Shai Mei
Continued from Gaiden 5.6
"Forgive my asking, Shai Mei, but you do seem to get into a lot of trouble."
Shai Mei smiled. "Whatever do you mean, Lady Marta?"
"Please, just call me Marta. I heard that you'd no sooner met Selara than you ended up in practice fight that got out of hand. And then there was that incident with the drunken mule driver. And now I catch you taunting a Marukani chieftan - "
"Please, Marta. An overstuffed Markuani chieftan."
" - taunting an overstuffed Marukani chieftan who would not have hesitated to strike you. And yet I've seen you speak with Master Nekuto and with with Lu Fei, and you're the very model of civility. Why, you're even polite to Pham."
Shai Mei's laughter was a shimmering sound, like a gentle breeze through a forest. "My uncle refers to me as Little Tree, and now that's what everyone calls me. And what of you, Marta, Shall I start calling you 'Little Bird'? You seem to see everything that goes on here."
Marta only smiled.
"Well, Little Bird, I don't really try to get into trouble. I just follow the Ways of Wood, and what happens, happens."
Marta furrowed her brow at the remark. "Is that a way of fighting, like my brother's Snake stance?"
Shai Mei laughed again. "No no, it's not a way of fighting, it's a way of living." She stepped off the the path and stood right by a sturdy aspen tree. "Living wood takes what it is given and returns it. A weary traveller may gently lean on a tree and find it soft and restful. A strong man may push a tree, and find that though it bends, it pushes back just as hard, and soon the strong man must bend his spine in turn. If you leave a tree alone, it will watch you, and may shelter you from the rain. But if you meet a tree with anger..."
She curled her hand into a ball, cracked her knuckles, and then violently slammed her fist into the aspen's trunk. "... then it will respond in kind." A few leaves fluttered down from above, and landed on Shai Mei's hair and shoulders. Shai Mei raised her hand to catch one; Marta could see bloody scrapes on her knuckles.
She returned to the path, and the two women resumed their walk. The Gardener quietly appeared alongside and handed Marta the leaf of a thick, spiny plant. She squeezed its juice on a small strip of cloth from her pockets, and deftly slipped it around Shai Mei's bloodstained knuckles.
"...so that's why you let the soldiers catcall all they want, and then you make jokes at them?"
"Yes, they push me, and I push back, and they are content."
Their wanderings took them down a path overlooked by ancient pine trees, their great roots criss-crossing the path. Marta nearly stumbled on one, and Shai Mei placed her uninjured hand on the Marukani girl's shoulder to steady her. Beyond the trees was a grassy meadow. Standing at the clearing's threshold, they admired the way the afternoon sun played off of the many brilliant-hued wild blossoms. At length, Shai Mei spoke again. "And when an overstuffed Marukani chieftan cannot bring himself to step around an inconvenient sapling, I will happily become the root that trips him up."
Marta turned somber, and her voice grew quiet. "But one day you'll invite trouble that's too great for you to just push back. Why not just step out of its way and let it pass?"
Shai Mei reached down, plucked a brilliant orange poppy, and crushed it in her bandaged hand. Her voice too grew quiet to match Marta's. "Because, Little Bird, my mother did not raise me to be a flower; beautiful yet frail; and easily trod upon and discarded."
She let the crumpled blossom slip through her fingers, where it vanished amongst the tall grasses of the meadow.
