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halogalopaghost · 3 months

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Meditation | Splinter Appreciation Week 2023

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There were plenty of times, especially when his turtles were just little things, that Splinter had endured hunger and thirst. Now as he hung from these chains with the enemy all around him, hunger bit at his stomach like an old friend. The sharp pain was nothing compared to the aching dryness of his tongue and even eyes though—he almost wished they would try waterboarding again just to get a taste of moisture. He rasped a chuckle to himself; the waterboarding didn’t work anyway, they had no idea how long a rat was capable of holding his breath.

Yes, hunger and thirst were familiar to him, but he had not quite figured out how to meditate around them. When his dinner portion was instead divided among his sons, he usually found comfort in a book or, even better, a mindless television program. He especially enjoyed the medical dramas, the over-the-top drama and constant narrative tension did well as a distraction. There were no such distractions in this warehouse, only the constant, nagging worry for his sons.

These people were looking for them, of this there was no doubt. That was all they wanted to know from him—what are their names, how many are there, who trained them, who do they work for? Endlessly, question after question asked under the assumption that his sons were part of some elite force. Splinter laughed at them more than once, even as they continued to torment him.

He would not break. Not with his sons’ lives on the line.

They had left him alone for some time now, perhaps an entire day. Splinter slept in snatches throughout the darkest, most still parts of the night, but in the little light of day that the warehouse windows provided, he could not rest. The pins and needles sensation in his arms was almost unbearable, and he shifted from foot to foot to try to keep the weight of his body off of them. To meditate would be a great relief from these pains, but there was so much commotion about.

They had come close to capturing his sons, according to what he had overheard. Terror gripped his heart like never before as a soldier described the battle and the roaring house fire that consumed April O’Neil’s apartment. The enemy ninja seemed sure that they had all gotten away, but one of them—

Splinter took a deep, calming breath. He could not bear to think of his poor Raphael in such a state. The red one, they called him. The angry one, said another. He had been wounded and carried out by his comrades, his brothers. No one was sure if he lived or died, but his tormenters boasted of a worse defeat than his keen rat ears had overheard. They told him that he was dead for certain, but Splinter was sure he would know if that were so.

He closed his eyes and took another breath—it pulled uncomfortably at the muscles along his ribs, bruised and strained from his arms being fixed overhead so long. He could not focus on it though, he had to breathe in and out steadily through the pain. Focus on his heart beat, repeat a comforting mantra to himself, seek his sons’ presence on the mystic plane…

Leonardo was the only one of his students who meditated with any regularity and discipline. The other three simply did not enjoy it, and Michelangelo in particular could not sit still for it. This did not surprise him—he was their father after all, but he wished now that he had more strongly encouraged it. If he could only reach them, he could deliver this final message he so wanted to impart upon them. Then he could let go.

The warehouse quietened again as the sun slanted in from a steep angle, filling the area where Splinter was kept with golden light. He relished the little warmth that it gave him, and ignored the hunger pains that seized him.

He must reach his sons.

His mind drifted ever further from him as he kept his eyes closed and breathing even. Peace eventually began to settle over him and steal the ache from his bones, until eventually, a new ache developed. He hurt from injuries unfamiliar to him, in body parts he did not have. It puzzled him, and drove him to search out the source of the phantom pains.

Splinter?

He startled, but did not wake. Was he dreaming, or deep in meditation?

“My son, where are you?”

There was nothing but darkness around him, he could not see. But he would know his son’s voice anywhere.

Splinter? Splinter, where are you?

He could not say, it was just him and the darkness and the aching presence of his son. He settled down in the mindspace—neither sitting nor standing, simply comfortable in his consciousness. “I am here for you Raphael. Come to me, if you can.”

Splinter waited in the darkness for his son to join him. The pain in his body doubled, then tripled as he waited. Gone were the aches of inactivity and strained muscles, these were deep-seated pains of battle. His son had seen and felt much since they had been separated, and it filled his heart with sorrow.

When at last Raphael did appear before him, his form was a flickering ghost. He looked sorrowfully at the ground, eyes full of tears and body battered beyond Splinter’s imagination.

“Splinter, Splinter,” he sobbed, reaching for his father. “I failed you Sensei.”

He reached to hold his son, but could not touch him in this prison that Raphael’s mind had invented. “My son, no, it is I who has failed you. I have failed to escape and warn you…I have failed to protect you.”

“No, no.” The deep ache in his voice pulled at Splinter’s heart, and he longed for nothing but to hold him. His face was bruised dark, with a litany of cuts and scrapes running up and down his arms. Splinter could feel, rather than see, the fissure on his shelled back.

“You are lost,” Splinter said gently. “This is no place for you to be, you must return to your brothers.” This place...this in-between that was not quite meditating, it didn’t feel right. It felt dangerous.

“I wanna be with you, Master Splinter. I wanna…” the look in his eyes was faraway and disconnected, not at all the sharp gaze he was used to seeing in Raphael. “Where are you?”

“I am here.”

“No, where are you? Where am I?”

“We are on the spiritual plane. You are drifting, it seems that you are in a great deal of pain.”

“Is this…a dream?”

He smiled just a little. Raphael was never a true believer of the mystical mumbo-jumbo he taught them. “If you wish it to be so, then yes, we are in a dream.”

“I miss you, Master Splinter. You gotta come home, we need you.”

Splinter yearned to wrap him in his arms. He thought to contradict him, to impart his final lesson and try to hammer home that no, they did not need him, but…he found it hard, in Raphael’s pitiful and less-than-lucid state. “Do you remember what happened that brought you here?”

“I was…alone… There was fire, I think.”

“Are you safe now? Concentrate and listen to your surroundings.”

He closed his eyes—Splinter noticed that one of them was discolored and deeply swollen. “I hear Leonardo. I think it’s safe.”

“Then you must go back to them, my turtle.”

His eyes remained closed and he swayed slightly where he sat, like he could fall asleep at a moment’s notice.

“Raphael, are you listening?” He reached forward and tried to grasp his son’s hands, but he could not. It was as though he was made of mist, he dissolved in Splinter’s fingers. His own aches and pains began to return, overriding those that his son felt. A growing sense of cold accompanied it. “Raphael!”

He mumbled something incoherent and his chin dipped toward his plastron.

“My turtle, it is time to wake up. You must return to your brothers, do you understand? They need you, Raphael.” His hands hovered uncertainly, unable to touch his son despite so desperately needing to. “Raphael,” he pleaded. “My little Red, you must listen. I fear your life hangs in the balance here, in this place on the edge of worlds. I know it is difficult, and it must hurt tremendously, but you must try. For your brothers, Raphael, and for me.”

“Try…” he murmured.

Splinter watched, breath held, as Raphael slowly struggled to rouse himself. He blinked like his eyelids were made of lead. A shudder ran through him from head to toe, visibly shaking him.

“Hurts, Master.”

“I know. You are doing well, please keep going.” Splinter did not realize until his limbs began to warm again that they had stiffened—like a corpse. The aches of his son returned, and pain had never felt sweeter. He would take it all if he could, and bear it with his own burden. He would do anything for his sons, even this.

When Raphael finally brought his gaze back up to Splinter’s, he looked even more exhausted than before. But that spark, that dangerous, challenging flint of spirit in his eyes, had returned. Raphael was never, ever one to give up without a fight.

“We will find you, Father.”

Splinter’s muzzle stretched in a smile, in spite of everything. “I know you can do anything that you set your mind to. Cling fast to your brothers, Raphael, and do not forget all that I have taught you.”

He nodded resolutely even as his form began to fade. Splinter’s fingers began to tingle and ache, then his ribs, and his feet. The pain in the shell that he did not have subsided like the falling tide, and Raphael along with it.

“I love you, Raphael,” he called into the darkness.

There was no response with words, but there was no mistaking the bloom of warmth in his chest.

When he opened his eyes to the dark, cold warehouse hours after he had last seen it, he was not surprised. The ache of hunger still gnawed behind his ribs, but his soul was fed. He felt more sure than ever that, even if he could not deliver a final message to his sons, they knew anyway that they were loved.

#posting it early because i have ~plans~ tomorrow teehee #turtleposting #tmnt #the ghost writes #tmnt splinter week

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