Punishment (2) and Dreams?
An Intermediary Scale Gathering; Bghorsk, The Trade Hub (1).
22: Chapter 0008 (Part 1)
Punishment (2) and Dreams?
An Intermediary Scale Gathering; Bghorsk, The Trade Hub (1).
10 YEARS AGO, FALL MONTH 1, DAY 7, SAMURAI COUNTRY NAGASUKE
They had walked from starry night to sunrise and bright day, when the scenery began to change, the sun not being the only hot element around here.
Drisnyl Hashna Tsuyo-ya was so mad; why couldn’t Skrylla Yokuta just chill?
She understood he had a family to protect and care for, but why didn’t he care about himself?
Was not caring for himself going to make his path easier?
Sons always seemed to do things that endangered them!
She huffed, face contorted in rage and fists balled as she approached the Intermediary Gathering of Bghorsk, also approving of their silence, in her mind, which she thought was wise.
It had an ornate, monumental gate which shone like silver, walls that were half a foot taller that most heads, guards that had complete armor with weapons included patrolling about it and a clean air in which the personnel could hold their noses high in.
She stormed till she reached the entrance and some of them looked at each other then back at themselves until she was before the gates and pounded on it.
“Open up!”
“Madame can you ju-”
She flared her Ko-jin like the spreading of a ripple and the man’s voice became gentler.
“Esteemed guest, what business might you have here.” Bghorsk had enough backing but her carefree attitude left him feeling unsure.
Plus, prevention is better than cure.
[1]
“I’m here to trade, brought things.” Her patience was wearing thin, so she banged again.
“Come right in.” They didn’t get any Ko-jin fluctuations from the bags but her attitude made them not guess that even though things with a level of power could not be sensed, low level goods such as dead Epic Beast meat and their parts had no Ko-jin fluctuations either.
“Gejiro and Jin will watch over him from the shadows.
DO NOT interfere until he finds a way out.
However, Karin will meet you guys after I purchase a messenger hawk.
Update me every night.
Go.” She faced forwards and pushed the gates open herself when they had removed the chains wrapped about the gates.
The huts here at the outskirts were built from heated clay and glass, having both a modern and traditional impression.
The ones here were at least 50 feet across, getting more grandiose the deeper she went in, and each of them were swimming in people.
Every 10 meters there was one such hut so that their lineup on the edges of the road that left at least 100 meters of open walk-able space.
This area was filled with myriad beasts of burden on land like elephants, camels or horses, while others rode by air with Giant Dobson flies, the span of small houses that was likely Midnight or Twilight Grade of Epic Beasts.
A butterfly of similar span and setting, amongst many others.
Skrylla Yokuta had fought and won against a lesser version of these, Karin did not entirely understand her harsh treatment of the boy.
Plus, it was something she had owed him.
But she could not bring it up.
“I like being in Trade Hubs, just the sheer amount and daily lives of people makes me-” Karin turned silent as she remembered her Mistress’s mood.
The smell of sweat, bodies, perfume, tools, oil and many others mixed in the air like a masterful concoction brewed by the most intelligent Alchemist.
The most prominent Potent Artifact used was a common one amongst merchants called NostrilBridge that helped to keep a merchant’s wares unique scents to his own area and helped customers tell which products exactly they liked.
This was helpful in congested settings such as these.
She and Karin walked passing vendors, crowd, sign stops, intersections, street circus performances, areas of loud blaring music and a market, until she went to a shop opposite a bar.
This shop in particular had a conical ceiling as if it was an ice cream.
Behind it was a merchant who had a full goatee reaching his navel, his silk clothes where pressed clean and his smile could be for an advert.
The man’s small eyes and gelled goatee, but bald head, actually felt approachable to her.
“How may I he-”
“A bird for messages.
Now.” She was still angry.
“Okay.” He leaped to his counter then jumped up and held what she thought was a ceiling.
Then, he jumped down holding it which gave her the impression that he was about to pull the ceiling down, so she rolled and jumped back out of the shop, hooked swords drawn.
“At ease, at ease.” He smiled at her, “Come in, come in.”
The Mistress walked back in and was stunned to see how a forest branches had somehow merged with the walls so that she felt like she was outdoors.
The ceiling looked taller than what had appeared outside, and on all of those branches, were *birds*.
Colors, songs, speech, squawking and flight.
She had heard about SpaceBlenders and had seen them once before, but it got her every time.
Wow.
Karin had waited outside, as she had noticed that some guards were following them.
Maybe because they had seen their weapons and whatnot.
Still, her orders had been to guard, defend, watch and to not move or act until orders were given.
When l Hashna Tsuyo-ya had previously jumped outside because of a misunderstanding she had seen, the guards in disguises had set themselves in position before her Mistress relaxed and told her to stand down.
30 minutes after, the Mistress had a red-tailed hawk on her hand and she first gave it her blood, allowing it to peck her hand before it pecked Karin’s hand.
“I’ll meet you later, make sure he is okay.”
She did not avoid Karin’s eyes but it was the other way around as Karin wanted to make a joke about how Skrylla Yokuta had made their Madame soft but decided against it after remembering that she actually left the guy in a forest, hanging with little options for escape.
So, she responded with a “Yes, ma” and turned around to move on.
As the day went, Skrylla knew what *thirst* meant.
Prior to this, his needs had been fairly natural but seeing as he was on the path to discovering and breaking his limits, this felt like torture from the lowest circles of hell.
He had not felt this bad, in regards to hunger, as before he had even discovered Oniga and had to gorge on raw meat.
Maybe, because in truth he was still recovering.
His wrists and ankles were red from struggle, his throat ached to be soothed and the boy was just happy that she had placed him high enough, so that most animals couldn’t reach him.
But most wasn’t all.
He had thought they were joking at first but they really weren’t as they hadn’t come back at all.
Drisnyl Hashna Tsuyo-sa was the one whining about him being a kid and him having to calm down, why didn’t she consider that now?
Maybe he should look at it as training, his eyes lit up.
*What would a Samurai do?
Buddy*… He grinned, *What would you have me do?*
As he circulated his Breathing Technique, thoughts flashed through his mind
*I could either break one of my hands or my legs.* Skrylla Yokuta picked his hands, because even though double handed would give L
*I can’t waste this chance; this is my weapon we are talking about.
A Samurai, has to have a weapon.
I don’t believe any Samurai is complete without his weapon, bushido and Vassal Lord.
This is my first step on this journey, I must destroy all hesitation!*
He broke his left hand with a twist and whimpered instead of shouting out; he had gotten used to stopping a shout before it came out in the months he had been with them.
Then, he pulled that hand free and used the drop to bounce on the floor, before checking and making sure his CavityBracelet was still on his left arm.
Skrylla Yokuta almost squealed at the pain of disturbing the dangling hand and frowned in discomfort when he dropped to the floor again, but this time because of his hunger and thirst that almost made him wobble.
He then untied the end of the ropes from trees which was a bit trying because he had to fight resistance from his legs still bound the other ways.
When he was entirely done, he used the tip of one of his Buddy’s from the box to dig out a small shallow depression into the ground before placing the strips of cloth over each other in the hole then peeing on it. The source of this chapter is novelping dot com.
A tear streaked form his eye as he rushed to drink it so that too much won’t be lost into the soil.
Then he coughed and stood up to see if anyone was watching.
With a broken wrist and slow walk because of no food or water in a day, he then trudged towards Bghorsk.
He did what a Samurai would do.
Why did he cry when he knew what life was like especially after his father?
Maybe it was because he expected that some kind of light would shine because of how much he has suffered already.
*No, Samurai shouldn’t think this way!*
Skrylla frowned hard to steel his resolve as he kept an eye out for fruits while he walked by but didn’t see any, cursing his luck.
Skrylla Yokuta laughed at his own despair and walked in that state until he got too tired.
So, he rested on a tree.
*Tomorrow is another day.*
Karin, Jin and Gejiro didn’t know exactly how to interpret the command that had been passed down to them and they didn’t want to cross a line when the Mistress was *already* angry so they watched Skrylla Yokuta with pity, pain and a somber air.
A thought they all shared was that this was training and that’s what they used to comfort themselves when their pity was overflowing for the 10-year-old boy.
They watched him drink his own pee to which Karin almost wretched, Gejiro frowned painfully and Jin’s eyes softened.
The trio had also watched him trudge on until his body shook.
They watched him walk, his eyes and his leg movement, the only source of life on his body.
And about 15 minutes after he had slept, Karin pulled out a quill and wrote on a parchment,
Subject broke one wrist to escape,
Drank pee to quench his thirst,
Hasn’t found food or water since then,
Walked till he could not trudge forward in straight lines anymore,
Is currently slouched against a tree, taking a nap.
Could he receive a lighter hand?
She quickly scratched it off on the parchment and put it in, afraid of Drisnyl Hashna Tsuyo-ya’s wrath.
But later, she still rewrote it to stick it in the ribbon attached to its body by a string and in a cylindrical case before letting it fly away.
Drisnyl Hashna Tsuyo-sa was drinking in a bar, and although tipsiness was negated by the cultivation she had, The Mistress had drank for several elephants until she *just* began to feel *slightly* tipsy.
She needed more; she couldn’t stop thinking about her so-
-her student-
-but he needed the lesson more than she needed her compassion and she needed herself drunk.
But what was happening?
The wooden floor, much like the wall panels, had cracked from the advances she had rejected when she had pummeled faces to the ground, and she didn’t mind doing it again.
The loud music made everyone shout without regard of where they were or what they were doing so she would have been laughing if she had been in a good mood.
Instead, she was just observing the crowd.
The light bulbs were of amber color and they had this pulsing glow that ignited lust in its own way.
Upstairs were inns, and both staircases were at the edge of the walls, at the back was the kitchen and a fancy collection of drinks and intoxicants.
Drisnyl Hashna Tsuyo-sa drank until she didn’t know when she started crying.
*How could I have caused this?,* she thought.
*Hopefully, he does not go too far.*
She pushed herself away from the stools and walked across the cracks she created on the floor, the crowd giving way to her and she would have reveled in it.
If she was in the mood.
The Mistress went out into more suppressed noise and people and lights, turned into the alley of the bar to pull down her knickers and ease herself, angry again because everything she drank would come out instead of intoxicating her.
When she was done, she cursed because she didn’t have what to wipe with, then, she just zipped back up and walked out.
She heard a familiar call and searched the bright busy streets with her eyes before looking up and seeing the Red-tailed hawk.
The Mistress hooked her arm and when it landed, braced herself for the worst before reading it.
Then, this leader of Oniga slapped her forehead before throwing herself into the crowd.
[1].
Prevention is better than cure means it is better to avoid a problem than to procrastinate it.
Only to eventually meet it or put yourself in an unfortunate situation where you have but to face and solve it against your convenience.