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Pan lingered on the hill side. She braced herself against the cold wind— as empty as the grassy plains of blood clot roses. Pan looked up at the black holes carved into the mountain side. They were like beady black eyes weeping smog into the air. Pan forgot for a moment what she was looking at, that it wasn't alive. It bothered her primal senses, making the air rush from her lungs in short husky breaths. It wasn't the smoke or even the darkness. There were no eye brows, or lashes to bat at her, nothing to indicate empathy or the ability to feel remorse. Mr. lee's brown vest was like a blotchy tongue inside of the mountain's toothless mouth.
"Coming peddler Pan?"
The grass squished beneath Pan's shuffling wet feet.
"Come now, won't be long," Mr. Lee's cold white fingers scratched the air.
'Come with me', they beckoned.
Pan questioned if it was dirt beneath Mr. Lee's fingernails, or it it was something a little bit darker, a little bit thicker—blood. Turning away would be easy for Pan, but Mr. Piccolo made it hard— too hard. Pan stiffened her spine and marched to Mr. lee's door. She stepped over the cool stone arch of the doorway. She tilted her chin and her eyes rested. She relished the accomplishment with her hands on her hips, until the heavy wood door slammed behind her. Pan's black eyes popped open. It was as real as the cool air sucking on her skin as it escaped through the closing door. Darkness crept over the clay walls. An orange glow gnawed at Mr. Lee's cheeks. A flame blazed on the other end of the room. Pan's cold finger tips ached in the imposing heat. Mr. Lee left Pan standing at the door. He rummaged across long wooden benches, stretching the length of the narrow room.
"So , um what are we doing?," Pan gulped.
Tarnished metal buckets littered the floor like socks in her bedroom. Pan teetered over one. She blinked at her reflection in the pool of black sludge. Tools gleamed beneath the fire's licking flames. The confusing blades sneered at Pan. She had seen grandpa Goku's farming sickles and the blades for his plow, but these weren't staples of everyday life in the country side. They were dreadful although the blades looked dull. At seven years old, Pan knew sharp things Made a clean cut. Mr. Lee's tools had to rip and tear; Pain was their only purpose.
Pan shuffled to the middle of the floor, away from the glinted walls and the oozing buckets of slop. No territory was truly safe. She reasoned that she didn't have enough eyes to watch the tools, the fire, or the creaky wooden sawhorses. She had two, enough for Mr. Lee's back; Pan crept to Mr. Lee's heels.
"I could hide a steak from a blood hound!," Mr. Lee huffed and stared into the flames.
"What'er you lookin' for," Pan stammered.
"My hedge guards," Lee said as he jostled the smoldering ashes.
He pulled the iron poker from the furnace when the flames rebelled against its clay prison. The fire's red hands grabbed at their captor, but Mr. Lee side stepped them.
"Too much rage, huh?"
"I guess," Pan whispered.
Pan shivered. His snowy slate eyes were like hot marbles, glowing in the dark. Steam coiled from the white-hot metal tip of the molten poker. The red metal dripped onto his bare toes. His head slowly drifted over the shoulder of his leather vest.
"Mr. Lee," Pan gulped, "Ain't that hot?"
"No," his coarse reply snuffed out her voice.
The air grew sour on Pan's tongue, like acid crossed Mr. lee's lips. He popped the shaft of the fire probe back into its stand.
"Look around, find them for me?"
"Uh, huh," Pan nodded vigorously, as if she needed to convince herself too, "Rage?"
"Why yes, peddler Pan," Mr. Lee said to her back.
Pan scanned the tables, not sure what she was looking for, but her tongue tied itself in a knot. Her mouth begged to clarify, but her heart begged for silence. Pan's eyes raised to the shifting shadow on the opposing wall, tracing the outline of Mr. lee's nose.
'His back's to me', she thought.
Pan took her chance, and glanced at the door over her shoulder.
"You live here, Mr. Lee?," she blurted with her eyes peeled on his back.
She tip-toed as he sorted through wooden and steel pots of clanking metal.
"No. My workshop," he answered.
Pan used the wall to creep toward the door, despite her weak knees. She froze.
"The mixture isn't right. Not right!," he allowed his tongue to flail inside his mouth.
"Yeah," Pan said to cover the sound of her own steps.
"Very important you see. Not right, not right, not right!," he rambled.
Pan's steps grew louder as the benches rocked on their legs and metal thrashed against the wall from Lee's shaking fists. Pan's pupils dialated. She was within arm's reach of the door.
"Keep looking!," Lee spat.
Pan jumped in her skin at the sound of his voice. She reached for the brass knob. Something crawled across her cheek, tickling her skin with its pestering little legs. Pan swatted her open palm against her face. Lee's pilfering stopped.
The sound of her smacking skin traveled down the walls. Pan grimaced. Green stringy streaks of bug guts fell on her lips. The tiny crumpled winds of the fly spasmed in her palm. Pan wiped her sweaty hands on her dress and investigated the buzzing cloud of black flies. Pan's eyes lingered on the bucket of black slop on the floor. Her forehead wrinkled over her knitting eyebrows. The odor burned her nostrils. Burgundy filled her eyes. She felt lost in the mind numbing hum of the flies wings. Red lined the scratchy wooden trough inside and out. Black roses stewed in their own life blood, numbering in the hundreds. Their petals were swollen with their own angry tears, mourners for their own death. They stared at Pan like bloated black eyeballs wreaking of cold, wormy death.
The dull blades of a pair of garden snips poked through the sticky red porridge.
"Ah," Mr. Lee gasped, "You found them."
He dipped his hand over her shoulder. He sunk his hand wrist deep into the gelatinous crust. Syrupy blood dripped from the shears' handles and his fingers. Pan didn't know foamy bubbles could be so vile.
"You found them! You'll make it right!," he gasped with a madman's canter.
"Make…Make what right?," Pan quivered.
"My mixture, silly," he giggled through his yellow teeth, "It's not right."
Those words exasperated Pan.
"I know!," She screamed with spit flying from the roof of her mouth.
"The smoke—it isn't sad enough. Not lonely enough," he growled through his clenched jaws, and his droopy grey jowels shook on his face.
He gripped the shears so tightly, it squeezed the life-blood from his own fingers, rendering them dusky blue, like his eyes.
A scream gurgled Pan's throat. She tunneled through the air. Pan busted through the wooden door, head first. Her head throbbed and blood battered her ear drums. Despite the noise, Pan understood the screaming.
"Come back! Come back! I wouldn't cut you. Just your hair—your hair!"
Pan ripped up the hillside, tearing clots of dirt and grass from her heels. Pan's forehead thumped into it first. It was tree solid and sent her spine to the ground. Cold hands snatched her. Pan wriggled like a worm. She felt lee's cold, dead nails digging into her arms. The air became a whirl wind of her tangled black hair and her fists.
"Pan!," he yelled.
The struggle stopped.
"It's me, Pan-chan," Goku said as he looked into her black eyes. He swiped away the tear stains on her cheeks with his big hand. Pan wrapped her arms around his neck.
"It's me, Panny," he whispered in her ear.
"He'll get me!," Pan deafened Goku.
Tears soaked the back of Goku's gi.
A grey figure strolled up the hill. Goku squeezed Pan to his chest. Mr. Lee's eyes made Goku's brows fall. They glowed in the fog although the color was dusty and thin. They betrayed Lee, buzzing like wasps in his skull, voracious and eager to sting.
"Who are you?"
Goku's tone made Pan clench her eyes shut.
"Why, I go by many names. To you, I'm Rai—"
"He's lying Grandpa!," Pan burst.
"Pan, hush," Goku said.
His unusually stern words made Pan's mouth dry. Her scoured heart sewed her lips together.
"Rai Gretsu," The grey man finished.
"You told me your name is Mr. Lee!"
"Be quiet Pan-chan," Goku tried to settle her.
"No grandpa! He told me he'd help Mr. Piccolo if I helped him…and, and I went. He chased me with scissors to cut me up into itty bitty—"
"I'm serious Pan, if you're telling— "
"If I may intrude," Gretsu began, " She speaks the truth."
"You did what?," Goku barked in disbelief.
"Only partially," Gretsu rattled, " Don't let your short-pants in a bunch," he smoothed his voice.
"I don't take kindly to some creep terrorizing little girls—"
"Creep? I think not!," Gretsu interrupted Goku, "I indeed asked peddler Pan to accompany me to my workshop, but I only want a snip of her hair."
"Look buddy, do you hear yourself ? Yet, you're the one who is offended, sheesh," Goku huffed.
"Ask her yourself. Did I hurt you peddler Pan?," Gretsu said.
"Uh, technicality—no," Pan answered.
"Then good," Goku raised his voice, "Then by technicality I won't have to throw you off this hill Gretsu."
"Child, tell him!"
"We're leaving," Goku grunted.
Goku focused his energy to gather below his feet and closed his eyes.
"Good gracious grey! How'd you get here so fast!"
"Goku's eyes popped open at the familiar voice. Gretsu, Goku, and Pan turned their attention to the panting figure on the crest of the hill.
"You okay?," Goku said to the lends peddler.
"Do I sound like it? I couldn't find you in this misty fray."
"Oh, for Zeno's sake, not this story book, mother goose bunch!," Gretsu said burring his eyes in the palm of his hand.
"Grandpa, who's that?"
"I met him in the tower, Pan."
"Is he weird too?," Pan whispered.
"Be nice, Pan-chan. They just don't look like us, that's all."
"No, I mean on their insides—their hearts."
"I see you found Ramu," the lends peddler interrupted their conversation, "Told you he wouldn't be far."
"Take your rhyming rubbish back to the castle!," Gretsu said.
"Mr. Ramu, this doesn't have to be such a hassle," The peddler said.
"I've talked to Yema about your crap," Ramu said.
"He told me about that, Ramu. It's part of the plan, to separate you and me. You cannot be forever freed from this castle or the land. You hold the balance in your grey hands."
"What do you want?," Ramu groaned.
"Do you see why I send you in my stead?," The peddler turned to Goku.
"If you say so," Goku said, " So you're Mr. Ramu, too then?"
"Correct," Gretsu added.
"Sure, what ever you say," Goku barely coughed up with a straight face, "There's too much fog, and the folks in the castle say you're the man for the job."
"No, no, not too much fog. Its consistency isn't right. It's too angry. Too hot. Peddler Pan crashed into my roses, like hell-fire from the sky. My precious roses take root in the sadness of men, are fertilized by your illnesses, and watered by man's tears. I can't just regrow them by shaking a stick at'em like your finicky, blasted pansy-poos on earth!"
"Do what?"
"I'm the blacksmith of Earth."
"You make swords and stuff?," Goku squeaked.
"No, ground peddler, I forge the darkness, the absence of color.
"I think I understand."
"You don't," Ramu said as his blue eyes pierced Goku's being, "Anyway, I wanted a snip of Pan's hair, for its color, for her sadness."
"No."
Goku's eyes settled on the muddy ground.
"Very well then," Ramu sighed and turned his back to them.
Ramu's chin dipped to his chest, and his lips fell heavy over his chin, "Goodbye grandpa ground peddler…and peddler Pan."
"Mr. Ramu."
Goku's voice stopped Ramu's bare feet.
"You can take my hair. Well, just some of it—not all."
"Kind regards to you, but it won't do."
"Mr. Ramu, you can have some of mine," Pan spoke up.
"You're certain?"
"Uh, huh, but not all of it. Like grandpa said."
"Alright," Ramu chuckled and pulled the grungy shears from his pocket.
"And," Pan said wagging her finger, "Grandpa has to hold me."
"You have a deal peddler Pan."
Goku frowned as Ramu edged closer. Not at the grey man himself, but at Pan's bravery. It mesmerized and terrified Goku at the same time.
Remu pinched a small strand of clustered hair between his chilly fingers.
"That tickles," Pan said as the roots lifted from her scalp.
The shears' blades tethered Pan's hair. The soft new ends fell over her nose. Mr. Ramu slipped the snipped strands into his vest pocket.
"Know what else tickles?"
"No," Pan replied.
"Close your eyes," Ramu said.
Pan squeezed her eyes tight. Rustling fabric made her fingers clutch the collar of Goku's shirt.
"Look Pan-chan," Goku said.
"Open your eyes peddler Pan," Ramu whispered.
Her eyes fluttered open. A soft rose bloom ticked her lips. A prism of color adorned the petals. They were like pieces of perfectly trimmed strained glass growing from a chrome stem. It's thorns were crisp on the yees with their holographic sheen.
"It's so pretty!"
"I didn't forget my promise."
"But—'
"Yemma's blacksmiths must be good on their word."
"Mr. Picco—"
"Take it to him," Ramu said as he closed Pan's small, warm hand over the stem, "And have your daddy bring it back to me."
"Daddy?"
"Exactly, your daddy. Then, the exchange will happen."