Snowball Fight (1)
A cold dawn, wrapped in stillness and silence.
Whoosh!!
A wooden training spear cleaved through the freezing pre-dawn air. Out at an hour when no one should have been abroad stood two figures: Ma Chao, counted among the finest warriors in all of Liang Province, and her younger brother, Ma Xiu.
The snow had stopped falling only a short while ago, and the biting cold dulled the body and seeped into the bone—yet even in the depths of winter, Ma Chao did not pause her training. Ever since her defeat at Lu Bu's hands, a loss owed to a gap in experience, and her return to Chang'an, she had clenched her teeth and thrown herself into punishing, bone-scraping discipline. She had never been one to slack off in her conditioning to begin with, but rising before dawn and swinging her spear without rest until late in the evening went plainly beyond anything in her old regimen. The physician had pronounced her wounds fully healed, though he had warned her against overexertion—which was exactly why everyone around her worried.
Morning crept nearer, the sun climbing little by little, slowly washing pale light over the darkness around them.
"S-Sis, maybe you should rest a little..."
Seeing no ease whatsoever on Ma Chao's face, her younger brother Ma Xiu tried to talk her down. If she kept driving herself like that, there was every chance she would collapse from a burning fever.
"...Hoo."
But Ma Chao cut off Ma Xiu's protest with a rough exhale.
"Don't worry about it. If my strength gives out, I'll stop then."
Though not once had she ever said that and actually stopped.
...What does she plan to do if she collapses like this?
Ma Xiu had heard as well that his sister had been beaten by the warrior known as the Unrivaled Under Heaven. But true to the old saying that victory and defeat are the common lot of soldiers, no one reproached Ma Chao for her loss. If anything, there were even idle gossips who praised her for merely holding her own against Lu Bu, whose martial skill was reckoned the finest in the realm.
Ma Chao herself, however, was convinced that had she not lost to Lu Bu, she would never have let everything slip away—the chance to erase the contemptuous stares they drew in the Central Plains, and the opportunity to seize power in Luoyang. And so now, driven by the resolve to win the martial might to defeat Lu Bu and protect Han Yeong, she was pushing herself harder than she should.
Even Big Brother told her to rest and recover, so why does she have to run herself ragged like this...
Ma Xiu and Ma Tie, along with everyone around her, had tried to dissuade her, but Ma Chao stubbornly dug in her heels and refused to listen.
No matter how many times we say it, she won't hear a word of it... Maybe we should send for Father in Wuwei?
Since neither her own brothers nor her fellow officers could get through to her, Ma Xiu found himself agonizing over whether they ought to fetch their father, Ma Teng.
"Sis!! Bro!!"
Just then, Ma Tie came sprinting from the distance.
"What is it, Ma Tie?"
Ma Tie answered his brother's question.
"Han Yeong's here to see you."
Dead stop.
The movements of Ma Chao—who had paid no heed to her brothers' pleas, swinging her spear with dogged, ferocious intensity—froze where she stood.
...Wow. She won't listen when her own brother says a word, but the mere news that Big Brother has arrived stops her dead?
Ma Xiu could only gape at his sister's behavior. That Ma Chao carried feelings for Han Yeong was known to every last member of the Ma clan, Ma Teng very much included—even that insufferable cousin of theirs who delighted in razzing her.
If those two keep this up, is Sis going to be caught on a leash for the rest of her life? At this point, maybe she ought to be the one confessing to Han Yeong.
While Ma Xiu was entertaining such thoughts, Han Yeong drew near under Ma Tie's guidance, Yan Xing accompanying him as escort.
"Ma Chao."
"...Uh, y-yeah?"
Ma Chao hunched her shoulders as she answered, like a criminal caught red-handed, and Han Yeong frowned at the reaction.
"What's the matter? You look like you committed some crime."
"N-No, it's just..."
Seeing Ma Chao, who would normally talk with me brimming with lively spirit, so cowed and timid left a bad taste in my mouth.
The defeat seems to have hit her harder than I expected. I need to lift her spirits, and soon.
I had dealt with as much of my piled-up work as I could before coming out to comfort her, which meant I had a fair bit of time to spare today.
"Ma Chao. Come somewhere with me."
"Is there somewhere we need to be?"
"Follow me and you'll see."
With no destination offered, Ma Chao tilted her head for a moment.
If it's Han Yeong saying it, there must be a reason...
Given that Han Yeong had come to find her in person without a word of advance notice, Ma Chao assumed the matter had to be something important. There were a few things that nagged at her, though. For instance—once the snow melted, the army would march against Dong Zhuo, and perhaps he meant to tell her not to run herself into the ground with training before then.
...No, if that were it, he would have said so back there.
"Alright. Give me a moment. I'll just change and be right back."
"You'd better change into your military garb—something easy to move in."
At those words, Ma Chao headed into the house to change, and I turned to Yan Xing.
"Yan Xing. You may head back now. With Ma Chao at my side, I have no need of an escort."
"Pardon? ...Yes, my lord. Understood."
Bewildered though he was, Yan Xing withdrew at my command.
"Big Brother... where exactly are you taking our sister...?"
I answered Ma Xiu with a perfectly placid face.
"Secret."
"...Right."
Once Ma Chao emerged in comfortable military garb, the two of us rode out alone.
Just how far is he planning to go?
Since leaving the training grounds, he had offered no hint of his destination—simply riding a blanket-draped horse in a single direction. She had assumed at first that he was headed to the government offices on official business, but that wasn't it either.
"Just how far are we going?"
Leaving behind the streets and homes of Chang'an and heading for the woods where the commoners cleared fields and cut timber, Ma Chao's bewilderment only deepened. The roadside lay heaped with snow white as fresh powder, drifted so deep that passage had become treacherous.
"Curious?"
"Of course I am. We've come this far—you might as well tell me now."
"We're here."
Han Yeong reined in at the snowy roadside and dismounted, and Ma Chao climbed down after him.
"This spot should do nicely. Every bandit in the area has been wiped out, so no one will come prowling."
...So there really is something important he came to tell me.
Believing the two of them were about to discuss something weighty in strict confidence, Ma Chao's expression stiffened. He hadn't even brought Yan Xing along—it had to be a matter of real consequence. Ma Chao steeled herself to listen.
"What I wanted to tell you is... Huh! Wait—over there?!"
"What?!"
At the urgency in Han Yeong's voice, Ma Chao whipped her head around. But there was nothing behind her.
"There's nothing bac— Whump!!"
The instant she turned her head back toward Han Yeong, something came flying out of nowhere and smacked her square in the face. It didn't hurt—soft, and yet shockingly cold.
...Snow?
Brushing the snow from her face, Ma Chao asked in a trembling voice at the man before her, who stood there wearing a playful smile that was, frankly, asking for it.
"...What do you think you're doing?"
"Simple."
In answer to her question, I scooped snow off the ground and packed it into a ball of just the right size.
"I brought you out here because I wanted to have a snowball fight with you."
"...What?"
This went beyond absurd; Ma Chao could only stare at me, hollow-eyed and deflated, her face all but demanding, "What kind of nonsense is that?" Had it been anyone but Han Yeong standing there, the curses would have flown on the spot.
After a moment of flabbergasted bewilderment, Ma Chao rounded on me, shouting in outrage.
"Are you kidding me right now!? Once this snow melts we have to face Dong Zhuo in battle, and then wage a war of retribution against Ding Yuan—what in the world...!!"
She had a point, but the soldiers were resting at present, and with the advance roads buried under snow, Dong Zhuo was beyond their reach for now. Which was precisely why we were doing this.
"Why? We used to do this all the time when we were little. Snowball fights."
In Liang Province, where childhood amusements were scarce, Ma Chao and I had turned every snowfall into a snowball war. Back then, with the mind of an adult, I tried to refuse—what was fun about pelting each other with snow?—but I couldn't break her stubbornness, and once we started, I discovered it was enormously fun regardless of age. Besides, we were still only at the tail end of our teens, not yet even twenty.
"Things aren't the same now as they were bac—!!"
But before she could finish spitting out her grievances, I let the snowball fly—only for her to tilt her head and slip it with ease.
"Well, it's true there's something I want to talk about besides the snowball fight."
I packed another snowball and began tossing it up and catching it, over and over, the way a ballplayer idles with a baseball.
"Is it something important?"
"Of course."
That conversation was, in truth, the real reason I had come looking for her. But—
"In exchange, beat me at a snowball fight, and I'll tell you."
"...Are you kidding me? You could just tell me."
"What's the matter? Not confident?"
"..."
With deliberately needling words, I prodded at her competitive spirit. Judging by the way her body trembled, the bait had been taken. This was a lonely stretch of woods, and at this hour not even the patrols wandered by—no one would interrupt us.
Fwoosh!!
I hurled my packed snowball at Ma Chao, and she rolled sideways to dodge it.
"...Unbelievable."
Letting out a hollow laugh, Ma Chao bent down and began scooping up snow of her own.
"Good. That's more like—"
Fwoosh—!! Thwack!!
Ma Chao wound up in a pitching stance that belonged on a baseball diamond and let fly, and her snowball came screaming in at a terrifying speed. It whizzed past my side and slammed into the tree behind me.
"You seem to have forgotten something... You've never beaten me at a snowball fight. Not once."
Hooked by the provocation, Ma Chao wore a placid smile on the surface—but the veins stood out at her temple. She cracked her neck from side to side and spoke.
"I'll win again this time—just for you."
With that, Ma Chao began packing snowballs and hurling them at me in rapid succession. They came charging at me with a speed that might have been mistaken for fastballs screaming in from a major league pitcher.