But One Star of All

Tenth Entry - Making Do

"I don't give a damn what your eyes see if the rest of your senses do not agree. If you see motion in the leaves how are your eyes alone supposed to know what causes it? Wind is invisible, known only by its effects on its surroundings. Cougars are generally silent as well, though even they are not quiet enough to disguise their heartbeats if you're paying attention. Orcs lack a great many aspects of....shall we say 'finesse'—" Scattered chuckles, and I lightly smiled. "Therefore they are much easier to perceive, in general, than many other dangers." I stepped forward, hands settled comfortably in the small of my back as I regarded, through the white film obscuring ninety-five percent of my vision—as I estimated—the students I occasionally returned to. "How then, if your eyes can only give you a limited arrangement of observations, are you to make any solid conjecture on what it is you're seeing?" I lifted a hand palm-out when I heard them shifting. "You needn't tell me, I expect you to work to learn them on your own. I can only tell you what to look for, in a manner of speaking." I smiled again. "Making you see is another matter entirely."

I turned away from them, going from memory—a spatial memory I had had fought for in the last decades, until I could move about familiar places as though my eyes were unblemished again—to a rack upon which were hung practice throwing stars, their shining points dulled. They could still cause great damage, but said damage was far less likely to be fatal. "Visara, spread the bells out to a few of the students." I twirled six stars around my spread fingers and returned to the center of the main training room. "Throw them high and in such a way that if I hit them, the blade will hit a wall and not one of your compatriots. Unless you have a particular feud with said compatriot, and then I would commend you for your creativity in ending said disagreement." A ripple of chuckles spread from my words, I spun my stars a final time before settling them easily into my hands, and taking up a firmer stance. "Whenever you are ready, and please not all at once."

The first bell-holder didn't even hesitate, throwing the large, cheap brass bell—about the width of three of my fingers, and which I'd commissioned specially for this exercise—high into the air above the heads of his fellow students. I heard the air whistling through it and twisted, feet hastily adjusting, drew my arm back, whirling the first star around my index finger and flinging it upward. The star cleaved the bell neatly through and embedded itself in the heavy clay we coated the walls of the training room in, specifically for the purpose of catching stray or hurled weaponry. Easily replaced, too, and regularly. We gave that project to the unruly ones.

The second bell came just as easily to me. I could hear their insides fluttering in the cool, damp air. The third and fourth, as well as the fifth and sixth, came in pairs, but I caught each one before it fell too close to the heads of those who had once been my students, but now belonged to others.

At the end of those six-odd seconds I stood poised in silence, before Visara broke it with a laugh. "By the gods, Nelide. Can you ever tolerate not intimidating others with your capacity for talent?"

The corner of my mouth twitched.

"Kelan, put Trilel up on your shoulders and fetch down those stars. We haven't so many that I feel like losing them. Toss them here. Don't carry them—you need to get comfortable handling them anyway, and if you hurt someone it'll only hasten your learning."

I rolled my eyes, brushed invisible dust off my fingertips—they weren't entirely familiar with handling weapons anymore, at least not the way they used to be—and went to my friend's side as she gave further commands, dispersing her students, my lesson ended. "How are Kelan and Trilel doing?" I asked her in undertone, helping to check the points on the practice stars as Visara caught the stars the siblings threw back to her.

"I fear they yet haven't realized the difference between wanting something because it tickles their fancy and wanting it for the sake of what it truly is," she replied, handing me the stars so I could hang them back on their slender pegs.