Ninja Turtles does not belong to me; it belongs to Peter Laird, Kevin Eastman…. And whoever they sold the rights to.
Summary: The new turtles have never celebrated Valentines Day – Mura contemplates the prostect of romance. Note: This takes place a couple days before 'Student of Prague' in the Age of the Assassins fic.
Characters in this oneshot (In order of appearance or mention)
Reiki: Son of Oroku Karai and Dr. Chaplin, rather ditzy trained ninja. Age fifteen
Sun Tzu (Sunni) Hamato: Son of Michaelangelo, The gentle and kind genius-artist of the new turtles. Has a secret, budding alcohol problem. Age fourteen
August O'Neil: Daughter of Casey and April, hot-tempered hockey-mask wearing vigilante. Age fourteen
Murasaki (Mura) Hamato: Daughter of Leonardo. The patient and honorable leader with an alpha-male complex. She has a rather limited understanding of emotion and has been repressing her own emotions for…. Forever. Age fourteen
Joan-Of-Ark (Jones/Jonnie) Hamato: Daughter of Raphael. The loner with an attitude and short fuse. Age fourteen
Shakespeare (Pierce) Hamato: Son of Donatello. The immature, cute one of the team with a big heart and even bigger dreams of one day becoming a Shaman. Age fourteen
"Thanks, dude." Reiki said with a grin as Sunni handed him a card – in return, the red-headed Oroku heir handed him twenty dollars. The card was bright red with several really girly hearts colored in different shades of red and pink and glossed with glitter, there were even some vines of lace on the cover. Inside the card was a poem/message written in red-inked calligraphy;
'Hear what I have to say;
Come on dude;
It's valentines day.'
Reiki grabbed a pen and scribbled his name under the message in rather messy kanji. Sunni sighed – that card took him hours to make.
"August better have been worth twenty dollars worth of a commission." Sunni scowled – Reiki grinned a rather nervous cheeky grin; it was no secret that Reiki had a giant mondo crush on August.
Mura was watching from above, she was in a strange squatting/standing position on the chandelier. The white-masked ninja sighed and jumped off of the fancy chandelier and onto the nearby staircase.
Putting her hands hooks onto her belt similar to the way a human would put their hands into their pocket, Mura stared at her feet as she kicked at the floor.
Valentines day, a holiday her family did not celebrate.
As mutant ninja turtles, they lived private lives of solitude. For the most part, they were fine with it…. But during times of years like this, they were burdened with the 'what ifs' of their lives. Such as; what if they had been born human?... What if they could actually find a significant other? What if they could fall in love with someone?
Mura normally dismissed those kinds of thoughts… But it was always impossible to shake off the thoughts during this time of year – it made her think back to the interactions of the humans of her family; Karai and Chaplin, April and Casey, August and Reiki even (then again, it was a relationship where one drooled over the other, and the other hit the drooly one with a hockey stick.) She couldn't help but yearn for something as misunderstood and dismissed as 'love'…. Except, she didn't know why…. She didn't even know what the romantical kind of love was. The sad part was, she never would.
The life of a ninja was a rather lonely one. They had been lucky to be in such a family-oriented clan… But the day would come that they would separate and be alone. The only love they would ever know was family love. Family love was wonderful….. But it couldn't fill all gaps in life.
"Why do you torture yourself?" Mura asked herself quietly as she leaned against the wall, all energy felt sapped up and her strength seemed to leave her, her iced-over heart felt heavy and ached behind her plastron. "You'll never fall in love and no one will ever fall in love with you; why bother thinking of it?" She reminded herself.
She would always love her siblings, her family; all of them were vital in her life….. But they could only be family and friends, not lovers. What sucked the most was that they felt it too…..
She sincerely hoped that Reiki would one day gain from all of his constant pining after August. After all, August somewhat had affection for the red-haired ninja.
"Hey, was'sup?" A jersey drawl sounded nearby; the jade-green turtle turned to the stairs to see her sister Jonnie and brother Sunni coming up the stairs; Mura's heart twisted itself as she wondered if they were thinking the same things as she was.
"Hey guys." She greeted in a flat tone.
"Are you alright?" Sunni asked, concerned. "You seem a little more emotionless than usual." Jones sniffled a bit of a chuckle.
"I'm fine." Mura dismissed and fled down the hallway to her room.
"She's thinkin' 'bout it again bro." Jones said to Sunni "Like every year."
Sunni grinned and crossed his arms "I think she might be a little better this year…."
Mura came into the room she was presently occupying as they hid in the Oroku Manor. Sighing, she threw herself on her bed. She didn't want to deal with emotions right now…. She would just sleep until tomorrow when it would go away.
She heard crinkling and saw the sliding door of the rooms' closet opening. "Pierce, what were you doing in my closet?" She asked as said cloak-wearing turtle stepped out with a big grin across his midnight-green face.
Pierce came to the bedside and put her arms around her best he could with her lying on her plastron. Mura sighed as her overly-affectionate brother rubbed his face against her shell in a rather cat-like manner.
"This is for you!" He chirped and straightened up, he handed her a small box. Curiously, Mura sat up on the edge of the bed and took the small rectangular box. She flipped off the lid.
Chocolates, fancy assorted ones. "You know I hate sugar…." She grumbled and lifted the truffle tray; under it was a small note. Mura put the tray down on the desk and studied the small note card.
Each of it were signatures of her siblings; the thin loopy cursive of Sunnis, the bold heavily-penciled of Jonnies, and the chicken-scratch of Pierces. But above the signatures was a single message;
We love you, big sister!
A smile played across her jade-green face as she looked wide-eyed at her youngest sibling, who was smiling widely. Seeing her look, the yellow-masked turtle took this chance to give her a big Pierce-hug.
The ice around her heart warmed up and cracked just a little bit; why would she ever need a lover, anyways? They had all they needed….
They had each other. All of them.
Jones and Sunni watched from the outside. "Yo' real cheesy, ya now that?" Jones mocked.
Sunnis hrugged "It worked didn't it? Mura's actually smiling! Looks like she has a chink in her turtle-armor after all."
"Fo' every time Mura smiles, a puppy dies." Jones muttered. Sunni couldn't help but nod in agreement.
And somewhere else in America, a boyfriend had just given his girlfriend a puppy, and she screamed when she found that it had mysteriously died of unknown causes just moments before.
...I have absolutely nothing to say.
Yup, everytime Mura smiles, a puppy dies. It goes against the natural order that much.