The Ties That Bind
Chapter Six
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Disclaimer: You should know what I do and do not own by now.
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The first thing that registered on Ceres's awareness was the cool cloth upon her forehead. The second was that she was missing the usual feeling of hair tickling the tip of her nose. It took some willpower, Ceres really would've preferred sleep to anything else right now, but eventually she opened her eyes.
"Oh good! You're up!" the young girl, wasn't older that 13 or 14 Ceres decided, clapped excitedly, "Lung Lung! Elder Sister! Rabbit girl woke up!" the girl ran from the room as Ceres groaned, Rabbit girl? If that's my new Amazon name I may kill someone… the sound of running feet announced the arrival of humans seconds before Xian Pu, the girl who had announced her awakening and a third girl who Ceres assumed was Lung Lung.
"How do you feel?" Xian Pu wanted to know.
"Honestly? Like I got hit by something really hard," Ceres admitted, "A little confused as to how I got here, but other than that I feel great."
"Mu Tzu carried you here after you knocked the blue haired boy into a Spring. You've been sleeping for three days straight. You've been re-born into the tribe did you know?" Ceres shook her head, "Oh, well Ling Ling thought you had woken up yesterday and-"
"You had gotten out of bed!" the girl who had been there when Ceres woke up retorted, "You were walking around saying that you wished for a haircut."
"Well," Ceres admitted, "I do remember something about my hair….but I figured that was just a dream….erm….what did you do exactly to my hair?"
"Nothing," all three girls said quickly, too quickly in Ceres's opinion and she got up to see for herself. The moment she caught sight of herself in a nearby mirror her jaw dropped. Her hair was in buns shaped like rabbit's ears with a ponytail hanging down from each one. There were a pair of bells around each bun and a larger one affixed to her collar. Her long bangs had been cut to just above her eyes. There was no getting around it, she looked cute!
"Well?" Xian Pu asked, "Is it ok?"
"I'm…..adorable," Ceres breathed, "No wait, I'm painfully adorable!" she looked down at her clothes. She wore an underdress that reminded her of a school uniform's shirt, same puffy sleeves but a different collar. This one was ended just under her chin in the Chinese fashion. Over the e\underdress was a strappy formfitting jumper like dress. Both under and overdress had a large slit that started on her right thigh and went all the way down to the end of her dress.
"The village seamstresses made it specially for you," Lung Lung explained, "She used a mixture of Chinese-style clothes and a description of what one might wear in Japan. She's got others than the one you're wearing now."
"So you have some for when you travel again," added Ling Ling, "Elder says that your nature as a warrior can't keep you in one place for long. So even though you are our Amazon sister, Hles Si, you are free to travel the world, completing your training."
"You talked in your sleep," Xian Pu informed her, "That's how we know that you want to leave as soon as you can. To go visit your family. I'm sorry you couldn't stay longer. But then, I must leave soon as well."
"Why?" Ceres wanted to know.
"Well, the day after you came we had a tournament."
"Oh? Who won?" Ceres asked, knowing all about these kind of tournaments from talking with the guide.
"I did. But then some outsider girl beat me." Ceres spit out the mouthful of water she had just almost swallowed.
"She, er, she didn't happen to be traveling with a huge panda was she?"
"Yes…" Ceres nodded encouragingly and went on.
"And did she have red hair?"
"Yes…"
"Was she traveling with another….something, besides the panda?"
"Do you mean that boy that you knocked into a spring? Nope. He stayed here. But you were right about everything else. Do you know her?"
"I've….seen her. Xian Pu!" she suddenly exclaimed, "Why are you hanging around here?!? You got to go find that girl!" Ceres, through her conversations with the guide, also knew that if an Amazon was beaten by a girl that she had to give the stranger the Kiss of Death and track her to the ends of the Earth.
"Well. I wanted to see if you were alright."
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Go! Go kill that nasty vixen who dares to beat an Amazon!" Xian Pu nodded resolutely and dashed out of the room. Lung Lung and Ling Ling followed suit and several moments later Mu Tzu walked in.
"I had to wait until all the girls had left," he explained to her quizzical look, "I wanted to give you this," he held out a raven.
"Kind of a strange gift Mu Tzu."
"It's not quite a gift. See, you beat him in combat. He's yours," seeing that she had a blank look he added, "This is the boy whom you fought three days ago," Ceres looked hard at the bird. Ravens don't have light blue eyes…do they?
"Eriol?" the raven nodded solemnly. Ceres held out a timid arm and Eriol hopped onto it. She gently stroked his breast feathers with her finger, "Well, you haven't bitten me so I guess you're not angry that I did this to you," now that she had gotten rest, and salvaged her wounded pride, she kind of felt bad. Sure he had no right knocking her into the Spring of Drowned Rabbit, but did she have any right blasting him into the Spring of Drowned Raven? "I guess being a raven is better than being dead," she murmured, thinking of the large amount of pure Ki she had unleashed on him. Eriol nodded his agreement.
"He refused to leave your side at first," Mu Tzu told her, "Xian Pu finally had to threaten to cook him before he'd leave."
"I bet you wish I'd tell you that it's all ok and that we're even, right?" Eriol nodded, "It isn't Eriol. I doubt things will ever be alright with us. You don't understand how much a trick like that hurts me. You never will. And even though I feel bad about being the cause of your curse, I still hate you terribly. Do you understand?" another nod, "And it's for that reason that I'm not going to tell you how to reverse this thing," if nothing else the fact that the raven nearly fell off her arm in shock convinced her that this was in fact Ugami Eriol, "I'll take you home and reverse it there but after that you're on your own.