When she had finally regained enough of her senses to try and stand up, the blood was already causing her face to stick to the frozen, stone floor. She gingerly touched her lips and her fingers came back completely crimson.
Sub-Zero was giving her a look that was a curious mix of disgust and concern as she tipped her head forward and pinched the bridge of her nose despite the pain so the blood wouldn't run down her throat. "I'mb soddy, sifu," she said, after testing her teeth with her tongue to make sure they were all still there. "Sabenna wode be ud ah four dis moding."
Her eyes searched the plain floor of the practice hall for her mask, but the Grandmaster caught her gaze with a slightly guilty look and handed her a fist full of blue pieces. It was so completely destroyed that she only recognized it by what was left of the ornate embossing. "Werd you dying to kilb be?"
"I assumed you would have seen it coming from a mile away," he said, not quite meeting her eyes. "Or thought you would have done something besides stand there and let me sucker punch you in the face."
She hacked up a wad of blood and let go of her nose. "I wasn't all quite here yet, otherwise I would have ducked." The blood was still trickling over her top lip, but the last thing she wanted to do was seem weak now. What was left of her mask was tossed off to the side, wiped the blood onto her pants, and she settled back into a fighting stance.
Seconds later she was on her back and looking up into her sifu's "Did You Forget Everything I Taught You?" face. She took the offerred hand and slowly got back into position again. While it was true that she hadn't been practicing as diligently away from the Temple, she couldn't place all the blame on lack of studying. And it would be quite simple to distract her sifu just as badly.
"So, what Sareena woke me up this morning to tell me was a little clan history." She dodged a straight punch (not aimed at her face this time, she noted) and aimed a low falling kick at Sub-Zero's shins. "Why is your brother trying to kill you?"
A few moments later she was halfway laying against the far wall and gasping for breath. "If you put half as much effort into your fighting as you did into running your mouth off, you'd have no problem defeating me," Sub-Zero said. After a few seconds he came over to crouch next to her. "And, to answer your question, he's a demon now."
He towered over her even huddled down, almost completely engulfing her in shadow. She looked up at his broad form and briefly wondered if she should be taunting the man who was wiping the floor with her. Sareena had probably known that she couldn't resist the urge to throw his family history into his face. She ignored his jibe and concentrated on his answer. "So what's it like to have a demon in the family?"
"Not much different than having to deal with you everyday," he answered wryly. "I have to keep my eyes open for trouble, but I'm not overly worried about it."
"I'm not a security threat to you?" Somehow it was more insulting than a relief. Being under lock and key wasn't her goal, but being dismissed that easily stung. Of course with the way you're fighting this morning...
She got another long suffering sigh. "Despite the occasional lapse in judgment, you're not an idiot. It would be sincerely unwise to attack me in my own domain. I may be lenient with you, but very few others here will be."
The blood under her nose was beginning to flake and itch. "You call this lenient?" she asked, feeling her ribs to make sure they weren't broken.
"It's not my fault you are fighting like a novice," he said with a shrug before rising to his feet. "I assure you, if I wanted to punish you I could have come up with far more painful ways to do it. Now are you going to actually fight me or just be my punching bag?"
"Can I just lay here and make fun of you instead?" Her abdominal muscles protested as she fought to sit up; he must have caught her right in the gut."It will probably end the same way and we neither of us will have to waste any energy."
He crossed his arms and drummed his fingers on his bicep. "You're not giving up already, are you? I have other training to oversee if you're done for the day."
With a grunt, she managed to sit up straight. "I didn't think you dealt with daily training."
"I do when I have reason to. There's a intermediate who seems to have quite a bit of unharnessed power. With some advanced training, he'll turn out nicely. Unfortunately there's no one else to teach him to harness the kori powers except myself." He paused, then added, "If all you're going to do is collapse and hurl insults, I can work with him instead."
"You're replacing me," she said accusingly. A rush of indignation filled her. "I hauled myself across half a continent to get to this frozen hell-hole, and you're replacing me."
There was the sigh again. "Replacing you as the thorn in my side?"
The rush of anger ebbed just as quickly as it came. Replacing her as what exactly? Student? Apprentice? Grandmaster-in-Training? What had he intended for her. Sareena had said he was grooming her to take his title, but was he really? Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he hadn't intended her to ever have the Dragon Amulet. Maybe he knew she couldn't handle it. Maybe she was just a student.
He was still waiting expectantly for her to respond, but she couldn't seem to formulate an answer. "I don't know, what was I?" she finally asked, craning her neck to look all the way up to his face. "What am I supposed to be?"
"At the moment you appear to be a punching bag," he answered.
"That's not what I meant," she said with a sigh. She carefully felt the still bleeding gash on her face. The blood froze on the tips her fingers in seconds, turning them dark red in contrast with the rest of her pale skin. "Maybe it was a mistake to come back after all."
Sub-Zero was silent, still towering over her like a sentinel.
"Go take care of your new student," she sighed, waving him away with her blood-stained hands.
After a minute, he finally turned to go. Just as he reached the door, he looked over his shoulder at her and she saw the look again. It was the same one he had in the office. It was expectant and sad and put a sour taste in her mouth.
She knew what he wanted. She knew what he wanted in the office too.
Her hands were stained with her blood. His blood. Her friends' blood. It was more than too late to wash her hands of everything and pretend to lead a normal life..
"Sifu, wait!" It was quite painful, but she managed to get to her feet and start towards him "I'm ready now."
He raised an inquisitive eyebrow, but said nothing.
"I know it can't be like it was before, and I don't really blame you for not trusting me, but I'll make it up somehow. Obviously I shouldn't have tried to gank the amulet, but I am sorry about that, and not just because I froze my ass. I mean, Sareena explained why what I did was wrong on so many levels, and if I had known about the Tekunin and Smoke and your brother, I wouldn't have just hung around feeling sorry for myself. I didn't mean to send anyone into a panic, I was just a little embarrassed to come back here, because I'm sure there's been rumors and stuff going around. And now it looks like my kori powers are coming back and-"
He put a frozen hand on her shoulder. "You really do talk too much."
"I was trying to apologize," she protested.
"That only takes two words," he replied.
She managed to keep herself from rolling her eyes. "Okay, I'm sorry."
"I know." He squeezed her shoulder slightly. "I forgive you."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"I trudged my ass over four realms, four countries and I don't know how many miles of snow, and you're telling me I could have just called you on the phone or sent you a letter or something and been forgiven?" she asked indignantly.
He shook his head. "Of course not. It wouldn't have been sincere. And you certainly wouldn't have been humbled by the experience.
"So this whole mess was penance, then?"
"You could think of it that way." There was a slight curve of smile at the corner of his mouth. "I could have done without the part where I was nearly murdered though."
I could have done without a lot of it. "So am I absolved then?"
"Do I look like the pope?" He shrugged. "But at least now you have the chance to make up for it."
