Book 3: Chapter 38: New Days |
Patriarch Duan stumbled through the courtyard gate.
He made it a couple steps before spinning around and bowing deep. Forehead nearly touching his knees. "Forgive me, Senior Yin Hu! I have shamed myself, my school, lineage, ancestors, and my late wife's ceramics by losing consciousness in the presence of your—"
"It's fine."
"—magnificent and terrifying botanical companion that I did not see coming and could not have prepared for in any—"
"It's fine, Patriarch Duan."
The old man bowed again. Then did it a dozen times more, each subsequent bow faster than the last until he was essentially performing a vertical exercise routine that would have impressed any fitness instructor. By the ninth bow, Yin Hu had stopped counting and started wondering if the man's spine was going to make it out of the courtyard with him. Old men weren’t known to have good backs after all.
Or was that not applicable to old cultivators?
"Enough. You're welcome back anytime. Bring more of your wife's ceramics if you have them. I meant what I said. They're wonderful," Yin Hu said.
Duan froze mid-bow as his head came up and eyes, still fully open and carrying that strange new brightness, locked onto Yin Hu's face. He searched for something there for a few moments until he found whatever he was searching for.
The old man spun on his heels, looking a few decades younger, and only took a few steps before he stopped dead in his tracks.
Yin Hu watched the old man raise his hand to his face and stare at his palm. Flexing it into a fist and then unflexing a few time.
"M-My bones don't ache me?" Patriarch Duan whispered to himself in a low voice. He looked over his shoulder and stared at Yin Hu from the distance with wide bright eyes. A look Yin Hu never noticed because he was busy sipping tea and preparing himself mentally for what would happen once Duan was gone completely. Hearts would be broken today and it needed happening.
The old man bowed once more and then left without saying another word.
Ta Rae used one of it’s branches to slam the courtyard gate shut.
Yin Hu listened to the footsteps fade down the road. Faster than they should have been for a ninety-three-year-old.
Only then did he fully turn toward the cause of this whole debacle. Ta Rae did the best job it could to look innocent, which was to say it acted as though it was a normal tree and not one that could terrify old men into unconsciousness. The tree's trunk shuddered once, a full-body release of tension that sent a few leaves spiralling to the ground. One of them landed in Yin Hu's cup.
He fished it out with two fingers and flicked it at the tree.
Ta Rae caught it with a branch and tucked it back into its canopy as though it was recycling.
"You scared him," Yin Hu said.
The tree's branches curled inward in what he'd come to recognise as the arboreal equivalent of a shrug. A gesture that communicated I exist and that is not my fault with remarkable eloquence for something that lacked shoulders, arms, a chest, facial features, or any of the standard equipment required for non-verbal communication. Body language was not supposed to be a tree’s strength in communication.
"Next time, wait until I introduce you."
Every leaf on the tree angled toward him trying to be as attentive and agreeable as possible.
Radiating earnest compliance.
Yin Hu sighed and took another sip.
The tea drinking had lasted a few minutes at most, but it had been enjoyable. Genuinely enjoyable in a way that caught him off guard. No hidden agendas, no veiled threats, no young masters demanding respect they hadn't earned, no cultivators trying to measure his power through increasingly transparent provocations. No fake sweet treats that gave false promises or tea that was labeled something special but tasted worse than sewage water.
Just an old man with good ceramics, honest opinions about training methodology, a font of knowledge, and a dead wife whose hands had made cups worth drinking from.
He'd invite the patriarch back. Tomorrow, maybe.
Or the day after.
Whenever Duan finally recovered from the strange listlessness he had currently.
Hopefully the man would bring another set of ceramics because Yin Hu loved the pair sitting on the table. The earth-toned glaze caught the lantern light in ways that made the tea look warmer and more alive than it did in the standard cups he'd been using. Function married to beauty without a single unnecessary flourish. He had to many ornate cups that were to flourished with designs…
At least the ones he had been using so far.
Yin Hu hadn’t looked that deep for cups in his bag. That was the exact opposite of relaxing.
Though maybe next time he won't lose consciousness and go pale every time Ta Rae moves. Baby steps, but we'll work up to the tree pouring its own cup without triggering a medical emergency. I need to be careful around old people lest I cause him a heart attack and then I suddenly have an entire dojo and his kids chasing after me to get vengeance for something I did not intentionally do.
He leaned back and let the evening settle.
The courtyard was quiet and the lanterns swayed. Ta Rae's branches formed their protective canopy above him, leaves filtering the starlight into dappled patterns across the stone. The distant sounds of the city hummed beyond the walls in an orchestra that painted every morning very similarly to the previous one. Yet, Yin Hu could not imagine himself growing tired of.
Yin Hu closed his eyes for a few seconds of peace.
Footsteps erupted from the eastern wing as soon as he did.
Both sets, moving fast, the heavier stride of Jun's boots and the lighter, quicker patter of Shui's that always sounded like she was half a second from breaking into a full sprint regardless of where she was going or why. Doors banged. Something clattered, probably a sword being grabbed from a rack. Fabric rustled as robes were adjusted mid-stride. Loud whispers passed between them and a single bright laugh from Shui…
Which would not be so bright and excited soon enough.
They burst into the courtyard side by side.
Jun had her sword strapped to her hip and her hair pulled back in a tight knot that meant business. Shui's crown sat crooked on her head and Mr. Mo Mo's handle poked above her shoulder, the weapon spirit's ambient hum already pressing against the courtyard air.
Both of them aimed for the gate.
"Hold!" Yin Hu shouted.
Jun's boots scraped stone as she skidded. Her body pitched forward, arms windmilling once before she caught her balance. Shui slammed into Jun's back, bounced off, stumbled sideways, caught herself on Ta Rae's trunk, and then snapped upright. Both turned to face him with confused expressions. Yin Hu had never stopped them from rushing out like this before.
Except when he had… punished Shui.
Both of their eyes widened.
"No going out today."
"What?!" Both voices hit the same note at the same time.
Yin Hu fought the smile that clawed at the corners of his mouth. Their faces were mirrors of each other. Jun's jaw had dropped half an inch, her eyes wide, brow climbing toward her hairline. Shui's mouth formed a perfect circle, her hands frozen at her sides, crown tilting further as her head cocked to one side.
Identical expressions of betrayal on two very different faces.
He almost lost it.
Don't smile. Don't you dare smile. You are an Ancient Being and the Patriarch of a mighty clan.
Be the Ancient Being persona.
Be the Ancient Being persona!
He held the mask by the thinnest of threads.
"Neither one of you has finished your Katas in the past few weeks. You have been neglecting your duties as my disciples." He let the words land and watched them hit. Jun's jaw snapped shut and her eyes dropped to the ground. Shui's circle-mouth compressed into a line so thin it vanished. "No going out today because you are going to be working on your Katas the whole time."
Both reacted simultaneously. "But–"
"No buts! Get to position and prepare yourselves."
Jun's shoulders dropped and hand, which had been resting on her sword's pommel, slid off and hung limp at her side. Her chin dipped and she turned toward the open section of the courtyard where the training space waited.
Shui followed her gaze.
Time froze between them as nothing moved, not even the wind.
“Well?” Yin Hu asked.
They took their positions in the courtyard, though reluctantly. Both got into position a few paces apart and facing the same direction, feet shoulder-width, hands at their sides. The starting stance for the first Kata sequence he'd drilled into them during those early months in the Silver Mountain Gang compound. Before the mutations, the esoteric manuals he still had no clue what they did, and even before the Bleak Forests and everything that came during that time.
The foundation of everything they were.
Seeing everyone work on the basics of his boxing stance had reminded him that he had taught them quite a few combinations.
Of which they had stopped practicing for a very long time.
Yin Hu watched them settle and felt the familiar warmth spread through his chest. Pride, concern, exasperation, and something deeper that he'd stopped trying to name.
Ta Rae moved.
The Demonic Spirit Tree pulled its roots from the earth with a series of wet, sucking sounds that made both girls flinch mid-stance. Dirt cascaded from the root ball as the tree lifted itself, shifted a few paces to the left, and replanted between Jun and Shui with careful deliberation Its canopy spread wide above them. Branches fanned outward and leaves angled to block the sun light that cut across the courtyard at a low angle.
A shadow fell over both girls, cool and gentle.
A leaf detached from the lowest branch and drifted down onto Jun's shoulder.
Then another onto Shui's head, landing on the crooked crown and sliding off to rest in her hair.
Jun's rigid posture softened by a fraction. Her eyes flicked upward toward the canopy, then back forward. She didn't brush the leaf off.
Yin Hu stared at the tree.
Ta Rae's trunk faced him. Every leaf that wasn't busy providing shade or dropping comfort onto his disciples angled in his direction. Waiting and ready to pour tea, heat water, catch airborne ceramics, or perform whatever other service might be required of a Grand Elder of the Hu Clan whose primary skills included drinking tea, scaring guests unconscious, and apparently, providing emotional support to grounded teenagers through the medium of strategic leaf placement.
I will never get used to Ta Rae literally picking up its roots and moving.
Yin Hu turned away before his thoughts could reach his face. "Begin!"