Aeryn stared at her without commenting. The offer, and near subtle request, hovering in the air between them. Not requiring an answer, as the girl started going through her forms, but floating there in the still air of the gym all the same.

She was small, young, but a Peacekeeper began learning how to fight before they were even half her age. Early enough the instict for defense, for fight over flight, was fast as a breath. Sat in the hold of their shoulders. The straight line of their posture. The accuteness to examine every situation with readiness to act. A cloak closer than skin, that could never be stripped away the way cloth could be.

She wasn't bad, persay. But if Aeryn or any soldier in any of her regiments, even by half her age, had looked like this, even for a day, they would have been assigned several extra hours everyday to raise from what, for them, would have been a near travesty of forgetting their training.

There wasn't anything better Aeryn was doing and watching cleared out anything else she was or wasn't thinking about. Was doing her level best to ignore or not ignore. Reject or not reject. Which is why her eyes narrow, and she says, "Your shoulders should be tighter."

Beat. "You will have force more, and be able to direct more weight, if your offensive movements aren't coming from your feet and the over-balance of your own."

Balance was not the most important thing in a small person being able to fight.