Perhaps that’s enough scolding for now. Ja’far takes a breath, crouching before her to be level with her gaze. He gives her a gentle, reassuring smile, smoothing some of her hair out of her eyes.
“Hush with that. You’ve already made everyone proud. You’ve shown to be quite talented and from what I hear, you’re improving quickly. However, being good with your sword does not mean you’re not going to make mistakes. Everyone does. In fact, there’s not a person in here that hasn’t fallen. And if anyone tells you otherwise, they’re a liar. In fact, you should have seen Sharrkan when he was your age. He might be good with a sword, but you would think he’d been born with two left feet sometimes.”
And it’s true. Ja’far has heard from Sharrkan that his ‘cute new student’ is going be an impressive swordsman one day. He’s been gushing more and more lately, eager to have found a student of his own. Enough so that Yamuraiha has warned him explicitly to watch himself, lest he turn the sweet girl into a sword freak like himself. And, in Yamuraiha’s own words she’s way to smart for that.
And Ja’far is glad that Towa has found something she enjoys doing. His hope was that in her being paired with Sharrkan, she might come out of her shell more if she had a hobby and someone to share it with. And that seems to have held true so far.
“No one is going to laugh at you for making a mistake. Because making mistakes is part of growing and improving. You would never get any better if you didn’t have something to learn from, right?” he says, gentle in his tone. “As for right now, I’ll give you two options. I can either bring you home and get you settled in your room. Or we can go have a snack in the courtyard. What do you think?”
“It doesn’t feel like I’m improving enough if I messed up so badly...and you and everyone else never make mistakes...You’re all so cool and can do so much! Compared to you all, I’m just...a failure.” She says, her confidence definitely having been shaken from this experience. Prior to today, she had been on a roll. picking up techniques quickly and even impressing her teacher with a thing of two. It made her feel...alive, like she was on top of the world. It was as if she was born to do this, born to fight and learn how to protect others. She couldn’t explain why she felt that way, but it was a feeling that was no doubt there and had only grown as she kept on with her training.
And she isn’t blind to how her training has scared her father, and how this incident was going to upset him in turn. Papa Sota had been very protective of her since the moment they met, and Towa cannot deny how she owes her life to him. He defended her when she was going to get killed by the people in the ship she had been with for two years, the people she thought could have been her family who instead tried to kill her once her secret got out. If it wasn’t for him doing that, then she woulda been a goner. It’s why she wanted to do everything she could to make him proud and to not cause trouble. It’s why she’s honestly terrified of what he will say when she gets home.
“I...I want to have a snack with you, Uncle Ja’far! A really really big snack!” Towa then clings to Ja’far’s leg, her body shaking as she tightly clings to it both out of seeking his protection and comfort, but also out of fear of what might happen if she goes home. “ I-I don’t wanna go home! N-Not yet! So please, please don’t send me there!”
stormborns
origamiaround
vaporwave
dailybridgerton
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
