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| Details |
| Author: | Jessa |
| Summary: | Ravenholdt's version of yoga: flexibility of both body and spirit. Ivri learns where her violently independent streak comes from during some vivid memories of her family's escape from Lordaeron. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
It was Ivri's least favorite part of the new schedule, the end of day exercises designed to both improve flexibility and improve strength. Slow, deep, even breaths. Move from one position to another smoothly with no trembling, no pauses. Hands on the floor, arms straight, butt off the floor, legs elevated in a V. Slow lift to a handstand. Arch back to bring first one leg and then the other behind her. Lower both feet to the ground near her head. On and on, one form to the next, flowing like water.
It wasn't that the poses were hard, though they were. It wasn't that she didn't have to work at it, because she did.
It was the soft drumming that played, and the herbs that burned. The drumming had an easy rhythm that marked time for them, but it was more than that. It was, Tragg had let them know, Tauren in origin. Something in the rolling beats, in the silence of the arena, the barely-there burnt herb smoke, set her thoughts to drifting and not in ways she always enjoyed.
Sometimes she saw her family. She remembered the Sunday dinners with the extended family, children running around, arguing with her siblings, too many people in the tiny kitchen, laughter over new recipes gone awry and everyone grabbing for dessert cakes or cookies.
Sometimes it took her back further, remembering freezing nights where they all slept in a pile for warmth as they fled Lordaeron, avoiding patrols of orcs. The times when they couldn't avoid them, her parents and older brothers fighting, risking death while she huddled under a bush, held tight by Tomlin, himself too young to fight but charged with keeping her safe. She remembered her father having to finish removing her mother's leg, remembered the reek of it as he seared it shut with a red-hot cast iron pan.
She had fallen out of the pattern then, covered her face with her hands and wept until Master Aurelius' hand, surprisingly gentle, had recalled her to herself and she had begun the exercises again.
That image of herself huddled in a bush while everyone fought to keep her safe repeated itself today. The drumbeats drew her inexorably on, into the next movement and the next. The memory was caught in her mind like a moth in a spider's web.
She saw it from the outside, her huge blue eyes in a girl's round face, tears running down her face, little bow lips parted for panting breaths though she didn't dare make a sound. She could hear orcs bellowing, the sound of one of my brothers screaming as a weapon makes contact, my father yells at him to get back. I can see my father's legs as he shuffles through the bloody grass followed by huge green feet, claws but no boots. Bare feet that slip a little in all the blood. Calder's boots step into view. More blood, thick and red, drools down his leg. I am safe in the dense brush. My family bleeds for me.
I hide when they tell me to. I stay there because they tell me to.
They only tell me what to do to keep me safe. But when I am safe, they bleed.
I never want to be safe again.
I will run, be wild, dive into danger and it will follow me away.
Maybe if I am not safe, they will be safe.
Then they won't bleed for me.
Ivri blinked, realizing the drumbeats had stopped. She was standing, palms pressed together in front of her. Sweat dribbled down her face, her chest, her back. Her breath was deep, even. She dropped her hands and stared at the stone wall.
No one was moving around her. Everyone was silent.
A rustle in the sand, deep, heavy, told her Tragg had turned to go inside. She turned after him, the others falling into step with her. Llastra's hand brushed hers, and Ivri returned the touch. They held hands, a squeeze of comfort, then released at the same instant.
Dinner was always quiet these days.