Life of the Silver Tear:
The Whisperer’s Fall

Shugojin looks out as if something passed by him and draws his blue-gray cloak tighter around him. He doesn’t quite seem to shiver, but there is nevertheless a withheld sense of discomfort that she can sense him trying not to show.

Reiko’s eyebrow rises. Shugojin, a strong dwarfling, never seemed to get cold, particularly not as early in the fall as it is. She starts, “You okay?”

“Fine,” Shugojin throws out on the terse side of a neutral tone. He catches the slip of his guard and swallows, guessing that Reiko saw him and tries to explain it, “Just the wind.”

Reiko’s eyebrows both rise now. “What wind? The air’s dead still.”

The dwarfling hesitates, but he’s been with his friend long enough to know that he can trust her, and she already sort-of knows about this anyway. “I didn’t say anything about air, I felt the Black Wind.”

The elfling companion crosses her arms and tries to look ponderous. “So…someone’s gonna die?”

“No, it’s not death,” Shugojin explains as he tries to decide exactly what the feeling was a harbinger of. “This was a force of malice following someone. Something ancient and angry.”

Silence ticks by for a few moments, and his companion tries to avoid looking at him. His eyelids droop and he states flatly, “No, Reiko, it’s not you. Whatever demons haunt you aren’t literal.”

A normal breeze starts to pick up, rustling the leaves gently, but the two let nature speak for the time being. Shugojin tried to explain his ability to feel the ‘currents of fate’, but Reiko never really understood.

There is the sound of rustling leaves and Reiko suddenly stops, Shugojin following a heartbeat later, as she asks, “Do you hear that?”

“Just because I don’t have pointed ears doesn’t mean I’m deaf, aranel,” the dwarfling jests quietly, but draws his bow.

Reiko does likewise as she snaps in a hushed tone, “Don’t call me princess!” She looks back at him and notices that he's already holding a long wooden sliver in his bow, his quiver adjusted so the top opens by his side, how he prefers to draw arrows. With the same hushed volume, she queries, “Ready?”

The dwarfling nods and sets the arrow against the string. The sound of somebody moving through the trees a few dozen paces away continues, and and Shugojin starts to draw back cautiously as he ventures, “Who goes there?” Highway robbers always loved this area, so one could never be too careful.

A young, masculine voice snaps back with the sarcasm of somebody whose been on the road longer than they wanted and hasn’t gotten very far despite a long day, “Raven messengers.”

Reiko’s eyes snap open and she lowers her bow, quivering the arrow as she starts to jog forward, off the path and into the trees towards the voice as she asks, “Giniro?”

Shugojin’s eyes widen at her irrationality. “Reiko, what are you doing?”

They pass around a thick clump of trees and Shugojin spots three road-weary travelers crossing onto a larger road curving south. Judging that they’re not the robbers he expected, he slackens his arrow and enters the clear space of the semi-paved road.

One of them, a girl, snaps jealously as she looks at Reiko as she glances back to a boy a few feet away, “Who is that?”

Reiko bristles in righteous indignation, matched by the new girl, and Shugojin’s mouth quirks. Cat fight, he thinks as he tries not to smile at the ruffled teenage girls. Fortunately, the new boy explains calmly, “This is Reiko, we met a few years ago when she ran away from home and was trying to find somebody who ended up leading us to the Paladin Academy in Falor.”

The girl relaxes a little and swings her gaze to look at Shugojin. A fluttering sensation appears in his stomach and he quivers the wooden arrow, introducing himself with a courteous bow. “I am Shugojin, son of Kuno. I’m a . . . healer.” He coughs at his minor hesitation.

The travelers seem to remember that they haven’t introduced themselves, and the pretty girl brushes a lock of long, brown hair back behind her ear. “I’m Kokeyera, daughter of Matthias. I’m a musician.” She turns her chocolate-brown eyes to the boy, and he takes his cue to start.

He gives a brief, polite bow and states, “Giniro, son of Ellowa. I’m a hunter and tracker.” As he stands back up from his bow, he jostles a sword sheathe on his left hip.

Curious, Shugojin can’t help himself from asking, “Do all hunters carry swords?”

“Do all healers carry tomahawks?” he throws back, referring to the throwing axes Shugojin has sheathed on his legs, strapped against his outer thighs. Shugojin doesn’t notice the ghost of a smile on the modestly-dressed adult’s face at the retort.

“All right, I’ll grant that we’re a pair of unusual people,” Shugojin concedes in a conciliatory manner. He gives silent thanks at being practiced at diffusing tense situations, thanks to traveling with an oft-temperamental Reiko.

Giniro crosses his arms at this and looks away, muttering, “What an understatement.”

“And you, sir?”

The taller adult’s eyebrow tics like he had hoped to skip out on the introductions and hated being called out. He gives a shallow bow, more of a nod, and states with a tone as calm as a sea of glass but with a hint of condescension that makes Shugojin feel a little foolish for thinking ill of him for hanging back. “I am humbly known as Koukatsu, of the Rubin Society.”

Kokeyera points out faintly tiredly, “You know, the rest of us gave the name of our father like a proper introduction.”

He hates interrupting her train of thought, but Shugojin finds his curiosity clamoring and his mouth opens to quench it, “Does that mean you’re one of those monk-scholars who left your previous life behind to dedicate your life to enlightenment?”

Koukatsu gives a nod, though there is something off about it as if he can’t completely acknowledge the dwarfling’s statement. “You are remarkably knowledgeable for one so young. There are those more than twice your age who do not know of the Bosatsu.”

Shugojin rubs the back of his head in mild modest nervousness. “My mother’s a lore-keeper, she knows many of you in the Rubin Society.”

Giniro crosses his arms, shifting a critical eye to examine the scholar. “I hadn’t heard of the Bosatsu.”

Koukatsu’s eyes narrow ever so faintly, and he answers in that same silky voice but with the tone just a discernable shade of irritated, “That surprises me, from one so strongly in a nazirite vow.”

Giniro turns away, the flush of one put in their place creeping into his face, and Shugojin for the first time really pays attention to the boy and notices that he has very long hair. Kokeyera humphs, as if irritated at Koukatsu’s subtle tongue-lashing of Giniro but unable to think of anything to say to help, and the man’s eyes look sidelong at her.

Shugojin shivers, feeling the Black Wind . . . however, he notices that Kokeyera shivers, too, and she sees him. Their eyes meet and there is a strange sort of spark that compels her to speak, “Seeing currents nobody else does?”

“Feeling a strange wind sometimes? You too?”

Both stop and look at each other, a strange bond of understanding instantly formed. Time and space seem to fade as the two look at each other, but the outside world has not disappeared.

“What’s with him?” Giniro asks Reiko.

The elfling girl shrugs. “Pft. Who knows. He gets weird sometimes, I guess this is bonding of the nerds.”

Shugojin and Kokeyera simultaneously spin about, the latter sputtering angrily as a strange and complementary angry wind whips through the trees, and the former snapping, “Do you have to be an ass to everyone?!”

Reiko steps back, surprised at Shugojin’s outburst. He’d always been so mellow and laid back, his ability to calmly put the past behind him was always something she had been jealous of. They teased and bantered often before, he had never gotten mad. It was . . . un-Shugojin-like. Clasping her hands behind her back, she tries to take a page out of her friend’s book. “Sorry, you know I don’t mean it.”

The dwarfling seems surprised, but glances first at Kokeyera, and only after she seems to make a subtle gesture of acceptance of the apology does Shugojin loosen up. “I know you don’t, Reiko, but you have to remember that not everybody knows you as well as me. What you said was very rude to her,” he finishes pointing to Kokeyera.

Reiko stumbles a little, her balance thrown off by her surprise just when she was about to start walking again. Shugojin seemed to have metaphorical armor that deflected everything that came at him, but . . . him standing up for someone else? Why? Can’t she do it herself, like we do? We never needed to come to each other’s defense.

She sighs, but it’s clear that Shugojin’s genuinely angry, and Kokeyera almost as much so. Clasping her hands behind her back, the elfling apologizes again, though this time she finishes with a clench of her teeth that betrays annoyance.

“Not everybody knows you, Reiko. Try to act nicer around her,” he requests calmly, but his tone a shade too close to ‘lecturing’ for the young girl’s tastes. He turns to Kokeyera and states as Reiko makes snide faces behind his back, “I’m sorry about her, she’s normally much better.”

The young human sees the faces and her expression sours. “Whatever.”

Seeing that the mood is not improving, Giniro proposes, “Should we get moving again?”

Reiko shrugs and crosses her arms, silently saying, ‘that’s it, I’m done with this’ before she audibly responds to her old friend, “Sure. Where were you going?”

Giniro relaxes a little now that there aren’t metaphorical daggers flying. “Well, we were trying to get to Malith’s Gate,” he begins, and Kokeyera interrupts him by stomping back down the road in the direction they were originally heading.

“Then let’s be going,” She states simply. The others give varying reactions, from shrugs to a raised eyebrow from Koukatsu, before setting off down the cobblestone.