A new chapter of No Need For Sasami Cycle 2. If there are
format problems with posting on the FFML, it can be found
at:
http://members.xoom.com/mmcavoy/
Chapter 3 is almost done... seemed 3 was supposed to be 2
until i realized I had left a central character totally uncharacterized.
So, here we are.
_______________________________________________________
Credits: Tenchi Muyo!/No Need For Tenchi is a product of
Pioneer/AIC. As such, I'm getting no compensation for
writing this fiction other than my own enjoyment, because
the thought of getting sued is rather unpleasant.
Mr. Long T. Tran for his "Tenchi Muyo: Ryoko's Love Prologue"
His fiction can be found at GenSao's excellent Tenchi Muyo
Fan Fiction Page: http://tmffa.com/
Disclaimer: All characters *I* have created are purely a
work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead
is pure coincidence. Anyone who thinks otherwise is probably
just itching for a fight. Also, please do not try and
distribute this story in some lame attempt to make a buck;
it would be bad karma to say the least.
Email appreciated!
Send comments to Michael McAvoy (mmcavoy@ejourney.com)
The completed "No Need For Sasami" Cycle 1 can be found at:
http://members.xoom.com/mmcavoy/
Tenchi Muyo!
"No Need For Sasami"
Cycle 2
He who knows the enemy and himself
Will never in a hundred battles be at risk;
He who does not know the enemy but knows himself
Will sometimes win and sometimes lose;
He who knows neither the enemy nor himself
Will be at risk in every battle.
-- Sun-Tzu
Chapter 2
The Domain of Darkness
[A few days after the battle with the Demon of Darkness, Yazuha]
There was something wonderful going on and Ryoko was
having a difficult time pining down exactly what it was.
Was it the summer breeze, she wondered? Standing high
up on one of the remote mountain peaks, far above the Masaki
residence, Ryoko paused to savor the sensation. There was the
heat of the day in the breeze, but the humidity was unseasonably
tolerable. Perched delicately on the edge of a great cliff, the wind
pushed her hair backwards, exposing her neck and giving tingling
sensation, albeit a pleasant one. Below her vista, the tops of
countless trees beckoned, their leaves moving back in forth in the
wind like the fins of carp in a clear pool.
No, it was not just enjoying a breeze, Ryoko finally
decided. Not to say the space pirate had not been a complete
hedonist in her lifetime and prone to enjoying sensation, far from
it. However, Ryoko's experiences had always tended towards the
direct, forceful, and blunt. Absolutely out of control, actually. So,
the notion of stopping and taking pause to enjoy a little hot wind
on her face was just shy of ludicrous to her.
"It's not like I'm 'refined' or something like the princess,"
she mused out loud. "I'm not the poet type like Yosho, either. I'm
not like that at all, really."
Even as she said it, her conviction was lacking. Ryoko
was not as good as putting her feelings into eloquence as Yosho,
nor did she give public exhibitions on refinement like Ayeka was
prone to doing, but did that mean Ryoko was a philistine just
because she did not wear her feelings on her sleeve or in some
artistic fashion for all to see? It was as if the world in general was
geared to some mass cathartic outpouring, and those not willing to
share their problems (or listen to others whine about something)
were 'troubled' or 'out of touch with their feelings' or some other
nonsense like that.
Of course, it probably never occurred to those people who
spilled out their life story at the drop of a hat that they might be the
ones who needed some serious help.
Ryoko knew all the same that it was her desire to remain
private about her life and past with most people to such a Spartan
degree that probably turned folks off. Taken a step further
with a healthy dose of enthusiastic banter and sarcasm, there was
little wonder why uptight, repressed, screeching princesses from
Jurai...
'There I go again,' she chided herself, annoyed. 'Why do I
fixate so much on what that princess thinks of me?'
Yes, Ryoko was quite aware that things in her life might
go a bit smoother if she just let people in more often than she did.
The truth being, of course, there was only one person she wanted
to open up to, only one person she really wanted to let in. Not that
*he* had ever clued in to Ryoko's needs in that fashion... well, not
until recently, she admitted. That notion felt wonderful to Ryoko, but
frightening at the same time.
Ryoko closed her eyes and tried to push those thoughts
away for a moment. It felt very good, that sensation of stillness
high on the mountaintop. A trifle warm perhaps, but good.
Ryoko thought about what type she really was. The first
thing that crowded into her mind from the doubting peanut gallery
of her inner self was that she was probably not Tenchi's type.
Ryoko growled at herself in irritation. It was hard enough dealing
with her emotions without letting the insecurities run amuck. Once
upon a time, she was fairly certain that she could get Tenchi by
more or less bullying him. That, of course, had eventually evolved
into an almost desperate coercion on her part, trying with fruitless
attempts to be kind and thoughtful to him in her heavy handed
fashion. Upon reluctant reflection, Ryoko was able to admit her
attempts had more or less bothered Tenchi than anything else.
The pirate frowned again. This was going nowhere, plus
it was rapidly ruining her good mood.
"What's my type?" she asked again.
Raising her arms almost gracefully out to her sides, the
sleeves of her shirt caught the wind and billowed. Letting her
weight move forward, Ryoko pirouetted off the edge of the cliff
and let gravity take hold.
'This is my type,' she thought as the sensation of falling
wrapped her entire body.
Plummeting down the shear face of the mountainside, she
arched her spine and let her head fall backwards. The motion
brought her arms around so they were pointing towards the base of
the cliff, which was approaching at a frightful rate. Ryoko's eyes
were half closed in a dreamy relaxation.
'Speed is my type,' she noted, pulling out level only a few
feet above the base of the mountain.
Shooting across the ground so quickly that an observer
would only have seen a cyan colored blur from her hair, Ryoko
headed straight for a thick stand of cedars that marked the
timberline. The forest was so thick a squirrel could hop from
branch to branch all the way down the rest of the mountainside to
the Masaki residence without ever putting its feet on the ground.
The dangers of entering such a dense area of tree trunks at about
eighty miles an hour never even crossed Ryoko's mind.
A pair of very traumatized rabbits dashed for cover as the
pirate buzzed their floppy ears.
The forest was quite cooler than the mountainside, the
heat of the day unable to penetrate the canopy. Using her natural
abilities and senses without much thought, Ryoko let the trees slide
past with inches to spare.
'Danger is my type,' she mused again. 'So what are all
these other thoughts in my head?'
Spinning in midair as she continued down the forested
mountainside, in her mind's eye Ryoko knew she was coming up
on a small meadow clearing. Reaching that clearing, she pulled a
ninety-degree turn straight up into the air, just like a rocket.
Letting gravity slow her forward momentum, Ryoko grinned in
feral delight at the momentary sensation of weightlessness as she
hung in that tenuous place where the forces of gravity were no longer
present.
Ryoko hugged herself as she was pulled back towards
Earth. Whatever was going on in her head, it felt very good. Too
good, in fact, not to be sharing with someone. The pirate swooped
back into the forest, making a mental call to Ryo-ohki for a
sighting of her impending target. Getting a mental affirmative
from the cabbit, Ryoko skipped and streaked straight for the
residence, honing in on her destination. Breaking out of the forest,
she crested the eaves of the Masaki shrine, dropped down to mere
inches above the courtyard, and sailed right out over the great
staircase that lead further down the mountain.
Surely, anyone coming up the stairs would have had their
heads removed from their shoulders had they been in the way.
Floating up above and approaching the house below,
Ryoko spied her target, just where Ryo-ohki had indicated, sitting
on a large stone by the lakeshore. Never pausing once to think,
which was, to the casual observer, the truest aspect of the pirate's
'type', she headed straight for the lone figure, who was gazing
somewhere out on the surface of the water.
From inside the Masaki residence, Princess Ayeka looked
up from her book, certain she had heard a noise. It almost sounded
like an exclamation of surprise, but she was not positive. She
waited a moment more, but there were no other cries, explosions,
balls of fire, or anything else that would normally motivate the
princess to be alarmed. She calmly went back to her reading.
Outside, skimming over the surface of the lake, Princess
Sasami was rapidly getting over her initial shock of being scooped
up without warning by Ryoko. Grasped around the waste by the
pirate, the princess's hair streamed behind her like a pair of
pennants. The rush of wind in her face made her blink hard, tears
forming in the corners of her eyes and forcing her to squint.
"Care to go for a ride?" Ryoko asked over the rushing
wind.
"Ryoko!" Sasami complained. "You scared me!"
"You wanna stop?"
Sasami put a hand to her eyes to shield herself from the
wind, and in the process spied Ryo-ohki off to her side. The little
cabbit was easily keeping up with the pirate and was doing
aerobatics with an expression of joy plastered on its fuzzy features.
The princess relaxed just a little and decided to let herself be
carried. To indicate her willingness to continue, Sasami stretched
her arms out like a plane and stiffened her back, facing forward
into the wind.
"All right!" Ryoko smiled, pulling up from the lake as
they neared the far shore.
Sailing up over the trees, the trio cruised through the air
for several minutes, doing flips and loops and a dozen other stunts
that would have sent Sasami's sister into fits had she been aware.
In a more daring moment, Ryoko gave the princess a split-second
warning before letting go in mid-air, spinning, and letting a wide-
eyed Sasami land square on her back. Sasami grabbed a hold
tightly, breathless and her heart speeding ahead somewhere into
the next week.
By then, Ryoko figured the princess could use a break.
Actually, she had not really been paying attention, assuming
Sasami must be having a totally fearless time just like herself, but
an insistent Ryo-ohki was telling her otherwise.
"Hey, kiddo!" she called back. "You ready to head back
down to the ground?"
"S-sure!" Sasami replied. "Oh, wait! Let's go fly by
Tenchi!"
Ryoko did not exactly need prodding, and changed course
more gently this time, in consideration of her passenger. Cruising
up over some meadows, the pair headed right for the carrot fields,
with an enthused Ryo-ohki still in tow.
Tenchi Masaki was busy doing what seemed to be his
destiny in life, planting and tending carrots. Well, one of his
destinies, of course. There was also the 'most powerful member of
the House of Jurai' destiny, the 'Washu's guinea pig' destiny, the
'human bungy-cord pulled between Ryoko and Ayeka' destiny, etc.
Wiping his brow from the heat, Tenchi stopped and ran
his hand over the contours of the wooden hoe handle he was
working with. Knowing its every nook and cranny, Tenchi could
have picked that hoe out of an entire group even if blindfolded. It
was nice when things were calm enough to note the little details
like imperfections in a piece of wood. He idly wondered just how
long this current span of peace and quiet would last before the next
disaster turned his life upside down---
At which point Tenchi felt a powerful gust of air rush by
his body. Pulled right up off his feet by the force of air vacuum, he
landed backwards in the soft dirt, facing up into the sky.
'That's what I get for asking,' he remorsed philosophically.
"Tenchi!" called Sasami's worried voice from up in the
sky. "Are you okay?"
Tenchi spotted the princess and the pirate hovering about
twenty feet up in the air above him. Sasami was sitting on Ryoko's
back with the poise of an equestrian. He blinked a few times and
twitched a hand in the affirmative.
"Sure, I'm fine," he replied.
Sasami let out one of her over-exaggerated sighs of relief.
"I'm glad," she said.
Picking himself up out of the dirt, Tenchi dusted himself
off and reached for the hoe he had dropped. Looking back up in
the air, he saw Ryoko and Sasami had pulled to the edge of the
field and were now sitting on a lower branch of a massive old oak
tree, watching him. Shrugging to himself, he went back to the task
at hand, providing for the galaxy's hungriest, fuzzy eared, carrot
disposal unit.
Moments later, it occurred to Tenchi that Ryoko had not
made any attempt to apologize for his falling down. In fact, she
had not even looked terribly guilty with her trademark expression
of 'oh damn, I did something to upset Tenchi again.'
"Huh. That was odd," he said, returning to the carrots.
* * *
'How weird,' thought Ryoko, perched comfortably in a
nook of the old oak tree.
What the space pirate was referring to was the realization
that at no time after knocking Tenchi over had she considered
apologizing to him. Normally, Ryoko would have been fawning
all over the young man, desperate for some kind of affirmation that
he was not mad at him. This time, however, she had not even been
worried about it. In fact, she had observed Tenchi lying on the
ground much like a scientist would have been looking at some
unknown object in a microscope, trying to puzzle out its mysteries.
Like mother, like daughter, perhaps?
Ryoko considered Tenchi again from her vantage. He
was toiling away in the field, working to provide carrots for Ryo-
ohki. At any previous time, Tenchi would have been obviously
uncomfortable with Ryoko watching him, which was why she
frequently spied on Tenchi. Now, he did not seem to mind at all.
Again, there was another little piece of intangible evidence that
something nebulous had changed in the past few days.
Continuing to watch Tenchi work, it occurred to Ryoko
that you could just as easily and cheaply buy bushels of carrots in
town, especially since Washu could forge any currency necessary
to pay for them. It said something about Tenchi that he put all this
effort into keeping the cabbit happy, which indirectly helped keep
Sasami happy.
At the thought of the young princess, Ryoko looked down
where Sasami had fallen asleep. Precariously positioned on the
large limb with Ryoko, Sasami's head was in the pirate's lap, fast
asleep from the earlier excitement of flying. Ryoko quietly stroked
the princess's hair, smoothing out the strands that had run wild
from the blowing wind.
A curious thought strayed into the cyan haired woman's
mind; she realized that Sasami was someone else besides Tenchi
that she wanted to share her past and worries with. Ryoko blinked
a few times at the notion of how much she trusted and wanted the
young princess to be a confidant.
"Maybe when you're older," she whispered to the
snoozing Sasami, thinking there were things about her life the
princess was best not burdened with for a while, yet.
Ryoko was glad Sasami was able to have a restful
moment. In the past several days since the battle with the demon,
Yazuha, the princess had been coping with the experience as best
she could. Even though Washu had assured them that an infant
Mayuka was on the way, the imagery of the young woman dying
in front of the princess had left its mark. Nights were currently the
toughest for Sasami, and she refused to sleep alone under any
circumstances.
Then again, being cut off from Tsunami probably had
something to do with Sasami's mood as well. The princess had
confessed while in the Domain of Darkness she was completely cut
off from Tsunami for the first time ever. That emptiness in her
soul, and the fact Tsunami had done nothing to protect the
princess, would be enough to shake anyone's faith.
Ryoko could understand that. Having her own link
severed from Ryo-ohki a time or two had been rather unsettling.
Not that dealing with Yazuha in any fashion had not been
unsettling in itself.
"How someone could get warped like that," she
murmured.
Wondering what could produce something so evil and
malicious as Yazuha, Ryoko tilted her head against the old tree and
rested it there, feeling the bark against her temple. To descend into
so much hatred and destruction, was it really that far of a distance
to fall into darkness? The terrible and haunting image of Yazuha
in her final moments, twisted and full of despair, revisited the
pirate for the hundredth time.
Imagine, the darkness in love with the light.
Her last words chilled Ryoko. That Yazuha was fully
aware of the utter rejection she would face from Yosho for the rest
of eternity was so evident in demon's final, bitter complaint. It
could just have easily of been Ryoko saying those words, could it
not?
Ryoko wondered if she would go back to a life of
destruction, even without Kagato's control. Would she abandon
herself to anger and hopelessness if Tenchi rejected her so utterly?
She winced from the memory of Tenchi's stinging slap, feeling it
as if it had just happened.
A drawn and unhappy expression washed over her face as
the notion to wallow in self-pity over Tenchi grew. The longer
Ryoko stayed at the Masaki residence, the more fragile her
emotions became. Alone in the vastness of space, her defenses
were strong and thick out of necessity. Be it the endless solitude,
or the constant knowledge that she was a slave to a madman, those
walls were the only thing that made life worth living. Hell, Yosho
sealing her in the cave may have been a solitary imprisonment, but
at least she was able to have seven hundred-odd years of relative
freedom and peace...
Yosho had called that place the Domain of Darkness.
Ryoko wondered just what the Tree of Darkness was, anyway.
Was it the exact opposite of the Tree of Light? And did that mean
Yazuha was Tsunami's dark counterpart?
And if Yazuha was capable of discovering love and
compassion, if only for a small moment, was Tsunami equally as
capable of hatred and indifference?
Ryoko shuddered at the thought, disturbing Sasami's nap
just a bit. It looked to the pirate that the princess's sleep was
not as peaceful as she would have liked it to be. Ryoko guessed whole
Yazuha ordeal had affected them all in ways that would not be
going away anytime soon.
Funny, she thought, looking back out over the carrot field
where Tenchi was working. It had taken Yazuha's scheming and
interference with Mayuka to force Ryoko's complete emotional
breakdown in front of Tenchi. In the space of a day, all those
carefully crafted walls Ryoko had spent a couple thousand years
building had been toppled, leaving her a collapsed bundle at
Tenchi's feet. Completely open and honest for the first time in her
life, really.
And Tenchi had stayed with her.
Something had to be done, Ryoko decided with a sigh and
resolve. She could no longer allow the situation to continue as it
had for so long. Tenchi would have to express his feelings one
way or the other for Ryoko, and soon. Somehow, she could sense
that some strange breakthrough had been made with the earthling,
but the time was fleeting. The moment was there, but the moment
would not stay. If Ryoko was to finally take advantage of the
destiny she so badly wanted, she would need to do something
dramatic, bold, and yet non-threatening with Tenchi. It would
have to be away from the residence, though. It did not take a
rocket scientist to acknowledge that there were too many
distractions for Tenchi here. To get him, Ryoko would need his
undivided attention, and that meant getting away somewhere with
him voluntarily.
Ryoko would need help, but thinking of a rocket scientist
reminded her that if it was help she needed, having one's own
mother in her corner was probably the best place to start. The
pirate became momentarily melancholy, however...
To reach her goal, there would be no way of saving
Ayeka from pain. Why that should bother Ryoko, though, was a
complete mystery.
* * *
Join the Jurai Royal Navy and see the galaxy.
Lieutenant Kithow squinted in the pale orange sunlight
that streamed onto the balcony. High above sharp cliffs that
plumeted to a crystal green sea, the balcony provided a tremendous
view of a world that was breathtaking. Certainly, a part of the
galaxy worth seeing, she thought to herself.
Though the setting sun on the ocean was brilliant, it
provided little warmth compared with the heat behind the
lieutenant's back. All around a wind blew smoldering embers out
over the sea. Turning away from the ocean, Kithow watched as a
graceful castle, hewn from the very cliff walls, burned steadily.
Her royal military cloak was blown backwards, whipping around
her from a sudden heated gust. There were already several singes
to her battle uniform, some that even threatened to burn down to
her skin.
Kithow wondered passively at how a castle made from
the very rock of the ocean cliffs could burn so hotly. The interior
furniture and cloth, gathered from generations upon generations of
descendents from a noble family was a substantial fuel source for
the flames, but the ferocity of the blaze defied logic.
The lieutenant knew what really raged inside the burning
spires, however. The anger and seething rage of a royal emperor,
expressed through a terrifying gesture of the power of Jurai, was
causing the magnitude of this fire. Reports from some of her
subordinates were coming in about some of the rock walls sagging
like warm butter. The beginnings of a panic were rising in her
troops, and who could blame them at that moment? Kithow
maintained an outward calm indifference she did not feel for the
sake of her men.
It was deathly hot inside that castle, and the young
woman's neck showed the heat, like severe sunburn. At that
moment, Kithow wished for the protection of a scarf, or even hair
longer than her military short cropped locks. Deep within the
burning castle, there were several loud explosions followed by
shuddering vibrations.
"The power generators have gone," she said blandly to
those around her on the balcony. "Anyone deep within this place
is most certainly dead."
Kithow looked away from the castle to the stone floor
of the balcony. Crumpled in a small heap was a boy roughly the
age of ten turns. Dressed in richly spun clothes worth more than
the lieutenant's yearly pay, the boy breathed quietly, stunned from
a blow to his temple.
"Are all of our forces away?" she asked no one in
particular.
One of her group stepped forward and saluted nervously.
There were smudge marks streaked with sweat on his rough
looking face.
"Yes, sir," her subordinate replied with uncharacteristic
worry in his voice. "Commanders report boarding the royal battleships
with all hands accounted for."
Kithow raised her eyes and looked at her men on the
balcony. They were all dirty with soot, some haggered and
mentally shocked. The one thing missing on their clothes was the
stain of blood. Jurai energy weapons cauterized wounds instantly
with a clinical cleanliness. They did not do much for the smell of
burning flesh, though, and even less for the final screams of those
before their execution. It was those screams she saw on the faces
of her men right then, amongst the dirt and soot on their skin and
uniforms. Some of them probably would not recover emotionally.
Would she recover, she pondered with a sagging spirit?
Some aggrivating part of her said she probably would. This kind
of vengence and genocide was not like anything Kithow had
experienced before, but how did one counter the wishes of the
emperor? No one had the power, and to break faith with him was
to ensure misery and retribution with the troops' families and loved
ones back on Jurai. Kithow had murdered this day, torn apart the
lives of numerous families, servants, and other innocents. She had
watched the royal troops under her command do even more, but it
did not matter.
What did these people really matter in the face of
protecting her own parents and sisters back on Jurai? Once you
made that rationalization, it was only a small step towards another
level of horror. That level would be coming soon enough.
"Lieutenant!" called one of her men as the smoke and heat
flowed thickly over the balcony. "The emperor!"
As Kithow looked upwards towards where the soldier was
pointing, the rest of her men stood sharply at attention. Through
the haze of embers, the lieutenant spied her emperor on a parapet
high above, another figure held up roughly by the neck.
The young woman savagely pushed down any protests
from her conscious and reached for the little boy on the ground.
Waking slightly as he was picked up, the boy groaned a bit and
rolled his half open eyes.
"I'm sorry, child," Kithow simply said. "You do not
deserve this, but neither would my own family should I disobey his will."
With that, Kithow released the last bit of caring or
emotion she still had left and threw the boy over the balcony ledge.
* * *
There was a terrible scream from the battered and
destroyed man that Emperor Asuza grasped by the neck. Watching
one of his soldiers toss a small child to the rocks and ocean
hundreds of feet below, he narrowed his eyes and smiled. Ignoring
the smoke and flames around him, the emperor stood within the
protection of the power of Jurai, which flowed thickly through his
body.
"It would seem, Jan, that I have lost the bet," he observed
with malice. "Indeed, your son can not fly after all. And what a
pity, for I was certain that he would be highly motivated to grow a
pair of wings."
The man identified as Jan sobbed noisily as Azusa
sneered at him.
"Then again," he continued mercilessly, "none of your
family has proven able to do much more than die today. Not very
encouraging to the future of your lineage, is it?"
"Y-you bastard," Jan coughed, sobbing. "You monster!"
The emperor laughed harshly, tightened his grip around
the man's neck to prevent him from speaking further.
"What did you expect?" he barked. "Did you think being
a noble house of Jurai would protect you? Did you think being
such a remote world in my empire would save you from attempting
autonomy from my rule?"
With growing irritation, the emperor flung the noble
backward in the flames. Howling at thrashing for a moment, Jan
was quickly overcome by the heat and smoke that seared his lungs.
Within a minute, he was well beyond this world, his flesh cooking
in the flames.
"Do not despair, my most noble Jan," Azusa mocked.
"You will have a lineage after all. That lineage will be the fear
the other noble families will take from your miserable fate. It
will serve me better than any of your wretched house ever have."
Caught up in a red and blue energy, the emperor removed
himself through the power of Jurai from the parapet and back to his
royal battleship. Flames moved forward and swept through the
area where he had been standing.
As far as the emperor was concerned, the house of Jan
was no more.
* * *
In a putrid and stifling realm of darkness, a great tree rose
up from an oily body of water. Green, glowing branches draped
over the sickly water, the tree stood on a small island where
nothing else grew. In that subterranean otherworld, the only light
was from the tree itself, a pale green glow that cast deep shadows
on the surrounding walls that rose up around it.
The heavy air was deathly still and silent. For the first
time in ages, the tree was alone and without a being to channel its
energy through. At the tree's base, a figure lay sprawled, lifeless
and broken. A serene expression on the figure's face, there was a
savage gash burned into its side from an energy weapon of
tremendous power.
There was almost a sigh as the branches of the tree
swayed a bit in consternation. Nature abhorred a vacancy, and
right there was one that needed filling.
It was time for the Tree of Darkness to locate a new ally,
a new vessel to channel through.
* * *
In no place in the universe were there true absolutes.
There were seemingly insurmountable probabilities to contend
with, but even the almost impossible event happened every now and
again. What some might attribute to a miracle from some higher
power was, more often than not, just the rare, highly improbable
chance of an event happening that otherwise should not. Worlds
exploded leaving a single infant to escape, spaceships crashed on
moons leaving a lone perfect cell to be cloned into a whole being
again, and inventors of edible clothing became wealthy. All highly
improbable events that had happened at one time or another across
the unimaginable span of time, despite the odds.
The same was for the small boy that lay just above the
crashing waves of a mighty ocean. His body shattered beyond
repair on the rocks, a spark of life still remained after a fall of
several hundred feet. Sea foam landed on and around the boy, the
white of the bubbles mixing with the red blood that flowed down
the sides of the boulders. Ashes and embers floated down from the
sky as well, black snowflakes occasionally glowing with a dim
fire.
It was an improbable event, but nevertheless with a fixed
ending. The boy had survived a terrible fall, but Death was upon
him. There was no pain and hardly any conscious whatsoever in
him. There was only a small spark of life that was ebbing away as
surely as the tide below.
Yet, Nature abhorred a vacancy. The time was
coincidentally perfect, and the small boy had a hidden potential
that would serve well. To that small spark of life still within the
child, a proposal was offered and a deal struck. The alternatives
quite simple to the mind of a little boy: life or death. He chose life.
An erie green energy surrounded the dying child, as green
as the foamy ocean. Growing brilliantly in the misty air, the boy
soon disappeared from sight, leaving behind only blood stained
rocks and sea foam.
The boy had chosen life, but the details and consequences
of the deal would take many years to unravel. Nevertheless, the Tree
of Darkness had a new tool to sharpen.
* * *
Coming up in Chapter 3:
Sasami, Nathaniel, and Mayuka adjust to their new roles on Jurai as
political factions position themselves for sedition.
Comments and Criticisms Welcome.
mmcavoy@ejourney.com
http://members.xoom.com/mmcavoy/
Michael McAvoy
August 19, 2000.