But you really miss your mother

The Shadow-Shifting Style has only one teacher in Cloudbirth.

The clouds on the horizon bode ill for all of us. Not for him. Under these clear rskies, he has only one student.

The class starts at random hours, for such is the nature of both the teacher and the subject. To learn to control one's shadow, must learn to do so regardless of circumstances.

As such, the student's life is dominated by struggle with his own shadow, and has only so much time available between the start of the day, the waking of Cloudbirth, the start of the lesson, the end of the lesson, the closing of shops, and the end of the day.

This time, for the last ten days, the student has spent struggling, more or less in vain, to find something that has evaded him for his life and which he has a responsibility to find.

This day, the search has begun to end.

***

When I was a child, my mentor taught me what to do if I ever got lost, or found myself in a city alone: look for your cousins. Or, failing that, look for his cousins.

I know he has cousins in Cloudbirth.

But how are you supposed to find people you've never met, especially when you don't have the faintest idea of how to find them in a crowd of 300,000? If you don't know what they look like? If they don't have an appetite for fame?

It took four days before I could find my way around Cloudbirth, and another few before to get a gasp of what was where.

The ideas took a few days to express, but once they did, everything else fell into place.

The plan was relatively simple: start in the nicer parts of town. Begin with the tailors - not the posh ones; I'd stand out too much there, and that's reason enough to suspect that they would too. Work my way through them. If that didn't pan out, I would go to the Dyers' Guild, ask about the sales, and work my way up the chain from there.

I didn't know anything about my cousins looked, you see, but I do know some things about how they dressed.

That sort of thing is important.

These things usually are.

*****

The Shadow-Shifting Style class ended halfway through the third watch after high noon. With the shops still open, I visited the first tailor that I came across.

In a city of reptilians and siarrans, his sight was something of a relief: he was as human as I. Short, ordinary, and as forgettable as any human could be - maybe as forgettable as I am.

Which made it hard to begin asking questions.

"I'm... I have an unusual problem." He stared, and I stumbled.

"I'm looking for some cousins from out west. A friend of mine says that they live here, and I'm not sure what they look like-"

"Fuck me if I know," he said tersely.

"-but I think that they wear something like this" (pointing to my coat.)

He stared blankly.

"Like this, but the embroidery isn't actually blue like this."

I stopped. Not to hear him speak. To concentrate on not sweating.

He didn't interpret it that way. "Cornflower?"

"No, no, mine is cornflower. They wear" [and at that instant I realized why he asked, and saw his face loosen up a bit] "...I'm not sure. Theirs is red."

("Red?") "Some kind of red. Carmine or cinnabar, or something like that. I'm not-"

He interrupted me again.

"Crimson?"

We met eyes - his were small and beady, mine were big and liquid and blue - and I felt him read them. I tried to read his, but I stopped.

He was smiling.

So I answered: "I think so."

"And you're looking for cousins, you say?"

"Distant ones, and I thought you'd be able to help me find..."

I trailed off. The shop was empty, and in this stillness and quiet I could see everything I needed to know. Almost everything. "Did I just find them?"

His response was terse: "Probably."

It was all I needed to know.

My cousins aren't very decisive. Neither am I.

The Shadow-Shifting Style, part I

People cast shadows the way they breathe: naturally and unconsciously.

The Shadow-Shifting Style arose as a means of addressing that. Its belief that, with practice, one can learn to control one's shadow in the same way one can control one's breathing and pulse. More importantly, to me at least, it asserts that this ability can be gainfully employed.

Pursuing this possibility first requires that you gain conscious awareness of casting a shadow.

This is achieved by intensive practice of moving in a darkened room. At the center of the room, a spotter squats with a bullseye lantern, which follows you as you slowly walk around the perimeter of the room.

At the same pace, the teacher stands at the far side of the room, circling. At various points, the teacher will make a chalk mark on the wall.

When the student reaches that point on the wall, they are to move in such a way that their shadow exactly traces the mark on the wall - not going above, not falling below.

Initially, the student never manages to trace the mark. As the hours pass, however, the student slowly picks up on how standing at specific angles in relationship to the light, in various poses, best allows you to keep moving while tracing the marks. The instructors then show them variations on the poses, ways to move and stand without contortions, and so forth.

The second phase of the regimen begins the day after the student is reliably able to trace every mark.

I'm not there yet.

Unlearning my trade

I left my apprenticeship with a bad habit.

Troaliss was a vagrant, and I his only student. There were no journeymen and no classmates. When we sparred - or fought - it was the master against the apprentice.

I would always lose. The question was how long it took me to lose.

So I learned to duel: to forget the world, to ignore my surroundings, and to focus only on Troaliss. He was my only threat.

It served me well, and when Troaliss realized what he was doing he did what he always did.

He challenged me to a fight and beat me.

After rubbing salt in my wounds, getting drunk and sobering up the next afternoon, he told me that I was doing it wrong, and showed me how to do it better. He was trying to help.

It only made things worse.

And so, very confidently, I've repeatedly found myself walking into the jaws of death since last Midsummer. If I can find somebody to solo against, it fares better than usual.

If I can't, I usually find myself inches from the Void.

And so, with what little money I have, I have decided to learn a better way to stay alive.