Cormalin nudged his shoulder, drawing an inadvertent shudder from the young male, and recounted a story about a wolf from his old pack who had overcome her handicaps and so on, evidently assuming Tyr's reluctance came from his crippled leg. No, Tyr had dealt with that handicap most of his life, and was used to it. He opened his muzzle to say something to that effect, but closed it again wordlessly. Still, the words played bitterly, mockingly through his mind. It's not my leg that's the problem, it's me. I'm a coward, a useless selfish child and there's no getting around it. You shouldn't even bother.
Cormalin had moved to continue the lesson, giving him instructions. Flatten his ears? Easy enough, with his ears already splayed from that potent mix of fear and shame, so he just squashed them as hard against his skull as he could, then shuffled his hind paws so they were more even and squared them with his forepaws.
"I can put weight on my bad leg," Tyr offered hesitantly, when Cormalin lifted his own matching paw. He didn't know if that made a difference to Cormalin's plan for him, if he had one. "I just usually don't because it's shorter than my other legs so I can go faster when I'm not using it. Most of it's fine, it's just the bottom part is twisted a bit." He didn't tell him about the healers breaking his leg as a pup, multiple times, to try to get the curled-up and twisted limb to heal into some semblance of straight. It was irrelevant.
He kept adjusting his stance, interested in spite of himself in Cormalin's explanation of why his own natural way of holding his weight would be helpful. Not often did he come across something good about having been born crippled. Trying his best to follow the directions given, Tyr lowered his head so his spine was completely level, then hunched his shoulders. It felt, he reflected, a lot like a submissive posture. Mismatched eyes wavered on Cormalin anxiously - was he doing it right? What was he supposed to do next?
"Speech"
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