506 AV, Season of Winter, Day 60
" . . . Darilava?"
"What, girl? You said you wanted a new target. You ask and I provide!"
"But, isn't that Whet's hat?"
It was indeed Whet's hat. Or at least, one of them—he went through them like a debter went through promises—It was a tall hat, this one, with an upturned brim, with a colorful sash around its middle. A vivid purple that jarred with the featureless wall it had been laid up against.
Darilava crossed his veiny, too-long arms. "Your powers of observation astound me, girl." He said. "Yes, that is one of his collection. Or, it was. Now? It is your target. Throw. Throw, or I teach you nothing!"
That, at least, got Kit's attention. She reached for the throwing daggers on the table next to her and weighed them carefully in her hand, got the feel down, ran her thumb across its edge, tested its weight in her hands. "Good." He said, though there was no praise in his words. They were clipped facts. "Know the knives well. Feel the balance, test it. Do you remember how to throw?"
Kit did. What was it Darilava had said before? Not like throwing a ball or stone, but like shaking a hand, ready to let go at any time. She held her arm perpendicular to her body and pointed the knife straight down. "Acceptable stance." He said. The pale spider stalked around her, watched her from all angles. "Throw!"
The girl kept her arm straight; twisting, no jerks of her arm. It wasn't her whole arm that powered the throw; Darilava had told her she didn't need to. What she needed was to make it fly straight and true, and that meant no twists that might skew or flip the dagger too far. She released just then, and the knife sailed through the air, once, twice, embedding itself into the wood just above the hat and quivered.
She heard Darilava tch. "Again."
This time it hit the hat square along the top of its brim, tearing through and pushing it askew. Darilava gave a satisfied grunt. "Amateur," he said. "But acceptable. Take two steps back, and try again."
Kit did just that. Part of Darilava's training with her to was to make she she knew her way around throwing daggers. She could throw a dagger into an apple or orange or fruit in general while someone else held it, could perhaps one day be comfortable enough around them to juggle them. Never said but always implied was that perhaps one day it would prove convenient to pull a dagger from a coat and pierce something from a distance for other reasons.
The distance between her and the target mattered. No matter what she did to mitigate it the dagger would still spiral into circles. It was a careful art, to be certain that at the proper distance, when you threw a dagger the SHARP end went into what you were aiming at. Kit breathed deep and swiped her hands!
Again it missed the hat, to the left this time, but it embedded itself into the wall and quivered there. If her aim was off, at least she had the cycles down. She spared a glance at Darilava. He stared at her dagger as though it had done some great offense to him personally. But then, he stared that way at everyone. That he said nothing at all was a good sign of her progress. "Again." He said.
This time Kit's dagger caught the hat square in the middle, crumpling its shape. Behind her, Kit heard a door open. Before she looked, she saw Darilava smile a satisfied little smile, looking behind Kit.
When she turned around to see, Kit saw Whet framed in the doorway, staring at the tattered remains of his once great hat.
