the trick is to keep breathing

Fair Warning: i think i may have totally botched Cyan's accent, but i can't seem to get it to work right. D:

Also, perhaps one too many ellipses. >_>

Awkward Moments

Everyone spent the night before differently. Cyan had intended to spend it in meditation – in solitude – as he often did.

The night had other plans.

“May I join you?”

The thief had taught her well, he thought, that she managed to seek him out without his permission. Then again... it seemed to him that there was a third person in the tall grass that surrounded them both, but the moment he noticed, the presence was gone.

Terra didn’t appear to notice. Taken aback with his reticence, she merely sat beside him, demure.

“I was... hoping, I guess, that maybe you would...” she shrunk under his steady gaze, blushing furiously. “I wanted to know...”

She smoothed the wrinkles of her skirt, and finally met his eyes. “Would you teach me how to fight?”

“Mayhap it is a brash assumption, milady,” observation might have been a better word, but far less polite, “But do you not already know?”

“I suppose, sometimes....” She shook her head violently, and buried her gaze in the earth. “No. I don’t... feel, that I do. Not like... not like I...”

Her abrupt silence allowed him a moment to feel the full weight of what she asked. His heart skipped joyfully at the prospect of taking on another student, but it was more than that; his students – dead, or dishonored – were gone, his people were gone, and the tradition ages old was in danger of ending with him. He felt, more than ever, the isolation that he never before acknowledged.

Cyan felt alone.

Beside him, Terra scrambled to her feet. “I’m sorry if I bothered you.”

“Lady Terra.” He stood after her, wanting her to understand, but he couldn’t find the words. “To understand... fighting,” the crassness of the word burned his tongue, “as I do, a man must first be no less dedicated to the enlightenment that comes with mastering many other arts than he is with a sword. He must be disciplined, devoted, for his entire life...” Her eyes were shining with wonder, making it all the more difficult to say. All he had to do was turn her down. All he had to do was...

“If you do feel that devotion, then I... would be...” All he had to do was to crush her hopes. “...all too glad to teach thee my art.”

She blinked, flinching as if she didn’t fully believe him. She was right not to – even he didn’t believe him. “You mean that?”

Is this what you want? He asked inward, steeling himself for the answer. “Aye.”

Although he expected her to take to his decision, he most certainly did not expect her to throw herself at him and wrap her arms around his neck. Her lips brushed against his cheek, or so he thought – it may have been the shock; the whole display was certainly out of line for a...

Squire.

Certainly the word he was looking for, but not the one he wanted to use.

Shaking off the ambivalent feeling, he glanced about quickly to ensure that they were still alone before briefly returning the embrace and using the hold to gently pull her away.

“Meet with me in the morning,” he told her. “We shall discuss it then.”

As she took her leave, bounding off radiantly, he tried to trust in his heart; it told him, unequivocally, that he had done the right thing. Tonight, he felt a trace of vigor creeping back into his bones.

Tomorrow, he would curse his misleading heart, for the world was rent to shreds.