Oogway's Little Owl - Chapter 25

[???]

The rabbit was a simple man. Not even a man, not truly; he still looked up to meet his father’s eyes and he still had the spark of youth dancing in his eyes. He was a farmer, born to farmers, and he took pride in his work.

He rose with the sun, and worked in the soil and mud. He pulled the plow, he carried water. He slept with the sun. It was a simple life of hard work, but it was a life he took satisfaction in.

And yet, like all boys on the verge of becoming men, he longed for new experiences, wondering at his place in the world. For a time, the answer seemed obvious, if disappointing: he would continue working the farm and would take it over when his father passed, may the day be far away.

One day, though the rabbit never sought trouble, trouble came to his village anyway. And it came with the disappearance of his neighbor, the ox--

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The carriage rocked, and Taylor’s ink spilled. She swore under her breath and wiped it up with her quill before it could spill onto her shirt. She gave up on trying to write and stowed her supplies away for the moment.

Tsume, eventually, was willing to take Taylor and Eiko along with Oogway to her village. However, she had conditions. They would take one of the Temple’s coaches with the curtains drawn; the assassin refused to actually show them where they were based. This caused a problem, since Genji wasn’t able to pull it and Tsume wouldn’t.

Eventually, the horse who normally tended the coaches volunteered to just wear a blindfold and let Tsume guide him. Tsume’s insistence that he get blackout drunk immediately afterwards to ensure he forgot the way was met with considerable enthusiasm.

Not being able to look out the window made for a boring journey though, and now writing wasn’t looking plausible either.

That just left conversation.

“What’s that you were working on?” Eiko asked.

“Hm? Oh, just a… side project,” Taylor said. “I’m writing a new story.”

Eiko’s eye lit up. “Really now? What about?”

“Oh… I’m writing about the legend of the Dragon Warrior, and the fruitless pursuit of power,” Taylor said, voice trailing off towards the end. She’d only really talked about it with Oogway up to now.

The fox made an interested noise. “Oh, wow. That’s neat!” She leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms. “You know, I always thought the whole Dragon Scroll thing was overrated.”

Oogway snorted. Eiko ignored him.

“I mean, it’s just a fancy scroll,” she continued instead. “I don’t need some magic spell to be a great warrior!” She paused. “I mean, it doesn’t hurt though.”

“I suppose you were only swimming in the moon pool that one time, then,” Oogway said idly, inspecting his claws. He gave her a knowing look.

“Sorry about all this confusion, by the way,” Eiko said suddenly, looking away. “I’m sure this isn’t what you were expecting.”

“It’s no problem,” Taylor said, waving it off. “I don’t know if you remember, but the Jade Palace is never dull. It’s like I never left.”

Eiko’s eyebrow quirked up. “Oh yes? That wasn’t my experience. When I wanted adventure back then, I didn’t find it within the Valley.”

“You had a much higher standard for adventure than Tailei, Master Fox.” Oogway chuckled. “Although, I seem to remember you got up to plenty of tricks as a student, Moon Pool incident aside.”

Eiko smirked. “I don’t doubt it, but nothing springs to mind.”

Oogway winked at Taylor. “I recall one time when she tried to prank the Custodian and ended up getting fruit juice all over her fur.”

Eiko’s smirk fell away. “I don’t remember that.”

“How did that even happen?” Taylor asked, grinning.

“Well, she attempted to trip him up with a freshly-mopped floor,” Oogway began, “but forgot that the Custodian prefers to walk on the ceiling--”

“Okay yes, I remember now, thank you,” Eiko said quickly, waving her paws frantically.

Taylor snickered. “Good grief, how old is the Custodian, even? He doesn’t look three hundred.”

“Three hund--” Eiko gasped in faux-offense. “How old do you think I am? I only studied under Oogway eighty years ago!”

Oogway nodded. “She left to return home shortly before Shifu arrived.”

“Still, it’s a surprise that the Custodian is still around,” Eiko mused. “Zhu Yang acted like an old man even back then…”

The conversation lulled after that. After a few minutes, Eiko stood from her seat to knock on the roof of the carriage. “Hey! How much longer are you going to be leading us in circles?!”

There wasn’t an answer at first, though the coach slowed down for a moment. Eventually Genji’s silhouette appeared on the other side of the curtains.

“Tsume says she’s almost certain our coachman won’t be able to remember the way now, so it won’t be too much longer,” he said, voice partially muffled. “I’d wager another hour.”

Eiko groaned as Genji clambered back on top.

Oogway chuckled. “Always so impatient.”

“I can be patient,” Eiko retorted. “I just hate being given the runaround like this.” She tapped her leg.

Taylor hummed. “I feel like you have a problem with ninja.”

Eiko grunted. “Shinobi, owlet,” she corrected. “That’s the term they prefer, especially these ones. I don’t know when it started but most of the clans I’ve heard about have gotten really firm on that point. We don’t want to insult our… esteemed hosts,” she spat. “As for my issues… Yes. Shinobi are a headache. Especially the Yōsai clan,” she finished with a groan.

“You have a history with them,” Oogway observed. He frowned in thought. “Yōsai… I feel like I’ve heard that name before.”

“Probably. They’re a big deal.” Eiko sounded like it pained her to say it. “Let’s change the subject. Tailei, you want to learn how to be a chi master, right?”

Taylor sat up eagerly. “Yes! I saw that ring you made, just what was that?”

Eiko waggled her hand. “It can do a lot of things. It’s a simple shape that I use a lot.” She drew a glowing circle in the air as an example, and a lovely ting rang in Taylor’s ears. “It can funnel wind through it, give enemies a good spin, knock them off their feet, and--” She tapped the ring, and it expanded, glowing bright enough to make all of them squint. “--it’s a handy light source.”

“Neat,” Taylor, who had excellent night vision, said with diminished enthusiasm.

“It’s not the best use of it,” Eiko admitted. “The best use of chi doesn’t have to do with fighting at all. Has Master shown you the flower trick?”

Taylor nodded.

“Now imagine what a real master can do to, say, a tree sapling. Instant forest!”

“I’ve seen some really weird things already,” Taylor said. “Master Yao came to the Valley a few months ago and--”

Eiko and Oogway both grimaced.

“--what? What’s wrong?” Taylor asked, confused.

“Tailei…”/”Taylor…”

The two masters looked at each other, and Oogway gestured for her to go first.

“Yao is a bit of a show-off,” Eiko said. “He was the youngest master the Jade Palace ever produced, and he let everyone know it. Oh sure, he wasn’t mean about it,” Eiko said, stopping Taylor before she could protest. “He was just six. But that’s the thing: he was six! He was making things float and bursting into green fire and he was barely out of diapers! Imagine how that felt to me and the other pupils who had been training for years.”

“I would never speak ill of Master Yao,” Oogway said softly. “He was an amazing student, and is a good friend. His mind is without peer. However…”

Oogway rubbed his chin in contemplation. “...A small child's mind is open to the wonders of the world and unclouded by fear and bias. They see things adults overlook, and are capable of much. That he unlocked his chi at such a young age was neither expected nor a major surprise. The same could be said about his rapid development. That said, I have often wondered about the effects such a discovery may have had on his personal development; I caution you on idolizing him."

Taylor hesitated. “I guess he was a little… odd.”

“Yao’s relationship with kung fu, chi, and… reality, are unusual,” Oogway said in summation. “Do not look to him as a goalpost. Instead, focus on what you can do now.”

“Why not start a lesson?” Eiko asked, rolling up her sleeves. “It’s not like we’re getting there any time soon--”

The door to the carriage opened abruptly, and Tsume leered in at them. “We have arrived.”

Eiko groaned. “Lousy shinobi…”

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[Hidden Village]

It was loud. It was colorful. It was like something out of a storybook that Aunt Fan would never approve of.

A two-story red building advertised weapons in the show window. A three-floor yellow apartment was decorated in a myriad of captured banners. At least one straw target or a training dummy could be seen no matter which direction you looked. But what really had the Crocs’ jaws dropping--and they had a lot of jaw to drop--were the people.

Rabbits, cranes, tanuki, foxes, monkeys, even a spider crab or two wandering around, each of them wearing a rough approximation of a uniform.

“(Ha ha ha!),” Tsuyoi boomed in laughter. “(Welcome to my town!)”

“(What in the world…)” Michi breathed. “(What is this place?)”

“(I told you!)” Tsuyoi declared. Then he paused. “(Didn’t I? I think I did. Ah!)” he suddenly gasped, smacking his own head. “(One thousand apologies! As penance, I will move one hundred stones!)”

Jiang moaned in pain as he was jostled, blinking awake. “What’s… happening?”

“I gotta be honest with you,” Fung said, still looking around. “I don’t have the slightest idea. Things are just kind of going on without my input right now--Zhu look at that!”

Fung grabbed Zhu by the snout and pointed him towards a blue building across the street from them. They stared as a squirrel climbed directly up the wall. Normally, this would be a completely expected thing for a squirrel to do, except he was doing it on two legs and walking as if he were on level ground.

“Oh my gosh,” Gah-ri whispered. “We’re in a hidden ninja village!”

Fung scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, not sounding very sure of himself. “Those are just stories, right? …Right?”

A cat on a rooftop took a deep, loud breath, and then blew a fireball twice his size up into the air. The Crocs and several others all made appreciative noises.

Jiang struggled, trying to get out of the turtle’s grip and failing. “Let go of me, oaf!”

“(Look at him, feeling better already! He must be excited to see the village,)” Tsuyoi said with a wide grin.

Michi stared at him. “(I’ve heard stories… of ninja capable of bending the world to their whims… But I didn’t think it was real!)”

“(It is, and we are!)” Tsuyoi agreed, finally letting Jiang drop so that he could use both arms to flex. “(Hey, your friends are fitting in already!)”

She turned to the Crocs, who were starting to attract attention; mostly because of their weapons. A fluffy bear cub was admiring Fung’s halberd openly. She watched the cub try to challenge Fung to a fight, only for him to stare blankly at her.

“My weapon? Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Hey, if you’re a ninja, you got any cool weapons yourself?”

Now it was the bear’s turn to look confused. Fung pointed at his polearm, then back at her, and her eyes lit up. “(You want me to use all my weapons? You must be strong! Okay!)”

Fung’s eyes widened as a veritable avalanche of kunai and shuriken began barraging him from nowhere, and he panicked, flailing his halberd all over the place and coincidentally managing to parry them all.

“...I’m alive? Woo! …What was that about?!”

Zhu picked one up off the ground and turned it over in his hand. “... Are these made of wood?”

“(Why is he angry?)” the cub asked someone. “(I did what he asked.)”

Michi blinked at the display. “(How… Who thought it was a good idea to give a child that many knives?)” she asked, at a loss for anything else to say.

“(Her teacher, presumably,)” Tsuyoi answered her mostly-murmured question. “(Young Mai wants to master all the weapons of the world!)”

Michi turned away from Gah-ri attempting, badly, to use his limited Japanese to talk with a local and narrowed her eyes at the muscular turtle. “(Where did all those kunai even come from?)”

“(Trade secret!)” Tsuyoi tapped a claw against his beak, smiling. “(We’ve uncovered many secrets that put us above the rabble that came before! But I’m afraid I can’t reveal them to someone not of the village, sorry.)”

A crash came from the direction of the Crocs, and Michi winced. As the crowd continued to grow, attracted to the commotion, the squirrel climbed up on a wooden fence to get out of the way. It wobbled alarmingly under her weight.

Something was rotten here. Michi could smell it.

Michi had been all over Japan in her capacity as a courier. She’d seen the Imperial Palace and the lowliest of nameless farming villages, trading posts and temples and everything in between, and something about the Hidden Village was making her fur stand on end in a way nowhere else ever had.

The fence under her feet was shoddy work and threatened to give her splinters with every movement. The bright and colorful buildings were all freshly painted, but even from here she could see that it was already starting to peel. The war banners hanging on the walls--Michi recognized some of them, but others didn’t look like any warlord’s symbol she had ever heard of.

The Crocs didn’t seem to have noticed. In fact, after the initial upset they seemed to be having fun being the center of attention. Fung was twirling his halberd, tossing and catching it with actually surprising skill.

“(Your friends are quite the entertainers!)” Tsuyoi boomed, almost startling Michi off her perch. “(I’m sorry for ever mistrusting them.)”

Michi shrugged. “(They’re not really my friends. Co-workers, I guess.)”

“(Oh?)”

“(The people I was hired to escort hired them to escort them. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention at the time.)”

They both watched Zhu juggle a brace of kunai. Jiang smirked before shouting something and throwing his axe in the air, to delighted gasps. Zhu caught it with minimal difficulty and kept going.

Tsuyoi clapped, laughing. “(Brilliant! Not bad for foreigners.)”

“(Well, they were hired to bodyguard a kung fu master,)” Michi said, folding her arms. She had been hiding during the pirate raid, but apparently the Crocs held their own.

“(Truly?)” Tsuyoi grinned. “(Amazing! You know, I bet Gramps will want to meet them.)”

Michi blinked, turning to look at him. “(Gramps? Who’s Gramps?)”

“(Our leader,)” Tsuyoi answered. He beamed, eyes growing misty as he stared into the middle distance. “(A truly inspirational figure! He started all this from nothing but his own wit and a group of like-minded individuals, and gave us all the power to rise above our station and make a difference!)”

A shingle fell off the roof of the nearest building, shattering against the road less than a foot from the turtle’s tail. He didn’t seem to notice.

“(...How long ago was this?)” Michi asked.

“(Five years!)” A second shingle fell. He glanced down at it and swept the debris into the alley with his foot. “(Careful, we’ve had some fierce rain the past week.)”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hey, Michi!”

They turned to see Fung and Gah-ri walking over, looking excited. “Hey Fung. Finished showing off?” she asked hopefully.

Fung laughed. “Not by half,” he said happily. “I don’t know half of what these guys are saying, but they love us!”

Gah-ri raised his finger. “I don’t know the other half.”

“Shut up. Anyway, I figure we should stay here for the night.”

Michi started. “What? What about getting back to Oog--” She flinched, glancing at Tsuyoi. “I mean, your job?”

“Pfft, what about it?” Fung scoffed. “Those guys left us behind, so they clearly don’t need us around. We’ll catch up when we’re good and ready, right Gary?”

The slimmer crocodile’s brow furrowed for a moment, then he nodded. “Right, yeah.”

Tsuyoi grinned widely. “(I sense he wishes to stay? Wonderful! Gramps will want to talk to you to set up some lodging.)”

“What’s he saying now?”

Michi looked between them, then sighed in defeat. “He wants to take you to their leader.”

Fung’s good mood all but evaporated. He half-hid behind his halberd as his eyes narrowed. “What? Why? What did we do? I didn’t do anything.”

“Relax, snaggletooth,” Michi said irritably. “It’s nothing bad. Apparently they just need to figure out where you’re staying.”

“Oh.” Fung relaxed. “Well, alright then.” He leaned on the fence Michi was still sitting on, and it creaked loudly. “Where to?”

The fence groaned, and then abruptly collapsed, sending both Fung and Michi to the ground with a yell.

Tsuyoi flinched, alarmed. “(Are you alright?!)”

Gah-ri, utterly unconcerned, leaned over his boss. “Maybe we should stop by the medic like we planned, first, eh?”

Fung swore. “Shut up, Gary…”

-----------------------------

[???]

Taylor hopped out of the carriage and immediately set about taking in the sights. There wasn’t much to see.

A cobblestone road covered in moss patches was framed by plain, dark wooden houses. Very old houses. Taylor had no real framework for judging the age of a building, but even she could tell that these homes were well-worn. And yet, they were well-cared for. Here and there were lighter spots, where a damaged plank or column had been replaced by a fresh one. New blue shingles mingled on rooftops amidst seas of weather-beaten gray.

Little care was given to appearances. Few if any buildings were adorned with paint, and if they were it looked like it was just an additional layer of weatherproofing. It was… practical. Taylor could appreciate it.

“Stop staring,” Tsume said quietly.

“Hm?” Taylor blinked, turning her head to face the cat. “Hey, when did you change clothes?”

“Two miles back, now stop bothering people.”

“How am I bothering anyone, there’s no one--”

And then Taylor stopped, because she abruptly noticed the villagers that had been there all along. Rabbit and chickens, mostly, but also a surprising population of turtles. How hadn’t she noticed them? Was she that distracted?

Mostly they were going about their day. Old women sat on their porch, sewing. Children ran back and forth playing. Mothers aired out laundry while men leaned against the wall, simply enjoying a moment they weren’t working. They were watching the new arrivals suspiciously, and yet Taylor might not have noticed if it weren’t for the children, who weren’t as good at hiding their gaze.

The Music wasn’t helping. It was so quiet here…

Then Eiko stepped out of the carriage and all eyes were on her instead, and they put a lot less effort into hiding their stares.

An elderly cat stood up from where he’d been resting and hurried over, looking irate. “Tsume,” he hissed quietly. The Music grew ever softer, and Taylor had the by-now unusual task of straining her ears to be able to hear him. “Why have you brought her to the village?!”

Tsume shoved him away gently, and the oppressive silence eased. “Relax, grandfather. I’m not happy about it, but she and the owlet came as a package deal.”

“With whom?”

Oogway stepped out of the coach, and the village was no longer observing calmly. Several bystanders rose from their relaxed positions, and a warning rang through Taylor chi senses. Her normal ears heard gasps and murmuring, all of it directed towards the ancient tortoise.

Oogway, for his part, seemed utterly unconcerned, as she’d have expected. He glanced around, taking things in like Taylor herself had been just moments ago. His eyes lit up a little at the turtles walking around, but his overall expression stayed calm.

The coachman nickered nervously, raising his blindfold to see what was going on. Genji was standing atop the coach and trying his hardest to appear invisible. Tsume was tense, though what she would do if someone attacked Taylor had no idea.

“Oh please, calm down,” Eiko said loudly, shattering the silence. “We’re here for a reason, so the sooner we get it over with the sooner we can get out of your hair.”

“I’m told that someone here wants to see me?” Oogway said, smiling peaceably. Absolutely no one missed the way his grip tightened on his cane.

…

All at once, the villagers returned to their previous tasks. Grannies returned to sewing, mothers returned to laundry. But the children retreated to the spaces between houses, watching with wide eyes. More than one man took out a carving knife and began whittling. The blades flashed in the afternoon light, leaving no ambiguity as to what message they meant to send.

Tsume breathed a sigh of relief. “Guardian, I would remind you that you are here on sufferance. Do not test our hospitality.”

Eiko spread her arms in affront. “What, precisely, did I do to invite retribution?”

“Nothing,” Genji said, jumping down to join them. “Recently.”

Eiko frowned. She leaned her head back in thought, then snapped her fingers. “Oh, wait. That failed assassination two months ago. Was that one of you guys?”

Tsume’s eye twitched.

“It was! Ha! Good times.”

“Eiko,” Oogway warned.

She just waved a paw flippantly. “Relax, he got away just fine. I don’t even know why they’re upset.”

“Because you cost us our payday!” came a new voice.

Taylor’s head snapped to the side, and her eyes widened at the music that spilled forth.

The village, such as it was, consisted of a series of houses and farms built around a single crossroads, where they were right now. The largest building was built on the eastern corner of the intersection, and it was this building’s doors that opened now. The silence that had been so oppressive before now was swept aside by the force of the newcomer’s presence.

She was a very old turtle in a dark kimono, depicting a moonlit pond. A symbol resembling a simplified turtle shell hung on a string around her neck.

She glared at all of them--Tsume and Genji included. For all the age her body carried, her eyes were as sharp as daggers.

“Ahem.” The turtle’s glare focused on the horse, who flinched. He raised one shaking hoof. “I w-was promised--I mean,” he corrected hastily, when her eyes narrowed, “I was just the delivery guy, I’m n-not involved with--I mean, Lady Eiko is my boss, but…”

He trailed off, unable to string together a coherent sentence.

The turtle snorted and waved a hand. “Hanzo, take this man somewhere to rest.”

A much younger turtle appeared, startling the horse badly. “Follow.”

“Y-Yessir.”

As the coachman walked away, Tsume stepped forward to bow. “Lady Yōsai, I’ve brought--”

“I can see what you’re brought,” Lady Yōsai interrupted, looking past the assassin. “...Oogway, you geriatric ashtray. I can’t believe you’re still alive.”

Oogway chuckled. “I don’t hear that as much these days. Everyone back home has gotten used to it.”

Yōsai snorted. “I bet they are. And who are these twerps?”

Taylor frowned. “Twerp?”

“I thought you were an owl, but they don’t chirp like that,” the elder said, and all of a sudden she was walking past Taylor to get a closer look at Eiko.

The turtle stood straighter, raising her neck until she was shoulder-height with the fox and looking her in the eye. Yōsai made a show of thinking, before turning on her heel with a scoff.

“Doesn’t make sense to me why you’d bring along a couple of nobodies, but I guess you always did like a young and pretty face.”

Oogway stopped smiling.

Meanwhile, Eiko fell over. Taylor, meanwhile, sputtered at the implications in that sentence. “Wait, what? Wait what? Wait, wh--”

“Calm down, hatchling,” Yōsai said. “I didn’t mean you.” She turned to Genji and Tsume, who were busily pretending they were somewhere else. “Good work you two. Now get lost.”

Genji startled, turning to look at her. “What?”

Yōsai smacked him with a fan she pulled from her sleeve. “Get, I said! Go do something somewhere else!”

“Lady Yōsai,” Tsume began, but was interrupted by Eiko.

“Now wait just a minute, what do you mean nobody?!” she shouted angrily. “After everything we’ve been through?!”

“I’m sorry, are you famous?” Yōsai asked, and this time Taylor noticed the quirk to her beak that meant she was smirking. “It’s been a while since I made it to the entertainment district, I don’t know who the popular ladies are anymore.”

Eiko’s paw flashed out as she snarled.

Every single person on the street stood and faced the group, drawing a weapon from somewhere on their person. Yes, including the children.

They weren’t necessary, though, since Oogway caught Eiko’s fist himself, grinning once more.

“I thought I recognized you,” he said, livelier than he’d been since they made landfall. “It’s good to see you again… Chiyome, was it?”

The leader of the village sent back a toothless smile of her own. “Well well well, I guess you aren’t as senile as you look.” She turned and walked back to the house she first emerged from. “Come in, come in. We have much to discuss.”

“Indeed we do,” Oogway said. “I had hoped to find you again while I was here, but I hadn’t expected to do so this quickly.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to find me at all, but then you’re full of surprises,” Chiyome shot back. Then she smiled in a way that made Taylor supremely uncomfortable, especially since it was directed at her master. “I’m not surprised you’d want to see me again though. I was a talent in my youth~.”

He laughed. “And I’m sure you’ve improved like fine wine, but no.” He shot Taylor a smirk. “I have a favor to ask you.”

“What a coincidence,” the turtle said. “So do I.”

------------------------

[A Forgotten Shrine]

The sky was black. The ground was black. The trees were black. The air was opaque.

The noise was deafening.

The shrine was not black. There was a radius around it where the swarm dared not tread.

Something inside the shrine stirred, and the buzzing dimmed for a second before a path opened in the black mass as countless chitinous crawlies made way for their ‘leader.’

The large, horned beetle walked between the masses, hastily-made robes draped across his shell. They were sewn from sakura petals.

Ishaku glanced to either side as he walked. He needn’t have bothered with the theatrics, honestly, but the swarm needed something to do and practicing rituals kept them happy.

Ants, butterflies, centipedes, dung beetles, earwigs, flies… insects even Ishaku hadn’t heard of were present, and all of them watched him with glazed-over eyes. Their pupils tracked him even while seemingly fixed on a point some distance behind him.

Ishaku shuddered. How did he get roped into shepherding this flock again?

And then something other reached into his brain and flipped a few switches, and his worries were forgotten as he reached the edge of the Shrine’s Holy Ground.

He fell into supplication, two arms praying while two rose in praise. “What is your bidding, Great One?!” he called.

From within the Shrine, She emerged into the sunlight.

“...” Four eyes squinted down before finding the splash of pinking among the mass of black and brown. “...Feast.”

“The Great One demands a feast!” he repeated, turning to the congregation.

A cheer went up from each insect there. It was toneless, lacking anything resembling genuine cheer, but there was no one there able to notice.

None except the old beetle, looking out from behind his own eyes.

A portion of the horde unfolded their wings, and the buzz of the Shrine became the only sound in the world.

Deep within his mind, the part of the shepherd that was still Ishaku screamed.