I own nothing!

They watched as the furnace was broken apart. Noriyuki's eyes were wide, so were Usagi's. Even Tomoe Ame's seemed a bit wider than usual. Usagi edged toward where the metal for the sword he hoped to give Leonardo lay. Noriyuki also stepped that direction. Tomoe stayed at Noriyuki's side, and several other Samurai followed beside or behind them. It was, of course, the hound himself in charge of melting the metal, who peered in first and then grinned.

He looked up. His face was a melted mass of wrinkles that spoke of joy. "The metal is good." Usagi also felt himself melt and smile in relief.

. . .

Leonardo looked down at the paper and groaned. He'd made the mistake of bringing some papers and a pencil to Central Park, because it was the only section of "Nature" he knew of in the city and it had rained getting both the papers and pencil wet. So even if he was inspired to write something brilliant there was nothing to write it with. He stood up on the branch of a tree in the park and Donnie dropped onto the same branch behind him before folding his arms over his plastron and gazing perplexed at his older brother. "What's going on Leo?"

"My paper and pencil got wet."

Donnie's eyes widened as he stared at him. "You brought those out here?"

Leo turned a glare upon him. Donnie didn't flinch. Instead, he shook his head. "Leo, any project has to be taken in stages. I say, find something out here worth writing about, and then mull it over and come up with a way to write a haiku about it before going home to the lair and writing it down.

"Donnie, I have to write one hundred of these by …"

"Leo, how are you even going to send these to the Ancient One in Japan?"

"I thought I'd copy them all down onto some of Master Splinter's rice paper, after getting them down on regular first, and then mailing them."

"'I' think your best bet, Leo, is to write them when you can and then have Master Splinter read them over the phone to the Ancient One like how we usually contact him."

Leo pursed his lips, pondering, before replying in a low murmur. "But, it's a 'written' art form …"

"Its about set amounts of sound put together into a pattern, Leo. That can be heard over the phone. Face it, all projects have stages, and some are messier than others. You don't polish something before you assemble it, or batter a sword into shape before heating the metal."

Leo stared off at the bright lit sidewalk they could see through the branches of the tree they stood in. "Yeah …"

A shrill scream came from several yards to their left. Both brothers snapped their heads around to look its direction. Without speaking, they began moving through the dark areas between them and where the sound had come from smoothly, efficiently, and silently. A purple dragon might be mugging somebody. A garden variety mugger might be mugging somebody. They'd probably elicit a like scream from whoever they were going to the aid of. They were, after all, teenage mutant ninja turtles. They might not have chosen to be all those things, but they had chosen to be heroes, even before Leo had chosen to be a poet too …

. . .

Usagi stared at the bright nuggets of metal resembling mushrooms he'd seen or foam on the sea more than anything, far more than they resembled a sword. Noriyuki smiled at them in the basket before looking up to Usagi with his bright grin too. "These will be taken to the swordsmith now. I will have the master swordsmith start turning them into a sword right away!"

Usagi nodded. He wondered, though, if all could be done to turn these nuggets and more materials into a fine sword in time. Another step forward at least …

. . .

When all was said and done, he really did have good friends. Leo glanced from the crummy notebook, battered and water-damaged, but with still usable pages in the middle he could work on writings as short as haiku with to the small journal with a leather cover that April had just brought over for his project. He was still going to carry and start things off on the notebook, but he had in mind that anything decent in the notebook would go into the journal, and after that, to master Splinter to share with the Ancient One and if the Ancient One liked them then they'd be transferred onto the rice paper and mailed to him by Christmas even if he got the sword in return before then. Now, the biggest problem was finding something to write about.

"Still having trouble Leonardo?"

He glanced at his sensei, who, as before had both hands atop his staff and stared at him with wide concerned eyes, not terror-concerned, but concerned-concerned. Leonardo sighed. "It's just, there's not a lot of 'nature' around us to write about sensei. Don said the old haiku were supposed to show it was a certain season, and even today they are supposed to be about nature. But every time we go to Central Park, I get distracted by people passing by who might see us, and muggings, and Mikey goofing off.

His sensei chuckled. "Well, I'm not sure how many of the most famous haiku writers got distracted by such things, but I recall the Ancient One telling me he wanted to see our lives here through your eyes. So concentrate on that Leonardo, and I think you will find plenty of inspiration.

What do you think?

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes