A/N: So a couple thangs
1) I haven't decided yet if there will be a romance in this story, so don't pester me about it.
2) Since the masters have been gone ten years, that makes them in their late 30s-early 40s. This is just in case you need a reference.
3) I will update when and if I can, which may not be for a week, or I'll update three times in one day. It really depends.I'm a college student if that makes any difference
Ten Years Later
"Water." Yù moaned to herself.
Even in the shade of the trees, the heat seemed to stab into her like a knife in her back. She shifted her pack slightly on her back. It didn't help at all. Even her usually-lively tail drooped. She thought about stopping, but she knew that once she sat down she wouldn't get back up.
Her footsteps stumbled for a moment, and she tripped over her own two feet and landed on her knees. "Ugh, I'm such an idiot." She groaned. She just sat there for a moment on her knees with her eyes closed. She could hear the tittering of birds in the trees.
It was a tickle of wind that caught her attention; a cool breeze despite the heat. One of her ears perked up as she heard….rushing water? Her eyes flew open. She shouldered her bag and took off in the direction of the sound.
When she had finally reached the stream, she collapsed on the bank and began shoveling mouthfuls of water into her maw. Her soaked paws worked themselves over the back of her neck. She sighed in relief as the clear droplets rolled along the fur on her back. Once she felt much cooler, she grabbed a water pouch from her bag and filled it.
Once she put the pouch away, she sat here a moment and enjoyed the quiet.
Yù was almost reluctant to leave the spot, but she needed to keep moving, especially if she wanted to avoid patrols. She gathered up her things and starting following the little river.
"Maybe I can find a town." She thought. "There's gotta be one at the beginning of this river."
No sooner had she completed the thought that a distinctive howl could be heard in the distance.
"Wolves!" She took off in a random direction, her small size allowing her to move quickly through the trees. After a moment of running, she realized that the thicket had turned to bamboo.
"Where am I?" She asked herself, but she didn't dare stop. She pushed through the thicket until it became clear that she was running on a somewhat-clear path. Her head was so into running away that she didn't notice the subtle change from a dirt path to a stone one.
She slid to a stop and looked around, finally noticing the squatty houses and stone pathways. It was obvious the town was deserted. Her chest was heaving. Her instincts were screaming at her to hide. She jogged further and made the first right she came to, finding herself in a back alley. A left turn and she was at the back entrance of a small, one-story house. Age had worn the color, but she could tell it used to be red. She ducked in just as distant voices could be heard at the edge of town. She couldn't hear what they were saying.
She threw her pack into the old dresser in the bedroom, knowing it wouldn't do her any good to hide with the lumpy thing on. She looked around desperately, and finally noticed the bed in the corner. It was just high enough that she could squeeze under. She moved as far back into the corner as she could and pulled her knees up to her chest. The voices seemed to be getting closer.
"Anything boss?" Called one wolf to another. There was a reply, but it was too far away for her to her clearly.
"We should finishing checking these houses quickly and get moving. Boss wants us in Ho Ching by nightfall." Called a third. She could hear a fourth one pass by the window above the bed she was hiding under. Yù heard his footsteps linger for a moment and held her breath.
"Let's get moving. 'Must have headed the other direction." He said and walked off. Yù released a breath she didn't know she had been holding.
She waited for what felt like an hour after they left, feeling the sweat trickle down her back. It was only when she felt claustrophobic that she left from her hiding spot.
"I should get out of here." She said, talking to no one in particular. She grabbed the bag from the wardrobe and put it on.
She exited out the front of the house and made her way into what looked like the main square. It was so quiet that her footsteps felt like they were causing earthquakes. There in the center of town were two stone feet on a stone pedestal. The top half of the statue was missing, reduced to nothing but a trail of rubble on the other side. Whatever inscription at its base was gone. Only one word was distinguishable.
"Valley?" Yù frowned. "What Valley?" Did it mean the one she was standing in? She could see mountains rising up in the distance. One particularly short one caught her eye.
She moved away from the statue and continued further down the main road, glancing around her as she did so. Most of the buildings were destroyed, some around the outskirts of the village remained intact. Wooden stalls, the remains of an old marketplace, lined the path. Most of the houses had lost their color with age. Aside from a few patched of weeds, there were no plants or grass anywhere.
The path curved, and when she rounded the corner, Yù found what she had been looking for. Straight ahead was that small mountain.
Leading up to it was a ridiculously tall staircase. Just the thought of climbing it made her sweat. However, something in her gut was drawing her closer. In fact, she had climbed most of the stairs before she even began to get tired. When she made it to the top, the found that it was not nearly as hard as she thought it would be.
"What the hell happened here?" She asked to the quiet. What seemed to have been the entry gates were blown to smithereens. Massive chunks of wood littered what could only be the courtyard. The building on her left was nothing but a stone foundation. The roof of what looked like the main building had caved in on one side. The long, rectangular building on her right had a chunk missing, but was otherwise in decent shape. She decided to head to her right first.
Yù entered through a hole in the wall, into what she could only describe as a bedroom. Remarkably, the door leading to the hallway was still intact. She slid it open and stepped through carefully.
She didn't really want to go looking through all of them, mostly because she already felt as though she was walking through someone else's home.
"But what happened to them?" She said to no one. Yù made her way slowly down the hall, but even doing that didn't stop the obnoxious floor from squeaking.
Eventually she came to the only door that seemed to be open. Almost immediately, she stepped on something sharp.
"SHIT!" She grabbed her foot, but lost her balance and fell flat on her butt. Sitting on front of her was the offending object…a throwing star? She reached out tentatively and grabbed it off of the ground.
Something about it seemed familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
She used the wooden frame of the door to help her stand. Her foot didn't hurt too badly when she put pressure on it, but her rear end and tail throbbed. When she entered the room again, she made sure to watch for more sharp objects.
The room itself was cluttered. Not unclean, just unorganized. Some scrolls sat piled up on the small dresser in the corner. A couple more of those throwing stars sat next to them. On the small side table sat a pair of nun chucks that looked like they had never been touched. It was what was on the window sill that caught her attention.
Five action figures.
There was a tiger, a mantis, a monkey, a snake, and a crane. Something about them seemed familiar, but she couldn't remember where she had heard about them. She moved away from the window and over to the dresser where the scrolls sat.
She prodded one with her paw, and it rolled open. Drawn rather well was a figure of a tortoise, in a stance that looked all too familiar.
"Oh god." She was suddenly filled with dread.
She knew then. The figures, the throwing stars, the scrolls, the statue. She knew exactly where she was.
It seems she had stumbled on the Valley of Peace.
A/N: Oh I meant to warn you. If the formatting is weird, it's not my fault. My computer got funked up.
Boomie out.