giving me the father, son, and uncle." Her eyes fell to the boy doll, dressed in green, with gold embroideries. She bought the set. "You must be lucky to have such toys."

Zomi's smile became a grin. "I bet it's nicer to own toys from a far-away land."

"It was even more fun when he gave me the ones I could never have."
Zomi's eyes cast down at the dolls, and impulsively, it seemed, she picked up the first pair of dolls she saw in yellow and orange.



Nothing in his physical manner changed, but Rodya seemed...satisfied. Landra decided on that word after "smug" felt too mischievious for someone like the Shadow.

"As long as Utame can hold against the Shadows for a while, don't worry about defeating them." Rodya said, as he escorted her to the door. "As I said, we're fixing the control issues in Sombrelucia as I speak."

Landra bowed. Even now, she still had difficulties thinking of him as purely Shadow without a human identity. "Thank you, Rodya. I'll get this to Kozan."

Rodya grabbed her arm, more of a touch really, but more forceful in its rarity. He peered at her and closed his eyes. His breath came in deep, even waves.

"Do you see something?"

The Shadow stepped back, and said nothing.

"Rodya, if you have something to say, please say it. What's the use of seeing the future if all that can be done is seeing it?"

He paused, thinking. "What you choose to do next, choose it deliberately."

Landra wrinkled her nose at him.

Rodya shook his head. "My nature forbids me from speaking the future directly."

She walked from Rodya's house, her mind fixed on his words.