Honome walked along the cobbled stones of the street, her shinobi sandals making a dull squelching noise which reverberated off of the walls, bringing to the fore that she was in an enclosed area, with roughly ten to fifteen feet to either side. Her backpack, which she should be carrying by rights, was being carried by Riko, but she had better sense than to argue with someone who was trying to do you a favor. She noticed, as they approached the city gates, that the buildings on either side started to creep further and further away from each other until the echoes of her footfalls on the stones echoed hollowly in a vast space.
It was the vast spaces, and ones where there wasn’t any reverberation at all that made her nervous, as she didn’t have a sense of where anything truly was. She was getting the hang of ‘seeing’ with her ears, but still, as the houses on either side dropped away, she could only hear the squeak of the sandals, the strain of the fabric of the straps of the backpack, and their two breathing, almost able to hear Riko’s heartbeat.
As Riko slowed, she tilted her head at the greeting and then smiled warmly, it was the boy, Honnou, from the hospital, and the one who had taught the class. It was a good thing that he was here, as they would probably need guidance on the mission. Honome nodded three times in quick succession as he said she looked ready, and Riko asked if she would rather that she hold onto the passport. It was a good idea, seeing as she couldn’t figure out who to hand the information to, and which way to hand it to them. Better for someone with sight to do that. She continued on with saying, “It's good to see you again, Honnou sensei, are you bringing your fox along as well, the really fuzzy one?”
Some lettering, embossed lettering, she had picked up by running her fingers over the raised kanji of the signs and other things that were about town, but it was nigh impossible to discern anything useful from laminated paperwork, or that which had ink on it. Paint was a bit easier, but she preferred the raised characters. “I think that it’d be best if you held onto them.” She admitted, twisting her fingers in front of her. She felt the heat rise to her cheeks and the tips of her ears as she relied on Riko for this too.
“I uh, yeah, yes senpai.” she nodded and dipped her head quickly in a polite small bow to Honnou, “I have a bit of practice with it-” she admitted, putting her palms together she smiled and tilted her head, “And my nose can usually detect when something is off, so I imagine we’ll be able to smell it out.”
As soon as they made the rest of their preparations, Honome unfolding her white cane, she nodded at the both of them. The cane, with a rounded end, wouldn’t get caught on rocks or the like, but she was able to figure out what kind of bigger obstacles were in her way. She could almost walk around without the aid of such a stick, but preferred to take it along for the bigger missions, where her ears could take a break and she could walk while thinking. The cane, meant to find bigger obstacles, obviously had its drawbacks. Sometimes she would step in a small hole or the like, but after tumbling many times in her youth, she got used to the smaller holes and was graceful on her feet.
Each stone that the cane revealed she avoided while thinking about the best way to treat and purify this tainted well. Perhaps there would be a better solution than finding the source and removing it. Perhaps there would be some sort of technique or antidote that could render the supply potable in just a few hours. Every day that the village went without water was another day closer to the whole of the village either losing their lives, or their livelihoods. It was a grave mission, even though it was E ranked, and Honome took it with the seriousness that she had been instilled with in the academy.
As they walked, Honome noticed that there wasn’t much in the way of talking, Riko described what the landscape looked like, and Honome described what she heard that pointed out things that the others couldn’t see, or at least what Riko couldn’t, which was a bit strange, the other two must have been caught up in their thoughts as Honome had been. She wondered whether or not Honnou was content with his lot in leading them on this mission, and whether he was uncomfortable with the closeness of Riko and Honome. She was sensitive to others' suffering, even if it was just slight and she didn't want to be the cause of any such. These were the thoughts that twined through her head throughout the daylight hours.
The sun’s warmth on her face started to creep, slowly, imperceptibly to her back, warming her neck where her hair usually covered. She undid her up-do by pulling out the bobby pins that held it in place, letting the white strands fall to her shoulders to block out the warmth and ran her hand through the tresses a couple of times to unbraid the hair, feeling the silk-like strands run through her fingers like buttered threads.
--
As they broke their march for camp that night, she recognized the setting of the sun by the absence of its warmth and the cool breeze and insects that sang about the joy of relief from the ever burning orb in the sky.
Someone had described the moon to her, and then made a reference to how her hair looked very similar to the moon-beams that peeked out from between the leaves and fell in cascading strands upon the earth. She could almost feel them with the way that the boy had described them, but her mother had told her to never trust a poet, and indeed it was a good thing that she hadn’t trusted his silvered tongue, for it had found its way to another girl’s mouth not two evenings after he had sweet talked her.
Having had this experience, she was quite hardened to honeyed words, and feigned the rest of the natural oblivion that she had when it came to relationships. Therefore, when Riko brought up that she wanted to be ‘girlfriends’ with Honome, she was a bit stunned. She had been caught in the act of braiding and unbraiding her hair, as she was want to do when she couldn’t sleep because the night-sounds kept her awake, and had heard the regular breathing of Riko become erratic, thinking that she was going to fall asleep, Honome had closed her eyes before the question hanged in the air for a couple seconds. Had she waited too long? Hesitated too much like with all her other relationships.
“I’ve never had a girlfriend before.” Honome mused, finally, humming to herself with a wide grin on her face, the grin that a girl would have when faced with the choice between candy and a stuffed animal. “I’d be willing to give it a go, if you’d teach me the rules of it.” She continued to play with the strand at the end of her already re-twisted braid, feeling the uneven ends of the hairs tickle her fingertips. She didn’t know what else to say, was there anything else to say? Perhaps not on this mission, but maybe later on. Honnou indeed had been a good wingman, and Honome was conscious that she didn’t want him to feel the third wheel. It took her a long time, with her thoughts on her new relationship status, to fall asleep
--
Morning arrived with the cool winds of the coming dawn, and they broke camp as the rays tickled her skin, bringing goose-flesh to her arms and warmth back into her stiff limbs from sleeping on the ground. She wondered how Honnou and Riko had fared. The trek to the village was not long, and Honome had a chance to drink her fill from her water bottle, then fill it up in a stream and drink from that stream as well, only a couple hours away from their destination.
As they entered the village, Riko’s body felt more rigid, as did Honnou’s. They saw something surprising and Honome took the chance to listen to the people around her, to smell the air, to taste it. Something was sickeningly sweet, befouled and the smell of offal and vomit clung to the clothes and walls of the place. She could pick up the scent of freshly dug earth, which usually meant crops, but it dampened and smothered a deeper smell, the scent of death. Had they arrived too late, had someone already died?
Honome heard the pattering footfalls on the hard-packed dirt road before the youth came up to her, tugging at her clothing. She usually didn’t enjoy people touching her, as it rearranged how she interacted with the world, but desperation needed to be met with temperance and understanding. She reached out and unzipped her pack on Riko’s front, taking hold of her water-bottle, which she had filled in a stream on the way into town and nodded, “I do have a water-bottle, and we can get your mother feeling better. Why don’t you take me to her and we can get some water into her and see if you can help me get some more. I am assuming you all have buckets?” She motioned around, her eyes never really latching onto the child, but looking to his right instead, at the ground next to him.
“And a shoulder-yoke would be best, but we can make do with our hands if you don’t have that.” She patted her shoulders and stretched out her arms to mime what she was talking about. Then she frowned, took out her walking stick and put it over her shoulders, resting her hands on either end, and then pointed down three times, “Like this, where the buckets go down and we can carry them on the end of ropes or chains?” She offered him the water-bottle, “Drink a bit yourself, I’m going to need your help to get some more water for the folks here, deal?” She was adopting the mentality of helping those who could be helped first, before moving onto the more intensive care. If he didn't get water into him as well, he would become another patient, another strain on the already strained resources, rather than a help to his village. Even though he was not yet ten, he had the wherewithal to come to the shinobi for help, and was old enough to at least carry a bucket a couple of hours. Besides, seeing a youth doing this might move the adults into action.
Honome frowned with indecision and then sighed, turning to her companions, her iridescent eyes pleading with the other two companions she had along with her, “I’m sorry, can you two investigate the well, I think we need to get some water to the people first, or at least at the same time.”
[WC: 1883]
[WC total: 2268]
