Lessons

Walk | Talk | Think

She honestly expected that to be the end of it. Jak was already winded as it was, what point was there for him to tire himself out more by trying to teach someone who pointedly refused to attempt the lesson at hand? In fact, Callisto almost counted on it, willing him to take his leave and excuse her from this silly impromptu lesson that they had started so she could get back to other things, things like plants and healing and gathering and prepping for times when her skill, her true skill, would be necessary.

But he did not leave. He flopped against the ground and seemed to fall inward with thought, the girl casting a quick glance at him from the corner of her silvery blue eyes. He tried to draw her out by talking about her chosen craft, her herbs and healing, and it worked a little. She might have still been frowning, but Callisto turned her head to glance his way, taking in his references and the suggestions he made of switching the scenario to make it more applicable. And, of course, he was right. Damn it.

He could barely sit upright at this point and Callisto watched and waited in silence as he eventually slumped over onto his side, with his direct gaze still watching her expectantly for her to begin the training he had demonstrated. The grey and black yearling still refused to move, though already she was feeling as if it was a lost cause. He was right, as much as she wished him to be wrong, and she had been the one to pursue the lesson after he had offered. Even if she never got to use the skill, she had already determined it to be something good to know, and there was no chance of her remembering quite so well what to do later on if she did not go through the motions now.

Callisto groaned but dragged herself to her spindly grey legs, still frowning and fuming quietly to herself. She stepped away from the spot she had been sitting in and gave herself a little distance from her teacher, setting herself up in a position similar to the one he had started off in. Let's get this over with. In her mind, she saw the stances as Jak had played them out, and as she went through them, slowly and a bit awkwardly, she said them mentally to herself. She sidestepped, turned, shifted her stance to something more square, leaped, and reached with a snap of her jaws at an enemy that neither of them could see. And all the while she felt incredibly silly for attacking and reacting to nothing.

She was not winded or exhausted as Jakart was, but she certainly felt uncomfortable. She had not been able to see her own motions, but she was sure they were nothing like Jak's precise and practiced movements. Straightening where she stood, ears splayed awkwardly and with a great deal of self-consciousness, she made a gesture that was something akin to a shrug. "There. I did it." And now that she had, she was not at all sure she wanted to hear his critique.