The Performer [Flashback] (Solo)

[Kit Rowan]

506 AV, Season of Winter, Day Forty “You,” he told her. “Are a scrawny one.” He circled her once, surveying her with his dark eyes. “Show me your arm,” the Symenestra said, and, uneasy, Kit rolled up her sleeve and let him see. He grabbed hold, and ran a thumb along her arm—it made Kit shudder, revolted, remembering every story about his kind that she had heard. The Sweet Symenestra Sang A Song As Warm As The Suns Caress, Caught Her In His Web And Dragged Her To Her Doom. She willed herself to stop reciting the stories in her mind. She focused on the spider’s hands. They were old, and wrinkled, and thick veins spun across his skin and up his arm. He had aged—she reminded herself of that. And she was too young—she reminded herself of that too. . . . Caught Her In His Web . . . Darilava hmmed. “Odd,” he said. “I won’t pretend to know . . .” he paused. “ . . . your sort, but your muscles are in better shape than I expected. What do you do?” Kit couldn’t help but smile at that. “I’m a bit of an acrobat.” One of the boys she’d run with had said that while she made her way above the rooftops; ‘you’re like some Inverted acrobat, he’d said, laughing when she’d finally come down. No one will ever catch you! “Acrobat,” one corner of Darilava’s mouth turned upward, his eyes making the shape that they took when others laughed. Kit was proud for a moment until he said “sure you are,” and she heard it for the mockery it was. “Still,” he allowed. “It’s a good start.” “Whet tells me you want to learn knives.” Darilava said, his smooth, edgeless voice like a veiled dagger, or hidden fangs. He raised an eyebrow. “Does he mean juggling or throwing?” “Throwing,” Kit said, without thinking. “Ah,” he nodded, and said “then throw for me.” Kit gave the Symenestra an odd look, “but I don’t have any knives now,” she told him, “can I borrow one?” Tsking, Darilava shook his head. “No girl, you have no idea what you are doing. Pretend you have one. You children are good at pretend, no? Let me see what you will do now.” She turned to a ragged wooden bulls-eye as Darilava watched, . . . The Sweet Symenestra Sang . . . imagined that she was holding a knife and threw it toward the target. He tsked again. “All wrong,” Darilava said. “A knife is no pebble, little girl.” Kit bristled, but he bowled past her before she could respond. “You will watch. You wrist must be straight.” He showed her. “You use too much of your body.” Darilava made a rebuking gesture. “Not your wrist; your arm. Not your body; your arm. The power will come from your shoulder and your shoulder only, or you will miss. Listen, girl.” “I have a name,” Kit protested. “You are an ignorant girl I must teach because Whet is a too kind a fool,” Darilava said, voice sharp as broken glass. “Your name is Watcher and Listener and Follower, and you will do these things or you will leave, girl.” He shook his head and, by accident Kit was sure, bared his teeth. She saw a fang, long and vicious. . . . And Dragged Her To Her Doom . . . There were stories about those fangs; that they drank a person until their victim was dry and empty, that a single bite from a hungry Symenestra could kill a grown man in seconds. Her blood ran cold. “Now,” he said, turning back to her, the shadow of anger gone from his face as soon as it had appeared. “You will show me what I just did.” Kit nodded meekly and decided it would take a stupid sort of person to get caught into a web as nasty as Darilava’s. She did another imaginary throw. Kit kept her wrist straight, and only used her arm. He gave a grunt that might have meant ‘hopeless’ or ‘good enough.’ Darilava held out his hand. “Shake it,” he said. This is stupid, she thought, but Kit imagined she could still see the hardness in Darilava’s eyes, even if he’d cleared his face, and she shook his hand. “Feel the way I hold it,” It was firm. “This is a mistake all make in the beginning. You hold the knife like a lover, like a friend,” he shook his head. “You must hold it like a hand. Not so tight as to chafe, no so loose as to set it free; you must be able to let go—” He loosened his grip slightly, and his hand slipped away from hers. “—at any moment, and not disturb the knife.” It’ a knife, Kit corrected in her mind, a smile spreading across her face. Not a hand. He pulled a throwing dagger from his sleeve, held it like a hand, and threw it toward the target—his wrist limp, his power coming from the shoulder—and it landed blade first, in the center. It quivered there for a long moment. Then he threw another, like a rock, using the whole of his body, and holding it tight in his hand. It bounced off the wooden target and clattered uselessly to the floor. “I cannot deal with you now,” he told her. “Whet will leave to bring home food. You will go with him. I am done.”

[Kit Rowan]

So Kit found Whet, and they wandered into the streets of Alvadas. “So,” he said, grinning like a rogue, “how did you like Darilava?” He made a beckoning answer with a hand, inviting her to answer. “I trust it went well?” Kit would not say that it went well. She would say that he was an arrogant, insufferable murderer who talked to her like some child. But she didn't know if he killed anyone, and she was only ten. “I,” she hesitated. “Um. I don’t really think he likes me,” she said lamely. “He kind of stormed out.” He raised his eyebrows enthusiastically and Whet’s grin nearly split his face in two. “You mean to say he didn’t throw you out?” He clapped his hands together. “Why then little fox, I think it went right well!” She stared at him, trying to understand whether he was being sarcastic or just playing up his reactions. He was as hard to understand as Darilava, in a way. “He didn’t even watch me throw a dagger,” she said, sullen. “Just said I was stupid and left.” She crossed her arms and stared up at Whet. “Why do you put up with him?” “Me?” He asked, amazed. “Me put up with him?” He laughed, and the sound of it vibrated through Kit's chest. “No, no, you have it the other way around. He puts up with me.” “I,” he said, standing so tall and proud that Kit half expected his cape to come flaring up in the wind behind him. “Am completely useless.” “Come on,” she pressed, “you can’t be completely useless.” “But I am!” He said, offended. “You can try to make a living out of other people giving money to you, but listen when I say,” he shook his head sadly. “It does not turn out the way you think. He’s the talent; I’m the man who holds the hat at the end of the show.” He grinned and adjusted a great big too-tall purple thing atop his head. It looked ridiculous. Kit frowned at him. “If he’s so good then why doesn’t he just perform?” “Because two things,” he held up a finger. “He’s a spider, and no one wants to give him money.” Whet put up another, making a pair. “He doesn’t know the trick to taking their mizas away from them.” Kit didn't understand. “What?” Whet grinned at her, long and sharp. “You don’t think they just give their money because you impress them, do you?” He shook his head, denying it. “You have to know how to butter the crowd, make them want to pay for it. And as the sleaziest thing this side of the Suvan Sea, I am the perfect man for the job.” He adjusted his hat. “And with my help,” he intoned, "you too can become an trouper!” Sitting there with his velvet top-hat Kit was reminded of nothing more than a peacock she’d seen in a cage of the bizarre, proud, colorful and completely worthless. Kit couldn’t help it. She laughed. “I live to entertain,” he said, smiling. It took a moment for Kit to gather herself. “Where did you get that?” She asked, reaching up, barely tall enough to brush the tip of the brim with her fingers. Whet preened. “It cost me twenty gold mizas,” he said. “Wow,” Kit said, and shook her head. “That’s a lot.” He nodded, smiling, glad to hear another say it. “Indeed,” he said. “It would be difficult for most, but I have my ways.” “What ways?” She asked, tilting her head in a way that meant question. “Ways,” he said, with a nervous smile. And then, abruptly, “Little fox, it’s important that you know how to compose yourself in front of a crowd.” Whet didn’t give her a chance to voice her confusion. “Tell me, if you went out there right now, what would you say?” She blinked, and said “what,” without inflection. “What do you do?” He said, suddenly urgent, he leaned down, grabbed hold of her shoulders, starting shaking her and did not stop. Kit tried to push away, but she was a little girl, and Whet was a grown man. “Stop,” she said, feeling sick. “STOP!” He ignored her and shook harder. “You’re losing them!” Whet told her, all concern. “They’re getting away! Your customers are leaving! Why should they stay? Tell them!” “Acrobat,” she managed, Gods, leave me alone, let me go, please, please pleeeaaaase? “An acrobat, okay?” Whet stopped trying to rattle her brains out of her skull but did not let go. He looked into her eyes. Stop it, her brain repeated. Let me go, let me go, let me go! “An acrobat?” He repeated. She bit down on her lip. “Yeah.” “Well,” he said, with elaborate casualness, “you can’t be very good.” Kit’s eyes narrowed. “What?” “‘An acrobat, okay?’” Whet parroted. “Are those the words of a confident performer?” He let her go and made a cutting gesture with one hand. “No. Good performers are confident, they believe what they do so much whoever watching does too.” She straightened. “I am an acrobat,” she said, her voice frosty. “An acrobat you say,” Whet was not impressed. “There’s an acrobat on every street corner you know. I think I’ll go to them.” “I am the best,” Kit said, and she did not hesitate in saying it. “I truly doub—” Kit had was done dealing with this bullshit. “I AM THE BEST ACROBAT IN THIS PETCHING CITY!” She yelled, in a voice too loud for her little lungs, and Whet’s rose as far as they could manage without clearing the top of his head. Kit grinned, shark and satisfied, and them a murmur reminded her that she had an audience. Everyone around them had stopped, and was staring. One of them laughed, another cursed, and an old woman Kit couldn’t see told her to watch her language. Kit felt the temperature rise by ten degrees. Gods, but her face was red. There were only a dozen or so, but that was a dozen or so more than she had expected. She sputtered, but couldn’t find the words. Mom would be ashamed. “Well,” she said. “I am.” She crossed her arms and tried to glare at them all at once, daring them to contradict her. When she was very young, before she became used to heights, she'd dreaded peering over high places. When she did Kit imagined that she was falling, falling, and suddenly the little jump off the ledge seemed so large that she could never imagine that she would ever hit the ground. That is she felt like, meeting these stranger's eyes in the middle of the street; staring over the edge and falling, tumbling, forever. “Confidence isn’t a problem, I think.” Whet said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “Ah look, a food cart! I love how this twisty place works. Do you think the fish will taste like fish this time?”

[Kit Rowan]

Whet was true to his word; he was completely useless, and Kit had to carry the pack back. Half of it was fruit, and beans, and other things. The other half was whiskey. It took them three left turns to find their way. Kit was with them for the day, and it was not yet up, but she wanted gone. Instead she left them both and wandered to the back, where Darilava keep his little throwing range. She found the daggers where they had been left, on the floor and embedded into the wood of their home. The house next to them was not familiar to Kit. She took no note of it, but pulled the knife from the wood and picked up the one of the ground. Kit put her hand around it, frowning and thinking. Like a hand, like a hand . . . And she understood. Kit could not grip it; she needed to make a sheath with her fingers; to hold on firmly, but make sure she could release all of it at one time. Kit took a deep breath, and threw it, not moving her wrist, and holding her arm straight. It hit with the blunt end and fell to the floor, and Kit thought they were laughing at me. She threw it harder, and fast, and it smashed against the side. Mom would be so ashamed, she thought again. She picked them up and tried again. Can’t even do this, she hissed at her uselessness. Stupid little girl. Kit failed, again. You're ruined, root and branch and heart. She laughed at herself, and the sound of it was jagged in her ears. Gods, she thought. I am pathetic. “Listen,” she heard Darilava say, and she spun around to see him peering at her from around his home, a bottle of whiskey in one hand. He took a long moment to down it and threw it to the floor. “Throw again,” He told her. “But do so slowly.” She stared. Oh. The spider. Kit shuffled her feet, feeling naked and exposed. Throw. Okay. “Okay,” she said, and took a breath so deep it hurt. “Okay.” Kit turned, and—slower this time—she threw the knife. Again it landed wrong, and again it clattered to the four, and Kit made a frustrated sound. “Good,” Darilava said. “Good.” She turned toward him, scowling. ”Good?” “You want to hit the target?” Darilava made a disgusted sound. “You get ahead of yourself, little girl. You throw another like the one you did, and you will again, and again, until it is in your bones.” He gestured toward her as she said “then, and only then, you will move, and you will find a place where the spin is right, and there you will hit the target with that throw. Then, maybe you learn how to hit from elsewhere” That seemed odd to Kit. “Isn’t that a bit backwards?” “It is,” Darilava admitted. “But it is the only way that works.” . . . The Sweet Symenestra Sang A Song . . .

[Kit Rowan]

Time passed. They were having lunch—or at least Kit and Whet were having lunch. She had asked Darilava why he did not eat, but he just shook his head and said. ‘You would not want me to.’ Immediately Kit had thought that he meant that he wouldn’t eat her, and was warily grateful. That didn’t mean that he didn’t join them in the circle though. He liked whiskey. He really liked whiskey. “Where do you set up?” Whet asked her. “Popular places,” Kit said. “Lots of people coming and going.” Whet smiled wide. “I’d say to set up on the streets between them too, but with this place you never know where that’s going to be. Who do you want coming in particular?” Kit bit down on her lip. It had not been long; she should have remembered. “Um . . .” “Children, little fox,” he said. “There’s no one as generous as children, and it bleeds into their parents.” Kit made an agreeable sound, and Whet took a bite out of his apple. She didn’t feel hungry. Kit eyed the spider. Sitting, he looked even older than before. Weathered, broken, she knew that he could move, that he was quick and clever and fast. But sitting there, he reminded her of nothing more than an old man, near to death. It took her a moment to remember his name. “. . . Darilava,” she said. “Have you ever killed?” The color drained from Whet’s face, and he started waving her down with the hand that his partner could not see. “Like, girls. You know,” she clarified. And then she looked at Whet’s face, and saw the horror penned clearly across his features. But he had not moved. The spider stared into the palms of his hands and said “yes.” His voice was distant, muted, and though he was in the room with them Kit imagined that his mind was far away. Whet relaxed, shut his eyes and slouched with relief, and the spider did not talk. But when his partner tried to speak and clear the air he started up again. “She was a human,” he said, in the thick tones of the very drunk. “Red hair. Was used, used real hard. Wind’s Reach they call the place. Filthy place. You don’t know brutality till you’ve gone there, seen what they do to their own people.” “My time was coming. I got antsy. Brought her back to Kalinor.” he said, stared into his lap, and his face fell into shadow. “Before she gave me my son,” he said, “she told me . . .” he paused, shook his head and soldiered on. “She told me no one kinder had ever used her,” he said, and there was wonder, awe and despair between his words. “No one kinder,” he spat again, like a curse, and took a swig so long his bottle was empty at the end. Kit did not know her parents well, but she had heard that voice before. When her father spoke of her mother, his voice had been the same; it was love, and it was pain, and she could not have said which was stronger. The spider hissed spat a word she could not understand and left them.

[Vetala]

Kit Rowan

Observation - 4
Throwing knife - 4
Busking - 1
Socializing/Rhetoric -4


Lores:

Lore of Darilava (partial)
Lore of Whet (Partial)
Finding ones resolve
Losing ones temper
Consequences of losing ones temper
Stage fright
Basics of knife throwing
Basics of Busking
Lore of loving the knife
Seeing love in another's face

NOTES:

It was a good thread. Thank you for sending it to me. I gave Socializing or Rhetoric due to the talking in the thread. Please feel free to pick which one you would rather have. If you have any questions or problems please send me a pm.