She watched the birds chirp and hop on the branches outside the window—the only entertainment she has in this huge but empty house. Their blue and yellow feathers, mixing with occasional splotches of black, flashed in the somber shade of the sunlight streaming past the heavy clouds in the sky. It's going to rain soon.

The wind picked up, rustling the pink leaves the tree in the yard had. She raised a hand to keep her hair behind her ear. Then, she paused. She watched with an unfamiliar interest how her dark strands fluttered like curtains, spilling down her soft, rosy skirt. She always kept her hair long, so why did she feel like it was something to marvel at?

Wheels clacked against stone and she gazed out of the window to find the noise's source. Her world widened into a huge garden covered with stone pavements and freshly-cut grass. The tree with the pink flowers stood over the room she was in like an attentive but pretty guardian. She smiled. How nice would it be to step outside and lie under its shade for the afternoon?

A voice called from the foyer, snapping her attention back to the real reason she looked outside. Slowly, she straightened, her legs lengthening underneath her elaborate skirts. She made a show of making sure they weren't creased and brushing a hand over her hair to make sure the wind didn't upset into unsightly tangles.

The sound of socks scratching against the polished wooden floorboards was heavy in her ears as she tramped through the familiar yet foreign corridors of the villa. She had been here before, but at the same time, she hasn't. Strangely enough, she knew how to get to the front door—through a series of lefts and rights, past the creepy painting of a crane getting beheaded, and right into the indoor garden filled with ivory pebbles—and what's waiting for her in there.

She reached the wide opening, the doors slid the farthest they could go. The world past the steps leading down to the garden called out to her, but she knew she shouldn't go there. She wouldn't be able to go there.

A merchant cart creaked on its way to meet her. The man pulling it had wispy, graying hair but he was still strong enough to heft such a weight and go up the steep incline the villa was perched on. She had always found the sheer height to be daunting. Part of the reason why she's not going out much. The trek back was simply too arduous.

The old man, complete with the wrinkles and pockmarks marring his face, set the cart's bar down and stepped aside. She edged to the steps and retrieved her slippers—a quaint pair with flowers she embroidered herself. "It's a fine morning, reki-zin," she greeted. "Four rounds as always."

He chuckled and wiped his brow free from the beads of sweat building in it. "You're the only patron in this absurd loft, but you pay quite a handsome amount," he said. "It makes the trip up here much easier."

"I keep telling you to purchase your own mule," she insisted. "Because I plan to keep getting my supplies from you for a long, long time."

The old man laughed. It's an open sound, holding nothing back. "That's what I like about you, Mei-mei," he said. "You know how to humor a pan past his prime."

He shoved the rounds of thread into her waiting arms. She passed him a stack of horo tied at the end with her signature knot. The coins made a static clink as they met the old man's palms. His eyes bulged at the amount. "My lady," he sputtered. "I-I can't take this much. Not from you, certainly."

At that, she smiled. Her fingers wrapped around the man's hands, forcing his own fingers to close around her payment. "You deserve it and more," she said. "Consider it my payment for the mule. You're not getting any younger."

The old man snorted. "I really don't have an excuse now, do I?" he said. "Fine. I'll purchase one on my way back home."

"Really? I'm glad," she clapped her hands as she laid her recent acquisitions at her side. She hasn't even left her perch on the villa's front porch. "I shall see you again at the next phase?"

The man looked to the heavens as if counting the days in his head to the next waning moon. "That soon?" he asked. "It's too tight of an interval, even for you."

She brushed a hand down her skirt and straightened her long-sleeved fenhai. This one was adorned with flat and crisp ribbons that she couldn't afford to put a single furrow in it. "I have a lot of time on my hands, reki-zin," she said. A sad exhale puffed out of her mouth. "Let's leave it at that."

The old man got the gist—he shouldn't pry too much on the lives of mysterious but wealthy ladies living on villas atop steep hills—and bowed his head. "I shall take my leave, then," he said. "I'll see you on the next phase."

She didn't immediately remove her slippers or rose from her spot in the porch. Her eyes followed the man's turned back and each rotation and slap of the wheels against the stone-laden pavement until he was nothing but a dot in the horizon. All her muscles wanted to do was to get up and walk to where the old man was going, but she stayed put.

"Mei-Ran," a voice called from behind her. She turned to find Han-Xi, a man who found her by the river and let her live in this fantastic manor. He was a powerful magician who only sought to protect her. Because he loved her. At least, that's what he told her the first time they met. "Did you squander my hard-earned horo for threads again?"

Mei-Ran chuckled. "Why? It's my horo too," she said. "Didn't you say everything you have, I own as well? Are you planning to retract that oath? Then I might consider stepping down this mountain."

Han-Xi's face melted into a placid grin. He stalked from his place and joined her on the porch. "I never understood why you always settled on this spot," he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "But now I understand."

He gave her a sideways glance. "Beats the view from the window, yes?"

"You sure know how to praise yourself even when you're not trying," she said. The wind blew her strands to the side, the longest ones almost touching Han-Xi's chin. His hand reached out and his fingers began twisting the ends he caught around. "But there's another reason."

Han-Xi raised a blond eyebrow. For someone who hailed from this town as he claimed, he sure had such a rare characteristic. "Care to tell?"

Mei-Ran turned her head outward, towards the rest of the world she has yet to explore. Before she lived here, the river and the shack at the edge of the village were all she knew. The prospect of seeing the world from the heavens, as Han-Xi had promised her, seemed enthralling at the time. But now...

"I wish to go down to the city," she said. She knew what Han-Xi's answer would be. No. Always, a hard and quick No. There were bad men who wished only to attack her and take her captive. There were only fiesty merchants who would swindle her horo. There were only thieves who would maim her and leave her with nothing, not even the clothes on her back.

Except from the wind rustling the pink tree shading over most of the patio, it was silent in Han-Xi's side. "What do you say?" she prodded again, nudging his leg with her knee. "I really want to explore the city. I'm told they sell good parchment there."

Han-Xi inclined his head at her. "I could always get it for you," he said. "If it's parchment you want."

"I want other things," Mei-Ran said. Her head had already created a virtual list that filled with more and more things just so she could have an excuse. "You won't be able to get them because you won't know them. I won't tell you."

At that, Han-Xi grinned. "Magic has its way of knowing the unknown, love," he said, nuzzling close to her. So close that his nose brushed the soft spot on her neck, enough to cause her to feel ticklish.

"But you also promise you won't use magic on me just because you could," Mei-Ran said against his scalp, hands running down his neck and chest when he drew away. "Did you really forget all your promises the moment you utter them?"

Han-Xi grinned. Pointed canies glinted from the corners of his pearly rows of teeth. "And do you really hang on to every word I say?" he fired back. "Are you that devoted to me?"

Mei-Ran drew closer, as far as she dared without being reprimanded, and smirked. "Devotion is not the only thing I can give you," she said, dropping her voice into a whisper. "I can give you...say, that thing you wanted most?"

Han-Xi's throat bobbed. A tinge of pink colored his cheeks which he immediately used his hand to cover. It didn't slip Mei-Ran's attention, though. "F-fine," he said. "You can go to the market. And the market only. Be home by sundown."

A huge weight lifted off Mei-Ran's shoulders. At last! She's going to see the city!

"Does that mean I can go and check out the library too?" she ventured.

Han-Xi's eyes hardened, making fear jump into her gut and her amusement fizzle like a snuffed-out flame. "Don't push your luck, Mei," he growled. It's taking a while for her to figure out if he was mad at the prospect or at her. "The market is as far as you will go."

And the market did she end up in. The bustling noises of wheels and people prattling about, lost in their own machinations sent a warm burst of energy in her gut. She strolled through rows upon rows of shops, her eyes glazing over with the amount of wares she saw. Beyond her, the rest of the city spread miles and miles ahead, but nothing stood atop the mountains surrounding the plain. Shouldn't there be something...important on one of those peaks? Something where she used to live, a place where she knew she could never return to.

Well, whatever. The market wouldn't wait for anybody. She tucked her hands into her wide sleeves and continued her walk. Her eyes flicked to the sky above her. Looking at those clouds, she had to make the most of her time here before she lost this chance to the ill-timed weather.

Some shops boasted the usual products Han-Xi brings her when he could. Things like dyed and scented parchment, candles of different shapes, colors,sizes, and fragrance, and of course, jars upon jars of dried herbs, flowers, leaves, and barks—all to make a delectable cup of tea. There were new technologies too, like the loom. How the merchant demonstrated how to weave threads to make fabric still at the back of her mind even when she's lost in the huge selection of glinting hairpins.

Her eyes widened with every tale the merchant of the hairpins told her the story of each accessory sitting in their neat, velvet boxes. She especially liked the one that came from the far corners of Shinzhai, the land where the creatures borne from the spirits' blood lived. She had no idea what a jou mei was but she bet they're wonderful creatures.

She reached for the hairpin, intent on getting it into her possession, when her fingers froze inches from its golden body. What was she doing, gallivanting in this place? She has somewhere to be, someone to go back to, but when she closed her eyes and racked her mind, all she came up with was a dark abyss at the end of her memory.

Had she made a mistake, coming not just to the market but the villa, in general? But...why would she feel that way? She made a choice to go with Han-Xi. She's not going to get hurt here. She's...

The sky rumbled, startling her back to the scene unfolding around and before her. Up ahead, the rolling sheets of gray had reached their tipping point. Then, it came. First, a hail of pattering needles, the second, a howling torrent of the heavens' tears. All around her, the merchants hurried to secure their goods and protect their heads and their animals. She looked around for any ledge to serve as a temporary roof but found none. Besides, what's the point? She's already drenched as it was.

The best thing she could do was to make a run for it. Back to the villa.

She was about to lower herself into a stance when a shadow fell over her and the rain stopped tormenting her with its damp slashes. She turned to find a young man grinning at her from ear to ear. His hair was hidden inside a netted hat, signaling he's somewhere in the noble ranks. His clothes were of the sort too, though it didn't look like it now that the hems were stained with mud and dripping with rainwater.

Yet, he was holding something above her head.

"Where are you going, my lady?" he asked, his smile never really leaving his face. It even reached his eyes, making them sparkle against the gloom of the sky. "Let me take you there."

She craned her neck up, studying the strange contraption made from polished sheets of bamboo held up by a complicated sets of sticks and stalks. "Who are you?" she asked. "What is this?"

His eyes flicked to the domed thing he held by the crook of its handle. "Oh, this?" he said. "It's an umbrella. I made it. I guess you could say I was its inventor."

"And why have you picked me out of all the women in the market getting soaked?" she wondered, moving forward to see if he would follow. He did, the umbrella providing most of the work, shielding her from the rain. That didn't mean he was being spared though. The fanning sheets was big enough for only a person. "I'm sure there are other ladies you can seduce with your...um-breh-yah."

"Umbrella," the man corrected. "It's a fancy term, I know. A lot of people struggle too."

She raised an eyebrow. "Why not rename it, to something like...bbi-deol?"

The man blinked. They had started walking farther now. The hairpin remained unbought. "Bbi-deol?" he repeated.

Mei-Ran shrugged. "Yes. Bbi for rain and deol for shield," she said. "A shield for the rain. A rain-shield. Bbi-deol."

The man chuckled. "I like how your mind works, my lady," he said. "What's your name? I sure want to go over with the rest of my inventions' names with you."

"You first," she jerked her chin at him. "I believe I beat you in asking that question."

"Ah, did you?" the man scratched the back of his head, his fingers brushing against the rim of his black netted hat. "I guess it flew over my mind when you asked about the umbre—sorry, bbi-deol."

He extended his free hand towards her, his wide sleeves already dripping with rainwater. "Lin-Zhu," he said. "Wang Lin-Zhu. And you?"

Without thinking of the possible consequences, she grabbed his hand and shook it. His hands were warm against the coldness of the rain and the whipping wind around them. "Mei-Ran," she said. "Xi Mei-Ran."

"So, where are you going, my lady?" he asked.

Home. She's going home. That was, if she knew where it was in the first place.