There was a lot that Yona was learning as she travelled with her partners. Archery, drinking, swordplay, how amazingly unabashed 80-year-old grandmas with 12 children were about sex. Especially in a pack.
The grannies were helping get dinner ready with Yoon when Yona came over, wanting to heat water for the many bandages that needed to be cleaned. She didn't notice Yoon's red color upon arriving, but rather smiled at the matrons who welcomed her in enthusiastically. Meeting all the kind people of her country was the best part of her adventure- in her opinion, anyway.
She was taken off guard when one of them asked which of the "handsome young men" was hers.
"Oh my, is it the white haired boy?"
"No No Gretchen! It's definitely the shy one with the mask!"
"You're both wrong. It's plain as day that it's Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome."
"Oh! Is it really! Oh good!" She put one hand on her face longingly. "He reminds me of my dear Rupert."
"You must be going blind in your old age Nora. Rupert looked like potato."
"A hot potato. And at least he wasn't the size of a bean sprout like your Norman."
"Steven may have been on the small side, but he always put me first, if you remember. Just like a true gentlemen, just like young Hak. Right dear?"
They all turned in unison to where Yona was standing. She looked across the room to Yoon for help, but he just mouthed "stir the pot" and ran away, taking Yona's pot of now boiling water and cotton before she could stop him.
"Oh my, Yona dear! You're as red as your hair!" Kathy stated, grabbing her hand. "Don't tell me he's not yours."
"Ah, no," Yona squeaked, she never thought she'd ever sound so much like Ao. "I'm not- none of them- we're all just friends."
"WHAT?" Gretchen was floored.
"Maybe we should give it a try!" Nora laughed, moving her hips in such a way that caused the other ladies to laugh and Yona to feel, somehow, even more uncomfortable.
"You better claim one of those boys now before the biddies take 'em!" Ruth called, "And don't you dare marry 'em till you do. Don't want what happened to me."
"Clide learned, Ruth. It might have taken some time, but he learned." Nora comforted.
"It took him 10 years, Nora. No one needs to have 4 kids before their husband learns to shag her right."
"Oh please, Ruth. Have you seen these boys? There is no way that any of em are gonna be like Clide… Well, the mask one might take some time. But I betcha he's a lot smarter than Clide was."
"Oh my, what's this? A party?" Jae-Ha asked, entering the room.
"Greenie! Sweatheart! Why haven't any of you boys bothered to woo Yona? It's a cryin' shame to let such a lovely girl slip away!" Gretchen accussed. Jae-Ha took one look at Yona's entirely red complexion and knew that she'd probably been subjected to this for a while.
"So that's why Yoon ran away," he muttered before addressing the ladies. "I'm sorry to say this my darlings, but I don't think any of the boys are man enough to pursue a love at the moment."
"Love? Who said anything about love? You're young! You're gorgeous. Live while you can! Lord knows when I was Yona's age-"
"We all know you were a slut Gretchen," Kathy interrupted, "That's why you got the husband with the smallest dick."
"And yet, he tried the hardest. How many times did you complain to me that Robbie wasn't taking care of you enough, Kathy?"
"Oh my, how- how candid," Jae-Ha said, holding his expression in his usual smile. He turned to Yona. "Yona dear, Ke Xin was asking for you."
"Really?" she sounded a bit more relieved than she had meant to and quickly tried to correct herself to a more even tone. "Yes, umm… stir the soup please." Yona tried to walk away as fast as she could without quite running.
"So tell me about this husband of yours Gretchen," she heard Jae-Ha say as she left.
When she saw Ke Xin, the old guard was entertaining kids with Zeno. She had one kid on each arm and was spinning them around as fast as possible while Zeno sat on her shoulders juggling. There was a fair amount of giggles from the small group. It warmed Yona's soul a bit. Everyone had been a little worried about her after the wrist incident.
Yona never admitted it out loud, but it scared her. Ke Xin was so violent, so brutal, and yet her face was devoid of anger, of sadness, of anything. If she was enraged, that would be one thing, but Ke Xin – she was like a doll. Whatever was in her past, whatever made her like that- Yona shuddered whenever she thought about it.
But no one talked about it. Because what where they going to to? No one is equipped to fix that.
Yona sighed and shook her head. "Ke Xin obviously didn't ask for me," she mumbled. "Better go find Yoon and see if he needs anything."
"Again Xin! Again!" the kids were giggling as they hung from her arms.
"It's the other kids' turns!" she barked, setting the kids down on the floor. She got a light karate chop on the head for that.
"Don't yell at the young ones lass," Zeno chided, "Gotta be nicer than that."
"It's not their turn now. If I don't correct them they won't learn," she argued.
"Ah, the lass is just too rough," Zeno sighed, lightly tossing the jugglying sacks while shaking his head. Ke Xin glared for a moment then smiled at the kids in front of her.
"Stand back, 千金," she said as gently as she could. She then grabbed the back of Zeno's legs (which where firmly tucked around her shoulders and armpits) and pushed them out as fast as she could. The yellow dragon yelped as he tumbled to the ground, hitting his head.
There was a slight crack, but the kid's laughter covered from all but Ke Xin's ears. When Zeno sat up, he was crying and rubbing his neck.
"Lass is so mean to Zeno," he whimpered.
"Aww, there there!" a few of the kids comforted him.
"Don't be so mean to Zeno!" one yelled at Ke Xin. "He's funny!"
"Oh what are you gonna do about it?" she asked with a fake evil smile.
"Defend Zeno!"
"CHARGE!" And with Zeno's call to action, the game turned into one that had all the kids trying to tackle Ke Xin while Zeno laughed, patting the girl who tried to comfort him.
"Are you OK, Mr. Zeno?" she asked.
"I'm fine, nothing I haven't gone through before," he smiled back. "But don't you go do what the lass and Zeno did. A girl could get hurt."
She nodded at him. "Are you ok because you are a bandit?"
Zeno laughed.
"Once could say Zeno is OK because Zeno is a bandit, yes." He said, turning his head to look at Yona for a moment.
" ~ Dinner! ~ " Jae-Ha called from the food cabin.
"Go eat, child," Zeno encouraged, patting her back. She scampered away just as Ke Xin and Kija plopped down on either side of him.
"I don't understand why you had to throw a kid at me!" Kija yelled.
"Ah, come off it, the kids were having fun," Ke Xin answered.
"But it was dangerous! You don't just yell 'THINK FAST' and then chug a child at someone! You're luckly I have the dragon's arm, or someone could have gotten hurt!"
"I threw them at you because you have the dragon arm dumbass," she retorted, "Do you think I would do that if you were normal?" She asked, her tone questioning his intelligence.
"I wouldn't put it past you!" he said.
"Ahh… do I seem that irresponsible?"
"Yes," it was Hak who answered, sitting by Kija. Shin-Ah came over with him, sitting on Ke Xin's left.
"The lass can very irresponsible sometimes," Zeno admitted.
"Y'all are bitches," Ke Xin mumbled, fairly sullen.
"How's your head, Ouryuu? That seemed like a nasty fall," Kija asked, leaning over. Ke Xin froze for a moment.
"Zeno's fine! Zeno's got a hard head!" he responded in his usually cheery voice.
"Sorry about that Zeno, I really thought you were gonna land on your hands- impress the kids and all," everyone attributed her grimace to the mere act of dropping Zeno.
"And now you know not to drop people from your abnormally high shoulders," Jae-Ha commented as he walked up and sat beside Hak, placing an arm on his shoulder.
"I'm shorter than you jack-ass."
"Weren't you serving dinner?" Hak asked, removing Jae-Ha's arm from his person.
"The ladies took over," he answered with a sigh. "They told me 'We're old darling, not decrepit. We can scoop soup into bowls at least. Been doing that longer than you were a twinkle in your papa's eye,'" he sighed. "So what are you all doing out here?"
"Waiting for work," Kija answered, "This village is as good as it is going to get for now."
"Looks like it's time to scout," Hak said, "Shin-Ah, Jae-Ha, when Yoon is free-"
"We'll talk to him," Jea-Ha assured. "But for now, Shin-Ah?"
"Any villages we haven't been to yet near by?" Ke Xin interrupted.
"A couple. East. North."
"What about the villages we've been to? How are they doing?" Kija asked.
"No soldiers."
"Well, it's late in the day. Any new movements would probably manifest tomorrow," Hak postulated.
"So what you are saying is that there is really nothing for us to do at the moment," Ke Xin sighed.
"Well, I can think of some things," Jae-Ha said, smiling at her.
"Oh? And what- pray tell- is that?"
"Well-"
"Don't answer that," Hak interrupted, putting his hand on Jae-Ha's mouth. "No one else wants to hear it."
"Seriously! Have some dignity! You're a dragon!" Kija scolded.
"We do have dignity!" Jae-Ha argued.
"I don't. And I'm not a dragon," Ke Xin countered.
"But you are the princess's guardian and if you can't take dignity in that then I've seriously misjudged you!" Kija was getting angry. Ke Xin was genuinely surprised. They all were. No one thought they'd see the day were Kija would actually admit that Ke Xin was a guardian.
"Kija…" Ke Xin said, feigning tears while the dragon got redder. Zeno was the first to laugh and wrap them up in a group hug.
"You kids," he murmured, content with his little family.
It was a few days later that they discovered what Shin-Ah's eyes could really do. And they realized that they had to change somethings as a result. It wasn't enough to leave just one guard behind with Yona. Because the world wasn't safe enough for that, and she wasn't good enough with her weapons. They wouldn't split up anymore, not unless there was no other choice. Also, Yona wasn't strong enough. It took Hak less than one minute after hearing of the incident to crank up Yona's training.
Everyday whe she woke up, she wasn't allowed to do anything, not even drink her tea, until she had swung her sword 100 times. After dinner – when they had it- she had sparring training with Hak, and then Ke Xin, and then both- to practice fighting against multiforms. Sometimes Jae-Ha or Kija would join in, but neither were capable of doing what needed to be done -namely leaving welts the size of pinecones on her body so she'd learn to not let herself get hit. Mostly they would just add in more distractions for her. Then her cool down was however many arrows she could fire before she was at her absolute limit of exhaustion. The last bit was her favorite, it was her meditation time. She could think to the rthythmic thunks of her arrows.
And Yona never complained. Not once. No matter how much it hurt, no matter how tired she was. She would take it all in stride. Well, she'd take it until she was still for 30 seconds, and then she'd sleep. Yoon marveled at how comatose Yona could become after training. He'd treat all of her acquired wounds and she wouldn't so much as stir.
Recently, the soldiers had stepped up their actions in targeting the Happy Hungry Bunch, but had begun to ignore their normal tax collections. This was what they wanted in the end. They also seemed to be led by one person, one person who seemed stupidly familiar to Hak and Ke Xin, but neither could properly place him. They just decided to ignore that.
This stupidly familiar person was Tae-Jun. He thought he had heard Yona at one point and it inspired him to "save her". While on his adventure, he had run into most of the HHB, minus the three he could definitively place. He was also so very close to meeting Yona in private too.
Yona was practicing her archery when Tae-Jun got close. She didn't really notice him because it was dark and she was meditating in her practice on her inability to put some old women's words out her mind. And Hak's face. Especially Hak's face and old women's advice, at the same time. Yona blushed hard and released another arrow, grazing Tae-Jun. He ran.
Tae-Jun, however, being an idiot, ran away in the most round about fashion and it took him another 15 minutes to find the campfire Hak was at.
Boy was he surprised when Yona came running over to him with a bow.
He was even more surprised when she aimed it at him. (again)
NOTES:
Ah... yeah, completely changed my thought process.
Also I love Old Biddies. and I thought about giving them proper Korean names, and then I was like "Nah, it's funnier this way"
Also in honor of ch 129, please enjoy some Zeno heartbreak. And accept the knowledge that Ke Xin killed him... in the most half-assed way possible.
Be brutal- I know this chapter is bad.