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Lady Shiva would like to believe she would be ready for anything. But she was definitely not ready for her old student to fight his way to her, drop to his knees in front of her, and say “I didn’t know who else to go to. Teach me how to be a woman?”
After proper greetings and some questioning over a meal, she had finally understood what her old student wanted. She wanted to be taught how to hold herself and project the outward appearance and body language common with women. Shiva had, of course, told her that that was a very diverse language, but promised to try to help her anyway, the intrigue getting the best of her. So her old student, now returned, is her student once more.
The girl stands there before her again, in plain training clothes, as Shiva circles her like a shark smelling blood. She assesses her as she speaks. “Your hair does not need to be long to be seen as feminine. A properly placed hair pin can change people’s perception enough. A baby pink lip gloss would work better than a red lip stick and makes a softer looking face. Many women shrink in on themselves and make themselves smaller–” She abruptly places a hand on her student’s shoulder to stop her as she starts to follow that “advice”, “But I do not create weak women. You will be confident, despite your soft look, and you will hold yourself high.”
Still in that circle, she commands small adjustments to be made in her student’s posture. She has the girl walk, eat, and go about a normal day as she tells her to hold herself differently, adjust her wrist like so, raise her chin a milimeter. She is picked apart and put back together again pose by pose, posture by posture. The exercises they do together and food they eat are designed to fill out her body around her hips and chest, and they even spend two hours a day on voice training. Shiva teaches her how to walk, run, and fight in any type of shoe, heels or no, as well as the same in many styles of dresses and skirts.
Her student, ever the quick learner, has finally graduated. She stands before her teacher with chin length hair, pinned back on one side with a hair clip, framing her face adorned in baby pink lip gloss and a light dusting of soft brown eyeshadow. Her dress is black, and matches Lady Shiva’s own in style and cut, and her heels are three inches and don’t hinder her in any way. Her body language expresses confidence and comfort in her own skin. Shiva smiles at her and cups her face. “My student. You have grown into a beautiful woman. Do you have a name yet?” “Thank you, Lady Shiva. I would like you to give me one,” she replies, “Since you are the one who helped me realize myself.” “Oh please, you have long since earned the right to call me mother.” Shiva pauses for a moment, in thought.
“Hello, Daphne Drake.”