I got another idea, and decided to add on to the first little tidbit with another stand-alone piece. Again, featuring Splinter and one of his sons in the spirit of Father's Day. I would be nice if two more pieces just popped out of my skull, but I'm not promising anything.
Raphael is headstrong and rebellious as a teenager, but is downright ornery as a child. He picks fights with his eldest brother over who will sit next to their Father at the dinner table; he refuses to share his apple slices and stomps on Donatello's foot when he reaches for a piece. He pushes Michelangelo into a foot-deep, rancid green puddle after the youngest turtle beats him in a race down the sewer pipe. Their master is always warning that his foul deeds will come back to haunt him, and that those that are unkind are often punished in the end.
Which is, surely, why he finds himself facing certain death in his bed tonight.
He doesn't know how it happened. He is sleeping as he normally does-on his stomach, one hand under the pillow and one hand under plastered under his chubby cheek-when an ominous shiver runs from the tip of his tail to his head. Suddenly anxious, he opens his bleary eyes. And there it sits
The biggest, most hairy black spider he has ever seen. Sitting on his pillow.
Inches from his face.
At first, he is paralyzed with fear, his short little limbs tensing in anguish. The creature is so close he imagines he can see his reflection in its six beady eyes, and see the slaver on its jaws. It doesn't move, but he doesn't dare make a sound. If he does, it will hear him, and attack.
He keeps his eyes on the thing as he frantically reviews his options. He can go back to sleep, and then it will eat him. He can call for help, and then it will eat him. Or he can shoot out of bed with every ounce of ninja skill in his six-year-old body, and run screaming for the door. It seems like his best choice.
Then, as if the spider senses its new friend is planning escape, it unfurls its hairy little body and slowly crawls. Right over his exposed arm.
He begins to shriek. In the rooms beyond, he can hear his brothers stirring at the sudden noise, but it is his father that is there the quickest, barely a split second after he's opened his mouth.
Splinter is haggard and ruffled from a night of sleep. His dark eyes assess the situation quickly. He scoops the hairy black intruder up in his dexterous paws and leaves the room. When he returns, the creature is gone, and he calms Raphael with soothing circles on his shell until the child ceases screaming.
"It is alright, my son. It is gone."
Once he is done gulping air and screaming, Raphael asks, "Did'ya kill it, Sensei?"
Splinter pauses. "No."
Raphael feels his limbs tense again reflexively. "Why not?" he howls, agitated. "Stupid bug!"
"Think, my son. It was an intruder, true. But a harmless one. It did not deserve death for wandering so careless into our home. I have placed it outside, far from us. Hopefully, it will not return."
Raphael thought of the spider's hairy legs, and razor sharp pincers, and shuddered. "You shoulda killed it."
Splinter fixes his second youngest son with an even gaze, firm but warm.
"I could have. It could not have defended itself. But slaughter without cause holds no honor, my son. It is not the way of the ninja. Remember this."
The next time Raphael has a close encounter of the eight-legged kind, he is eleven. It crawls out from under their rickety table as they are all eating breakfast together. Raphael considers the spider, and remembers the words of his Sensei so long ago. He feels Splinter's eyes on him.
He squishes the devil with Donatello's milk cup.
Leo grimaces. Donatello complains that his glass now has spider guts all over it. Michelangelo makes a gagging sound. Splinter puts his head in his paw.
Some lessons do not stick as well as others.
Fin.