Skyborn

Chapter XII: Always Give To Always Have

Amy Launch's dissociative personality disorder Goku found he could deal with. The real crime was her cooking. She couldn't boil water without setting something on fire. Goku tried to convince her to let him cook for them, but she was adamant – she wanted to do something nice for the people who had taken her in.

So dinner sucked.

Every day it sucked.

After just a couple of days, Goku was already ready to give up. He didn't. Pride kept him from it. He could tell that Roshi was keeping a close eye on him, as if waiting for the moment Goku would break. He decided he wouldn't give his master the satisfaction and so not a word of complaint crossed his lips.

That first afternoon, Roshi had taken Goku to an open field that belonged to an old farmer. There was nothing but grass for miles around. It was beautiful there. Roshi introduced Goku to the farmer, Nour, and told him he would be working the soil for the next few months.

Goku found that odd, but assumed there was a point to it. He had reached for a hand tiller, but Roshi had said, "No tools, Goku. You will work with your hands to build up strength and resilience."

Goku stared at his own hands. He wasn't a stranger to hard work. He and Grandpa Gohan had taken care of their land, just never so drastically. Goku remembered the callouses of his grandfather's hand and wondered if Roshi had been responsible for it.

"When ploughing is done correctly," Roshi had explained, "the field is maintained level and the whole surface is cultivated. A poor ploughing pattern however will give rise to an uneven surface. So clear away the surface trash, fill in any deep holes and remove unnecessary obstacles. The direction of ploughing should follow the longest side of the field. Conventional ploughing is carried out in working strips with a width of up to 25 meters. You know, Shennong, the Emperor of the Five Grains, invented the plow. Do him proud."

Goku's first attempts were bad. He had had to take a lot of nagging with his head down. He had to swallow his pride and try and fail, and then try again. It was a laborious, tiring job, and Goku didn't believe he was taking anything from it, but he did it anyway.

After a week, he finally received his first praise.

"Shujun would be pleased," Roshi told him.

"Shujun? I thought you said his name was Shennong."

"So you were listening," the master chuckled. "Good to know. Shujun was the god of farming. Now follow me."

Roshi led Goku to a river nearby and told him to wash his hands.

Goku did and took the opportunity to notice the subtle changes in his palms. He looked at the fresh cuts and the old ones and felt sorry for himself. Two of his fingernails had fallen off and his little fingers were stiff and achy.

Roshi was watching him attentively. "You've something to say." It wasn't a question.

Goku shook his head. He wouldn't take the bait.

"Then how would you feel about a swim?"

"A swim?" Goku liked to swim. It had been one of the first things Grandpa Gohan had taught him.

A sudden wave of grief took hold of him. His hands didn't hurt anymore. He sat down on the riverbank and looked at the sky. He had been dreaming about the blue-eyed woman every night now. Sometimes the dreams would get very confusing, showing events he didn't understand, and sometimes it would show him things he remembered, things he'd done with Grandpa Gohan.

He was vaguely aware of Roshi's eyes on him.

"Master Roshi? You once said Grandpa mentioned me to you. Did he say anything else? About who I am. Did he know?"