Chapter Text
"｢If you stare at that map any harder, it might combust.｣"
Omi blinked and finally looked up to where Dojo was stoking a small fire. After a moment's hesitation, he said, "｢I do not believe I have that ability.｣"
"｢That was a – never mind. Wha'cha thinking about?｣"
As the dragon wrapped himself closer towards Omi, the boy buried his head back in the atlas. He had given the page that was focused on China to Boris, but there were still maps of Asia in general, and he could recognize the regions well enough. "｢The woman with Wuya spoke in Cantonese. I believe this will prove useful in pinpointing the location of Wuya's new ally.｣"
"｢What, you mean that guy with the,｣" and here, Dojo cupped his claws around his head in the manner that Omi had shown him earlier. The monk nodded.
"｢Because she speaks Cantonese, she is likely to be from the south, somewhere around the Guangdong Province. Um...is that correct?｣"
"｢Well, there're some other possibilities, actually. Like Macau and...hmm...｣" Tugging at his beard, Dojo added, "｢You remember that vision you had? Couldja see out the windows?｣"
The answer was yes, but Omi's tongue slipped over a speed bump regardless. He had been a little more interested in the unfamiliar boy that had (will?) stood beside him and the stout man who will (had?) aim one of those detestable weapons at him. All he remembered about the windows was that they provided ambient light in the form of neon.
Seeing Omi's hesitation, Dojo backed off. "｢It's okay if you don't remember...I mean, whatever you saw isn't gonna happen for – ｣"
"｢I remember bright signs,｣" Omi insisted, setting the heavy book down to tap at his knees. "｢I...the signs said something...but...I do not remember exactly...｣"
Dojo's ears perked up and he straightened out like a golf club. "｢But you remember you could read 'em?｣"
"｢Well, yes, but if I cannot – ｣"
"｢That means the signs were in Traditional, not Simplified...a combination of Cantonese speaker with the Traditional writing system...it's definitely either Macau or Hong Kong.｣"
It was always a mystery how a 1500-year-old dragon who mostly kept himself in a temple built in a secluded place in the mountains was able to keep up with modern knowledge, but whatever his sources, they always seemed to be relatively accurate.
"｢Actually, another question – any of these signs have, maybe, some other languages on 'em...?｣"
"｢I, um, no?｣"
Dojo cocked an eyebrow. "｢Don't sound too sure of yourself, buddy.｣"
Omi closed his eyes and took a deep breath before plunging into his memory once more. The view of the windows were still fuzzy, but every sign he could see out of them were displaying characters he recognized. "｢There were no other languages. I believe that detail would have been noticed by me.｣"
"｢Then I'd bet my skin it's Hong Kong!｣" Dojo slammed a highly deductive fist into his other hand with a grin that would have knifed Sherlock Holmes and left no evidence. "｢Macau has two official languages, the second being Portuguese; technically, Hong Kong has two languages too, but I think Macau, you're more likely to see Traditional written Chinese, Portuguese, and English together on signs. Hong Kong, you might have English too, but y'know.｣"
Omi didn't know at all. But there was something he did know.
"｢You are saying that we merely have to search one city for this man?｣"
"｢Woah, woah, woah. I don't think you understand how big Hong Kong is, kid. 'Sides, as your designated pilot, I'm thinking we're hauling ourselves out of the country for a while. Lie low, y'know?｣"
Omi paused before peeling Dojo's finger off of his lips. "｢...But Hong Kong...is out of the country.｣"
"｢Did I say 'country?' I meant 'continent.' We're leaving the continent,｣" Dojo said, hopping towards the atlas and starting to flip through the pages. "｢And by continent, I mean landmass. We're leaving the entire Eurasia landmass. Also, the hemisphere. Going to an entirely different quarter of the Earth to lie low. One, safer. Two, it's summer there, so that's nice.｣"
It made sense. It was still a bit chilly here, and Omi had neglected to bring a coat. While he was all for training his body to be able to endure extreme temperatures, he was not as eager to continuously do so for an extended period of time. "｢But where are we going?｣"
With a tiny sense of finality, Dojo dropped the book back on the ground with a thunk. The pages had settled on a map of South America, and one of his claws was now threatening to tear a hole in it. "｢Brazil.｣"
Omi squinted at the large country as he tried to call up some sort of image to tie in with the name. The only thing that came to mind was a lot of trees. "｢But we are not merely wasting time by hiding there, are we?｣"
"｢One, I happen to find hiding a very profitable course of action, the profit being a long life,｣" Dojo said as he pulled out the world map he had marked. Omi opened his mouth. "｢Longer,｣" Dojo snapped with a glare, and Omi shut his mouth again. "｢Two, I believe you will be happy to hear that we did hide a certain Shen Gong Wu in Brazil, as well as a few other places in South America. We can pick those up while we're there, as long as we attract no attention.｣"
"｢As little attention as a giant flying dragon would attract.｣"
Dojo took in a breath to respond and then let it settle in his lungs as his brow furrowed in unwanted realization. "｢...Okay. What if. What. If. Hm. What if, what if...｣" With a snap, he lunged upwards. "｢Got it! What if, yeah, we fly most of the way, then we do a little underwater action and you just walk up on the beach, y'know, like nothing happened, yeah?｣"
Omi winced. "｢I do not think that normally someone in my attire simply 'walks up on the beach.' Especially if they are coming from the water.｣"
"｢Well, at least nobody sees a dragon, and it's the only plan I got, and we can talk about this while getting the heck outta this side of the world so shut up and hop on.｣"
Omi obeyed at least half of those instructions as Dojo grew to his larger size and swept some snow over the fire. "｢So, this Shen Gong Wu in Brazil, you remember the exact location of its hiding place? As soon as we arrive, you would immediately be able to guide us there?｣"
"｢Of course!｣" Dojo exclaimed as he took off, quickly leaving the borders of Russia behind them. "｢I've got a memory like a tiger! A...a tiger with a really good memory. Relatively speaking, because he's 1500 years old. The tiger, I mean. But also me.｣" Dojo puzzled over his own simile for a while longer, almost careening into a low-hanging cloud. He gave up.
"｢A-anyways, the point is, it'll be a piece of cake.｣"
"｢Okay. I admit, there were some things I didn't quite foresee,｣" Dojo said, one flight and a short trek later. The dragon had seemed incredibly sure about his directions and so Omi had blindly followed them and ended up almost blindly walking into a busy intersection. The only thing that prevented him from being splattered against a windshield was a curly-haired woman who had pulled him back by his collar and spent a few minutes shouting at him in a language he didn't understand. He simply bowed when the lecture was over, and watched as she huffed, spun on her heel, and promptly sped across the street without looking both ways.
Now, Omi sat on the curb, watching cars and people go by. Most glanced down at him with a suspiciously furrowed brow, but all of them continued to wherever they had to go.
"｢So...the exact place where you have buried the Rio Reverso is also the exact center of this road.｣" Almost serving to underline his point, the light turned green and a line of cars streamed by Omi on their way to places unknown, much too fast for the narrow lanes they were traveling in.
"｢Well, the road wasn't there before,｣" Dojo whispered, trying his best to impersonate a snake that didn't talk, no siree. With a sigh, Omi got up and brushed off the seat of his pants before getting a better look at his surroundings.
The road was lined with drab buildings the color of tea stains, all taller than he was used to, but usually less than ten stories. Their flat tops made every one of them look like someone had just simply dropped a bunch of cardboard boxes in a row, albeit cardboard boxes with some nice, lacy windows and that were very excitedly advertising 'MOTOR.' Fighting for attention was a sparse line of trees, all of them with some oddly long leaves, giving the street a very lively look, as though the city had simply grown out of the jungle. It was very clear that the city was winning, considering how each tree seemed to be leaning at some awkward angle or another in order to get any sun that the buildings didn't hog up. They arched over the road precariously, providing plenty of shade but also, Omi suspected, plenty of trouble whenever any branches fell.
Every once in a while, a half-naked man would pass, causing Omi to flit his eyes downwards at the gray and uneven slab known as a sidewalk. There was a square, metal covering from which a foreign odor wafted, the kind of smell that Omi hoped to never get used to, for that meant being used to whatever filth was creating that smell. At this moment, the whole world seemed much too crowded. There was simply too much of everything and too small a space to walk in, and somehow having less space made everything seem even bigger. He was used to his temple, used to empty spaces, and all of a sudden, the empty spaces were being filled up by buildings, by people, by cars and motorcycles and strange devices and sounds and smells. Who could ever live in a place like this?
"｢Let's try to get to a nicer part of town,｣" Dojo mumbled around the corner of his mouth, and Omi started to walk, skittering around everything as wide as he could. Everything called for his attention. Every car that whizzed past dragged his eyes along with it, until a colorful sign saying something like 'BANCO DO BRASIL' drew them upwards, and then they would draw back towards himself again as he was made explicitly aware of the people around him as they slid by, chattering about this and that.
Eventually, they started to pass storefronts that sold food, helpfully indicated by accompanying pictures and smells, and Omi thought about the last time he ate and thought about how he had absolutely no way to pay for the food and pretended that he was fasting. Dojo mostly looked up and mouthed the names of the street signs they passed. Once in a while, he'd nudge him towards the direction he wanted them to go, and Omi would weave his way around people and sometimes remember to check the lights before crossing streets. He usually didn't.
Eventually, the narrow street opened up to a multi-laned one, with an accompanying boardwalk right across from where he stood. But it wasn't the boardwalk that he was staring at, it was what it was overlooking – open sea. Omi had always felt in tune with the water ever since he learned how to root his chi within the flow of life of the world, but never had pure, empty space looked so much like home. He probably would have bounded across the passing cars and jumped straight in if Dojo didn't suddenly tug on his ear with all the force of Master Fung's stare.
"｢Ow, ow, ow,｣" said Omi, when he meant to say 'what is it?' but his lapse of the tongue was understandable when Dojo seemed to be giving him an impromptu piercing.
"｢It's the – look at – I mean – that thing we're – ｣"
People were starting to stare at the garden snake who was somehow shouting his whispers, and so Omi just looked in the direction that Dojo was wildly gesturing towards in order to get him to quiet down. It turned out that he was gesturing towards a souvenir storefront; a tacky little shop that brought to mind the tacky little facade that the Shaolin Monastery put up for gaping tourists. Gaping tourists like themselves, he supposed, trying to hold Dojo still as he sidled up closer to the glass.
"｢There,｣" Dojo mumbled-exclaimed, pointing towards little figurines of a man and a horse, or maybe of a statue of a man and a horse, all arranged in tidy rows like an army marching to war. It would be threatening if it weren't so cute.
Omi could see himself in the reflection of the glass vaguely pursing his lips. "｢I do not recall ever seeing a Shen Gong Wu like this, Dojo.｣"
"｢Look. In. His. Hands,｣" Dojo hissed, and Omi leaned in closer. At this size, it was rather small, but the figurine of the statue of the man was definitely holding something that was distinctly shaped like the Rio Reverso – though it was much more golden than Omi remembered.
At this point, Omi was pressing his forehead against the glass. Out of the corner of his eye, he could spot something the approximate shape and size of a leery shopkeeper move towards him, but it didn't seem that important. "｢But why is it so small?｣"
"｢C'mon kid, I know you haven't been outside since ever, but it's obviously a scaled-down replica, you see? There must be some sorta nearby famous statue and this guy's selling tiny versions of it.｣"
Omi's brow scrunched against the cool glass, which was steadily fogging up from his breath. "｢Why would anybody want a tiny version of a statue?｣"
"｢I dunno, you used to make tiny little mud statues of yourself all the – w-woah, where're you going?!｣" Dojo scrabbled for purchase on Omi's shoulder, almost swinging right off as Omi suddenly spun on his heel and walked right through the door. At this point, the shopkeeper had propped himself right behind his counter again, pretending that he had always been reading a newspaper. He hadn't quite realized that it was upside-down.
Omi swiped one of the figurines from the storefront and tried to plop it right on the counter but found that he couldn't reach. After watching him hop around a few times, the storekeeper finally took pity and grasped the figurine out of Omi's hands and placed it beside the register for him. Although he rolled up the newspaper, he made no show of ringing anything up, and so Omi was faced with his full attention and nothing else. Instead of staring at his face, which was scraggly in that recklessly young sort of way, Omi opted to stare at his watch. It strained against a beefy arm in the way that a mouse would strain to push a lion. It was colorful and made of cheap, childish plastic, and he could see some sort of smiling, cartoon-y face on it. To be polite, he smiled back.
Omi opened his mouth but then snapped it shut at a passing thought. Finally, he said, "English?" The storekeeper nodded.
"Where'r'er parents?" he asked, his words sliding out and colliding with each other with all the ease of a laconic car crash. It took a few seconds for Omi to parse the molten slag of a sentence
"O-oh, I do not – "
Omi stopped mostly because Dojo had just elbowed him in the ear. It was only partly because the dragon was also mimicking, and here he had to guess, a very unfortunate, exploding tree.
The two humans could only watch in awe, but around the fifth time that Dojo jerked his neck – really his entire body, since he was all neck – towards the wall, Omi finally hit on what he was trying to not say. "Th-the parents are...in the building next to this one?"
The storekeeper didn't take his eyes off of Dojo, even after Omi removed the need for intense, desperate charades. Though his skin was youthfully soft, it was currently being marred by furrows upon furrows. "Tha's someting real perculiar fer'a lizard t'do," he remarked, and Omi held up a hand and caught Dojo's snout right as it pounced for the man's nose. "Y'need t' geddit checked?"
"Y-yes!" Omi took a second to realize what question he was actually answering. "M-maybe?" At this point, Dojo was glaring smog and disease at him, but at least he wasn't writhing so much. "Um, but I ask you something," he said, pointing with his free hand at the figurine that sat forgotten on the counter.
"Y'wanna buy?"
"No no no." Omi hastily shook a hand and tried to show that his only worldly possessions were his clothes and his lizard friend. "This statue, I want this statue."
The man pursed his lips with a click like a button clasp. "Y'wanna for free?" It looked like it took the force of the Earth's gravitational pull for him not to spit.
"Nononononononono!" Omi shook harder this time and jabbed a finger towards the figurine which was quite suddenly much closer to the shopkeeper. "I want this statue, I want the real statue!"
It took a moment but the look of spit evaporated and was replaced with the sort of look that all adults reserved for precocious children – half bemused, half amused, and all condescension.
"Ahh," he said, and then "Aaaaaah," in case Omi didn't hear the first time. "The statue." He tapped his nose and winked.
Omi didn't really know what that meant and so only said, "Yes." Dojo was busy covering his face and kneading his brow.
"Parque Lage," said the shopkeeper, nodding towards a vague direction as he let go of the figurine. "Lotsa trees, beeeg place. Y'wanna go left," and then he went into a labyrinthine dialogue that sounded as complicated as the path he was laying out. Directions upon directions that had no street names and didn't seem to take into account that a description such as 'the car building' wasn't much of a description at all. Dojo brought his hands down to pull at his eyelids. Was it a car dealership? Some car parts shop? A building that had a literal car crashed into it?! It was forever a mystery because Dojo wasn't supposed to talk and Omi seemed to be afraid to interrupt. When the shopkeeper finally ceased jabbering, the full stop at the end of his sentence took a bow, already expecting applause.
Dojo tightened his grip on Omi's shoulder, his claws digging into skin and trying to transmit through, quite possibly, bio-electrical feedback, 'ask him questions ask him ask him you can't possibly know what he even means for the love of every soul that was born wriggling into the sun ASK HIM FOR CLEARER DIRECTIONS.'
Omi said, "Thank you." It took great self-restraint for Dojo to not give him new shoulder piercings.
"｢You don't know where to go,｣" said the dragon as soon as they were outside.
"｢I know where to go,｣" Omi insisted, immediately turning left down a street that had a noticeable lack of anything that could be called a 'car building.'
"｢You don't know where to go,｣" Dojo repeated about an hour later; an hour of meandering down streets that didn't appear to have any discernible names; of scuttling by people who were, frankly, much too merry for Omi's comfort (having lived his life among the most sober of old men); and, of course, an hour of sore feet.
At this point, Omi had to admit that Dojo might have a point. Everything about this new place was disorienting, especially the crowds, especially the sense of vastness, especially the feeling of drowning, especially everything, and he was starting to wonder if he could find a corner to stand in, away from the world, maybe sink into the ground. Just a little.
The street ahead opened up to what looked like a plaza, and beyond a mostly empty parking lot, Omi could see a barred fence that separated asphalt from concrete. And beyond that fence lay the skeletons of colorful tents. But what Omi noticed most was that the crowds of people around him were content bustling around shopfronts and crossings and away from the lot and the fence. And there were certainly people beyond the fence too, but not as much as there were around him right now and that's all that mattered, so Omi made a dash towards it, almost jostling Dojo off his perch.
"｢W-woah!｣" Dojo said as he pulled himself upright by Omi's ear. "｢What, you see it or something?｣"
In response, Omi pattered his way through the parking lot and managed to scale the fence in one leap. Now seated on top of the bars, Dojo squinted at the various people taking down booths and poles, and at the sheer lack of trees.
"｢I don't think this is a park, Omi.｣"
"｢I, ah, just thought that I could get a better view from here,｣" said Omi even as he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Already, the increased space was settling his mind. He could actually stretch his arms out without hitting something now – not that he stretched his arms out at random very often, but he appreciated the option.
"｢...You'd probably get a better view from a roof.｣" But still, Dojo only crossed his arms and aimed a patient stare up at the sky.
The bustling of the city's people didn't disappear, not by a long shot. But it was distant, and with distance came the ability to ignore. The sounds of inane chatter, of clattering grates and zooming cars dulled in his mind and he could focus on the sounds that comforted him, the sound of birds and of the wind rustling through trees and of the steady biorhythm of the entire planet, a constant pulse that connected everything and everybody.
He'd happy staying up there the entire day, honestly, and he probably would have if it wasn't for a little interruption that pierced through the calming air.
"Ei, você não pode ficar aqui! Saia já daí!"
The thing that made Omi lose balance wasn't just the sudden shout, though it certainly caught his attention. It was what he saw when he looked down that made him slip and land on the concrete ground at a very unfortunate angle that made the entire world ring. The boy who shouted dropped the pole he was holding and jogged up to him, his formerly creased brow now creased in a slightly different way, upwards instead of downwards.
"Ai, meu deus! Cara, cê tá legal?"
Omi's eyes were still unfocused; the colors were all blending together into one mess of watercolor and it certainly wasn't helping that his various joints stung with the feeling of succumbing to gravity (and also with open scrapes), but there was still no mistaking it. The spiky hair, the thick eyebrows...the clothes were different, but that was a moot point.
This was the boy he saw with the Crystal Glasses.
Omi was so busy gaping that he barely realized the boy was still asking him questions in a language he still couldn't understand. "What?" he said, intelligibly, which was quite a miracle.
At this, the boy rolled his eyes and sighed as he tried to pick Omi up by the shoulders to set him back on his feet again, muttering, "Malditos turistas idiotas."
Dojo, who was in the middle of picking himself up from the ground, suddenly hopped into the air in front of the boy's face with a finger ready to jab at his nose. "Se for pra xingar alguem em outra língua, pelo menos tenha certeza de que eles nãoentendam, imbecil!"
The dragon's eyes widened and he snapped his hands back to his mouth as if trying to shovel the words back in, but it was a little too late. Still, Omi was a little gratified to see his look of dazed shock mirrored in the boy's face.
Somehow, the spiky-haired boy managed to pry his eyes away from Dojo and looked towards Omi instead. "Aquele lagarto falou," he said with a shaking hand.
And though Omi didn't really know what he said, he could understand pretty easily. "Yes," he said. "He does that a lot."