506 AV, Season of Winter, Day Fifty
"This is folly," Darilava said. The Symenstra paced across the room, furniture since cleared out as far to the sides as they could be pushed. His grace was so practiced, so natural that Kit hated him for it. His face was pale as moonlight and wrinkled with the signs of aging. "Your aunt, your uncle, did they think you could learn from me? You cannot. I was born more spry than your clumsy race could learn to be in a lifetime." For that reason, Kit feared him. Symenstra aren't to be trusted, aren't to be liked, aren't to be dealt with . . . Yet still, her aunt had chosen to send Kit here to learn. Did she hope that one day Kit wouldn't come back?
"Girl!" Darilava snapped, and Kit's eyes sprang back to the spider, her face flush with embarrassment. "It is folly!" He had to squat to look her straight in the eye. "In my home, our roads were thin as threads, and none fell from them! But Whet has promised—"
"Then stop telling me how hopeless I am!" Kit planted both her hands on her hips and hissed. "And teach!"
The Symenstra curled back his lips in frustration, baring his teeth—by accident or intentionally?—And Kit took a quick, nervous step back, all nerve lost.
"Helloooo in there?" Whet, the other half of her teachers called through the door. His voice was jaunty and jovial, but it always was. "Don't let the old man give you a lovebite, little fox! He hasn't had his lunch yet." And Kit felt her face pale in sudden terror.
Darilava turned toward her and scowled at her reaction. "Girl, you have worked with us for weeks. Surely, if I meant you harm, I would have done so by now?"
Perhaps, Kit thought, he wasn't actually too old to father children. Perhaps, Kit thought, he was just waiting until she was old enough to bear them. Her unease must have showed through her expression, because Darilava sighed. "Whet has made a promise," he said, and he sounded tired. "And so, I am obligated to at least try."
"If you would allow me to accompany you to the seaside . . ." He asked again, and Kit vigorously shook her head no. " . . . Then you have been going on your own, yes? You have been practicing your rolls on the soft sand, yes?" Kit nodded.
"The human body is stiff," Darilava said the word like a curse. "It is like a tree that stands straight and never sways. You must convince it to suppleness. Sit." He made a sudden, sharp downward gesture.
With nothing else to do, Kit obeyed.
"Now," he said as though it were the most reasonable thing in the world, "take your foot and tuck it behind your head."
Perhaps for a Symenstra it would be nothing, but most humans Kit knew could not have managed it. But luckily, she was supple enough to pull it off. She grabbed hold of her right foot and lifted it, feeling the sudden tug and complaining of tendons in her thigh as they screamed too far! Too far!
Kit ignored them. She felt her leg burn as she pulled her leg further up, and up, and up . . . And there! She let go of her leg, felt the curious sensation of her own foot pressing against the back of her head. She smiled up at Darilava, triumphant!
"Good," he nodded. "Hold that pose for a bell."
