[JE] The Hills Are Alive (with the Sound of Magic) 1/6
Title: The Hills Are Alive (with the Sound of Magic) 1/6
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Kame x Jin
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, fantasy, fluff
Word count: 41,500
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit
Summary: A renegade mage finds his quest goes in quite a different direction than planned when he winds up sharing a jail cell with an aspiring bard.
A/N: Many moons ago, matchynishi asked for mage!Kame and bard!Jin, so hopefully I've delivered! Please excuse me while I take aspects of Japan's geography and cross them with a typical fantasy RPG, where the villains always hide out in mountains in the north and towns only exist when they're essential to the plot. Credit for the Tipsy Panda goes to nyctea62442. Crossposted to ficwars
The Hills Are Alive (with the Sound of Magic) 1/6
Kame wasn't sure what he'd done to land up in jail. Not this time. He vaguely recalled threatening to turn a carriage driver into one of his own horses, but everything after that blurred into one hazy, embarrassing mess, courtesy of the red wine he'd had with his supper. Perhaps he shouldn't have started on that second bottle.
He hoped they'd let him out by morning, or the innkeeper was liable to throw his luggage out on the street if he didn't show up to pay for another day in the room. He hadn't been in town long enough to get to know anyone; didn't have a friend to come speak for him. Kame never stayed anywhere long enough for that.
He couldn't even use his magic to unlock the cell door. The jailhouse sat in the middle of an anti-magic field, cutting him off from his source of power, squeezing him into a tiny, invisible bubble where his body felt numb and useless. He missed the sparks tingling in his fingertips, teasing him with the promise of magic in the atmosphere, just waiting for him to channel it as he wished. Even the little bit he'd stored in his own body for emergencies wouldn't work, not with the alcohol ruining what focus he had left.
Now all he had was a headache and a pair of bruised wrists where one of the town constables had seized him. With nothing better to do, Kame brushed off one of the narrow beds, punched the lone, lumpy pillow into shape, and settled down to sleep off the wine.
Less than a minute after he'd closed his eyes the door opened with a crash, and a young man in a plaid hooded cape stumbled into the cell. Kame sat up in bed just in time to see the newcomer raise his middle finger at the door as it closed.
"You'd better hope he didn't see that," Kame said. "You might not get any breakfast."
The stranger shot him a look of unbridled horror and sank down on the other bed. The bed sank in turn, sagging in the middle till its occupant was forced to huddle in the one corner that seemed stable enough to support him. Kame hoped his new roommate could sleep sitting up.
"Figures," the stranger grumbled, pushing his hood back to reveal a smooth, pretty face only saved from being too girlish by the thick and obviously untended eyebrows. "I knew it was a bad sign when my G-string snapped as soon as I got into town. I should've moved straight onto the next one."
Kame cast a glance over the cape-covered body, not seeing anything through all the plaid. He hadn't moved like he was having underwear issues, though. "G-string?"
"On my guitar. Which is probably going to get tossed out of the Dancing Teapot when I don't show up to collect it because I'm stuck in here!"
"You're staying there too?" Kame said. He'd only tried the inn because he'd found the sign irresistibly cute. "The innkeeper told me I got the last room."
"I think he says that to everyone."
Snarling, the stranger thumped a fist on the mattress, then let out a squawk as a sharp spring poked through. Kame gave up all hope of a quiet night's sleep. Clearly, his cellmate planned to rant and grouse until someone decided he'd been in there long enough and turned him loose.
Might as well introduce himself. Maybe the stranger would be sufficiently awed to spend the night in stunned silence and let Kame sleep off the effects of the wine in peace.
"I'm Kame," he said.
"The Kame? Seriously?"
Kame hadn't expected the other man to actually know who he was. "You've heard of me?"
"Nope, but the way you said your name sounded like I should've. Are you famous or something?"
More like infamous, and only in certain circles. "Not unless you're one of my relatives."
No longer raging at his mattress, the stranger snorted and cracked a smile. "Guess not, then. I'm Jin Akanishi and I'm pretty sure we're not related. That a first name or a last name?"
"A nickname." Kame never gave out his full name. Not these days. He made a small bow, then immediately regretted it when his head started spinning. "Nice to meet you. Why'd they throw you in here tonight?"
"Solicitation."
It would be just Kame's luck to land up in a jail cell with a gorgeous male hooker when he wasn't up to doing anything about it. Not that he could see if Jin had a decent body or not beneath the oversized cloak and baggy trousers.
"Dressed like that? Who were you trying to solicit - monks?"
Jin glared at him. "I said that's what they threw me in here for - not what I was doing. I was just trying to get people to watch my performance. A few hip rolls never hurt anyone, you know?"
"Actually, there's a certain ritual in the far south where they-"
Kame caught himself before he said too much. No sense letting on where he'd been, or what he'd learned, or what he could do. Not to a perfect stranger. Jin was obviously living on the road too, which meant there was a chance they'd cross paths again, and Kame didn't want anyone to possess enough pieces to put together the complete puzzle of Kazuya Kamenashi.
"I mean...performance?" Kame said brightly, brushing aside his earlier response. The guitar comment made sense now. "You're a musician?"
"I'm a bard!" Jin scratched his neck and added, "Or will be when they finally let me in the Guild, anyway. I'm this close to passing the trials."
Most of the bards Kame had met were sombre, greybearded men who sang mournful tributes to death and despair, or stilted tales of courtly love. The rest were sombre, grey-hatted women who sang more or less the same thing, only higher in pitch. Perhaps the trials to enter the Bardic Guild would be gruelling enough to transform Jin into one of their number, but Kame doubted it. Not even the trials to enter the Mages' Guild were harsh enough to double one's age, as Kame had good reason to know.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Kame said, "but you don't seem the bardic type. I don't generally associate hip rolls with dirges."
"I'm going to be a bard." Jin folded his arms stubbornly across his chest. "The trials are based on talent, and they're going to let me in whether they like it or not."
Kame remembered saying something similar to his mentor, once. Kimura had laughed kindly and told him to keep practising the basics.
He gave Jin a smile of encouragement. "Then good luck, Ji-, uh, Mr. Akanishi." Names were important in magic, but they were no less meaningful in everyday social interaction, and Kame always tried to be polite.
"Jin's fine. I don't think there's much room for etiquette in a jail cell."
"There's not room for much of anything," Kame agreed. The two beds took up most of the floor space in the small, drafty room. As accommodations went, he'd had worse, but he preferred better. Much better.
"Which is why I need to get out of here as soon as possible."
"Claustrophobic?"
"No, but if I have to spend all night in here I might be by morning." Jin squirmed in his corner of the bed. Another spring popped out of the mattress; this one shot across the room, bouncing off the wall behind Kame and dropping to the floor. "At least your bed's still in one piece."
The spring digging into Kame's leg told him this might not be the case for much longer. "Only just," he said. "I don't suppose you're any good at picking locks?"
"I want to join the Bardic Guild, not the Thieves' Guild!"
That didn't leave them with many options. The cell's only window was barred, with a scenic view of an alley, and the steel door, which Kame could easily have wrenched open with magic, stood between them and freedom. The guard down the end of the corridor would hear them if they tried to exit through either, in any case.
Kame omitted all mention of magic when he laid out their choices for Jin. "I think our best bet is to try call the guard, and jump him when he comes in. I'm not planning on staying in this town any longer than it takes me to get back to the Dancing Teapot and collect my things. You?"
"The same," Jin said, "but don't you think someone's going to notice two guys slinking out the jailhouse after dark, and find that maybe a little suspicious? I look harmless but you've got a cunning face. And you never did tell me what you did to get yourself locked up, either."
So much for keeping magic out of it. Kame sighed and leaned across the narrow strip of space between their beds, hunching down over his knees.
"I got in a fight with a carriage driver," he confessed. "I think. I'd had too much to drink, threatened to turn him into one of his own horses." He held out reddened knuckles as proof of the fight.
Working transformative magic on living creatures was illegal, but Kame was fairly certain he'd been locked up for committing a physical assault rather than threatening a magical one. After all, he'd never given anyone reason to believe he even had the power to turn a man into a horse. Not for the last couple of years.
"So that would make you a violent, drunken braggart? You don't seem like one."
"I'm not, usually," Kame said, "but I'm sure he did something to deserve it."
Jin's face said he wasn't entirely convinced by this but would play along anyway if it got him out of the cell. "And can you turn someone into a horse?"
"No...but I can make our clothes look like uniforms, once we leave the building. No one will notice two more constables on the streets."
"Not unless we get called on to foil a crime," Jin said, but he did look slightly more enthused about Kame's idea. "Why only once we leave the building? Wouldn't it make more sense to disguise ourselves before we get outside?"
"I can't use magic in here, Jin."
"Why not? Is there some kind of rule saying you can't use it in jail?" Jin teased. "Is it against the la- oh. If you could use magic in here, you wouldn't still be here, would you?"
"There's an anti-magic field covering the whole building," Kame said shortly. Talking about magic to non-mages never went well. They couldn't feel the things he felt. "It stops me reaching out for the magic in the atmosphere."
"Outside the building?"
"Outside my body. Mages..." Kame took a deep breath, released it slowly, and tried to explain. "Mages are just people who have the ability to touch magic, to take it and make it do things. We don't generate it ourselves. Anti-magic fields cut us off from it. It's like I'm wearing such thick gloves that I can't feel anything through them."
"Does it hurt?" Jin asked.
Kame shook his head, realised the wine had stopped sloshing around it and came up smiling. "Not usually. But you can see why I'm still stuck in here."
"Not for much longer. Do you want to distract the guard or knock him out?"
Such an appealing pair of choices. Kame rather thought he'd hit enough people for one night.
"You scream that I've collapsed, and when the guard rushes in to examine my unconscious body, you hit him while he's distracted. We shut him in the cell and make a quick, discreet exit...and we do not stop moving for anything."
Jin let out an earpiercing shriek before Kame had even settled himself on the floor; Kame scrambled to lie prone as Jin followed it up with a convincingly panicked monologue at top volume about how his cellmate had suddenly started frothing at the mouth and collapsed, and how even though they didn't really know each other, it was distressing and something ought to be done and they needed a doctor immediately and-
"That ought to attract attention, even if it's just someone yelling at him to shut up," Kame muttered. He had no idea Jin possessed such a powerful set of lungs, though he supposed it would be an advantage for a bard.
After a good three minutes of fake, frenzied panic, Jin finally shut his mouth and glared at the door. It remained defiantly closed.
"Maybe he's asleep?" Kame suggested.
"Who could sleep through that? Maybe he's dead?"
"I'm not sure the dead could sleep through that racket either. More likely, he just doesn't care."
Kame brushed himself off, glad the tiny lantern overhead didn't provide enough light for him to gauge the state of the cell floor. He'd change back into his travelling gear just as soon as he got clear of this stupid place, anyway. They were going to have to devise a Plan B.
Jin didn't look as though he was going to be much help. Having caught his breath, he'd taken up whistling, a tune Kame thought he recognised as 'Rescue'.
"Jin, can you-" Kame began, but stopped short when the guard rushed in and seized Jin by the arm. "Where are you going?"
"I have no idea!"
If Jin was going, Kame was going too, he decided. The guard didn't seem to care whether he tagged along or not, and showed no interest in closing the cell door.
No interest in anything, in fact, except dragging Jin down the corridor. Jin's efforts to speak to him were all for naught as the guard stared straight ahead, eyes blank and mouth shut.
As if he were entranced, Kame thought, but that wasn't possible. Not inside an anti-magic field. And the field was definitely still active, he could tell; its stifling cloak swaddled every inch of him, and even seemed to be draining his emergency stash. He filed the thought away to be considered later, when he wasn't rushing to keep up. The guard moved so fast Jin's cloak kept catching in doors.
Nobody gave them so much as a second glance as they exited the building - people being strongarmed out of jail were not nearly as exciting as those going the other way - so Kame decided to abandon the camouflage plan. He didn't know where they were going; better to conserve his strength for another time, especially since it had been leached away by his brief incarceration. He could touch it now, the magic. The invisible gloves peeled away and that tingle, that hypersensitivity in his fingertips, made a welcome return.
"He won't let go," Jin muttered as Kame drew alongside him. "He's got a grip like an ogre! Can't you zap him or something?"
"Last resort," Kame said.
It occurred to him that since he was now out of jail and apparently inconsequential to the guard, he could simply take off on his own, leaving Jin to fend for himself. But that didn't seem right, somehow. What if Jin was being taken away to be hanged? (Not a very likely prospect, given the crime he'd been accused of, but not completely out of the question.)
Nothing to do but follow, and Kame did, through dark, empty streets and across the footbridge...all the way back to the Dancing Teapot.
"Home," the guard declared, depositing Jin on the front steps of the inn.
Jin stared blankly at him. "For one night, maybe..."
"Just don't argue," Kame hissed, nudging Jin towards the door. "He's leaving; I think we should do the same."
They watched the guard retrace his steps till he faded out of sight, then ducked through the big wooden doors.
The Dancing Teapot, despite the genteel name, made its living by selling drink a great deal stronger than tea and if the sounds coming from inside the inn were any indication, business was brisk tonight. Kame didn't feel inclined to stop for a nightcap. The sooner he moved on, the better.
Up the backstairs they went, both hitting the same creaking step. Kame fished in his pockets for his room key, couldn't find it. He jumped when Jin's voice came from behind him.
"Problem?"
"Can't find my key," Kame said. "It must've fallen out at some point during my unusually exciting night."
Jin flashed him a sly grin. "So you don't normally get thrown in jail, then?"
"Not enough to make a habit of it."
Under normal circumstances, Kame had never had enough finesse to move the tumblers inside a lock with magic - his mentor had always told him to visualise it in his mind first, and Kame's drawing skills, mental or otherwise, left a lot to be desired. Consequently he didn't pick locks so much as break them and hope for the best.
"You should go collect your own things," he told Jin. "I don't know what was wrong with that guard but when someone else notices that we've disappeared, the first place they'll check will be here - unless you lied about your lodgings when they brought you in?"
"It didn't occur to me," Jin said. "I didn't do anything wrong."
He sounded so innocent, Kame thought. He probably wasn't, if he thought hip rolls were a crowd-pleaser, but it was a pleasant illusion. Most people Kame met were sly, devious, obviously up to something and scheming for their own ends. If Jin had a hidden agenda, it was buried too deeply for Kame to see.
"The town constabulary won't see it that way. Go get your things."
With a quick glance down the stairs, Jin nodded and crossed the hall to his own room. Kame watched long enough to know Jin had better luck hanging onto keys, then turned his attention to the lock. He didn't like damaging other people's property, he really didn't, but there was no way around it this time.
It helped to be able to see what he was doing. One day, Kame vowed, he'd once more be able to target by thought alone, but those days were behind him for now. If he squinted, he could just about see a sliver of the metal bolt sitting between the door and the frame.
And if he could see it, he could move it.
To Kame, magic felt like the warmth of a hearthfire, cocooning him in gentle, comforting heat - until he reached for it. Then the fire blazed into life, sizzling against his fingertips as he seized the sparks, snatching them up to use their energy. Energy translated into motion as Kame willed the bolt to slide back into the lock, jamming it forcibly into place. A muted thud heralded his success, and Kame allowed himself a moment of triumph. Maybe he didn't need the ruby after all.
It didn't take him long to collect his things; he rarely stayed in one place long enough to unpack properly, and experience had taught him it was wise to prepare for a sudden exit. He took a moment to exchange his stained waistcoat for a fresh one and don his long, leather coat and matching gloves, that he might present a more respectable figure leaving the inn than he'd done arriving. The room was already paid for through till morning - by going now, Kame actually lost money on the arrangement, but he wasn't about to track down the innkeeper and ask for a refund.
"Ready to go?"
Kame whirled around to find Jin standing behind him, guitar case in hand and a bag slung over one shoulder. The plaid hooded cape had been replaced by a cream one...or so Kame thought until he spotted a hint of plaid inside the hood. Reversible.
It was on the tip of his tongue to say to Jin that hey, it was great doing time together and all but he travelled alone and picking up a wannabe bard wasn't on his agenda, but something stopped him, made those words disappear and replaced them with a casual "Yeah". Kame wasn't completely sure why, but since he made a point of following his instincts now and his instincts were telling him sticking with Jin was a good idea, he chose to believe them.
"Watch for the third step," Jin warned as he followed Kame back down the stairs. "It creaks."
"That's the fourth step."
"Third," Jin insisted.
It turned out to be half the damned staircase that creaked, in the end, because Jin had to walk straight down the middle thanks to his guitar case. Kame winced with every step, but no one heard them over the off-key caterwauling coming from the bar.
Jin pointed an indignant finger at the door as they left and muttered, "I can do much better than that!"
"I should hope so, or you'd be laughed out of the trials before you even got to take them," Kame said.
"They'll laugh me out anyway if I don't restring my guitar." Jin looked longingly down the street, where closed shops mocked him with blank shutters and dark windows. "I guess I should've bought spares earlier."
"You can get in the next town. I don't think waiting around for the shops to open in the morning is a good idea."
Jin gave him a "no kidding" look and started away from the inn.
"I might...I might be able to fix it for you," Kame said. "If you want."
"With magic?"
"Yeah. But not in the middle of the street."
Using magic to break a lock in a dim hallway was one thing. Standing in full view of half a dozen buildings while effecting repairs was quite another. Attitudes to magic varied greatly throughout the country, with the southern towns being far more open and accepting of mages than anywhere else.
Too bad Kame was headed north.
There was only one way out of town and they took it together, slipping furtively through the rusted metal gates to reach the road. The guard at the gatehouse gave them no trouble, snoring peacefully at his station with an empty wine bottle beside him. Kame was tempted to take his lantern - the light from within the town walls wouldn't see them very far into the night. He never usually bothered with one himself, but for the first time in ages, he had company.
Still, that didn't give him an excuse to turn thief. Abandoning the thought, he continued at Jin's side until they'd gone far enough for the road to disappear in the dark.
Jin broke the silence first. "We should've swiped the guard's lantern, shouldn't we? Can you see anything in this?"
"About as far as the end of my nose."
"This is why I don't travel at night - not unless some kind stranger picks me up."
"I thought you said you weren't in that line of work?"
"I hitch-hike, Kame." Though Jin's face couldn't be seen, Kame could tell by his voice that he felt insulted by the insinuation. "Sometimes people go past in wagons or carriages and they've been travelling for days, so they're bored. If they give me a lift, I sing and play for them on the way. It's a fair trade, and sometimes they have new songs to teach me."
"Sounds like a nice way to travel."
Occasionally, Kame had traded favours for a lift, but since his travels mostly involved searching quietly through the land without drawing attention to himself, the fewer people he spoke to, the better.
"Be nicer if we had some light," Jin said pointedly, just before tripping over a mound in the road.
They weren't going to get much further without one, Kame decided. He didn't like the idea of waiting six hours till the sky began to lighten - especially if some enterprising constable thought to look for the two escapees.
"I can do something about that," Kame said. Or so he hoped. He'd had some trouble maintaining his focus without the ruby. "Close your eyes."
"What, because it's such top-secret magic you're not allowed to show me?" Jin huffed.
"No, it's because I don't want to accidentally blind you."
It was too dark for Kame to tell if Jin had closed his eyes or not, but if he hadn't, it would be his own fault if he was seeing fireworks - or worse, nothing at all - for the next week. Kame's talents didn't extend to curing blindness, and no mage alive had managed to find a cure for stupidity.
Kimura had once described magelights as portable stars. Though a fanciful description, Kame liked it. If one could ever hold a star so small and cool to the touch, a magelight would be it.
Kame stripped off his gloves and held out his left hand, palm facing the sky, and curled his fingers inwards to make a fist, slowly drawing power from the atmosphere as he went to condense into a small ball of heatless light. No wasted energy to burn his skin. He opened his fingers again - cautiously, because he was just as likely to blind himself as anyone else - and breathed a sigh of relief when he found he could look directly at the result without searing pain.
"You can open your eyes again," he said, and when Jin did so, the smile that lit up his face made Kame glad he now had enough light to see by. Such open, unabashed wonder was uncommon on the face of a man who looked to be around Kame's own age, in his mid-twenties; a child's innocent joy and surprise made adult by a man's body. "Here - catch!"
Jin's wonder morphed into alarm as he scrambled to catch the magelight. He looked down at his cupped hands, experimentally closing his fingers around the ball to create flickers.
"It doesn't burn!"
"If it burned, it wouldn't be much help, would it?" Kame pointed out. "Since one of us is going to have to hold it while we walk."
"You can't make it fly?"
Kame turned away so Jin couldn't see him giggling to himself. "Making it fly isn't a problem. Making it stop, on the other hand..."
The other reason Kame's mentor had dubbed the magelights 'portable stars' was that the first time Kame had tried to make one fly, he'd sent it high enough in the sky that it had disappeared forever into a sea of stars, off to join its brethren. He wasn't much for the concept of moderation.
"I guess it's not so bad to hold it." Jin tossed it up and caught it a couple of times. "It feels like thick air."
"That's really all it is. There's magic in the air, and I've condensed a small portion of it into a ball and made it glow."
"Magic's got a lot of uses, huh?"
More than you could ever imagine. "It comes in handy sometimes," Kame said, underplaying for all he was worth. "You want to carry it?"
Jin did, and so they followed the road by magelight. Kame didn't have a map but he knew how to find his way north; Jin was amenable to this plan since the route would take them through Sendai, where the Bardic Guild held its trials twice a year.
"And this time, they'll let me in," Jin vowed. "I won't hold back."
"How many times have you tried?"
"Um..." Jin paused for so long Kame thought he must've been trying since he was a mere child, to have to think that far back, but then he smiled sheepishly and said, "Actually, just once."
"You had to think that hard, and it was just once?"
"It was a very traumatic experience," Jin defended himself.
"Do you at least remember why they failed you last time, so you don't do the same thing again?"
"I didn't know you had to be proficient on more than one instrument - it was in the small print somewhere. I'm covered now."
The guitar was a given, but what could the other one be? Kame thought maybe a harmonica or something equally small that Jin could stash in his bag. Lutes, flutes and fiddles were more traditional for bards, of course, but Jin clearly wasn't setting out to be a traditional bard. "So what's your other instrument?"
Jin tossed Kame the magelight to hold and from the side compartment of his bag, extracted two short wooden sticks and held them out for inspection.
"Claves?" Kame guessed, wondering if the Bardic Guild would even allow them to qualify.
"Drumsticks," Jin corrected him, waving them under his nose so he could see for himself that they were longer and thinner than claves.
"And the drums to go with them are...?"
"They'll have at the trials," Jin muttered.
He packed the drumsticks away again and snatched back the magelight, letting his fingers brush against Kame's and generating a tingle that made Kame glad he'd left his gloves off.
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how Jin had managed to achieve proficiency with the drums if he didn't have any - and why he'd chosen such an unwieldy second instrument in the first place - but Jin didn't look like he was in the mood to talk anymore and it was never a good idea to annoy the guy holding the light.
Besides, standing around chatting wouldn't get them anywhere, and they had a lot of walking to do. Kame had intended to resupply before setting out in the morning - his provisions were low, and he didn't know about Jin's. He'd have to do it in the next town.
They followed the road in a comfortable silence, occasionally broken by the sounds of Jin trying to compose lyrics for a song detailing his time spent behind bars. Never mind that he'd been in prison for less than an hour - everything, he said, was good material for a song. Kame helped by contributing the occasional memory, exaggerating the decrepit state of the beds and the cramped, confined conditions of their shared cell. Jin promised to give him partial credit when he got around to finishing it.
Jailhouse rock aside, they didn't talk much, which Kame figured was the safest way to go. The less he spoke, the less he'd reveal about himself.
By the time the sun started to rise, Kame had extinguished the magelight and the next town was in sight - a dot on the horizon. Jin suddenly pulled away from the road and dropped down to the ground.
"If you're going to take a comfort break, at least go behind a bush," Kame said.
Jin laughed and pulled a water bottle from his bag. "Here; my last one. I think we could both do with a drink, and I want to watch the sunrise."
Sunrise meant different things to different people. To Kame, it meant a fresh start, a replenishment of the magic in the atmosphere brought by morning's light. As a mage, he appreciated its purpose.
And as a man, he appreciated its beauty.
He sat down beside Jin to watch the slow, gradual unfurling of a banner of light across the sky, a patchwork of gentle pinks, yellows and blues.
"Lovely, isn't it?" Jin said, handing Kame the bottle after he'd had a swig himself. "I'm not a morning person but sights like this make the idea a lot more appealing."
Kame wiped the neck of the bottle and took a long gulp of water, glad they were near enough to civilisation to resupply soon. "I can think of worse ways to start my day."
"Like waking up in jail?" Jin suggested, making them both laugh.
"I wish I'd had the opportunity to wake up," Kame said. "I was just about to get some sleep when they threw you in there." He yawned, all the tiredness catching up with him now he'd stopped to rest. "It's been a long night. Maybe we can rent a room for a few hours and get a little sleep before we move on."
"If we rent one room for a couple of hours you know what it'll look like, don't you?"
"Two rooms," Kame amended, though in truth he felt it would make very little difference unless Jin snored. "But any place that would rent rooms by the hour wouldn't care what we did with them, anyway."
"And the bed would probably be just as sturdy as the ones in that jail cell. Good thing I can sleep almost anywhere."
A useful skill, to be sure, but Kame hadn't expected Jin to give him a demonstration on the spot. The aspiring bard slumped down, eyes closed, crossing his arms under his head and almost rolling backwards as he straightened his legs.
"If you go to sleep now, I'm going to finish what's left of your water," Kame said. "And then I'm going to move on without you."
That made Jin sit up in a hurry. He gave Kame a dirty look and stole the bottle back. "Don't you dare, after I was nice enough to share with you."
As a peace offering, Kame rummaged around in his bag till he came up with the last of his food - a couple of slightly battered onigiri. He handed one to Jin and started unwrapping the other one himself.
"Here: breakfast."
"You had food all this time and you didn't tell me?"
Kame shrugged. "This is the last of it. I didn't know how long it would take us to get somewhere I could resupply." He watched Jin's onigiri disappear at surprising speed. "When did you last eat?"
"Sometime yesterday morning?" Jin wolfed down the last bite. "I usually sing for my supper, but getting arrested put paid to that."
He stared at the empty wrapper so forlornly that Kame wished he had more food to offer. Unfortunately, conjuring it from the air wasn't an option - at least, not at present - and while Kame's toothpaste had a very pleasant strawberry flavour, it couldn't be considered edible by any stretch of the imagination.
There was one thing he could offer, though.
"I can try fix your guitar string for you now, if you want."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. But no guarantees - you should still buy some spares."
Jin patted his pocket ruefully. "Unless you manage to fix the string, I'm not sure I'll be able to afford spares. Busking doesn't always go so well when I'm just singing.
"I normally play evenings at inns for bed and board," he explained, "but I don't make much money out of it. During the day I find myself a good spot on the streets to play, somewhere like a market, where you've got a lot of people who've got time to stop and listen...and money too, hopefully.
"Guild members can set their own prices, and they get hired by nobility to play private parties and stuff. Did you ever see a broke bard? Nope, me neither. But guys like me, we have to make do with what we can get, try to build a name for ourselves with just our music, without the Guild backing us."
"Is that why you want to join?" Kame asked. "The money?"
"The money would be nice, yeah...but mostly...I just want to prove I can do it, you know? I want them to acknowledge that I'm just as good as any of them, even though I'm doing things my own way."
Jin's ambition found a kindred spirit in Kame. "I know the feeling," he said, and grinned. "Pass the case."
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Kame x Jin
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, fantasy, fluff
Word count: 41,500
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit
Summary: A renegade mage finds his quest goes in quite a different direction than planned when he winds up sharing a jail cell with an aspiring bard.
A/N: Many moons ago, matchynishi asked for mage!Kame and bard!Jin, so hopefully I've delivered! Please excuse me while I take aspects of Japan's geography and cross them with a typical fantasy RPG, where the villains always hide out in mountains in the north and towns only exist when they're essential to the plot. Credit for the Tipsy Panda goes to nyctea62442. Crossposted to ficwars
The Hills Are Alive (with the Sound of Magic) 1/6
Kame wasn't sure what he'd done to land up in jail. Not this time. He vaguely recalled threatening to turn a carriage driver into one of his own horses, but everything after that blurred into one hazy, embarrassing mess, courtesy of the red wine he'd had with his supper. Perhaps he shouldn't have started on that second bottle.
He hoped they'd let him out by morning, or the innkeeper was liable to throw his luggage out on the street if he didn't show up to pay for another day in the room. He hadn't been in town long enough to get to know anyone; didn't have a friend to come speak for him. Kame never stayed anywhere long enough for that.
He couldn't even use his magic to unlock the cell door. The jailhouse sat in the middle of an anti-magic field, cutting him off from his source of power, squeezing him into a tiny, invisible bubble where his body felt numb and useless. He missed the sparks tingling in his fingertips, teasing him with the promise of magic in the atmosphere, just waiting for him to channel it as he wished. Even the little bit he'd stored in his own body for emergencies wouldn't work, not with the alcohol ruining what focus he had left.
Now all he had was a headache and a pair of bruised wrists where one of the town constables had seized him. With nothing better to do, Kame brushed off one of the narrow beds, punched the lone, lumpy pillow into shape, and settled down to sleep off the wine.
Less than a minute after he'd closed his eyes the door opened with a crash, and a young man in a plaid hooded cape stumbled into the cell. Kame sat up in bed just in time to see the newcomer raise his middle finger at the door as it closed.
"You'd better hope he didn't see that," Kame said. "You might not get any breakfast."
The stranger shot him a look of unbridled horror and sank down on the other bed. The bed sank in turn, sagging in the middle till its occupant was forced to huddle in the one corner that seemed stable enough to support him. Kame hoped his new roommate could sleep sitting up.
"Figures," the stranger grumbled, pushing his hood back to reveal a smooth, pretty face only saved from being too girlish by the thick and obviously untended eyebrows. "I knew it was a bad sign when my G-string snapped as soon as I got into town. I should've moved straight onto the next one."
Kame cast a glance over the cape-covered body, not seeing anything through all the plaid. He hadn't moved like he was having underwear issues, though. "G-string?"
"On my guitar. Which is probably going to get tossed out of the Dancing Teapot when I don't show up to collect it because I'm stuck in here!"
"You're staying there too?" Kame said. He'd only tried the inn because he'd found the sign irresistibly cute. "The innkeeper told me I got the last room."
"I think he says that to everyone."
Snarling, the stranger thumped a fist on the mattress, then let out a squawk as a sharp spring poked through. Kame gave up all hope of a quiet night's sleep. Clearly, his cellmate planned to rant and grouse until someone decided he'd been in there long enough and turned him loose.
Might as well introduce himself. Maybe the stranger would be sufficiently awed to spend the night in stunned silence and let Kame sleep off the effects of the wine in peace.
"I'm Kame," he said.
"The Kame? Seriously?"
Kame hadn't expected the other man to actually know who he was. "You've heard of me?"
"Nope, but the way you said your name sounded like I should've. Are you famous or something?"
More like infamous, and only in certain circles. "Not unless you're one of my relatives."
No longer raging at his mattress, the stranger snorted and cracked a smile. "Guess not, then. I'm Jin Akanishi and I'm pretty sure we're not related. That a first name or a last name?"
"A nickname." Kame never gave out his full name. Not these days. He made a small bow, then immediately regretted it when his head started spinning. "Nice to meet you. Why'd they throw you in here tonight?"
"Solicitation."
It would be just Kame's luck to land up in a jail cell with a gorgeous male hooker when he wasn't up to doing anything about it. Not that he could see if Jin had a decent body or not beneath the oversized cloak and baggy trousers.
"Dressed like that? Who were you trying to solicit - monks?"
Jin glared at him. "I said that's what they threw me in here for - not what I was doing. I was just trying to get people to watch my performance. A few hip rolls never hurt anyone, you know?"
"Actually, there's a certain ritual in the far south where they-"
Kame caught himself before he said too much. No sense letting on where he'd been, or what he'd learned, or what he could do. Not to a perfect stranger. Jin was obviously living on the road too, which meant there was a chance they'd cross paths again, and Kame didn't want anyone to possess enough pieces to put together the complete puzzle of Kazuya Kamenashi.
"I mean...performance?" Kame said brightly, brushing aside his earlier response. The guitar comment made sense now. "You're a musician?"
"I'm a bard!" Jin scratched his neck and added, "Or will be when they finally let me in the Guild, anyway. I'm this close to passing the trials."
Most of the bards Kame had met were sombre, greybearded men who sang mournful tributes to death and despair, or stilted tales of courtly love. The rest were sombre, grey-hatted women who sang more or less the same thing, only higher in pitch. Perhaps the trials to enter the Bardic Guild would be gruelling enough to transform Jin into one of their number, but Kame doubted it. Not even the trials to enter the Mages' Guild were harsh enough to double one's age, as Kame had good reason to know.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Kame said, "but you don't seem the bardic type. I don't generally associate hip rolls with dirges."
"I'm going to be a bard." Jin folded his arms stubbornly across his chest. "The trials are based on talent, and they're going to let me in whether they like it or not."
Kame remembered saying something similar to his mentor, once. Kimura had laughed kindly and told him to keep practising the basics.
He gave Jin a smile of encouragement. "Then good luck, Ji-, uh, Mr. Akanishi." Names were important in magic, but they were no less meaningful in everyday social interaction, and Kame always tried to be polite.
"Jin's fine. I don't think there's much room for etiquette in a jail cell."
"There's not room for much of anything," Kame agreed. The two beds took up most of the floor space in the small, drafty room. As accommodations went, he'd had worse, but he preferred better. Much better.
"Which is why I need to get out of here as soon as possible."
"Claustrophobic?"
"No, but if I have to spend all night in here I might be by morning." Jin squirmed in his corner of the bed. Another spring popped out of the mattress; this one shot across the room, bouncing off the wall behind Kame and dropping to the floor. "At least your bed's still in one piece."
The spring digging into Kame's leg told him this might not be the case for much longer. "Only just," he said. "I don't suppose you're any good at picking locks?"
"I want to join the Bardic Guild, not the Thieves' Guild!"
That didn't leave them with many options. The cell's only window was barred, with a scenic view of an alley, and the steel door, which Kame could easily have wrenched open with magic, stood between them and freedom. The guard down the end of the corridor would hear them if they tried to exit through either, in any case.
Kame omitted all mention of magic when he laid out their choices for Jin. "I think our best bet is to try call the guard, and jump him when he comes in. I'm not planning on staying in this town any longer than it takes me to get back to the Dancing Teapot and collect my things. You?"
"The same," Jin said, "but don't you think someone's going to notice two guys slinking out the jailhouse after dark, and find that maybe a little suspicious? I look harmless but you've got a cunning face. And you never did tell me what you did to get yourself locked up, either."
So much for keeping magic out of it. Kame sighed and leaned across the narrow strip of space between their beds, hunching down over his knees.
"I got in a fight with a carriage driver," he confessed. "I think. I'd had too much to drink, threatened to turn him into one of his own horses." He held out reddened knuckles as proof of the fight.
Working transformative magic on living creatures was illegal, but Kame was fairly certain he'd been locked up for committing a physical assault rather than threatening a magical one. After all, he'd never given anyone reason to believe he even had the power to turn a man into a horse. Not for the last couple of years.
"So that would make you a violent, drunken braggart? You don't seem like one."
"I'm not, usually," Kame said, "but I'm sure he did something to deserve it."
Jin's face said he wasn't entirely convinced by this but would play along anyway if it got him out of the cell. "And can you turn someone into a horse?"
"No...but I can make our clothes look like uniforms, once we leave the building. No one will notice two more constables on the streets."
"Not unless we get called on to foil a crime," Jin said, but he did look slightly more enthused about Kame's idea. "Why only once we leave the building? Wouldn't it make more sense to disguise ourselves before we get outside?"
"I can't use magic in here, Jin."
"Why not? Is there some kind of rule saying you can't use it in jail?" Jin teased. "Is it against the la- oh. If you could use magic in here, you wouldn't still be here, would you?"
"There's an anti-magic field covering the whole building," Kame said shortly. Talking about magic to non-mages never went well. They couldn't feel the things he felt. "It stops me reaching out for the magic in the atmosphere."
"Outside the building?"
"Outside my body. Mages..." Kame took a deep breath, released it slowly, and tried to explain. "Mages are just people who have the ability to touch magic, to take it and make it do things. We don't generate it ourselves. Anti-magic fields cut us off from it. It's like I'm wearing such thick gloves that I can't feel anything through them."
"Does it hurt?" Jin asked.
Kame shook his head, realised the wine had stopped sloshing around it and came up smiling. "Not usually. But you can see why I'm still stuck in here."
"Not for much longer. Do you want to distract the guard or knock him out?"
Such an appealing pair of choices. Kame rather thought he'd hit enough people for one night.
"You scream that I've collapsed, and when the guard rushes in to examine my unconscious body, you hit him while he's distracted. We shut him in the cell and make a quick, discreet exit...and we do not stop moving for anything."
Jin let out an earpiercing shriek before Kame had even settled himself on the floor; Kame scrambled to lie prone as Jin followed it up with a convincingly panicked monologue at top volume about how his cellmate had suddenly started frothing at the mouth and collapsed, and how even though they didn't really know each other, it was distressing and something ought to be done and they needed a doctor immediately and-
"That ought to attract attention, even if it's just someone yelling at him to shut up," Kame muttered. He had no idea Jin possessed such a powerful set of lungs, though he supposed it would be an advantage for a bard.
After a good three minutes of fake, frenzied panic, Jin finally shut his mouth and glared at the door. It remained defiantly closed.
"Maybe he's asleep?" Kame suggested.
"Who could sleep through that? Maybe he's dead?"
"I'm not sure the dead could sleep through that racket either. More likely, he just doesn't care."
Kame brushed himself off, glad the tiny lantern overhead didn't provide enough light for him to gauge the state of the cell floor. He'd change back into his travelling gear just as soon as he got clear of this stupid place, anyway. They were going to have to devise a Plan B.
Jin didn't look as though he was going to be much help. Having caught his breath, he'd taken up whistling, a tune Kame thought he recognised as 'Rescue'.
"Jin, can you-" Kame began, but stopped short when the guard rushed in and seized Jin by the arm. "Where are you going?"
"I have no idea!"
If Jin was going, Kame was going too, he decided. The guard didn't seem to care whether he tagged along or not, and showed no interest in closing the cell door.
No interest in anything, in fact, except dragging Jin down the corridor. Jin's efforts to speak to him were all for naught as the guard stared straight ahead, eyes blank and mouth shut.
As if he were entranced, Kame thought, but that wasn't possible. Not inside an anti-magic field. And the field was definitely still active, he could tell; its stifling cloak swaddled every inch of him, and even seemed to be draining his emergency stash. He filed the thought away to be considered later, when he wasn't rushing to keep up. The guard moved so fast Jin's cloak kept catching in doors.
Nobody gave them so much as a second glance as they exited the building - people being strongarmed out of jail were not nearly as exciting as those going the other way - so Kame decided to abandon the camouflage plan. He didn't know where they were going; better to conserve his strength for another time, especially since it had been leached away by his brief incarceration. He could touch it now, the magic. The invisible gloves peeled away and that tingle, that hypersensitivity in his fingertips, made a welcome return.
"He won't let go," Jin muttered as Kame drew alongside him. "He's got a grip like an ogre! Can't you zap him or something?"
"Last resort," Kame said.
It occurred to him that since he was now out of jail and apparently inconsequential to the guard, he could simply take off on his own, leaving Jin to fend for himself. But that didn't seem right, somehow. What if Jin was being taken away to be hanged? (Not a very likely prospect, given the crime he'd been accused of, but not completely out of the question.)
Nothing to do but follow, and Kame did, through dark, empty streets and across the footbridge...all the way back to the Dancing Teapot.
"Home," the guard declared, depositing Jin on the front steps of the inn.
Jin stared blankly at him. "For one night, maybe..."
"Just don't argue," Kame hissed, nudging Jin towards the door. "He's leaving; I think we should do the same."
They watched the guard retrace his steps till he faded out of sight, then ducked through the big wooden doors.
The Dancing Teapot, despite the genteel name, made its living by selling drink a great deal stronger than tea and if the sounds coming from inside the inn were any indication, business was brisk tonight. Kame didn't feel inclined to stop for a nightcap. The sooner he moved on, the better.
Up the backstairs they went, both hitting the same creaking step. Kame fished in his pockets for his room key, couldn't find it. He jumped when Jin's voice came from behind him.
"Problem?"
"Can't find my key," Kame said. "It must've fallen out at some point during my unusually exciting night."
Jin flashed him a sly grin. "So you don't normally get thrown in jail, then?"
"Not enough to make a habit of it."
Under normal circumstances, Kame had never had enough finesse to move the tumblers inside a lock with magic - his mentor had always told him to visualise it in his mind first, and Kame's drawing skills, mental or otherwise, left a lot to be desired. Consequently he didn't pick locks so much as break them and hope for the best.
"You should go collect your own things," he told Jin. "I don't know what was wrong with that guard but when someone else notices that we've disappeared, the first place they'll check will be here - unless you lied about your lodgings when they brought you in?"
"It didn't occur to me," Jin said. "I didn't do anything wrong."
He sounded so innocent, Kame thought. He probably wasn't, if he thought hip rolls were a crowd-pleaser, but it was a pleasant illusion. Most people Kame met were sly, devious, obviously up to something and scheming for their own ends. If Jin had a hidden agenda, it was buried too deeply for Kame to see.
"The town constabulary won't see it that way. Go get your things."
With a quick glance down the stairs, Jin nodded and crossed the hall to his own room. Kame watched long enough to know Jin had better luck hanging onto keys, then turned his attention to the lock. He didn't like damaging other people's property, he really didn't, but there was no way around it this time.
It helped to be able to see what he was doing. One day, Kame vowed, he'd once more be able to target by thought alone, but those days were behind him for now. If he squinted, he could just about see a sliver of the metal bolt sitting between the door and the frame.
And if he could see it, he could move it.
To Kame, magic felt like the warmth of a hearthfire, cocooning him in gentle, comforting heat - until he reached for it. Then the fire blazed into life, sizzling against his fingertips as he seized the sparks, snatching them up to use their energy. Energy translated into motion as Kame willed the bolt to slide back into the lock, jamming it forcibly into place. A muted thud heralded his success, and Kame allowed himself a moment of triumph. Maybe he didn't need the ruby after all.
It didn't take him long to collect his things; he rarely stayed in one place long enough to unpack properly, and experience had taught him it was wise to prepare for a sudden exit. He took a moment to exchange his stained waistcoat for a fresh one and don his long, leather coat and matching gloves, that he might present a more respectable figure leaving the inn than he'd done arriving. The room was already paid for through till morning - by going now, Kame actually lost money on the arrangement, but he wasn't about to track down the innkeeper and ask for a refund.
"Ready to go?"
Kame whirled around to find Jin standing behind him, guitar case in hand and a bag slung over one shoulder. The plaid hooded cape had been replaced by a cream one...or so Kame thought until he spotted a hint of plaid inside the hood. Reversible.
It was on the tip of his tongue to say to Jin that hey, it was great doing time together and all but he travelled alone and picking up a wannabe bard wasn't on his agenda, but something stopped him, made those words disappear and replaced them with a casual "Yeah". Kame wasn't completely sure why, but since he made a point of following his instincts now and his instincts were telling him sticking with Jin was a good idea, he chose to believe them.
"Watch for the third step," Jin warned as he followed Kame back down the stairs. "It creaks."
"That's the fourth step."
"Third," Jin insisted.
It turned out to be half the damned staircase that creaked, in the end, because Jin had to walk straight down the middle thanks to his guitar case. Kame winced with every step, but no one heard them over the off-key caterwauling coming from the bar.
Jin pointed an indignant finger at the door as they left and muttered, "I can do much better than that!"
"I should hope so, or you'd be laughed out of the trials before you even got to take them," Kame said.
"They'll laugh me out anyway if I don't restring my guitar." Jin looked longingly down the street, where closed shops mocked him with blank shutters and dark windows. "I guess I should've bought spares earlier."
"You can get in the next town. I don't think waiting around for the shops to open in the morning is a good idea."
Jin gave him a "no kidding" look and started away from the inn.
"I might...I might be able to fix it for you," Kame said. "If you want."
"With magic?"
"Yeah. But not in the middle of the street."
Using magic to break a lock in a dim hallway was one thing. Standing in full view of half a dozen buildings while effecting repairs was quite another. Attitudes to magic varied greatly throughout the country, with the southern towns being far more open and accepting of mages than anywhere else.
Too bad Kame was headed north.
There was only one way out of town and they took it together, slipping furtively through the rusted metal gates to reach the road. The guard at the gatehouse gave them no trouble, snoring peacefully at his station with an empty wine bottle beside him. Kame was tempted to take his lantern - the light from within the town walls wouldn't see them very far into the night. He never usually bothered with one himself, but for the first time in ages, he had company.
Still, that didn't give him an excuse to turn thief. Abandoning the thought, he continued at Jin's side until they'd gone far enough for the road to disappear in the dark.
Jin broke the silence first. "We should've swiped the guard's lantern, shouldn't we? Can you see anything in this?"
"About as far as the end of my nose."
"This is why I don't travel at night - not unless some kind stranger picks me up."
"I thought you said you weren't in that line of work?"
"I hitch-hike, Kame." Though Jin's face couldn't be seen, Kame could tell by his voice that he felt insulted by the insinuation. "Sometimes people go past in wagons or carriages and they've been travelling for days, so they're bored. If they give me a lift, I sing and play for them on the way. It's a fair trade, and sometimes they have new songs to teach me."
"Sounds like a nice way to travel."
Occasionally, Kame had traded favours for a lift, but since his travels mostly involved searching quietly through the land without drawing attention to himself, the fewer people he spoke to, the better.
"Be nicer if we had some light," Jin said pointedly, just before tripping over a mound in the road.
They weren't going to get much further without one, Kame decided. He didn't like the idea of waiting six hours till the sky began to lighten - especially if some enterprising constable thought to look for the two escapees.
"I can do something about that," Kame said. Or so he hoped. He'd had some trouble maintaining his focus without the ruby. "Close your eyes."
"What, because it's such top-secret magic you're not allowed to show me?" Jin huffed.
"No, it's because I don't want to accidentally blind you."
It was too dark for Kame to tell if Jin had closed his eyes or not, but if he hadn't, it would be his own fault if he was seeing fireworks - or worse, nothing at all - for the next week. Kame's talents didn't extend to curing blindness, and no mage alive had managed to find a cure for stupidity.
Kimura had once described magelights as portable stars. Though a fanciful description, Kame liked it. If one could ever hold a star so small and cool to the touch, a magelight would be it.
Kame stripped off his gloves and held out his left hand, palm facing the sky, and curled his fingers inwards to make a fist, slowly drawing power from the atmosphere as he went to condense into a small ball of heatless light. No wasted energy to burn his skin. He opened his fingers again - cautiously, because he was just as likely to blind himself as anyone else - and breathed a sigh of relief when he found he could look directly at the result without searing pain.
"You can open your eyes again," he said, and when Jin did so, the smile that lit up his face made Kame glad he now had enough light to see by. Such open, unabashed wonder was uncommon on the face of a man who looked to be around Kame's own age, in his mid-twenties; a child's innocent joy and surprise made adult by a man's body. "Here - catch!"
Jin's wonder morphed into alarm as he scrambled to catch the magelight. He looked down at his cupped hands, experimentally closing his fingers around the ball to create flickers.
"It doesn't burn!"
"If it burned, it wouldn't be much help, would it?" Kame pointed out. "Since one of us is going to have to hold it while we walk."
"You can't make it fly?"
Kame turned away so Jin couldn't see him giggling to himself. "Making it fly isn't a problem. Making it stop, on the other hand..."
The other reason Kame's mentor had dubbed the magelights 'portable stars' was that the first time Kame had tried to make one fly, he'd sent it high enough in the sky that it had disappeared forever into a sea of stars, off to join its brethren. He wasn't much for the concept of moderation.
"I guess it's not so bad to hold it." Jin tossed it up and caught it a couple of times. "It feels like thick air."
"That's really all it is. There's magic in the air, and I've condensed a small portion of it into a ball and made it glow."
"Magic's got a lot of uses, huh?"
More than you could ever imagine. "It comes in handy sometimes," Kame said, underplaying for all he was worth. "You want to carry it?"
Jin did, and so they followed the road by magelight. Kame didn't have a map but he knew how to find his way north; Jin was amenable to this plan since the route would take them through Sendai, where the Bardic Guild held its trials twice a year.
"And this time, they'll let me in," Jin vowed. "I won't hold back."
"How many times have you tried?"
"Um..." Jin paused for so long Kame thought he must've been trying since he was a mere child, to have to think that far back, but then he smiled sheepishly and said, "Actually, just once."
"You had to think that hard, and it was just once?"
"It was a very traumatic experience," Jin defended himself.
"Do you at least remember why they failed you last time, so you don't do the same thing again?"
"I didn't know you had to be proficient on more than one instrument - it was in the small print somewhere. I'm covered now."
The guitar was a given, but what could the other one be? Kame thought maybe a harmonica or something equally small that Jin could stash in his bag. Lutes, flutes and fiddles were more traditional for bards, of course, but Jin clearly wasn't setting out to be a traditional bard. "So what's your other instrument?"
Jin tossed Kame the magelight to hold and from the side compartment of his bag, extracted two short wooden sticks and held them out for inspection.
"Claves?" Kame guessed, wondering if the Bardic Guild would even allow them to qualify.
"Drumsticks," Jin corrected him, waving them under his nose so he could see for himself that they were longer and thinner than claves.
"And the drums to go with them are...?"
"They'll have at the trials," Jin muttered.
He packed the drumsticks away again and snatched back the magelight, letting his fingers brush against Kame's and generating a tingle that made Kame glad he'd left his gloves off.
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how Jin had managed to achieve proficiency with the drums if he didn't have any - and why he'd chosen such an unwieldy second instrument in the first place - but Jin didn't look like he was in the mood to talk anymore and it was never a good idea to annoy the guy holding the light.
Besides, standing around chatting wouldn't get them anywhere, and they had a lot of walking to do. Kame had intended to resupply before setting out in the morning - his provisions were low, and he didn't know about Jin's. He'd have to do it in the next town.
They followed the road in a comfortable silence, occasionally broken by the sounds of Jin trying to compose lyrics for a song detailing his time spent behind bars. Never mind that he'd been in prison for less than an hour - everything, he said, was good material for a song. Kame helped by contributing the occasional memory, exaggerating the decrepit state of the beds and the cramped, confined conditions of their shared cell. Jin promised to give him partial credit when he got around to finishing it.
Jailhouse rock aside, they didn't talk much, which Kame figured was the safest way to go. The less he spoke, the less he'd reveal about himself.
By the time the sun started to rise, Kame had extinguished the magelight and the next town was in sight - a dot on the horizon. Jin suddenly pulled away from the road and dropped down to the ground.
"If you're going to take a comfort break, at least go behind a bush," Kame said.
Jin laughed and pulled a water bottle from his bag. "Here; my last one. I think we could both do with a drink, and I want to watch the sunrise."
Sunrise meant different things to different people. To Kame, it meant a fresh start, a replenishment of the magic in the atmosphere brought by morning's light. As a mage, he appreciated its purpose.
And as a man, he appreciated its beauty.
He sat down beside Jin to watch the slow, gradual unfurling of a banner of light across the sky, a patchwork of gentle pinks, yellows and blues.
"Lovely, isn't it?" Jin said, handing Kame the bottle after he'd had a swig himself. "I'm not a morning person but sights like this make the idea a lot more appealing."
Kame wiped the neck of the bottle and took a long gulp of water, glad they were near enough to civilisation to resupply soon. "I can think of worse ways to start my day."
"Like waking up in jail?" Jin suggested, making them both laugh.
"I wish I'd had the opportunity to wake up," Kame said. "I was just about to get some sleep when they threw you in there." He yawned, all the tiredness catching up with him now he'd stopped to rest. "It's been a long night. Maybe we can rent a room for a few hours and get a little sleep before we move on."
"If we rent one room for a couple of hours you know what it'll look like, don't you?"
"Two rooms," Kame amended, though in truth he felt it would make very little difference unless Jin snored. "But any place that would rent rooms by the hour wouldn't care what we did with them, anyway."
"And the bed would probably be just as sturdy as the ones in that jail cell. Good thing I can sleep almost anywhere."
A useful skill, to be sure, but Kame hadn't expected Jin to give him a demonstration on the spot. The aspiring bard slumped down, eyes closed, crossing his arms under his head and almost rolling backwards as he straightened his legs.
"If you go to sleep now, I'm going to finish what's left of your water," Kame said. "And then I'm going to move on without you."
That made Jin sit up in a hurry. He gave Kame a dirty look and stole the bottle back. "Don't you dare, after I was nice enough to share with you."
As a peace offering, Kame rummaged around in his bag till he came up with the last of his food - a couple of slightly battered onigiri. He handed one to Jin and started unwrapping the other one himself.
"Here: breakfast."
"You had food all this time and you didn't tell me?"
Kame shrugged. "This is the last of it. I didn't know how long it would take us to get somewhere I could resupply." He watched Jin's onigiri disappear at surprising speed. "When did you last eat?"
"Sometime yesterday morning?" Jin wolfed down the last bite. "I usually sing for my supper, but getting arrested put paid to that."
He stared at the empty wrapper so forlornly that Kame wished he had more food to offer. Unfortunately, conjuring it from the air wasn't an option - at least, not at present - and while Kame's toothpaste had a very pleasant strawberry flavour, it couldn't be considered edible by any stretch of the imagination.
There was one thing he could offer, though.
"I can try fix your guitar string for you now, if you want."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. But no guarantees - you should still buy some spares."
Jin patted his pocket ruefully. "Unless you manage to fix the string, I'm not sure I'll be able to afford spares. Busking doesn't always go so well when I'm just singing.
"I normally play evenings at inns for bed and board," he explained, "but I don't make much money out of it. During the day I find myself a good spot on the streets to play, somewhere like a market, where you've got a lot of people who've got time to stop and listen...and money too, hopefully.
"Guild members can set their own prices, and they get hired by nobility to play private parties and stuff. Did you ever see a broke bard? Nope, me neither. But guys like me, we have to make do with what we can get, try to build a name for ourselves with just our music, without the Guild backing us."
"Is that why you want to join?" Kame asked. "The money?"
"The money would be nice, yeah...but mostly...I just want to prove I can do it, you know? I want them to acknowledge that I'm just as good as any of them, even though I'm doing things my own way."
Jin's ambition found a kindred spirit in Kame. "I know the feeling," he said, and grinned. "Pass the case."