Some of my fics will remain secret... like the odd bits and pieces that may get incorporated into a real story someday, and the story whose special formatting requirements FFN can't handle. For now, this is the last chapter of my anthology: a look at what could have been.
Yoshi doesn't know when he became the kind of well-fed-looking boy that other children try to beg from.
He is always generous with them, remembering that he used to be among their number. He dispenses his few coins and candies with a warm smile and a kind word. He doesn't need these things: he has a roof to sleep under and dinner every night, and these are infinitely more precious than what he gives away.
Normally he gives things for the asking, but something about this girl - so tiny, but with such fierce challenge in her eyes - inspires him to try the same trick the Ancient One had used on him and Mashimi.
"If you can snatch this sweet from my hand," he tells her, showing an open palm, "you may have it."
Yoshi's training has only increased his speed, and the girl fails. He gives her the chocolate anyway, and a word of advice on a good sleeping-place he knows.
Her eyes follow him as he walks home.
She takes his advice.
A man finds her there that evening. She gives him the same look she gave that infuriating boy, but with yet another degree of hardness in the emerald stare.
When the man offers his hand, there is nothing in it. Nothing but a promise. He doesn't ask for speed, but with her street-honed instincts she senses her time for action is limited.
Years later, she still wonders why she did it. Maybe because the man seemed to expect much from her, where the boy had been condescending. Maybe because anything was better than the drafty warehouse she had been directed to.
The only thing she knows is that she regrets nothing.