[FFML] [r.5]The Fourth Tendo

Several Months ago I read a fanfic called "A Different
Art" by Metroanime (whom I've failed to contact at
everyturn) within the second chapter there was a one
paragraph description of a very interesting character
that I had hoped to see more of...alas...she was not
mentioned after that. Well, in the face of Writer's
Block and the idea that "Any writing is better than
none." Here's what may be part one of another series
while I pound out the remainder of my original fics
chapter 2 (a stumbling block that sits between me and
a lot of highly visualized and planned writing)

Silk frowned as she watched the "girl" staring at her
from across the fire. Even in this disguise, she was
certainly not human. The girl had pale silver hair,
though considering her own dark blue hair that was a
minor concern. The hair contrasted with the dusky
grey skin the creature had. Her face was attentive as
she watched Silk prepare her spell materia for the
day. She was learning fast, as the current disguise
she wore proved. Silk wondered how long it would be
before she regretted leaving the creature alive rather
than killing it.
Silk coughed slightly and frowned after gaining
control of herself. That cough was becoming more
insistent. She almost immediately noted Silk watching
her, probably wondering if that sound had been another
word. Silk corrected that as she looked to the girl
and saw a hint of worry in her eyes. She frowned
suspiciously and twisted her arm about.
"Mistress good?" she asked.
"I'm fine," Silk said angrily, though she didn't
quite agree, most of her injuries had healed well
enough, but there was a long, angry red gash running
the length of her arm.
"Is hurt?" the girl asked, apparently not hearing the
denial. She stood up and started to cross the camp
site toward Silk.
"Stop!" Silk snapped jabbing a finger towards the
girl. The dark girl stopped and looked to her
uncertainly before sitting down again as Silk gestured
at her. She stared at Silk, fidgetting nervously, and
a worried expression plane on her face. Silk didn't
trust any of it, the girl's species had a rather well
deserved reputation for deceipt and destruction.
"Not let me help?" the girl asked. Her language
skills were improving daily, both Japanese and
Mandarin, in no time at all she'd be saying complete
sentences. She was becoming slightly dangerous.
"You're just like a glob of tar," Silk said
irritably. "Almost as black and just as sticky."

********

"The cough is getting worse, Mistress," Tarre said.
She had settled on the English version of the word for
the creature's name. A short, harsh word that could
quite easily be converted into something of a swear
word. Silk wasn't pronouncing it quite right, but she
didn't care.
"I can tell that," Silk said. She'd given up on
reaching a city big enough to have a hospital that
could treat her. Her home village was closer anyway,
they would have healers to handle this disease. Her
own meager herbalist skills and healercraft were
having little more than a delaying effect on the
demonic disease.
A particularly heavy series of coughs started to
drive the woman to her knees, but Tar was there to
hold her quickly.
"Mistress," Tarre said hopefully. "I can carry you
where you want to go."
"No!" Silk said impatiently after a moment's
consideration. "I'll walk." Another benefit, the
village elders would probably recognize and kill Tar
on sight, relieving her of the problem of deciding
what to do with her.

********

The dark-skinned girl was hovering ever close to Silk
as they walked on. Tarre wasn't certain what to do,
the strong and powerful woman that had rescued her
from those little green monsters no longer looked so
strong and powerful. She was thin, leaning on a
make-shift staff she had acquired, and wracked by
painful sounding coughs. Her right arm hung weakly at
her side, the veins visible with whatever poison or
disease ran through her body. Every time Tarre
suggested helping her, the Mistress told her not to.
She was considering this when Silk wearily let
herself down to the ground. Tar looked around,
confused, the sun was still up and yet the Mistress
was stopping? This hadn't happened before.
"Mistress?" Silk asked, confused. The woman leaned
against a rock and concentrated on breathing deeply.
"I just need to rest a moment, Tarre," Silk said
wearily. "We'll get back to walking in a few
minutes." Tar sat and watched, the minutes stretched
into an hour and Silk still hadn't woken up. She knew
that the Mistress was in a hurry to get somewhere
East, and that she needed to get there in time that
whoever was there could help her. Sleeping like this
was the last thing the Mistress needed.

********

"Wha..." Silk blinked weakly before coughing a
little. She couldn't figure out at first why it
seemed that she was moving despite having just woke
up. Then she realized that someone was carrying her.
Her eyes widened and she gasped as she realized who
that had to be.
"Mistress!" Tarre's voice called out cheerfully upon
realizing that Silk was awake. She didn't stop moving
forward.
"What are you doing?" Silk asked, too tired and weak
to put much of any emotion into it.
"I...I know you said not to carry you mistress,"
Tarre said hesitantly, still moving forward.
"B...but, you said you didn't have much time. You are
too big for me to carry while flying, Mistress, and I
couldn't hold you like that anyway." The girl sounded
very sorrowful for the apparent failure.
The girl, creature, she had to keep reminding herself
of that, was actually carrying her in approximately
the right direction. She hadn't tried to take Silk
out somewhere and devour her while she was
unconscious. She frowned and considered still telling
Tar to set her down, but her beleagured body fought
against that notion, and she let herself be carried
further.
"Mistress?" Tarre asked. Her voice faded back out as
Silk went back to sleep.

********

"The cough is getting better, Mistress," Tarre said
cheerily as she handed the herbal tea to Silk. Now
that Silk let her do a number of things, mostly things
that Silk was having too much trouble doing herself,
she dived into proving herself useful. For the last
three weeks of their journey, Silk didn't have the
heart to explain why the cough was going away as she
slowly drank the tea. She didn't want to say it
outloud for her own benefit to a degree, but she
wasn't coughing anymore because her body was giving
out.
~I'm not going to make it to the village,~ Silk
though sadly. ~They couldn't help me now anyway.~
She glanced unhappily up at the girl that was helping
her drink.
The girl hadn't shown much more magical aptitude than
the ability to take this strange disguise. Silk had
at first assumed that she was hiding her power, but
realized now that the girl was just a few decades too
young to develop the magic that her kind normally were
considered to have. She just had a few basic
abilities like that shapechanging ability. And her
fighting skill was mostly instinctual supplemented by
what she had learned travelling with Silk these last
two months. She wasn't a skilled fighter, though she
was more than dangerous enough around normal animals
and, Silk assumed, about ninety percent of the human
population.
"I want you to stop calling me Mistress," Silk said.
Tar looked as if she had been slapped.
"But..." Tarre started. Silk raised a hand, her left
hand, the right was gone. Tarre had smelled the
gangrene a week before, and Silk, realizing what the
girl had detected from the description of the smell,
told her to cut the arm off. She probably should have
done that the moment she saw the demon claw mark had
been infected, but she had thought she could make it
to help and it wouldn't be necessary.
"You've been loyal and caring of me all this time,"
Silk said. "I should have accepted your offer to
carry me the first time."
"But, it wouldn't have worked," Tarre said. "I could
carry the weight, but my wings..." Silk interrupted
her again with the effort of raising a hand.
"I should have accepted the offer at least," Silk
said. "I'll not continue to treat you with scorn over
this. Quickly, I need you to find my three things."
"Hai," Tarre said quickly, but nervously. She had a
task now, but something in her "Mistress's" tone
bothered her. Silk listed off three herbs and
described them for Tarre thoroughly before finally
sending the girl onto her task. It wouldn't take her
more than three hours to collect everything she asked
for, they were common herbs in the area, but it would
give Silk the time do to what she needed to do.
She sat up with difficulty and after some time of
painfully digging through her pack had retrieved her
pen and ink. Gripping the pen even seemed to bring
flaming pain to Silk's hand, but she had to get
through this.

********

"What do you need these herbs for, Mistress?" Tarre
asked as she returned.
"They make a wonderful tasting tea," Silk said weakly
with a smirk.
"Mistress?" Tarre said, not having a well-developed
sense of humor yet. She was starting to worry that
the woman's mind was slipping.
"No more of that," Silk repeated. "I already told
you no more of that."
"But..." Tarre repeated. Silk made another effort to
sit up, aided by Tarre as she did so. Silk accepted
the help and then gestured toward the ground in front
of her. Tarre immediately kneeled down in front of
her
"Tarre," Silk said weakly, but ritualistically. "I
adopt you as my daughter." She leaned down to kiss
the surprised girl's forehead. She struggled to
straighten up again, silently commanding Tarre to
remain where she was. "Tarre, you may refer to me as
'Mother.'"
"Hai," Tarre said quietly.
"Daughter," Silk said quietly. "I need help lying
back down now." Instantly Tarre was at her side to
help ease her down to a lying position. "Make
yourself some tea, I think I'll just go to sleep now.
Tomorrow morning I'll tell you where we'll be going."
"Hai, Mi...Mother," Tarre said. She went to prepare
the herbs she had collected and wondered why
her...Mother had sent her away.

********

"You're going to want to avoid going any further this
way," Silk said after having what resembled breakfast,
a cup of medicinal tea.
"But," Tarre pointed ineffectually in the direction
they had been going.
"I won't be in condition to lead you safely in that
way," Silk said. She took a breath and continued.
"My people will kill you on sight if I am not able to
tell them otherwise, and the Phoenix People the same,
more so if I'm with you. Those are the kindest
options. The Musk are that way, and you would be a
great prize to them, daughter." She stroked Tarre's
cheek. "You are too weak to fight even their weakest
warriors. You may as well go back to those goblins if
that happens." Tarre paled as much as possible with
her near-black skin.
"But," Tarre said. "But...who is going to help you?"
"I won't need it much past sunset tonight," Silk said
sadly, hoping Tarre missed the implication.
"That's...good, Mother," Tarre said, trying to smile.
"Where are we going to go?"
"You'll fly North," Silk said quietly. "Fly by
night, never stay in your true form except when
flying."
"Hai," Tarre said, noting the urgency in that
command.
"When you have traveled for about two days," Silk
continued. "Turn back again East and seek Japan.
You've seen my map, you know where to look. Once
there, never take your true form again unless it is
absolutely necessary."
"Hai, Mother," Tarre said. "But I can't carry you
when I fly."
"I'll be a lot smaller when you begin this journey,"
Silk said. Tarre blinked in confusion. "Go to Tokyo
and find my husband and your sisters, the Tendo Dojo
in Nerima, bring me to them and give them this
letter." She indicated the paper on top of her pack.
"Hai," Tarre said. She really didn't like the sound
of any of this.
"Tarre," Silk said hesitantly. She sat up and turned
to face the West and stayed seated. "When the
sunsets...this will be over, the pain will be
finished. When that is done, there is an urn in my
pack. I wish my ashes to be placed inside." Tarre
gasped and looked to Silk stricken.
"Y...you," Tarre whimpered.
"I was already dying when I rescued you," Silk
sighed. "There is nothing to stop it now. Just help
me to watch the sun set, please?" Tarre sat on her
knees next to Silk crying freely, but she nodded her
head.

********

Soun had felt a sense of dread and loss for the last
few weeks. He suspected why, but hoped against hope
that he was wrong. That sense of loss, however,
spiked as he opened the door to find a small and slim,
grey-skinned girl with silver hair standing outside
his door and clutching a simple clay urn that he
recognized as if it were the most precious thing in
the world.
"Soun Tendo?" the girl asked tentatively. Soun
grasped the doorframe to steady himself as he nodded.
The girl reverentially presented him with the urn and
a letter before kneeling down in front of him and
bending her face to the ground.

"My Love,
I am sorry that I deceived you. I have robbed our
daughters of their mother and you of your wife. All
for the sake of a memory of glory days.
I was not visiting family. I had a dream about a
demon and I felt I needed to face it alone. I won the
battle, and killed the demon, but it left a disease or
poison that is killing me.
Not much more strength, this hurts to write. The
girl who should be with this note, I have adopted her
as my daughter. Tarre is dark skinned, light-haired,
not human. I hope the girls will accept a fourth
sister and you a fourth daughter in place of a wife
and mother. I hope you do, she has earned a family.

Silk"

Soun collapsed to the ground crying with the strange
girl.
Kasumi, ten years old, walked timidly around the
corner to see her father crying on the ground next to
some white-haired woman.
"Father?" she asked, frightened. "What's wrong?"

=====
"Caffeinated Kender? What's that, a berserk spell?" -
Tribble, Kender Warrior of the Celestial Kingdom
"God has to have a sense of humor, it's the only explanation for sex." - my father
"I have to write a how-to paper for class, so I'm writing a paper on how to be psuedo-evil." - my brother

http://members.aol.com/thrythlind/snake.html

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