He'd been shot in the back.

Eight years old, and they'd shot him in the back.

They'd shot him in the back six times.

“Yeva says you dance, too,” Tiasa said to me, some six months after she'd begun her lessons.

Unlike most of the other kids who took dance from Alena, Tiasa had demonstrated that rarest of all commodities, commitment. Twice a week, rain or shine, she came for her lessons, while the other students often seemed to find the obligation of showing up just once a week to be a superior challenge. Some days after school she would simply appear with her ballet slippers in hand, asking if she could use the studio to practice. We always said yes, and if Alena was around, she'd stand by and observe, granting the equivalent of a free lesson.

Today, Tiasa had come while Alena was in town seeking fish for our dinner. I'd let Tiasa into the studio-slash-gym, turned to leave, when she'd spoken.

“Alena said that?” It surprised me. It wasn't like her to offer anything personal, or at least, nothing that was both personal and accurate.

“She says she taught you.”

“I wouldn't call what I do dancing.” It wasn't false modesty. I'd been practicing ballet for almost six years at that point, and while the physical conditioning and control it had granted me were certainly worthwhile, I'd yet to achieve anything that I would, even at my most charitable, describe as art.

Tiasa began stretching at the barre. Like her brother, she was tall, but unlike him, she was growing into it, beginning to form the body of the woman she would be. Her hair was black, and she'd neglected to tie it back today, and it flopped about as she bent and twisted, loosening up. I realized that she was styling it the same way Alena did, and wondered when that had happened.

“We don't have any boys who dance,” Tiasa said to me, as she started practicing her positions. “Only girls take lessons.”