[color=D6CC88]"I'll be gentle," Amuné promised.  "I wouldn't tug, that would be bad."

"It sounds amazing," the girl commented, dropping her hand after a single pass down and back along the delicate limb.  She could tell from his shifting that Kensen was uncomfortable.  "I bet if you get high enough you can see [i]forever[/i]."  Of course Nymira chose that moment to interrupt.  "We weren't /playing/," Amuné protested, scowling at the princess.  After all, Nymira was the one breaking the practice equipment by using it wrong.  But she stepped back, eyes widening as the knife flared up, and then settled to a dull heat-hazed glow.  It was like watching the smith work back home, only with magic instead of hammer and anvil.  "Mr. Kensen...I also wanted to ask if you could teach me instead of that mean Mr. Gage."  Finally finding the nerve to ask, the words came out in a breathless rush, though they weren't as smushed together as her last request.

She wilted at his expression.  "I don't like him," she explained, trying to justify it.  "He's mean and he's scary, and he says bad things, and he threatens Wyth, and he's not very good at teaching."  The child twisted her fingers around each other.  "I know I'm little, and I can't do a lot, but maybe I'd learn better with a different teacher.  I don't want to be in the way all the time."  She just knew that she'd do much better with a better teacher.  "Besides, he doesn't want to be--"  The girl saw a movement to the side, and when she looked that way her words died in a squeak.  Gage had just come into view, his face drawn into his usual scowling expression.  Amuné quickly moved to put Kensen between them.  

He really did scare her, and not just because of his words.  He had the same sort of resentment towards her that she'd seen people show her family back home, and with his threats...he just made her uneasy.[/color]