Everyone had a limit.
It was said that some men would endure the most horrific tortures for nigh on a season, precise, practised, surgical mutilation of the flesh that no battlefield horror would equal, only to break at the first mention of returning home. The most boisterous tavern-goer all too often ended the night a whimpering drunk, self-pitying tears casting ripples in his, falling away mug like a half-rotted tree crumbling back to earth. The most resilient fighter, jumping from shadows that swayed just so. Oh, the specifics were as varied and numerous as the stars dotting the night sky, but all people had a breaking point.
When the pycon flew up the inside of her leg, scaling her mail like a soldier assaulting a fortress, Isana found hers. The squire's manoeuvrability was remarkable, darting from side to side like a rope caught between children, Isana almost expected him to fly apart. Evidently pycons did not play by the same rules of momentum humans did. Then again, were she three inches tall, she expected the workings of the world would take on a very different appearance. It would have been particularly interesting, were the proof of such strange capabilities not busying himself clinging to her armour. There were some things you didn't endure. Even for training. Especially for training. A glorified ball of clay using your tabard as a tent was, she decided with a flush, one of them.
"Stop!" A part of Isana cursed the trace of desperation in her voice. But it was a small part. Most of her simply wanted the cursed squirrel off her, and to be somewhere she would not be the subject of those damnable knowing glances from the roving Weaponmasters. What were they thinking, besides those smiling eyes and covered smirks? That they had been right, that she didn't belong, that here was the day's entertainment? Isana tugged the shield from her arm in a flurry of flailing straps, considered tossing it to the ground, setting the timber rattling and shattering on the stone like a discarded dinner plate. To let the smirking observers have a proper show, the brutes. No. Isana exhaled and carefully lowered the shield's rim until it settled to the ground without so much as a whisper.
Damn them, let them find their own spectacle. Isana was a knight of Syliras and, defeated or no, she would be no-one's entertainment. Lest of all her comrades. Lest of all the squire still clinging to her thigh. Beaten by a squire. Oh, perhaps not, had the fight lasted, but who could have said? How, pray, was one meant to command any sort of respect among the order's initiates when she could not hold her own against one? She could only hope that some better rumour emerged and strangled this one before it had a chance to spread. Sylir, the pottery could climb. She blinked, lowered the butt of the spear to the ground and worked the kinks from her wrist. When she spoke again, her voice was blessedly free of its earlier hysteria, a simmering hiss. "That will do, Squire Archiailist. Kindly find your way to releasing my leg."
She was not about to dance around the training grounds, batting at her armour like a traveller caught in a swarm of biting instincts. If that meant losing, so be it. Her dignity – what she could scavenge of it, at any rate - was worth that much. She stilled, straightening a knee to let the clay squirrel make its descent, felt the eyes boring into her back slowly grow bored and skate on to the next interesting diversion. Now that she listened for it, she could make out the clang of steel further off in the grounds, somewhere beyond the carefully cultivated grove that simulated a forest. Evidently the grounds had grown busy while she she trained with the pycon. For all that it will stop them talking about it. She tucked the spear under her arm, brushed a layer of dust from her tabard.
"May I suggest climbing from the rear in future? It may make you harder to remove." Or create an opening for another swordsman to finish a foe. This was still a training session, no matter how poorly it had gone, no matter how dented her pride. She still a knight, still responsible for training the squire, in a sense. She had a duty to offer some suggestion, regardless of how hollow it felt. "You have the speed for it." There was no hint of praise in her voice, it was a simple statement as routine and readily accepted as the running of a stream or the falling of a leaf. The pycon was fast. He knew it, and now she did too. There was no point dancing around the fact.
Nor, she began to suspect, would there be much gained by remaining. The rumble of the streets below climbed even to the height of the training grounds, the chatter and howls of distant voices mingling with the clash of steel, signalling the beginning of a another day in Syliras. Another day of shield games preparations. She re-slung the shield on her arm, collected the waterskin from its perch by the rock and nodded curtly at her clay assailant. "You had best find another opponent, Squire.” She glanced at the milling knights and squires slowly filtering into the grounds. “Perhaps two. Sylir knows I've precious little to teach you, and the games cannot plan themselves."
Regrettably. She inclined her head, a faint, frosty farewell, the image of the distant instructor. Internally, she resolved to make her next training session a half-bell longer.
It was said that some men would endure the most horrific tortures for nigh on a season, precise, practised, surgical mutilation of the flesh that no battlefield horror would equal, only to break at the first mention of returning home. The most boisterous tavern-goer all too often ended the night a whimpering drunk, self-pitying tears casting ripples in his, falling away mug like a half-rotted tree crumbling back to earth. The most resilient fighter, jumping from shadows that swayed just so. Oh, the specifics were as varied and numerous as the stars dotting the night sky, but all people had a breaking point.
When the pycon flew up the inside of her leg, scaling her mail like a soldier assaulting a fortress, Isana found hers. The squire's manoeuvrability was remarkable, darting from side to side like a rope caught between children, Isana almost expected him to fly apart. Evidently pycons did not play by the same rules of momentum humans did. Then again, were she three inches tall, she expected the workings of the world would take on a very different appearance. It would have been particularly interesting, were the proof of such strange capabilities not busying himself clinging to her armour. There were some things you didn't endure. Even for training. Especially for training. A glorified ball of clay using your tabard as a tent was, she decided with a flush, one of them.
"Stop!" A part of Isana cursed the trace of desperation in her voice. But it was a small part. Most of her simply wanted the cursed squirrel off her, and to be somewhere she would not be the subject of those damnable knowing glances from the roving Weaponmasters. What were they thinking, besides those smiling eyes and covered smirks? That they had been right, that she didn't belong, that here was the day's entertainment? Isana tugged the shield from her arm in a flurry of flailing straps, considered tossing it to the ground, setting the timber rattling and shattering on the stone like a discarded dinner plate. To let the smirking observers have a proper show, the brutes. No. Isana exhaled and carefully lowered the shield's rim until it settled to the ground without so much as a whisper.
Damn them, let them find their own spectacle. Isana was a knight of Syliras and, defeated or no, she would be no-one's entertainment. Lest of all her comrades. Lest of all the squire still clinging to her thigh. Beaten by a squire. Oh, perhaps not, had the fight lasted, but who could have said? How, pray, was one meant to command any sort of respect among the order's initiates when she could not hold her own against one? She could only hope that some better rumour emerged and strangled this one before it had a chance to spread. Sylir, the pottery could climb. She blinked, lowered the butt of the spear to the ground and worked the kinks from her wrist. When she spoke again, her voice was blessedly free of its earlier hysteria, a simmering hiss. "That will do, Squire Archiailist. Kindly find your way to releasing my leg."
She was not about to dance around the training grounds, batting at her armour like a traveller caught in a swarm of biting instincts. If that meant losing, so be it. Her dignity – what she could scavenge of it, at any rate - was worth that much. She stilled, straightening a knee to let the clay squirrel make its descent, felt the eyes boring into her back slowly grow bored and skate on to the next interesting diversion. Now that she listened for it, she could make out the clang of steel further off in the grounds, somewhere beyond the carefully cultivated grove that simulated a forest. Evidently the grounds had grown busy while she she trained with the pycon. For all that it will stop them talking about it. She tucked the spear under her arm, brushed a layer of dust from her tabard.
"May I suggest climbing from the rear in future? It may make you harder to remove." Or create an opening for another swordsman to finish a foe. This was still a training session, no matter how poorly it had gone, no matter how dented her pride. She still a knight, still responsible for training the squire, in a sense. She had a duty to offer some suggestion, regardless of how hollow it felt. "You have the speed for it." There was no hint of praise in her voice, it was a simple statement as routine and readily accepted as the running of a stream or the falling of a leaf. The pycon was fast. He knew it, and now she did too. There was no point dancing around the fact.
Nor, she began to suspect, would there be much gained by remaining. The rumble of the streets below climbed even to the height of the training grounds, the chatter and howls of distant voices mingling with the clash of steel, signalling the beginning of a another day in Syliras. Another day of shield games preparations. She re-slung the shield on her arm, collected the waterskin from its perch by the rock and nodded curtly at her clay assailant. "You had best find another opponent, Squire.” She glanced at the milling knights and squires slowly filtering into the grounds. “Perhaps two. Sylir knows I've precious little to teach you, and the games cannot plan themselves."
Regrettably. She inclined her head, a faint, frosty farewell, the image of the distant instructor. Internally, she resolved to make her next training session a half-bell longer.
