He danced with shadows in the midday sun, beneath a cloudless blue sky that punished the world beneath it with blistering heat. Black wings swirled above him, black eyes watching his movements as black feathers twisted down to tease and taunt him as he stepped, deft and surefooted, across the treacherous footing of the bridge.
He danced with steel flickering and reflecting the sun’s unblinking gaze back at it as he moved, the slender strength of his sturdy rapier a match for the man who wielded it: swift and flexible rather than possessed of brute strength, but just as deadly for being more precise. It was a weapon that fit his hand like an extension of his arm, no magic in it but that which inhabits all swords, but it was lovingly polished and sharpened until it cut the wind as well as the loose feathers that dropped and fluttered from above.
He danced on bones, or stones that looked like them, bleached white by the sun, darkened by the sweat that fell from his brow as he pushed his endurance and his limits, striving to become something more than what he was, so he would not be so helpless again.
He danced the patterns he had learned out of necessity, and the ones he had learned out of desperation, the steps passed down from teacher to student and the ones he had come up with on his own, when he had left all teachers behind.
Jigano danced in the light, golden-brown arms bare as a small murder of crows took turns to fly above him or rest along the edges of the bridge, dropping feathers or leaves or whatever they could find to distract or focus him on a target as he trained.
He danced with steel flickering and reflecting the sun’s unblinking gaze back at it as he moved, the slender strength of his sturdy rapier a match for the man who wielded it: swift and flexible rather than possessed of brute strength, but just as deadly for being more precise. It was a weapon that fit his hand like an extension of his arm, no magic in it but that which inhabits all swords, but it was lovingly polished and sharpened until it cut the wind as well as the loose feathers that dropped and fluttered from above.
He danced on bones, or stones that looked like them, bleached white by the sun, darkened by the sweat that fell from his brow as he pushed his endurance and his limits, striving to become something more than what he was, so he would not be so helpless again.
He danced the patterns he had learned out of necessity, and the ones he had learned out of desperation, the steps passed down from teacher to student and the ones he had come up with on his own, when he had left all teachers behind.
Jigano danced in the light, golden-brown arms bare as a small murder of crows took turns to fly above him or rest along the edges of the bridge, dropping feathers or leaves or whatever they could find to distract or focus him on a target as he trained.
