“Well I did warn her to take good notes. She’s been slacking off lately and Lord knows I need to do something to wake her up.” Agatha sighed heavily snuggling herself deeper into his arms.
“And your premonition?“
“Dreadfully vague, something abought eastern philosophy and false death. So of course I ran her through the gauntlet of undead your people put up with, and an assortment of information on chi sorcerers and the higher level eastern martial artists. Not that there’s a lot of difference between the two at the upper levels. I’m pretty sure, since it was false death and not undeath, she’s going to be dealing with something more in your field then mine, but I’m sure she’s going to be thinking the opposite of course.”
“Are you sure she can handle it?”
“I consulted with Strange. He said the chaos level was a lot higher then normal around her, but that she was only in danger from emotional pain at moist.”
“Moist?” Caine blinked in confusion.
“That’s what he said.” Agatha grinned, “Of course then he corrected himself and said he meant most, but you know what it’s like trying to read the future of a chaos witch. Sometimes the slips are more telling then the readings themselves.”
“Ahhh, so you suspect an ‘eastern martial artist boyfriend thought dead’ type of thing.”
“Like teacher, like student.” Agatha said beginning to undo the clasps on his Chinese’s shirt.
“You don’t think he’s one of mine do you?” Caine replied working at the buttons on her dress.
Agatha paused. “Have you ever dealt with a chaos fount? Because with the level of interference Strange was reading it could scarcely be anything else.”
Caine stopped what he was doing and shuddered. “I sure as hell hope not, because I have only trained one fount and he was the biggest pain in the ass it has ever been my misfortune to encounter.”
Agatha frowned slightly. “Bad seed?”
Caine paused as he thought abought it. “Not really. He was actually extremely friendly and soaked up what I told him like it was water and he been dying of thirst. I’ve never had a more… adept student in all my life. It some ways he actually was a joy to teach, when he wasn’t driving me nuts.”
“So why was he a pain?”
“Well you know my style relies on very strict lessons to teach, not only the moves themselves but the unique viewpoint needed to advance beyond them and truly see.”
“Yep, uptight and inscrutable in the extreme.”
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way, but for the most part you are correct. It was because of what I learned from him that I began questioning some of the tenets of my faith and journeyed beyond them.”
“I thought you were suppose to be instructing him?”
“It is a poor teacher that does not learn from his student.”
“There you go being inscrutable again.” Her eyes twinkled as she grinned up at him.
“Let me give you an example…”
*****
Ranma walked with Caine as he humbly asked to pass by a group of young men. They were clearly looking for someone to beat on to make themselves feel superior, so they could get up the nerve to rob the poor farmers who were selling the rice Caine and Ranma had come to buy.
Ranma had seen enough on the road to recognize the type. Genma had explained that you were basically allowed to rob people like that after they attacked you. After all if you had lost they would have taken your money, so basically it was an informal bet on who was better.
Ranma watched with a grin as the men surrounded master Caine and tried to berate him for being a ‘chicken stealing bastard’ and a beggar good for nothing but fertilizer. When He didn’t gainsay them or offer any protest to their treatment of him they began to swell up their chests and strut around.
Swaggering and feeling like big shots they began to push at him and insult him further.
Ranma noticed that Caine still held his tongue and waited. Unlike Genma Caine had a certain standard to adhere to. He was a humble priest after all. Humble priests always wait until seriously attacked before acting.
One of the young punks swung at Caine and that’s when he struck. Caine moved like the wind through the five of them. Several made the mistake of getting back up, but never more then once, as Caine seemed to look on that as them requesting a more through beating.
*****
“And do you know what the little punk said when I asked him what he learned from that?”
Agatha starred into his eyes enthralled “No, what?”
“He said You can get them to attack easier by pretending to be meek then by pretending to be harmless. He pointed out that I could have crossed the road or walked around them, but that I had deliberately chosen to walk in between them to entice them to attack me, so I could deal with them directly without going against my oaths. While at the same time protecting the farmers.”
Caine grumbled to himself for a minute before looking into Agatha’s eyes and saying “The lesson was suppose to be ‘Humility may lead to meanness, But vanity may lead to violence. Therefore it is better to be humble.’ and instead he got that from it! And that’s not even the worst part.”
“There’s more?”
“Yes. In the end I had to agree with him. He was correct. I was looking for a way to protect the farmers without breaking my vows to not fight except in self defense, but that’s not even the worst part.”
“It gets worse?”
“Much. He said I had done the right thing because I didn’t make them attack me I just let them show their true nature and reacted the way I was suppose to. Then…” Caine shuddered a little, “He said he finally understood the lesson with the pebble.”
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(Posted Mon, 10 May 2004 13:16)
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