Aerysia

   Lines of black bent and flew around the room.  They curved in and out from the sheets that covered all four walls of the square room, occasionally opening up for a minute to reveal some bright light from outside before covering the glow, so that the only light left in the room came from a single incandescent bulb that hung from the ceiling, illuminating the face of an aged face.  Some of the man’s wrinkled features were drawing shadows across his face, giving him a stark and sinister aura.

   The man waited for a few moments with his eyes shut, not moving so much as a muscle; he stood so still, even an island could have beaten him in a race.

   Then, in a blur of movement, the man produced a metal throwing star from the sleeve of his robe and flung it towards the wall to his right so quickly that it would seem as if he had simply struck a pose, except for the moan that came from the wall.

   “How?”  A voice came from the other side of the black sheets.  The old man just smiled.  He swung his outstretched arm from his right side across his body and, in doing so, seemed to cause all the cloth hanging around the room to fall smoothly to the ground, revealing three walls of glass looking out onto a majestic mountain view, and one solid wood wall with a simple door.  On this wood wall, in the direction that the old man had pointed, suspended on the wall, was a person, draped in solid black clothes that appeared to be skin-tight and afforded no view of any skin, spare that around the eyes.

   This person was suspended on the wall by the small metal throwing star, which had stuck itself to the wall, and in doing so, had pinned the clothing of this cloaked figure.  “How?”  The question came from the cloaked figure.

   “I am mindful of the space, and the things moving in it.”  The old man walked slowly over to the wall.  When he reached it, he whipped his arm straight up, releasing a second throwing star, which hit the first, releasing the person in black, who promptly fell in a heap in the floor.  “That, and the invisible bunnies told me where you are.”

   The heap got up and whipped the fabric from their face, revealing a young girl’s face.  “The what told you, Sensei?”  The girl’s face showed a mass of puzzlement.

   The Sensei smiled again.  “The invisible bunnies.  They talk to me.”  The girl still seemed puzzled.

   “Sure.”  She nodded slowly, her eyes wide.  “Whatever you say.”

   The Sensei turned to face the large window-wall opposite the wooden one.  “They live in the walls, and are about this big.”  He turned around to show the girl his cupped hands.  “And they talk to us.  One need simply know how to listen.”

   The two started together to walk leisurely towards the window-wall opposite that made of wood and gazed at the view.  It was fantastic.  Mountains stretched out from left to right as far as the eye could see, even from their elevation, which was significant.  Below the snow-covered tips, beneath the timber line, forests of evergreens doused in snow glistened in the light sunlight filtering through the soft, fluffy, pink clouds over to the girl’s and her Sensei’s right.

   The beautiful scene was disturbed, however, by columns of putrid smoke billowing from behind the mountains.  The Sensei and the girl looked out at the smoke with evident concern.  “The war is so troublesome,”  the girl lamented.

   “Both sides simply want what they feel is best for the world; they simply disagree on what is the best for the world.”  The Sensei spoke emotionlessly, but his face seemed to be tinged with sadness.  “If only they could talk about it and listen, instead of killing.”  The Sensei sighed.  “Both sides fight for right, but in doing so, are evil.”

   The girl looked thoughtfully up at the Sensei, and, completely of kilt from the tone of the discussion, complained aloud, “I wish that could be explained in a single phrase, something more succinct.  It’s so common in the world.  To see righteous goodness mixed with evil lust and corruptness.”

   The Sensei smiled down at the girl.  “There is.  Agathokakological.  It means containing both good and evil.”

   The girl tilted her head, eyes wide.  “Huh.  That’s good to know.  Aga... Come again?”

   “Ag-atho-kako-logical.”  The Sensei repeated himself calmly, his smile growing into a grin.  Soon he was beaming from ear to ear.

   “Wars have been fought for millennia.  Over time, many forms of war have evolved and changed with new weapons and tactics.  But since the dawn of time, one form of war has remained unchanged.”

   “Uh-oh.  Are you going off on another of your tangents?”  The girl took a deep breath in.

   “Wars of words.  Different times have stronger or weaker words, but the wars are still the same: the intellectual speaks to the masses, swaying them to their way of thinking.”  The Sensei continued, as if he hadn’t heard the girl talking, and dragged off into what was, much to the girl’s despair, one of his tangents.

   “Imagine all the lives we could’ve saved if we’d fought all our wars with words instead of weapons.  Imagine how much more advanced a civilization we’d have if those minds had designed homes and towns to help encourage life rather than tools to destroy it—”

   “Sensei, it’s getting late.”  The girl interrupted, a little huff in her voice.  “Maybe we should continue with my training.”

   “Of course, my student.  You have good focus: better than mine, at least.”  The Sensei snapped away from the window-wall, turning to face the wood wall, where he seemed to spot something strange, for he took across the room with a swiftness most people wouldn’t believe possible from a man of his age.

   The student followed him, although she was much slower about her movements than her teacher.  When she finally did reach the other side, she found the old man petting a small, hand-sized turtle.  “Uhmm...”

   “Dear child, meet Tortellini.  He’s wandered around this place for a long time.”  He chuckled as he remembered something.  “I used to walk around with him on my head.  He must’ve enjoyed it.  I remember one morning waking up and he had already clambered on top of my head!”

   The girl laughed, and she laughed hard.  The Sensei joined her, laughing with an archaic yet somehow still fresh quality.  After a moment of laughter, the two would calm down just enough to look at each other for a moment, and then burst into another round of laughter.  They couldn’t control themselves.  Neither one knew what was so funny; still, they laughed so hard and long that the sun went down below the mountains while they laughed, and the cloud of smoke became thinner and thinner until it barely existed at all.

   When the Sensei finally got enough a hold of himself, he announced to the room, “I’m gonna light the candles.  Tonight’s lesson is one for wisdom: Sunshine, not rain.”

   The girl ran to the middle of the room and sat herself down, cross-legged, like a little kindergartener.  “I like sunshine!”  She now had the enthusiasm of that kindergartener in her voice as well as her outward look.

   “In life you will be able to look in many directions.  You can look into the damp, dark, rainy night, or into the bright light of a summer day.  Some choose to look into the dark; they feel it is anywhere they go, surrounding and consuming them.  Others are forever in the light, ignorant to the fact that the rain even exists.”

   The Sensei drew a match out the sleeve of his rope, already lit and burning, and touched it to his finger, which he immediately withdrew.  “Too much light is harmful.”  The Sensei blew the match out, and as he did so, the black curtains that had been laying around the room seemed to raise back up to block what little evening light was left.  “No light, likewise, is harmful.”  The dangling bulb, which had been dormant, now lit up, as if by some unseen command.  “Some light is good, and it is better to live in the light than the darkness.  Pay heed to the darkness, but do not live there.  The light always shows a lot more detail, and there is more intrigue to things when seen in the light.”  The old man turned to face the girl, and an uncharacteristically childish smile grew on his face.  “You should’ve seen how intriguing you looked when I first found you.”  He started to chuckle.  And that chuckle grew.  It grew into a laugh, and it kept going.

   “Sensei?”  The girl’s eyes grew a size and a half.  “Sensei?  What’s so funny?  Sensei?”  But he just kept laughing.  “Sensei?  Sensei?”  A growing sense of dread spread across the girls features.

   When the elder finally had control of himself, he breathed, “You were just a little tike, and you were playing with these cups, and—”  he paused to laugh again, “and you had them on your hands and arms and... It was adorable!”  The girl moaned.

   “Oh, no!”