Guest Quarters, Brunnhold Campus
There were other times when it was best to wander; when even the drawing of the circle would have been a constraint, unnecessary and binding. There were other times when Nkemi wished to flow, like water, and not to be fitted into the shapes of pipes, for all that Hulali could be found in both.
She flowed today; Nkemi found a fourth repetition of the three movements, and then a fifth. Every time, she came into it with the fullness of her strength, with small, subtle movements which drove her whole body into each strike-block, from the balls of her feet out to the tips of her fingers.
The more basic the exercise, Jubo had told her once, the more important it is to practice. The simplest motions were the foundations on which all else was built; if they cracked, if they shifted, all which rested atop them was lost.
“Four years,” Nkemi said, smiling at Orali. “I am not sure if this is a long time,” the prefect said, thoughtfully.
She remembered herself, four years ago, standing before Jubo with the baton, her arms aching and sore, dripping sweat beneath the hot sun of Thul Ka, her feet blistered from rubbing again and again on the ground – where they had, Nkemi thought ruefully, grown soft with too many days spent only sitting before books.
She stood now in the midst of Brunnhold – in a small, strange guest room, with the world brushed white outside, and a little cookie called a snowball half eaten on the desk; with tea, and a small girl with bright red hair watching her wide-eyed.
Where the baton had blistered her hands before, there were calluses now, grown tough. Her wrist knew the strap; her body knew the stances, remembered them. Nkemi shifted herself once more: up, forward and down, fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips and knees all moving together.
She was no less Nkemi pezre Nkese than she had been, but perhaps she was more.
“For me,” Nkemi said, cheerfully, finishing the thought, “I think it has been.” She grinned at Orali. “You are sure you do not wish to try?” Nkemi asked, gently; she came forward, and she slipped the strap from her wrist, and held the baton loose in her hand once more.