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“Binturi?” Raya’s blood boils at the familiar voice. “Now that’s not a very nice way to describe your own wife.”
“Wife?” Sisu turns on the spot excitedly. “Oh, it’s so nice to meet you, I’ve heard, uh, actually, absolutely nothing ab—”
Raya cuts her off, rolling her eyes and twisting her lip. “Namaari.”
“What’s dripping, dep la?” She cuts a striking figure atop her cat. “I see you’re finally meeting other girls now.” She sounds cold and completely fake, just like during their last meeting. “And here I thought you were still waiting for me.” She finishes the sentence in a mocking tone, as if she’s just so, so sorry for poor little Raya and her delusions.
Sisu looks back and forth between them, quiet now, and possibly mildly horrified. “Something tells me you’re not preparing for a vow renewal,” she whispers to Raya out of the side of her mouth.
“Stealing Dragon Gem pieces, are we?” Namaari continues. “Why?”
“What can I say?” Raya replies, flipping her hair theatrically. “Bling is my thing.”
“Gotta admit, at first I was a little worried when you ran off like that. Hah. Not a lot of good will left when I realized you’d swiped Fang’s dragon scroll on the way out.”
“Oh, is that why you’re chasing me? And here I thought it was because you missed married life. You always were such a natural at it.”
*
“So,” Sisu starts as they’re floating along the river later, hopefully out of earshot of little Boun, “trouble in paradise?”
Raya snorts. “That’s an understatement.” She sighs. “It was never much of a marriage. It was arranged, meant to create an alliance and bring peace.”
“Oh. That must have been hard.”
“It was weird, but I kind of liked the idea. I was thirteen years old when my Baa told me, and it all seemed very far in the future, but Namaari was really pretty. She was also an untrustworthy binturi from Fang, but we got along well. By the time I turned sixteen, we were meeting every few months and courting for real. But I was always on guard the whole time I was around her.”
“And then you got married ?” Sisu asks, smiling, voice slipping into singsong on the last word.
“And then we got married,” Raya agrees. “I was really looking forward to it. I thought I was so lucky! It was a political marriage, I could have been marrying anyone, but I got to marry Namaari. Sharp, gorgeous, a beautiful fighter. I guess that last one wasn’t so lucky, huh?” She laughs humorlessly.
Sisu gasps, her entire body jolting with the shock. “She fought you?!”
“She fought me. After the ceremony, I took her to the temple, where we kept your gem.”
Sisu’s mouth drops open. “It was…”
“It was her,” Raya confirms. “I feel so stupid now, but by that point it didn’t occur to me to worry. It was just how it was supposed to go, because I was a guardian of the gem. It was considered a blessing for newlyweds to pay respects to the spirit of Sisu.”
“Uh, that wasn’t even me,” Sisu argues. “Those were my siblings, and also they couldn’t hear you, they were stone.” She draws out the ‘stone’, the ‘duh’ clearly implied. “ Are stone,” she adds quietly.
“Well, we didn’t know that. A lot of people believed things that weren’t true then. The other lands thought the gem granted us prosperity. They wanted it, enough to play the long game.”
Sisu whistles. “That’s one—oh hey, that’s cool!” She tries whistling again, but it comes out as a wheeze. “Did you hear that? How did I do that? Anyway, yeah, that was one hell of a long game.”
She’s ridiculous, and adorable, and Raya almost smiles. Then she thinks of Namaari again and what little good cheer she had disappears. “It’s not fair,” she says quietly. “If it was never going to be real, why did she marry me? Now I’m stuck with her.”
“I mean, we just lost her, so…”
“She follows me around, Sisu! I don’t care that I can’t marry someone else; with the world the way it is, who would I even marry? But she won’t let go! She kidnapped me once, you know.”
“She what? I thought you said you guys don’t do that anymore.”
“It’s, uh, not bridenapping if you’re already married?”
*
Namaari is in Raya’s room again. She’s done this every day of Raya’s captivity, even though Raya tries not to pay her any attention.
This time Raya is done with it. “Come to gaze upon my loveliness again?” She taunts. “It’s not like I talk to you, so I can’t think of why else you’d be hanging out here like a creep.” Usually she doesn’t even look at Namaari, but since she’s already breaking her rules, she steals a glance.
Namaari’s staring right at her, eyebrows raised. She almost doesn’t look hot. “You’re my wife,” she says, cool as always. “It’s only natural that I would want to be by your side.”
Raya bursts out laughing. “You’re deranged. Have you forgotten the difference between a wife and a prisoner? Let me help you, the wife is the one you don’t keep locked up.”
Namaari scoffs. “Did you really expect anything different in a political marriage? One of us was always going to be a prisoner. Sucks for you that it’s you.”
Raya throws up her hands and rolls her gaze towards the ceiling. “Oh, of course. How did I not know that this is how they do it in the land of binturis.”
Namaari huffs an aborted little laugh. “You think Heart is so different?”
Raya turns around fully, tilting her head at Namaari and speaking slowly, as if to a child. “We have this little thing in Heart, you see, it’s called basic human decency. Oh!” She fakes a thinking face, as if an idea just occurred to her. “Maybe you could trade for it,” she says with false cheer. “Then you could try it too.”
Namaari finally loses her cool, almost snarling at her like she was one of her cats. “You think you’re so much better than me.”
Raya frowns at her, exaggerated and mocking. “Do you think it’s because I would never lock my wife up like a prisoner? Yeah, that does kinda sound like I’m better than you.”
Namaari shakes her head, rolls her eyes. “Sure you wouldn’t.”
Raya laughs. “You’ll never believe I wouldn’t do it just because it’s wrong, will you?” She sighs, looks down. When she looks back up, she’s shed all trace of sarcasm, though she still feels the anger in the corners of her mouth. “Fine, then. Then surely you know that I would never have done this to you because—”
“Enough!” Namaari interrupts her sharply. When Raya glances up, she’s looking away, tucking her hair behind her ear.
Of course, Namaari does know. Somehow even that makes Raya mad, even though she was about to tell her. She wants to say it out loud, throw it in Namaari’s face. She also wants to stop looking at Namaari’s face. Not like it hasn’t been imprinted on the inside of her eyelids since they were seventeen, but still. She turns around on her bed again, huddles into the blanket so Namaari can’t even see the shape of her.
Namaari stands. “I’ll tell them to take you to the bath and bring you fresh clothes.”
It’s been two weeks, and Raya’s only ever had the small wash basin. She laughs humorlessly, curls her tongue between her molars. She turns towards Namaari, makes eye contact. Her smirk feels ugly. “What, you want me to wash up so we can consummate our wedding night? You only had to wait a few hours before stabbing me in the back if you wanted that.”
Namaari rolls her eyes. “We don’t need to consummate anything. It's not like we can have babies with each other.” She opens the door, nods at a guard. “I’m not expecting anything. Take the fucking bath, Raya. You stink.”
*
Raya and Sisu get distracted when it gets dark and Boun gets sad. But Namaari doesn't let Raya forget about her for long, of course not.
When they run from Spine, Tong wants to know about Namaari too. As they sail for Fang, Raya tells them the story of her escape.
*
"You fucking liar,” Raya spits at Namaari when she steps back into the room after Raya's bath. “You had them bring me make-up."
Namaari shrugs. "I wear make-up."
Which, yes, to great effect, but… " I don't. You know that."
"I haven't seen you in five years. I don't know anything."
"I'm not gonna make myself pretty for you."
Namaari laughs. “Aww, you have self-esteem issues. Have I not been complimenting you enough?” She tisks. “I’ve been neglecting my duty.” She steps closer to Raya, and her smile turns from mocking to almost convincing. “You are as lovely as a running spring, dep la, no make-up required.”
Raya scoffs. Once, she would have loved to hear that from Namaari. Now, even if she believed it, she doesn't like feeling lovely. It never leads her anywhere good.
“I do like you in the clothes, though.”
The clothes are nice, Fang-style white and gold, but more importantly, they’re comfortable. Just the way Raya prefers them. She thinks she would have felt better if she really was dressed up like a bride on her wedding night. It wouldn’t have felt so real, then. It wouldn’t have felt like Namaari could see her.
“They’re very easy to move in,” she says, trying to feel Namaari out.
“Of course,” Namaari says, her chin raised, as regal as ever. “The way you move is your best feature.”
Raya raises an eyebrow at her. “The way I move?”
“The way you really move.”
Raya stares at her, uncomprehending.
Namaari tilts her head at her, and Raya thinks she sees a ghost of a smirk playing in the lines of her mouth. “I know hand to hand is not your favorite, dep la, but surely you don’t expect me to give you a sword.”
Oh, Raya nearly says out loud. So Namaari wants to spar. For old times’ sake? Or maybe she gets off on it. Raya kind of hopes she gets off on it. She thinks she could probably get off on it, except the idea of getting off in this golden jailroom makes her sick. “You want to fight here?”
“Spar.”
“Spar. You want us to spar here and break everything in this pretty room?”
“If you think you can use this opportunity to run,” Namaari starts angrily.
Raya waits for the second half of the sentence, but it doesn’t come. “I think you should let me go,” she says finally. “If I manage to run, it’ll be because I’ve beaten you. And if I beat you, it’s only fair that you let me go.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
Raya smiles unkindly. “You don’t think you can, do you, dep la? You’ve spent the last five years in the palace with your guards, only practicing soft spars with soldiers who let you win because you’re the princess. I’ve been out there every day, all on my own. It took three of your soldiers to capture me, did they tell you that?”
Namaari bares her teeth. She looks almost disgusted. “Enough! You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve had no training in five years, and I’ll have you know I’m a commander, or did you think I saved my skills exclusively for you? I bet you fight like a street urchin.”
“You must not have met a street urchin in a long time if you thought that would offend me.”
Nammari opens the doors and motions for the guards outside to grab Raya. “We’re going to the training grounds. And once we get there, no one is to touch her unless she raises a hand on you. Let her leave the palace if you must; she’s mine.”
Raya feels sick. She’s mine. What a twisted way to put it.
But she fights.
It feels like old times, but also not. Namaari is stronger, more skilled, but so is Raya. Her shape is different. The teenage Namaari of Raya's memories, with her new softness, was exciting, but Raya doesn’t miss her when she grabs at today's real, adult Namaari and finds no give. Her eyes, the clench of her jaw, still look the same. There is even a barely there half-smile, a ghost of the mirror smirks they used to wear when they did this. It looks more real than any of her other smiles in the last two weeks. Raya feels it, that satisfaction of a competent adversary, the warmth and energy of Namaari in particular, forgotten and yet familiar.
But something is different in Namaari's eyes, more jarring the longer they fight. They’re bright, and her mouth is now making a strange, ugly shape. Her moves skew towards the defensive.
All of a sudden, Raya realizes that the brightness in Namaari’s eyes is tears. She doesn’t know how it makes her feel, what the feeling is, but it’s a lot.
But she has no time to think about it. Namaari, probably realizing she’s getting slow and confused without clear vision, raises her arm to wipe her eyes, and that’s Raya’s chance. If she does it hard enough, her blow will shock Namaari long enough for Raya to grab the small pouch tied at Namaari’s belt, about the right size for her stolen gem piece, and run.
She doesn’t make it quite as hard as she meant to, but it’s enough. Two hours later she finds Tuktuk, not nearly as far from where she left him as she expected, catching fish in a forest stream. She wonders if he'd run into Druun, finding refuge in the water. He's smart like that.
By the end of the day, she is far, far away from Fang.
*
"Wow, she really loves you", Boun says when Raya finishes her story.
Tong scoffs. Little Noi, in his arms, blows a raspberry in agreement. Tong pats her little head indulgently. "Love,” he declares, “is selfless and caring. Do not, ever,” he tells Boun, raising his voice and leaning down alarmingly close to his face, “mistake obsession for love.”
"But she cried,” Sisu protests, “Raya said Namaari cried when they were fighting! She lost the fight because she was crying! That’s gotta mean something.”
Tong grunts. He doesn’t seem convinced. “Then that marriage needs a great deal of fixing, for that love to be worth anything at all. Love is nothing without trust.”
Raya remembers the crib in Tong’s house. He probably knows what he’s talking about.
“Then let’s make a plan!” Sisu says brightly. “Let’s make a plan to fix Raya’s marriage and also all the people and all the dragons and all the everything!”
Raya misses her Baa so much. They all miss their families. “I don’t know, Sisu,” she says.
Tong hums. “That marriage might be a very strong tactical advantage for us.”
Raya doesn’t like it, but she knows they have to try.
*
Namaari comes to the meeting place, but she’s angry. If she were a dragon, Raya would worry she might start shooting lightning out of her eyes at any moment. She throws the pendant at Raya, and the jagged edges hurt where they hit her sternum.
“Do you think you can just come here and return it and that would somehow make me more likely to do anything for you?” Namaari spits at her. “I will not accept it.”
Sisu sidles up to Raya. “I think,” she says in a voice that is clearly meant to be quiet, but is just as clearly not, “we may have miscalculated just a little bit.”
Yeah, no shit. Raya thought returning something Namaari had loved would guarantee her appreciation of the gift. She completely neglected to consider what message it might send, returning a wedding gift. Of course Namaari was offended. After all, she has made it clear that she won’t let Raya go.
Raya can work with that. “Then help us,” she tells her. She takes a deep breath, stares into Namaari’s eyes. “If you help us, and it works, I will live with you as wives.”
Boun gasps. Sisu just lets out a long “Aw,” squeezing Raya’s shoulders, hanging off from her in her joy. Raya rolls her eyes at Namaari’s glare.
*
It doesn’t quite work as they’d hoped, but it works somehow. Raya knows this because she’s feeling some peculiar pins and needles all over as she gains feeling in her arms, torso, and then legs. In the basin of her cupped hands lies the golden Sisu pendant, sparkling in the water. She squeezes it, feeling the jagged edges dig into her hands. Her eyes are wet, but then so is the rest of her. She’s alive; they’re all alive.
Almost.
The hand on her right shoulder is Namaari’s, she knows that. She turns, holds her wife’s gaze, and ties the pendant back around her own neck. Namaari gazes at her helplessly, smiling and crying and holding no control over her expression whatsoever. Raya lets herself hope.
*
Nearly two months pass before Namaari comes to Heart. They haven’t spoken or written to each other since the day they nearly ended the world for good. It makes sense; everyone is busy. There is still more rebuilding to do everywhere, in Fang most of all, and Raya has been busy reconnecting with her Baa, catching him up on everything he missed in the last six years. And even if she wanted to write, she wouldn’t have known what to say. It seems like Namaari didn’t know either, although Sisu said she asked about her every time. She doesn’t know why Sisu visited Namaari. Knowing Sisu, probably for this, to convince her to come here.
Namaari comes with her mother, other relatives. They bring gifts, like they did for the wedding. They redo the ceremony exactly. They don’t go to the gem temple after, because the gem is not there. It’s in Tail for safekeeping for the next four months, although it’s just a symbol now. Sisu is there to bless them instead. The dragons are back, and magic is abundant.
Abundance brings peace, but the hurts of the past threaten more war. If a unified Kumandra was to have any hope, this had to happen. And she always meant to keep her promise anyway.
At night, they are left alone in their new bedroom, undressed for bed. They stand, facing each other, by the large, open window. They still don’t know what to say. Funny, they always had plenty to say when they were enemies. But Raya looks at her, like she’s been looking at her since she arrived. Their faces have quite a lot to say still.
Namaari tucks her hair behind her ear and looks away. "They all know we never had a wedding night," she says.
Raya examines her. This is her wife; she’s never had another. This is the wife that was promised to her, the wife she dreamed of until the dreams turned into nightmares. She’s as beautiful as ever, but… "I'm sorry.” Raya tries to collect her thoughts. “I'm not ready. I thought I wanted to. You're so…” She shakes her head. “But I can't."
Namaari nods. "Okay,” she says quietly. “But…” she looks up at Raya through her lashes. It’s strange to see strong, proud Namaari this shy. “Will you kiss me?"
And that Raya can do. She kisses her, and holds her tight, and kisses her some more. And she knows the rest will come. The dragons are back, the rain is back, the Druun are gone. They have time to get it right, and she really, really wants to.
When they finally part, they both have some tears in their eyes. Raya leads Namaari by the hand towards their new bed. “Let’s sleep.”
They get into bed, but Raya doesn’t sleep. Namaari is close, and warm, and foreign. Half an hour later, Namaari startles awake when Sisu tumbles in through the window.
“Sorry, sorry!” She yells towards the ceiling. She’s facing the window, her back to them. “Are you done doing the sex thing yet? Please tell me you’re done doing the sex thing; people sex is disgusting.”
Namaari lets out a surprised little laugh.
“We’re not having sex, Sisu,” Raya calls towards her, amused. She wonders what dragon sex is like.
“Oh, good,” Sisu says, and turns around. She’s shifted into her human form now, wearing that huge dopey grin of hers. “So, congratulations,” she starts, drawing out the words in that way she has, head tilted and eyes teasing.
“You’ve already said that,” Namaari says. “You blessed us.”
“Yes,” Sisu says patiently, “but that was me the dragon; dragons bless. And this is me the people;” she explains, “people congratulate.”
Raya laughs, feeling warm with fondness.
Namaari looks at Raya, smiling a little. Suddenly, her face turns suspicious. “Wait, are you trying to avoid sleeping alone with me?”
Raya shrugs, playing it cool. “I got used to sleeping next to Sisu on the road.” So what, so maybe she’s not ready to just sleep next to a backstabbing binturi either, even if it’s her backstabbing binturi.
“I’m an excellent cuddler,” Sisu announces proudly.
Namaari raises her eyebrows and opens her mouth to speak, but stops short when Sisu plops down on the bed between them, spindly human limbs flailing, still with that huge smile. Namaari tentatively smiles back.
It’s fitting. They’ve always had Sisu between them. At first majestic, legendary Sisu, who was their first and favorite topic of conversation back when they were kids, and now the real Sisu, goofy, friendly and overly optimistic, who brought them together to save the world, and then again just because. Just because she wanted them to be happy.
Sisu yawns. “Alright, I gotta zonk out. I’m going cloud hopping with the sibs tomorrow morning, and let me tell you, I’m gonna need all the rest I can get to keep up with them.” She winds an arm around Namaari’s waist, sticks her foot under Raya’s knee, and then makes Namaari jump not half a minute later when she suddenly snores loudly into her ear. It’s not even half as loud as it gets when she’s in her true form.
Namaari’s face is priceless. Raya laughs like she did that day in the rain, after they’d saved the world. Namaari looks back at her, still a little bewildered but holding a laugh too. She looks happy. Raya reaches over and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Sweet dreams, dep la,” she tells her.
It doesn’t sound like a taunt anymore. Judging by Namaari’s little smile when she closes her eyes, she doesn’t think so either.
“Sweet dreams.”