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The Tiniest Sanzo by hibem
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This was written in response to a challenge from KA Rose, who wanted Sanzo as Thumbelina. With special thanks to Kate for betaing.



The Tiniest Sanzo

There was once a beautiful, high-ranking Monk who wanted a successor very badly, but was unable to find a suitable candidate. He looked high and low for years and years, but nowhere was there a young man with power, poise and charisma equaling his own. Then, one day, he was walking along the river when he came upon a beautiful faerie sunning hirself on the bank, as naked as the day was long.

“Good afternoon,” he greeted, politely.

“Hello,” the faerie said, stretching hir lithe limbs languorously, and sipping at her cocktail “Nice day, isn’t it.”

“Indeed,” The monk answered, “Just right for one of these.”

And he folded a tiny umbrella for hir drink from a bit of orange paper.

“I like your style,” laughed the faerie, “So I’ll grant you a wish.”

“My only wish is that I have a bright young man to be my successor. Do you know where I could find one?”

“Ha! That’s an easy one,” grinned the faerie, and she gave him a little seed, and told him to go home and plant it. So the monk ambled off toward his temple, and the Merciful Faerie cackled to hirself a bit and sunbathed until hir manservant came and made hir put on clothes.

The monk planted the little seed in the temple garden, and before his eyes it blossomed into a wondrous flower, like a tulip. It opened at his touch, and inside was a perfect boy with skin pale as milk, eyes like violets, and hair as golden as the sun- but he was only as long as a thumb. The Monk was delighted. He made him robes out of white rose petals, a sling woven of spider silk and a fan from a scrap of rice paper. And the Monk named the tiny boy Genjo Sanzo Chibi and appointed him his successor despite the protests of the other monks because shocking monks was one of his favorite hobbies.

For a while, Sanzo lived at the temple in relative contentment. He swept crumbs from the table with a feather, copied sutras onto the petals of daisies, and practiced slinging pebbles at the junior monks who talked about him when they thought he wasn't there. But then, one night, when all the other monks were asleep, Sanzo heard a great blubbering wail rise from the edge of the woods. He tried to ignore it, but the sound just kept getting more and more annoying, until he made his way from his origami bed, out through the window and down the creeping vine growing below it. He walked across the garden though the grass was like a forest, and the raked gravel like a field of boulders. He paddled across the reflecting pool on a convenient water lily. Finally, under a hedge in the farthest extremity of the gardens he found a little brown Monkey with its hand caught in a jar.

“Hey, you!” Sanzo said, poking the blubbering fuzzball in the side, “Shut up! I’m trying to sleep.”

The Monkey sniffled and looked at him, amazed out of his tears.

“Hey!” the Monkey said, “What’s with you? You’re like, all little and stuff.”

“So what?” Sanzo huffed, and he turned and began marching back to the temple.

“Hey! Hey, wait! Don’t leave me here!” the Monkey cried, voice ramping back up into a wail, “Don’t go away! A warlock made my friend disappear and I was so lonely and hungry and these berries looked so good and now I can’t get my hand out of this thing and I’m still hungry!”

Sanzo gritted his teeth. “If you let go of the berries, you can take your hand out of the jar.”

“But-“

“If you turn the jar over, they’ll just fall out.”

The Monkey stared at him slack-jawed. Sanzo snorted and started walking away again. The Monkey caught up with him at the edge of the pond, hands and face stained with berry juice.

“Hey!” it said, bouncing in circles around Sanzo, “You’re really smart! I bet you could help me rescue my friend from the warlock. Are you tiny because you’re enchanted too?”

“No. Go away.”

Sanzo glared, but the Monkey didn’t seem to notice.

“That’s so cool, that you’re like, all little. I bet you can do all kinds of cool stuff. Hey! You should come with me and help me look for my friend. We were just playing around this old tower and all the sudden BAM! He disappeared. And he wasn’t by the brook, or by the stone wall, or in the sheep fold, or in the old barn, or up any of the trees in the yard, or in our secret place, and then I heard that a warlock lived in that old tower so I knew he must have been kidnapped, see?” The Monkey said, towing Sanzo’s lily pad back across the pool, “And then I looked and looked, but I couldn’t find the tower again! It just disappeared, poof! Gone! And I missed him and I was sad and stuff and then I was really hungry because I’d been looking around all day and then I saw this big jar full of berries and they looked so good I just had to have one, but my hand got stuck and I thought I’d be hungry for ever and ever, but then you showed up, and-“

Sanzo massaged his temples as the Monkey carried him back up the vine to his bed. The Monkey hadn’t even noticed when he hit it with his fan and slung pebbles at it. His master had better get rid of the Monkey in the morning, so things would go back to normal.

Unfortunately for Sanzo, the Monkey upset the other monks so much that his master didn’t want it to leave. Sanzo put up with the creature following him around for nearly a week before he decided to leave the temple and see the wide world. His master was very sad to see him go, but agreed that it would be best for his training if he spent a time wandering. He gave him a crown made from a buttercup, and a breastplate of dandelion petals, and he bade the Monkey go with Sanzo, which it happily did, no matter how many pebbles Sanzo slung at it.

Sanzo was dismayed that his plan had backfired, but at least this way he didn’t have to walk everywhere. He sat near the Monkey’s ear so he could tell it which way to go, and the Monkey walked, and in this manner the pair traveled for days and nights along the dusty roads, seeing what there was to be seen, eating what there was to be eaten, and bitching about what there was to be bitched about. Until, one day, they came to a river that was much too wide and swift for the Monkey to swim across.

“Make a raft for us to sail across on,” Sanzo said.

“It looks dangerous,” whined the Monkey, “You’re a monk, why don’t you just ask the river god for help?”

Sanzo glared and muttered and punched the Monkey in the nose, but the Monkey’s rafts kept breaking and it nearly drowned, so in the end he had to call the river spirit with a magic charm.

“Spring or freshet, brook or creek,
Spirit of the river, speak.”

They waited a long moment, but nothing happened. Sanzo scowled and fought down a blush, for he found such cantrips beneath him, but he said again:

“Spring or freshet, brook or creek,
Spirit of the river, speak.”

And this time a murky voice said, “No.”

Sanzo grit his teeth and growled:

“Spring or freshet, brook or creek,
Spirit of the river, speak.”

And finally, a scaly brow shaped like a bowl and a pair of beady eyes rose near the bank.

“What do you want?” asked the murky voice, “Can’t you- hey, what’s with you, tiny monk? Guess size really doesn’t matter to the temples,” the Kappa leered.

“We merely request safe passage across your river,” Sanzo growled, but the Monkey, who was trying to hide behind him said, “Shut up ugly Kappa! He’s only small because he’s enchanted.”

“No, I’m-“ Sanzo began but the Kappa interrupted:

“Really? You guys are enchanted too? I used to be the most beautiful river god in the land, until that jealous warlock turned me into this- this.” He made a flailing gesture with one flipper.

Sanzo rolled his eyes.

“It must have been the same warlock who took my friend!” the Monkey pronounced.

“Friend?” the Kappa leered. He couldn’t help it.

“Shut up!” Said the Monkey, fidgeting with his tail and looking at the ground, “Stupid pervert Kappa!”

“Don’t call me Kappa, you dumb Monkey!”

“Are you going to take us across the damn river or not?” Sanzo demanded.

And so it happened that the transformed river spirit took them across his river, and they all continued traveling together, seeing what there was to be seen, ogling what there was to ogle, and going on the occasional disastrous side quest for cucumbers.

Not too much later, the three were passing through a deep, dark wood and not even fighting for once, because the wood was rumored to be the home of a fearsome monster. So, they were walking quietly, Sanzo riding on the Monkey’s shoulder, and the Monkey on the Kappa’s shoulder, when they heard a great sigh like a gale of wind. And though Sanzo didn’t really care what it was, it sounded so sad and mournful that the Monkey and the Kappa had to investigate.

In a shadowed glade they found an immense Boar, with fearsome tusks and a hide hard as scale mail. He was reading a book.

“Ah,” the Boar said, pushing his glasses up his snout with a sharp hoof, “Can I help you?”

“Hello, Mr. Boar,” said the Monkey, “Why are you so sad?”

The Boar sighed and Sanzo had to cling to the Monkey’s fur in a most undignified manner so as not to be blown away.
“A warlock stole my sister and turned me into a terrible Boar.”

“It happens to the best of us,” the Kappa said, slinging a friendly flipper over the Boar’s massive hackles.

“The villagers were frightened of me,” the Boar added, “and now I live out here alone, with only one book to read. I used to be a librarian.”

“You should come with us!” the Monkey enthused, “We’re all looking for a way to break the warlock’s enchantments.”

“I’m not,” Sanzo said.

“Yeah, man,” said the Kappa, rubbing the Boar’s shoulders comfortingly, “You should get out of these dark woods.”

“Well,” said the Boar, “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. Where are you going, exactly?”

The Monkey and the Kappa looked at each other, then at Sanzo, who glared back and called them idiots.

“I guess we don’t really know,” admitted the Kappa.

“I’ve heard the Dragon King of the West is very wise. Perhaps if we go and see him, he’ll know what to do,” the Boar suggested.

So, Sanzo sat on the Monkey’s shoulder, the Monkey on the Kappa’s shoulder, the Kappa climbed astride the Boar and the four of them set off- seeing what there was to be seen, mending what there was to be mended, and trying to placate Sanzo when the tiny monk needed placating. In this way, they traveled far into the west, up into the mountains to the lair of the Dragon King.

The Dragon King was big as a mountain and his red eyes blazed like pyres in the darkness of his cave and the Monkey and the Kappa were afraid, though they tried very hard to hide it. But the Boar was stouthearted, and he and tiny Sanzo bullied them until they all went in to talk to the Dragon King together.

“So, you’ve come about the Warlock,” the Dragon King rumbled, “Well, I’m afraid you’re a bit late. He tried to enchant me while I was napping, but I woke up and ate him.”

The Dragon King smiled a dangerous smile, and they politely refrained from pointing out the bits of black fabric stuck in his teeth. Sanzo hit the Monkey when it opened its mouth to say something.

“If the Warlock is already dead, why haven’t his spells been broken?” Sanzo demanded, outraged that he’d borne the whole annoying quest for nothing.

“I take a very long time to digest,” the Dragon King shrugged, “But you should go and visit the Flower King of Faerie. He is a very powerful magician.”

Sanzo and the others thanked the Dragon King politely and left, before he could get any more culinary ideas.

So, tiny Sanzo and the Monkey and the Kappa and the Boar turned around and journeyed back east together in search of the Faerie King. They had spectacular adventures and even more spectacular arguments, and Sanzo began to feel that this ‘seeing the wide world’ bit was all an elaborate joke on him, somehow.

But, finally, they found the court of the Faeries, and met the Flower King. He was pale and tiny, even shorter than Sanzo, and sat in state on a throne of lily, clothed all in splendid silver spider silks and glittering dew. And the Flower King and the tiny monk looked at each other, and were both secretly pleased to meet someone their own height. The Flower King created a splendid feast for them, and listened to their tales gravely while he tried to play footsie with Sanzo under his tiny table.

And the Flower King showed them a secret pool, and bade the Boar and the Kappa bathe in it under the moon. And when they touched the water, they transformed back into beautiful youths, and they smiled at each other and went off into the bushes “to see about rescuing that sister.”

The Monkey said, “The warlock has stolen my friend away. Can you help me?”

And the Flower King said, “Your friend has never left your side. The warlock turned him into a louse, and he’s been riding behind your ear ever since.”

And the Flower King’s pool transformed them both back into young men, and they embraced and kissed each other and offered their service to the King, for they were more polite than the librarian and the river god. The Flower King was pleased, and gave them a staff that could be made any size, and a spear that would never miss its mark, and the two went on to have many adventures, all of which are another story entirely.

But the pool didn’t change Sanzo, and he stayed the same size he’d always been.

“You’re not enchanted?” the Flower King asked, hardly daring to hope.

“No,” said Sanzo.

“You should stay here and live with me for a while,” the Flower King said and smiled his sparkliest, most enticing smile.

“Well, it can’t be any worse than traveling around with those idiots,” Sanzo replied.

And for all I know, they might be living there still.

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