"Nepenthe"
by Acey
Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
Author's Note: If anyone gets the "Twilight Zone" in-joke, I will pay you. Honestly.
Kuririn was back at home a half-hour later, patient face sober, eyes withdrawn, downcast. His orange gi today had been exchanged for a plain white T-shirt and beige slacks, the effect of which had been mildly surprising for Juuhachigou a little earlier but did not suit him at all now. The chocolate had been left untouched, dumped discreetly into a garbage can at the park along the way so the elderly man in the coffeeshop would not see.
He flew only when it was expedient, over from the mainland to the little island with the pink house stenciled neatly with the inscription "KAME HOUSE" in clashing crimson. The rest of the way was made in a slumped walk that only improved when he neared the edge of the mainland; the flight was improved upon in a similar way, when his shoes hit the sand and he exhaled, reminded that he was where he should be, and that was better than nothing at all.
Kuririn opened the door, saw Roshi sitting on the sofa, watching the television. He shut it off as he realized his former pupil was there, greeted him, asked him how town was as rural people ask when going to the store. A similar greeting and a "fine" was all Roshi managed to get out of the man, as he pulled a random,tattered book off of the bookshelf and cast his sight on the first page he turned to.
"Reading again?"
Kuririn looked up to see the wizened face of the old man straight ahead of him. In ordinary fashion he replied with the customary "Yes, Master."
Roshi pointed at the book. "Poe, eh?"
"Yes. Master." No allusion to the fact that he had surpassed the aged teacher more than a decade before, none whatsoever. It was a small kindness, but one Roshi was thankful for, very thankful, because the way to kill a man's soul is to let him know that he is useless. Long had Kuririn assured him that such was untrue, and although for many years, the old man had in his heart doubted it, his mind chose to believe the small, former monk over any other sign-- of aging, of weakness, of the slow but coming, ever coming being called Death.
Roshi smiled, making the wrinkles in his lined face appear even more harshly drawn.
"He's good. Movies they show these days-- they aren't really as scary as his stories, just gory, kind of make you cringe. But Poe wrote the horror first. Everyone after who wrote it took off of him."
He was being more talkative than usual, whether to ease the cordial quiet of his former pupil or merely in a nostalgic mood, Kuririn didn't know. Idly he marvelled at this small store of knowledge and wondered where Roshi had picked it up, if he were not lying rather well.
"What story?"
Kuririn turned the book toward him.
"It's a poem, actually; one of his most famous: 'The Raven.''Quoth the raven, nevermore--' that one." He watched as the old man leaned over the words, waiting for his next question. It came almost immediately.
"Lenore?"
"That was the narrator's dead wife. I've read it before--"
To Master Roshi's aging eye it appeared that Kuririn was starting to make a habit out of rereading books. Roshi himself was rather infamously prone to reread rather racy magazines-- or rather, restare at the hardly-clad models inside the racy magazines-- but the classics that Kuririn kept reading again and again were about as devoid of that sort of thing as silent films are devoid of sound. Next thing I know he'll go back to being a monk, Roshi thought wryly after a moment, then, surprised at that, decided to continue to look over Kuririn's shoulder at the book until Kuririn objected to it or Kuririn shut the book, neither of which he would probably do.
A passage gaped at him on the page by virtue of the sheer unfamiliarity of the words. He turned them over in his mind before speaking them aloud.
"'Respite, respite, and nepenthe, quaff, o quaff this kind nepenthe--' what's he talking about?"
Kuririn glanced at him before replying.
"Respite's relief. I'm not sure about the rest, but I think I remember something in the Greek myths--"
Condemn the Greek myths, the moment he had thought of them his mind had gone back to her, to the pale figure in the coffeeshop standing near him, blonde hair like cornsilk slightly blown by the air conditioner in the building-- a forbidden jewel that is nonetheless desired, wanted badly. It had not been infatuation that had turned his eyes toward hers that morning nor any of the other days he had seen her go by from the day of activation on, of that he was perfectly certain. She had cursed him. There would be no happy ending here, not with the imitation of life he loved so dearly, for that was for the Greek myths, for dear old Pygmalion the sculptor and his beautiful statue of marble blessed by Aphrodite to receive breath.
'But my statue breathes. It breathes but does no more, speaks without meaning because there is no meaning to a life without purpose, to an eternity to look forward to with no change and no concept of what change is. She doesn't realize-- know--'
"--that the word 'nepenthe' was some sort of drug to induce forgetfulness of sorrow. I don't know about 'quaff;' here, Master Roshi, I'll look it up--"
"You don't have to bother doing that, son; I was only--"
"No, it's fine, really." He took a few short steps toward the bookshelf, selected Webster's Dictionary. Turning, he flipped to the back of the large volume, sooty eyes scanning each page until he found the word he was looking for.
"Here it is. Quaff-- drink."
"Heh. I don't remember Poe's stuff being that wordy."
Kuririn shrugged limply, wondering which of Poe's works his master had read, for they all were wordy.
"I don't know. A lot of his stuff to me was worse."
"You mean it?"
He nodded.
The old man immediately handed the collection of Poe back to Kuririn. "I'll settle for Playboy."
The last few hours of the day went by like a middle-aged woman's struggles with aerobic excercises prolonged by at least a full hour. It seemed like the clock had broken sometime between five in the afternoon and six to Kuririn, Kuririn who was gloomily, idly watching the sun go down again as he ate dinner with less enthusiasm than ever. Neither the turtle nor the aging relic could cheer him and only Roshi could guess at why. For all of his strikingly bad character flaws, at heart the martial arts master had good intentions.
He had thought that Kuririn was in the midst of losing whatever sadness was there when he had found him reading, had talked to him. But then something had shut itself closed sometime during the conversation, something untouchable but necessary, something that had drained the energy from the words-- from Kuririn himself-- and made them half-hearted.
'Maybe it was drained from the start, and you didn't realize it,' Roshi thought, mentally calling himself "old man," as he picked up a few of the dishes and told Kuririn to go on ahead and not worry about helping him. 'You don't notice things like you used to.' All very true, but then he had not been a young man even when he truly was Kuririn's master and teacher, and he knew the small fighter's mood changes like a meteorologist knows the weather, or knew them as well as he could without delving inside. At least, so he had thought for a long time. Yet now here was Kuririn, gloomy, down, and Roshi could see no reason for any of it.
The old man's rhuemy eyes scanned his former pupil's face, the slightly tanned skin acquired from years spent on a tropical island, coal-colored eyes and eyebrows (he had never known Kuririn to let his razor rust, for habits died hard, but he guessed that his hair was the same color), both downcast. Roshi saw all this and hastily decided to take the proverbial bull by the horns.
"Kuririn. Tell me, what's the matter?"
He looked up.
"Nothing, really," he said, ruefully.
"You haven't said a word all afternoon, not since you were reading that book." Half a bit of inspiration hit him, but he closed his mouth before he could say it, for more than likely it was incorrect-- very incorrect. His former pupil had been hard hit by love, what with Maron a year or so ago.
Maron. She had been a nice enough girl, and certainly looked the part of the models that graced the covers of the old man's magazines-- blue-haired and eyed, endowed, 'a practical Bulma clone,' Oolong had irritatedly said once, 'without the brain.' Mr. Briefs must've tinkered with cloning before capsules held his interest, he guessed, only half-jokingly, and as Maron was the result he pursued this interest no further.
But Maron had originally meant well, albeit everything else, and Kuririn, with absolutely no firsthand experience with women, had trusted in that. Vapid though she was, Kuririn was serious about her-- had been about to propose, before she had run off on him with someone else, some old boyfriend, distinctly better-looking than Kuririn had ever hoped to be but with none of the heart, more than likely, Roshi thought bitterly, annoyed, and that had destroyed all of Kuririn's hopes.
He ought to have known that his feelings for her were not returned by many means, if ever. For her beauty, her overall cheery manner-- there was almost absolutely nothing underneath, and Kuririn had not seen that. More than a decade later, Roshi would think of Maron again-- a smarter Maron, less inclined to niceties-- when he met Bulma's second child at the last tournament Roshi ever attended, and he would again wonder at the Briefs-- jokingly, of course, but with a hint of more than humor in his thoughts. If life had been a sixties "Twilight Zone" special, the Briefs would be the mastermind, individuality-less cloners. 'Number twelve looks just like you, Maron,' he had thought, but Kuririn would not have gotten the joke, and nor would have anyone else.
When she had outright rejected him some months ago it had hurt the former monk more than even his master had realized. Roshi had attempted comfort (Oolong had been less help), as had most everyone else that knew anything about it. Before unhappiness could completely take him over, though, there had been the cyborgs to worry about, and then Cell--
And poor Kuririn had become attached to one of them, the blonde Juuhachigou. He had seen something beyond the icy exterior and the cool shoves back, the cruel logic that dominated nearly every action. No reasoning of anyone around him could convince him otherwise; he was sure there was something beyond, beneath--
As he must have been certain the one kiss she administered like a bittersweet medicine meant more than a means to terrify.
'No. He may have thought that at first but he can't anymore. Juuhachigou brushed him back for good at the Lookout, and he's taken it for what it is. He must have-- he should have. This gloominess's coming from someplace else.'
It was not.
by Acey
Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
Author's Note: If anyone gets the "Twilight Zone" in-joke, I will pay you. Honestly.
Kuririn was back at home a half-hour later, patient face sober, eyes withdrawn, downcast. His orange gi today had been exchanged for a plain white T-shirt and beige slacks, the effect of which had been mildly surprising for Juuhachigou a little earlier but did not suit him at all now. The chocolate had been left untouched, dumped discreetly into a garbage can at the park along the way so the elderly man in the coffeeshop would not see.
He flew only when it was expedient, over from the mainland to the little island with the pink house stenciled neatly with the inscription "KAME HOUSE" in clashing crimson. The rest of the way was made in a slumped walk that only improved when he neared the edge of the mainland; the flight was improved upon in a similar way, when his shoes hit the sand and he exhaled, reminded that he was where he should be, and that was better than nothing at all.
Kuririn opened the door, saw Roshi sitting on the sofa, watching the television. He shut it off as he realized his former pupil was there, greeted him, asked him how town was as rural people ask when going to the store. A similar greeting and a "fine" was all Roshi managed to get out of the man, as he pulled a random,tattered book off of the bookshelf and cast his sight on the first page he turned to.
"Reading again?"
Kuririn looked up to see the wizened face of the old man straight ahead of him. In ordinary fashion he replied with the customary "Yes, Master."
Roshi pointed at the book. "Poe, eh?"
"Yes. Master." No allusion to the fact that he had surpassed the aged teacher more than a decade before, none whatsoever. It was a small kindness, but one Roshi was thankful for, very thankful, because the way to kill a man's soul is to let him know that he is useless. Long had Kuririn assured him that such was untrue, and although for many years, the old man had in his heart doubted it, his mind chose to believe the small, former monk over any other sign-- of aging, of weakness, of the slow but coming, ever coming being called Death.
Roshi smiled, making the wrinkles in his lined face appear even more harshly drawn.
"He's good. Movies they show these days-- they aren't really as scary as his stories, just gory, kind of make you cringe. But Poe wrote the horror first. Everyone after who wrote it took off of him."
He was being more talkative than usual, whether to ease the cordial quiet of his former pupil or merely in a nostalgic mood, Kuririn didn't know. Idly he marvelled at this small store of knowledge and wondered where Roshi had picked it up, if he were not lying rather well.
"What story?"
Kuririn turned the book toward him.
"It's a poem, actually; one of his most famous: 'The Raven.''Quoth the raven, nevermore--' that one." He watched as the old man leaned over the words, waiting for his next question. It came almost immediately.
"Lenore?"
"That was the narrator's dead wife. I've read it before--"
To Master Roshi's aging eye it appeared that Kuririn was starting to make a habit out of rereading books. Roshi himself was rather infamously prone to reread rather racy magazines-- or rather, restare at the hardly-clad models inside the racy magazines-- but the classics that Kuririn kept reading again and again were about as devoid of that sort of thing as silent films are devoid of sound. Next thing I know he'll go back to being a monk, Roshi thought wryly after a moment, then, surprised at that, decided to continue to look over Kuririn's shoulder at the book until Kuririn objected to it or Kuririn shut the book, neither of which he would probably do.
A passage gaped at him on the page by virtue of the sheer unfamiliarity of the words. He turned them over in his mind before speaking them aloud.
"'Respite, respite, and nepenthe, quaff, o quaff this kind nepenthe--' what's he talking about?"
Kuririn glanced at him before replying.
"Respite's relief. I'm not sure about the rest, but I think I remember something in the Greek myths--"
Condemn the Greek myths, the moment he had thought of them his mind had gone back to her, to the pale figure in the coffeeshop standing near him, blonde hair like cornsilk slightly blown by the air conditioner in the building-- a forbidden jewel that is nonetheless desired, wanted badly. It had not been infatuation that had turned his eyes toward hers that morning nor any of the other days he had seen her go by from the day of activation on, of that he was perfectly certain. She had cursed him. There would be no happy ending here, not with the imitation of life he loved so dearly, for that was for the Greek myths, for dear old Pygmalion the sculptor and his beautiful statue of marble blessed by Aphrodite to receive breath.
'But my statue breathes. It breathes but does no more, speaks without meaning because there is no meaning to a life without purpose, to an eternity to look forward to with no change and no concept of what change is. She doesn't realize-- know--'
"--that the word 'nepenthe' was some sort of drug to induce forgetfulness of sorrow. I don't know about 'quaff;' here, Master Roshi, I'll look it up--"
"You don't have to bother doing that, son; I was only--"
"No, it's fine, really." He took a few short steps toward the bookshelf, selected Webster's Dictionary. Turning, he flipped to the back of the large volume, sooty eyes scanning each page until he found the word he was looking for.
"Here it is. Quaff-- drink."
"Heh. I don't remember Poe's stuff being that wordy."
Kuririn shrugged limply, wondering which of Poe's works his master had read, for they all were wordy.
"I don't know. A lot of his stuff to me was worse."
"You mean it?"
He nodded.
The old man immediately handed the collection of Poe back to Kuririn. "I'll settle for Playboy."
The last few hours of the day went by like a middle-aged woman's struggles with aerobic excercises prolonged by at least a full hour. It seemed like the clock had broken sometime between five in the afternoon and six to Kuririn, Kuririn who was gloomily, idly watching the sun go down again as he ate dinner with less enthusiasm than ever. Neither the turtle nor the aging relic could cheer him and only Roshi could guess at why. For all of his strikingly bad character flaws, at heart the martial arts master had good intentions.
He had thought that Kuririn was in the midst of losing whatever sadness was there when he had found him reading, had talked to him. But then something had shut itself closed sometime during the conversation, something untouchable but necessary, something that had drained the energy from the words-- from Kuririn himself-- and made them half-hearted.
'Maybe it was drained from the start, and you didn't realize it,' Roshi thought, mentally calling himself "old man," as he picked up a few of the dishes and told Kuririn to go on ahead and not worry about helping him. 'You don't notice things like you used to.' All very true, but then he had not been a young man even when he truly was Kuririn's master and teacher, and he knew the small fighter's mood changes like a meteorologist knows the weather, or knew them as well as he could without delving inside. At least, so he had thought for a long time. Yet now here was Kuririn, gloomy, down, and Roshi could see no reason for any of it.
The old man's rhuemy eyes scanned his former pupil's face, the slightly tanned skin acquired from years spent on a tropical island, coal-colored eyes and eyebrows (he had never known Kuririn to let his razor rust, for habits died hard, but he guessed that his hair was the same color), both downcast. Roshi saw all this and hastily decided to take the proverbial bull by the horns.
"Kuririn. Tell me, what's the matter?"
He looked up.
"Nothing, really," he said, ruefully.
"You haven't said a word all afternoon, not since you were reading that book." Half a bit of inspiration hit him, but he closed his mouth before he could say it, for more than likely it was incorrect-- very incorrect. His former pupil had been hard hit by love, what with Maron a year or so ago.
Maron. She had been a nice enough girl, and certainly looked the part of the models that graced the covers of the old man's magazines-- blue-haired and eyed, endowed, 'a practical Bulma clone,' Oolong had irritatedly said once, 'without the brain.' Mr. Briefs must've tinkered with cloning before capsules held his interest, he guessed, only half-jokingly, and as Maron was the result he pursued this interest no further.
But Maron had originally meant well, albeit everything else, and Kuririn, with absolutely no firsthand experience with women, had trusted in that. Vapid though she was, Kuririn was serious about her-- had been about to propose, before she had run off on him with someone else, some old boyfriend, distinctly better-looking than Kuririn had ever hoped to be but with none of the heart, more than likely, Roshi thought bitterly, annoyed, and that had destroyed all of Kuririn's hopes.
He ought to have known that his feelings for her were not returned by many means, if ever. For her beauty, her overall cheery manner-- there was almost absolutely nothing underneath, and Kuririn had not seen that. More than a decade later, Roshi would think of Maron again-- a smarter Maron, less inclined to niceties-- when he met Bulma's second child at the last tournament Roshi ever attended, and he would again wonder at the Briefs-- jokingly, of course, but with a hint of more than humor in his thoughts. If life had been a sixties "Twilight Zone" special, the Briefs would be the mastermind, individuality-less cloners. 'Number twelve looks just like you, Maron,' he had thought, but Kuririn would not have gotten the joke, and nor would have anyone else.
When she had outright rejected him some months ago it had hurt the former monk more than even his master had realized. Roshi had attempted comfort (Oolong had been less help), as had most everyone else that knew anything about it. Before unhappiness could completely take him over, though, there had been the cyborgs to worry about, and then Cell--
And poor Kuririn had become attached to one of them, the blonde Juuhachigou. He had seen something beyond the icy exterior and the cool shoves back, the cruel logic that dominated nearly every action. No reasoning of anyone around him could convince him otherwise; he was sure there was something beyond, beneath--
As he must have been certain the one kiss she administered like a bittersweet medicine meant more than a means to terrify.
'No. He may have thought that at first but he can't anymore. Juuhachigou brushed him back for good at the Lookout, and he's taken it for what it is. He must have-- he should have. This gloominess's coming from someplace else.'
It was not.