***

Janurana, Dhanur, and Brachen turned back to the main road, toward the market that ran the length of the city’s main road. Again, a few lingering northerners gave Dhanur a wave as she passed their homes, but again retracted it when they saw her company. When the group finally came to the veritable river of people flowing up and down the main way, they all silently shrugged at how the entire city seemed to have ignored or already forgotten the commotion at the inn.

After Dhanur tried and failed to wedge her way into the crowd, Brachen asked the hard question as they peeked around a home to the tangled mass of stalls and people. “Can we have a small allowance each, Dhanur?” Even he was slightly cowed as Dhanur’s annoyance and anger still lingered. He spoke in a hushed tone so no one heard their southern language.

“Ah, yeah, yeah. Right.” Dhanur did not use a hushed tone as she reached in her bag, then snapped her head back. “Dddaarrkk. Right. Almost out. Great. Of course.”

“Am I right to guess you’ve done more on less before, yes?” Her father’s smile was a bit obscured by his mustache but still, it calmed her.

Brachen accepted his portion of it with pragmatic thanks, but Janurana held the few cowries and gems in both hands for a long moment, staring down at them. When Dhanur finally threw caution to the wind and shoved their way into the crowd, the gems continued to glitter in the shade of the canopies under which they walked. Her gratitude came in a breathy voice and she followed them blindly toward the market, thanking whatever genius decided to put a canopy over almost every northern door. A few Clan Leopard tried and failed to make a space for themselves next to Janurana in the shade, following Dhanur’s lead. They rejoined the ones enduring the heat and glared at the lucky few who clogged up the shaded part of the street. Everyone, though, moved around the non-working clanless or displaced who continued to sleep through the morning. Even rival clans only gave token fist shakes or glares instead of arguments if the displaced was one of their hated enemies like Clan Kalia with Clan Rhino.

Still, Janurana thumbed the gems in her palm more, enjoying the feel with a wide smile. She couldn’t remember the last time she had even touched a gem and chuckled at herself for never just asking Dhanur to hold one. She tucked them into a pocket.

Dhanur looked back at her, in the shade, and shook her head again. “You two should get some new clothes, probably,” she said. Despite having to speak up, no one could discern their southern language over the cacophony of the crowd.

“You’re completely correct.” Brachen looked down at his bare under clothes. He wasn’t too out of place as many northerners only wore a skirt and sandals, but it clashed with Dhanur’s black hood and he felt odd not representing the Light wherever he was.

Brachen had stayed between Dhanur and the majority of the crowd, hiding as much of the famous southern warrior as he could, and she shook her head at how observant he could be.

Brachen patted her back. “You did fine enough trying to keep me inconspicuous at the inn.”

Further down, the market proper didn’t seem to notice the disturbance that had happened at the city’s front either. Only a few passing mentions of a possible clan scuffle at the southern gate passed through the crowd. Stall upon stall was open with the entire menagerie of the Uttaran clans buying and selling with few arguments. It was a familiar sight to any Daksinian or Uttaran. Like any other city, jewelry, fabrics and more were being sold and the merchants called to customers, touting that their blue fabric was much finer and softer than their competitor’s blue fabric. Like the south before the Scorching, the calls of fresh fruit and meat, not just dried peas or salted meat filled their ears. Mongers claimed their fish was the softest, seasoned with herbs one has never tasted. One claimed a single bite would keep you full for an entire day, dawn to dusk. A clanless man walking up and down the road purported the sharpest knives you’ll ever use to butcher your kills were sold by a blacksmith down in the weapons and metallurgy section. Some of the most ornate stalls, and all those touting imported goods, were run by the deep northern port clans of Seagull, Cowrie, Crab, and another Clan Fish whose gills were on their cheeks, not neck. An argument had already broken out between Clan Fish and Clan Fish, but the port clan ran rather than fight which made the jungle clans burst out laughing. Along the length of the market, the clanless performed menial tasks for any clan be they Macaque, Fish, Moth, Rat, or Leopard.

“All clanless do this before they can earn land and form a clan of their own.” Brachen whispered to Janurana, who watched them curiously.

Dhanur broke off with a soft “Gonna get some more food” before turning to a stall with fish and fruit. Uttara had a plethora of fruits to sell, at least much more plentiful than Daksin. The fish were from the jungle’s rivers, but some were salted having been delivered from the ports.

She didn’t stay long enough to hear either of her colleagues respond. Brachen and Janurana looked at each other forlornly with Dhanur’s attitude, but even at that point, one knowing her since near birth and the other for only a few days, they both knew some time by herself might be the best antidote for her mind.

They both turned to find the clothing section of the market.

“I can’t remember the last time I had new clothes,” Janurana started softly, holding back a frown. She tried to run her hand over the patches up and down her sari, but the sun singed her hand through a hole in the canopies. She endured it for a second to muss up her hair and make it fall over her face.

“Mm. I can tell.” He smiled at her. “Let’s find you something that covers you fully. There’s change for all of us. More change to come. I think the last time I had fresh garb was when Dhanur was a child. Smaller than my knee.” His face took on a loving wistfulness.

“If I can ask. What was she like as a child?”

“Hmm, ha!” He stopped, looked to Janurana with more wild hair than face, and rubbed his mustache popping out from Dhanur’s hood. He pulled them off the main road and into a side street. “So different and so much the same.” Brachen shook his head, amused. “The best way I can describe her was and seems to still be, ‘if she was going to headbutt a wall, I’d bet against the wall’. She was never going to be a merchant, or do numbers, that much has not changed, but she was always curious, as most children are. She was also always a little prone to pouting and grumbling even well into her age. And always had a love for justice and adventure. Much like the stories we told her. She must feel like she’s in one now with these gwomoni creatures and working with the Maharaj. That doesn’t seem to have changed at all either. I think many warriors have the same mindset, like a rhino ready to charge. But there’s a lot I don't know about her years away from us so, I have to get to know her again too. Just like you’d like to.” He raised his brows, the same smile on his face.

Janurana reddened.

“Good to know you’re staying with us not just for safety in numbers.” He stroked his mustache, his ploy having worked.

“I just want to- Well, you’re correct, but you can’t fight a battle with arms you don’t know. I don’t want so much harm to come to you or her at my expense. It’s all I can do to repay you now.”

“I have done nothing but what is expected of me,” Brachen said.

They stepped back out into the market and entered the fabric section. Up and down the main way the sections faded in and out of each other, food giving way to clothes to imported luxuries, to wood work, back to the blacksmithing section closest to the jungle and the barracks on either side of the road’s end. Brachen scanned the stalls, picking over the Clan Leopard salesman hocking shoes and the Clan Moth and Rat stands both selling the same types of clothes. A displaced Clan Rat snatched a pair of pants from the Moth stall and earned a nod of approval from the proprietor. Finally, Brachen landed on a stall with a port clan woman with the orange star with white dots of Clan Starfish.

“Look here.” He nodded toward the stall with orange–red tunics displayed on small clay pegs blowing in the slight breeze. Near the back hung longer dresses and sets for women. The merchant, who was calling for customers, slowly grew quiet and solemn as Brachen and Janurana approached.

“Come to burn down my stall as well, burner?” she asked, but with less vitriol than the warriors who greeted them on their way to Vatram.

Brachen bowed deeply, arms at his sides and Janurana followed. He spoke slowly and deliberately. “We have not. My Light has never burned, I do not know how. I also do not have the energy. I am far too old. We want to look at your good clothing and give you shells, my dear lady.” He reached into his pocket and showed her the cowries and nuggets. “Only shells… no burning.”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

Surprised by his knowledge of her language before the currency, her attitude changed completely. She sat on the stool she had hidden behind her table and waved them inside to look. Bowing low, the both entered her square stall, filled with piles of dyed clothes in all styles on multiple tables, some with imported fabrics from the ports, some dyed with colors that not even Janurana had seen before in her mother’s palace. The shade from the tarp roof was offset by the lack of a breeze, blocked out by the wall of clothes hanging for display. Brachen reached for the pale red one, glowing in the shade like the sunset.

“May I?” he asked.

She nodded.

“It is very light. It is very soft. We’re going north. Good for north?” He pointed in the jungle’s direction just in case he had used the wrong words.

Janurana, happily under the stall’s roof, was running her eyes up and down the selection, marveling at the wonderful array before her.

“They’ll be the most comfortable clothes you ever worn if you’re going north. The mist makes the heat sticky as honey.” The merchant was now fully wearing the salesman mask.

Brachen smiled at his people skills having not diminished with his age. He had brought the merchant to speak more, one who was a more trade minded port clan.

‘Still takes effort to remember who can be bribed. Still got it,’ he thought to himself and beckoned Janurana closer and to put a few cowries on the display table.

The merchant eyed the currency, glanced up at the two, slapped her hand down and pocketed them. “My fabrics will let the breeze in and keep it flowing around your body. Won’t hold sweat. Best summer clothes you’ll touch, but wash it daily for your stink.”

Janurana looked away and rolled her eyes, feeling the implication.

“Because of the sweat,” the merchant clarified and Brachen translated for Janurana.

She happily added to the discourse in southern, “Oh, thank you. Have you any deeper red? The color is so rich.” But the stall holder cocked her brow and Brachen rolled his hand to urge her on. “Uh,” Janurana tried to remember some Uttaran. “Ah! Red! Red? Nice!”

Both Brachen and the stall keeper praised her few words.

“I’ve got it all. You trying to look fancy for something?” the shopkeeper asked.

“We’re heading to see the fabled Muqtablu,” Janurana replied through her translator.

“Really?” The merchant perked up. “She’s really a sight to behold. A dancer on the sand. You won’t forget her. She’s at Arai Arena now! Ha! To think I’d ever be jealous of a southerner and a Light monk. And my wares will grace the stands? Here, here.” She laid the two kurta and another orange before Brachen. “And for you, southern girl?”

Janurana was staring at a blue tinted dupatta and kurti combo sitting between two green shawls. It was closer to green than blue, but the color made her freeze in place. Her back started spasming.

“No.” Janurana closed her eyes and scowled at the monstrous visage of her distorted, blue skinned mother in the temple doors. She shook her head and thought, ‘no, mother. Enough. I won’t let you take a color from me.’

“That blue one looks nice.” Janurana pointed, then said in northern “Nice!” then let Brachen translate, “Might I try it?” She prepaid more to keep up good faith and the merchant turned to fetch the blue dupatta.

Brachen side eyed her liberal use of their limited funds since they had already bribed the stall keeper.

“Behind the stall is private enough. Loathe to admit it, but it would look nice on your skin. I ought to charge you extra. If you aren’t married now, you will be when you wear this.”

Brachen continued chatting up the merchant, hoping to dispel some of her prejudices as Janurana went behind the stall.

Luckily it was a barren area and only the backs of other stalls were visible, but other women were trying on different outfits as well. It would be difficult to try to prevent a slight burn stripping down, but she had to grit her teeth and get it done.

She heard laughing behind her and wondered how Brachen could be so charming. But remembered he was closer in shade to the deep amber brown skin of a northerner than she was, and the shopkeeper was probably more comfortable without Janurana and her foreign sandy complexion.

Then Janurana noticed she hadn’t removed her sari. She ran her fingers down the stripes whose pattern she’d memorized so perfectly she didn’t notice them anymore, then along the familiar folds, wrinkles, and patches that clung to her like a second skin. But they refused to come off as she began to tug tepidly at it. It was a near godly effort, even for her strength, to start peeling it off.

‘Just taking it off to wash,’ Janurana justified to herself.

With a quick breath she braced herself for the pain and stripped. She folded her sari with her eyes closed, pretending they were some random pile of cloth.

The new clothes really were as lightweight as they looked. They floated on her skin like a feather, almost not touching her at all. The sleeves of her kurti were long and wide to allow the breeze to caress her body and just trailing enough for her to hide her hands inside. She already felt lighter, and even cooler.

“Hmm.” She smiled, seeing the merchant's words weren’t full of empty promises. Janurana hadn’t felt the boiling summer heat since she had become a gwomoni. Rather, she always remained a generally comfortable temperature if a bit warmer or colder from time to time. Only when something burned her did she finally feel something. Last, Janurana threw the dupatta over her shoulder and folded it over her head, shielding her face from the dangerous sun rays. Her whole body was swaddled in lusciously tactile protection. Sighing and hugging herself, Janurana took a moment to truly enjoy the new fabric.

The color was similar to her mother’s, but unlike before, it didn’t make her seize up as Janurana pictured her mother bouncing off Brachen’s light and driven back by Dekha again. There was a slight chill on her back, no more than the residual tingle every time she thought of her. Janurana ran her fingers along the light fabric, so unlike her thick jamawar sari.

‘Mother always did like blue,’ she remembered. ‘The dye cost so much to import.’

Janurana hugged her old clothes to her. They had been her protection from the elements for years, her only consistent companion along with her parasol. They held some of her dearest memories, but some of her most dreadful as well. She’d made sure the pocket with all of her mementos was firmly folded into the center of the little package and returned from behind the stall. She spilled an extra ruby into the Clan Starfish merchant’s hand who stopped chatting, surprised.

“Thank you,” Janurana said in Uttaran.

The merchant smiled proudly, letting Brachen translate, and said “my own mother wove it.”

“She has blessed hands,” Janurana responded.

Brachen smiled as he spoke for her and nodded in approval. While she was changing he had negotiated a good price for a new orange Uttaran hood.

“I think someone's feelings might be lifted at the sight of you,” he chortled, then disappeared behind the stall to change his own clothes.

While the stall keeper counted her new shells, Janurana further enjoyed the new fabric’s feeling. The dupatta covered her as well as her parasol did and she found herself somehow enjoying the freedom of not having to clutch its too well known grip. She knew it was secure with Dekha, away from any more cracks or damages, nestled secure and cozy in his bags for a well deserved rest. Instead, she took to rubbing her folded sari, then wrapped it around her waist keeping the trinket patch on the inside. As she did, her seal fell from the inside pocket.

For the first time in years, she looked at it, brushing off the flecks of dirt. The woman sitting cross legged with bull horns didn’t look like Janelsa Malihabar, but nothing ever looked like anything on a seal to Janurana. The rhino looked more like a boar and the tiger was some jumbled mess that looked like someone sewed together random parts of a chopped up wolf. Only the elephant was obvious because of its trunk and rotund belly, just like the man who had been the head of the elephant house when she was a girl. Janurana remembered being taught by her mother how to carve the family name into the seal, then how to add her first name after it had dried by her father.

Brachen emerged with a jolly smile, the bright orange–red complimenting the red undertones in his skin.

“It looks nice!” Janurana said when she saw him. For a moment, she saw her own father’s powerful beard in Brachen’s glorious mustache, smile lines among his wrinkles, and penchant for reds and golds with his new garb. She blinked the sight away, slotting her seal back into her sari. “Um, please translate for me? Do you share your mother’s craft? She’s offering a significant contribution to your city. Truly.”

“Ah, no,” the Starfish Clan said. “I’m good at selling. Putting colors on people. Not much else. Also knowing when I’ve been shorted. I like my stall just fine.”

Janurana didn’t want to ask what she would do when her mother passed. “Thank you again for, um, letting us buy from you. We’re sorry to have bothered.” Then she said in Uttaran, “Thank you!”

The stall keeper waved her off and Brachen bowed again. “We must go. Watching Muqtablu, where is that, again?”

“Oh! The Arai Arena! Last I heard she was there now. Also heard that’s where she stays mostly, in Aram. No view like it. You’re on the ground with them almost! Try not to get sprayed with blood though.” She laughed, then paused. The merchant inspected Brachen’s face behind his mustache even though he tried to turn away and made the connection. “You’re THAT monk, from the temple. Years ago. You’d get into arguments with the healers. Trying to convert us.”

Brachen curled his lips, twitching his mustache. “I apologize if I offended. I wanted only to show new ways and teach the Light, if anyone wanted to see it,” he repeated the diligently rehearsed phrase in perfect Uttaran. Before the stall keeper could respond, he ushered Janurana away.

“That was easy,” Janurana whispered to Brachen as they left.

“The Light guides and we are never brought astray, so long as we know when to step and when to wait. I didn’t know you knew some Uttaran.”

Janurana squeezed her fingers together to show how little she knew. “I think I’ve forgotten more than I even knew, Guru.”

“Ha! What a time to relearn. Suppose the Light has brought you here. Pray it leads Dhanur down such a simple path for her provisions.”