[Kendoka Sasaran] Student Seeking Teacher (Charon)

[Kashik]

The strike at her legs was also well-executed, and a grin of approval flashed even as she dropped her own spear to deflect it. She slammed the bottom of the pole into his hard enough to thrust his more horizontal, and then flicked her wrist to bring the top half of her spear sliding along the top half of his. The sound of wood scraping against wood was ended as she gave him a good solid thwack! to the side of his head. With any luck, the blow would give him enough pause to let her dance backwards, the practice spear still pointed at him as the bottom half of it guarded her legs.

[Puck]

Darhylne howled at the Drykas as the potent mixture of frustration and pain swamped his brain. He could not see clearly as the hot concoction flooded him, heat flushing his body and rage filling him. How dare this Drykas woman humiliate him. She was fit for nothing better than Nakivak status, and indeed the boy decided to claim her as his. He trembled as he somehow released control of himself, and a darker entity burst from the woodwork. Darhylne snarled and made to attack Kashik once more. The boy's hands slid down the length of his shaft, gripping the base as tightly as was possible while lost in the sensations of his body. He swung it in a great arc over his head, as if he was wielding an inordinately long sword. As the weapon built momentum he stepped forward to slam its length against Kashik's hip in a diagonal strike. It was not a graceful strike, but the practice weapon's impetus was truly to be reckoned with.

[Kashik]

Kashik had, in her typical way, been bouncing through the fight as if it were any other training practice for her - which meant that, while she fought just as hard as she normally would, there was a part of her that didn't quite take it seriously. Not that it wasn't important, but battle was something she deeply enjoyed, and so more often than not she looked at practice bouts as something of a game.

She knew, however, the exact moment that it stopped being a game.

Saw it in the way the boy's midngiht-blue complexion darkened still, how his eyes flashed dangerously. She'd heard tell that the Akalak could berserk in battle, that there was something they gave themselves over to that was savage and unforgiving, but she'd never seen it. And never expected to in a simple practice bout.

"Whoa, whoa now," she said, eyes widening as the boy let out a deadly snarl and shifted his grip. Her free hand raised palm-up in a sign of pause, but it did nothing to stop the boy's attack. Turquoise eyes flickered over to the instructor, but she didn't think help would arrive from that corner, at least not quickly enough.

She saw the sword-strike coming, had more than enough time to bring her own spear around to keep the blow from landing directly on her hip - but she had no protection against its massive strength. She'd caught the bottom tip of her pole against her boot and gripped it at the top to keep her side protected, but the hit cracked her spear in half. The sound of splintering wood, and the crazed look in Darhylne's eyes, sent a frisson of terror skittering down her spine.

In her panic, Kashik's training took over. Before the bottom half of her pole even clattered to the floor, she twisted the piece she still had a grip on and, as he moved to pull back on his spear, she instinctively slammed it as hard as she could at his face, trying to break his nose. She had, after all, trained with the men of the Diamond Clan - and they didn't hold back. She'd taken broken ribs and gashes deep enough to leave scars, all in an effort to teach her how to defend her own life. Now that it looked like that life was on the line, she had no intention of staying her hand and giving in.

[Puck]

The crazed boy dropped his staff like a hot coal as Kashik swung her fragment at his face. Darhylne's staff clattered to the floor as he voluntarily disarmed himself, freeing his hands. He tried to block the swing, but to no effect as the wooden crashed into his jaw. He was an Akalak and his body was built accordingly, the blow would bruise and bleed but after a week or two of rest he would be none worse for the wear. However, that of course did not affect the immediate consequences of the action. Had the trainee been in some sort of lucid state, he would have stopped as the third hit registered. Yet of course with rage and frustration cloying his senses there was nothing to do but hit back. So he did. As Kashik's weapon hit his face, his hand lashed out and grabbed her delicate arm. His crushing grip bit into the soft skin of her inner elbow, holding her thoroughly in place. As the vice-like hand closed, his other darted out and grabbed the impromptu weapon the Drykas had used against him. None too gently he wrenched it from her grasp, redirecting his grip to point its jagged end at the girl. A vicious snarl on his face, Darhylne began to stab at the woman's stomach. Until Sohryn intervened. Hooking the boy by the crook of the elbow, the larger Akalak's other hand slammed into his neck. Darhylne immediately collapsed under legs that would no longer support him. Using the momentum of his hooking hand, the master pivoted and threw the boy across the room and away from Kashik. His body clattered to the floor, the other students watching in awe as their compatriots body landed near them. Sohryn stepped over to the prone child, putting a heavy foot on his chest and compressing. "If you step foot within this class in the next month, you shall face the council's wrath. Remove yourself, Cerulest cur." The master kicked Darhylne in the side with little apparent regard, and the boy scrambled to his feet. With a glare at the Drykas, he limped from the school without so much as grabbing his personal belongings. Leaving with the last vestiges of his dignity in tact seemed like the best possible plan. Sohryn turned back to Kashik, "Do you wish to continue?"

[Kashik]

Kashik cried out as the boy's hand closed around the soft joint of her elbow, and felt her heart skip and thunder as he tore the stick away from her and made to impale her with it. "No!" she yelled, already moving her free arm down to block the hit - although block wasn't exactly the right word for it, since it would have just stabbed through her arm instead of her stomach, but better some muscle and bones than her rather necessary organs.

It proved unnecessary, though, when the huge form of the teacher intercepted the hit and disabled the boy with a single blow. Kashik cried out again as the hand fell away from her, falling backwards onto her ass and scrambling away from the pair of them as quickly as she could. She sat on the mat, cradling her arm against her side and watching the exchange between master and student with wide eyes.

When Sohryn turned back to her, she swallowed sharply and scrambled to her feet, flexing her arm to be sure no damage was done, but it seemed fine. She swept a hand over her hair to smooth down the curls that had escaped in the conflict, and narrowed her eyes a little. "Are they, uh, all gonna be like that?" she asked, unsure now what she'd gotten herself into, not really understanding the insult Sohryn had thrown at his student before kicking him out.

[Puck]

Sohryn made a deep bow to Kashik, "I apologise for my student's actions, they were unacceptable and reflect on me. I do hope, however, that you would continue to train with us." A look crossed Sohryn's face as Kashik asked him whether or not they would all be like that. He hesitated for a moment, but finally answered the Drykas, "I cannot lie to you Kashik, the rage and violence is a danger with any young Akalak. Most cannot easily control their darker halves." "I cannot guarantee their mental state, and unfortunately neither can they. Yet my other students are not as volatile as Darhylne, for the most part." Sohryn stood expectantly, waiting for some sort of reply from Kashik. Had she said no, the instructor would have understood and returned to his training. If yes, a second Akalak boy would step forth to spar with the exotic Drykas.

[Kashik]

The Drykas woman stared around at all of the students for a moment, as if expecting them all to wig out and go for her throat. She openly perused their faces, looking for some sign of hatred there - perhaps it was just xenophobia, and she'd made a bigger mistake than she'd thought. Perhaps the Akalak simply hated the human races, and here she was making a nice juicy target of herself.

But what she saw was what any woman would see when faced with a group of Akalak boys on the cusp of manhood - curiosity, envy, lust. Such things she understood from any man, and she'd spent her life fighting men.

"Tell you what," she said finally, straightening up and locking eyes with Sohryn. "If anyone else rages out, you stop them right then and there instead of waiting for the last blow. I want to train, not get torn into little pieces," she said with an apologetic smile and a shrug. There were chances she would take in order to learn, injuries she was willing to take as collateral - but she sure as hell didn't want her arms pulled out of their sockets.

[Baku]

Thou has written, and thou has completed, so I award thee the following.... Kashik: +1 Drinking, +2 Investigation, +4 Observation, +4 Rhetoric, +5 Spear Lore: The Fun of a Tavern, Waking up With Fuzzy Head, Following Flirtatious Info, Pushing Forward Despite Taboo, The Kendoka Sasaran: A Place of Learning, Discipline of the Akalak, Asking for Lessons, Teacher of the Kendoka Sasaran: Sohryn, Figuring When Not Best to Protest, Finding What’s to Your Liking in Practice Weapons, Excitement in Beginning Training, Darhylne: Fellow Student and Sparring Partner, Surprise at Initial Strikes, When Best to Use a Thrust, Thrust Counters, The Sting of Getting Flashy, Finding When Things Are Play and Real, The Strength of the Akalak, Moving Through the Pain, Akalaks and Unfocused Rage, Fear of Akalak Rage, Wishing to Continue but Wanting Assurance, Additional Notes: A shame it had to end, such was turning into an interesting training session for Kashik. If ever you wanted a new training session up in Riverfall, feel free to give me a holler.