Ningenkakushi: Lord of the Desert

Bandit Dawns and School Days

Keeping Pu'ar was a good idea. She's fun and interesting and actually a very skilled shape-shifter, able to become pretty much anything she can imagine, and she's not sure what her time limit for holding a shift is. She says her record is a few days in one shape other than her own, but she'd gotten bored at that point and turned into something else. She can float, too – bobbing along when she wants to like the pull of the ground doesn't even register (it's not as fast as him riding the wind across the dunes (but it's still a good trick)).

At first she cries a lot, because she's easily scared and doesn't realize how strong she can be. It's why he never gets around to showing her some of his better tricks, like calling the winds or reforming his greater self or even how he can ride the wind like so much sand, why he stops carrying scorpions in his pockets and letting snakes curl around his ankles or in his shirt. He doesn't want to scare her away.

However he doesn't want her to go through life scared of the world, either. It... hurts, seeing her scared. He doesn't have an injury or anything but, even when they're on his territory, it hurts. So he does his best to teach her not to be scared, and it's a lesson she learns pretty well. It doesn't always work, though – sometimes she still cries (but she quiets if he holds her (she says he makes her feel safe (he likes that (no one's ever said that to him before (and he likes it)))). He shows her how to use some weapons so she can defend herself – she's good with the ranged ones, not physically strong enough to be suited to hand-to-hand or things like swords or spears, but what she's truly excellent with is her shape-shifting. Her strength remains about the same, but she's creative and fast, and that can make her very dangerous indeed, especially as she begins to put on a bit more muscle.

He also teaches her how to survive in his greater self, what's good to eat, where to find water, where to find shade (and of course he knows all these things (he's been watching how people and animals survive in him forever, after all)). He shows her the little blue teardrop necklace that can call the Wandering Oasis to the wearer (at least, it does since he'd told it to the night before), and she's the proudest thing in the world when he says she can be the one to hold onto it, tucking the pendant carefully into the fur around her neck (he's a little embarrassed by this actually (it's not like he actually needs it to call the oasis (it's his oasis – it always comes when he calls (the necklace is for her)))).

But, as much as he teaches her, she teacher him more.

She teaches him 'home' when he shows her the house he made and they start living there together, and 'concern' when she stays out in the sun too long and gets sick. She teaches him to read, and to write (and he hadn't realized those weird squiggles were words before! (Pu'ar doesn't know the symbols his faraway friend taught him, though (that's how he learns 'disappointment'))). She fusses at him to wear shoes so his feet won't burn, and goggles so the sand won't blind him when he rides the airbike he took awhile back (neither of which he needs to wear (because he is a desert – he doesn't burn and he's made of sand) but he wears them anyway so she won't worry).

She teaches him 'friendship' and how to be not a desert or a man but a person. She does what no other mortal has possibly ever done before, not even Pai.

And she doesn't even know she's done it.

And he loves her best for it, even above his wolves.

OoOoOoOoO

"Lord Yamcha?" she asks him one day as he makes lunch (he eats regular meals these days (it's a way to ensure Pu'ar also eats regular meals (because sometimes she forgets (and also he enjoys food (and cooking))))).