The Day of Thunder

[Saru Shang]

"Oh, if I could be the one who gets to offer water to the thirsty Thunders, I think I would much rather be doing that than raining arrows from my meagre quiver," she said as she gave another glance at her quiver with a hearty chuckle. "I only brought enough to hunt some small game and that's about that, not enough to play heroine or champion. As an occasional artisan, I do better when I can inspire. That typically is better done if I can witness and return to tell the tale."

"Ten children!" She exclaimed at first and nodded. "Okay then, how about we focus more on what we have and know? Do you want to tell me about your many children, Jiyo-sama?"

[Jiyo Sora]

"At great length, although five of them are reasonably famous, since they're the children of Shiba..."

He sounded amused.

"I still don't know if it was a test or if he just thought I was the right man for the job, but I looked after them when they were little."

[Saru Shang]

"Oh," Shang nodded soundly, feigning understanding at first.

After a beat, she let out a defeated sigh and shook her head on the matter, looking rather bemused. "Okay, that's not really going to do it for me. My sincere apologies and please excuse my ignorance on the matter, Jiyo-sama. You might have a backtrack a little more context to this tale. What's your relationship with Shiba-kami, now? And your children...or communal children with Shiba-kami? Or do you mean they are part of the Shiba line now?"

[Jiyo Sora]

"Hm? Oh! No, no. I just looked after the Boss's kids when they were little. Protected them, took 'em fishing, changed the odd diaper, nothing too extreme. But they were the closest I thought I'd ever have to children for a long time. Shows what I knew! The children my saint of a wife has borne me are all of the Jiyo family, at least until Shirayuki marries into the Saru. Phi's... well. She's seventeen and enjoying it, no serious marriage options on the horizon for her just now. And Soryu's twelve, and Reiko and Kozan are five, so there's no change likely there either..."

[Saru Shang]

"Oh! That would explain it, forgive me confusion on the matter," she said with a deep bow with a small chuckle. "So, you were the honoured guardian of the Kami's children and helped in caring for them. Maybe even their teacher? That you had quite the responsibility and honour. No doubt something like that must have been a heavy burden to carry on your shoulders. Now that you have children of your own, is that something you've found easier with your previous experience?"

[Jiyo Sora]

"Honestly, it felt like a reward, rather than a burden. I mean, don't get me wrong, there was plenty of worry, and I got stabbed, shot, and poisoned a few times because some absolute fuckers wanted to get at the Boss through his little girls, but... it always felt worth it, in a way nothing I'd done in the Hikaru tribe did. It would have been a good death, and it was an even better life."

As to the latter question...

"Nothing really prepares you for when they're your own. I remember holding Phi and SHirayuki when they were born and just.... staring at them, and then grinning like an idiot at Kinyoubi and going 'look at what we made!'"

He shook his head.

"It's honestly a miracle that saint of a woman hasn't clubbed me on the back of the head with a tetsubo."

[Saru Shang]

"It sounds like being a guardian has given you much purpose in life, even after all of those hardships," Shang said as nodded soundly, admiring Sora would perhaps do something she couldn't see herself doing. She could do without getting stabbed, shot and poisoned. Every one of those sounded like a death sentence.

"And here you are with children of your own many years later, so that didn't deter you from having children of your own. Your partner seems to tolerate you enough and stayed with you to bless you with a few more children." She pursed her lips for a moment in consideration. "...And I hope life if your own children have been less interesting, hm?"

[Jiyo Sora]

"Well, they've had to put up with the same shit everyone else in the Empire has over the last five years, but yes. Shirayuki, Phi, Soryu, Reiko, and Kozan have never had to steal a goat or murder some poor bastard for being on the wrong side of a river. The eldest three are all away from home now- Phi's studying with the Spider, 'Yuki's gone to the Dragon lands ahead of her wedding, Soryu's studying with the Nezumi- but they've certainly never been in as many fights as I had by their age..."

[Saru Shang]

"The land is a much better place now, or so I've been told. I find it a bit hard to believe that the land was a much different place just a generation ago and that much of what we see before us hasn't exactly been realized," she said as she gestured vaguely toward the direction of the village. The village might not be a good example but it stood in as her example of civilization nevertheless. "I imagine I more or less find myself in the same place as some of your children where I didn't have to suspect anyone who wasn't part of our tribe or forage for our own food."

[Jiyo Sora]

"The changes have been different. The Seppun were practically ready and waiting for the order of the Kami. The Ayakashi, the Hikaru... they had more adjustments, but also forced more adjustments on the Kami in the process. But yes, it's hard to image who I was twenty-five years ago."

[Saru Shang]

"I'm sure we're all thankful for all the changes in the last few decades. My parents can't stop talking about the changes in quality of life, order, and actually having a community to rely on. They're very thankful for these things even if they still can be bothered to brush up on their reading and writing skills to appreciate most of it," she said with a faint frown. "But I am curious, was there anything in the past that you find yourself missing from your heyday?"

[Jiyo Sora]

"My heyday didn't come until I joined the Jiyo family. If you ask me if I miss anything from my time among the Hikaru..."

He frowned. Thought about it.

"Life was certainly simpler. Which is good, because I was a complete idiot. A wholly illiterate mountain thug, ostracized by my own tribe in most social respects. I suppose I miss being able to just punch whoever I felt like punching?"

[Saru Shang]

"Now that's something I've never thought about." She inclined her head once on that amusing note. "...But surely people who wanted to do the same to you were allowed to do so? Punching back is also an option. I don't think anything stops you from doing that now either but everyone is so connected to obligations and rules that I understand it makes things a little more complicated. And what did you do back then when there was someone too big to punch?"

[Jiyo Sora]

"Take this piece of esoteric tribal wisdom to heart, Saru-san- nobody's too big to punch. You might take a beating, you might take a bad beating, but nobody and nothing is too big to hit if it matters enough to you."

He shrugged.

"And I won more than I lost. As for what stops me now? It's less to do with obligations, and more to do with who and what I represent. I'm not just Devil-Eye Sora, that weird guy who don't let set his tent up in the center of camp,I am Jiyo Sora. That means my actions reflect on Jiyo, and they reflect on the Boss. So I can't go around just socking people who annoy me."

[Saru Shang]

"Not exactly being too big to punch but more that you're extremely disincentivized from doing so but still, your point stands. I don't think I could imagine anyone else out-intimidating you from punching them if it actually came to that," she let out a hearty chuckle on that note.

She looked off in the distance. "Given my training, I have to admit that I don't see myself wanting to return to those bravado days. I don't know if I could so easily win a fight but I get the sense if I was born in that era, everyone would be trained in punching at the very least. But I was told that hunting is a necessary skill, too, if you weren't able to farm or trade so readily. I could see myself playing huntress at the very least."

[Jiyo Sora]

"Hunting for subsistence had its own rhythms and challenges. And we weren't using bronze for our arrowheads- too rare and precious to go loosing after a deer when a missed shot might send it down a damn ravine. But it's much... you know, people lose sight, because of how dark these last five years have been, but... the Empire as a whole is much less violent than these lands used to be. And there's infinitely more time and resources for things like art, scholarly study, all of that."

He shrugged.

"Not every tribe had it as.... rough as the Hikaru did, and I sometimes think if the Kami had not fallen, the Noriaki would have brought some degree of... unity eventually, but there's no denying the Kami have speeded the process considerably."

[Saru Shang]

"That's interesting to think about what could have been. I happen to be a student of these new and finer elements of the Empire. Art at least," she smirked at that. "But despite that, I do kind of find myself wondering about the ways prior to my birth and the arrival of the Kami from time to time. Or at least, a time when things weren't changed so quickly. I'm sure you find yourself having at least some difficulty connecting with your many children when it was nothing like this prior to their birth, much like I find some disconnect with my parents."

She gave a shrug with an open hand. "I admit that parts of it does sound romantic, angry stares cross the river and free punching aside, of course."

[Jiyo Sora]

He snorted.

"If ever you catch yourself thinking the Hikaru had a romance to them, come find me, and I''ll tell you some truths about us. We had our freedom, yes... freedom to roam about the Spine of the World. And that was all. Oh, we had... the usual human things, love, children, a modest artistic tradition that I was no better at than I a tea ceremony, but the time to do anything but focus on survival was so much more limited. If you want romance, you need the time and ease to appreciate it."

He shrugged a bit.

"Mind you, my children have lived a very different life from mine, but... I've been there with them all along, so we've... grown up together. These last seventeen years have been my great adventure."

[Saru Shang]

"It's endearing to hear that you haven't lost your adventure even after settling down to this budding idea of civilization that we're enjoying today. I'm sure it's a better life now for them than it was before, although I'm sure they would fair just as well with you around and punching those who need punching. Do they every pester you with questions of the past like I am doing now?" She laughed lightly.

"There is some romance in focusing on survival, I'd like to think so." she said before she looked down at her robes. "Although I don't have much of a leg to stand in those ideals, I admit."

[Jiyo Sora]

"Not really- Reiko and Kozan ask more than Phi, Shirayuki, or Soryu ever did, because I have twelve years of different stories to tell them than I had for the others, but I still talk about the old days."

He grinned.

"If anything, I think Phi, at least, finds it kind of boring. You know, 'Oh Dad, not this again,' that sort of thing."