I own nothing. I am getting these characters and scenarios from the Usagi Yojimbo comics and the 2003 TMNT series only, or what I know of them.

Leo smiled. He and his family were having a good training day. First, his brothers and he had gone for a run in the sewers to warm up after a fairly good night's sleep. Then they'd came back to the dojo and done katas for about two hours. When Splinter thought they had done well enough on those, they sparred for two more hours, Leo's favorite part of their training. After that, April had come by for her ninjitsu lesson from their sensei.

Splinter had then released the rest of them to work with his newest pupil one on one. The others had gone to their various activities to relax. Leo, however, had stayed to observe Splinter teaching April, and write haiku in the little journal April gave him. He almost always mixed this in with whatever else he was doing now. Sometimes, he also gave it hours of his full intention too.

He'd already paused in the run through the sewers earlier to jot down a haiku he'd been mentally writing while running for some time by then. As April did her katas, falling into a rhythm where she performed it, realized what she'd done wrong, and then re-performed while Splinter looked on silently, Leo looked down at the words he'd written earlier in the journal.

Foul smells fill nostrils

Water running all around

Metal surrounds us

It did sound a bit depressing. He sighed. When you breathed heavier from exercise and went by a few, particular side-tunnels, you remembered just how bad the sewers could smell.

He heard a growl and looked up. April's face was a snarl as she repeated her kata. She spoke through gritted teeth. "I'm doing my best, Leo!"

He smiled gently back. "You're doing great, April."

She stopped and turned a bright smile on him. She even batted her long eyelashes, not in flirting he thought, but maybe just because after being squinted in concentration so long her eyelids needed to stretch too. Her voice came out full of hope. "Really?"

He nodded. "Yeah. You've come a long way." And "I've" got to learn not to sigh in front of you as you practice.

Splinter smiled but broke in with a bit of a warning tone and swish of his tail. "Let's get back to it, Miss O'Neil."

She snapped back into form. "Oh, yeah, right." She began again and Leo looked back to his haiku. He lingered on the last line a moment.

Metal surrounds us.

After a night in a warm bed with stone and earthen walls, being surrounded by metal again made you sad. It felt so confining and artificial somehow. Yet, he used to live like that all the time. Was that why he'd always felt a little on edge, even as a kid?

He glanced up at April and recalled where he'd felt the most relaxed: Casey's grandmother's house. They'd all been together there in a fairly open place without millions of strangers surrounding them who might spot he or his brothers at any moment. It had felt both open "and" private!

He hadn't been in a very good mood there at first, okay for almost their entire first stay. How could he have been?

They'd just been nearly killed by the Shredder. They'd been in hiding! And, he hadn't even known if they'd be in a better place if lived or died after being nearly useless to protect them after his disastrous run on the rooftops. It hadn't been the surroundings, but the situation that had hurt him so much his first time there. If anything, the surroundings had helped a lot.

He hadn't had to fear floods, or workers in the sewers, or his brothers getting spotted coming up out of a manhole, just Shredder biding his time having actually realized they'd escaped. Though, that had seemed unlikely. He'd been awfully eager to finish them beforehand, and they'd been pretty weak running away, particularly him … You'd think Shredder would have just finished them had he known.

He frowned. Then he realized he should stop it. He'd realized a while back being angry didn't help him write. He tried to get back on a pleasant trail of thought, one that he'd started down before his sad detour.

Creating new katana and being in the barn, where the sounds of nature or quiet of winter filtered in through the long, wood boards, to mix with the sounds of the forge, had been relaxing. When they'd returned to the farm (after beating the Shredder, finding Master Splinter and re-finding him after an accidental visit to outer space in-between, and learning their history while re-defeating the Shredder) it had been a much better stay for him. He'd stared out relieved and worthy, not defeated and at death's door. So, he'd discovered he liked nature. It had been summer too, perfect time to be outdoors.

He bent his head over the journal again and began to write. He free-wrote words as Donnie had taught them to do for their speeches to April and Splinter. Donnie had reminded him recently he could sort out from such a list what he wanted to use seeing their various numbers of syllables before piecing them together. Leo hadn't yet decided if adding it to the process made the whole attempt longer or shorter, but found he liked writing the list out in and of itself. It let him revisit pleasant memories now. Fields, fence, grass, wind, birds, woods, trees, barn, house, sky, clouds, car, road, rest … He sighed out a bit of nostalgia before nodding. That ought to be enough for now …

He'd learned not to give himself too much to work with at one time. He could overdo it and spend hours in frustration trying to fit as much as possible into one poem. Although, writing more than one haiku on one subject was actually a good thing when aiming for quantity as Donnie had pointed out to him recently.

He bit his bottom green lip, thinking of how to try to argue with his smart brother. He knew before he started it probably wouldn't go well, but he felt compelled to try. "Don …"

He'd been rudely interrupted by Donnie's "You know I'm right" voice.

"Come on, Leo. You've got to get one hundred of these written in time to earn the swords and get them here in time for Christmas, right?"

"Right …"

"But there was no emphasis on them being perfect." Donnie pointed his bow staff at him to emphasize his point.

Leo broke in more firmly. "But they 'have' to fall into the definition of 'haiku …'"

Donnie laid the bow staff back on his shoulder. "Right, but it's okay if they're not the best haiku ever otherwise. Think of it as following the rules set out. One hundred pieces written by you that fall into the definition of haiku, all about what you've observed around you, by the deadline. Nothing about redundancy is in there ..."

Leo though it over a minute before smiling. "You're right, Don."

Don gave a bigger smile back. "Of course, I am."

Leo chuckled a bit. Raph walked by and took a swipe at the back of Donnie's head with a grin. The purple-clad turtle had easily dodged and laughed.

Leo chuckled again a bit at the memory now. Raph was dangerous in some ways, but Donnie was real dangerous in an argument. Mikey's amazing manipulation skills, though … In fact, Raph was dangerous in an argument just due to sheer volume and the possibility of things getting physical. Donnie was great at logic and debate. Then there were Mikey's big eyes, wheedling tone, and appeal to big-brother love and the shortness of life and thus time to spend with family too. Huh. He bowed his head and put penpoint to paper again. He should write at least one haiku about "all" of his brothers …

What do you think?

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes