Prompt Three: "Scale"
Even in her self-directed educations, she learns from another.
She shaped out the wisping nature of Auri with Esen, a language she had thought her heart had ached to learn for another but turned out to be for love of the once-ugdan instead. Signing, seen and referenced and returned, with the manual surrounded by the crossed legs of her and two; waving fingers that seemed to dwarf three of her own, sticky with mechanical grease and flecks of sandwich crust. If she gives herself a few seconds to think, she can remember in a tactile way, the light pressure of Avenaiâs hands against her wrists and shoulders, steadying that handgonne pointed towards the cracked plateaus of Thanalan, while she gave unto her the secrets of succession fire. Alchemy, she accredits to Vanderâs tutorial moons ago in the clinic of that dripping alembic; Mazinâs texts, of properties and the meld of blood and metals, given so freely to her. Even âalcoholâ, âmixologyâ, a domain that all souls so easily espouse her lordliness in, was discerned from the observation of a ginger-haired, towering, woman who was so much more than she ever would say - this seamless way that she had the knowledge of centuries in exactly what paired with what.
This, however, is the only thing that she can attest to have learned herself.
This is herâs, herâs alone, and she worked for her capacity here.
Itâs something she has been doing longer than she thinks anyone, except perhaps Yellow Rose, could ever guess.
It started when she was uncertain of herself, this new life. Trapped, in the ways that count, in the lurching and thrumming sway of a vessel above sea and sky. When she disliked the nature of being seen in a manner beyond that ever-present chord of low-throated, and yet accepted and compromised, violation. When her muscles ached in the need for some activity when the blocked nature of her suns was suddenly not there, when the mindlessness of pacing compounded squares along the training room started to drive her mad. When she realised she needed to make her opportunities, than to leave her incapabilities as they are.
And here is the fruit of it.
While everyone else floats high above her to that tiled rooftop, she has to put in a little more finesse. Like she always does. Like how it always takes her a little bit of work to take things granted in this life. She never cares to wonder what it would be like if she had the easy way too.
Itâs the sort of thing that makes even Xiaohu feel fucking heavy.
This fluctuation of gravity impending down upon your body with every tug and burst of muscle-flow.
But itâs rewarding nonetheless.
This brief moment where her starting run compresses its momentum against stone, a force that wants to move and move forward but instead finds itself shunted up against a barrier. âStickingâ her to it for the requisite half-second of continued movement of some couple fulms of the wall until she can twist and lunge for it, the first ledge in the map she had made with a swoop of her eyes along darkened shapes.
And in lunging for it, transfers some of that stupoured energy up. Then itâs time to tense more than her lower core, the steadiness of knees that wanted to shake; a whole bodied firm centered in the solidity of her gloved fingers burrowed into the balcony, tugging at her chest. Snap, springs the cord, hinging to its latch while its weight is denied the crash below.
After that?
Levers and pulleys: sometimes she lifts herself up onto something like the first balcony, tilts herself over on it with iron clutching her belly; other times she pulls herself to it in a steady bowâs draw, felt from the expanse of shoulder blade to shoulder blade and hugging the curve of her ribs.
And like everyone else, she gets her fucking way up there.
