A Quiet Place To Worship

While Fuuen had spent a great deal of his time off in the Orient, he was but a bird on the wind at the end of the day. His student was recovering from something that he perhaps did not have the ability to heal, and so he had decided to recuse himself for now. There was much to do, and besides, he could not train her if he did not have anything to teach.

Having settled in one of the less remarkable parts of America for now, relatively removed from any of the instabilities of war, the tranquil swordsman found one of his typical abodes, an abandoned church. He had no knowledge of its history or its meaning, but he had always gravitated toward them when it came to finding a place of rest. Perhaps it was their history, or perhaps their singularity of purpose. He respected both.

It had been a mostly uneventful stay, simply practicing, resting when necessary, never doing much else. That was the life Fuuen lived, and by and large he enjoyed it. Of course, it was during one of those few times of rest that Fuuen heard what seemed, by all accounts, to be an intruder. In this place? Peculiar. Well, he would not assume they were hostile. He heard no sounds of ransacking, after all, and so he simply left the annex in the back with a small, if inquisitive, smile.

"A visitor at this hour? I had thought this place would be quite lacking in any guests."

"Even if you are no guest of the church's, you are certainly a guest of mine. I live here, at least at present. Would you care for tea?"

Fuuen said all of that in stride, as if it were perfectly normal for a man to be living in an abandoned church like this. He'd always done it, so while he was quite aware of the oddity of it, there was also no sense that he shouldn't, or that he was out of place.

"I'm afraid I don't know the history of this place, though there are at least a few books in the back rooms. If you wish to peruse them, by all means, feel free to do so. Ah, and call me Fuuen. 'Mister' does seem a bit...out of place."

"Well, for now, at any rate. I tend to find places like this and make them my home as I travel. There is a certain sense of security in them, though I could not tell you why."

Beckoning the boy back, Fuuen led the way toward what had likely been some sort of gathering place for social events or perhaps simply for meetings, but which now served only as the swordsman's temporary home. There was a fire gently burning in the fireplace, a pot of tea resting not far from it, and a simple bedroll laid upon the floor. Other than that, the whole place seemed untouched, as if Fuuen had not so much as given a passing glance to the place's history.

"Hm? No, I certainly don't believe we've met before. But, then, my memory is rather lacking in most places. Still, I tend to remember at least vague detail, and I imagine I might remember one with as striking a hair color as yours."

It wasn't meant as some sort of insult, rather just a statement of fact. Fuuen poured a cup of tea for Saisei, then one for himself, and took a seat on his bedroll. There were chairs all about, of course, but he was a simple man.

"No, there is little appeal to me in their contents. The pursuit of knowledge is respectable, and I freely admit that perhaps I would be a far better man overall if I were to take the time and enjoy the depths of literature. But my life is dedicated only to my craft, for better and for worse."

Fuuen briefly watched the young man peruse the collection, but just as quickly returned to simply watching the fire with his cup of tea. He wasn't exactly the sort to pry on the intentions of others, and staring was just odd. Even for one with as little social awareness as himself, that wasn't something he would do.

"My memories come and go, though organizing them into any sort of timeline is the troublesome part. I suppose one could call it something of a patchwork quilt. I suppose memory is a strange thing."

He chuckled almost humorlessly at that, the question of his memory having only begun to haunt him more and more as of late. In the past he had barely even considered it, but the degree to which he relied on writing, or simply forgot things altogether, had begun to weigh upon him more heavily. He did not much care for it, nor for the measures he had realized were necessary. It was all rather frustrating.