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4. Stymie
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So that's it then. Kimiko is happy at the news – scratch that, she's ecstatic – but in amongst all the happiness can't help but feel a little … let down. Like a popped balloon. There should've been more drama, she thinks. The Shade should've at least merited a few fireworks, considering how it devastated her world.
But no. Master Fung listened to her story and nodded in all the right places. She didn't leave anything out – not the sudden, inexplicable appearance of the shadow-creature, not how it plagued them for months, not how the Shen Gong Wu were less than useless against it and eventually stopped working altogether, not even how they rallied themselves for one last battle at the temple. Her voice caught in a few places – especially when she described how Master Monk Guan and Raimundo fell, and how Master Dashi's spirit returned to earth and took over Raimundo's body at the very moment the Shade ate his soul, thereby stopping it from dying, even if it sounded a little like zombies and voodoo to her.
The room around her was reassuring in its solidness. The temple around her is shadowed, sturdy, defensible, and utterly familiar – despite the fact she hasn't been in it over a month. She tells Master Fung about how Grand Master Dashi's plan to neutralise the Shade only wounded it – which was better than they'd ever done before, but which involved sacrificing the temple and most of the surrounding area to achieve.
And Omi. She paused before admitting that the final-battle-that-wasn't has also sacrificed Omi. Tears were already in her eyes by then, but they spilled down her face like they'd never stop as she recounted the madcap sprint into the mountains, Clay and Jack carrying Dashi between them while she, Dojo, her Master Fung and the temple monks who'd survived followed. By the time she got to the part where her Master Fung succumbed to his injuries, how Dojo was such a mess afterwards that he kept wandering away from camp, and how the recovered Shade found him on one of his wanderings before searing a path through the temple monks – by the time she got to all that, her chest was convulsing and her throat tightened intermittently like she wanted to retch. It was nearly too much, to remember it all – to relive every harrowing detail as they sprang into her mind. The Dashi's inflection in Raimundo's voice. Omi's scary determination to defeat the Shade. Dojo's scream. Jack's terrified eyes as the Shade lifted him into the air. The feel of Master Fung's hand going limp in her own –
That's when this world's Master Fung reached out and took her hand. He can do that, she remembers of her own Master Fung, who is so much like this version it's bizarre, compared to the glaring differences between everyone else. He can take people's hands, stroke their shoulders, put his arm about their waists, all without any meaning other than basic comfort. He can touch with ease. She's never been able to do that. If she tries, her movements become clumsy. She's much more at home with punching and kicking. She embarrasses people when she tries to be softer. Yet Master Fung's touch was light and gentle and lovely. He made her feel wanted, important to him – a part of his world.
"I will have to consult my scrolls, but I think I may of the creature you call 'the Shade'," he said. And after a few more palliatives, he did just that, leaving her with a Dojo who is still vibrant and friendly, even if it does seem a little (actually, a lot) forced after her story.
Dojo came into the room just as she was starting, and when he looked at her she knew that he already knew bits of it. Clay never could keep his mouth shut in company. Yet she'd felt him freeze up as she went into detail, until eventually, when she got to the death of his doppelganger, he was staring open-mouthed. Master Fung actually clicked it shut when he went out.
She shakes her head and steps into the bath Dojo has drawn for her. It's all full of bubbles that go up her nose, and oils that make her smell like one of those perfume counters with the women who chase after you with spritzers. Dojo makes sure she's well lathered before producing a loofah and a sponge.
"I do this for Master Fung," he says sheepishly. "But if you'd rather I left you to it … you being a girl and all…"
"No, it's okay," she says with sincerity. It feels good to be pampered. It doesn't make up for anything she's been through, but … it feels good. This whole dimension feels good. It's like she never knew what contentment was before, but now she does, and she wonders whether any of the Dragons here even realise how lucky they are.
Dojo is gentle but thorough, and when the water in the tub has turned tepid he hands her a towel and beats a hasty retreat while she stands up, yanks the plug and dries herself. When she wanders into Master Fung's main room, hair wrapped in another lovely towel, she finds the black Capri pants and halter neck top she picked out before, neatly laid out on the back of a chair. There's a pair of soft black sandals with them, too. Of the other Kimiko, however, there is no sign.
Dojo materialises, making her jump backwards with her hands raised to fight. She flushes when she realises it's him, and she can see him faltering before he plasters on a big grin and holds up a hairbrush.
"That's never Master Fung's," she says, dryly, and with more humour than she feels. Despite the bath, she feels drained and exhausted, and above anything – even finding out how they fell into this freaky universe in the first place – all she really wants to do is sleep.
"He wishes," Dojo replies. "I have some salve for your injuries. The Infirmary monks had some spare, and they say it'll heal you up in no time."
"Thanks." Kimiko takes the little cloth pouch and dips her fingers into foul-smelling white paste, which she then rubs over her shoulder. The halter-neck may not have been the best choice, under the circumstances, but the salve is cool and does indeed make her feel better, though the smell negates the fragrant oils Dojo put in her bathwater. Now she smells like a perfume counter staffed by Swamp Thing.
Dojo holds up the hairbrush again. "You want me to brush, or is that a personal thing? Our Kimiko gets really possessive about her hair."
"I'm okay with you doing it. Just let me dress first, okay? Though the way I feel, pyjamas might be a better choice."
"I think Master Fung wants another meeting with everyone before bedtime. Understandable, really. The Dragons, they, ah … they'll wanna know your … story."
"Those who don't know it already, huh? I'll bet Clay already let most of it slip. He's like that. Can't keep anything to himself unless you staple his mouth shut. Though I guess you already know that."
So it is that, when Master Fung comes back, he finds Kimiko dressed and sitting in the chair, Dojo perched on her shoulder and brushing her hair with long, rhythmic strokes. She allows herself to be hypnotised by these strokes as Master Fung kneels and tells her that the creature that wrecked her life, and the lives of everyone she cared about, was no more than a footnote in the history of this world – neutralised centuries ago by a different generation of warriors, one of whom was a seer as well as a Xiaolin Dragon, before it gained enough strength to be truly dangerous.
So that's it, then, is all she can think. That's it. Poof. All gone. It doesn't trivialise her own struggles, except that it totally does. What happened to the seer Dragon in her world? Why weren't her friends spared? Nobody can answer the questions, but that doesn't stop them popping into her head.
She'll never even know what the Shade even was. All the seer Dragon could say was that it was dangerous, this innocuous, oozy little black thing she saw with her Inner Eye, and that it had to be stopped without delay or there would be disastrous consequences.
No kidding,thinks Kimiko.
No bigger than a clenched fist, innocuous as a rabbit kitten, squealed as it was destroyed, tried to trickle away through the crack in a boulder until the Dragon of Earth forced it out again. The Xiaolin Dragons of the time actually felt bad about destroying it, but their seer insisted it must be done – that's what the scrolls Master Fung has with him say. He offers to let her read them, but she declines. She doesn't need to see it written down.
Perhaps in her world, those Xiaolin Dragons gave in to temptation and let the weak little black ooze go free. Perhaps it did escape through the boulder there. Perhaps the seer died before she could See the infant Shade at all. It's possible. Like Slayers, Dragons do die, and there are always new ones in every generation to rise up and replace them – even if they aren't always found and brought to the Xiaolin Temple for training. She once heard Dojo – her Dojo – say that in the eighteenth century there was a Dragon of Water who was also a shapeshifter, and before her came an empathic Dragon of Air. Her predecessors are a rich topic, but she never heard of a seer before.
Her breathing has quickened. Master Fung touches the tangled clasp of her hands, meeting her gaze with his own blue eyes, and it's as if he's searching hers – searching them out, as if to invite both of them back from the brink of something.
Kimiko can't help it. She's been very strong for a very long time. And she's already cried a lot today.
But he's so solid, so real, and so Master Fung that she can't help but weep afresh and let him wrap her in a wrinkly hug, while Dojo just keeps on rhythmically brushing her hair.
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