"You owe me."
"I knew it.... what's the price?"
"Never EVER let me hear you calling yourself weak ever again."
..."bu...but I...."
"You are NOT weak, it's time you realized that." -- Anon Guest
Lessons had been going on for a year. On schedule or off schedule, Master Kosh always seemed to have the time. Even when he was in the middle of making cheese.
Every failure seemed to grate against Ami's spirits. She desperately wanted to be better at everything, as effortless as the Master made it look.
It was her outburst after the third iteration of, "Lift with your knees, kleine," that she got the most important lesson of her life.
Master Kosh finished putting the curds into their moulds. "All right. It's time I called in the price."
She knew it. "I don't have money," she sighed.
"This is not a price in cash, fraulein. It is a price in deed."
Ami groaned. These tasks always sucked.
Master Kosh put his hand on her shoulder, he knelt to bring his eyes even with hers. "Never. Ever. Call yourself weak again. You are stronger than you think you are. You are clever, determined, and most importantly you are learning. You're even willing to learn things you find uncomfortable to know. That's a strength few possess."
"I'm not as strong as you, Master. I'm not as strong as Jori Makerson." The bully who routinely menaced her and her baby sibs and even her Mama.
"He's the weakest person you know, why do you want his strength?" said the Master. He really had a topsy-turvy view of the world, sometimes. It had to have something to do with his being a Hellkin. "Using all those muscles to menace people instead of helping them. He must have muscles in der kopf instead of good brains."
"I'm still not very strong."
"Oh, so you want it proved..." Master Kosh lead her down to one of the cellar rooms, where varying devices lay waiting for certain training regimes. He put her in an odd yoke that stopped her using her arms, and strapped leads to it that went over a swivel and attached to a basket. He put a fat sack in it. "Five pounds. You pull and use your knees."
It went up easily.
When it went down, he added another sack. Ten pounds. Fifteen. Twenty. Until she was lifting weight with her legs that were heavier than she was.
He let her loose at thirty. "You see? You are stronger than you think. When you use the right strength."
"Lift with your knees, I get it. I still can't suplex stupid Jori Makerson because he's bigger than me and all you've taught me is how to breathe and sweep!"
He swung his tail at her, and she surprised herself by blocking it. He kicked, and she blocked it again. Incoming blow after incoming blow, she blocked, swept away, or directed back towards the Master.
He had to be controlling his blows, but he sure wasn't telegraphing them.
"If you tried to suplex Jori Makerson, you may break his neck. He doesn't know how to land. Killing someone is not that great a deed to do. Like it or not, Jori Makerson has a family who cares for him. You can get between him and your family and exhaust his attacks."
"And then he'll be back when I'm not there! I want to teach him to not be a bully!"
"You mean you wish to teach him to pick other victims. Would you protect the next family? And the next? And the next?"
"What would you do?"
"First, make it not worth his bother to attack. He can only walk so far and menace so many, ja? Follow him in the shadows. Find his range. Find his favourites. Find his schedule. Then turn up in his way. You know ways to get to a destination faster than the streets. You know how to make his attempts not worth his time. Two to five rounds, tops, and he may invent other things to do with his free time." Master Kosh grew one of his predatory grins, "It may also help to bring some more of his victims to me. So he never knows who is learning the Art of Shadows."
"What if he comes to you?"
"I will teach him a lesson he will never forget," menaced the Master.
[Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash]
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