Dragon's Cage

by Daniel Potter

  A smile danced on his lips as Yaki took the offered wine from the bartender. "A fan of steel dancing specifically?"

  "Dancing of all types interest me. Tragically the most interesting dances require a partner of which I am currently befit of." Yaki took a sip, watching Ryouta's head swing in her direction from the corner of her eye. The cool alcohol slid down her throat and she leaned back letting her forearms rest on the bar behind her.

  The middle one smirked, "I am always up for a dance of any kind. I am Mitsuo Nishamura." He bowed, adding a playful flourish as his hands parted.

  "Determined Badger Song. Song will do." Yaki allowed him to take her hand and kiss it.

  The other two Nishamuras looked at Mitsuo expectantly. "Allow me to introduce my cousins, Ryouta and Weasel." Ryouta nodded and sipped his beer while Weasel stepped from behind Mitsuo, whom he had more or less been hiding behind.

  "Pleased to make your acquaintance miss Song." He said in an overly eager tone, he half reached out to ape Mitsuo but reconsidered, jerking his hand back to his waist.

  "Gentlemen," Yaki waved her glass to the lot of them in a toast and took another sip. This time the wine didn't make it all the way down to her stomach, the liquid pooled in her chest and something spasmed, forcing a torrential cough from her lips and nearly spilling the wine down her front. Hiding her mouth with her spare wrist she set down the wine glass and coughed, each time notching up the temperature in her chest. Ryouta chuckled as the other two smirked.

  "Maybe you should try the beer?" Ryouta offered.

  Yaki cleared her throat and blinked feigning it had been a simple lung and stomach mix up. "Maybe some water." She conceded, allowing the heat to reach her cheeks. Although the blush would be hidden by the makeup. The bartender delivered her a glass of hopefully not blessed water and Yaki made a show of sipping it as she pondered. The next step would be asking one of them to dance with her. As Nishumura, any of them should be able to visit the Foundry. The question would be which one could be convinced to help steal the quick silver. Yoshiaki appeared to be a coward, cowards would never break the law in an unfamiliar way. That left Ryouta and Mitsuo. Ryouta was reportedly a bully and perhaps might allow himself to be goaded. That left Mitsuo as the unknown.

  Time to pounce. Yaki drained her small glass of water. "Let’s move on from me and my Liquor. Mitsuo, would you prefer to dance or duel?"

  The question wiped his smirk off his face, "Uh, Dance?" He said, blinking in confusion.

  "Certainly!" Yaki rewarded him with a brilliant smile. "I'd thought you'd never ask." Slipping forward she snagged his arm with hers and gave him a not to subtle shove toward the dance.

  He laughed. "It appears I'm well caught. Cheerio guys." He waved to the other two.

  Ryouta eyes narrowed with jealousy as he waved dismissively. Internally Yaki did several victory pirouettes, two in one.

  Mitsuo took over the lead long before Yaki's boots touch the dance floor. The Vallahan bard smashed out a foot stomping beat that Yaki did not know and the pair paused a moment, analyzing the steps of the dance. Each time the dancers slammed their left foot into the bamboo floor, Yaki shook her left wrist feeling the weight of the bracelet and mapping the dance.

  "Don't know this one huh?" Mitsuo asked.

  "I can fake it." Yaki stepped forward, folding herself to Mitsuo's chest and pulled him into the music.

  Chapter 19

  Once Yaki's boots moved through the basic footsteps, the thunder of the drums and the scream of the guitar seemed to pierce her bones. First Mitsuo held her hand and waist as if it were an energetic polka but as the tempo increased the dancers split apart only to swing back toward each other, out stretched wrists slapping together as if the arms were swords meeting in battle. Yaki's wrist met Mitsuo's a bare moment behind but the from there the dance became easier to predict. The dancers moved back and forth, wrists parrying each other with foot stamps. Several couples drifted off the floor, mostly those in tight sheath kimonos that risked splitting a seam. The beat changed, and now the hands met and Yaki twirled into Mitsuo's embrace.

  "Vallahan thunderdance." Mitsuo smiled. "You picked it up fast."

  "It’s certainly making my heart do that." Yaki mock grimaced as she panted through her teeth. "That band speeds up the tempo anymore and some one's going to shatter a knee."

  "Traditionally it is a last couple standing sort of thing," Mitsuo's eyes sparkled with challenge. "Shall we bow out?"

  "Only if you need to." She had to shout to be heard over the music.

  "Well then, allow me." He took the lead with a sudden twirl and Yaki's feet left the floor. Yaki twisted, striking down with a heel. She spun out from him and back, their hands clapping together with an audible clap of their palms. They laughed. The bard hollered something as the music pushed them onward. The tempo pressed Yaki into thoughtless space, where her mind began merely a thing the music passed through en route to her body. The individual moves faded to a pulse of rhythm, Her body clashed into Mitsuo's with force greater than her own mass and then spun away. The hot prickle of sweat traveled across her face. The ka clink ka clink grew into the roar of engine, Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka, heat swelling through her chest and down her legs. It added its own flavor to the to music, not simply keeping up with the demands of the dance but shoving her onward.

  Mitsuo began to flag first, wincing as they slapped their wrists together, the mad tempo forcing them to sacrifice control for speed. Then pain began to push on Yaki's zen of the dance. Bright hot agony, leaking down through her core as if her metallic heart had sprung a leak. Bearable but barely. Yaki began to pull Mitsuo towards the edge of the dancefloor. The Lady Cat mask had slipped during the dance and Yaki struggled to rebuild it, to keep the pain off her face. But she lost the rhythm first, her foot did not move in time and Mitsuo stamped down on her foot.

  "Yiii!" She cried as the world jerked and she went down. Bringing Mitsuo down with her. Mistress Mana hissed something in the back of her head as Mitsuo's face smashed into her breast. Laughter exploded around her. A circle of smiles full of teeth. From the edge of it Yaki caught the shine of Gama's lenses, full of hurt and concern.

  "And that’s the way we do it in Vahaaaalla!" The bard cried over the crowd.

  "Heeee hahaya." Mitsuo giggled in her ear. Yaki turned to find a grin that threatened to split his head in half. "Sorry. Are you alright?"

  Yaki forced her mask to smiled up at him as her insides threatened to spontaneously combust. She laughed fragily, if only to prevent a scream from ripping out of her lungs. "I'm fine." She coughed out. The breaths she managed to pull felt like they were barely tickling her lungs.

  Mitsuo did not seem to notice. He slid back off her and stood, brushing himself off before offering a hand to Yaki. As she was pulled to her feet Yaki found the agony levels receding once again but only to welcome a twist in her guts, that heralded a howling hunger erupting in her guts.

  "Never danced that before? We're the third to last standing. And the winners look like they've had plenty of practice." Mitsuo gestured to a couple that still stood on the dance floor. The woman wore the mark of a Vallahan warrior, a blue line tattooed along her pale cheek, despite her kimono. The man had the copper tone of Golden hills but his stocky build suggested roots in the south as well. Yaki's gaze slid off them.

  "Good for them." Yaki monotone as she sighted the true treasure, the buffet table. Her stomach sent ripples through her guts and she swallowed down a flood of saliva that threatened to escape her lips. "Let’s get a bite" she struggled with to find words, "to eat." She began to walk.

  "Loss is still a loss?" He asked.

  Yaki nodded, if only to avoid the effort of speaking. I'm a lady, she reminded herself, Ladies do not dive bodily onto a buffet table.

  "Where did you learn to dance?" He asked.

  "Mistress Mana's," Yaki said and instantly a bolt of panic shot down her spine. It released the hunger's hold on her and she tried to cover for the slip up with a c
oy smile.

  Mitsuo's eyes narrowed, "Well that explains that." He tried to pull away but Yaki held on. "You're not tribal."

  "I am on my mother side. Besides I can clearly see you've spent a year or more under the care of the Dapper Academy. I can see it in your makeup style." Yaki said, tugging him ever closer to the food. His glance around to see if she'd been over heard had given her a bit more leverage. She could smell it now, the tang of the teriyakied meats and oils in the tempura batter. While she had control for the moment, the hunger gnawed at her mind, combining with the fresh burning in her chest to scatter throats to the winds of instinct.

  "Who are you?" He asked.

  "Figure it out." Yaki turned him loose to make a last step the laden table. She picked a strawberry the size of a plum from an arrangement and popped it in her mouth. She felt it stretch out the sides of her throat all the way down. Chew! She reminded herself, busying herself with arranging a plate. Piling it with fried vegetables, she lost herself in the heaven of the food, chewing savoring it before swallowing. Had she actually tasted anything since she arrived here?

  Mitsuo was talking, "...don't know the latest dances. So, you've been away from the city for at least a year." Mitsuo's eyes were still narrowed as she crunched through the assortment but they sparkled with interest. "Assumed name, some sort of exile? And it’s clear it’s also been sometime since you've had good food." He picked up a stray beef roll and chewed on it thoughtfully. "Bah, politics. I never pay attention but whomever you are if you're looking to dupe me into a torrid love affair and entrap me in a marriage you are barking at the wrong phallic tree."

  "Why? Is Ryouta more your type?" Yaki winked as he gave a slight shiver.

  "No! Blech. I am merely too smart to fall for that. That and my father wants me to marry into House Hana." A glumness settled on his bright face for a moment.

  "Marry you? Feh. I can tell that be a bad idea from the way you stand." Yaki forced herself to hand off the plate to a waiter. The edge of her hunger no longer pressed up against her neck but still loomed. It would have to be enough for now. One plate wolfed down might just raise a brow. Five or six would call the priests for an exorcism. Ryouta's head drifted toward them, bobbing over the crowd. Yaki indicated him with a nod of her head. "Now that one is more the type you marry. Good size to hide behind and pull strings." Yaki flashed Mitsuo a positively wolfish grin.

  The strands of his neck tightened, "You leave him alone."

  "Why? If I am a mere gold digger, its him or Yoshiaki now since you've seen through my obvious ruse." Yaki let her voice ooze with sarcasm then played her eyes up and down. His robes betrayed none of the doughy softness of most scribes. Wide shoulders tapered off to a slim waist, the V of his collar displayed some definition to his chest. The loose robes and trousers prevented her from determining the measure of his lower body but Yaki imagination readily supplied one for her. "Which is really too bad."

  Mitsuo opened his mouth but shut it as Ryouta broke through the crowd and stepped within earshot. He carried two mugs of ale and thrust one at Yaki.

  "That dance looked like thirsty work." He said.

  "Yes." Yaki admitted, as soon as her fingers close around the mug's handle her stomach lit up her spine, howling anew. Putting the glass to her lips, she tipped the mug back and poured the contents into herself. A strange wrenching sensation opened her throat, admitting the liquid to her stomach without the need to swallow. The realization of what she was doing hit only as the last drop drained away from the glass and she coughed once. You meant do to that. Everything you do must be read as intentional! Mistress Mana screamed in the back of her head. Yaki pushed herself back from her mask and made it smirk as she pushed the empty mug back at an awed Ryouta. "Thanks," Yaki breathed, feeling her insides twist, almost pouncing on the new substance and the heat of the alcohol rising into her chest.

  Ryouta blinked at the glass. "And I thought I could down one of these quickly."

  "Trick I learned from a sword swallower." Yaki's stomach gurgled and she put her hand over her gurgling stomach and allowed herself a wince. "Although I can't say I have his tolerance. Oooh." Feigning a stumble both Ryouta and Mitsuo collided trying to reach her. Ryouta got there first, reaching an arm across her back.

  "Are you alright?" Mitsuo and Ryouta asked together.

  Yaki made a show of fanning herself as she leaned into the mountain that was Ryouta. Pain flared in her chest as the rhythm of the dragon's cursed heart crept into her ears. "Yesss." She grinned and blinked. "That beers a tad stronger than the stuff they serve down at the docks."

  Mitsuo's eye brow raised and saw a twinkle of victory in his eyes, a little ah ha. Ryouta laughed against her, no attempt made to push her away, his hand rested on her shoulder possessively. Mitsuo noted that with a slight frown. Internally Yaki grinned, she had them both now. Mitsuo would be convincing himself that he only wanted to figure out her puzzle while she chipped through Ryouta's showy heart break. Meanwhile Yoshiaki watched his two friends with a growing frown. She'd have to watch him carefully.

  Now, she simply needed to figure out which one was more inclined to steal from their house.

  She peeled herself off Ryouta as a cat might, Yaki recentered herself between Mitsuo and Ryouta. "Do either of you fly? The glider races are soon are they not?" Yaki slurred her words a tad, hoping acting drunk would cover for any further slip ups.

  Mitsuo grinned in victory, "I do a bit of gliding. Far better than Ryouta, he's never been two feet from the ground."

  "Oh don't flatter yourself cousin. Gimmie a glider that can hold me and I'll fly rings around you. Just like when we were kids." Ryouta sneered back.

  The battle was joined, Mitsuo and Ryouta weaving boasts and stories together. Yaki only had to prod here and there to keep them going. Which was good because her heart and stomach were having their own argument that was difficult focus through. Her stomach either content or screaming with need. She'd back out of the conversation a moment, snatch a bite to quiet it and repeat as she kept the conversation moving. Her heart though felt like a fire crystal that had been embedded in her chest. The alcohol had kindled it somehow and with each passing moment it got hotter. While the stomach's screeching eclipsed it, the pain of her waited for her afterwards. Yaki felt her mask grow more and more strained as the evening passed. She heard herself talking, in a distant echo. The conversation had shifted from gliding, to dueling and finally to competing air ship designs. Mitsuo thought Hana's design would best Nishamura's and argued the point with a trace of venom in his voice. He had a very pretty gold chain around his neck.

  Yaki found herself drifting toward Mitsuo, wanting to look closer.

  Mitsuo's eye's intercepted her. "Are you alright."

  "I need..." Yaki voice slipped out. Then shook herself out of the pain induced haze. "Sorry." What am I doing? She hurriedly fell back. She needed something. Her stomach ached, her heart burned. All for something. But what she wanted, what both organs yearned for was maddingly close.

  She looked up at Mitsuo, his lips. She wanted those too but he wasn't what her body burned for. She took them anyway. Surging forward, she caught him by surprise grabbing his lables and locking her lips over his. He yielded quickly cocking his head slightly to let her in. Their tongues touched briefly and Yaki sagged back. He wasn't what she needed. Not right now. "Sorry," Yaki said, "I think I'm drunk." Stumbling backward, Mitsuo let her go. "Let me go to the powder room" Everything hurt. Why did everything hurt.

  "I'll take you home," Mitsuo volunteered.

  Yaki waved a finger at him, remembering fuzzy outlines of her plan, "Nut nuh. Not yet. You stay right there my little Fox." Where was Ryouta? Oh there was Ryouta, giving her a cold jealous stare. Yaki flashed him a smile and teetered off to find somewhere to scream.

  Chapter 20

  Yaki moved toward the wash rooms but a changed direction as she saw how many women were breezing in and out. They had been erected purely for the event, paper screens marked t
he boarder of the event. She squeezed through a crack and found herself among pallets of fabric and wooden crates.

  Alone, safe. Backstage. Yaki fell to her knees wall and let out an incoherent whimper of misery. The last of her willpower snapped like a cheap bit of twine and tears fell from her eyes, making dark circles on the concrete floor. Her hand probed her chest and found the skin so hot her fingers jerked away.

  Ka-clank, Ka-clank, Ka-clank the heart beat with an angry tone. NEED NEED NEED.

  "What do you want?" Yaki whispered to it as she sat her butt down. A choking cough burst from her and Yaki eyes stung with smoke. She knew she needed to get back up. To get moving.

  She knew she needed to get back up. To get moving but she had nothing left. So she sat and listened to clank of her heart and her breath grow shallow, a slight sizzling drifting from her torso.

  "Tell me. Just stop hurting me." She begged it.

  The light altered. Footsteps sounded.

  "I found her!" Someone barked.

  Tithe of Iron! Yaki tried to will herself to move. The stage had found her again. The corners of her mouth twitched. That’s all she could manage and still breath.

  "Hey, Hey Badger." Raiju squatted into view, peering into her eyes. "You weren't kidding Gama, she's in a bad way."

  Gama joined him and sucked in a breath through his teeth. "She pushed herself too hard."

  "Abandoning you and flirting with Ryouta and his cronies must take a lot of effort." Raiju sneered.

  "Doesn't matter." Gama tilted head and the light flashed over his lenses. "Can you walk?"

  Yaki could only gasp in reply.