novelraw Book 12: Chapter Sixty-Seven – Chaos
Book 12: Chapter Sixty-Seven – Chaos
Book 12: Chapter Sixty-Seven – ChaosSen wasn’t sure where to direct his attention. His first instinct was to look at Shui.
“Again!” she shouted with the kind of enthusiasm only a small child can muster.
Master Feng, who the girl had immediately decided was a nice old man and promptly adopted as her own, had been flying Shui around on what Sen was pretty sure was a cloud of air qi. It was actually a great idea, and probably safer than letting her ride around on a qi platform the way Sen had been doing. Of course, that wasn’t the only thing of interest in the immediate area. Uncle Kho had a hand pressed against a wall. He was bent over at the waist, laughing hysterically. Between fits of laughter, he managed to gasp out a single question.
“You…adopted…another one?”
“Well—” started Sen, but then he caught sight of Falling Leaf.
She was staring at Uncle Kho in a mixture of horror and concern. She appeared torn between the ideas that the man might do something calamitous at any moment, or that she should find him a healer immediately. She kept reaching out toward him, only to pull her hand back at the last moment. The ghost panther finally gave Sen an imploring look that asked him to tell her what to do. It had been a while since he’d last seen that look on her face. While she didn’t care for humans very much, she had been learning about them and adapting along the way. It seemed that a nascent soul cultivator laughing maniacally was still a bit too far outside of her experience.
“It’s fine,” he told her in the most reassuring voice he could. “I promise, this is all fine.”
“This does not look fine,” snapped Misty Peak, who had taken up a position behind Sen.
The fox-woman was peeking over his shoulder, her gaze shifting back and forth between Master Feng and Uncle Kho. Sen had assumed she would vanish behind an illusion the instant their feet were back on solid ground. When she hadn’t, it had taken him a moment to realize that she probably thought it wouldn’t work on the two elder cultivators. That was probably a correct assumption. Not that he was feeling all that forgiving toward her at the moment. He was pretty sure she meant to use him as a shield when Uncle Kho’s laughter descended into an explosion of death-bringing lightning.
“Uncle Sen!” shouted Shui, drawing his attention. “I’m flying!”The girl was sprawled out, floating in the air, and flapping her arms like a bird. Sen snuck a look at Master Feng. The man wore a self-satisfied smirk and seemed to think that this was all a lot of fun.
“You sure are!” he finally shouted back.
“Daughters!” wheezed Uncle Kho. “Sen and his daughters!”
That was followed by another fit of laughter.
“Why is that funny?” demanded Sen.
“They grow up!” gasped Uncle Kho. “There will be boys!”
“Oh!” said Misty Peak.
Sen gave the fox a suspicious look when he saw the excitement in her eyes.
“What are you scheming?”
“I’m not scheming anything. But we can’t let you teach those poor girls about boys.”
“What? Why?” asked Sen.
He felt as though he’d been slighted, but he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d been slighted.
“Because you’ll tell them all the wrong things. I’ll clearly have to take a hand.”
“No!” shouted a frantic Sen. “No! No! No! I absolutely forbid it!”
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“Don’t be foolish. If I don’t teach them, they’ll never figure out how to properly seduce a man. Every woman needs to know how to do that.”
“I don’t ever want them to seduce men. Why would I let you teach them that?”
“You see. This is what I’m talking about. They aren’t going to be little girls forever.”
“Yes, they will!” Sen asserted stubbornly, even when he knew how ridiculous it made him sound.
“They aren’t, and I can’t let you give them terrible advice that would only hurt them later.”
“I’m am completely certain that they don’t need that kind of advice.”
“Hmmmm,” said Misty Peak. “I don’t recall you complaining afterwards.”
Sen opened and closed his mouth several times, certain that there was
a correct response to that comment. He just couldn’t think of one.“That’s different,” he answered, knowing exactly how weak it sounded.
“Is it?” she asked with a wicked glint in her eyes. “You know, I was that little once.”
She pointed at the gleeful Shui who was still flapping her arms for all she was worth. Sen gave the fox-woman a look that could all be summed up in a single word.
“Why?”
She grinned at him.
“Why, what?” asked Falling Leaf.
She had apparently decided that Uncle Kho wasn’t going to die or go on killing spree and had joined them.
“It’s nothing.”
“We were talking about sex,” volunteered Misty Peak.
Sen sighed and asked, “Again, why?”
Not that Falling Leaf seemed to care. As soon as she heard the topic, she seemed to lose all interest. That seemed to pique the fox-woman’s curiosity, though. She directed a penetrating look at the ghost panther.
“What?” asked Falling Leaf.
“You can’t possibly be telling me that you don’t have those urges,” said Misty Peak. “Surely, you want to.”
Falling Leaf gestured at herself and said, “Not in this body. It’s so awkward and unsightly.”
Sen rather enjoyed the ten seconds of absolute silence from the nine-tail that followed that pronouncement from Falling Leaf. His happiness was short-lived, however, because Misty Peak turned a fierce gaze on him.
“What nonsense have you been telling her?”
Sen spluttered out a few incoherent half-words at that question. Even when he regained the power of using entire words, what he said wasn’t much more coherent.
“Wait. What? Why? But she… I… I didn’t say—” he trailed off as Misty Peak glowered at him.
“Awkward and unsightly? You let her keep thinking that?”
“I never said that to her,” answered Sen, feeling very much on the back foot. “I told her it wasn’t true!”
“You told her,” said Misty Peak with a raised eyebrow. “Let me guess, you said it once and thought that should be sufficient?”
Sen thought back hard. He definitely had said that to Falling Leaf once. Once, for sure. Had he ever said it again? Now that I’m considering it, I don’t think I ever did, he thought.
“I can tell just by that look on your face that’s what happened,” said Misty Peak.
She was shaking her head at him in a decidedly disappointed way, but he could see that look in her eye. The fox part of her that loved chaos was enjoying all of this entirely too much. He glared at her.
“If she didn’t believe me the first time, I’m not sure that saying it again would have helped.”
“You say that like there’s only one way to convince someone of something like that.”
Sen narrowed his eyes at the fox-woman and said, “You can’t be serious.”
“It seems very straightforward to me,” she answered smugly.
“What does she mean?” asked Falling Leaf.
The ghost panther wore a quizzical expression that she aimed straight at Sen. He closed his eyes and thought that there just had to be some crisis in the city that needed his immediate attention. Yet, when he extended his spiritual sense and eavesdropped on conversations across the city, everything was calm. Of all the days for things to be going well, he griped mentally. Opening his eyes, he looked at Falling Leaf.
“She’s talking about sex again,” he said wearily.
“Why?” asked the ghost panther.
Sen groaned inside. Falling Leaf wasn’t stupid, but her grasp of nuances in conversation was often hit-or-miss. It seemed that she missed today. Sen was tempted to just tell her it was fox silliness and leave it at that. If Misty Peak wasn’t standing right there, he might have done just that. But he knew that if he didn’t explain it now, the nine-tail would just explain it later.
“She was suggesting that I should have taken you to my bed. She seems to think that would have convinced you that your body isn’t awkward and unsightly.”
It had been a long time since Sen last felt true embarrassment, but he was certain that he was mere seconds away from blushing. He looked around for some kind of support, but only saw Uncle Kho. The man wasn’t laughing anymore, but he did look deeply entertained by the conversation. Sen realized immediately that no help would be coming from the elder cultivator. Fortunately, he could count on Falling Leaf to see the ridiculousness of the suggestion. When he looked at her again, though, he found her expression less than comforting. She didn’t seem thrilled by the idea, but it was clear that she hadn’t rejected the possibility outright either. If anything, she seemed to be considering him in a new light. That was simply too much for Sen.
“What’s that?” he asked the air. “Oh no! The army needs me!”
And he promptly ran away to the sound of Misty Peak’s laughter.