[I intended to make this chapter longer than it is; it should be, given how
long I've been working on it, but thought that where it ended is a good
stopping point.  Anyway, this *is* a draft, meaning that if you see any
problems whatsoever with it, please email me at guilds@mail.serve.com so I
can correct it if it's wrong.

For the people that just read Ryoga 1/2 when I sent it out to the FFML,
you're undoubtedly thinking, "Wow, that a quick guy!"  For all of you that
read the chapters when they first came out, you're undoubtedly thinking,
"This fiend took three months writing this thing.  It better be damn good."
;)  At any rate, this chapter took forever because of the emotion that I
poured into the writing (Ku's scene with his mother is an excellent
example), so I hope you enjoy it.

Oh yeah, the '[hkp] 10/06/1997  [I am] All[ways] Rights [never] Reserved'
deal is because someone brought to my attention that the original copyright
symbol could get me in legal hot water, so I replaced it with this
semi-comical line.  The 'hkp' stands for Hunter Kid Publishing, and it
reads:  I am always right, never reserved. <g>

-Hunter Kid]

Brother
by George Masologites
http://www.serve.com/guilds/ranma/
guilds@mail.serve.com [Hunter Kid]
[hkp] 10/06/1997  [I am] All[ways] Rights [never] Reserved

1
Bandit

    Early summer in the high Bayankala Range of mountains in China didn't
bring much change in the weather.  The lowlands below were warm and had
rustling green grass, towering trees to rest under, cool ponds to swim in,
but the more mountainous areas were still cold, and it still occasionally
snowed.
    Because of this, not too many people chose to live in the high
mountains, preferring the more temperate valleys and lowlands, which were
much more practical for growing rice, wheat, and other grains and foods.
    Communism hadn't really reached this remote area, probably because no
one thought anyone would want to live there.  And for the most part, people
didn't.  The mountains of China had sparked many legends and tales of
dragons and such, but this particular range of mountains had more myths
about it than any other.  There was even purported to be a magical valley
filled with springs that could change your form.
    Practical folk wouldn't have believed these tales, of course, but
people who lived in secluded homes or in rustic villages were hardly
'practical folk.'  More midieval than anything else, should anyone take the
time to study their lifestyle, and there was even an amazon village, known
to the locals as Niichieju, and some others as Joketsuzoku.  The amazons
were a proud folk, with their own traditions and way of life, and the
neighboring villages did nothing to disturb the amazons, and the villages
pretty much lived in peace, with mutual respect for one another.
    Here, far from modern technology and the horrible damage it can wreak,
people still fought, if not with guns and grenades.  Instead, they used
swords, spears, maces and the like to fight each other, should the need
ever arise.  Some of them, particularly the amazon warriors, were very
skilled with the usage of these weapons, and were not afraid to use them if
provoked.  Amazon pride, after all.
    That same amazonian pride kept the bandits that the other villages in
the area had trouble with at bay.  Not even the most skilled, daring thief
wanted to risk his neck trying to steal from an amazon woman.  To high a
chance of being caught, and the amazons could easily defeat almost anyone
in hand-to-hand or weapons combat.  The bandits, for their own part, didn't
mind not being able to enter Niichieju, though it occasionally rankled them
that the ancient riches of the amazons were forever out of their reach.
    Bandits, while they were pests, were a way of life in this remote part
of the Bayankala Range, and one of the main reasons nearly every male child
in the small villages learned to fight a little; enough to push away his
attacker and buy time to flee, if necessary.
    The favored weapons were swords.  These were rare, however, since it
took considerable skill as a blacksmith to create one, so most boys settled
to learning to fight with a quarterstaff, and occasionally, a bladed spear.
 When a young man showed true interest in weaponry, however, he was turned
over to one of the village councils and 'tested.'  If he passed, he won a
sword from one of the blacksmiths, which was like a badge of honor to the
boy.  And when bandits tried to raid the village, it was the Swords, as
those who had 'won their blades' often referred to themselves as, who
rallied the villagers to try to turn them back.
    The bandits often enjoyed these defense attacks, as did the Swords, and
sometimes, the villagers.  It honed their skill at fighting to a maximum,
and kept a show of pride among the young men in the rustic villages.  All
in all, it was more like a game than a raid.  A game with real weapons, but
a game nonetheless.  And when someone died, both sides undeniably regretted
the killing, but life resumed as normal shortly afterward.  After all, if
one had what it took to become a Sword in the first place, dying protecting
the village was considered an honorable death, and spoke well for the
family's name.  When a bandit died, his, or occasionally her, comrades and
friends would mourn for a day, as was customary, then bury or burn the
corpse, and that would be that.  Bandits had their honor, too, after all,
and dying 'for the good of the clan' was considered the most honorable
death a man could find.
    Bandits lived higher in the mountains, sheltering in caves, and
generally living off the land.  They were for the most part rogues who had
left their villages to find adventure, and had joined up with one of the
various 'clans' of bandits, as they referred to themselves as.  It was cold
this high in the mountains, but the bandits decided that the ever-present
coldness toughened their skin, and had opted to not move back down to the
warmer valleys.
    Today, however, was especially cold.  It was a disappointment to most
of the folk living in the mountains, as it had been quite nice of late -
temperate at best, but nice nonetheless.  At sunrise, though, a soft snow
had started to fall, and all knew that another cold week, or weeks, was
upon the bandits.  Just another tradeoff of living in the mountains, and
another way to toughen one's bones.
    "Yoiko?"  
    The deep voice echoed through the snowy clearing, a flat space near a
large cave where a clan of bandits had decided to stay until the cold had
moved out, which it seemed long in doing.  It seemed out of place, somehow
- shattering the peacefulness with a rough baritone, but the man whom it
had came from looked for every inch of him to be a man used to living off
the land.  He was dressed in plain, fur-lined clothing, tough leather boots
and gloves that were also fur-lined, and a thick woolen cloak of an earthy
brown, with the hood pulled over his face to shield him from the chill.
    The woman who the man was speaking to made no response, just merely
looked up at him.  She was a fairly attractive girl, or would have been,
had she been cleaned up.  A curvy figure was apparent through a
long-sleeved deep green tunic, belted at the waist and hung down just above
mid-thigh, with a slender, scabbarded sword strapped to her belt.  Thick
blue-gray tights, obviously meant to provide warmth and movement at the
same time, did a very nice job of showing off nicely curved legs, and the
tights flowed into heavy boots, colored similarly to the belted tunic.  She
had forest green hair held in place by a blue-gray bandanna, both of which
melded nicely with ice-blue eyes and deeply tanned skin from long years in
the wilderness.
    Her eyes, though, weren't those of a normal girl.  It was obvious on
first seeing her that her beautiful blue eyes were pained and frustrated,
and had the far-off look of one who wished she could return to the past, an
expression generally reserved for the aged and infirm.  Other than the
far-off looks, though, her eyes had a frightening intensity to them, and
seemed to bore holes into anything they looked at, scanning it inside and
out.  The deep-voiced young man seemed to notice this, and shuddered
involuntarily under her icy scrutiny.
    He looked uncertainly at the girl, who was currently sitting in the
lotus position, then cleared his throat.  "Forgive me," he stated,
swallowing.  "I didn't mean to disturb your meditation."  
    The green-haired girl shook her head slightly, and, while she didn't
come out of the lotus position, seemed to open herself up to speech.  "No
matter," she said shortly.  It would have amazed one who had not heard her
speak before as to how harsh her voice was, and how unlike a typical girl's
voice was.  Though it was an undeniably female voice, it grated along the
words she spoke, giving it a severe, icy edge to it that was quite
unnerving.  Coupled with her cold blue eyes, it diminished the original
impression of attractiveness considerably, making one prefer, perhaps, to
respect, rather than like, this girl.
    The brown-cloaked young man sat down near the girl, adopting a simple
crosslegged position as he pushed the thick wool hood of his cloak back.
He had friendly, slender brown eyes shaped like almonds and shoulder
length, slightly messy hair of a glossy black.  The skin on his face, the
only skin visible because of the clothing he was wearing to shield himself
from the cold, was a dusky bronze, and was slightly scorched and burned
from long exposure to the sun and wind.  He was hardly a handsome fellow,
but he had a certain friendliness about him that improved his appearance a
bit.
    For her own part, the girl seemed to pay no attention to how the
cloaked young man looked at all, as her piercing gaze swept over him,
taking him in all at once, and somehow seeming to be appraising him rather
than caring how he physically looked.  
    "I...was concerned," he managed to say at last.  His voice was much
like his eyes - friendly and pleasant, with a slight hint of mirth hidden
underneath.  The kind of voice people liked to hear when they were upset,
the kind of voice that soothed wrath before it got out of hand, perhaps by
telling an offhand joke.
    The green-haired girl barked a humorless laugh.  "Concerned," she
stated contemptously, in a tone that spoke of perhaps a less-than desirable
relationship with the cloaked fellow.  Her cold eyes flashed slightly, and
something else briefly showed deep in them.  Hints of an old bitterness, of
which time had never healed.  Hints that she spoke like this to everyone;
coldly and without feeling.  And with a deeper gaze into her ice-blue eyes,
it became apparent that she hadn't been happy in a very long time.  
    The young man flushed slightly, an expression that looked a little
strange on his tough, weathered face.  "Yes, concerned."  His tone spoke of
much respect for the young woman before him, no matter what she said to
give him other thoughts.  And something about her gaze said that maybe,
just maybe, she held some sort of respect for him, too.
    "You know better than that, Ku," she told him in a cold voice, devoid
of any emotions whatsoever.  She looked at him again, and he seemed to want
to flinch under her penetrating gaze, but he managed to make his own face
expressionless.  She closed her eyes again, folding her hands in her lap
and began to meditate once more.  
    He looked in in frustration, clenching his fist.  He sighed, standing
up.  No sense in disturbing her meditation a second time; who knew what
she'd do, then.  He had been lucky to get off the first time, but
twice...it was just something you didn't do.  Directing a look in her
direction that told of care and worry, he stood up, resigning himself to
leave her alone once more.
    "Yoiko, please," he murmured softly, so softly that he wasn't sure if
she even heard him above the gentle, if cold, breezes.  "I-if you want to
talk to someone, I'm here..."  He looked expectantly at her still form, and
sighed when he got no response.  The young man stood up, brushing off his
cloak and pulling the hood back up, looking at her with no small admiration
at how she held up against the icy weather in an outfit that hardly looked
warm.
    He began to slowly walk away, then stopped and turned back to the
meditating girl, pain evident on his face.  His brown eyes flashed slightly
from the depth of his hood, showing a small spark of remorse and perhaps,
just perhaps, a little bit of love.
    The young man shook his head, irritated with himself, and, moments
later, he had disappeared into the thick mountain forests, leaving the
green-haired girl sitting peacefully upon the white snow.  Somehow, even in
meditation, her face did not show peace, but a dark bitterness.
    Bitterness that looked to be long in healing.
    
    A ringing laughter resounded through the cold mountain forests,
stirring the evergreens' pines needles ever so slightly, shaking flecks of
snow off of them, even as the white frost floated out of the opressive grey
skies, covering everything in a peaceful whiteness.
    After speaking with the girl, the brown-cloaked young man had gone into
the forest, intent on doing some thinking about the situation, and,
perhaps, to hunt a quick dinner.  The first hadn't come very well - as all
he was able to do was worry about it, since he wasn't aware that anything
was wrong with the green-haired girl - but the second had appeared before
him like a blessing, in the form of a startled snow hare which he was about
to kill when the laughter startled him, letting the little animal escape
from his grasp.
    "Clumsy as always, eh, Ku?"  
    The cheerful voice floated out from the underbrush, and before the
cloaked fellow could locate its source, he felt a sharp pressure on his
head, and another young man appeared in front of him, grinning broadly at
him.  The first boy, Ku, sighed, recognizing the new figure to be one of
his longtime companions.
    Ku grunted and looked flatly at the grinning figure before him.  "You
just let my dinner get away, Dao."  He folded his arms across his chest in
irritation, but the other young man took no notice, instead sitting on a
nearby log and crossing his legs into a easy sitting position.
    Dao grinned at his friend.  "Actually, I killed a snow hare myself
earlier," he stated, pulling several well-cooked chunks of meat out of his
belt pouch.  "Thought you might want some."  
    "Sure," Ku agreed, taking a few chunks of slightly charred hare meat
from the other boy's hand. "Thanks."  He took a bite of one and nodded to
himself.  It always rankled him a bit at what an accomplished hunter Dao
was, and how he insisted on flaunting it.  Ku had been about to get that
snow hare, but Dao had scared it off with his laugh so he could 'show off'
his latest prize - his own batch of snow hare meat.  Ku considered himself
to be one of the best hunters around, but he wasn't even in Dao's league -
his friend was an excellent stalker, had an almost perfect shot with his
shortbow, and was an unbelievably light and acrobatic person.  Definitely
acrobatic, Ku thought sourly to himself, now realizing what the pressure on
his head had been.  
    Dao had vaulted over him, using his head as a platform for his fingers.
    Ku grumbled something uncouth under his breath.  Apparently Dao had
gone and improved himself some more since the last time the two of them had
practiced together, which wasn't the sort of thing that Ku needed, given
their rivalry.  Friendly rivalry, and one mainly meant to keep each other
in prime fighting condition, but a rivalry nonetheless.  
    "So," Dao prompted himself, grinning at his brown-cloaked friend, "you
were talking to Yoiko again, hm?"  His grin only increased when Ku
succeeded in gagging a bit on his meat.  
    "You were spying?"  Displeasure radiated from Ku's weathered features
in the form of a scowl.
    The cheerful boy shook his head.  "Spying?  Not really.  I was looking
for you, and I happened to catch you talking to Yoiko, and accidentally
heard your conversation..."
    Ku grunted.  "That," he stated flatly, "is spying."
    Dao shrugged nonchalantly.  "If you insist on putting it that way, I
won't argue."  He gave Ku an unreadable glance.  "Take my advice on this
one, old friend.  Give up on trying to get to - or with - Yoiko."
    Ku rolled his eyes.  "I am -not- trying to get with Yoiko, for the last
time," he said in a no-nonsense tone, folding his arms across his chest.
"It's just...she always seems so...well, bitter."
    The other young man shook his head.  "That's life, Ku.  Everyone's got
their own personality, and Yoiko's just got a bad one, for some reason."
He looked thoughtful.  "Of course, bad personalities don't just come out of
nowhere.  I wonder if something, you know, happened to Yoiko in the past?"
    "Probably," Ku grunted in a dour voice, settling onto a different log
to eat his food.  "How else would you explain her always-depressed
disposition?  Still, whatever it was, nothing could happen to make a person
-that- bitter all the time, about everything."  He shook his head sadly.
"Everything.  Have you ever seen her smile?  Not that ironic, bitter smirk
she sometimes gives, but a real smile?"
    "You're going sentimental on me, Ku," Dao warned with a mirthful grin.
He put a hand on his friend's shoulder.  "I wouldn't worry too much about
it.  Ever since we've seen Yoiko, she's been like this, so I doubt there's
anything either of us - or any of the clan, for that matter - could do for
the girl.  Just let it go, Ku."  His eyes suddenly glittered with
amusement.  "Never seen you so infatuated with a woman before, old friend.
Falling in love, perhaps?"  He smirked and jabbed a finger into the other
young man's side.  
    "Could be," Ku grumbled, chewing absently on another chunk of charred
meat.  Dao might have been a great hunter, but his cooking skills left
something to be desired.  His mouth protested slightly as he came to a
particularly charred spot in the meat.  Okay, he amended silently.  His
cooking skills left a -lot- to be desired.  Ku's mind began to wander
towards Yoiko again, and he hurriedly stopped it.  
    Dao was right, and he knew it.  There was absolutely no sense in trying
to get Yoiko to like, let alone love him.  The girl was just too damned
distant, and the only emotions he had ever seen her show were bitterness
and frustrated anger.  I want to help you, dammit!  He wished he could
scream at her, but he knew it wouldn't do any good.  Whatever the
green-haired girl had been through, it had taken its toll on her, and part
of that toll appeared to be the loss of all her soft emotions.
    He knew he shouldn't think about it, but he couldn't help himself.  It
just seemed so -wrong- for whatever horrible experience Yoiko had lived to
have happened to her.  She was a beautiful young girl, and beautiful girls
shouldn't be subject to heart-rending things.  From the looks she got from
other members of the clan, Ku knew he wasn't alone in his opinion.  I even
remember Dao staring at her, once, he recalled with an inward grin.  
    Ku still remembered the day, about a year previous, when Yoiko had
joined their clan of bandits.  It had always puzzled him how there didn't
seem to be any real reasoning behind her entrance to the clan; most of the
bandits, including himself, were the way they were because their families
had died, or they had been cast out of their villages, or they were just
seeking adventure.  Yoiko, however, had never said anything about her
family.  Ku privately doubted she even had one - if she had, they certainly
wouldn't have allowed her to be wandering around the high mountains, alone.
 She didn't seem to be looking for adventure, either, like Ku had been
doing when he had joined the clan, so he honestly didn't have any idea as
to why she had come with their clan.  Companionship?  Ku couldn't help but
scoff at that.  The girl was so distant that none of them had even been
able to have a conversation with her yet.  
    Ku himself joined with the bandits because of a variety of reasons, not
the least of which included his only previously living relative, his
mother, had died of a strange wasting illness when he was around fourteen
years of age.  His eyes eyes grew clouded and saddened when he thought of
his mother.  She had been so...strong.  His anchor in life when his father
had disappeared, so many years before, always the perfect picture of good
health and cheerfulness.  It just wasn't fair that she should have died.
How many years ago had her death come?  Three, he noted with a sigh.  I
can't believe it's been three years now that she's been dead.
    Ku angrily tore his thoughts away from his parents, but the memories
came to him, unbidden...

[Three years previous, Ku's Home, Sahn-luang Village.]

    It was cold.  
    Ku looked dismally into the fire, which seemed to give off light but no
heat, and he shivered.  Why was it so cold?  The fire should have warmed up
the hut by now.  He sighed despondently as he looked around the small room
which was his home, the usually pleasant atmosphere gone, replaced by a
cold chill, a chill that Ku knew didn't come from the cold January weather.  
    "Mother?"  He asked hesitantly, his voice quivering a little as he
looked over at the soft mat where his mother lay, breathing softly and
laborously.  
    His mother's somewhat strained face changed into a warm smile as she
looked over at her son.  "Yes?"  She asked, trying to sound cheerful.  Ku
grimaced inwardly at the hollow sound of her voice, a hollowness that made
the usually pleasant tone into a lifeless one.  
    Ku looked over at his mother, swallowing slightly.  "You're...going to
be alright, aren't you, Mother?"  He tried to make it into a statement that
she -was- going to be alright, but failed as he voice broke midway through
the sentence and changed the attempt at a firm statement into a frightened
inquiry.
    His mother leaned back into her soft resting place with a deep,
regretful sigh.  "Ku?"  She asked in a strong voice, a stronger voice than
Ku had heard he use in many weeks.  Hearing her speak like that, his eyes
gleamed slightly and he grinned cheerfully as he looked over in her
direction, but the grin faltered and broke as he saw the wistful longing in
her dusky brown eyes.  "I'm...sorry, son," she said in a voice tinged with
regret.  
    "Don't be," Ku stated firmly, clasping her thin-boned hand in his own
toughened palm and smiling reassuringly at her.  "You're going to get
better, Mother.  You have to."  He flinched inwardly, knowing that he had
said that as more of a command than an attempt to make her feel better.  Or
was it an attempt to make himself feel better?  "The...the healer will..."
    His mother turned towards him, her eyes twinkling sadly at him.  "He's
already been here," she said, her voice still strong, yet the strength
seemed to be leaving the words even as Ku listened to her speak them.  "The
healer can't do anything to help me."  Her dark eyes unfocused as she
seemed to be looking at something far-off in the distance.  "My son," she
said simply, yet sadness was apparent in her voice.  "I have one last
request to make of you before I...pass on."  She coughed slightly, making
it all-too-easy to see the strain that speaking was putting on her.
    Ku angrily held back his tears.  "No.  You can't...you can't die yet,
Mother," he tried to say in a firm tone, but, once again, his voice broke,
and he no longer had the strength to hold back his weeping.  "Yes," he
said, tears rolling down his cheeks as he held her slender hand even
tighter.  "Yes, I'll do whatever you wish, Mother.  Anything."
    The older woman's face broke into a small, gentle smile.  "Good.
Do...do you remember what you said to me last year?"
    Ku remembered.  He had told her that he was sick of boring village life
and wanted to see the world, and she had angrily reprimanded him and forced
him to stay inside for a whole day.  Now, his old desire to travel the
world seemed so...meaningless, so empty.  "I'm sorry I disobeyed you back
then, Mother," he managed through his tears, in a choked voice.
"It...won't ever happen again, I promise."
    She smiled once again, and for the last time.  "Of course not," she
said soothingly, looking at him lovingly.  "But now...there are no ties
binding you to our village.  I release you from any promises you made to
stay here."  She gripped his hand firmly.  "I never wanted to make you
unhappy, my son.  You must believe that."  He nodded to her bitterly,
trying to swallow his tears and failing miserably.  "My last wish is for
you to see the world.  Do as you have always wanted to do, Ku.  You've got
your whole life ahead of you.  Don't waste it lying around this old
village, you understand?"  And with those simple words she shuddered
slightly as she lay back in her bed and her shallow breathing stopped, and
her eyes grew lifeless and cold.
    "No!"  Ku bellowed, sobbing in helpless anger, praying for her to live
even as he watched her slowly die before him.  "No...Mother..."  The tears
came once again, flowing down his face as he let go of her hand, letting
his arms fall numbly to his sides.  "You...can't die..."  He clenched his
fists, gritting his teeth in bitter frustration, his whole body shaking
with impotent fury as he repeated those last three words as if they were a
mantra that would restore life to her body.
    And perhaps it was his imagination, but his mother's face seemed to
smile softly at him, as if to tell him she was finally at peace.

[Present, Mountains]

    In the small snow-bound clearing, Yoiko sat in silent, unmoving
meditation.  If not for her chest softly rising and falling, it would have
been hard to tell whether she was alive or dead.  Her small form sat amidst
the cold whiteness with a firm back and her eyes shut, and she should have
seemed at peace.  To meditate, one must be at peace.
    And, speaking relatively, she was.  
    The angry bitterness that marred her beautiful features was still
there, but less pronounced than usual.  Her mind was still in chaos, but
there was a little order amongst the chaos, now.  And it was because of
this that she stayed in meditation as often as she could.  Oftentimes, she
was seen meditating for days on end.  Several of those times the men from
the bandit clan would grow concerned for her and check to make sure she was
still alive, and she always was.  
    In meditation, at least, she could escape the darkness that was slowly
consuming her.  
    It was a strange condition that Yoiko had.  Her illness wasn't a
physical one; as a matter of fact, she was physically in perfect condition.
 Anyone could tell that by looking at her perfectly formed figure, and
lean, muscular legs.  Her face had the hardened look of one who suffered
daily, but its features were strong nonetheless, and the weathering from
the years in the wilderness hadn't marred her beauty in any noticible way.
She was, all in all, an extremely attractive young girl.  
    Yet, she suffered.  The strange thing of her condition was that she
could drive the darkness away, had she wished to.  It wasn't even really
darkness - it was more like a way of escaping her problems.  What those
were, only she knew, but they were slowly driving her to madness.  So she
had sought solace - solace in the darkness.  It had worked, at first.  She
simply let the darkness take her over, turning her into a cold, heartless
person.  But the suffering was still there; it wasn't going to go away.
Whenever she looked at herself, it was there.  Staring her in the face.
    Meditation was the only answer for her now.  In the peaceful meditation
state, she could escape her fate for a short time, and relive her life as
it once was.  As it had been, so many years ago.  If only she hadn't used
the...no!  She cleared her thoughts angrily.  She would not remember now,
of all times.  She grimaced slightly, knowing that the peaceful haven of
meditation was, for now, broken.
    And the darkness was there, on the edge of her mind.  It eagerly swept
forward into her consciousness, but she irritatedly forced it back into the
depths of her mind.  She had thinking to do, she knew, and she couldn't
have the pleasantry of the unfeeling emptiness of the darkness interfering
with her thoughts.
    It hurt.
    Ever since that day, all those years ago, it had hurt her.  To see the
one she had loved in so much pain; it tore at her heart...and that had been
her downfall.  Back then, she had been strong.  She had already had what
she wanted out of life, nothing more.  A person to love, a small hut, and
children.  It was a good life.
    A single tear ran down the girl's face as she remembered the day she
had returned from the village, to find her love mortally wounded and her
two children brutally murdered.  Angrily, she forced herself to relive the
memories.
    She, at least, would be strong.

    "So, Ku, you up for a little training?"
    Ku looked sourly at Dao, but his friend's grin was contagious.  "Yeah,
I guess," he agreed, standing up and pulling his rough-made steel sword out
from its leather sheath.  It was hardly a good sword, but it suited his
purposes just fine.  Besides, just being seen with a sword was enough to
command a certain amount of respect from anyone.
    And he made a habit of flourishing it when he was around Dao, because
Dao didn't own a sword of his own, claiming that knives and spears were far
superior to swords.  Ku disagreed, but Dao was skilled enough to hold his
own against him, so he couldn't say too much - the two of them were evenly
matched enough that they were able to go all-out with deadly weapons,
usually with neither of them receiving more than a minor scuffle.
    "Ready?"  Dao grinned at him, twirling his long, sharp-bladed spear
over his head.  Ku nodded, and Dao charged.  "Begin, then!"
    Ku fell into a relaxed defensive stance, easily slashing the spear out
of the way and jumping straight at his friend, swinging the blade in a
vicious arc.  Dao smirked, jumping over the ill-placed thrust and kicking
Ku in the face, sending him staggering backwards, trying desperately to
regain his footing as Dao threw a volley of throwing knives at him.  He let
his instincts with his sword take over, moving in a quick pattern that
knocked all of the knives out of the air, leaving imprints in the deep snow
as they clattered onto the rocks underneath the whiteness.  
    Readying himself for Dao's next attack, Ku feinted to the left, then
spun his sword around in front of his face, knocking aside the spearblade
that he knew was coming, throwing Dao off balance as he overswung with the
spear, leaving himself open for a powerful kick from Ku that smacked
solidly against his ribs.  He stumbled slightly, barely able to gain back
his footing to block the overhand chop from the sword with one of his
daggers.  Dao grinned and used the blade of his dagger to throw Ku's sword
slightly to one side, taking the opening and ramming the butt of his spear
into Ku's stomach and following up with a hard roundhouse that smashed into
Ku's left cheekbone, knocking him into a daze as he fell to the ground,
stunned.
    Dao grinned and put the tip of his sharp spear to Ku's throat.  "That's
one for me, old friend."
    Ku sighed, shaking off his momentary stun.  "Yeah," he grunted, sliding
his sword back into its scabbard.
    "Ku..."  Dao looked at his friend with a bit of worry.  "You seem kind
of depressed, lately.  What's wrong?  It isn't Yoiko, is it?"
    The other boy just sighed again.  "I don't think so," he mumbled,
standing up.  "I was just...remembering some stuff that happened a while
back.  My parents, you know," he explained, trying to sound glib.
    Dao nodded in understanding.  "This again.  Well, it'll go away after a
little while, like it always does.  Or you'll end up like Yoiko, hm?"  He
grinned at Ku, poking him in the side.
    Ku managed a somewhat bleak smile.  He didn't blame his friend for now
knowing how much it hurt to lose his family; Dao had never had one of his
own.  He was an orphan who had just showed up one day in Sahn-luang
Village, and had been taken in by one of the local woodcutters.  While the
woodcutter did a fairly decent job as a father, having another son in
addition to his two others was putting a bit of a strain on his grainary,
so once Dao had reached a suitable traveling age - in this case, he had
been fourteen - his caretaker had requested that he leave, 'for the good of
all of us.'  Dao had, fortunately, a very strong wandering spirit, so he
had agreed with hardly a second thought.
    That had been the time period when Ku's mother had passed away, so the
two of them had decided that traveling in a pair instead of alone was for
the benefit of each, and had set off together, intent on 'seeing the world.'  
    As things had fallen out, though, winter in the high mountains that
they had to cross to get anywhere had proven too tough for the young
village boys, and they would have died in the snow, if they had not been
found by a wandering clan of bandits, looking for a place to stay out the
winter.  The clan, as they later learned was called the Wind Clan, had
taken the two of them in and nursed them back to health.  At first, Ku and
Dao had wanted to set off immediately, and while the bandits didn't openly
try to stop them, they merely stated, in more or less words, that if they
went back out into the mountains, it only got worse from there on, and they
would definitely perish.
    Faced with this, the two boys had decided to stay with the clan, where
they had been warmly welcomed and taught to use their weapons with finer
skill then they had ever dreamed of before.  Ku, having inherited his
deceased father's sword as a young boy, took that up as his main weapon and
became quite skilled for it; the clan Elders thought that he had a natural
talent for it.  
    If Ku had natural talent, though, then Dao was a martial artist prodigy.
    He was, to be frank, far more skilled than Ku, and it was only Ku's
superior weapon that allowed him to hold his own against his friend.  A
sword, after all, was a far more lethal weapon than a spear of the type
that Dao was using, which was actually something of an unwieldy weapon,
with a fairly long haft and a heavy, long-bladed head.  Dao's knives were
good, but also no match for a sword.  If he threw them, he would be
extremely lethal, as Ku well knew from watching him do target practice, but
as they weren't much interested in killing each other in the sparring
matches, Dao refrained from throwing his daggers during the sessions.
    "Ku?"
    Ku looked up, his reverie broken.  "Hm?"  He asked, shaking his head
slightly to clear his thoughts.
    Dao smirked.  "Don't tell me you were daydreaming about Yoiko, were you?"
    "Of course not."
    "Oh, of course."  Dao grinned.
    "Actually, I wasn't," Ku grunted with a sigh.  "Was just thinking about
how we joined the clan, you know..."
    Dao nodded.  This was something he could relate to.  "Sure do.  Nice of
them to take us in, wasn't it?"  He smiled wryly.  "If it wasn't for luck,
we'd have been carrion fodder long past."
    "Cheerful thoughts."
    Dao shrugged.  "Hey, you're the one who's getting all broken up over
the green haired girl."
    "I am -not- getting all broken up."
    "Oh?"
    "Well, maybe I am," Ku conceded sourly, leaning back against the
snow-covered trunk of a large tree.  "Not like I can help it, you know.
I'm just attracted to her for some reason..."
    "Yeah, well that 'some reason' is the reason why people get married."
    Ku looked a bit unhappy.  "I know."
    "And that same reason is also what chains people down in the villages
while they're raising children and feeding a family.  You'll have to take
my word on this that it's far better to stay on your own, at least until
you're older."
    "What, haven't -you- ever been attracted to a girl before?"
    "Of course I have," Dao grumbled, folding his arms across his chest and
sitting down on a thick log, settling his light weight down easily.  "Been
with a couple of them, too."
    "'Been with?'"  Ku looked up, puzzled.  "In what way?"
    Dao blinked, as if he didn't understand the question, then broke out
into a fit of snickering.  "You mean you don't even know what that means?"
He questioned, grinning broadly.  "I take that to also mean that you've
never done it, either, right?"
    "How would I know?"  Ku retorted, annoyed.  "You haven't told me what
'it' is, yet."
    "You'll find out."
    "Explain, Dao."
    "Hey, things'll take their course..."
    "You aren't helping."
    "Fine," Dao relented, still grinning.  "Well, right now, -you-, old
friend, are experiencing attraction to Yoiko, am I right?"
    Ku nodded impatiently, and Dao went on.  "Do you know what happens if
she is attracted to you in return?"
    "No, what?"
    "Do you know what the term 'kiss' means?"
    Ku narrowed his brows.  "Of course."
    "Take 'kiss' a couple steps further and you'll understand what my
remark meant."
    "Er...you don't mean...?"
    "I do."  Dao's grin threatened to split his face.
    "You've...done that?"
    "Sure."
    "So...ah...what's it like?"  Ku was slightly embarrassed for asking,
but he really was curious.  Curiousity never hurt anyone, right?
    "Fun."
    Ku blinked.  "Fun?  That's it?"
    "You've got to experience it.  Not the sort of thing that you can put
into words, if you know what I mean."  Dao considered for a moment.  "Well,
look at it this way - you know that knife wound you got when you were seven?"
    "Yeah.  That -hurt-."  'Hurt' was a vast understatement, actually,
considering that the wound had been fairly deep; Ku had been lucky that he
hadn't died from the horrible pain that the blade had given him.
    "Convert that pain to pleasure, and you've got the fun I'm talking about."
    Ku tried to sum that up in his head.  The only answer he could come up
with was, "Wow."
    Dao grinned.  "You said it."

    Evening in the Bayankala was beautiful.  It was snowing slightly, and
the sun, shining a dull reddish orange through a thick grey covering of
clouds, turned the sky a burning scarlet and lit the clouds aflame.  The
snowfall flurried down in front of the fiery display, the white a pleasant
contrast to the blood red of the sky.
    Watching this display of colors was a man wrapped in a dark, fur-lined
cloak, faced into the bitter wind as was the price he paid for the beauty
of the sunset.  The man appeared by his lined, proud face to be perhaps
forty years of age, skin dried and beaten by the wind and the sun.  He
wasn't particularly handsome, but his features had an admirable quality
about them, one that suggested fierce pride and the spirit of a warrior.
His clothing was indiscernable, hidden as it was by the volumnous, warm
cloak, but he had a large sword strapped to his back, which hung there with
comfortable familiarity, suggesting that he had been wearing a weapon for a
long time.
    Bai Lao'hu was one of the three Elders of the Wind Clan, as they called
themselves.  He was a powerful warrior with a will of steel that more than
matched his fighting abilities to the fullest, and it was this will that
had helped to keep the Wind Clan together during the harshest winters and
the deep depressions that would often set in after an unsuccessful raid on
one of the nearby villages, when they came back with many of their number
injured, a few men dead, and no new food or weapons to have made those
deaths and injuries worthwhile.
    A particularly fierce blast of the chilling wind tore the cloak from
his grasp, fluttering it behind him, and he grimaced slightly from the icy
cold that whipped around his body, clothed in a heavy black woolen shirt
with a brown doublet over it, and thick black trousers tucked into sturdy
leather boots.  He sighed as he reached around his shoulder and wrapped
himself in the cloak again, once again lost in thought.
    He was thinking, as he usually did, about the clan and pondering the
issues and arguments that had come up of late.  One thought that pertained
more or less to himself, however, was the cold weather.  It was early
summer and the chill was a little more harsh than usual, but it was
expected this high in the mountains for it to be fairly cold all year
round.  Toughened a warrior's bones and sharpened his wits, many wise men
who had come before him had said, and Bai knew from experience that they
were correct.
    Yoiko.
    The thought came into his head unbidden, causing him to frown slightly.
 Yoiko; that young woman was a strange one, even compared to some of the
hardened wanderers that had joined with their clan.  They were usually a
quiet, cold sort, and often despondent, but none of them that he had ever
met were quite as...detached, quite as permanently depressed as Yoiko
seemed to be.
    She was a good fighter, though; he had to give her that.  Actually, she
was quite simply the most naturally talented person that he had ever met,
even including the Amazonian women that he had had the opportunity - or
misfortune - to fight on occasion.  Not that she was better than them, but
she certainly had potential to be.  After having trained many, many
upcoming fighters for the clan for years, he knew how to detect how much
potential as a warrior a person had, and Yoiko - a woman, no less - topped
them all by a startling margin.  Even as she was now, she was a match for
himself, and even if his larger size and greater experience would
undoubtedly lead to his victory in a combat situation, she was a force to
be reckoned with.
    And the most startling thing was that she her age.  Bai had the sense
not to ask her what her age was - women had a tendency to become offended
by questions such as that, something that he himself didn't quite
understand - but guessed that she was around sixteen or seventeen years of
age, and the fact that she was nearly as good as him, forty-three years of
age and with a lifetime of experience to back him up, simply amazed him.
When she was older, she would truly be an incredible warrior.  A definite
credit to the Wind Clan.
    Well, a credit as far as her fighting skills were concerned, at any rate.
    Bai, to be honest, was concerned for the girl.  He had met many
despondent and lonely wanderers in his time, and had befriended no small
number; he knew what it felt like to wander alone and friendless, with no
place to go, no place to turn to, no purpose in life - he had been one
himself as a young man.  But Yoiko, with all her great fighting skills, was
so depressed and seemed so lonely that it hurt him, and she seemed so far
gone in her own darkness that even he couldn't penetrate the barriers that
she had erected around her emotions, sealing her off from him and his
attempts to help her forever.  And he had no idea what to do next.
    He could tell that whatever had happened to the young woman must have
been both devastating and traumatic, as she apparently had not even a spark
of softness left in her.  This probably actually helped her in battle; Bai
had watched her fight sometimes from a distance, either when she was
practicing sword forms by herself or in raids on village that, for whatever
reason, he hadn't been able to take part in.  While she fought, she was
emotionless and cold as ice, her forms a graceful dance of death as the
glinting steel would slash soundlessly through either air or bone, cutting
swiftly, silently, and without mercy.  To be frank, Bai hoped that he would
never have to fight her.
    Out of combat, though, she never lost her coldness; he didn't think
that he had seen her sincerely smile since he had met her.  The same
attribute which made her into such a formidable warrior was also the reason
why she was so forever miserable, Bai mused with a wry smirk, and the smirk
quickly left his face as he considered seriously the portent of his thoughts.
    Forever miserable...
    He shuddered at the thought, sighing.  Yoiko, closer than anyone he had
ever met, was living up to the term of 'forever miserable,' and it made him
sad to think about.
    "She shouldn't have to be like that," he murmured, his dark eyes
distant, watching as the sun slowly dropped below the dusky red horizon.  
    Yoiko was one of the prettiest girls he had met, and he considered
himself to be fairly well-traveled among the village folk, and had met many
beautiful women in his time, but Yoiko, should she ever clean herself up
and make an effort to look pretty, would possibly top them all.  Her forest
green hair, the like of which he had never seen before meeting her, gave
her a sort of exotic appearance, and her large, ice-blue eyes, even with
the coldness behind them, were hauntingly beautiful to look at.
    In addition to a pretty face, Yoiko had what many of the village women
that Bai had met did not, even the ones that were considered beautiful; she
was a fighter.  Her body was not the soft, weak, and often fleshy
appearance of the village girls, but rather lean and powerful, and she
moved gracefully, like a tiger ready to strike.  Being a warrior himself,
Bai couldn't help but admire her for her qualities, but he understood that
the man who would try to tame her, the man who would try to take her as a
wife, would have to deal with her inner darkness, and Bai hadn't met many
men who were willing to do such for even a beautiful woman such as Yoiko.
    Perhaps it's the beauty, Bai reflected, watching the red sky's color
slowly fade with an inward sigh.  Beautiful girls shouldn't be subject to
such torture...whatever torture it may have been.
    He thought about that for a moment, reflecting about just what it might
have been, and came up with several thoroughly unpleasant thoughts that
serged through his mind.  He swallowed, clearing his mind.  
    Ku...ah, yes.  That young man had some sort of relationship with Yoiko
- Bai actually had no idea what it might have been; it certainly wasn't
friendship, judging by the cold glares that the green-haired girl always
gave Ku, and it wasn't like they were intimate; Bai almost laughed out loud
at the thought of Yoiko becoming intimate with a man.  It just seemed
utterly ludicrous, for some reason that he couldn't quite grasp.
    But, nonetheless, maybe Ku could do what he himself had failed to do
with the young girl - unlock her feelings, and discover the source of her
troubles.  He shook his head slightly as the sun disappeared entirely below
the western mountains, a dark, clouded night sky taking the place of the
brilliant scarlet of only minutes before.
    Bai had his doubts, but he silently wished Ku luck in penetrating the
feelings of green-haired Yoiko.
    He was going to need it.

    In a small cavern naturally weathered with time out from the side of a
mountain, a small, warm fire burned, sending its flickering orange light
dancing cheerfully around the cave, as if its flaming warmth could
permanently drive out the eternal cold of the mountains.    
    The cave itself was fairly small as a shelter, being large enough for
two, maybe three people at the most to comfortably stay without being
cramped.  The small fire blazing in the center added a look of pleasantry
to the cavern, though it would not have been at all a desirable shelter
even with the flames.  It -was- better than sleeping in the snowy night,
though, that was for sure.
    Hae'uryn, as she was called, was one of the three Elders, and was proud
of her stature both as a warrior and her reputation for vicious cunning in
battle and out.  In appearance, she was a tall woman, with free-flowing
night black hair that reached her middle back, and dark, smoldering eyes
that burned with a deep-set ambition.  She was dressed in a hooded dark,
volumnous hooded cloak that hung low over her eyes, enshrouding most of her
face with deep shadows.  She had a sort of ageless look to her; it was
indeterminable as to whether she was twenty or forty years of age.  Her
features had the beauty of youth, but her dark eyes and the set of her face
bespoke of wisdom - the wisdom of age, of which a young woman would not
have acquired.
    Her gloved right hand reached out from the warm folds of the cloak, and
she stood up from her seat on the smoothed ground next to the fire.  She
stretched slightly, and her dark eyes glinted from the depths of her hood
as she glanced over to a shadowy corner of the small cavern.  She began to
stride towards the corner, her soft boots making no sound at all as she
moved easily into the shadows, reaching out for the item that she knew, as
if by instinct, was going to be there.
    Hae'uryn's lips twisted into a slight smile as she grasped her sword,
walking back to the fire and sitting down in front of it, holding the
weapon easily; the handle fit perfectly into her gloved hand.  She pulled
the blade out of its beaten leather sheath, examining it lovingly, brushing
the ornate designs on the hilt and blade softly with her hand, tracing the
long-memorized patterns and swirls along each, sighing contentedly.
    It was a fine weapon, and Hae'uryn's only inheritance from her
long-deceased parents.  As a young girl, she had sought to ask her father
who had created such a beautiful sword, but her father had not known,
saying merely that his father had given it to him, as had his father's
father.  She had asked her mother the same question, but she had not known
either, giving her the same vague explanation that her father had spoken of.
    In all honesty, the finely crafted sword should not have even been
passed down to Hae'uryn.  Her elder brother - Ji'chuan, as he had been
called - was the rightful person who should have owned the sword.  She
swallowed a lump in her throat as she thought about her brother; her elder
brother and mentor, her loved brother and a shoulder to cry on and comfort
her in times of need, her...deceased brother, cold and dead, his ashes
scattered to the four winds.
    She again ran her gloved hand over the intricately carved blade, her
thoughts turning to her dead brother, fondly remembering, her ageless
features traced with bitter sorrow as old memories flooded her mind.
    And Hae'uryn lay back, sighing, as she drifted off into a deep slumber,
dreaming of her brother and long ago, her slender, gloved hand still
clutching the hilt of her beautiful sword lightly.
-------------------
C&C to guilds@mail.serve.com [Hunter Kid].