For a day on straight, our wagon sprinted onward. Its gait slowed all through the next afternoon, until, just as the sun flared red at dusk, the overworked legs faltered. I pulled the nerves to stop the vehicle from wasting itself in a futile attempt to drag us a few moments more.

"Where are we?" Vesija grunted. A high fever tormented him ––whether as a side effect of the tonics or from an infection, I lacked the expertise to know––, but the medicine he had prescribed himself already showed their worth by suppressing the worst bouts of delirium.

"Lost in nowhere wilderness. I steered the wagon so we didn't run in an exact straight line."

"That's good." Vesija coughed. "Please open the door. It smells like a morgue in here."

His assessment was correct. I had done my best, but there hadn't been enough stored water to waste on cleaning the floor or used bedsheets.

With the door open, the clear prairie wind brought a small relief to the stench.

"How's your arm?" I asked. On the first night, Vesija's limb had suffered from an acute lack of blood. The skin had gone terribly cold with barely any pulse at the wrist. The needle must have damaged the artery in his shoulder. However, no necrosis had set in; a miracle of medical technology.

Vesija wiggled his fingers. The arm had been bandaged against his torso, so he wouldn't move his injured shoulder in his sleep. "Still vacillates between prickling and numbness. Neru, you saved my life and arm. Thank you, again."

"Don't mention it. Both are important to me personally."

After a night of medically assisted sleep, both the wagon and its owner were in good enough state to steer us to a trickle of water between the hills. After the winter, Vesija told me, the meltwater from the distant mountains filled the underground channels. At certain places the water overflowed to the surface to create these little streams, which never visibly reached the sea.

The wagon drank itself full, and I got on with washing the stained textiles. Because we lacked a proper machine for the job, I had to immerse myself into the novel experience of hand-done laundry. The strain of the labour soon filled my fingers and shoulders, but the aches were worth the sight of untainted sheets drying on the cold grass.

I admired my handiwork and breathed in the surrounding desolation. The only sign of habitation was an aphid herd, a mass of scintillating chitin the width of a lake. Even my eyesight couldn't discern any individual animals at the distance, let alone pick out their herders. Without Vesija so near, I would have been more alone than ever before in my life.

The familiar mountain dominated the horizon, crowned with a mitre of primordial snow. Or not so primordial, perhaps. A few scholars had suggested that the Pylon of the World wasn't a mountain at all, but the largest artificial construction on the planet. I found that highly unbelievable: not even the ancients could have had the might to move literal mountains. At most they had cut the Pylon to give the otherwise natural rock its strange symmetry.

"Forgive me for putting you through this toil", Vesija groaned from the bed.

"I'm supposed to be your partner, am I not? I know how to do little else than unskilled labour." And even that came with great mental effort. Lifelong squalor in leisure had its effects on the strength of the psyche.

"In normal circumstances, I'd help you."

"Perhaps you might. Now, the only work you need to do is to rest." I wiped the soapy sweat off my eyes. "And I'm sure you shall make this worth my while."

"If you want, I can start on that right now." He beckoned me with his healthy hand.

"Let me freshen up first."

"No, no. Come here. I prescribe your touch as a curative for myself."

"Well..." I pouted as if reluctant. "If you insist. I wouldn't dare to disobey a physician when it comes to matters of medicine. But it must wait a moment more. Your health is not in immediate danger."

"All thanks to you."

"Oh, do cease with the gratuitous gratitude." I slipped out of my gown with a little dancer's flair. Desire lit in Vesija's eyes. That was good. His body was regaining its hot blood.

In spite of my earlier observations of isolation, I looked around the grassland before stepping to mercy of the steppe wind. Even with the ample evidence that nobody could possibly observe me, the unease from being exposed without the usual drapes for privacy didn't let go. Thus my hose-shower needed to be brief. Not that I wanted to linger under the stream, as the wagon had lacked the time to warm the water.

Vesija's arm reached to welcome my shivering form to the bed. The worst of the fever had passed, and his skin was no longer clammy nor cold. The man pressed his face into my hair. His breathing relaxed further.

Intimacy was a challenge in the man's condition. I ended up leaning against his healthy shoulder with his arm underneath me. Though awkward, the position allowed us both to reach the spots we wanted to touch and have touched. His huge hand was exceedingly precise instrument for manipulating my sensitive bits. In between kisses, I breathed on his neck, as I caressed the parts of him that remained sturdy enough to handle.

Once both us were spent, I huddled against the man under the blanket. While the noon dwindled, we exchange nary a word, for Vesija dithered between drowsy awareness and restorative sleep. I minded not, because the sight of him alive was all the diversion I needed.

When he stirred and turned his face to smile at me, I asked: "Are you hungry?"

Though Vesija knew from earlier experience that my cooking scarcely deserved the term, he said yes.

The chirurgeon lapped up the fried mix of vegetables and rehydrated heartfruit. I myself found my own dish edible, but only just. As far as my taste buds were concerned, the meal was greasy and overcooked with the pungent spicing desperately trying to hide the other defects.

"I'm glad that you have already found your frankly indiscriminating appetite", I said.

"Oh, you again downplay your ability, Neru. This is great fare in my state."

"Yes, I figured the heartfruit might help with recovering all those little things in the blood. Nonetheless, I do think it should be cooked fresh."

The man gave me an odd, passingly disappointed look.

The insides my chest twisted. "Sorry! I didn't mean to complain about the food. This is what we shall be having from now on, so I must get used to it."

Vesija shook his head and smiled. "Don't worry. When we get little closer to Hitunna, the ingredients available will improve. Though they tend to be rather... exotic."

With an unsure frown, I said: "I look forward to that."

The man laughed, then coughed in a way that alarmed me, but it was only a lump of food in his throat. He finished his cup of water, still smiling. "Don't be so glum, my spring blossom. It's not just hay and saddle-dried reindeer steak we eat. Hitunna is a lake, remember."

"I'm not upset!" I sighed and placed my elbows on the tables. "Alright, maybe I am troubled to an extend. All this reminds me of how I shall never return anywhere remotely reminiscent of home." I forced a smile. "But it hasn't been quite long enough for me to start feeling homesick already."

The man opened his mouth but hesitated. Instead of saying anything he nodded and continued with his meal. For me the lunch was all but finished. I couldn't stand another bite.

"Can you finish this?" I pushed my tray to Vesija. "I hope I didn't end up cooking too much."

Vesija took the offered food graciously enough. "I apologise, if I appeared dismissive."

"Never mind that." I stood up and went to clean the cookware. "Vesija. My mind has been wracked by this one matter ever since we left Tankai. The ancient pattern tonics can reverse natural development of tissue. Hypothetically, couldn't they return a body to an entirely embryonic... androgynous state and remake it with new characteristics?"

Vesija remained silent. I didn't turn away from my chore.

"The concept isn't entirely unbelievable.", he said after the long pause. "But such drastic alteration would have to atrophy several different organs in perfect harmony, before even starting the similarly complex regrowing procedure."

"Starfarers must have had the technology."

"Maybe they had. Though I suspect they used a mixture of surgery and cultivated tissue, for what I assume is the subject of this discussion."

"And the delicate tools required for that are unlikely to have survived the last aeon." The miniature washer had finished licking the pan clean, so I rinsed off the detergent slime and hung the pan from the ceiling.

"Many pieces of the ancient machinery were designed to endure even through the use of eschatologic weaponry."

"Yet it is a long shot to find anything functioning after all these centuries, yes?"

"Unfortunately, it appears you are correct in this." Vesija continued with our meals, and I went to stare through the broken shards of the rear window.

That evening, because Vesija felt confident about the regained strength of his legs, we scrubbed the text off his wagon. Once we were ready, the man's spine lost its stiffness, and his more relaxed expression altered to accommodate for his unkempt beard. He had returned home.

Fire raged inside the cabin. That was what my nose warned. I opened my eyes, but the stench of smoke withdrew into a fragrant tinge in the air. The only light demonstrated an unhealthy flicker. The lamp was on the floor much too far to the side than anything could have been within the wagon.

I lifted a hand to rub my bleary eyes, but the movement was stopped by the stiff and heavy blanket. A sudden blast of clarity struck me. This wasn't the chirurgeon's wagon. The blanket on me was furred skin and altogether dead. I sat up on the bed, which was only a thin mattress.

The circumstances couldn't have changed so drastically since... My brain fumbled onwards, pushing inquiries into the haze that controlled my mind. Further understanding came eventually: I had fallen asleep. This was a dream.

Such realisation had the tendency to dissolve my imagined realities, but I remained firmly in the present phantasmagoria. Might as well, I figured, enjoy the mental environment conjured from my subconscious.

For a moment, the surrounding dark space had been a cavern, yet presently the walls were of coarse fabric. A primitive shelter then, undoubtedly created from my fancies involving Vesija. In the middle beside the thin support pillar burned an unbound flame. The flickering glow revealed a variety of strange objects, which threw deep shadows against the walls. The gloom made it impossible to determine what exactly the furnishing was beyond presumably being a traveller's possessions. They weren't mine though. With the unfounded certainty of a dreamer, I knew this shelter didn't belong to me.

No clothes restrained my body, just as I would expect from this type of reverie. Downward gaze met the familiar ample bosom. However, the sight between the teats and the fleshy thighs launched a reflex to slam my legs together, but nothing was squeezed between. Blood sang in my ears, vividly unlike in any dream I could recall. I dragged the furry blanket back on my lap, but I had little time to ponder the heart-aching course, on which my wishes had guided this inner shadow theatre.

From beyond the evidently thin walls of the shelter came the ruckus of a heated argument. I couldn't distinguish the words, but I knew the language for Iwunish. That fit my expectations. Maybe I was a concubine of a steppe lord, freshly captured from the soft sedentary populations of the initial post-Collapse recovery period. Though according to currently orthodox theory, my ancestors would have been the nomadic conquerors. I pushed the academic nonsense off my mind, lest boring reality shatter the titillating dreamscape.

The side of the shelter split into a blade of white incandescence. From the aperture, a large beast of a man crouched inside with grace preternatural for his size. The warm radiance of the flames moulded familiar features on his silhouette. Instead of wearing anything rugged and primal that would have suited the fictitious circumstances, Vesija wore a suit quite alike those of the real flesh and blood one. Blinded by the shift from outside daylight into the darkness in the shelter, the chirurgeon only reacted to my presence a few step away by being startled into a gasp.

He recovered himself and said: "Ah, Neru. I wondered when one of you might show up." The man sat on the bed. "Move to the other side."

"What do you mean 'one of you'?" I asked while complying with his request. It was foolish to entertain this oneiric facsimile, but perhaps I wasn't quite in control of the flow of my imagination.

"I have no energy for this", Vesija grunted, as if only to himself. "Especially not now."

Such attitude was highly disrespectful from a dream entity and very unlike the real Vesija. There was no point to being aware of the dream, if I wasn't the mistress of my own fancies. While my subconscious gave me this hoped-for physical configuration, I had to utilise the opportunity, even if the experience was ultimately just the product of my own ignorant pre-conceptions.

My hand slid across the man's chest. Even through the layers of fabric, the hefty contours of his anatomy were readily apparent. Heated agitation surged through my dream flesh.

"Oh, you shan't deny me this", I crooned and shifted in order to hoist myself on top of him.

Vesija pressed my flank down and turned on his side. "I won't betray her with an eidolon." He brushed the hair from my face. "Back to sleep."

The command echoed through my brain. Trying to hold on the moment only confused me further. The shelter and us two in it dissolved into viscous liquid, which slipped between my stiff fingers. The world decohered, I flowed into unremembered dreams.

As the wagon trudged its way over the chilled grassland, travellers came to hail us. Vesija never showed alarm, even when the riders openly help their man-long needlers fitted with nasty sword bayonets. A few of the more martial travellers wore polished plates of scavenged metal as rudimentary armour, though most had afforded only decorative details in these rarer substances.

Those brief meetings offered enough opportunities to familiarise myself with their steeds. Thick fur covered the beasts from the stiff tail to the bone-crushing jaws. Their riders had to use leather harnesses to jerk the animal's head around instead of manual interaction with the nervous system. When I pointed out the impracticality of this arrangement, Vesija told me the advantage was that the reindeers could survive with minimal supervision. Animal independence remained necessary on the sparsely inhabited steppe.

One of the nomads offered to let me try riding his reindeer, but nobody could force me to risk my neck on top of a barely deferalised transport. Thus I politely refused, which elicited a roar of laughter. Apparently they found my accent in Iwunish particularly hilarious.

Most of the roving bands herded the skittering aphids on long circular routes to gather the steppe's biomass into honeydew. In order to wrangle huge amounts of insects, they needed the speed which their unusual mounts allowed. The reindeers themselves thrived on the meat of the aphids, but they couldn't get through the thick chitin of the knee-height aphids without help of their humans. To me that seemed like a threateningly complicated system of co-dependencies to rely on in the wilderness, but the Narshurians had made their societies, if not thrive, then survive for generations.

Little more than the sky and boundless grass could be seen from the front window, yet the chirurgeon told me to bring the wagon to halt.

"Do you want to stretch your legs?" I asked.

Vesija pushed the door open and hopped out. "Come take a look."

I leaned out of the doorway and had my eyes follow his pointing finger to a jagged boulder in the direction we had headed. The stone formation stood prominently sharp and eminent. The boulder was a reasonably conspicuous sight on the flat terrain, but I wasn't particular towards amateur geology. "Is that a landmark?"

Vesija chuckled. "Oh, quite the contrary. It's an eremilith."

"An ancestor stone."

The man turned his smile at me. "You've heard of them?"

"They get mentioned in travelogues. Narshurian clans used to keep them as status symbols."

"Not quite, thought the traditional veneration might have seemed that way from to outsiders." He sighed. "But that is all history. We should steer away from it."

Without a further word, the man clambered back inside. I was left to wonder, what exactly he had wanted to show me.

My Iwunian required only the Pylon and the night sky to orient us across the plains. He knew the place of a trade fair of the season and took us there with no need to ask for directions.

Unrooted tents, fabric shelters and wagons similar to ours spread around the fence of bleached tusks, which walled off the sanctified copse. The immensely old trees had been twisted in ways no wild plant ever grew, and strange inorganic ––almost metallic–– growths swelled from their gnarly bark. Unfortunately only the maiden caretakers were allowed inside the enclosure, and I couldn't examine the peculiar shred of forest.

Many of the herders and traders at the camp knew Vesija by name or at least reputation as a physician. My understanding of both Iwunish and the common trade speech failed to keep up with the barrage of the quips, boasts and elaborate half-ritualised greetings. By rule the actual Iwunians were taller than the Jaan average, just like Vesija. Among those lofty crowds, I felt more stunted than even in the cosmopolitan streets of the Conglomerate.

Still, in spite of the differences in height, the garments of the nomads differed little from the dress of the Jaan frontier, beyond decorative touched and increased practicality. The layered attire of the women usually included slit gowns with loose trousers underneath, and all but the youngest girls had at least one illuminating strand tied to their hair. Vesija haggled for a few of those bioluminescent worms from a young boy, who bred them for distinct colours in the jars of his reindeer-sledge.

"Here." Vesija reached for my hair with one of the glowlines. I leaned my head, and he placed the worm to clamp the strands near my scalp.

"Do these have any purpose beyond ornamental?" I had observed, or at least thought I did, that there had been a correlation between the colour and amount of glowlines according to a woman's status and age.

"Each clan has their own little touches of meaning. This one only indicate that you are of marriageable age, but the lack of any further informations implies you shouldn't be solicited with offers at the moment."

"Oh. You consider me taken then?"

His smile didn't falter. "I can add my claim, if you so wish."

Though his words were half in jest, I lost the control of my expression in the depths of mirth. A corner of Vesija's mouth lifted in droll amusement.

I gathered myself before the stiff pause in our conversation created a scene for the market crowd. "The claim is both ways? I shan't advertise myself as some spare mistress."

"For me, you are enough. I'm an obligate monogamist, as an ethologist might phrase it."

I brushed off the scientific terminology with a hand gesture and a smile. "Perhaps I should signal my availability to keep you on your toes. To keep my options open. Who knows? You may not be the pinnacle of your kind."

The man spread his elbows to widen his silhouette. "You'll note that I am perfectly willing––" Grin crept into his attempt at a grave expression. "–– to fight off any challengers."

"How very boisterous of you." I clutched his healthy hand. "Come now, my brave peacock, I require a moment in private with you."

Back in the wagon, I was ready to set off my trap, no matter how unpleasant it would be to both us. As Jaan I had my duty, even if my professional status was compromised. The Vad plague was not something I could let fall on my conscience.

I launched my best disarming gaze at Vesija. "You haven't told me yet, what your spy work was for." I took his hand in both of mine and lifted it between us to deny him escape.

Vesija's expression hid most of his discomfort. "You never asked."

"Well, you were injured and I... I didn't want the responsibility of knowing. But now, I need know that you can trust me."

"Neru. Believe me. I do trust you."

"Please, Vesija."

He sighed. "It's understandable if you fear that I plan sedition. That's not the case however. My plan is to stop..." He paused. The shift of his flowing thoughts to another stream was blatant in his eyes. "To stop certain restive and reckless actions, by finding proof that the Commonwealth is not an existential threat to our way of life."

"We aren't! Our peoples are allies. Are we not?"

"Pledges of fraternity haven't been enough. What I've worked to prove is the inability of the Jaan army to actually attack us. That intelligence booklet; it shows the August Motherland Army is wholly unable to send its best troops against us this deep in our homeland."

Though unusual, the rationale was plausible enough. What I actually needed to know was, how he had dispensed the booklet, while under my close supervision. Perhaps that thirst to understand stemmed partly from my slighted professional pride, if I was capable of such, but the information might be of immense value to the Jaan.

"Can't you explain to me, what kind of organisation you work for?"

He sighed. "No." Vesija stepped closer. "It's not because I don't trust you, but because others might view your knowledge as a threat."

"Oh. Then it is chivalry to keep me in the dark." My voice had a bitter tinge, which I instantly regretted.

The man freed his hand from my grasp to caress my neck. "Was this all the talk you dragged me here for?"

With a wide smile, I turned my head to facilitate his further touch. The business of international espionage away would force us to argue. It was better to push it away. With eyes closed, I pressed myself against the man and timed my breath with his. Now unimpeded, the bubbling excitement from our little shopping spree resurfaced in full force. The valves of my heart loosened to fill my skin with heated blood.

"How's your shoulder?"

"It comes along. Unless I try to move my arm, there's no pain. I will need surgery later, but full recovery is likely. Thanks to you, my dawn and dusk."

Side by side in the warmth of a glow lamp, we sat under the brightening stars. The raucous din of the market barely reached our little private campsite a good distance away. Vesija had bought us crispy fillets preserved by the mildly toxic substance secreted by the fish itself. The chirurgeon ate his portion with obvious relish, but I observed that the taste for the stuff must be first thoroughly acquired.

In the far dark distance, gusts of wind goaded the fine sand into rolling black waves. Flashes like lightning flickered therein, though the dust clouds must have been far too low and small to generate actual thunder.

"I certainly wouldn't want to be trapped in there. What even is that storm?" I pressed myself against the snug warmth of Vesija.

"Another gift left by the ancestors. Something mixed in the grains of sand."

"A weapon?"

"Maybe. Trace amounts of it." Vesija yawned. "Elsewhere, in less dry locales, rainfall must have washed it into the sea."

"Here the wound on the planet remains."

"Wound... Depending on one's point of view. The arcane forces in the dust effectively suppressed a whole principle of technology. Those machines now lost, maybe they were a cancer worth the drastic cure."

"You seem to have a clear idea of what and why the Collapse entailed. I can't boast the same."

"Well... I have this tendency to confound the accepted academic consensus with our traditional accounts."

"So, what does the wisdom of your folk tell?"

Vesija turned to smile at me, but even in the flicker of the firelight the unease was apparent.

"It's fine", I said. "If you consider the knowledge too esoteric to be divulged to outsiders."

"No, that's not quite how it is. I don't consider you an outsider to my life. Yet others might object with our beliefs being shared with someone such as you."

"Do you mean me as Jaan, or..."

"An outsider in general. Our ways aren't shared with all Narshurian, or even all of us Iwunians. Though our beliefs are no secret, we don't exactly propagate them."

"Yet you'd have to if you married outsiders."

"Right. Of course."

A storm of my thoughts whipped at the sparse islets of reason. It was understandable why Vesija had been so damned reticent about his mission, but his wife wouldn't have been an outsider in front of any law or tradition.

I had to admit that I wasn't exactly marital material. Sure, my flesh had been suited for his pleasure, but I lacked the ability that was fundamental to the very purpose of a marriage contract. Maybe I had altogether misinterpreted the Iwunian's interest in me. Life of a travelling merchant was a lonely lot. He had said that himself in the canal train. The crew of the medicine show had referred to his 'celibacy', but obviously his lack of women had never been out of inability or chasteness. My unusual configuration was only beneficial, should the Iwunian have a fiancée, or even a wife, waiting among the savages. No risk of unwanted pregnancy or expectations of genuine commitment.

Often enough my impressions of a relationship had turned out to be dangerously skewed. The chirurgeon could be suave enough to string along a fool, when he wished to, and he had been the one to push me deeper into this mess.

My mind pushed against a barrier that was incandescent with the burning heat of the conclusion within. By no conscious volition, my legs pushed me up and into a stride, away from the campfire and the Iwunian.

A man like Vesija could have had his picking of partners. To him, I was only a novel curiosity. A gullible joke, an obscene imitation, an impotent failure, a broken male. To myself I was the lowliest vermin of all creation: a Jaan traitor.

Only the dimensions of the dark steppe stopped my flight. Had the friction storm not been so damned far, I'd been glad to walk inside its nerve-consuming embrace.

Dry grass crunched a few steps behind me. I reached for the pistol on my hip, but my hand found nothing. There was only one person in the world I wanted to shoot anyhow, even if survival instinct would have stopped me.

A huge black shadow settled beside me. "The stars are indeed more readily visible away from the fire."

I let out a dismissive acerbic sigh, yet my eyes couldn't keep down in the nondescript grassland. I lifted my gaze up towards the night sky. Its scintillating dots flared as beautiful as they were merciless and ancient. In comparison, any problem I could have appeared less than inconsequential. The eventful day had exhausted my spirit, and my tired brain couldn't maintain its anxiety. It was useless to pity my self-created lot further.

Graciously, the chirurgeon offered me the means to save myself from the worst embarrassment caused by the hysteric if clipped escape. I stepped closer to him, which invited the man to lift his arm and cape on my shoulder.

"Do you ever wonder from which one of those the starfarers came?" I asked.

Vesija's head jerked around scanning the constellations. He leaned close to me to point near the horizon. "That small one in middle of the Ouroboros. I'm sure you can see it better than me. There's a solid hypothesis for it, based on the approximate distance and other factors, if you weren't aware."

"Such cold conjecture lacks the lustre of mystery. Mayhap the tales of a voyage across the starless void are ancient fabrications, and the truth is something stranger."

The man laughed into a yawn. "It will be a chilly night. We ought to get inside." His warmth made sure I myself wasn't cold, but Vesija turned to go with me in his hold.

I grabbed his hand and brought it down. "Wait. Let's not go yet." What I needed to speak was best done where the man couldn't see my expression, of which I had already lost control. "I need you to tell me, what I am to you."

A soft laugh rumbled deep in the man's throat. "Can you have forgotten my declarations already? In case that is so: I love you, Neru." He sounded as artless as the steppe wind, but the chirurgeon's vocation bordered that of a confidence man. I had no choice but to believe him, which was, in truth, not altogether distasteful.

"No. A lack of sweet nothings isn't why I... why I'm acting out at the moment." A soup of dozen unstable notions squirmed through my mind. Nevertheless, my voice wavered only slightly. "Vesija. What do you think I am?"

The man stood silent, with his mental movements veiled by the deep evening. In order to see a glimpse of his inner true self, I would have let him into my soul, to peruse every embarrassment, shame and stain.

Instead of answering, he grappled me with his arms, though the wounded one only supported my lower back a little. My spirit floated, and I felt faint. To keep me steady and my feeble legs upright, I grasped the only steady object in vicinity. With my arms around the man's shoulders, I pressed into him with a sigh. Even with the padding between us, only a singular heartbeat filled both of our ribcages. The roar of surging blood drowned out the howling wind.

"Neru... Our escape must be hard on you. Immensely so." Vesija let me withdraw and took my hand. "Unfortunately there is nothing I can do to truly demonstrate what I feel for you. Nothing as drastic as you have done."

"I lost my life and fam––" My voice teetered on the brink of shattering, so I firmed myself with deep breath. "You are avoiding my question."

"If this is about me describing you as an outsider––"

"No. That's not it."

Maybe Vesija understood what I meant well enough to avoid the topic. I didn't exactly help with my own reticence to utter those thoughts, which were both insanity to reason and, in my heart, painfully true.

A hand rose from the night to caress my cheek. "My feelings for you are the same regardless of what I think you are", the Iwunian murmured.

"Damn it, Vesija..." I muttered. "It's not as simple as that. Careful platitudes shan't ease my mind. With you my very soul soars, at times. Yet there's always the dread that I'm a frau-– an actor. A mere actor."

"If that was the case, you'd have to be an exceedingly dedicated to the role." From the marketplace rose a roar of laughter to drown the fevered tunes of rustic instruments. Vesija made no move to look behind himself.

A lump in my throat forced me to swallow, before I could continue. "With you, I have little need to perform. But... If I had my way, I shouldn't have to act at all."

The man placed the hand of his wounded arm on my hip. "Neru..." In place of his usual poignant testimonials, he only repeated the false name I had told him.

"Nerutaara is not my name. My parents did not choose to grant their child a moniker from a ribald play." I slipped my hand from the Iwunian's hold and stepped away. "They named me Ekku Luttami. A clanful of prestige clings to every syllable, and my comportment disgraces every shred of it."

Vesija made a motion to follow before deciding to keep his distance. "If you want to talk, I will listen."

I tried to guffaw, which turned into a croaked sob. "Always the physician, treating his patient."

"Even if you might be my patient at times, you are much more to me." The man closed the gap between us, tardily, and brought his arms around me again. Even the one of his wounded shoulder. We ended up like in the positions at the end of a regal dance. "If you can, do say what troubles you."

"That––" I mumbled a few abortive attempts before forcing myself to draw from the familiar calm of the sharpshooter's ecstasy. Words couldn't be this difficult. In a stiff monotone, I said: "I fear it is not altogether healthy this way we both treat my condition."

"Right. I figured that there is the spot where the shoe pinches." Vesija placed a palm on my neck and supported my jaw with gentle fingers. "You are concerned that we might be afflicted by some cerebral abnormality."

"Well, yes. Rationally, this charade is contranatural. It's insane. It's..." I cut the torrent of vitriol short, though the condemning words remained bright in my thoughts.

"Perhaps so. On the other hand, let us not dismiss the possibility that this––" He gestured at me. "––might only be who you are, naturally and medically speaking. In spite of all our inherited understanding, there is so much we do not understand of the inner workings of the nervous system."

"If it's a sickness of my brain, there should be a tonic to fix it."

Vesija drew a breath deep with infuriating patience. "I'd be sorry to lose you, if what you are was 'fixed'."

Pathetic mewling threatened to burst through my wavering lips. Silence was all I could muster to avoid further humiliation. Like ancient vines, the firm arms welcomed me into a tighter embrace, as I pressed against the boulder of his torso. Because of the mucus in my nose, I had to breathe through my mouth. To avoid bawling was a struggle, one which I promptly failed. Vesija let me cry into the quiet of the camp's periphery. As awful as it was that he witnessed me in such a state, a good portion of the burden, which had built around my heart, unnoticed over the last weeks, eased under his resigned supervision.

"I'm sorry", I said through my sniffles.

"You have no reason to be."

We detached to an arm's length to gaze at each other's faces.

I swallowed with difficulty. "Aren't you always so understanding."

"Empathy is never not worth the attempt. Though I have a good impression of what troubles you, explaining it by your own words could help."

It was more of those the inanities they must have taught novice alienists, to be used on bothersome patients incurable by reason. I had tried to talk. Should it work even to the tiniest of extends, it'd be worth the little further discomfiture that was possible at this point.

"Is it not exceedingly obvious? I wish I could be a woman."

"And what stops you?"

I stared at the man. "That too is obvious. Painfully so."

"But that's not true. After you arrived in Narshur proper, has anyone acted as if you weren't one? All those, who we have met on our travels, treated you only as the Jaan dame."

Vesija was right, when it came to the unwitting locals, whom my act and his tonics had fooled. In the case of Motsa... Well, he had kissed me without any postface of violence.

"They thought me a 'dame', only because I deceived them."

"Did you also deceive me?"

The chirurgeon had laid me a trap of words, and I had tripped right into its clutches. In me roared the desire to flare out in anger against such a sleight of hand. But the spark of indignation found no ready kindling in my heart.

With a sigh of capitulation, I brought the man's hand over my chest. "Vesija, I'm no fool. I do realise what conclusion you tuck me towards. That I shouldn't agonise over a matter I have no way to alter. Which, while banal, is true, except that I could decide to act otherwise."

"Could you commit such an alteration without self-deception?" Vesija's previously imperturbable voice gained the tiniest hint of worry. "Would you even want to?"

"No. Even if your companionship is robbed from me, my past life has no allure. Speaking of my previous existence, it really didn't condition me to tolerate... the stress of these recent events."

"Right." Vesija turned us so the light shone to our side and revealed his kind smile. "Now, I can't take away your justified distress, but I hope I can distract you until it again abates." He gestured towards the camp. "I recall that we haven't had the opportunity to dance together. And there just happens to be suitable music for the activity. What do you say, madame..?"

My lips pursed into smile. "Nerutaara. You may keep calling me thus. I do relish the name."

The Iwunian half-dragged me, as if afraid I might decide to sulk after all, towards the centre of the festivities.

"Wait!" I protested, though I kept up the pace with him. "I can't possibly know the local dances."

"This is no fancy ball. If nothing else suits you, there will be temikora."

"Isn't that––"

"Civilised?" Vesija stopped us right at the edge of glow. "Nonetheless, it remains simple enough for us primitives."

"I was about to say 'Jaan'."

His smirk widened into a genuine smile. "Yes, yes. Like many Jaanish things, your dances are popular in these parts. Besides, temikora resembles the old Eberreic martial performance, possibly through a common origin in Narshurian migration era."

"Temikora, a war dance? Admittedly, the rhythm could be described as march-like."

Fragrant steam from the cook pots pillowed in the ceiling of the huge fabric pavilion. As packed with participants the central shelter was, the chirurgeon ploughed a route past the throng to the open space reserved for dancers. Exoskeletal instruments drummed a galloping melody, over which a mixed choir sang like the gathering of seasonal winds. The dance was indeed familiar. If the physician prescribed that I must be distracted, then distract myself I would.

A pre-battle morale rouser or not, the rhythm of the steps and the clapping audience had already possessed my pulse. I didn't wait for the current round to end, before dragging myself and my man into the fray. Vesija laughed his tepid protests, as he guided me to the right position. The crowd gave us way with a few yells to cheer me on. In the vibrant swinging light, the rows of faces showed as motley grins.

Because of my frontier attire, Vesija stood out the most in one of his lesser ––but still eminently fine–– suits. All lustrous brocade, waxed leather and polished resin buttons. And the brilliant gem of them all, his abundant smile.

The other dancers adjusted for my intrusion in mere three beats from the hollow drum. In spite of my less than excellent skill in the activity, I flowed into the Narshurian version temikora with only a touch of guidance from the chirurgeon. Though half-armed he lead me through the unfamiliar steps, and when came the time to spin to the next partner, I could conduct myself with the limited grace required in such an unpretentious setting.