A Touch of the Master's Hand

Distant Brothers

Cole woke up groggily from bed.

The motion of the airship hovering in place had some strong wind to fight against. It was downright howling outside the dorm windows.

Rolling over, he might have gone right back to sleep as the turbulence was so minimal, but there was no use fighting that he had to go to the bathroom.

"Mrph!" he grumbled.

Slowly prying himself from the warmth of his covers, he stepped out onto the cold wood floor.

The wind was so strong he felt a draft and shivered. He tiptoed quickly out into the corridor where the sound of his snoring friends left him to the full ambiance of humming airship and howling wind. Quickly, he made his way to the bathroom, did his business, and hurried back out again thinking of nothing but his nice warm bed. He might have missed the short figure in the shadows had it not shuffled just a little, and Cole looked with alarm.

Lloyd looked just as alarmed to see him, and for a moment they simply stared wide-eyed at one another. Little did Cole know that his expression displayed more critical scrutiny than he felt; and Lloyd did not quite realize just how sulky he looked, though there were still tears in the corners of his eyes.

"What're you doing?" Cole demanded, a little harsher than he had meant to in his surprise to find him skulking about.

Quickly, Lloyd wiped the tears from his face and only looked at Cole with a defiant pout.

With a shake of his head, Cole wanted to move on, but just as he was about to turn the corner, he saw that Lloyd was headed for Master Wu's door.

"He doesn't like it when people bug him in the night unless it's an emergency," Cole said suddenly.

Lloyd turned to him and frowned. "What do you care?"

Cole frowned back. "I just wanted to warn you," he retorted.

Lloyd scowled hard and then turned sharply away so that he would not have to look at Cole. He crossed his arms.

Cole sighed. "You okay?"

"It's not your business," said Lloyd quietly but firmly.

Part of Cole just wanted to march back to bed, but something continued to stop him. He almost felt a bit of himself in that look, in that tone. He was not fooled by it. He probably had looked and acted just like that to his father the couple times his father had actually tried to approach him in his weird way after his mother's death. His dad had just ended in giving up with a huff and some weird statement that Cole as a little boy had taken as cold. Cole was not about to do that same thing to Lloyd.

Of course, Cole knew what was wrong with him. The younger boy had just learned a few months ago that he was destined to kill his own father and that he had been wrong to try to be like him all at the same time, besides facing the fact that he would have to face his mother just like Cole had had to face his dad. At least Master Wu had called his sister-in-law to tell her where her son was, and Lloyd himself had talked to her once to tell her that he had to learn discipline before he could go home, but then if he truly wanted to break the barrier between him and his mom he would have to tell her that he was destined to kill her husband. That made Cole making up with his father seem pretty easy in comparison in that regard, Cole had to admit, but this was digressing.

"Lloyd," said Cole kindly.

Surprised by the tone, Lloyd turned back, and Cole recalled to mind the time when Master Wu had finally got Cole to talk about his problem...