More Questions (Junko)

Sitting cross-legged and bare-chested in the middle of the dojo floor James was focusing on his inner peace and his mental balance, as the snow continued to fall outside he could hear every flake as it hit the front windows of his dojo. No matter how much I try I still feel the presence of the beast that resides within me, its urge to kill and its need for gold. Normally when a dragon reaches this stage in his maturity he is to seek the council of the elders, what am I to do without help? Am I to suffer the rest of my life with this monster?

With a heavy breath he exhaled a blast of flame warming the inside of dojo to the point most humans would compare it to a sauna, but for James it felt like home. Home, somewhere I haven’t seen for nearly half a millennium…Somewhere I will never see again. A pang of sadness ran through his body as he reached up and ran his fingers over the four scars that served to remind him of his exile. Growling he let loose another blast of flame to vent his anger yet he still continued to sit in the middle of the floor. “If you are trying to be quiet, I offer a word of advice. Don’t try and sneak up on a dragon, ever.”

((If its ok with you, lets have this be before you meet Kuroi))

Junko had not been trying to sneak up, infact she was a few yards away, but running. Her gigai had left her shoes there, and she had taken her socks off, no sense in those getting wet. However the 3 mile expedition on foot had ended in cold feet. Very cold feet. Her toes had succumed to a mild case of frostbite, and despite her reiatsu having a warm effect to it, it couldn't seem to drive off the bitter cold of her feet.

Junko had gotten to the foot of the steps and jumped up the rest, knocking on the door hurridly and with a sharp 'tap tap tap' of knuckles, and she hopped in place, hoping to move abit more to keep up some warmth. She looked for her shoes, and they were incased in a block of ice. Junko swore softly, and hoped she could come in.

Turning around James gazed around the empty dojo, I know I heard someone walking up behind me. Hearing the knock on the door he realized that it was locked, unusual for him to do so but not unheard of; Standing up James went to the door as he unlocked the door and opened to see a very pale Junko standing on his doorstep barefoot, already some of her toes were starting to change color. With a look of concern he motioned the girl inside, “What the hell is wrong with you, even with your ability to manipulate your spiritual aura to keep warm; you could have killed your gigai.”

Guiding the soul reaper inside he sat her down in the center of the dojo where he was only moments before; it was still warm though not as warm as before. Walking into his private area of the dojo he disappeared for a moment before returning with a teapot and two cups. Blasting the pot with a stream of flam he stopped after a few seconds and poured the steaming contents into the cups offering one to Junko. “So what in the world possessed you to run all the way here in a human guise instead of your shinigami form?”

Junko hopped inside quickly, the warm inside was nearly sauna like, and make her toes sting and hurt like thousands of needles were stabbing her. She sat down against a wall, concentrating her reiatsu in her hands and rubbing her feet, sharp pain was inflicted on her feet, but it helped circulation restart in her feet. She accepted the tea gingerly, taking it close to her body as her sleeveless shirt hardly helped trap heat. She would answer his questions in a moment, but she had to make sure she kept her toes on her body...

After a few sips of the tea and about 3 minutes waiting, as well as emitting spritual pressure to warm herself up, her feet still hurt, but they would live. Junko got the will to talk then, and she said in a shaky voice, not out of fear this time, but of cold.

"First, If my gigai were to die with me inside, i would die. Second, I need my shoes, which are currently frozen outside your doorstep..."

Junko rocked pulled her legs to her chest and started rocking back and forth, setting the tea down first, and continued in a more steady voice, "I have a few more questions as well, and i dont mean to be picky, but do you have any honey?"

James smiled as he returned to the back room to retrieve the honey for Junko, after a few moments he returned with a jar of fresh honey and a heavy wool blanket handing both to Junko James then went and retrieved her shoes and of heat the ice went straight to vapor and he sat them in the sink to dry out. “Now explain to me why didn’t you just use your shunpo technique to get your shoes and then you could have stayed warm?” Sighing James let loose a blast of dry heat, “You Human types are so squishy able to die from being too cold.”

“Sitting down across from Junko he pulled a hunk of rock out of his pocket and started chewing idly on it, “So you have more questions huh, well you came to the right place. I see myself as a teacher of all, not just the students who pay to attend my history classes or the ones that participate at the dojo.” Taking another bite out of the rock he held it in his palm like an apple as he started the exchange of questions, “What would you like to know Junko?”

Junko shivered, melted snow forming drops of water on her hair, occasionally dropping onto her breasts, She pulled up the wool blanket up to her chin, and shivered some more.

Junko replied abit hot headed, her tone indicating an irrate manner, "Well, Shinigami ablities are limited in a gigai, such as no shunpo. If I shunpo, I cant get my shoes, if i want my shoes, i have to get them the old fashioned way...

Junko added, quite abit of honey to her tea, her left arm slipping from the blanket to add it, and lift the cup to her mouth and sipped on it more, her facial expression making clear that it was more than satisfying. Junko replied more calm like, "Umm, this might seem like an odd question, but When did we meet. Even a century would be fine, but the more specific the better i guess...

Closing his eyes James let the memory flow over him, “I wasn’t a full dragon back when we first met merely a simple drake, a dragon who hasn’t developed the strength to fly. I guess that would be about 75 by the way you mortals measure time. I had just been exiled, the mark was still fresh when I met you.”

James opened his eyes still seeing a look of confusion still on her face he brought the rock to his mouth and took another bite. “It was in the 14th century if that is what you are wondering, I don’t know the exact year.” He took another moment to think then added rather flippantly “I didn’t pay much attention to the way time passed back then.”

Popping the rest of the rock in his mouth he asked, “Surely you have more questions than that, I can see them in your eyes.”

Junko thought about that, her synapses making connections, her brain working, she remembered being dead something like 700 years, which would put her about 200 years living. And... she would have had to been reincarnated or something, which is possible as another cycle, but why would she have these memories. And why would she not remember that.

"I have questions, and that raises many. You see, i have memories of being dead for since the 11th or 12th century... I now believe them to be fake."

Junko said this in a even tone, one that stated facts, and demanded no explaination.

"Aye, but lets hear more about you, you claim you are a teacher, and you own a dojo and yet you have no students that I have seen."

James smiled as the white-haired shinigami ask a question directly about him, “You have ‘yet’ to see a student of mine, because you only show up here after I close my doors to the public. Most of the students that attend my dojo are hatchlings, errr I mean children, who simply need a teacher that can show them the difference between fighting for the cause and fighting for the benefit.”

Pausing for a moment James took a breath, “I don’t suppose they teach that to shinigami, as it seems all I ever hear for your comrades is how you will enforce the law with the last breath. Besides I couldn’t live with myself if I sent my students away to walk home in the dark, you of all people know what lurks in the shadows of this city, and before you ask none of my students know what I truly am.”

James stopped as palming the stone as one would an apple and took another bite out of it. “What of you? What have you done since we last met, because your temperament has calmed quite a bit; though as for common sense…” James trailed off as he looked towards her feet.

((OOC: I have no idea what this this was about anymore, so I'm just kinda winging it. Also, thank Lazarus for saving this post...))

Junko shivered, each shake purging a bit more cold from her body. She simply let him speak, sipping the tea, not really making progress, but the warmth it provided was nice.

"What you are? All I know i you're a 'dragon', and my own past is shrouded in a muck of fog. Sure the shinigami, are trained, mabye indoctrinated, but sure they... We, keep those... Monsters... at bay. Give some, take some."

She paused, taking a sip of her tea.

"I am a shinigami, I died, and... I don't really remember how, or why. But now I know my memories are, manipulated. I lived for three hundred years past when I should have died, and I... I was something before, and I don't know what..."

Junko started breaking up, this new warmth defrosting her cold outer shell, letting emotions run free.

"What... what was I? When I was alive?"

(OOC: RuGaard is another name James answers too, but its suppose to be unpronounceable to the human tongue.)

James leaned back against the wall as he looked at Junko, closing his eyes he let out a sigh. “I was a dragon, now I am something in between a dragon and a human; back then I was still allowed to keep my true form though I was still exiled, from my kind. That is what you really want to know isn't it?” James looked at the woman dripping water from her hair as the snow started to melt from the heat of the warm dojo. “I was alone that night on the mountain because my own kind had wiped my memory, that is part of the condition of the exile that I not remember how to find my way back to the safe haven that my kind call home. If it wasn't for my family's position on the council of elders...” James continued to talk of his exile for a while as it all flashed before his eyes again...something had managed to break that barrier in his mind enough to bring back the memory of his trial.

He saw three dragons each scales seem to move and flow like a river of shining light as they flexed and twisted in the fading light of the constant twilight. His own father sat upon the dias leading the trail as he had been the one to find RuGaard with the remains of the true traitors body strewn all over the inside of his home. He had killed him in a blood rage and in that rage had lost the only bit of proof he had against the man, the trial was what humans would refer to as open and close. Everything pointed to RuGaard as a murderer, and not just that he had killed the head of the elder council. For any other dragon that would of meant death; having your wings shredded and broken before being thrown from the cliff to the rocks below.

“My father couldn't do it, sentence his own son to death and his decision was a very unpopular one among the people. He chose to have the memory of them cleansed from my mind so that I could never remember who I had been or where I was from. Though I suspect he held the magic back so I wouldn't forget my heritage as the seal on my memories occasionally lets things slip through.” James shook himself free of his memories as he stopped talking for a moment to put some thought into Junko's other question.

“As for you...I don't really know what you were...I know you were a decent fighter you were able to injure me in my true form. You had amazing white wings and for a human you were at home in the air as a bird. You're eyes back then were cold and distant when you faced me; like you had an irrational hatred of monsters like I seemed to be.” James leaned his head back against the wall as he closed his eyes, these memories were draining on him, but he owed this young woman any answers he could give. James was too old to hold a grudge.