Post by Ciata on Jan 17, 2007 23:07:19 GMT -5
Bin awoke lying on the flat and white bed in Dr. Pasternak’s loby, as far as he could tell with just a sheet over him, surrounded by some dozen creatures, all his friends and townsfolk. All Bin could feel though was the feelings, the worry and excitement and joy. It was a bit overwhelming, but it was a welcome feeling after the episode he had just gone through. He kept blinking, trying to focus his eyes and as if he could focus away the feelings as well, but they persisted. Finally coming to and looking around, registering all the faces around him, Galahad, the Doctor, Bei Yong, even Fae-Fae, plus several others from Loran. Still looking around in a daze with a confused look squinting his spotted face, Doctor Pasternak made his attempt to shoo as many out of the room as possible.
“Come on now, all non essential persons must leave and let him come to grasp and recover.” The owl tried waved his feathered and talloned brown fingers towards the door.
“That’s right, give him some air and quiet.” Galahad simplified, and all but him and the doctor and Bei Yong, who though not exactly essential, was that no one would tell him so, filtered out to go spread the news.
*Relief, worry, and duty* Bin thought, or felt. He sat there, staring at the three remaining, trying to cope with having a glimpse into each of their feelings, like their motives were completely transparent to him.
“Bin, how are you feeling?” Galahad leans over the edge of the whicker bed, snapping Bin out of his daze.
“Mmmm…I, I’m…” Bin had to make a conscious discernment between his and their feelings and emotions, trying to separate the two as they both filtered into his mind. “I’m okay, I’m not sure what happened.” Bin gradually became more and more in contact and touch with the rest of his body as his physical senses made their return along with his newfound one.
“Well I’m pretty sure you remember going to the rat’s nest.”
“Huh?” Bin gave Galahad a confused look.
“Rat’s nest, drug house, whatever, but we went there and one of them pulled a knife from the back of his belt and threw it, hit you right on your left side there, didn’t hit much though.”
“Right.” The good doctor chimed in with his more professional opinion. “The knife penetrated your left flank and missed your major inner workings, though it did sever a rather large blood vessel, causing the loss of blood that rendered you unconscious these last three days.”
“Three days?” Bin tried to place himself in the time.
“Yes, three days, though in truth, even that amount of blood loss shouldn’t have rendered you un conscious for that long.” He places a well trimmed talon on his chin and looks off, pondering possibilities.
“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, you were out and I took the two out and took you and the lady rabbit they had there, the slave remember? Took you and carried you back after trying to patch you up some.”
“Yes, trying being a good term for it.” Pasternak threw in, getting a sneer from the burly panda. Bei Yong, who had been up to this point standing with his arms crossed a bit from the bed, took a step forward and interceded by asking Bin a question. “Bin, what happened after you lost consciousness?”
Bin stopped and looked far off, getting lost in the feelings again, the mixing of dream and reality, or reality and a higher one. Bei Yong saw the far off look in Bin’s eye and the flash in them, like the flash in any feline’s eyes, except they didn’t shine in any single color. The eyes of the prophet again, only while conscious. Most unusual, Bei thought, then was troubled by the look behind the light, a lost look, a frightened stare as if into darkness.
“Bin? Bin!” Yong had to yell to snap Bin out of it, the lighter face of the snow leopard jerking back into focus and looking at the master. Bin finally opened his mouth to answer the question he had nearly forgotten as time slipped by him. “Do you know which darkness is the most frightening, which is the most repulsive? The darkness you find within yourself…I can see…see inside people, but…” Bin lowered his head almost in shame. “But the worst thing is being able to see inside yourself. I’m no hero, I’m the scum I fight against. I am everything I oppose. I am darkness, what kind of light shines from me? Isn’t a life lived in a lie worse than one wasted in evil altogether? I’m so weak inside, I can’t even stand on my own on the inside from my own darkness, how can I stand up to the darkness on the outside?”
Bei Yong kept his arms crossed and his face still through all of that, Galahad however had one eye raised nearly as much as the doctor’s beak was opened wide. Bei looked at the two standing there, trying to understand just what in the world Bin was talking about, as from the outside he seemed like such a simple, quiet, kind creature, hardly filled with darkness, and they hardly bothered in trying to understand just what he was talking about with the whole seeing into people thing. Yong motioned for them to leave, and motioned for them to leave again before they looked over at him and finally left with only a couple odd looks.
Letting them leave before he did anything, Bei waited for the door to shut behind them before he spoke, finally letting his thick, furred arms uncross. He stepped over to Bin’s side, his loose traditional gray and blue martial arts uniform draping down around his thick form.
“Bin, you’ve been given something that can either be a great gift to help others…or it can be your destruction, driving you into insanity and death if you let the darkness consume your inner soul. You have to make the decision, you have to let go, losing yourself is the first step of finding something greater.”
Bin put his paws around his head, trying to cover or protect himself. “I don’t want to lose myself, I want to keep what I’ve got left…”
“You can’t Bin, you can’t keep yourself. Everyone loses themselves at one point or another, either in life, giving themselves to something greater, or in death, where there is nothing to give yourself to. You’ve got to let go and follow the path your meant to follow.”
Bin sits there, cradling his head for a long time, thinking, trying not to feel, and trying to understand what to do. “So…to save myself, I’ve got to give up myself?”
Bei Yong nods. “You can’t save yourself, you can’t do something that is greater than you are.”
Bin tries to not cry again from the honesty he now has with the world and himself. He looks at Bei Yong with frightened eyes and notices something about him, he was telling the truth. Looking into Bei Yong, he could see the honesty, and the proof in him. There was still pain and hatred inside of him, but there was also a strong light that surrounded him. He knew, he had done it himself.
“How…how do you find something greater?”
“That’s the thing Bin, it’s already found you.”
“I swear, ever since that Bei Yong showed up everything has gone crazy around here.” The large panda Galahad crosses his beefy arms and leans up against the central tree with several other anxious waiters who had already quizzed him on what he knew. He looked down at his new set of green and brown “nice” clothes his wife had made him, probably due to another radical, pregnant, mood swing, as she was more likely to strangle him with the cloth rather than make him something out of it when he left. He did wonder how she had gotten the dye and cloth however, probably by trading something of his while he was away, he’d find out later.
He smelled something in the air just before he saw him, as usual. Gabriel apparently came up from behind him, though that is what everyone says, and was trailed by the female floppy eared rabbit that had been saved three days earlier who had been named May, partly in an effort to cheer her up. She had been loaned a set of clothes by Galahad’s wife, which didn’t exactly fit her that well, though the simple light red dress was a drastic improvement over her former garments. She kept her head down and followed whoever she was appointed to at the moment, acting almost like a shy child even though she was obviously an adult, though how old it was hard to determine because of her poor diet and treatment, which gave her gray and black fur a grungy look, though a good bath and some richer foods had helped it a bit.
“Hey, your wife sent me to find you and take May for a walk. How’s the prefect doing?”
It took Galahad a second to realize he was talking about Bin. “Eh, he’s fine, I think. Getting better in body but he’s missing something in the head it seems, or just had one heck of a dream or a fever or something…”
“Huh…” Gabriel stood almost like a pole with a sheet draped over it and his blue hair on his ankles and wrists flowed through the sleeves and his white mane flowed down his back.. The ever busy widow Aretha had noticed how much he seemed to like the sheet he had taken and made into a makeshift robe earlier and had made him a similar, real white garment, another traditional martial artist’s uniform with loose sleeves and a single button to keep it crossed in front of him. It hung looser on him than on Bei, due to the obvious difference between the broad and stocky built snow leopard, and the thinly built cross breed or a Nephilim as Bei Yong preferred to call him. Somehow he managed to keep it clean despite all the dirt and such that was about Loran and normal places and he stood with his arms behind him and his legs close in front of the other.
“Oh, your wife wants you to go and made some kind of flute for her, I dunno, something about releasing the emotions of the soul or something…and she also wanted you to take her with you.” Gabriel lied in the last part, though he was getting tired already of having another thing following him around, the children were bad enough when they occasionally would try to shadow him around.
“Alright, gives me something else to do than sit and wait.” Galahad uncrossed him arms and took a step away from the tree and turned to May. “May, would you like to come with me to make you a flute? We’ll just be going down to the river which isn’t far.”
May, who was still getting used to people asking her for her opinion for things, nodded and took up position behind Galahad and the two set off.
Galahad treaded along through the town’s well-worn and packed dirt road in his rope and reed woven sandals, carrying just a knife cut the reed with and May in tow. He tried to start up a conversation, even though he knew it was, in part, useless.
“So tell me, were you from around here originally?” He tried to slowdown to let May catch up to beside him, but she slowed down as well, shuffling along, eyes down. He turned around to see if she would otherwise tell from a nod or something, but didn’t get anything.
“Well, were you from near here?” He asked again, looking at her to get an indication, all he got was a little shrug. “Fahuma, Tanton, Bareholm, Rou-Tey?” She just shook her head, her ears flapping back and forth a tiny bit. *She’s not that bad looking actually, just mistreated. I don’t blame her for not trusting people, especially males. She really needs someone that is different than the type of people she’s had to deal with, someone very non-bossy she could come out of her shell with.*
“Hmm…so tell me, what do you think of the people at Loran?” She shrugs and finally let herself get nearly side by side with him. “So when did you feel the most comfortable in town? Like where did you enjoy spending time? Not trying to say that someone is better or anything, just who did you enjoy spending time with?” He of course got no definite answer, she just looked away a bit embarrassed and gave another little shrug. “Eh? Someone catch your eye? Really enjoy spending time with someone?” Galahad was getting lighter in his voice, almost playful, hopeful that he had gotten close on someone she could befriend and trust.
“Sooo…you going to tell me? And there are a lot of ways other than words to tell someone something, that’s part of the reason my wife sent me to get you a flute, music can express feelings even if there are no words, and of course you can use your body, body language tells a lot, and there is drawing stuff, you can draw any word or whatever you want too, there are a few people in town who are good at calligraphy and could teach you. I’m not much of a words person myself though.” May just looked away again, trying to avoid telling him things with her green eyes probably.
“Alright, that’s fine then, you don’t have to tell anyone, but take this bit of advice if you don’t take anything else I say. Make sure you tell the person how you feel about them, don’t hide it forever, otherwise all the things you hope for will be lost…huh, guess I do have a bit of good words in me after all.” He gives May a toothy smile and she actually returns it with a little grin.
“Well, looks like we’re about there. There’s the river and there should be some reeds and such around here somewhere…”
“Vincent! You done up there?” Somehow, for some reason, someone had let Vincent up on top of the roof of the nearly completed open air training pavilion. He had gotten quite the reputation as a quiet clumsy donkey during the last week of working on the new house and training place. Despite Vincent’s clumsiness however, he had worked himself into the general role of carrier and go-for person, largely because he had little else to do in this new village until this building was completed. It had turned out fairly nicely considering how little time it took to build the large structure. Both the house and training area beside it were being decorated with a light blue dye that had taken some two days to perfect, as there are few things that naturally give that color. Painting was not the job for Vincent however, he was undoing what he had been doing, lowering shingles and roofing boards back down from the now finished roof via rope. No one stood near it when he lowered it however, as he has yet to master the art of tying knots.
Vincent strained and sweated as he slowly lowered the second to last bundle of shingles down. His ears were drooping from exhaustion, though he was fairing better than he had at the beginning of the week, though he had many bruises and scraped to show for his increased endurance. Bracing himself with his legs, which now bore gray shorts instead of his loose pants he had earlier that he had cut them shorter himself because of the heat he finally felt the rope go slack as the load reached the ground. He leaned back on his elbows and took in some deep breaths, his chest, bare from the heat he wasn’t used to having to work in and leaner than most of his race due to his lack of such labor, heaved up and down.
Steen, the oldest boy of the mouse family he had spent much of his time with stopped his painting and walked over to him, his back bent low and feet expertly angled to walk sideways on a roof. “Building you up some strong back muscles, eh Vince?” Vincent just nods and wipes his lighter gray nose, still breathing heavily. “It’ll do you good, don’t worry. Your bigger than most people around here, especially since Galahad has been busy, he usually does most of the heavy lifting around here.”
“Do I…*gasp* need to shrink then…*pant* to get out of this type of stuff?”
“Nah, just get good at something else, like painting.” Steen gives a wink and goes back across the roof and Vincent goes back to pulling up the rope and tying on the last load to send down.
Bin’s breathing had grown slower, his eyes opened again, this time with a more peaceful look in them, his body was altogether calmer than the near panicked state he had been in earlier that day. He ran his pink bottomed digits through his cheek fur and rubbed behind his black ears with their spots in the center, trying to relieve some stress and think.
“Feeling better?” Bei Yong had taken a seat against the wall, waiting with his arms crossed and eyes closed, but with a straight back as always for Bin to come to peace and a better grasp of his new world.
“Yeah…it’s a little better now, like…there’s something else around me, almost like a blanket against the cold.” Bin hugs himself, wrapping his arms around his sides. “Where are my clothes by the way?”
“They left them over there on the shelf.” Bei nods across the room to a four layered shelf, where Bin’s clothes rested on the second shelf, folded and waiting. “They had to cut out and patch the hole and blood stained part.”
“That’s fine, at least it was the side.” Bin cringes, his paw touching the still painful wound in his left side, mainly just a flesh wound, but it was well covered and had wrappings going all across Bin’s chest to keep the bandages in place. It also wreaked of some of Pasternak’s usual brew of herbs for wounds and keeping out infections and the sort.
“Well…” Bei Yong started. “What’s come to your mind?” He looked intently at Bin with his serious look, head lightly turned down, staring unwaveringly with focused eyes.
“Well…something has to be done about this slave trade. Being a servant is one thing, like to work off debt, but that kind of slavery and abuse…it can’t go on, not in my area.”
Bei nods, keeping his eyes focused on Bin who was half sitting up, paw on his chin in thought. “And what if you find it extends far beyond Loran? How far will you take the fight?”
Bin thinks, mulling it over, his job and position against his convictions. “As far as it takes. I’ll go to the emperor himself to stop the suffering.”
“What if can’t help, or won’t help or stop it? What will you do?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Anything?”
“Well…not anything. I won’t lower myself to their level to prove them wrong. I’ve got to live the ideal I stand for, otherwise…I’m just a lie.”
“Very true. Now what will you do first?”
Bin, not really sure what to do first, and not sure why Bei was still asking him at all, sat there for a few minutes, trying to think up a plan. Bei on the other hand, sat there as if he already had one well in mind.
“Well…I guess we should get together Galahad and Gabriel and that rabbit to see what they all know. Galahad knows something about how they work for some reason, and who knows about Gabriel, and goodness knows that poor rabbit has seen her share of things. Maybe if we put it all together we can get a plan out of it.”
Bei nods. “Alright, sounds like a formulation of a plan at least, I’ll go see if I can get them together tonight, you stay here and rest.
“Come on now, all non essential persons must leave and let him come to grasp and recover.” The owl tried waved his feathered and talloned brown fingers towards the door.
“That’s right, give him some air and quiet.” Galahad simplified, and all but him and the doctor and Bei Yong, who though not exactly essential, was that no one would tell him so, filtered out to go spread the news.
*Relief, worry, and duty* Bin thought, or felt. He sat there, staring at the three remaining, trying to cope with having a glimpse into each of their feelings, like their motives were completely transparent to him.
“Bin, how are you feeling?” Galahad leans over the edge of the whicker bed, snapping Bin out of his daze.
“Mmmm…I, I’m…” Bin had to make a conscious discernment between his and their feelings and emotions, trying to separate the two as they both filtered into his mind. “I’m okay, I’m not sure what happened.” Bin gradually became more and more in contact and touch with the rest of his body as his physical senses made their return along with his newfound one.
“Well I’m pretty sure you remember going to the rat’s nest.”
“Huh?” Bin gave Galahad a confused look.
“Rat’s nest, drug house, whatever, but we went there and one of them pulled a knife from the back of his belt and threw it, hit you right on your left side there, didn’t hit much though.”
“Right.” The good doctor chimed in with his more professional opinion. “The knife penetrated your left flank and missed your major inner workings, though it did sever a rather large blood vessel, causing the loss of blood that rendered you unconscious these last three days.”
“Three days?” Bin tried to place himself in the time.
“Yes, three days, though in truth, even that amount of blood loss shouldn’t have rendered you un conscious for that long.” He places a well trimmed talon on his chin and looks off, pondering possibilities.
“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, you were out and I took the two out and took you and the lady rabbit they had there, the slave remember? Took you and carried you back after trying to patch you up some.”
“Yes, trying being a good term for it.” Pasternak threw in, getting a sneer from the burly panda. Bei Yong, who had been up to this point standing with his arms crossed a bit from the bed, took a step forward and interceded by asking Bin a question. “Bin, what happened after you lost consciousness?”
Bin stopped and looked far off, getting lost in the feelings again, the mixing of dream and reality, or reality and a higher one. Bei Yong saw the far off look in Bin’s eye and the flash in them, like the flash in any feline’s eyes, except they didn’t shine in any single color. The eyes of the prophet again, only while conscious. Most unusual, Bei thought, then was troubled by the look behind the light, a lost look, a frightened stare as if into darkness.
“Bin? Bin!” Yong had to yell to snap Bin out of it, the lighter face of the snow leopard jerking back into focus and looking at the master. Bin finally opened his mouth to answer the question he had nearly forgotten as time slipped by him. “Do you know which darkness is the most frightening, which is the most repulsive? The darkness you find within yourself…I can see…see inside people, but…” Bin lowered his head almost in shame. “But the worst thing is being able to see inside yourself. I’m no hero, I’m the scum I fight against. I am everything I oppose. I am darkness, what kind of light shines from me? Isn’t a life lived in a lie worse than one wasted in evil altogether? I’m so weak inside, I can’t even stand on my own on the inside from my own darkness, how can I stand up to the darkness on the outside?”
Bei Yong kept his arms crossed and his face still through all of that, Galahad however had one eye raised nearly as much as the doctor’s beak was opened wide. Bei looked at the two standing there, trying to understand just what in the world Bin was talking about, as from the outside he seemed like such a simple, quiet, kind creature, hardly filled with darkness, and they hardly bothered in trying to understand just what he was talking about with the whole seeing into people thing. Yong motioned for them to leave, and motioned for them to leave again before they looked over at him and finally left with only a couple odd looks.
Letting them leave before he did anything, Bei waited for the door to shut behind them before he spoke, finally letting his thick, furred arms uncross. He stepped over to Bin’s side, his loose traditional gray and blue martial arts uniform draping down around his thick form.
“Bin, you’ve been given something that can either be a great gift to help others…or it can be your destruction, driving you into insanity and death if you let the darkness consume your inner soul. You have to make the decision, you have to let go, losing yourself is the first step of finding something greater.”
Bin put his paws around his head, trying to cover or protect himself. “I don’t want to lose myself, I want to keep what I’ve got left…”
“You can’t Bin, you can’t keep yourself. Everyone loses themselves at one point or another, either in life, giving themselves to something greater, or in death, where there is nothing to give yourself to. You’ve got to let go and follow the path your meant to follow.”
Bin sits there, cradling his head for a long time, thinking, trying not to feel, and trying to understand what to do. “So…to save myself, I’ve got to give up myself?”
Bei Yong nods. “You can’t save yourself, you can’t do something that is greater than you are.”
Bin tries to not cry again from the honesty he now has with the world and himself. He looks at Bei Yong with frightened eyes and notices something about him, he was telling the truth. Looking into Bei Yong, he could see the honesty, and the proof in him. There was still pain and hatred inside of him, but there was also a strong light that surrounded him. He knew, he had done it himself.
“How…how do you find something greater?”
“That’s the thing Bin, it’s already found you.”
“I swear, ever since that Bei Yong showed up everything has gone crazy around here.” The large panda Galahad crosses his beefy arms and leans up against the central tree with several other anxious waiters who had already quizzed him on what he knew. He looked down at his new set of green and brown “nice” clothes his wife had made him, probably due to another radical, pregnant, mood swing, as she was more likely to strangle him with the cloth rather than make him something out of it when he left. He did wonder how she had gotten the dye and cloth however, probably by trading something of his while he was away, he’d find out later.
He smelled something in the air just before he saw him, as usual. Gabriel apparently came up from behind him, though that is what everyone says, and was trailed by the female floppy eared rabbit that had been saved three days earlier who had been named May, partly in an effort to cheer her up. She had been loaned a set of clothes by Galahad’s wife, which didn’t exactly fit her that well, though the simple light red dress was a drastic improvement over her former garments. She kept her head down and followed whoever she was appointed to at the moment, acting almost like a shy child even though she was obviously an adult, though how old it was hard to determine because of her poor diet and treatment, which gave her gray and black fur a grungy look, though a good bath and some richer foods had helped it a bit.
“Hey, your wife sent me to find you and take May for a walk. How’s the prefect doing?”
It took Galahad a second to realize he was talking about Bin. “Eh, he’s fine, I think. Getting better in body but he’s missing something in the head it seems, or just had one heck of a dream or a fever or something…”
“Huh…” Gabriel stood almost like a pole with a sheet draped over it and his blue hair on his ankles and wrists flowed through the sleeves and his white mane flowed down his back.. The ever busy widow Aretha had noticed how much he seemed to like the sheet he had taken and made into a makeshift robe earlier and had made him a similar, real white garment, another traditional martial artist’s uniform with loose sleeves and a single button to keep it crossed in front of him. It hung looser on him than on Bei, due to the obvious difference between the broad and stocky built snow leopard, and the thinly built cross breed or a Nephilim as Bei Yong preferred to call him. Somehow he managed to keep it clean despite all the dirt and such that was about Loran and normal places and he stood with his arms behind him and his legs close in front of the other.
“Oh, your wife wants you to go and made some kind of flute for her, I dunno, something about releasing the emotions of the soul or something…and she also wanted you to take her with you.” Gabriel lied in the last part, though he was getting tired already of having another thing following him around, the children were bad enough when they occasionally would try to shadow him around.
“Alright, gives me something else to do than sit and wait.” Galahad uncrossed him arms and took a step away from the tree and turned to May. “May, would you like to come with me to make you a flute? We’ll just be going down to the river which isn’t far.”
May, who was still getting used to people asking her for her opinion for things, nodded and took up position behind Galahad and the two set off.
Galahad treaded along through the town’s well-worn and packed dirt road in his rope and reed woven sandals, carrying just a knife cut the reed with and May in tow. He tried to start up a conversation, even though he knew it was, in part, useless.
“So tell me, were you from around here originally?” He tried to slowdown to let May catch up to beside him, but she slowed down as well, shuffling along, eyes down. He turned around to see if she would otherwise tell from a nod or something, but didn’t get anything.
“Well, were you from near here?” He asked again, looking at her to get an indication, all he got was a little shrug. “Fahuma, Tanton, Bareholm, Rou-Tey?” She just shook her head, her ears flapping back and forth a tiny bit. *She’s not that bad looking actually, just mistreated. I don’t blame her for not trusting people, especially males. She really needs someone that is different than the type of people she’s had to deal with, someone very non-bossy she could come out of her shell with.*
“Hmm…so tell me, what do you think of the people at Loran?” She shrugs and finally let herself get nearly side by side with him. “So when did you feel the most comfortable in town? Like where did you enjoy spending time? Not trying to say that someone is better or anything, just who did you enjoy spending time with?” He of course got no definite answer, she just looked away a bit embarrassed and gave another little shrug. “Eh? Someone catch your eye? Really enjoy spending time with someone?” Galahad was getting lighter in his voice, almost playful, hopeful that he had gotten close on someone she could befriend and trust.
“Sooo…you going to tell me? And there are a lot of ways other than words to tell someone something, that’s part of the reason my wife sent me to get you a flute, music can express feelings even if there are no words, and of course you can use your body, body language tells a lot, and there is drawing stuff, you can draw any word or whatever you want too, there are a few people in town who are good at calligraphy and could teach you. I’m not much of a words person myself though.” May just looked away again, trying to avoid telling him things with her green eyes probably.
“Alright, that’s fine then, you don’t have to tell anyone, but take this bit of advice if you don’t take anything else I say. Make sure you tell the person how you feel about them, don’t hide it forever, otherwise all the things you hope for will be lost…huh, guess I do have a bit of good words in me after all.” He gives May a toothy smile and she actually returns it with a little grin.
“Well, looks like we’re about there. There’s the river and there should be some reeds and such around here somewhere…”
“Vincent! You done up there?” Somehow, for some reason, someone had let Vincent up on top of the roof of the nearly completed open air training pavilion. He had gotten quite the reputation as a quiet clumsy donkey during the last week of working on the new house and training place. Despite Vincent’s clumsiness however, he had worked himself into the general role of carrier and go-for person, largely because he had little else to do in this new village until this building was completed. It had turned out fairly nicely considering how little time it took to build the large structure. Both the house and training area beside it were being decorated with a light blue dye that had taken some two days to perfect, as there are few things that naturally give that color. Painting was not the job for Vincent however, he was undoing what he had been doing, lowering shingles and roofing boards back down from the now finished roof via rope. No one stood near it when he lowered it however, as he has yet to master the art of tying knots.
Vincent strained and sweated as he slowly lowered the second to last bundle of shingles down. His ears were drooping from exhaustion, though he was fairing better than he had at the beginning of the week, though he had many bruises and scraped to show for his increased endurance. Bracing himself with his legs, which now bore gray shorts instead of his loose pants he had earlier that he had cut them shorter himself because of the heat he finally felt the rope go slack as the load reached the ground. He leaned back on his elbows and took in some deep breaths, his chest, bare from the heat he wasn’t used to having to work in and leaner than most of his race due to his lack of such labor, heaved up and down.
Steen, the oldest boy of the mouse family he had spent much of his time with stopped his painting and walked over to him, his back bent low and feet expertly angled to walk sideways on a roof. “Building you up some strong back muscles, eh Vince?” Vincent just nods and wipes his lighter gray nose, still breathing heavily. “It’ll do you good, don’t worry. Your bigger than most people around here, especially since Galahad has been busy, he usually does most of the heavy lifting around here.”
“Do I…*gasp* need to shrink then…*pant* to get out of this type of stuff?”
“Nah, just get good at something else, like painting.” Steen gives a wink and goes back across the roof and Vincent goes back to pulling up the rope and tying on the last load to send down.
Bin’s breathing had grown slower, his eyes opened again, this time with a more peaceful look in them, his body was altogether calmer than the near panicked state he had been in earlier that day. He ran his pink bottomed digits through his cheek fur and rubbed behind his black ears with their spots in the center, trying to relieve some stress and think.
“Feeling better?” Bei Yong had taken a seat against the wall, waiting with his arms crossed and eyes closed, but with a straight back as always for Bin to come to peace and a better grasp of his new world.
“Yeah…it’s a little better now, like…there’s something else around me, almost like a blanket against the cold.” Bin hugs himself, wrapping his arms around his sides. “Where are my clothes by the way?”
“They left them over there on the shelf.” Bei nods across the room to a four layered shelf, where Bin’s clothes rested on the second shelf, folded and waiting. “They had to cut out and patch the hole and blood stained part.”
“That’s fine, at least it was the side.” Bin cringes, his paw touching the still painful wound in his left side, mainly just a flesh wound, but it was well covered and had wrappings going all across Bin’s chest to keep the bandages in place. It also wreaked of some of Pasternak’s usual brew of herbs for wounds and keeping out infections and the sort.
“Well…” Bei Yong started. “What’s come to your mind?” He looked intently at Bin with his serious look, head lightly turned down, staring unwaveringly with focused eyes.
“Well…something has to be done about this slave trade. Being a servant is one thing, like to work off debt, but that kind of slavery and abuse…it can’t go on, not in my area.”
Bei nods, keeping his eyes focused on Bin who was half sitting up, paw on his chin in thought. “And what if you find it extends far beyond Loran? How far will you take the fight?”
Bin thinks, mulling it over, his job and position against his convictions. “As far as it takes. I’ll go to the emperor himself to stop the suffering.”
“What if can’t help, or won’t help or stop it? What will you do?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Anything?”
“Well…not anything. I won’t lower myself to their level to prove them wrong. I’ve got to live the ideal I stand for, otherwise…I’m just a lie.”
“Very true. Now what will you do first?”
Bin, not really sure what to do first, and not sure why Bei was still asking him at all, sat there for a few minutes, trying to think up a plan. Bei on the other hand, sat there as if he already had one well in mind.
“Well…I guess we should get together Galahad and Gabriel and that rabbit to see what they all know. Galahad knows something about how they work for some reason, and who knows about Gabriel, and goodness knows that poor rabbit has seen her share of things. Maybe if we put it all together we can get a plan out of it.”
Bei nods. “Alright, sounds like a formulation of a plan at least, I’ll go see if I can get them together tonight, you stay here and rest.