A mysterious glint crossed the master’s eyes at Gisela’s sheepish reaction, and he silently slid a cup of tea and a plate with a rice ball filled with jelly from freshly-harvested berries towards her, giving her an easy out.

The master waved his hand over the table, and a swirling group of Mushi followed the gesture, leaving a trail. His hand came to rest over a lemon on the table that Suru had freshly picked that morning on his way over. “It is never beneficial to squeeze juice out of a lemon grown from a sickly tree,” the master said, peeling the lemon with an ungroomed fingernail. “But it is not the lemon’s sickness that turns the juice bitter…” he continued, freeing the fruit at last from its inedible peel, “it’s the tree.” he said firmly, squishing the lemon into his drink, where some of it splattered over the rim onto the sleek wood of the table below.

Suru squinted their eyes as they mulled over the master’s words, resisting all temptations to grab a napkin and wipe up the mess below them. Around their home, Suru had been expected to clean a mess as soon as it was made, and old habits are hard lost. But they didn’t give in to the urge, and instead focused on the shapes the liquid was making over the sworls of the wood, the way it reflected the mushi swimming through the air above it, and the way it dribbled over the edge of the table onto the mushi growing in the cracks in the floor. He took a deep breath in at the same time as Gisela, and held his breath until she let hers out, welcoming in calmness and tranquility.

Suddenly the master slammed his palm on the table, squishing the lemon beneath it, and he stood.

“Enough talk! If we’re not to become stuck in the ground like the trees around us, we’d best get moving. Grab a rice ball, grab an orange, you might get peckish or meet an animal just as peckish as you.” the master stood, and began to shuffle off, walking like a man much older than his age. “Ohohoh!! Sitting does make one awfully stiff. What say we get some movement in, my eager wild sables?” the master said, standing tall and beginning to hop as though on a child’s hopscotch trail, heading in the direction of the nearest bridge leading to the training grounds.

Suru was still sitting as the master began barreling out the door— at times the man seemed to appear and disappear out of thin air. They took some time to smooth their clothes and reach and grab a couple oranges and a rice ball, then stood and began to exit, not giving any indication to Gisela of what she should do. Then they thought better of it, and started to walk back over to her, looking very much like they might have caught some sympathy and that they were going to explain what would happen next… but then they just grabbed a cloth hanging off of a hook behind her and started wiping off the table. They just couldn’t resist; they couldn’t bear to think of it getting sticky and hardening on such a nice table.

The master seemed to pay no mind that neither of them had begun to follow him, and he continued on towards the bridge.