Old School

It had been a pleasant autumn. There remained a steady influx of work, but disasters on the job had been few - for the most part, everything was running smoothly. The weather veiled a hint of cold if one was determined to feel it, but the skies were clear and the wind tame.

Rizuka appreciated all these things as she enjoyed a rare moment of quiet. She lifted open a window by a table in her kitchen on her way to the large wooden stove, above which hung several cauldrons, pots, and beakers ranging in appearance from ominous to appetizing. With a looped metal rod, she unhooked a steel kettle from its hanger, cautiously pulling it back toward herself and tilting the rod upward, tipping the kettle's spout. Hot coffee rushed out of the spout into the mug with a satisfying gust of steam.

"Coffee, Midori? I'm surprised to see you consuming something that isn't rice or tea."

Iron Shatters Oak remarked on this afternoon's beverage of choice with some skepticism as he entered her cabin. Rizuka was not startled by his entry, silent as it was, nor would Oak have expected her to be - the two assassins had spent inumerable years creeping, crawling, and sneaking; one would expect to find that they had no surprise reflex at all.

Rizuka shrugged as she replied, "Mesa's got me hooked on the stuff. I've grown indulgent in my old age." She hung the kettle back on its place above the fire and took a seat at the table. The wise woman let a smile slip as Oak moved past her, toward the stove. Monastic as she was, even she was not completely immune to Oak's charm - he had a certain abstract, masculine quality Rizuka, try as she might, couldn't recognize in the males of more recent generations.

The two had known each other for several human lifetimes - Oak was quite comfortable helping himself to Rizuka's provisions and entering without knocking; she was too polite to reciprocate the behavior but never stopped him or expressed displeasure when he did so. Oak, barehanded, took the kettle from the stove with one hand as he reached for another ceramic mug with the other. A lifetime at the forge had hardened his hands to even the most extreme temperatures; he barely noticed the nearly red-hot steel in his hand. He let the coffee spill into the mug and replaced the kettle, then settling into a chair across the table from Rizuka.

Oak stared blankly at the coffee for a moment before digging into the pouch at his side. He produced a flask of bourbon, looking up to Rizuka with a grin.

"May as well do it right." He uncapped the flask and spiked the coffee with a prodigous helping of whiskey. He then tilted the flask toward Rizuka in an unspoken offering. She raised her eyebrows in surprise at first, but again shrugged. She slid her mug forward with a sheepish grin.

"Why not."

Oak smiled and treated Rizuka's coffee to a similar quantity of bourbon. He slid the mug back to her and stuffed the flask back in his pouch. Rizuka rarely ever drank alcohol - although Oak poked fun, she took her nutrition regiment quite seriously. Critics would call her uptight, but the same critics, estimating on appearance alone, would place her age hundreds of years short of its true value. She raised the mug to her lips, blowing on the steaming liquid gently before taking a sip. The pair sat in silence for awhile, listening to the breeze and the wilderness. This was common of their encounters - over the years, they'd covered nearly every conceivable topic of conversation, and unless there was news, frankly, they had little left to discuss. The silence was comfortable, and persisted indefinitely as the pair sipped from their mugs. Rizuka finally broke the silence.

"I heard a funny thing the other day. Mesa took a spear to the chest trying to off a Chayan arms dealer. It was a completely reckless move, so of course I told him --"

Oak cut her off, chuckling a bit. "We've all heard your usual admonishment, Midori. It never works," he said, taking another gulp from the mug, then continuing, "Spare me." He smiled - despite his steely visage, crows feet at the corners of his eyes betrayed an underlying sense of humor.

Rizuka laughed softly as well, shaking her head. "Very well, then. Anyway, while I was patching him up, Mesa and I got around to some arguing, all in good humor of course, and he called me 'old school'." After another sip, she set the mug on the table on and locked her hands behind her head, leaning back in her chair.

"I know I'm a veteran member, but I don't know if I'm old school."

Oak laughed outright, finishing his coffee and folding his hands on his lap as he, too, leaned back. He grinned as he replied, "You don't exactly come off as hip."

Rizuka smiled, letting her chair fall forward again, though she remained leaning against its back, hands behind her head.

"Has that much changed? Are we outdated?"

Oak chuckled while standing up. He returned to the fireplace, mug in hand. As he took the kettle and poured himself another cup, his grin persisted.

"We? Nobody said I was old school. But to answer your question, yeah, I'd say so. A lot has changed. We're a big organization now. You remember when you and I were new members - we barely had a full circle. We didn't even live on the range."

Rizuka wordlessly requested a refill by gently sliding her mug across the table to Oak. She replied while he poured.

"True, we were a smaller group back then. Being a Grass-Spider wasn't a full time job - lots of us took contracts on the side or had other skills to make a living. Still, even then, we were bound by a code of honor - the idea was always to provide a clean solution to messy problems."

Oak shook his head, returning a full mug to Rizuka and sitting down with his own.

"It had more to do with loving with the job. What an assassin should be. You don't see artists who hate painting getting any commissions. Why should people who don't love the work be doing it? All of this honor stuff fell out practicality - you might have made it your moral crusade, but our rules are simply to keep the authorities out of our hair."

Rizuka shook her head, taking a sip of coffee.

"Everyone wants the authorities out of their hair - it's not as though an assassin hired outside of our organization leaves a bloody weapon at the scene of the hit. The point is that we don't come with any serious collateral damage - I don't think too many people would outright object to the notion that sometimes, people have to die, especially in these times. The problem with violence is that it's very rarely done elegantly, and that's not fair to those caught in the wake - we've always been mindful of that. It's been a central precept of the organization since its creation."

Oak smirked, leaning back again as a chuckle began to escape.

"You're so full of your shit that you can't even keep it from coming out of your mouth anymore! Do you really think you're doing some noble deed by being a contract killer? Don't get me wrong, we're obviously a preferable choice to hiring a mercenary army who burns down three villages trying to find one guy, but if you're really looking to be a paragon of virtue, your time is probably better spent healing leper colonies than it is a group of overpaid, albeit extremely talented thugs."

Rizuka was less than pleased with his assessment, but understood that it was conjecture - arguments were about the only conversation piece the elder Dragon-Bloods were capable of generating fresh material for between the two of them.

"You're missing the point, Oak - There's plenty of compassion for leper colonies to go around; their isolation is a matter of practicality, but your usage of them as the canonical example of a thing to be pitied demonstrates that their plight is almost universally understood. The very 'thugs' you reference are our family - I would quite validly suggest that there is far less understanding of their plight."

Oak shrugged, taking a gulp of the coffee, nearing the bottom of the mug. He peered at the remaining black liquid as he replied, "I'll give you that last point, I guess, but that doesn't change the fact that the Order started out as Gyoki's way of getting a good laugh on the weekends - the rules, structure, and the Order as a whole eventually formed from that. It's about doing crazy shit and getting away with it - rules be damned! The only rules we play by are the ones necessary to let us keep doing this."

Rizuka, having emptied her cup, placed it gently on the table and smiled, half-closing her eyes as she replied.

"So if you insist that the rules are purely pragmatic, and the appearance of 'honor' is just because that's the smoothest way to do conduct business, what have all these years of service been about for you?"

Oak returned her smile, leaning forward again.

"Doin' what I do best. These are the most creative fighters in Creation - forging for this group has created challenges for me most 'smiths couldn't even dream of. Yeah, they're weapons, yeah, people get killed, but like you said - that's gonna happen anyway. As far as I'm concerned, it isn't about right and wrong or honor - it's about devoting yourself to an art form and mastering it in ways nobody thought possible. So I don't give a damn about the 'humane' element - does that make me a bad person?"

Rizuka had to admit, Oak had a good point - at the end of the day, the Order was a group devoted to pushing the boundaries of assassination as an art form; it did happen to be a good way to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, but that was a consequence, not an inspiration - very few people in the Grass Spiders had any particular aversion to bloodshed, unsurprisingly. Still, Rizuka had to play devil's advocate. She grinned playfully.

"Well, theologically speaking, yes."

Oak chuckled as he stood, hanging his mug back up where found it. As he started to head for the door, he spoke up again.

"And yet you're no less interested."

Rizuka was, at first, genuinely puzzled at his statement's origin. "Hm?"

Oak stopped behind her chair, putting his heavy hands on her shoulders and leaning forward, speaking quietly into ear.

"Don't think I didn't catch that smile when I walked in. Take care of yourself, old girl."

Oak left without any further dialog, although a smile had graced Rizuka's face once again, now blushed a gentle, cherry red. The smile eventually evolved into a smirk - she couldn't help but feeling a little silly for being so transparent. She ran a finger around the rim of her mug before standing, setting about cleaning up the dishes before returning to the hospital.