(35) Mine

Da sat underneath the large tree, her skirt nicely brushed so the wrinkles had disappeared. Her hair was pulled back into some twists and clips, her bangs framing her pretty oval face. Her dark eyes stared down the hill from underneath her lashes. Her was content, her rosy lips spread into a quiet, serene smile. At the foot of the hill was a young man, flipping his hair free of the water.

Everybody who ever saw him, always wanted to know him. They'd always weasel their way around him. And everybody who had ever known him was smiling. He was a star, a focal point for Wu. Everybody knew his name. And everybody watched him when he walked in. He was the topic of much discussion as of late, so many people trying to describe the young man.

She had heard people once call him handsome. He had rippling muscles all down his body. His hands large and strong, yet easily gentle and steady. His eyes, a simple brown really weren't simple. They glittered when he was happy, laughing with the rest of his body language, and became dark like a storm when he was angry. His skin was scarred, dark, and rough against the touch. He was a man of work. He was happy when he had something to do, and it showed in all of his body. His smile lighted the whole room, his laugh echoing throughout the halls.

Others called him full of charisma. He was always kind, to whomever he was talking to. He was always happy to be the butt of a joke, and was quite alright with laughing at himself. He loved to play games, riding the horses and chasing the children around the estate. He was able to talk politics, and still be respectful if he chose to. He was somebody who found something to be happy about, and it showed in those around him.

A few of the men called him brave. He was already leading his father's army. He backed down from no fight or duel. He did not cower from Cao Cao or Yuan Shao. He was willing to voice his opinions with who ever was in the room. He had big plans, and would discuss them with whoever would ask about them. He had not once shaken at the thought of fighting the magicians of the Yellow Turbans. He was full of challenges, and full of ambition.

Some of those same men had called him arrogant. He flexed his muscles around the training courts. He boasted his skill, and was happy to fight who ever stepped forward. He'd laugh when it was done, he standing victorious on most occasions. He'd punch the air, and never speak about loosing. It was always winning with him. His best friend beside him, he'd speak of those magnificent plans of his. Failure never the topic. He was boastful, and he was full of pride.

Some of the others have called him stubborn. He was bull headed, and never backed away from a goal or challenge. He worked himself ragged; would continue to punch the air on the training court until he would fall over. In arguments, he would not back down until proven wrong in all sense of the words. He took strong steps in the direction he wanted. He was not to be shaken by wind or earth. He roared with the tigers, and fought tooth and nail until he could not.

She watched with appreciation as he pulled himself out of the water, muscles shining with the droplets of water under the summer sky. He didn't put a shirt on, instead flipped his hair once again and strode up to her with a cocksure grin. She giggled behind a hand at the sight, mostly because it was breathtaking otherwise. He stood over her, and shook himself. She squealed and tried to get away, yelling at him to stop. He laughed then, falling down next to her. Then he sighed, until she lightly slapped his arm with a smile. He grinned back at her.

Looking at him, she knew there was no way to explain him. He simply was. His greatest achievement would be to exist in the imperfect perfection that he was. But more than that, more than being arrogant or handsome, he was something so much more. He was hers. That was all that mattered. That he was hers and she was his.

(36) Steal

Everybody stuck their heads out of their cubicle to see her stomp down to the elevator, face tinted red. Even in her heels and skirt, with her short stature, she looked fearsome as she waited for the elevator. She only looked back to give each of them a menacing glare before the ding of the elevator doors. Everybody ducked back in, whispers filling the hall.

She ignored the young man in the elevator, who leaned against the opposite wall staring at her. Ling Tong was working for the summer, until school started up again. And for once, he was smart enough to remain quiet. She was fairly sure it wasn't entirely her own glare. She wasn't all terrible looking. She knew it. But he was wary, no doubt. It opened and he dashed out with some mumbles that she chose not to hear. Again, the little box started up, towards his office. The door dinged open again, and she stomped towards the fated door.

The secretary glanced up at her, before shaking her head with a sigh and nodded. She gave her a slight glance before slamming opens the door. "You," she hissed.

"You know, you're supposed to knock. I know it's hard to go without seeing me, and the withdrawal can be hard to cope with, but you gotta follow some rules, Ms. Qiao." He was leaning back, his feet up on the desk with some papers in hand. She shut the door and then stomped forward to lean on the desk, glaring at him over his polished shoes.

He set the papers down, and she started the ritual. "Give it back."

"Excuse me?"

"You petty little thief. Give me back my glitter ball."

"You're what?" He faked an innocent smile. It might have worked, if she hadn't known his little sister.

She smacked his shoes, and he dutifully dropped them down to the floor. "I know you took it. You need to stop and buy your own. And leave mine alone. Now give it back."

"No need to be so harsh, Ms. Qiao," he drew out her name, the wolfish smile growing over his handsome face. "I'd stop if you would."

"Would what?"

"Go to lunch with me," he said, changing the topic, his tone as well. She gave him a quizzical look.

"Excuse me?"

"Go to lunch with me," he repeated.

"Lunch for my glitter ball?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I'll pay."

"Okay," she said slowly, falling back onto her heels, feeling a little lost. His smile grew. "My ball." He nodded and reached into his drawer, tossing it to her when he straightened. She got it with a squeal, staring at the glitter twirling in the ball.

"Today?" he asked. She looked back up, eyes wide.

"Ah, sure I suppose." She could always use what she brought for tomorrow. He smiled again, and she blushed. She then meekly left his office, bowing a good bye and shutting the door quietly. He propped his feet back up on his desk, and leaned back in his chair. Things would have been easier if she hadn't of stolen his heart, but he was willing to get her back. An eye for an eye, they said.

(57) Dance

Da wasn't competitive, and so most of the sports just didn't sit well with her. She was never going to become anything in those. Other girls excelled in those. Xiao had some talent in softball, but both girls were to excel in other fields. Gymnastics, to Da was fun, but much more something to relax by. Yoga was something she later found, in college that she loved, but Da was never going to make it into the Olympics through gymnastics. She didn't have the heart for it. Both girls like to paint, to mold with clay, to draw, but other boys and girls excelled at those. Far better than either of them. Their mother stopped pushing that, seeing it as a lost cause. The girls lost their tutors in those, and only took it up in their idle time after that.

Xiao found her calling, as her mother called it, in music. She played all the instruments she could. She learned the violin, the fiddle-she insisted that they were different, was excellent on the piano as well the guitar. She was trying to find a way to buy the flute when she was almost through high school, as well as to try and haggle from their grandfather his old cello. She was always in the choir, but could never bring herself to join the confinement that was the band at school. There songs, she said, were nothing of what she wanted from herself. Her mother didn't push it too hard, seeing the miniscule band in both schools as anything but an opportunity for her youngest daughter.

Da, like her sister, took up a form of art. She was a master at dance. Her mother put her through all the classed. Ballet, classical, the newer street dances, belly dancing-Da went through all of it. Her red shoes, her dancing shoes were always red by her insistence, were kept up in a box in her closet. When she would need a new pair, be it that she out grew the old pair or they were too worn out, she would nicely fold them in a cloth and put them up and away. She treated each pair, the only actual memento she had of the classes beside her memory, as her treasures. She took up dance classes in high school, but gained more by the classes she took up outside of school.

The classics were her favorite. The flamingo, fox trot, tango. Each one held a place in her heart. But she rarely showed such favoritism. She danced anything she could, and was always willing to learn something new. Her inherit grace, something she had even when she was a little person, allowed her to shine in the classes. A natural, all her teachers said. And absolute joy, they said. Her mother was always pleased. Da strived to be an obedient daughter. She was mild, even when she didn't like the class or the teacher. It wasn't her place to argue, so instead she learned. She learned all the dances.

But so caught up in these classes, in school, and in success, she missed something. She became unaware of a lot of things, so lost in her goals and lessons. She missed one dance with a lot of boys. But she wasn't one to notice. She didn't notice when she started to fill out, except that she had to find sturdier under-armor. She didn't care that she was called pretty by classmates. She didn't ever stop to see that, to listen to what others said.

And so, when he showed up at one of her night classes, a year through college herself, she was a little shocked at him. He was handsome, with dark hair and tawny skin. A strong jaw, and brown eyes, with a barrel chest and rippling muscles. He wasn't somebody who was accustomed to dance, she had thought. He was going to be clumsy. He wasn't though. Which was actually what made her start to pay attention to him. He was graceful. Not like some of the other men in the room. He was too big for a lot. But he could dance. He was able to accomplish the foot work.

He was only in there, he said one day, because he had to dance at a wedding. A best man. It wasn't an unusual story. He had laughed at that, but agreed full heartedly. Da and he danced a few times. She was almost too small compared to him for it to work out fully. But it did. The two danced together, and the teacher was always pleased with the outcome. Da would leave those nights happy and giddy as she drove back to her apartment. She never guessed that on those nights, he was having different thoughts.

His thoughts went to a different dance. One of darker nights, surrounded by velvet. He planned, each time he saw her, every Tuesday and Friday, to teach her a different dance. Once she didn't yet know. But he was willing to teach. He was even happy to teach her that dance.

(37) King

She stood in the open field, the white flowers that filled it bowing gently to the wind. Her hair fell loose around her, the dark strands curling lightly at the tips. Her bangs formed to her pretty, doll like face. Her eyes like the night sky were closed, a smile on her rosy lips. Spreading out her arms, she craned her head back to take in the Holy Lands.

She always felt calmest here, in the middle of all six statues of the Goddess. Her people had carved each one, in honor of Her. Each one was situated at one of the points of a Will Circle, adding more protection to the Holy Land. At the highest point was the Mother. To her left the Child, and then the Lover. To the Mother's right was the Avenger, Luck, Trickster, and then opposite of the Mother was the Demon. In the spot she stood in, arms stretched out, was said to be the exact spot that She had emerged in their world, and where she had thusly split into the Six. The Will from such an event was what created the white flowers that glittered and glowed. It was what made the area so beautiful, and what made the Forest so sentinel.

Then the wind circled around her, whipping her dress around and pulling at her hair. The Forest groaned and whistled. The tree tops shaking and the trunks moaning. Opening her eyes again, she looked westward. Everything had fallen silent. It was not like the Forest to react so… humanly. To be so telling. But she was simply a protector, and she was no in a place to deny Her forest, no matter how odd it was. She shot off from the ground, feet barely touching the earth floor. The Forest hurried her on, the ground seeming to push her along when she did touch bottom.

As she neared the Ring she could hear its shrill scream. The warning that somebody had crossed over onto their side. She came to a stop, and with a wave of Will, silenced the Ring. He lay sprawled out on their side of the Ring, but was human. She tentatively made her way to his side, kneeling down. He lay on his stomach, two arrows sticking out of his shoulder and thigh. She dared not say it, but the smoky feathers belonged to the Punishers demons. The armor, magnificent even under the scratches and dirt, made him look huge. She wasn't sure she could carry him with it. But she couldn't leave the armor for her kind to find. It would cause alarm. Unless they knew too.

The Forest moaned again, the wind pushing her. "Then I shall need your help," her musical voice said, barely above a whisper. "I do not have enough Will to teleport both myself and him." The wind gently pushed her again, and she nodded. She would ponder later how much the Forest was pushing her on. Why this human meant so much to the Forest. Hoisting him up, face red with the effort, she took Will from the Forest and teleported to wherever the Forest would put her. Teleportation was usually tricky, the Forest always deciding where exactly to put them. But at this time, she was counting on it.

His armor lay off in a corner of the cave they had been put in. She leaned against the cave wall, looking him over. She had used most of her own Will to fix his wounds. He had lost a lot of blood, and she couldn't wait for him to heal the natural ways. Most of his more gruesome ones now already looked like they had been healing for weeks. He lay in the bed of herbs and moss she had made for him, bandaged up and still unconscious.

Without his armor on, he didn't seem as big and intimidating anymore. He must barely be an adult for the humans, she had thought as she had bandaged him. Face still a little boyish, muscles and limbs lanky still. He hadn't yet grown into his body. Which again brought up the question why the Punisher's demons were after him, and why he got through the Ring. The Forest shouldn't have been so alive just for a human.

Pushing her hair out of her face, the strands wet with sweat. She didn't have the energy to hike back to the home. She'd have to call on her sister, she thought. She pulled herself to her feet, and used the wall to walk out of the cave. At the edge, she turned and waved her hand. The roots and rocks formed around the opening, stopping any animals or curses that tried to reach the boy inside. She then turned and opened her mind. Xiao, help me. I don't have enough Will left to make it home.

Da? What are you doing all the way out there? And without Will? Never mind. I'll get you home. Don't move, 'kay? Da smiled, closed her eyes, and waited. Unbeknownst to her, she had just saved the life of the new, young King of Wu.

Alright, look at this! A big update this time here. My favorite is King, then Mine. Let me know what you think.