[PM to Join] Can You Walk on the Water

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 35 Dentis 2719
Guest Quarters, Brunnhold Campus

Nkemi waited, with a patient, easy smile, her shoulders and all the language of her body loose and comfortable. It was not, perhaps, unlike how she might have waited for a goat which had recently had a fright, or a street cat crouched and studying her through narrow, slit-pupiled eyes – or, even, a child hidden behind his mother’s legs, thumb-in-mouth, studying her with dark eyes.

Orali came forward; once she made her decision, she came all at once, three short steps and then her hand closed around the baton. She took the handle, and Nkemi saw the moment when she caught the weight of it all at once, but she did not drop it. Nkemi was not surprised; no one who had ever cooked thought it did not require strength.

Orali studied it, curiously, and offered it back.

Nkemi smiled at her, and took it. “I do not mind,” she promised.

“It is a balance, I think,” Nkemi looked down at the baton; her hand tightened around the base. She smiled back up at Orali, cheerful. “It is small, small enough that I can carry it on my hip. It can be concealed, if I like, in my waistband in the small of my back, or otherwise strapped to my side beneath a loose shirt. Even on one of our size,” Nkemi grinned encouragingly at the passive.

The prefect went on. “But it is heavy, for its size – it is solid wood. And, mostly, it gives me some range,” Nkemi explained. “You may think of a knife; but it is a weapon to be used up close, and up close is where a larger, stronger opponent has the biggest advantage.”

“I like it as well because – it hurts, to be hit with one,” Nkemi grinned. “I have felt it enough times to know! But it is a sort of hurt which goes away – which bruises, only, and rarely even breaks the skin. This is comfortable for me, although perhaps not because I am small,” Nkemi grinned at Orali. “But I prefer it all the same.”

“It is also useful for other things,” Nkemi said, cheerfully, “like breaking windows.” She raised her eyebrows, and giggled. “Although I have not done this very much.” Nkemi did not point out the delicate seam which separated the two parts of the baton, nor did she explain its unique purpose for staticmancers and others willing to use static spells among the prefects; the small bit of wood could be heated or cooled or given other creative properties, and the separation of them let the prefect protect their hand. But it seemed strange to speak of such things to a passive; she would not have mentioned this to an imbala at home, and so she did not mention it here.

“This is so I don’t drop it,” Nkemi offered with a little grin, showing Orali the strap. “Would you like to try swinging it?” She did not quite extend it this time, but she shifted her grip once more, and made ready to do so. They were close enough now that Orali was inside the range of Nkemi’s field; it was neat and well-organized, competent, but there was a warmth to the static particles as they mixed with the soft clairvoyant mona, and it was more friendly than overwhelming.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Aurelie had not thought of a knife. Aurelie hadn't thought of any weapon at all, really. She knew, she realized, very little about the tools one might use to cause deliberate injury. Some, and she itched a little between her shoulder blades when she thought on it. But not much. This wasn't the kind of violence with which her life had made her familiar.

It would hurt, but not break the skin. Again not like a knife in this way. Aurelie wondered what was more comfortable about that sort of injury; that felt a strange question to ask. She bit her tongue on it. Did this Junior Subprefect of the Windward Market District (Aurelie could remember it all, suddenly, somehow) not want to do permanent harm? Or was the preference tied to something else? Aurelie nodded, listening, but she didn't ask.

Standing in range of Nkemi's warm and tidy field, the other woman offered to let her try swinging it. Aurelie felt nerves pinch in her gut. She could only too easily imagine the many, many ways in which that could go horribly wrong. She had strength, she knew that much--more than a golly girl her size would normally have. The image of her somehow letting it go, or swinging too wide and hitting something that would break, came to her mind without much effort.

"Oh! Er, I don't know if--I probably--" Some of her panic surely made it to her face. Aurelie's hands folded in front of her, fingers clasped tightly. Although... there was the strap. To prevent one from dropping it. So perhaps... Aurelie looked back up, curiosity and uncertainty at odds.

"I wouldn't want to... to break anything or..." She shrugged her shoulders in a meek sort of gesture. She had never considered anything like this before; she had no reason to. Who would give a scrap a weapon? Nobody with any sense. Moreover, who would give it to one of her sex? That Nkemi was a woman herself didn't matter--she was not a passive, nor Anaxi besides. Her mother had ideas about women who engaged in physical violence.

Did Aurelie? She found she didn't know. It wasn't as if--the question wasn't one she was often forced to contemplate. The only person she had ever injured deliberately was herself. Somehow she didn't think that was quite the same. The deliberate and controlled movements of Nkemi's practice had been something to see. Now, she couldn't help but contemplate what that practice was for. To break windows, or to bruise. Better than some things. There was nothing wrong with it, she thought. It made sense, as a skill to have. But it sat uncomfortably in her mind's eye when she thought of herself doing the same. Aurelie didn't know what to make of it.

The shrug had not been a refusal, not quite. Her hands unclasped again, but she didn't hold them out.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 35 Dentis 2719
Guest Quarters, Brunnhold Campus

Orali’s eyes went wide at the question; she went back to tripping and skittering over her words. Small, rough hands folded in front of the passive, clasped tight; she looked down, and then back up, shrugging and saying she wouldn’t want to break anything.

Nkemi nodded, understandingly; she did not press, lowering the baton slightly. She did not lower it all the way; she did not slip the strap over her wrist once more. She studied Orali, for a few moments. The passive’s hands came unclasped, but hovered, still, close to her chest. She did not retreat, at least.

Nkemi thought of the brief wide-eyed look of curiosity on Orali’s face when she had first entered, tray in hand. She thought of how, now, the passive still hovered.

“Would you like to watch me practice again?” Nkemi asked, lightly. She did not dwell or linger on the not-quite-a-refusal; she neither accepted it nor tried to push through it. She went another way instead, and offered, once more, a friendly smile towards Orali.

Nkemi had never really done anything like training with a baton the first time it had been placed in her hand. She had been an active child; she had roamed the plains outside of Dkanat and the canyons alongside Serkaih for days on end, sometimes in the company of goats, sometimes alone. She had not lost that strength during her days in Thul’Amat; somehow she had always been kept busy, and often enough had found herself running through the long hot stretches of the campus.

But whatever time she had spent studying, whatever of that strength she had lost, she had regained during summers, whether back in Dkanat and wandering once more, or, when she had begun to spend more time in Thul’Amat, through the long walks she had liked to take, alone or in the company of friends, through the streets of Deja Point and out into the city beyond. There were physical exercise classes, too, mandatory for all students of clairvoyant conversation, and Nkemi had liked these better than many of her peers.

Perhaps in the last few years she had begun to slack; the work of her thesis had consumed her. In the first year, she had taught a physical education class; in the second, her scholarship had stretched a little further, and she had devoted herself full-time to the effort of studying, to the overwhelming task of trying to finish her tseruh in two years. By the time she had joined the prefects, her body had forgotten, just a little, the strength it had once had.

Jubo had brought her back to it, and in a form very different than any Nkemi had seen before. It was not hard in the least for the Mugrobi to smile wider and brighter at Orali, remembering those lessons; never would she regret keeping her body strong along with her mind. The baton was a weapon, yes, and she had used it, more than once; and, too, Nkemi understood, it was a tool of focus and discipline.

“It is control that one learns in the practicing,” Nkemi offered, smiling. “Sometimes things do break,” she grinned, sheepishly, thinking of all the bruises she had given herself. “But only in the doing can one improve. The man who swims the river only once can never learn His currents.”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

The thought of swinging the baton around herself and potentially breaking something made Aurelie anxious. The anxiety wasn't unusual, but the source of it certainly was. It wasn't often she was in a position to feel that way about swinging a blunt instrument about, possibly to the detriment of furniture or the person who offered to let her. There was something refreshing, she supposed, about being nervous about harm to furniture and not to her own dignity.

"Oh! I-if you wouldn't mind the... the audience." Aurelie tried to smile in what she hoped was a friendly sort of way; it wobbled but it held. Doing it herself seemed like a foolish idea, but she had enjoyed the brief moment of watching Nkemi she had before. She could watch and pretend, at least. Aurelie had never been what one might consider "athletic", not even as a child. Watching and pretending was likely as close as she would ever get--there was precious little reason for her to become so now, after all.

Control, though. What a tempting idea. Aurelie had always thought she had a good handle on herself and her behavior. Somewhere along the way it must have slipped. Her thoughts and feelings kept escaping her, whether she wanted them to or not. Perhaps that was what she was missing--a degree of self-discipline that could keep them inside where they belonged. Wasn't all of this proof enough? Wasn't all of most of the year up until now proof? She did at least have control of her tongue enough to spill all that out to Nkemi, who certainly didn't need to hear it. She made a hum of acknowledgement.

"I won't stay long," she promised. Aurelie knew she was likely a distraction at best, or an annoyance. For all that Nkemi was being so friendly, answering her silly questions, she certainly hadn't expected to have to entertain a silly girl this morning. Aurelie looked around for somewhere to tuck herself that would be out of the way, some corner or space between the furniture that she could stand in and be an unobtrusive as possible. There was a little room by the corner near the door. She moved to stand in it, willing herself as small as she could.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 35 Dentis 2719
Guest Quarters, Brunnhold Campus

Control, Nkemi had said. She thought of the baton flying through the air, the sharp precise movements that gave it heft. Any sort of swing could work – could do something – but there was still much to learn, and much that Nkemi had learned.

She thought, too, of the physical exercise classes mandatory for clairvoyant conversation. The requirement stretched longer for them than for any other concentration, whether arcane or secular. Scryers stretched the bonds between mind and body, routinely; in her classes, Nkemi had learned to sit still, whispering to the mona, as her body flowed through channels of chants and chalk out beyond. She had learned to reach and stretch beyond her own borders, and then to pour herself, carefully, back into her own body.

There was another sort of control needed there, another sort of strengthening.

“I do not mind,” Nkemi promised, smiling. Orali still looked hesitant, a little frown wrinkling her brow. She curled in on herself, tucking her arms in close, and stood in the corner, pressed back against the wall.

Nkemi thought to hesitate, to explain, but she did not think it fear on Orali’s face, or at least not fear of the baton. Her gaze on it was more curious than flinching, still, for all that she had not wished to try swinging it herself.

Nkemi slipped the strap around her wrist, finding without much effort the comfortable, familiar place of it. Her hand settled around the butt of the weapon, her grip firm.

The best way to practice, Juba had told her, was to imagine a fight. There were certain moves to incorporate, strikes and blocks, but those had long since become second nature. Much of her training took the form of pretend fights, regimented sets of movement against specific imagined opponents – faceless, but positioned here or there, taking this action or that.

Nkemi swung the baton; she turned, and swung again, striking up with the butt and bringing the heavy head down with a firm, swift motion. She turned, and the baton swung with her, led by her. She was small and compact but all of her moved with each swing, solid and together and unhesitating.

The imaginary fights could flow into one another; Nkemi faced one opponent at the desk, and turned towards another positioned on the bed, ducking and striking in an easy motion. Control, Nkemi thought, and memory too. Clairvoyant conversation taught the mind to separate from the body; perhaps, too, or instead, physical education and its repetitiveness taught the body to separate from the mind. She did not need to think for some of these practices, not after four years; the body remembered how to lean.

“I call this one bend in the river,” Nkemi said, cheerfully, with a little smile over towards Orali. It was meant to be envisioning a fight taking place backed around a corner; the training forms did not have names, strictly, but Nkemi had always liked to name them. Jubo had laughed aloud when Nkemi had told explained that she had named one of the practice forms the stinging wasp.

Nkemi shifted into the next training exercise; a low strike, for this one, then high, then around and again. “This one, climbing the hill,” Nkemi said, brightly. There was no lack of seriousness in her, even as she spoke; she was focused and intent on the training, but she was smiling, too.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

For a moment, Aurelie's mind worried at whether or not there was some loophole about honesty if one was speaking to the likes of her. She didn't understand still, she thought, the difference between what she thought of as lying and the kind of integrity that she had thought of off and on the last few weeks. But there was no room in the statement for even a polite half-truth. Aurelie was obliged to just accept it for what it was. Still, she could make herself as unobtrusive as possible--just in case. The Mugrobi could still change her mind, after all, and Aurelie wouldn't have blamed her.

She was good at it, folding herself away so as not to attract much attention. They all were, if they wanted to be. Even her roommate Bernie could do so when she put her mind to the task. To be unnoticed as they went about their lives was the primary virtue of any passive in Brunnhold. Lazy, mean, foolish, unskilled--none of these she thought were as grave a sin as being noticeable. Aurelie hadn't been a servant these ten years for nothing. Even before, she couldn't remember a time when she had not done her best to fade from sight. Nkemi slipped the strap back around her wrist. Aurelie took a breath. She was a lamp, a chair. A rose on the wallpaper.

Now that she wasn't watching from the doorway, now that she had permission to give her full attention to it, her mind took note of more of the actual movements. Nkemi moved as if fighting an invisible opponent once more. Aurelie could almost picture it, though the figure she imagined was more than half shadow. Taller than Nkemi--not much of a feat, but the figure in her mind was male and of average height for an Anaxi galdori man. She wondered if she was better picturing a human instead; she found she had difficulty. Too quickly the shadows turned to the somewhat familiar faces of the handful of humans she saw on a regular basis, gardeners and delivery boys and shopkeepers on her rare errands to the Stacks. She didn't like it, when she pictured those faces.

What would it be like, she wondered, to move with such confidence and purpose? Aurelie supposed she would never know; the very idea seemed preposterous. Purpose she thought she could find easily enough. She had work to do, after all. There was something like purpose in the bustle that filled her time from dawn to dusk. Confidence though--that might be more difficult to come by. Aurelie wasn't sure if it was her disposition or her nature. Or perhaps this was just how things were, when one could feel sure of their place in the world. Aurelie's weight shifted a little between her feet, back and forth.

Aurelie's little illusion of being nothing more than a painted rose broke when Nkemi smiled and named the maneuver. Aurelie smiled back and tried to nod, but was likely too slow for Nkemi to have seen before she moved into the exercise. Did they have names normally? Nkemi had said that she used that one--"bend in the river"--and not that it was the name of the exercise in general. Her mouth opened to ask. She thought it might break the woman's concentration, so she closed it again. "Bend in the river", and then she shifted--"climbing the hill". Aurelie watched and made careful note of each movement, though she couldn't think of why.

"D-do they all have names? Er. You don't have to answer, ah--I don't mean to interrupt. Sorry." Aurelie tried to cram the question back in her mouth as soon as she had ventured to voice it.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 35 Dentis 2719
Guest Quarters, Brunnhold Campus

Nkemi could slip into the familiarity of the forms – could practice with intention, she reminded herself, because it was intention which ground the repetition into the muscles, and intention which was the difference between moving one’s hand and striking – and still keep an eye on Orali’s small figure pressed squarely into the corner of the room, enough to notice when the girl shifted her weight between her feet, back and forth, half-mimicking one of Nkemi’s motions.

Nkemi smiled, and Orali smiled back, a quick bright bloom. Nkemi turned away, then, around the bend, but the feeling of the smile lingered, a comfortable little warmth in her chest against the snowy chill that lingered even with the hearthfire.

After the second naming, Orali spoke, a little hesitant, a careful venturing forward from where she had painted herself against the wall.

“Not real names; they are called very dull things,” Nkemi answered mock-solemnly, with a little glint in her dark eyes. “Backhand form one, and dual opponents form two,” she spun into another set of movements; she was breathing a little harder now, but it seemed easy enough for her to speak all the same, although she took it at her own careful pace.

“I have not renamed all of them,” Nkemi said with a quick bright grin at Orali, before her gaze went back to where the imaginary opponent stood. “This one I call turtle meets crane,” it was a high overhead block, meant to stop an arm – or something sturdier – descending. For a moment, with intention, Nkemi’s whole body strained as if to meet the force of a descending blow; her feet were planted, her knees lightly bent, and her second arm came up, too, to brace the baton.

Then she was moving again, sweeping the baton down and to the side – deflecting the blow, and moving it to close the distance with a short, sharp strike to the upper stomach, where the heavy butt of the baton would knock the opponent’s wind from their mouth. Her sweater was nearly dry again; the brushing of the damp spot against her skin was not so noticeable, anymore. Her feet squeaked faintly against the floor, bare against the cold ground; training barefoot she was accustomed to, although it had usually been on the rough-packed dirt of the Prefects’ Training Yard, and not on the cold Anaxi floors.

“This one,” Nkemi said, brightly, “I have called rolling the flatbread.” She had named it that for the short, sweeping motions, the press of the hand forward and flat in the middle of the series. The baton twisted and flicked out at the end – not a very nice flatbread, really, Nkemi was aware. The visceral names had helped her memorize the forms, when she had first needed to know them. Rolling the flatbread reminded her what to do, in a way that side strike one did not.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Aurelie had been right--the names were not strictly standard, but rather something of Nkemi's own devising. This brought another smile to her face, and a small laugh. She could understand, she thought. She often had to trick her memory into keeping with certain parts of her recipes, or stitches in her needlework. What they were called often was not wildly helpful, so she had to devise her own ways of remembering them to store and retrieve later. That the forms came with numbers--yes, she could see how those would be terribly dull.

Nkemi's breath came a little harder. Aurelie felt guilty then for taking any of it away from her in answer to a foolish question. She hoped it wasn't too difficult, to answer her. Surely she wouldn't have done so, if it was. Answering a question from her couldn't be that important, after all. And Nkemi had smiled at her again. Aurelie wasn't sure she had an answering bright expression in her, just the same default smile she shared with everyone. It seemed rather permanently affixed to her face, when it wasn't shifted into something more unique.

The next one she didn't under stand the name for at all. The other two she had, or at least she'd thought so. Turtle meets crane--perhaps, if she really thought on it, she could see where it came from. Mostly she found she couldn't. But it didn't matter what she thought of the names after all--they weren't any more for her than the exercises themselves. Still she followed the lines of what she imagined of Nkemi's invisible opponent; from overhead, she thought. Most blows could easily come from overhead. This seemed a useful sort of form to know. Aurelie's eyes flicked to the way Nkemi's feet were planted and her knees slightly bent.

Aurelie took note, too, of how her sweater had very nearly dried. Relief flooded through her--she had been so terribly guilty when the other woman had put on a damp sweater. It had been necessary, given the alternative was... Well, Aurelie thought that Nkemi might have been perfectly comfortable otherwise, but even thinking about it made her flush again with discomfort.

The last too had a name, and something about that one caught Aurelie's attention. If she thought on it later, she would frown--of course her ears had picked up on anything to do with cooking, even if it was just in the name. Aurelie laughed again, picturing the bread from such a movement. She didn't know much about making flatbread, not really, but she knew about making bread generally speaking.

"T-that would be a--a funny sort of flatbread," Aurelie ventured. Her eyes were still stuck to Nkemi's movements. A smile attempted to soften what might have seemed too rude a joke; the quirk of her eyebrows gave away her nervousness. Aurelie shifted again. She wanted to be a painted rose again, but now that she had been spoken to she found it was more difficult to fade away so quietly as she had before. A hand twitched at her side. It looked, the way Nkemi kept grinning at her, to be--perhaps--just a bit--maybe it looked a little like fun. Or satisfying at least. She was envious, suddenly, of not just the self-assurance but the joy too. A practical thing, a physical thing, a satisfyingly joyful thing. Aurelie knew a little of that, but this was different again. Less suited, perhaps, for Anaxi passive hands. The one that had raised away from her side in unconscious imitation fell back down again.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 35 Dentis 2719
Guest Quarters, Brunnhold Campus

Orali’s little giggle of a laugh had been hard not to smile more at. Nkemi had managed, mostly with the concentration of her exercise and the explanations. The second one she had hoped for, very much; when it came, ringing like a bell from the corner, Nkemi could not resist a bright grin in Orali’s direction.

“Yes,” Nkemi admitted, cheerfully. “Not very even, I am afraid.” The Mugrobi said, unabashed. “Mine are not, always,” the galdor confessed, with a further smile in Aurelie’s direction.

She turned into the next set of movements. “This is a longer one,” Nkemi said, cheerfully. “I call it Snake Winds through the Reeds.” It was a more involved set of movements, back and forth, twisting between two opponents attacking at once. Nkemi came into it with the fullness of her concentration, switching rapidly from side to side as if really beset by two different people.

At the same time, she did think – a little longingly – of flatbread. Nkemi was very sure that Orali had made the snowballs just as they were meant to be made, and she did like the walnuts. The strange, crumbly, buttery texture and taste were not something Nkemi was accustomed too, all the same. She thought of a hot piece of flatbread coming from the pan, bits of steam rising up through a quiet kitchen as Thul Ka woke to life all around; she thought, too, of standing outside in Windward Market, laughing with Adhan as he rolled out the first balls of dough of the day, leaving coins behind in exchange for a rolled up piece studded with herbs and spices, whatever he had thought to mix into the dough.

Her stomach ached; it was hunger, but it went deeper than that.

Nkemi turned into the last movement of the form, the final strikes. She thought then of a different, quieter kitchen; she thought of Dkanat, and standing at the stove herself, flipping the flatbread over with a worn spatula, the smell of kofi rising rich through the air, and her mother laughing at the table. “So uneven, efa’on!” She might have said, smiling.

Nkemi finished the form with a little turn, and blinked, once, to cast the feeling of tears away.

“This is one of the beginner ones,” Nkemi said with a smile for Orali. “I did not name it, when I first learned it, because it is more pieces and less of a whole. You see – up,” she shifted, lifting the baton and bracing it, “forward,” she turned, pressing it out in front of herself, the hard butt caught in the web between her thumb and fingers still, “and down,” she dropped it, hard and fast, as if to catch a rising knee, still braced. Nkemi turned into the next movement, and repeated the set. “Up,” she said, cheerfully, “forward,” again, with all of her body held, braced, “and down,” a quick snap of the baton down once more, and a little bending of her knees.

“Perhaps that is the best name for it,” Nkemi said, thoughtfully. She did not look to see if Orali was imitating her again; she only repeated the movements once more, steadily. “Up,” she lifted the baton up, holding it raised, “forward,” she pulled it back and thrust it out, straight, “and down,” snap, once more, to the last position.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

The fears of her harshness were unfounded; Nkemi smiled at her and went along with the pathetic sort of joke Aurelie had managed. Calling it a joke was perhaps overstating the matter, but Nkemi had smiled anyway which is all Aurelie could really have asked for.

There was something a little strange about picturing a galdor making flatbread. She knew that Aremu could cook, but it had not felt quite the same. Of course plenty could, but it tended to be--pastries, or desserts, or little special occasion types of foods. The simple necessity of bread was strange to her, flat or otherwise. Foreign in a way she would not have predicted. Over and over again little reminders that there was a world outside of Brunnhold's red walls, and that so much of it was strange to her. It made her itch; she was smaller and bigger for it all at once.

Aurelie resolved to concentrate instead on what Nkemi was doing. It was indeed a longer form than those that had come before, a winding, twisting thing that earned the name Nkemi had given it. She couldn't quite follow it, not as easily as she could the others, but enjoyed watching all the same.

It wasn't until Nkemi turned to her and announced that the next one was for beginners that Aurelie started to think about how much of this had been, perhaps, more for her benefit than the Junior Subprefect's. Unless going over those sorts of pieces, those things that were just part of a whole, were something Nkemi liked to run through? Surely it was just a helpful sort of exercise. The idea that it would be for Aurelie's dubious benefit sat strange in her mind. But that couldn't possibly be true, she reminded herself. After all, what purpose would that even serve?

Still, she watched carefully. Nkemi ran through the motions steadily, three times. Up, forward, down--it seemed simple enough. Aurelie's limbs were still, but her eyes were not. Her face followed, just the tiniest movement.

"That does seem, er, rather straightforward, yes." Whether she meant the name or the motion was unclear. Perhaps both at once. "H-have you been practicing a long time, then...?" Aurelie ventured, curious.