My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts
17th of Spring, 515.
On some days, the Pycon had to question Ser Iros' sanity. Today was one of those days.
The hulking red Akalak had called the Pycon to the Grounds on the early bells of the morning, with the sky still a pale shade of orange and only a small handful of knights and their respective squires scattered loosely around the arenas. With the spring rolling in with waves of heat folding one after another through the days, the squirrel was very surprised to see that the knight still wore his full compliment of plate-mail. Burdened as he was, there was still room for the massive sheet of metal that he called a tower shield pressed into the leather straps wrapped over his back. As if to add final insult to injury, a thick leather bag swung over his shoulder, held up by one hand. The amount of weight that Iros decided to carry around with him on a daily basis was absolutely absurd, but then again, it was the knights choice alone to do it. Nobody had any right to question it.
"Today is a very special day, Squire Archailist." His voice sounded oddly cheerful.. a fact that only made the little clay squirrel even more nervous. There was only one obvious thing that the Akalak loved doing at almost all times physically possible.. arguably one of the many things that restrained the Pycon and the Akalak from having a somewhat-decent relationship. His worst nightmare was confirmed the moment he let go of the bag - causing the ends to fall open and numerous coils of metal chain attached to iron weights to topple out. He could see even more accessories inside too. Coils of rope tied to more weights, bars of metal.. all things he'd end up very well-acquainted with by the end of the day.
"Now.. I couldn't find any Pycon-sized weights, but we'll be improvising as much as possible." He really had come prepared. From inside the folds of the leather sack he produced a single rock.. likely about three inches tall and three inches wide.. before dropping it down right before Arch. It came up to about his waist. Obviously, it was considerably larger than any of the metal weights that the Akalak held in regards to relative size. The thing was absolutely massive.. indeed, trying to give it a decent push and shove it an inch or two forwards proved completely fruitless. His hopes diminished even further.
"You get to work on that, while I set up all of this stuff over here." Before turning away, he drew a little line in the sand of the arena with the tip of one finger. There had to be at least ten inches or so between the end of the stone and the line. "When I come back, I want to see it at least over this line. After that little warm-up, we'll start with some of the more heavy stuff." He'd never seen Ser Iros so pleased with himself before.. even under the shining metal visor, it was obvious that the man was smiling like a child. His happiness wasn't worth an entire day of body-training though. Petch, even one bell was poor value for money.
Still, he was a squire. He was expected to learn these things, even if he thought they were useless and trivial. Even if they were useless. It didn't excuse him from his duties. Both palms pressed hard against the smooth surface of the stone and he braced his feet against the sand between his toes, pushing forwards with all the might he could muster in his little clay body.. though all he got from it was a pair of arms squished flat against his torso. .. Oh dear. A long day indeed.
