Choshu Aya
Choshu Ishi had put it off as long as he could after his return from Madai. He had spent two days in bed past his body's need to recover; he had triple-checked the army's supply stock, though he knew there was food enough for winter and more; he had visited with Serrakeen and visited with him again. But, finally, there was nothing left for him to do, no further delays he could find. So he left to visit his sister.
He found her where he knew he would, in the Flame-bond Forge and hard at work. She did not stand before the great jade anvil, though, nor pumping the bellows to fire the great molten forge. She sat, rather, at a low stone table littered with thin jati slats and bits of silver. She held a lump of wax in her hand and a thin knife in the other, and she brought the two together with a precision that itself bordered on art.
Ishi stood in the doorway, watching. He didn't know how to approach his sister; he never had. But it was time for him to learn. "Hard at work?" he ventured.
|
Aya grunted. Ishi chose not to take her hint and stood waiting in the doorway. Finally, she said, "It's a present for Marta's wedding. She deserves at least one nice thing that day."
"I'm sure that Rivers Between Us -"
Aya shot him an angry glare. "And I'm sure she'll love to have another mechanical servant or a fungus that feeds on her leftovers from supper."
"The rest of his circle, then. Storm of Amber -"
"Storm of Amber will gift her a herd of horses, which she'll love more than she should and ride when she can but which will have no beauty she can call her own."
"Sapphire River at Midnight, then..."
"Dresses," Aya said, with enough venom that Ishi knew exactly what she thought of that idea. He sighed.
"What?"
"You have four months," Ishi said. "Before the wedding. You don't need that long to make a..." He scanned the raw materials on the table. "A what? Jewelry box? Necklace?"
Aya dropped her knife and started twisting the wax in her hands, clumping it together. "Both. The necklace set with rubies, the box with a complex lock. With matching bracelets, earrings and anklets, besides. And no, I don't need that much time. But they have to be better than anything I've done before. So I'll do them now and then make them over again until I get them perfect." By the time she was done speaking, she had so stretched and deformed her own fine shapes that the wax was nothing but a barely solid blob. She threw it to the table in disgust.
Ishi stepped into the workroom at last and over to his sister's table. He picked up the lump of wax and bounced it in his palm. "Have you ever met the girl?"
Aya pushed her chair back from the table and looked up at her brother, defiance in her eyes. "What do you want, Ishi?"
"It's a lot of effort for someone you've never met, that's all."
"What do you want?"
Ishi sighed. "I need a blade."
"No."
"A sword of jade," Ishi persisted. "I can't be any good to anyone if I can't use my most powerful techniques, and I can't do that without jade."
"You can't be good to anyone, anyway." Aya threw herself out of her chair and marched away, into the forge-room.
Ishi followed after. "That was a long time ago, Aya. How long do you plan to hate me?"
"When do you plan to give back what I lost?" Aya gestured before a panel and, instantly, the forge roared from a low-banked glow into a raging flame.
Ishi bit his lip and activated his anima power, hardening his skin enough to withstand the intense heat. He still had to shout for his sister to hear him. "I was a child, Aya! Did you expect me to win against an experienced bushi? He was steps away from mastering the Even Blade Style!"
"Excuses! You didn't care enough!" Tears welled in Aya's eyes, but when they spilled over they evaporated instantly in the heat.
"I did the best I could." Ishi put his hand on his sister's shoulder, but she flinched away.
"I've grown since then, Aya. I've mastered the Five-Dragon Form, I can invoke the Aura of Invulnerability, but it was all I could do to save a range town with only steel at my side. You think I'll fail again, but unless you give me a hero's tools you're making sure of it."
Aya took a step back and she was shadowed by the flames behind her. "Storm of Amber keeps a red jade daiklaive as a trophy in his Pagoda. Use that."
Ishi shook his head. "A failure's blade. Do I use it and embrace his fate, or do I claim something new? The finest craft of my sister's hand to show that, if you cannot forgive my past failures, if you cannot believe I won't disappoint you in the future, you at least don't want me to die."
Aya bit her lip, and the siblings faced each other for a long time. Finally, she said, "An earth serpent left behind its egg after the earthquakes. Come back when the season's over and we'll see what I've made of it."
"Thank you, sister."
Ishi left as Aya turned towards the heat. When he was gone she said, "Let's see if I can forge you blade enough to make you a man, brother." She rolled up her sleeves and got to work. She even smiled. "At least it will be a worthy challenge."
