Sen stopped and cocked his head to one side when he thought he caught the sound of laughter echoing down the mountain after him. After a moment, the sound receded and didn’t return. Sen shrugged and continued on his way. He’d gone perhaps half a mile when he smiled to himself and called out.

“You can come out now!”

Sen didn’t stop walking. Instead, he maintained the same ground-consuming stride he planned to maintain most of the way down the mountain. Perhaps a minute later, Falling Leaf walked up and started keeping pace with him. Neither of them said anything. They just descended in companionable silence. Eventually, Sen’s stomach reminded him that it still existed. Much as Master Feng had done on the trip up the mountain, Sen kept an eye out for a convenient clearing. He shared his lunch with the big cat, tossing her bits of food to chase around. It was a bittersweet moment for him, knowing that it was likely one of the last times, if not the last time he’d do that with her for a good long time.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again when you didn’t come to the house this morning.”

The cat eyed Sen for a moment but didn’t deign to answer beyond a vague shake of her head. He’d known her long enough to know that was ghost panther speak for ‘don’t be an idiot. I can’t trust you not to fall off a cliff without me around.’ Sen smiled at the big cat, a little moved that she was still watching out for him.

It didn’t take long before Sen started to understand just how much Master Feng must have limited his natural pace on that first trip up the mountain. It had seemed brutally fast to Sen at the time, but it must have felt agonizingly slow to the old cultivator. By Sen’s estimation, he’d reach the bottom of the mountain by mid-afternoon. He did slow a little after he made that realization. It wasn’t as though Grandmother Lu was expecting him. He could drag out his time with Falling Leaf a bit. As they walked, something occurred to him. He looked over at the big cat.

“I never apologized to you, did I? I mean, after I stormed off that night.”

Falling Leaf gave him a look with narrowed eyes.

“Okay, I can see that I didn’t. In that case, let me apologize now. I shouldn’t have stormed off like that. You gave me good advice. I just didn’t want to hear it at the time. I’m sorry for acting that way.”

She continued giving him that narrow-eyed look for a moment before her expression relaxed into something more friendly. He gave it a moment to see if she’d say something, but she didn’t. Sen decided to take that slightly less hostile look as her acceptance of his apology. He did notice that the farther down the mountain they got, the more relaxed that Falling Leaf became. Sen supposed that the smarter and more dangerous spirit beasts probably lived above, simply to avoid the cluster of humans in the town below. While almost any spirit beast was more than a match for most humans, those odds changed when you got a whole group of humans working together. Sen thought it was an odd sort of balance that the spirit beasts had struck with this bit of encroaching civilization. Moreover, he wondered how long that balance could last. If the town grew, would the spirit beasts retreat deeper into the wilds, become more aggressive, or try to maintain the status quo?

Sen let that question roll around in his head for a while. It gave his mind something to do while they walked. Even covering ground as fast as they were, there was only so much to look at. After the first few hundred trees, they lost most of their interest for Sen. He kept his senses extended, wary for threats, but nothing bothered them. That left Sen with a hint of unease. Constant attacks from the local spirit beasts would have frustrated him, while occasional run-ins with them would have met his expectations. A total absence of attacks struck him as a bit unnatural. He voiced those concerns to Falling Leaf, who gave him a look that said she agreed, but that she also wasn’t sure what there was to do about it. Eventually, Sen started picking up hints of wood smoke and the less pleasant odor of trash. He glanced over at the ghost panther and stopped. They faced each other for a moment before Sen walked over and crouched down so he could look directly at the panther.

“It’s your job to keep yourself safe until I get back. I expect you to be here, safe and whole, when I return,” said Sen. “Go and visit Uncle Kho every once in a while. It drives him crazy that you can just ignore his formations, but I think he’d miss giving you treats.”

Sen saw a twinkle in the big cat’s eyes at those words.

“You’re my only real friend, you know. Master Feng, Uncle Kho, and Aunt Caihong all care about me, but I’m like a mix between a great, great, great grandchild they took in for a while and some kind of cultivation experiment. You didn’t care about any of that. You were just my friend. I’m going to miss you.”

Not sure how to sum up the wrenching pain that leaving her on the mountain was causing him, he just pressed his head gently against hers. They stayed that way for a long time before the big cat finally pulled back.

Her gaze became a piercing blade. “Move swiftly. Move silently. When you must strike, strike to kill.”

Sen was a little taken aback by the intensity of that statement, but he nodded. “I will.”

Falling Leaf gave him one last look, then vanished into the forest. Sen allowed himself five seconds to stare after his departing friend. Five seconds to wallow in the sense of loss. Five seconds to fantasize about calling the whole thing off. He gave himself five seconds to be a child for just a little bit longer. Then, the five seconds were over. Sen took a breath, squared his shoulders, and started walking again. He’d angled himself slightly away from town so he could come out on the narrow road to the west of the town. If anyone saw him simply walk out of the wilds, it would draw more attention than he wanted. The only people who went into the wilds from the town were the hunters, and everyone knew them on sight. For a stranger to simply stride out of those forests looking none the worse for wear. They might accuse him of being a demon.

So, he took the extra time to leave the forests away from prying eyes. Then, he simply walked up to the western gate of the town. As he approached the gate, he saw a guard come out. He remembered those guards. They had always seemed huge and powerful to him. Now, the man standing outside the gate looked like he wouldn’t be much more than a minor inconvenience to any spirit beast that decided that the things inside those walls smelled like food. The guard's spear was old, as was his breastplate, and both were poorly cared for. The man held the spear like he’d never received a minute of training with it. The sight of the guard mishandling that weapon made Sen feel a little angry. He did his best to bury that anger. The guards weren’t his responsibility. If the mayor couldn’t be bothered to have the men trained properly, Sen couldn’t fix that problem.

The guard lifted a hand to stop Sen, but the man’s eyes kept drifting down to the jian that Sen wore with such casual ease. Sen could almost see the guard deciding that this was a fight he didn’t want to pick. Before the guard could simply fail in his duty, Sen drew to stop. He very consciously stopped outside of weapon range for himself and the guard. The guard let out a breath he’d been holding.

“Name? Purpose of visit?” Asked the guard.

“Lu Sen. I’m here to see visit my grandmother, Lu Jia.”

The guard visibly straightened at Grandmother Lu’s name and offered Sen a deep bow. “Of course, honored guest. Be welcome to Orchard’s Reach. Do you know the way?”

“I do,” said Sen, only to realize that might have been a mistake.

Oh well, he thought. I can’t fix it now. The guard immediately turned away and opened the gate. While he didn’t think much of how the guard handled a spear, the man had been polite enough. Sen nodded to the guard as he stepped through the gate and onto the streets that had been his childhood home. While he didn’t expect cultivator trouble in the small town, Sen took the precaution of hiding. He was here to see Grandmother Lu. That was all. If cultivators wanted to fight with him, they could do it some other day, preferably in some other place. As he walked, Sen was surprised at how little had changed. It felt like a lifetime had passed for him, but maybe five or six years wasn’t really that long in the lifespan of a town. He really didn’t know. Of course, with so few changes around him, it only took a short walk for Sen to find the house that Master Feng had acquired for Grandmother Lu’s use. A young woman answered the door and showed him in. He noticed her cheeks turn bright red any time she looked at him for more than a few seconds. What an odd girl, he thought. She disappeared into the house and an older man came out to the entryway to greet him.

“Can I help you, young man?” The older man asked, wariness and curiosity warring in his eyes.

“I am here to see my grandmother, Lu Jia.”

“Your grandmother,” the man repeated before his eyes went very wide. “Are you Lu Sen?”

“Yes, I am called that,” Sen answered, offering the man a smile.

Much to Sen’s abject horror, the man dropped to his knees and slammed his head against the floor. “Forgive this lowly one, honored cultivator. Your grandmother is not here.”

Sen felt his heart try to stop in his chest. What had happened to Grandmother Lu? Had she died? Sen forced calm onto his racing heart and mind.

“Can you tell me where she is?”

“She is at her shop, honored cultivator.”

Sen frowned. Grandmother Lu had a shop? He didn’t care. She was alive. That was all that mattered.

“Please get up,” Sen told the man.

The older man hastily rose to his feet, but he never quite met Sen’s eyes. “How can I assist you, honored cultivator.”

“I only require directions to my grandmother’s shop.”

“At once, honored cultivator,” the man nearly screamed.

Sen felt a sudden surge of belated empathy for Master Feng. He imagined that the frustration he was feeling with the old man in front of him was but a pale shadow of the frustrations the ancient cultivator must have felt that day in the market. Sen schooled himself to remain calm and friendly.

“Thank you, uncle.”

The old man almost exploded with pride at Sen’s casual use of the respectful term. Sen repressed yet another sigh.