"Nepenthe"
by Acey
Disclaimer: Me: Five-nothing without shoes, flipflops, or my friend Erin's four-inch-heels. Mr. Toriyama: I believe around about ten inches taller, give or take. *Sighs* Eh, I blame it on the genes.
Author's Note: As you probably noticed when you went to this chapter, I'm naming all chapters by musical terms/classical music styles. Most of the time the mood or what happens in the story has a tad to to with the musical terminology, and some of it's so obvious it's almost scary. Thank you for reading and reviewing, and I hope sincerely that you enjoy chapter two.
She left the cabin, left the thick darkness of the forest and the hollowness of her brother's presence, walked away from it knowing that her return would be soon. Juunanagou knew it too from the look on his pale face as she walked out, expression a mix of condescending and simple boredom. 'So he tires of the woods as well,' Juuhachigou thought, for once contemplating beyond her general thoughts on her sibling, that somehow whatever completely adult processes of thought in him had been either erased by Gero or had not existed in the first place. It was refreshing at times to be around someone who would do whatever pleased them regardless of the consequences, regardless if she his sister thought his plans and ideas about such were idiotic. Juuhachigou half-smiled, not realizing that bullheaded attribute was hers as well when dealing with most people, as she absently treaded, footsteps light, to nowhere from nowhere.
She had never planned out her destinations before, had felt no need to. She would merely go to the first place she came to and noticed, usually ending up in the same sorts of places: the mini-mall, clothing stores. Places such that Juunanagou hated and let everyone know that he hated, places that Juuhachigou loved. The sight of clothing stores and such was not precisely cheering but was necessary nonetheless. It was almost a game to her, a solitary distraction that got her farther than chopping down a few dozen trees would, she thought as she looked up.
It was the same building as the one she had come to one her last venture to civilization. A clothing store, darkened with signs indicating the change in seasons from summer to fall with silly brown and gold leaves drawn on them and the words "Fall Sale" inscribed beneath them. She went inside.
"Miss?"
She searched for a few words and they came as crisp and cold as the autumn breeze, unfeelingly.
"When was this store's last new clothing shipment?"
The manager was helpless. He had seen her in his store before.
"A month ago, Miss. We get more every two months. But if you stay we can show you some excellent styles in clothing we have now--"
"I was in here two weeks ago and I found nothing excellent," she said before going for the door, leaving the bewildered manager and his customers behind.
************************************************************************
She checked her surroundings and noticed she was at the mini-mall,with its four hardly connected stores, a video rental, the said clothing store, and two dilapidated independent shops. They all looked tired, run down somehow like a businessman pressed far past his normal hours of sleep, wake and work for too long. It annoyed her to see such disrepair and Juuhachigou stood from the sidewalk pavement, arms folded against the cool she could not feel, and she lifted herself up in flight, over the heads of the mini-mall's patrons and eventually above the mini-mall itself. Whatever people watched her do so she cared nothing about. They were inferior, pathetically inferior; what they saw that was better than them they either feared or worshipped or ignored like idiots, deciding it was all a trick of the mind.They were a weak lot, and Juuhachigou bitterly hated the fact that once she had been like them, feeble, easily broken by manipulation, emotional turmoil.
Sentimentality ruined the humans, ruined all humans, and made them worthless, kept them from realizing much in the way of potential. Even the human warriors Juuhachigou had encountered whe first activated had that idiotic sentiment about them, the one she had kissed on the cheek (Kuririn? That was his name, yes, data reminded her) probably most of all.
'It's different for him.' She surprised herself by mentally defending him. 'It isn't so annoying an attribute when he's displaying it.'
Her mind rushed for a reasoning, some worthy-sounding, if faulty, explanation for such thinking.
'The others are more hardened. It doesn't look so well to see them with that emotion. Kuririn isn't and thus the attribute is changed.' That sounded plausible, at least, put her mind at slight ease. Now the question only was where she would now go.
************************************************************************
"Kuririn. It's suppertime." The turtle poked his head inside the former monk's doorway. "Kuririn?"
He was awake, staring up at the low ceiling as he lay on his bed. No, not at the ceiling, the turtle realized belatedly; his eyes were admittedly getting dimmer, at a book.
"What's that you're reading?" Umigame seriously hoped it was not a bodice ripper romance with a picture of a woman in cleavage clutching a shirtless man like he had seen by Master Roshi's bedstead at times.
Kuririn looked up. "Oh. Umigame," he said, calling the turtle by name. "It's just an old novel. 'The Great Gatsby,' by F. Scott Fitzgerald." He shrugged. "I read it once when I first came here to train; I didn't quite understand it then. I was hoping I could now."
The turtle's question was plainitive.
"Are you?"
"More than I did. The only thing that ever drove me crazy about the book was the fact that Gatsby could love someone like Daisy."
Umigame nodded, having never read any novel in his exceptionally long lifespan.
"Gatsby's character is so much better than Daisy's; she doesn't deserve someone like him at all."
The turtle nodded again, wondering just how cold the food would get before Kuririn stopped his book discourse. Fortunately respite came quickly.
"Kuririn! Come down here, did that old turtle die on the way to tell you it was suppertime?" and the former monk replied with an abashed, "No, Master" and ran downstairs.
Disclaimer: Me: Five-nothing without shoes, flipflops, or my friend Erin's four-inch-heels. Mr. Toriyama: I believe around about ten inches taller, give or take. *Sighs* Eh, I blame it on the genes.
Author's Note: As you probably noticed when you went to this chapter, I'm naming all chapters by musical terms/classical music styles. Most of the time the mood or what happens in the story has a tad to to with the musical terminology, and some of it's so obvious it's almost scary. Thank you for reading and reviewing, and I hope sincerely that you enjoy chapter two.
She left the cabin, left the thick darkness of the forest and the hollowness of her brother's presence, walked away from it knowing that her return would be soon. Juunanagou knew it too from the look on his pale face as she walked out, expression a mix of condescending and simple boredom. 'So he tires of the woods as well,' Juuhachigou thought, for once contemplating beyond her general thoughts on her sibling, that somehow whatever completely adult processes of thought in him had been either erased by Gero or had not existed in the first place. It was refreshing at times to be around someone who would do whatever pleased them regardless of the consequences, regardless if she his sister thought his plans and ideas about such were idiotic. Juuhachigou half-smiled, not realizing that bullheaded attribute was hers as well when dealing with most people, as she absently treaded, footsteps light, to nowhere from nowhere.
She had never planned out her destinations before, had felt no need to. She would merely go to the first place she came to and noticed, usually ending up in the same sorts of places: the mini-mall, clothing stores. Places such that Juunanagou hated and let everyone know that he hated, places that Juuhachigou loved. The sight of clothing stores and such was not precisely cheering but was necessary nonetheless. It was almost a game to her, a solitary distraction that got her farther than chopping down a few dozen trees would, she thought as she looked up.
It was the same building as the one she had come to one her last venture to civilization. A clothing store, darkened with signs indicating the change in seasons from summer to fall with silly brown and gold leaves drawn on them and the words "Fall Sale" inscribed beneath them. She went inside.
"Miss?"
She searched for a few words and they came as crisp and cold as the autumn breeze, unfeelingly.
"When was this store's last new clothing shipment?"
The manager was helpless. He had seen her in his store before.
"A month ago, Miss. We get more every two months. But if you stay we can show you some excellent styles in clothing we have now--"
"I was in here two weeks ago and I found nothing excellent," she said before going for the door, leaving the bewildered manager and his customers behind.
************************************************************************
She checked her surroundings and noticed she was at the mini-mall,with its four hardly connected stores, a video rental, the said clothing store, and two dilapidated independent shops. They all looked tired, run down somehow like a businessman pressed far past his normal hours of sleep, wake and work for too long. It annoyed her to see such disrepair and Juuhachigou stood from the sidewalk pavement, arms folded against the cool she could not feel, and she lifted herself up in flight, over the heads of the mini-mall's patrons and eventually above the mini-mall itself. Whatever people watched her do so she cared nothing about. They were inferior, pathetically inferior; what they saw that was better than them they either feared or worshipped or ignored like idiots, deciding it was all a trick of the mind.They were a weak lot, and Juuhachigou bitterly hated the fact that once she had been like them, feeble, easily broken by manipulation, emotional turmoil.
Sentimentality ruined the humans, ruined all humans, and made them worthless, kept them from realizing much in the way of potential. Even the human warriors Juuhachigou had encountered whe first activated had that idiotic sentiment about them, the one she had kissed on the cheek (Kuririn? That was his name, yes, data reminded her) probably most of all.
'It's different for him.' She surprised herself by mentally defending him. 'It isn't so annoying an attribute when he's displaying it.'
Her mind rushed for a reasoning, some worthy-sounding, if faulty, explanation for such thinking.
'The others are more hardened. It doesn't look so well to see them with that emotion. Kuririn isn't and thus the attribute is changed.' That sounded plausible, at least, put her mind at slight ease. Now the question only was where she would now go.
************************************************************************
"Kuririn. It's suppertime." The turtle poked his head inside the former monk's doorway. "Kuririn?"
He was awake, staring up at the low ceiling as he lay on his bed. No, not at the ceiling, the turtle realized belatedly; his eyes were admittedly getting dimmer, at a book.
"What's that you're reading?" Umigame seriously hoped it was not a bodice ripper romance with a picture of a woman in cleavage clutching a shirtless man like he had seen by Master Roshi's bedstead at times.
Kuririn looked up. "Oh. Umigame," he said, calling the turtle by name. "It's just an old novel. 'The Great Gatsby,' by F. Scott Fitzgerald." He shrugged. "I read it once when I first came here to train; I didn't quite understand it then. I was hoping I could now."
The turtle's question was plainitive.
"Are you?"
"More than I did. The only thing that ever drove me crazy about the book was the fact that Gatsby could love someone like Daisy."
Umigame nodded, having never read any novel in his exceptionally long lifespan.
"Gatsby's character is so much better than Daisy's; she doesn't deserve someone like him at all."
The turtle nodded again, wondering just how cold the food would get before Kuririn stopped his book discourse. Fortunately respite came quickly.
"Kuririn! Come down here, did that old turtle die on the way to tell you it was suppertime?" and the former monk replied with an abashed, "No, Master" and ran downstairs.