Chapter Torogai, Post Script

I nudged the familiar door open with my walking stick. I had just come back from a rather interesting chat with the spirit realm at the Knot and exhaustion was starting to kick in. Hopefully my stupid apprentice would be home and willing to cook his tired master some dinner.

"Tanda!" I shouted as I walked into the small hut. A quick glance confirmed his absence. Rats. I was hungry.

I settled down to wait for Tanda to show up.

"Madame!" A recognizable voice exclaimed as I looked up from my spot near the hearth.

"Took you long enough!" I barked. "I've been waiting for hours for something good to eat!"

He sighed completely unfazed by my angry demand. "Yes master."

"Where have you been anyway? You're usually back earlier than this. Did some idiot get run over by his own horse?"

Tanda went through his supplies carefully selecting the right ingredients and the various utensils needed. I noticed the tired look in his eyes as he did this, it must have been a long day for the young healer. Most days people would come to the hut for medicinal herbs either to restock their own supplies or to take some back for private treatment. It was cheaper to buy the herbs and treat yourself than it was to have a doctor do it. But occasionally people came to have Tanda personally do the patching up. It was usually straightforward problems, a broken finger, simple cough, sprained ankle, and the like. There were the rare occasions where someone would show up in a real emergency, but those instances were usually reserved for Balsa.

Often times Tanda would venture into town to check the bulletin board for any notices. When people needed a professional but weren't in a hurry to get one they would post a notice. Tanda would see it eventually and make a house call. These personal visits could range from simply delivering a medicinal concoction to performing invasive surgery. And more often than not these notices piled up resulting in a very tiresome very demanding work day. One I suspected was very similar to today.

Tanda began cutting some vegetables that he was planning to put into a large pot hanging suspended over the fire, "No horse related incidents today, just a mountain of notices demanding high quality pain killers. You should have seen all the addresses, I felt like I had walked the length of the whole town twice!"

I dismissed his excuses. "Pah! You've done this before. If you were really tired you would have rented a room and not shown up tonight at all." I narrowed my eyes at him. "So what really made you so tired? Did Balsa's sorry ass happen to show up while I was gone?" While the spearwielder's presence usually made life more exciting for everyone in the vicinity, the incidents that followed in her wake had the tendency to exhaust people faster than normal.

He dumped the diced vegetables into the pot and began grinding up some plants. "No Balsa today either. I ran out of the herbs I use to make the pain killer, so I had to go into the mountains to get some more and then deliver them. Right after I deliver the last one a messenger tells me I'm needed for an emergency…"

"You spent the first half of your day acting as a damn mailman and the last half a real doctor! I told you to hire an errand runner when things get busy and you ignored me." I set the kettle next to the pot and grabbed two cups. "You insist on doing everything yourself. Starting to sound like a certain stubborn idiot we both know."

Tanda finished adding the ground plants in the pot and began stirring the contents. "Madame, I didn't ignore you… I've tried using errand runners before. Customers don't like receiving drugs from a stranger, for all they know it could be useless herbs or worse, poisonous! Only you or me should deliver the medicine. We both know you're not going to do it so that leaves just me. …Balsa could probably do it, could convince customers the medicine is legitimate with that silver tongue of hers… But she's never here, so again, that leaves just me."

He had a point but I wasn't going to admit it. I gulped down the soup eagerly when he handed me the steaming bowl and a fresh cup of tea.

"So what was this emergency all about?" I asked between gulps.

"An elderly man apparently fell down a large hill and fractured his hip…"

I woke early and left the hut in search of this patch of strong magic I had stumbled upon a few weeks ago. When the magic eluded me after hours of endless searching I gave up and headed down to the market. Once I had picked up everything I needed and ran a few errands I wandered back to the hut. With any luck Tanda would have just finished making lunch and I would get there just in time.

"Madame!" He exclaimed as I entered the hut. I scowled when I saw the lack of fire and food.

"I was expecting dinner to ready five minutes ago!"

He sighed. "Yes master."

As Tanda prepared dinner—vegetable stew it looked like—I made myself comfortable. "Something must have happened for you to forget dinner, so spill it."

Tanda blushed and made an effort not to look in my general direction. "Well… A girl… Asked me to dinner tomorrow night."

"Oh? I didn't know you were seeing anyone."

"I'm not!" He said quickly. "She's a patient I treated a week ago. She just wants to thank me by taking me out to dinner."

I knew full well Tanda wasn't seeing anyone. There would only be one girl he had eyes for and she wasn't even in town at the moment. I also knew full well this patient of his did not want to take Tanda out 'just to thank him'. Not surprising my apprentice had been asked out. He had been gotten propositions before—of which he had promptly turned down. Women flocked to him because he had qualities they liked: humble, caring, kind, handsome, smart, loyal, and made decent money.

Of course leave it to Tanda to fall for the one woman who wouldn't have noticed said qualities even if they bit her in the ass.

"A patient. That's creative." I said with dry sarcasm. "Who is she and what did she do to herself to have an excuse to see the doctor?"

Tanda ignored my taunting. "Remember that man who fell down the hill? She's his granddaughter."

Oh. Her. I knew the girl. Grandfather was alright but the mother and daughter were both less than decent. The mother was a stickler for tradition and walked around with a stick up her ass. The daughter wasn't much better. I glanced at Tanda who was busy adding an extra portion of vegetables just in case you know who decided to come home. I had always thought it was a waste of food but the errand runner brat and his sister thought it was incredibly romantic. Bah, fools.

Tanda wouldn't give up on Balsa so easily. Would he?

My gaze moved to the second sleeping mat in the corner of the room, the extra set of Kanbalan style clothes under the window, the whetstone near the wall, and the pile of freshly picked herbs next to an inconspicuous bowl affectionately named "Balsa's Emergency Knockout Pain Killer Drug."

I glanced at Tanda again while he poured two bowls of steaming vegetable stew leaving enough in the pot for a third person.

Nope. This dinner date was doomed to fail before it even began.

I made Tanda make me dinner before he went off to this date of his. He yelled at me and claimed it was 'just dinner' but I knew better. Either way I didn't care much, I already knew the outcome.

The door creaked open as I was just finishing my second helping. "Madame Torogai!"

"Balsa." Well this was a surprise. "I didn't think you'd be back so soon. And in one piece."

She rolled her eyes. "It was a simple courier job. No bodyguarding. No fighting. I was gone for four days, what did you expect?" Balsa sets her gear down and takes a seat across from me.

"Trouble follows you like a shadow. There's a reason no one hires you for subtle jobs." I handed her an empty bowl. "Things tend to go boom and bleed a lot when you're around."

"Well I'm sorry Jiguro was a spearwielder and not a ninja. I'll be sure to tell him how disappointed I am the next time I visit his grave." She said sarcastically as she took the bowl gratefully and started scooping out the remaining contents of the pot. "I didn't see Tanda outside. He busy? He's usually back by now."

"He has a date." I said flatly gauging her reaction.

She stilled for a few moments before continuing on like nothing happened. "That's good news. Who's the lucky lady?"

I shrugged. "Some girl who thinks her shit smells like honey and her tears cure cancer."

Balsa's eye twitched and her hand edged closer to her spear. "She sounds… Delightful."

"Please, the girl's a complete idiot."

Balsa chewed on a chunk of potato thoughtfully, her eyes never leaving her spear. "Well Tanda agreed to go out with her, there must be something he saw in her."

"Yeah, a free meal."

"Madame!"

I stretched out on my blanket, getting ready for some shut eye. Tanda, in his right mind, would never agree to go out with this nobody so long as Balsa was still alive and kicking. The girl must have blackmailed him, played the pity party, or drugged him up so bad he would've said yes to anything. As much as I entertained the idea that Balsa or Tanda would admit their feelings for each other on their own, reality said otherwise. Nature was just not going to run its course. The two blind lovebirds needed an outside force to give them a little push.

"You could check up on them." I offered. "Watch him from a distance. Make sure he's still breathing."

Balsa chuckled. "I'm sure he's alive. They're both adults, they don't need a babysitter."

"You shouldn't pass up an opportunity to sharpen your ninja skills."

"What ninja skills? Things tend to go boom and bleed a lot when I'm around." She recited my previous quip back to me with a smirk.

The young spearwielder wasn't going to make this easy for me. I just had to resort to more… forceful methods. "Balsa, the girl's crazy. I know the mother too. They're both complete nutjobs. Tanda didn't go willingly, she must have drugged him."

"A crazy woman drugged a perfectly competent doctor?" Balsa asked one brow arched.

"If you don't get your ass out there soon who knows what could happen? Tanda could come back married to this loon!"

That got a reaction. Her hand shot out to grip her spear but just as quickly let it go as if she had touched something horrible. "Madame you're overreacting because Tanda's like a son to you."

No you idiot! I'm not overreacting, you're the one who's underreacting! Okay, this wasn't working. I tried the carrot, here comes the stick.

"Balsa, if you don't go out there and make sure my apprentice is still single, I will skin you alive with your own spear!" I roared.

Silence reigned in the small hut for a few minutes. For a moment I thought Balsa would storm out of the hut in a flurry of anger, but she showed no sign of reaction. In fact she did absolutely nothing and went about her business like our argument had never taken place. She quietly finished the last of her meal and set the bowl down. I watched her unhook the empty pot and place it off to the side, fold up her gear, and cover her spear letting it rest against the wall. Each action was slow and deliberate.

Once she was done she calmly walked to the door and paused.

"Do you know where they went for dinner?"