He's suddenly aware that is side has gone cold.

The curtains breath into the room, a soft grey blue in what light half a moon could pour. He rolled onto his back and looked to the empty impression she normally sleeps in. The kitchen light wasn't on.

He reached for his crutch and put it into the bend of his arm as he got to his feet. The pirate thump thump peg leg walk was what he sounded like as he moved across the bedroom to the living room. Again, there was no trace, no light to indicate where she would perch. So many nights it had been he who had trouble sleeping.

When he opened the front door he felt the cooler evening air on his face. He could hear the branches shake shake and perhaps from his presence the large raven cawed, opened her wings and then closed them in a more comfortable position.

"Rona?"

She was there, but so lost in thought he did not know if she heard him at all. He wondered if the wind was speaking to her.

"It sounds good."

He did not say that he sensed the ominous air of the evening. That perhaps he thought it had been due to the storm that had passed and his stroke of ill luck which had left him limping and in pain.

Pain.

It's expression came in layers which were each digested differently. When he was alone in the woods he leaned against a tree and exhaled, realizing he hadn't noticed the leaves turn bright colors, curl up and fall in a soft rain to the ground. That his eyes and mind were so very distracted by it that everything had faded away. There were times he was inside and he hung near the wall as he walked, forgoing his crutch. In a few days the pain would lessen, he knew. That this was the period that felt like ripping off a deeply rooted band aide.

Pain, now in lips pressed in a line as she touched him and he smiled. It wasn't his foot. It hurt when she touched him and he drew back his shoulders and smiled in his sad, desperate way when he felt like happily ever after was an illusion that everyone promised him was real. Perhaps it just hurt more when it came from her and no amount of promising could fix the knife twist of distrust he had built up for it. Did she know he was beginning to anticipate disappointment? He didn't say it, but perhaps his eyes had.

There was no cure for that sort of pain, only experience would mend the pathways built in his brain. That after December 12th the reality of a dream come true would uplift his spirit and it wouldn't feel like he'd been holding his breath so long. He did not wonder at evil and wicked men-- he thought he could become one if too long his dreams perished on life's vine.

He smiled, more warmly, further from the lands of desolation in his head and tilted his head for her to come inside, "It's cold and late. You should be sleeping."

He didn't lean much of his weight into her when they walked back inside. He rocked and his eyes were on the ground like he worried that something might have fallen in their path. A chair. Shoes. Something he might have to work around.

The shuffle to his side of the bed and he slumped into the indention that knew his shape and looked at the ceiling and thought. Sometimes the moments that should have been quiet content moments were ones of recollection. Though, he found it was odd that he was not recalling more of Rona, but of a time far away and before her. He hadn't thought on it until Madi, drunk and twirling as a youthful teenager told him.. run... run... run.

It wasn't often that his thoughts were distracted upon the man that unknowingly had changed his life forever. Lord Takashi had been a man with a strict face and with such self discipline that Kusinage had felt like a rough sketch of potential beside him. So neat and measured were the man's days, his patience. He'd seen the man meet his wife for the first time and marry her upon the second time he saw her. He watched his wife blossom as pregnant women do and give him a daughter. He'd never seen a little girl so spoiled.

Then one day, sitting in a room with the same attention and notice as an inanimate object, the little girl crawled up to him and reminded him he was a person. Unavoidably he smiled at her and she lit up, the tiny white of her first teeth coming in showing. That was when he knew he wanted to be a father.

The days that passed watching over Takashi started to cause an ache within his being. How the little girl would cry when Takashi left and would run to her mother or sometimes... him. He was told it was normal, that young girls thought of bodyguards as uncles until they were old enough to understand. Where most in his position only grew more loyal, more wanting to ensure that this family, somehow their family, was safe... he wanted his own.

How blind and pure and wholly devoted the little girl's love was. How extreme in emotion she could be. He had forgotten how she could magically go from a fit of crying to a giggle. He hadn't thought about the basis for his life's inspiration so long.

If not for that one little girl so much would be different.

His mind drifted off further with his thoughts until he realized he was waking up for the morning. He sat up, stiffly and smiled down at Rona, looking towards the door, "There is much to do. Do you want to go with me to the marketplace?"

He smiled at the kiss, kissed her again on the tip of her nose and then turned his back to her so that both his legs hung off the edge of the bed. He lifted his foot and examined it, sighing and then to Rona, "Madi said she was going to send Maranya by for it. To be safe."

He was still rather resistant to going to the doctor. Doctors hadn't a history of being a man her looked forward to. He massaged his foot, knowing it would be stiff and sore, stinging at his touch but becoming more plyable afterward. He got to his feet, reaching for the cane and using it to make way to the dresser where he pulled out some clean, casual clothes and got ready, slowly, for his day. Pulling his shirt over scars and tattoos and going back to that gentler man that everyone saw him as. No doubt she had gotten dressed well ahead of him.

He wore two pairs of socks over his foot and then wrapped a dark cloth over it to keep it safe and look less noticeable next to his foot with a black shoe.

Outside he regarded their property for a time. Eyes went over to the horses and he looked at Rona with a light expression, "We could walk or take Shadowveil, I suppose?" Hope was close to being a horse that could be ridden. She was harness trained and he'd desensitized her to the marketplace. Mostly, though, he didn't know if he had the strength to deal with a horse still in training while his foot was on the mend.

"Yea," he agreed. What with Madi and Rona urging him, he felt that it was no longer something he could ignore or shrug off as worry that was over nothing. He brushed his hands down his pant legs and went with her to the stable, cane in tow as he made his way along. By the time he caught up with Rona she had already prepared Shadowveil for the journey.

He put his good foot into a stirrup and pulled himself up. The saddle swayed and then he landed his weight comfortably. He caught his cane on an empty belt loop of his pants and offered his hand down to Rona, to help pull her into the saddle so that she sat infront of them as they rode to the marketplace.

Autumn had come into full swing. Colorful, bright and dry. He looked up from the road to the trees, seeing their hands stretch out like black fingers over the sky and wondering at how unfriendly they could seem at times. His eyes dropped ahead, forward. Seeing the grouping of buildings which consisted of the marketplace and how they slouched against each other, shrugging at nothing in particular. Eyebrows arched upward and he smiled at her, though she could not see it.

"Perhaps there is something else we should get, for fun. Isn't there anything you want?"

"I had thought we should get ice cream, before, you know, the weather."

Winter was coming and it was only on special days like this that his back got heated and humid under his jacket from the sun. Cold hands and face but a burning back. It wouldn't be long until everything felt cool and removed when winter struck its heavy blow. Everyone who had to was wearing jackets and the seats by the hearth of the inn were growing more and more crowded by the day. Before it became impossible to enjoy it he thought that they should indulge with some ice cream the way kids do when they want to express interest but lack the physical and emotional maturity to do much else but smile, kiss briefly and enjoy something sweet together.

"It will be a while, I think, before it makes sense to eat it."

His smiled for her is a progressive one and he looks much younger when he smiles. Eight years disappear when he smiles like that. One could imagine him a jokester when he smiled like that, forgetting easily the statue tendency that was how the world knew him.

Once Shadowveil had worked his way up to the marketplace he leaned forward and the stallion knew that they were dismounting. He came down first, dismounting in the opposite direction than he had climbed on so that he would land on his good foot and work the tender one down before taking his cane and stepping back to give Rona room. Once she had come to stand nearby him he started slowly first for the supply shop where he ordered the new wood, nails and shingles to be delivered at their home tomorrow to mend what the storm had done. Afterward he looked at her, eyebrows arched upward slightly.

"A man was looking for work yesterday. I think I am going to pay him to help with it all," a loose hand gesture behind him to the shop where he had purchased the supplies. Tag had a genuine concern for other people and since he was a frugal person he could afford to work less so that Madi would have some work of her own, though she seemed not to require it now. It gave him more time with Rona. Now with his foot the way it was, he didn't mind offering someone new to town some temporary work. If the man flaked, it would be no different than had Tag endeavored to fix the fence himself. If the man was half the worker that he was broadcasting himself to be then his help would be of tremendous value.

"His name is Liang, but he goes by Li I think." Which wasn't unusual. Kusinage was going by the name Tag, though his name was skewed far more from its origins than Li's. Eyebrows knit as he recalled the conversation he had had with him, "He is from Japan. I did not think that I still missed home until I met him."

Thoughts of the bowing pine trees and rice paper walls flooded to memory. Ink from the masters spilling onto paper and white rice integrated into every meal. Terraced flat planes for growing rice glowing golden with the falling stretch of the sunset.

"I suppose it is what you feel like when you meet another gypsy. That there is someone who understands, even if what happened to you and when it happened to them is different. I think Li did not know our country as I did. But, it is still good."

It was still the closest he had come to relating to someone in that way. There were kindred spirits out there he had met, but never had he found one of the same cloth as he. He felt more in tune with society, more acceptable though Li was outgoing like most, talkative and engaging. Li was closer to the social standard than he was, making three acquaintances in an hour when that had taken him weeks to achieve. In some small way Li made him feel more faulty than he had before because of his social conquest. Before Tag had always shrugged and felt that it was that background difference, that cultural difference, which contributed. Seeing Li behave as he did brought to focus that there was no cultural difference which contributed to his isolation.

That it had only been him the whole time.

Once she had come to the ground he nodded towards one of the buildings that was not just a bakery but also an ice cream shop. He eased his way along the path, stopping outside the shop to tie Shadowveil's reins to a post. It was more to discourage a daring teenager or thief from taking up the reins than to keep Shadowveil in place. The aged stallion knew the song and dance of travel well and required little, if any, direction on how to behave.

Upon stepped inside he looked at her, baited smile and said, "What would you like?" and his eyes were on the list of flavors which were near daunting for him. He hadn't eaten many sweets in his life-- half of the flavors there he wasn't entirely sure of.

"Some help would be good for me. The cold weather is some trouble for me right now." He didn't have to signal towards his foot or mention the injury for his meaning to be well understood. He spoke as his eyes scanned over the announcements on the offered flavors and what they were. He only understood small fragments of it, some of the nouns beyond him or understanding clouded by cute advertising phrases using words that didn't exist but played on an understanding of English. Lilli had helped him a great deal but there were still weeks of work to go. Just keeping up with practice, being persistent with it.

She was a far cry from the women he knew of growing up. He had never been close to many of them, they had just been creatures he observed from his outpost, whose eye contact and notice he avoided. He wondered if any of the women thought of him or if he was to them what he'd been told to me-- some sort of unimportant ornament in the room that served a purpose and should be left alone

"With me?" his smile returned. He seemed to soften then, like distracted thoughts had hardened his eyes and now he had grown more gentle.