Disclaimer: Although I (haven't seen Lurbe do it yet) will probably be writing about them and warping their personalities so completely that all that remains of the originals are their appearances, let it be known that we do not own any of the henchmen mentioned, nor do we own Cantha, Shing Jea, or any other place we might happen to include. However, we do own Pai Plumei and Klaos Blackadder (to be featured in the next chapter).
Now for the format. Yes, we are two people (I, obviously the more long-winded and unnecessarily florid of the two, and Lurbe – less obviously since he hasn't posted anything yet – the one who writes in short bursts of humor), and since Lurbe hasn't actually posted, the rule doesn't really make sense. However:
If you do decide to review, it really doesn't matter which author you review. Just let us know which comments go to which author. "Too many pretentious words" at the end of chapter two is a pretty clearly defined, if rather rude, criticism, but it doesn't specify who used too many pretentious words, so that can't very well help us can it?
That said: this is MissPixel – Pix for short, Plummeting Plum if you really want to get into the details – with a not-quite-humorous-enough get-to-know-my-prose-style intro.
Vhang the Unnecessary
or
An Intro to Pai
Like most normal students at Shing Jea Monastery, Pai Plumei had grown up and watched her friends make mistakes, most of them born of childish ignorance and very few of them grave or life-altering in any way. If, by chance, she was foolish enough to ignore the lessons in their reckless actions, then she ended up learning by making those mistakes herself – crossing an instructor, oversleeping, kissing a boy, attempting to pet a kappa because she thought it looked sweet.
However, Pai had been lucky. Although she had taken her fair share of falls in her meager nineteen years – being the cause of a feud between men, although not in the sense she might have liked, was not the least of them – she could feel her rate of mistake-making slowing down as she aged, and knew that she was among the fortunate of her peers: without so much as getting her hands dirty, she had been able to simply stand by and learn from two of her contemporaries what she thought must be the most valuable lesson a fledgling elementalist could ever hope to learn.
Aeromancers and geomancers simply did not mix.
It was such a bleakly accurate fact that although in the past Pai had considered herself beyond such petty disagreements, she now simply dreaded the day she met a hydromancer, for even though she considered herself a rather pleasant conversationalist and could not envision herself becoming angry or annoyed at anyone, the truth was that there could be no cure for conflicting elements.
Of course, that meeting was unlikely; the only permutation of elementalism rarer than hydromancy was aeromancy – and since all the fashionable students became pyromancers, she should have no trouble connecting with people she would like and avoiding people she was certain she would not.
The simple prickling of her skin as she walked stiffly at Jinzo's side was more than enough to ensure her that earth and air were both close by, and that even a meeting as short as this one would be tender and easily inflamed. And if Pai knew her teacher at all, he would provide a sufficiently provocative irritant, and then some.
Indeed, it was with the utmost displeasure that Kai Ying watched Headmaster Vhang approach as he stood at the gate. His two companions, the ranger Zho and the assassin Panaku, stood on his either side (Pai smiled when she saw that Panaku's bruise from yesterday had not lessened; his pained expression as he rubbed gingerly at it was a rare and amusing sight), and each looked inappropriately excited as their synchronized heads turned back and forth from the instructor to the headmaster as if waiting for some entertaining brawl to flare up.
Pai had learned after some time to recognize her teacher's piqued mannerisms, one of which was standing tilted to one side with his arms crossed as he chewed on his lip with a distinctly cocked eyebrow – he was doing that now – and the other of which was shooting a stream of perfectly timed insults with a straight face and a ready-to-assume defensive stance.
She bit her lip and hoped he wouldn't feel inclined to do the latter. It didn't help that the person on the other side of Jinzo was Headmaster Vhang, who had been unfortunately assigned to accompany them to Kaineng Center and who, by the look on his face, came more than ready to engage his subordinate in physical combat should it come to that.
"Master Togo's correspondences pin you as quite the prodigy," Jinzo said, and Pai cracked a weak smile when she realized that he had been talking to her – or trying to – for the last thirty seconds or so. "Thank you, sir."
"Don't thank me," he said with a smile, obviously relieved that she had decided to pay attention, "thank the magical womb that bore you."
"I'll do that, sir."
"Stop spoiling her," Vhang put in, much to the displeasure of Instructor Ying just a few feet away, "lest her head get too big."
Pai had also learned through years of watching them trade blows that Kai Ying needed very little by way of motivation to begin his string of insults. This small phrase fell just over the required provocation, as Kai Ying was extremely protective of his students, Pai in particular since she studied exclusively under him, and in the entirety of her memory, she could not recall an instance in which her teacher had allowed Vhang to speak badly of her without striking back.
"If she's good enough for Togo, she's certainly good enough for you," Kai Ying said, and then in a mutter that wasn't quite soft enough, "You're one to talk about inflated self-worth… looks like no one even made an effort to stem your flow of arrogance."
As Vhang's shoulders stiffened, Pai dislodged herself quickly from Jinzo to stand beside her party.
"Ying-san, don't make him angry," Pai pleaded in a low voice.
"Don't tell me he's here to stay," Panaku said, and Zho whistled through her teeth. "It shouldn't matter… we shouldn't complain about an extra ally."
"Not at all," Kai Ying replied amiably, "It'll be nothing short of a blessing to have Vhang the Unnecessary on the team."
"Please tell me he didn't hear that," Pai said quietly, and apparently he hadn't.
"Where is Professor Gai?" Jinzo asked, "Master Togo specified all of you."
"Stumbling about with the wool over his eyes," Kai Ying said with a smirk. Zho and Panaku smiled, and Pai felt dangerously unstable as the corners of her mouth twitched – how long had it been since they'd discovered, after accidentally knocking it off his head, that the material of Gai's headwrap was no more exotic than sheep's wool? It had to have been at least a month, and they still hadn't gotten tired of mocking the garment… Gai had conveniently neglected to replace it in accordance with the joke, but she doubted it would die out easily even if he did.
"That's simply hilarious, Ying," came Gai's voice as he walked up, "I'll have you know that this is the finest quality wool this side of Cantha."
"You do know that that is quite possibly the only wool this side of Cantha," Zho said with a barely contained smile.
The fragile formal trance had been broken at last. All five burst into uncontrollable giggles, and while Jinzo deigned to smile at the volatile humor of young people, Vhang appeared miffed. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing at all, Vhang," Zho replied as she stifled her sniggers, and it wasn't a lie – Gai's second-rate headgear was the least of the group's impulsive amusements, and Pai knew for a fact that the aeromancer would become no less than irate should one of the more complex jokes erupt.
"Right then… let's be off," Vhang said, "it'll get dark soon, and we'll want to avoid the Am Fah before they get rowdy."
"How many Am Fah does it take – " Kai Ying began, but did not get far before Panaku clapped a hand over the geomancer's mouth. "Not that one again. If anything, the naga joke will suffice. Or perhaps the dirty one about jelly."
"Tell the kappa one," Zho put in, "That one's funny."
"No, the Crimson Skull one," Gai said, "I can never get it right when I tell it; I just need to hear it again and I'll have it."
"We need to get moving," Vhang cut in, annoyed.
"Certainly," Kai Ying said as he swatted Panaku's arm away with a grin, and Pai noted with some sadistic enjoyment that an idiot could see the waves of sarcasm radiating from his very posture.
Jinzo turned to Vhang. "I know there's a plague going around, and everything seems a bit grim, but honestly, Vhang. One can still have a little fun."
"Unlike some people," Vhang replied coolly, "I have neither the free time nor the appropriately carefree personality to waste time with jokes all day."
"We all have our special talents," Kai Ying retorted testily, all traces of a good mood suddenly gone, "mine just so happens not to be having a pole stuck up my ass all the time."
"Well!" Jinzo exclaimed, clapping his hands together nervously as the two men stared each other down and the rest looked on expectantly, "The headmaster's right. You should all get going. Kaineng Center is a long way from here."
Pai decided as she walked that this was a good formation in which to travel, and that with any luck at all, they would be able to maintain the strange arrow-pattern for the duration of the trip: Vhang at the front, the group of Panaku, Zho, Kai Ying, and Gai gazing hawkishly at the back of his burgundy head as they trailed behind, and Pai hovering uncertainly between them, thinking that perhaps if she maintained this unbiased position, neither elementalist would be able to issue any kind of complaint.
She was unsure of how much longer this peaceful silence could possibly last, for the past few minutes had been the very epitome of bliss: no harsh words spoken, no acrid glances exchanged, no repulsed faces made by anyone at anyone else behind anyone else's back…
"I'm excited," she heard Kai Ying say in a low voice as she slowed her pace and drew closer, "I've always wanted a sixth wheel."
The small pyromancer sighed. Evidently it had been too good to last, and she was silly to think that she could do anything to change the inevitable.
Panaku let out a short burst of laughter, and quickly changed it into a gasp as Vhang looked sharply around. "What?"
"Nothing, Headmaster," Panaku grinned, "I… choked."
"On what?" Vhang asked tetchily.
"Canthan air, Vhang," Zho put in with a barely contained smile, "it reeks like death."
"Yes," Gai continued, "look, I can hardly breathe."
He issued a series of weak, pathetic coughs that might have been authentic had each one not been punctuated with a strange sort of gasping chuckle, and once again a small eruption of giggles floated through the air.
"You're all acting like teenagers," Vhang fumed, "I don't want to be here any more than you want me to."
"I am a teenager, sir," Pai put in, raising her hand, and heard a chorus of laughter in a circle behind her.
"Zho," Vhang snarled, obviously afraid that the situation was spiraling out of his control, "you're a sensible woman. For gods' sakes, someone here ought to be rational enough to know that this kind of behavior is silly and useless. Why don't you tell them that this is juvenile – all this secret-keeping, and – and giggling!"
"I'm not in a position to do that, Headmaster," Zho replied with a badly-executed mask of stoicism, and the aeromancer pursed his lips in irritation.
"Look, Vhang," Kai Ying said, "wouldn't you rather be mocked harmlessly by your contemporaries – perhaps that's a bit of a stretch, eh old man? – than become the target of a string of acerbic insults singularly directed towards the absurdities and general failings of your personality?"
Vhang ground his teeth as Pai began to snigger. Evidently he'd stopped listening at 'old man' – if there was one thing she knew he despised, it was anyone bringing attention to his age. It wasn't because he was old, because he wasn't – he hadn't even seen his thirtieth spring – but the fact remained that he was currently in the presence of a group of twenty-year-olds, and to them, he was a fossil.
"This is my therapy," Kai Ying said with a grin, and Vhang advanced with a growl. "Oh, by the time I'm through with you you'll need a different kind of therapy."
"Now look what you've done," Pai said crossly, walking abruptly in front of Kai Ying as he adopted a slightly defensive stance in response to Vhang's menacing movements, "I think those men want to fight."
"If you're busy, we understand," the ebony-clothed Am Fah behind Zho and Panaku said quickly, putting up his gloved hands, and his five companions gave nods of agreement. "Really, you all look like you've got enough to worry about."
"No," Zho said after she had turned around, "It's fine. We're done."
"It happens more often than you think," Gai put in, "You see, no one ever taught them the meaning of restraint."
Pai noted from his furrowed brow and frequent, impatient sighing that Panaku was not accustomed to treating his enemies with such bashful politeness. In the nonchalant fashion his companions had grown accustomed to, the assassin was the first to step up as his companions bantered back and forth about how to commence fighting with the least discomfort to either party, and without the slightest change of expression, although it was somewhat hard to tell because of the mask obscuring his face, drew himself up to slide his katar into the gut of the nearest Am Fah, who was kind enough not to make a scene of dying.
The awkwardness multiplied as the Am Fah gradually noticed that in their lapse of attention, the first strike had in fact been made. Since there was no more courteous discussion of who should initiate, Gai decided that this might be the time to throw a quip into the volatile silence.
"Subtle as always, Panaku."
Pai took her place at the back of the group as a rainbow of projectiles began to fly, taking the utmost care to insert herself neatly between Kai Ying and Vhang and make sure that this time, the murderous glares between them were short and relatively harmless.