Closed On Top of the World (Zhol)

[Khara]

All room for amusement or playful teasing she had been trying to come up with for when he actually impressed himself suddenly was gone, and all that was left was the feeling like part of her had gone over the falls with the arrow. A small huff of air left her as she eyed the target as if it was entirely to blame somehow. It wasn't though, Khara knew that and the feeling was redirected to where it properly belonged in an instant.

Hesitantly she turned back towards where Zhol had rather unceremoniously sat down before her gaze fell away from him towards the ground between them. "Not yet. I should be sorry, I'm not a teacher for a reason, I think. I don't speak Common so good and I don't use right words sometimes."

Her hands went to move to each other, to engage in the somehow comforting fidgets that her fingers often did against one another, but her shortbow was in the way and brought the motion to a sudden halt. It left her feeling more awkward than ever as she toed at the ground a bit.

"You should not give up unless you really want to. Just because you cannot do something at first is not a good reason," Khara continued softly.

It went unsaid, but she wanted to use herself as an example. To try and explain about all the things she had tried to learn about hunting when she was a Yasi. How all her snares fell apart when an animal passed through them, how when she had tried to learn how to handle a falcon all the bird ever seemed to want to do was sit on her arm and glare at her as if it knew she was the one who should be scampering to get the lure. She failed time and time again, much to the frustration of her teachers, but little by little she had begun to understand the basics. She was still pretty terrible, and the actual nuances of hunting were a complete loss to her, but it wasn't something she would ever consider giving up on.

She finally raised her head to look back towards Zhol shoulders slumping a bit as she regarded the look of defeat he had donned. It didn't suit him, not one bit. The girl bit at her lower lip for a moment before eyes moved away from his and down to her bow. Another few ticks of fidgeting came before she voiced the only thing she could think of doing aside from sitting down next to him and letting them both give up.

"Maybe I can show you? And you can tell me where I talk wrong? I don't do everything perfect but maybe it will work better if you see what I am trying to say?" The offer sounded pathetic to her. What she should have offered was to try and find out if one of the instructors would be willing to give him private lessons so he could actually learn from someone who knew what they were doing. He asked if you would teach him. Not someone else, her inner thoughts reminded her and suddenly Khara was rather glad for having kept the idea to herself.

"Nari" | "Common" | "Pavi"

[Zhol]

|.

Why did she do that? Why did she always look so hard to find a way to blame herself for everything?

He knew why, and that only made his sadness slump his shoulders more heavily, filling him with the desire to sink into the ground, or better yet to tumble over the falls as she had done and be out of her life forever. It was his fault, that was why. It had been selfish to ask her for this. He'd wanted to hide away from those that might judge him, to wrap himself inside Khara's unwavering, incomprehensible opinion of him, as if that would somehow soften the blow of his inevitable repeated failure. But he hadn't considered the other part of him, the voice he tried so hard not to listen to, that wanted that opinion to be something else; something more. He had asked, and like a dutiful Chiet - and a good friend - Khara had leapt at the chance; and in doing so, Zhol had trapped her in a situation where his failures felt like her failures, because every day of her life Khara had been taught that blame migrated downwards, rolling off the higher castes like water off the backs of waterfowl, until it settled upon and drenched the poor lowest soul who had nowhere left to delegate.

His self pity dissolved, transforming into guilt and sadness over what he was putting Khara through. Never in a thousand years would she deserve this; with any luck, it was not too late to make amends.

"I don't think it's your words," he assured, mustering what he hoped would look like a genuine - albeit a little bashful - smile. "My ears are hearing, but my hands just aren't listening. I am not -"

Not very good at this, was the sentiment his tongue wanted to convey, but he stopped it, amended it, broadened it into a more encompassing truth. He made himself look at her as he said it; made sure of the sincerity in his eyes as he did.

"- as good as you."

"Pavi" | "Common" | "Nari" | "Symenos"
This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.

[Khara]

Khara could only stare for a tick, just one as she saw how he had stopped himself and finished with different wording. Her mind had wanted to protest the notion entirely, focus it down to just her being the better archer, but for once in their shared time together, Khara felt there wasn't some sort of misunderstanding.

With that realization came a new wave of objections. He wasn't as good as her? Zhol was the best person she knew. He was the only one that didn't seem to take his status for granted, or that of others. She'd never seen him talk down to a Dek or a Chiet, never had he treated them like they were any less valuable to Wind Reach than anyone else except when they acted more like animals than Inarta. He was shy sometimes and she could tell he was struggling to adjust to his new home, even after accepting it as such. But he wasn't bad, and she wasn't better.

There was a want to say he was wrong, to bring voice to what she was thinking, but the words died on her lips as a an embarrassed smile and a bashful glance away took hold instead. A nervous laugh left her, "I'm not that good."

Khara didn't clarify, letting it settle in the air with the same sense of dual meaning as his statement. Another quick glance was cast in Zhol's direction, eyes only briefly meeting with his before they flitted away again. Not out of any sense of shame, or that same mortified feeling as earlier, it was almost coy, like she knew exactly what she was doing without thinking of it and wanted him to know she understood and didn't believe and didn't mind him saying so anyway. World's worst flirter. The thought was enough to make her look away again, but not hastily.

"Well, if they will not listen then you will just have to let your hands see me instead and if that does not work you'll have to make them feel me next. We will make them understand somehow," Khara added. She had tried to sound confident in the turning of his phrasing around but it sounded... weird. Maybe she'd gotten one or two of the words wrong again.

She was glad she wasn't looking at him when she had made the mistake, though. He didn't have to see how overly foolish she felt for the failed attempt at humor. Though, that in itself was somewhat funny...

A small giggle left her, as she shook her head to try and clear her thoughts before she stepped in front of the target. It was somewhat nerve wracking to know that Zhol was watching her. It wasn't that same sense she got when people she didn't want watching her looked at her when she was at one of the ranges, then she was afraid of failing in front of them. With Zhol, though, it was more like she was afraid to not do her best, even if it wasn't great.

An arrow was pulled from her quiver, one of the few remaining ones she had left from the Summer, and a small roll of her shoulders shrugged off the lingering tenseness she felt - well, mostly. As Khara nocked the arrow, a quick glance was cast to Zhol again, a small smile offered before she turned back towards the target, giving it her full attention. A few shuffled steps were taken until she was certain her feet were the proper width apart and comfortably where she wanted them. The bow was raised and string pulled back. All the while Khara tried to keep mindful of how her arms were positioned, keeping her right lined up and her left just slightly bent to keep it away from the path the string would take. The rest of the lessons followed, shoulders eased, knees just a bit bent, hips moved so her lower back straightened. She waited, kept adjusting her position just slightly until she felt the tension of the shot shift from shoulders to back. It should have been much faster, others seemed to be able to pull it all off in one fluid motion, but maybe it was okay if it took a bit more since she was showing someone else. She aimed as careful as she could down the length of the arrow, finding that she was quite a bit more steady than she had been in the past. One last breath was taken, steady as she could, on the exhale her fingers relaxed and the arrow and string slipped from their hold.

The arrow's flight wasn't nearly as satisfying as the aim had made it seem like it would be, but it did hit the target. Not too awful, either. It wasn't in one of the inner rings, but rather at the outer edge of the middle one, a bit high and right of center. All in all it wasn't as good as she had hoped, but probably better than she normally would have done.

Still, she couldn't seem to drop the smile that had formed as she turned and looked back to Zhol, a small shrug of her shoulders following. "See? Not so perfect."

"Nari" | "Common" | "Pavi"

[Zhol]

|.

"At least you hit the target."

It was the only sentence he could muster: you'll have to make them feel me next was an accidental invitation that would not be leaving his mind any time soon, and for all his certainty that it was harmless and unintentional, it took all his focus to think about even the tiniest other thing.

In truth he had paid very little attention to Khara's method; or rather, paid very little attention to the parts of it he was supposed to, without imagining himself reciprocating the body contact that Khara had offered during his attempts, albeit with less objective intent. He hated that part of himself for it, for regarding his closest friend with those kinds of thoughts and urges; but forcing that aspect back into the depths of his mind was a difficult and reluctant struggle, and left behind a whole new plethora of thoughts that he badly wanted to ignore. Had she said nothing, no part of him would ever have lingered on thoughts of the softness of her skin, or the way the curves of her body felt. That smile, no doubt also unintentional, didn't really help either.

With an embarrassed smile, and with no small amount of amazement that his entire body hadn't turned the colour of Khara's new scarf, he clambered warily back to his feet and cautiously approached, suddenly acutely aware of how inconvenient his arms were, trying to work out how to restrain them from instinctively obeying any inappropriate urges.

"Could you show me again?" he asked, almost apologetic, stopping himself just outside of his arms' reach. "Maybe your words and actions at the same time, and slowly, so that I can see and ask?"

His smile turned sheepish, his eyes trying to fall away, though he didn't quite let them; he wasn't sure why his next words tumbled out, but he didn't regret them as much as he might have expected to. "You're much nicer than the last person I tried to learn from."

"Pavi" | "Common" | "Nari" | "Symenos"
This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.

[Khara]

"Of course I am," she replied with a small shrug of her shoulder. "Everyone is meanest to themselves." Khara wasn't entirely certain that was what Zhol had meant, but he had said that he had tried to teach himself during the Summer so it seemed a reasonable thing to say. She thought it was brave, though. The very first time Khara had picked up a bow was when someone else was showing her how to use it, she couldn't imagine trying to do it all by yourself. The bit about being your own worst critic though? That was something Khara had more than enough experience with. It never seemed to matter how good her intentions were or how hard she tried, when something wasn't going right it was always her fault for even trying in the first place. Of course, it wasn't entirely only her thoughts that felt that way.

"You should be nicer to yourself, though. Because when you're alone, you're the only person you have in those times and it's not good to be stuck near someone who you aren't comfortable with because they keep being mean to you." It was a bit of advice that Khara figured she really should try and listen to as well sometimes. Funny how much easier it was to tell someone else than actually listen to yourself, though. That alone seemed to point out the glaring need for it.

Another arrow was pulled from the quiver and Khara looked back to Zhol. "Tell me if I go too fast, ok? You can follow along if you want, there's no reason both of us can't shoot at the same target, if you like? Or you can do that next time."

A a small breath was taken and let out quick as she tried to make herself focus on slowing everything down. Khara wasn't a fast archer by any means, but if you had to show someone, really show them, then you had to make sure they could see every last little thing.

"Okay, so first is how you stand at the target. I do it like this, with my feet facing the same way and," she paused and ran her hand against an imaginary line that ran in the same direction as how she stood and along the length of the target. "Not facing towards the target, but flat to it, I think you can say? That's not the only way to do it, though."

Khara shifted her footing so her left was just a bit more forward, causing the rest of her body to face a touch away from the target. "You can try like this too. Or," She continued, shifting again so that her left foot was still forward, but back further so that it looked like she was facing the target. "This works too for some people. I like the first way better, it's very simple. The other two are..." She paused as she tried to think of the words. "Closed stance and open stance, I think they are called? You can try all three, but stick to the one that feels best once you find it."

Next she nocked the arrow, not bothering to go over that bit and it didn't seem like Zhol had any problems with that. She had to fight against the instinct to draw and raise at the same time though as she brought her bow up, instead she simply held onto the string and the arrow to help keep it in place. "Ok, now for this part. You want to hold your bow with your hand, not your thumb, if that makes sense. It should sit where I showed you and if you use your hand to kind of hold onto it more then you can do this," Khara paused and moved her fingers away from where they had wrapped around the bow to show how it was more supported in the heel of her palm than by her fingers.

"Not that you should try and make an arrow go like that," Khara laughed as she readjusted her light grip on the bow before looking back over at Zhol. "Okay so far?"

"Nari" | "Common" | "Pavi"

[Zhol]

|.

Zhol embraced her selection, standing opposite Khara, following along with the steps as she explained them like an enlarged reflection. It was one of the few advantages of his backwards handedness: while he was not necessarily successful in his efforts to learn skills, the process of learning was often easier by virtue of the fact that he could simply mirror whomever was demonstrating.

He tried the different stances that Khara suggested, and much as he wanted to echo her completely, the stance she preferred felt odd to him. Perhaps it was the fact that his muscles had grown accustomed to positioning themselves for sword fighting, and such a square, static position may have provided good stability for remaining still and aiming at a target, but it left Zhol feeling too immobile and exposed. He settled on the one Khara had referred to as open stance; it felt comfortably similar to one of the defensive postures he had been taught.

He echoed Khara's motions as she raised the bow, and he tried, hard as he could, to copy what she did with her hand. He believed her that it was the right thing to do, but it felt so petching precarious; as if firing an arrow with a grip like this would send the bow sailing from his grip in the arrow's wake. It wasn't until his nervous hands pulled back on the bow string a little out of reflex that he understood what was going on: the bow didn't need his fingers to grip tight and hold it in place, the bow string would do all of the work for him, and if his muscles weren't busy clenching his hand tight it would be far easier to relax his arm the way Khara had told him to before. It was so simple, and yet it wasn't something that you could see with just looking.

He offered a smile in response to her question, breaking the careful, concentrating silence that he had maintained while Khara had been explaining. "Many okay," he assured, mustering a little of his clunky Nari to reply. If Khara could manage to explain and make him understand something such as this in a language she did not know well, the least he could do was make a little linguistic effort of his own.

"Pavi" | "Common" | "Nari" | "Symenos"
This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.

[Khara]

The fact he had replied in Nari had made her practically beam in response. Khara wasn't sure if he knew, but every chopped attempt that Zhol made in her language meant worlds to her no matter how accented or strange they sounded. A quick look at how he was holding everything together made the smile even broader if possible - he was getting it now! She watched the way his arm relaxed and gently bent away from the string's path, the way his expression had subtly shifted when she knew it had clicked in his head.

She tried to contain her excitement, knowing it would only cause her to speak quickly and probably start messing up her own form as well. "Good! Okay so next you want to draw back the string and..." another pause as she wracked her mind for the right word "fill? The shot?"

No, no, that wasn't right. Khara tried again. "It's when you ready the arrow and it feels like you are making weights that will spring everything forward. I cannot think of how to say it. My mother used to call it draw and load but I don't know how to say that, I don't think. So, maybe watching will help without the word?"

Khara paused and looked back towards the target, a few subtle shifts in per posture from what had changed she had looked over towards Zhol to make sure everything was right. As slow as she was able she drew back the string of the bow, keeping her right forearm straight and in line with the arrow itself until her fingers stopped and rested just barely against her cheek. "I was wrong earlier, when I said where you want to feel it in your back. You do, but not lower. It should be between your shoulders like they are working together. Everything balances out, not only are you pulling back but at the same time there is a kinda push forward into the bow with your other arm a little, I think? If you keep your shoulders down it makes everything move backward and meets in the middle and doesn't make your arms work so hard."

A sudden realization came upon her as she glanced out of the corner of her eye at Zhol. The bow he had, the draw was different. That's what he had struggled with! She didn't know how to fix that! Maybe there was a way to change the amount of pulling you needed to do? But maybe that didn't need to happen. The girl tried not to hold her breath as Khara waited to see what would happen this time.

"Nari" | "Common" | "Pavi"

[Zhol]

|.

This was the moment when this approach to learning backfired: for while it gave Zhol a perfect opportunity to watch what and how Khara did what she did, the reverse was also true. She would have front row seats to the struggling of his weak and feeble muscles; further conformation of the inadequacy she already expected.

Stop that, his mind hissed at him, borrowing the voice of his sister for one of her rousing, signature displays of admonishing motivation; the kind of criticism that shamed you into doing better. It's a petching bow. If hunters can do it, if our idiot brothers can do it, you can do it. My twin is not getting defeated by some shyking inanimate object.

Letting Khara's instructions and suggestions repeat over in his mind, he drew back on the string with slow determination, pushing forward on the bow with his other arm as he did, his entire upper body engaged in the effort of prizing the two parts of the weapon away from each other. He felt his biceps strain, and knew that was wrong; he shifted his shoulders, rolled them back, feeling the tension shift until it bunched between his shoulder blades, fresh applications of effort creeping the string further and further back. His fingers tried to tremble with the effort of remaining hooked around the string, but he refused to let them release, glared at them out of the corner of his eye as they inched closer and closer to his face. All he could feel was the tension in that string, the sheer force that his arms were holding at bay. All he could see was the arrow, reaching from hand to hand, and the target that it pointed vaguely towards. All he could think about was the shot, about doing better, about not disappointing Khara, about how she would react if this shot would be more of a success, about the look on her face, her smile, her eyes -

He risked a glance in her direction, and that was when it all went wrong. Instead of nervous, or bashful, or downcast, or joyful, he saw something new: a Khara that was focused, a Khara in her element, poised, concentrating, more comfortable and at ease than he had ever seen her. Beneath all her adorable quirks, behind her nervous glances, without all of her efforts to hide, was someone undeniably and indescribably beautiful, and for the briefest of moments, all he could think of and see was her.

That, as it turned out, was a bad thing. A scream of protest from his struggling arms drew his attention back to what it should have been focusing on, just in time to feel the string slip from his fingers, launched prematurely towards the waiting target. The only consolation was that this time it struck somewhere that it was supposed to, embedding itself in the dividing line between the two outermost rings.

"Pavi" | "Common" | "Nari" | "Symenos"
This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.

[Khara]

The sudden sight of the arrow hitting the target threw her off. There were still a few things she had wanted to show him! But he had hit it, and not in any way to be ashamed of at that! Khara had to resist the urge to immediately lower her bow and try to find out what, if any, advice she could try and add. Stubbornness prevailed, as well as a voice that crept up from the back of her mind that reminded her of the need to follow through with anything she had started.

She didn't know if Zhol was watching her, or was quietly celebrating what she thought he should be, but the girl still kept her next movements slow. Not that there was a lot of movement to be made. Mental checks were run through, her right elbow brought up a bit as she realized it had dropped below where she wanted, muscled forced to relax where she had realized they had been bunching up, target sighted and finally hand let the string slip from her fingers when she felt ready. As she released she felt her bow tilt forward in her hand, the gentle cradling of her fingers around it keeping it from falling. She wasn't sure if it was supposed to do that, but it didn't seem like a bad thing.

Her own arrow hit the target, still a bit right from where she wanted it but a bit shocking as it planted between the center and middle ring. Khara quickly turned, a flush of embarrassment rising in her cheeks. "I...I'm not trying to show up! I'm normally way worse, promise!"

A nervous laugh left the girl as she looked away, her right hand raising to the back of her neck, fingers finding the scarf and ran across the knit fabric there. "You did a lot better too, you know? That's about where I normally hit the target most days. Just remember don't rush your shot. You aren't trying to kill an animal right now or anything so no one is going to make you have to go fast."

The bit of talking allowed the girl to recover from her earlier outburst and Khara raised her head, the small smile persisting. "We can both go again," she added. "Watch, though. My next one will be way worse. I'm just getting lucky right now."

"Nari" | "Common" | "Pavi"

[Zhol]

|.

"I'm sorry, I -"

His sheer embarrassment was impossible to express, not even in his native tongue, which his voice had accidentally stumbled into. His face reddened; every time he made such a slip up, he felt as if he was lying to Khara somehow; accidentally hiding things from her. Not that he was quite prepared to admit that I got distracted by how beautiful you are just yet, but even so.

"The string is hard to hold on to," he offered, his lame excuse for an excuse. It wasn't a falsehood, but a misdirection; his anxious guilt twisted tighter. His words almost stammered out of him, and for a moment he wondered if this must be what Khara felt so often, when nervousness gripped hold of her in such a simultaneously endearing and heart-wrenching way. He wanted to fling his arms around her whenever that happened, hug her to him until it stopped; a fleeting thought of her doing the same thing to him made everything cascadingly worse.

"Maybe you should -" His mind fumbled, too flustered to even find words in common any more. In Pavi he knew plenty, knew exactly what to say -go first, demonstrate, show me how it's done - but in Common he was at a loss. "I will -" Look? Study? Gaze at? Stare at? Want? Crave? "- watch how, and then you can tell me what I am wrong doing?"

"Pavi" | "Common" | "Nari" | "Symenos"
Dad Thoughts | Dinah Thoughts | Khara Thoughts
...
This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.