Spring 34, 492 AV
"Your hands! Where are your hands?" The slap came horizontally, ghosting across Dhalvasha's limited peripheral and crashing against his head. The boy's neck lashed away from the blow, his body following in awkward arcs. Hitting the ground he bounced twice before laying still. He tasted blood again, the familiar settling standard of disappointment. Not far from him, the adult Symenstra scuttled to where the boy lay, picked him up with one arm and forced him to his feet.
"Do you retain nothing? Can you learn nothing?" The criticisms cut at his esteem, already floundering, and the young widow could not meet his father's eyes. The elder Hysal spit to the side in disdain, settling back on the balls of his feet before circling his son. The elder Symenestra was hardly a typical specimen of his race. Muscles bulged along his narrow frame and each movement was practiced and strong. The frailty of the spiderfolk did not extend to the Hysel patriarch...and why should it? As one of the most renowned hunting families in Kalinor, was it not his prerogative to hone his body for the craft?
Already his first son was working in his stead, a lithe hunter of silent steps and unerring aim. In comparison, Dhalvasha was a seething disappointment. Already purple bruises marred the white glow of his face, already tears tracked quiet lines from his eyes. The boy was injured, and the lesson was hardly half over.
"Again." the patriarch commanded and Dhalvasha looked up to him desperately, fear in his red eyes. "AGAIN!" the widow shouted, swiping at the boy and Dhalvasha hurled himself away, desperately evading the sickle claws of his father. Warily the two Symenestra's circled each other. One was breathing harshly, small, and with both hands extended...warding off the inevitable attack. In comparison, the elder Hysal strode with controlled breath, unbroken confidence. He was fury, banishing the assertions of weaker Symenestra bodies. His very nature was contradiction embodied, and he was stronger for it.
Dhalvasha rushed his father, bring up his claws in desperate slicing motions. He was light on his feet, as all Symenestra were, and he utilized his innate skills in acrobatics to attempt and bamboozle his superior with quick side jumps, strikes and retreats.
Each attack was met with the clash of claws against claws. His father's large form belied the speed laced in every movement. Each of the child's attacks was met with stalwart mocking defense, haphazard attempts at returns that kept the boy nimbly leaping from place to place, breathing harshly. He was a failure, always a failure...too cautious to land a blow and too desperate to learn from his mistakes.
Dhalvasha leaped forward, swinging arcing claws out toward his father's midsection. The elder caught the momentum of his son with a close-handed punch to his stomach. Dhalvasha swung out of the air and across the cave again, coughing weakly as he struggled for breath. He knew the lesson wasn't over, that he needed to get up, but his muscles burned and his frail arms could not support the weight of his equally frail body.
Struggling on the ground, his momentum was arrested when his father planted a foot on the small of his back, forcing the child to the ground. Dhalvasha gasped complaint, scrabbling at the rock like a panicked animal. His back groaned in the effort to hold up the larger male and every instinct in his mind begged him to escape.
"At your age," the elder Hysal began, disdain marinating his gruff voice, "Your brother could land at least a blow in his daily spars...but you show no improvement or talent." Dhalvasha cried out as his father pressed down against his body, grinding the boy's chest into the stone. "Words cannot express how disappointed I am in you. We are hunters, we are the strength of Kalinor! How can you lay there and cry? Strike me. STRIKE ME!" The pressure released from Dhalvasha's back and his father leered in the child's field of vision. Weakly the Symenestra clawed at his father, but could awaken no adrenaline to push his muscles forward.
He looked for all the world like some pale fish, trying to piteously swim on land.
Dhalvyro Hysal frowned, kicking his son over on his back and leaning over him. He was a ghost in the shadows of Kalinor, his red eyes bright with rage and disappointment. Dhalvasha averted his eyes, but his father grabbed a handful of his hair and forced the boy to look at him. "You will carry on our legacy, Dhalvasha, whether I have to beat it into you or not. Learn how to defend yourself or so help me, I will CAST you beneath the city and see what that will teach you."
"I don't want..." Dhalvasha's voice was barely a whisper, "I don't want to be a hunter."
His father filled his vision, leaning so low that Dhalvasha could smell the blood on his breath, the slight acrid hint of alcohol from the surface world. "You have no choice, my son," And for a moment, the youth thought he sensed pity in the gravely voice, "You are born of my blood. You will be a hunter."
And then he was gone, melting into the gloom as swiftly as he came. Dhalvasha took a few moments to breathe, feel the bruises welting his chin and cheek, the pain from his sprained bones, before rising to his feet. He was alone again. Tomorrow it would begin again, same time, same place. Holding his thin arms around himself, Dhalvasha allowed himself another self pitying tear. Much as he wanted to hide tomorrow, to avoid the event altogether, his father would make sure that his suffering was longer lasting than some simple bruises.
Quietly he escaped the slab of stone they had trained upon and scuttled across the wall toward the Blue Grotto. The colors there soothed him, the water always an open ear to pour his troubles. The boy winced as he crawled through the webbing strands and jagged walls toward his destination, each movement accented by the agony of exhaustion.
He wanted nothing of his father's legacy, the glory his brother soaked, the responsibility it entailed. His interest was not in the beasts that prowled beneath the city but in the Symenestra around them, the principle of life itself. Everything fascinated the child, the way muscles contracted and eyes blinked. How so much was capable with such a fragile frame. The outside world, other species, defenses of naturally occuring organisms...all of it overwhelmingly fascinating.
He did not have the strength to overcome his father, but somewhere in his anatomy there was a weakness not even his muscles could protect. Perfection wasn't what Dhalvyro was, none of them were. The flaw that murdered Dhalvasha's mother...that murdered all pureblood Symenestra mothers, was an imperfection in them all.
Tucking himself in a corner above the pools of water, Dhalvasha allowed himself to cry. Regardless of his disdain toward his father's methods, his expectations. Dhalvyro had known Dhalvasha from birth.
Was there nothing to be proud of in him?