"What, you think I'm his keeper or something?"

Feng-Lung's exasperation was going to simply continue today, it seemed. He had gone to the Hall of Symmachus and been met, as expected, with opposition on all sides.

First, he'd had to shrug off the odd looks the other Disciples of the Tiger had given him. Then, he'd had to put up with the attitude of Fai-Deng.

"Look, Brother," the Tiger was saying as he cleaned sweat and spittle from his face – the markers of recent Kata practice. "I have forgiven you for your rejection of my apology to you. But that does not mean I need to put up with all your antics."

Feng blinked.

"You have forgiven me for forgiving you?"

"Bah!" Fai roared. "Are all you Eternal Dragons the same?! Must you test the patience of me every single time I interact with one of you?"

Feng could sense the tension building in the Hall. But, then again, that was nothing special when it came to Fai.

"Look, Brother," he began. "I have had a long day. Please just let me know if you have s-"

"YOU!?" the Tiger roared, throwing his towel down like a gauntlet being tossed in challenge. "I have been made a slave. You hear me, Feng-Lung? A machine has made me nothing but a glorified repair man today! I swear by the Dao, if Master Yoma-Dur had not been here and found the Cog's request amusing…"

Hold on a minute here.

"Brother?" Feng interjected. It seemed the Tiger had become lost in thought, and as he collected himself, it then became clear to Feng-Lung that just like the old Gui'po in the library back there, he had just realized he had said too much.

"Feng, I will be honest with you," the Tiger said. "I am supposed to provoke you into a fight and let you win. It is apparently what the old heroes of the 'Woosha' books the Cog has been reading recently would do. We were to jump around this room like the practiced aeronauts of Qing's time and have a duel of 'epic' proportions. Tiger versus Dragon – Brother against Brother. Some symbolic guff such as that. But, truthfully Brother, I am tired today. The spirit of battle and spectacle is not within me. So I shall simply tell you what you are supposed to, as our Brother put it, 'beat out of me.'"

As Feng stared like an old blind fool into the Tiger's heaving face, Fai simply went on.

"He was last seen speaking to the Planeswalker in his chambers. I suggest you move quickly. But, between the two of us, Brother, I don't think speed really matters."

Feng nodded slowly, feeling like a child trapped in some rudimentary maze – a maze designed by an altogether clunky and anticlimactic maze-master. He bowed, took his leave, and walked confusedly back outside to the winter air, taking a deep breath as he now made his way towards Ori'un's quarters.

"I can guess why you're doing this," he said to himself. "Alright. Fine. You know that curiosity is my weakness. You know that finding out your little mystery is the only reason I would ever go and speak to the Planeswalker. Damn you, XJ-V, you are a devious machine like the old tales say after all."

Brother Kai-Thai waved him a jovial greeting as he passed him by and entered the Hall of Symmachus to see his Brother Tiger.

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"Hello, fellow cub!" he shouted. "How fares you?"

And from even the bottom of the great Hall's steps, Feng heard the groan of Fai-Deng as he replied.

"Oh, not another one!"

…

Ori'un seemed to have business of his own.

The room Master Longhua had afforded the Planeswalker was possibly the shabbiest cubby-hole in all of the monastery. It's doorway was practically crumbling at its edges, leading into a plain chamber without even a window to the outside world. Locked away at the very edge of the Dragon Commune, Feng-Lung supposed Longhua wanted the Planeswalker to feel imprisoned. He'd never understand the old man's spite for anyone who disagreed with him.

Then again, Master Longhua was on the impossible path of Ego Internalizer. The mind of a Rank 3 Corporeal Temperer like Feng's could not conceive of what burdens such a Master had to endure.

Nor could it understand the mind of the man who was currently packing his rucksack as though heading off on a long trip.

A trip that, by the items he was carrying, was going to involve a lot of drinking…

"Ah, Feng-Lung," he said, packing another glass canister surreptitiously into a pocket of his bag with a little chuckle. "What a…surprise this is."

Feng groaned, his eyes having moved further back into his head today than they ever had before.

"I see you are preparing to leave," was all he said.

"Not for good as yet, you'll be disappointed to know," Ori'un replied. "I have an important mission to complete."

"A mission?"

"Oh, yes. One of pivotal importance. You see, I have discerned the location of the most affluent rice-wine distillery in the region. Apparently, a certain farmer in the town of Khadis has his very own brand. And it's the good stuff."

Feng-Lung scoffed. "You are going on a mission…to find booze."

Ori'un gave a sarcastic scoff of his own. "Please," he said. "I prefer to call them 'spirits'".

Feng ignored the impish wink this legendary man then gave him.

"Whatever you have to say to me," he said. "Get it over with and tell me where this sneaky Cog is hiding. I know it is he that has orchestrated all my pains this day. And I know that you know this, too."

"Young Feng, have you really had such a painful day, here? You've been the hero of your own little adventure, have you not? I'd have thought you'd quite enjoy it after what you've been through."

Both men watched each other in silence. A silence that was only broken when Ori'un decided to push through it.

"I told you back then, did I not?" he said quietly. "I told you that one day you would have to meet the world head-on again, or it would come for you. I don't care if you believe me or not, but my intention in coming here was not to cause you pain. There are things out there bigger than you and I, young Feng."

The boy grimaced, he looked away. But he couldn't disagree.

"I know it," he said.

"Feng, if you had the chance to re-take your test – to move to the next rank – you would take it, wouldn't you?"

Feng-Lung pursed his lips. This was a conversation he had done everything in his heart to avoid.

Curse you, XJ-V!

"…of course I would."

"Great!" Ori'un roared. "That's all I wanted to hear."

The Planeswalker slung his bag over his shoulder and walked right past Feng, leaving the boy standing there like a mute - deaf and dumb to the world.

"Oh!" he said before he left to go on his little excursion. "That's right. I'm supposed to inform you that what you seek is right back where you started. For," he gave a little chuckle. "'All true journeys end with a return.'"

Feng bristled, about to burst into flame like a dying phoenix.

"Ai-Lee's Grove…he's been there the whole time!?"

"He might have learned a few new Earth Grade tricks in the art of stealth," Ori'un winked. "But I am just a humble Planeswalker, DIsicple Feng. I don't know anything about that."

"…I'm sure you don't."

He watched the Planeswalker go with the slowly dropping sanity that had been plaguing him all day long.

"Ori'un," he said, his voice a-quiver. "I…my intention was not to fight with you when you came here. That's why I…well…there are some people that one cannot look at, even when the benefit of years tells them that, in their youth, they were wrong."

He cringed at how awkward he sounded. But the Planeswalker, quite entertained it seemed, merely waved and wished him good luck on the final step of his quest.

"Feng-Lung…" he murmured to himself as he left the monastery. "Perhaps you really have grown, after all."

###

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