[Flashback] Money Where Your Mouth Is, ii [Arvalyn]

[Aurin]

"See that you do, kid," he said with mock severity. "See that you do."

One of the benefits of the lack of clutter was that it was relatively easy to keep clean. Little in the way of obstruction and all.

"And I guess, if you see something you want to decorate... we can discuss it." He squinted at Arry's strange interpretations of his interpretations of the dancers' stretches and poses. Nearly certain that allowance would backfire, he just hoped Arry hadn't brought with him a passion for macramé and vision boards. Then there might be blows.

"So... steady food, clean clothes, mildly comfortable place to sleep. Slap your head when you say something stupid or embarrass me, but no bruises on the money-maker. Hm, all right." He squinted at Arry again. "I don't really think there's a name for whatever you're doing. It's like you have an itch that's impossible to scratch. Or, like, a bug crawled into your pants and you're flipping the fuck out and then froze in place... except the part where you're losing your balance." He guffawed. "Naw, I don't know if these have any names, actually. Or if they do, I don't remember them or nobody told me."

He paused, then, "Oh, wait."

Relaxing out of his twist, he took a deep breath while he got used to not being twisted up one way or another, and quickly flipped up to his feet. That was a trick for surviving in a knife fight, though, not dancing for the glitterati.

"This one is the Mountain. Or something." He stood, feet together, arms straight down by his sides but held slightly away from his body. "Not very challenging, but they call it a balance. And then the Tree..." He slowly shifted his weight to his left foot, letting the other slide up until his heel was tucked under his junk, his knee perpendicular from where he was facing. His hands had come up to a priestlike clasp before his chest, then climbed like a seed putting forth its first foray into the light. When his arms were straight overhead, his hands parted and became branches.

"Sort of fun, actually. Makes me feel taller when I'm done. Don't forget to do it on the other foot, too. Wait, why are you trying to learn dance things from someone who's not even a dancer?"

[Arvælyn]

"Oh, is that right now?" Arvine cocked an eyebrow and turned his sights to the walls with a more appraising view. "I've never had my own space to decorate before... Or, someone else's space, rather. It's not mine." He amended, apologetically. He certainly didn't want Aurin to think he felt the slightest sense of ownership over the space he'd just invaded, but in truth it felt more his than the communal spaces he'd shared since the dawn of his adolescence.

"Don't be cheeky, then!" Arry broke his pose and got up onto his knees pointing his index finger accusingly at Aurin, "I'm a beginner! I need nurturing and encouragement and that! 'ow about less mockery and more guidance, yeah?" Surely he was at least partly in earnest based on the content of what was said, but the delivery had an air of the overdramatic that seemed to plant his tongue firmly in the cheek of the chastisement. Whatever the tone, it ended with him returning to his best approximation of Aurin's present pose.

His head snapped up to follow Aurin's abrupt leap to standing. Arry scrambled to his feet without attempting to duplicate that move- That was one he'd leave until a day or two after the sore muscles from his journey had had time to relax. He emulated the first named pose and repeated,

"The mountain or something." He followed through to the next, "The tree." And made mental notes to retain both of these stances and the flow in between, along with the appropriate names. He switched feet, and grimaced at Aurin's query:

"Well, there aren't any proper dancers here for me to learn with, Aurin, and you're-... Dancer adjacent." He huffed, "I don't know, I'm trying to concentrate."

[Aurin]

"I mean, get what you want. You can take it with you when you have space of your own." He shrugged because why not, right? Arry likely didn't have the means to go crazy on home décor, but if he wanted to dry some flowers to hang or something to that effect, it wasn't going to bother Aurin.

"You're doing great, Arry," he said, suddenly changing his tune. His eyes were wide with sincerity, his smile encouraging. He could be at least as supportive as the pants barely staying up on the skinny kid. Aurin hadn't a spare ounce of at on him, but he had widened in the shoulders as he matured, and, well, he ate regularly, so there was that. "Going to have to find you some suspenders or a belt..."

Then, after clamping his mouth shut instead of saying something about being inside dancers rather than adjacent, he gave Arry a thoughtful look.

"Well...hey. Actually." Moving over to the wall he pulled down the two kunai. "I'm not a dancer, but I do want to help however I can. Some of the tribal dances involve blades. Court dances have fans and such. I can show you some forms. They were designed for economy of movement, but blades can dance. Maybe it will help you to watch any kind of stylized movement and copy it... or copy it at first and then change it so it's more to your liking, more like a dance."

He shrugged and grinned. "Or you can mock me. Whatever."

Forms had always been meditative for him. It had been a while since he had practiced them, which was a problem. Sometimes he grew too complacent in Kalzasi. That sort of thing had led him to Antiris among other places. He ought to keep himself sharp, honed to an edge, ready to cut into anything or anyone that came after him. So it would be rusty. Fine. He inhaled, his stance not far from a dancer's Mountain Pose. He shook his arms loose on the exhale, and let his chin drop to his chest, rolling his head from side to side to loosen his neck. Then, on the inhale, he brought his head up and his hands to still, and on the exhale began a slow dance.

He maintained a crouch for the most part. It was as focused as Arry had ever seen him except perhaps that terrible moment when he pulled the self-loathing out of him on the street of a merchant's row. At least now his attention was spread out to imaginary attackers, though it did almost feel like they were there. His breath was a part of the dance. The direction of his gaze another. At some point, a long time ago, he had memorized this with his body. It was still there in his muscles, and there was certainly an elegance to it, if it wasn't something one was likely to see on the stages of Kalzasi.

[Arvælyn]

"That's true..." Arvine acknowledged, though his top lip curled up slightly at the notion. If his decorations were only to be temporary and only for himself, it lost a bit of the appeal. There were certainly more important areas to place his focus in the meanwhile. If all went well with those affairs, he could decorate his own actual space ere long.

"Better!" Arry exclaimed, glad to accept the positive reinforcement, even if he did detect a hint of the facetious in the enthusiasm of the delivery. He could make all manner of excuses for lack of precision in his movement, ranging from the fact that he was brand new to these poses all the way to the fact that he'd been unconscious not an hour earlier and probably shouldn't be exerting himself at all. But Aurin seemed savvy enough to know there'd be no convincing Arry of that, if he didn't have a mind to hear it.

When Aurin moved to the wall to collect his blades, Arry sat down on the floor, criss-crossing his legs beneath him. He tugged the waist of the leathers up with a quiet, 'sorry', and directed his attention to his semi-willing teacher. He tilted his head slightly as he observed the forms and motions with great curiosity. By and by, his observations trailed from the beauty of the movements to the beauty of the body that executed them. Taking it all in was rather hypnotising.

"You're not a dancer?" He queried, perplexed. "How is that not dancing? It's lovelier than anything Myrna ever taught me..." He pushed himself up from the floor and stepped closer to Aurin,

"Can I try?" He extended his hands toward the blades, and directed expectant golden eyes toward the hazel of his host.

[Aurin]

The forms went on for several minutes. It was perhaps the most basic of the long-forms. Easy enough that he wasn't worried the rust would be so obvious, long enough that Arry had time to observe and consider. When he had killed all his demons—at least for the moment—he came back to that pose that was similar to the Mountain. Inhale. Exhale. The breath is the life.

When he looked at Arry to listen to him speak, his gaze cut quicker. It took him a moment to respond, almost as though he were coming down from a heightened state. He wasn't sweating, but he was on the verge of perspiring, his body recognizing the movements of training as well as the exigencies of a fight. His nerves thrilled for more. But he smiled something wolfish and nodded.

"Perhaps it was a dance at some point. There are monks and nuns whose devotions are the martial arts... Perhaps there were artists devoted to the development of deadly dancing. I just wanted to stay alive." He flipped the kunai, catching them by their blades. It was a pretty bit of trickery, but upon closer inspection, Arry could clearly see they weren't sharp. At least, they had no edge. They looked more like gardening tools than knives, but there was a stylized sort of beauty to them as well. Dark metal, dark leather grips that were molded to his hands by heat and sweat, and rings where a pommel ought to be, as though one might tie them to rope for some... gardening purposes.

The points were sharp enough. Given enough force, the sturdy weapons would certainly pierce flesh and part bone. He had also used them to climb walls, though. Tools with various purposes were often the best tools. His smile was oddly open now as he held the hilts out for Arry to take, perhaps feeling a bit more of a connection being able to teach Arry how to protect himself, even though Arry hadn't expressed an interest in that.

"Knock yourself out, kid."

[Arvælyn]

Watching Aurin's clean lines and smooth movements felt to Arry like watching a performance. It was transfixing. He could understand why it was easier to cut purses of those who were enthralled by performance, and perhaps it would even be worth losing a bit of extra coin to enjoy something so captivating. Even before he got to his feet, he began to subtly imply approximations of Aurin's gestures with his head, torso and arms.

"I just thought art came from people's imaginations..." Arvine mused, "It never occurred to me those minds might have been set to other tasks and the art happened incidentally." He'd really never given much thought to such lofty ideas, at all. His concerns had been so material for so long, that it didn't lend much time to wax philosophical and examine the internal or the existential. He'd expected, on the best of days, that he'd get to Kalzasi and need to hit the ground running- taking menial work or ending up in the same lot he'd found for himself in Antiris. He certainly hadn't anticipated fainting upon arrival and waking up to be coddled by his once and future saviour.

Arry gasped at the knife-throwing trick his host executed, and then gazed in awe at the implements in Aurin's hands. He didn't know their significance in the grand scheme of things, but between the way he'd seen Aurin use them and the talk of monks, nuns and devotions, they looked like some sort of sacred relics to Arry's golden eyes. He reached for them, hands still quaky, though far more subtly than after he'd just woken. He closed his hands around the hilts and waited for Aurin to withdraw his own grip, lest he accidentally cut his palm albeit with dull blades.

He took a few steps away from Aurin, to give himself room, and then attempted to emulate the first "mountain" pose. He froze there with a frown dragging at his lips, eyes darting over to the human- Self-conscious at his attention.

"I'm doing something wrong, I can tell." His bottom lip protruded slightly, "Help?"

[Aurin]

Aurin's face went thoughtful, remember other places and other people. They were troubling, his memories, but he had some distance now, even if Arvine made him confront some of them with new context. He stepped back after relinquishing the implements of work or dirty work, giving the lad a chance to feel their heft and balance, wave them around to get a feel of how their weight affected his gestures, how they felt in the space.

"Some people make whatever they do beautiful," he said, a little quieter, a little guarded. "A mother plaiting hair. A craftsperson at their vocation. Endless repetition and attention to detail and care. They can be beautiful in their simplicity, I suppose. I don't know if that makes it art. I just don't know about any of that."

Watching Arvine fumble to copy, he approached again, wary of any quick moves of the sharp points. His hands were spread, unconsciously showing that he didn't approach bearing threat. It wasn't entirely a conscious thing. People were animals and could easily be spooked, himself included.

"Close your eyes?" he requested. He rested his hands lightly Arvine's slender shoulders. "Relax your shoulders." He let the weight of his hands help gravity. Rough hands were gentle enough when they took him by the face and gave a gentle lift. "Imagine your head is a child's balloon, rising because it's lighter than air. Let that straighten your back, not trying to put steel in it or some hypermasculine bullshit. You have steel in your hands. You don't need to be steel. You need to be whatever the situation requires."

His hands fell to Arvine's shoulders again and he moved him gently from side to side. "You can move with a gust of wind or whatever, and still come back to your center. Balance isn't a thing you achieve. It's a thing you constantly adjust for, whether your feet are close together like this or you spread them wider for more stability." His hands fell down to take him by the wrists and he let the weight of his hands tug downward. "Release tension here. Your hands will hold on. You don't need to waste energy on the rest of your arms to do that. And relax your hands. You have to find the sweet spot... don't strangle your weapons, but hold them firmly enough I can't swat them out of your hands. You don't want added tension in your wrists. Angle of attack is important. Could mean the difference between you dying or them dying.

"Don't lock your knees. You don't need to bend them fully, but if you lock them, it's too easy to knock you over." Hands on his shoulders again, he swayed Arvine around his center of gravity. "You want your weight over the balls of your feet. This is your neutral. This is your center. From here, you can go anywhere. I think that's why the dancers call it the Mountain. You're balanced, aligned, and there's no telling what you'll do next."

He let go, took a step or two back.

"Look like a temple statue or something. How does that feel?"

[Arvælyn]

Arry nodded,

"You don't talk like the people I know. And I don't mean the accent, I mean... I don't know, you just seem more interested in things beyond surviving." He pondered, "I think I've always been curious, too, but a lot of people just like to keep things simple." They'd say he was weird for wondering who designed everyday things- What artist designed the portraits of royalty that made their way onto the coins they stole? How did that person get that job? People didn't like being asked questions to which they didn't know the answer, he found, and so he learnt to keep such queries to himself.

He lowered his arms, when Aurin approached, and nodded at his request. He shut his eyes, not realising he was holding his breath at the same time. He knew he was safe enough, insofar as he'd been unconscious for many hours and Aurin hadn't seen fit to harm him, but still it made him anxious to be unable to anticipate a touch. He didn't know what sort of lesson this would be, and some lessons stung.

When a gentle touch lowered his shoulders, he unconsciously expired- it was a sigh of relief as much as a release of air. He was an open, eager student who obliged each request whether phonated or physically guided. Earlier he'd suggested he was clay to be moulded in Aurin's hands and now, after jesting and demurring, the man had obliged him.

"It feels good, but..." He said, softly enough that the rasp of the road cracked his voice on the last syllable. He opened his eyes, which found and instantly darted to Aurin.

"Are you an assassin?" He wondered aloud, eyes widening at that notion, which had no sooner entered his mind than left his lips. "Is that what you were doing in Antiris when I met you?"

[Aurin]

Over the course of the lesson, such as it was, he tried not to think about what Arvine said about how he spoke, how they were curious, how they were interested in things. It felt good to have this loose thread woven back into the fabric of his life, but Arvine was temporary. He would hang around. He would move on to the Cabaret. And his life would take him where it took him. He could afford to reveal a bit of himself for the time being, and then Arvine would move on and forget it for the most part, and Aurin could live in peace. Well, such peace as bad men were afforded.

Those golden eyes were unnerving when they snapped open, looked at him, and asked questions too close to the truth. He bit back a knee-jerk snap of the tongue to warn him away. He considered how to answer.

"My mother was." He paused. "Is." Another pause as he shrugged because he had his suspicions but no proof and no desire to go back and investigate. "Was. There have been times were I was paid to deal with someone. More often than not, I had business to do and only had to hurt people if they got in my way, or tried to hurt me first. I was looking for information in Antiris, not blood. I'm just a manager at the Cabaret now, though. Information can be more valuable than blood. Thinking someday I might make a fortune on that..."

He felt exhausted then. It was likely waking up early after a long night, fretting about the unconscious kid in his bed, the nervous preparations for an indefinite guest. It was likely the emotional turmoil he wouldn't admit to. The fighting of instincts.

"I think... I'm gonna sleep. There's more ale yet if you're thirsty. Door's locked so don't fret about burglars. You can keep those under your pillow if you want. Just don't, you know, stab me in my sleep." His smile was weary. He sat down on the edge of his bed and started pulling off his boots. His toes flexed and curled over the stone, cooler than the summer air. A part of him wanted to get up and go through more forms, feeling the flat stone floor with his feet. That was perhaps something he would teach Arvine on the morrow: being aware of the ground, seeing with his feet, all the strange ways reframing how one thought about the world and how they moved through it could make them more adept at surviving it.

"Sorry, I'm..." He managed a smile. "Welcome home."

[Arvælyn]

Arvine nodded, his expression seemed to betoken he was more impressed than judgemental about Aurin's dark past. Thieves were thieves and though he'd heard there was honour amongst them, he'd seen that rarely enough. There was something of the exotic to the notion of an assassin, though. Blood was a potent thing, and not something Arvine had ever spilt lightly. He'd never killed anyone, but he'd hurt them- Bludgeoned, stabbed, sliced. Always in artless flurries of desperation- The rare occasions when he'd opted for fight over flight, because the latter option was denied by close quarters or being restrained. But there was a glamour, in his mind, to the notion of dealing the quiet coup de grace... Emerging from shadow to land a blow so subtle the target never even realised what was happening before descending into blackness. To be so cavalier about another life- He envied it.

"Well. Let me know if I can help." Arvine smiled warmly, lowering his arms and holding the blades out in front of him- inspecting them thoughtfully as he continued. "I'm not known here and I'm sly and stealthy as a fox. Once my muscles loosen up a bit, I'm well nimble, too. If you need someone to sneak around anywhere and nick summat, I'm your man! It's the least I can do for my saviour!" He nodded, though his lips pursed in palpable disappointment when Aurin announced he'd be going to sleep.

"All right, then. If it won't keep you up, I think I'll keep practicing with these for a while." He'd never tried on the boots Aurin left out, so his steps were light upon the boards with the negligible weight of his slight frame,

"Oi..." Arry called for his attention, before he turned fully away, "Aurin, I just wanted to... You know, all cheek aside, I want to really thank you." His eyes welled slightly, and he shot them to the floor, as not to make a thing of it by maintaining eye contact. "You've quite literally saved my life, and I'll never, ever forget this. I owe you everything. Don't-... Don't make a joke out of it, just go to bed and feel like you did a passing good deed today, because you did. I'll shut up now. Rest easy, mate."