He's practising his shots, and the falchion is unwieldy in his hands. He was not quite ready for the kickback. The ugly butt of the weapon into his shoulders. The difference between military weapons and what common muck could get their hands on could sometimes be nothing more than the sheer firepower these weapons had. ( Different again to the pistols she had grown up with, with their one shot and desperately packed in gunpowder she had carried into battlefields.
But the roar of them, that remains the same ).
But it's more than watching a newly trained soldier pretending that he wasn't punching the same bruise over and over again and wondering why it wasn't working. She's watching a boy try to do the job of a man. He does it well, and he will be a fine one when he's grown (or, at least, a very carefully moulded one). But for the moment, he is not one yet, and he has a stiff spine pride with the weight of pretending he's grown, that makes him difficult at times to approach. She can often think of him in terms of a wounded animal. All bite and barely covered wounds. He might just bite the hand that is trying to feed him, he's certainly bitten others. The difference being, with a glance at the back of Devi's head where she's seeing to the training of another man, is she's used to such things.
The trick is timing, in the approach, and a disregard of as to when she started thinking of even children as wolves to be tamed. That part of her had been immolated by the pyre of her husband and son. He can't afford that softness, neither can she.
Instead, she takes his grip on his gun. Her battle worn fingers over his and turns his wrist up. Setting his palm where it would take more weight. Shoves the butt of the gun against his shoulder lower, to where it would set less against bones that could snap under that constant pressure, to solid muscle that would absorb the shock. He jerks, rebuffing of the instructions, of the help. That stubborn look on his face and she sighs, stepping away. He would listen when he wanted too. Stubborn brats, all of them.
Again, she says, arms loose over her chest. Tap, tap, tap, finger against opposing upper arm. Watching his stance, his brace.
This time, when the racket of merciless bits of metal and thick smell of gun smoke fill the empty tunnels where they train, his hiss of pain is audible. She knows how sore that point must be, and she waits for him to turn back to her. Gun held loose across his chest, gingerly off the point on his shoulder.
The only words she can spare: don't fight against it, fight with it. He's watching, less wounded animal, more cub tracing its parents movements this time around. With the others, he will practise hunting. With her, he says nothing at all as she steps forward and adjusts his stance, his placement of the weapon, the laxness she jerks his arm into. With it, or it will break you.
Once he's got it, furative glance up to her ( or barely, very soon he will out grow her, it didn't matter, she had practised the art of looking down on others the way only a ruler can ) She meets his gaze, and flicks her fingers. Again. Takes the step back, arms crossing loose across her chest as she waits for him to do as he is instructed.
It still hurts, though half as much as his pride does from the grimace on his face. He lines down the sights, fingers curling more steadily. Watches him check over to make sure he'd done as she said.
He fires, and she knows before he's pulled the trigger that he's got the shot now. When he turns back to her, she nods. He doesn't look for praise, and she's already moving on.
lakshmi & minho, "kickback"