Completed An Ember Adrift From The Bonfire V

[Tazrae]

Timestamp: 45th of Fall, 522 A.V.

The Kois Quas Dominion : Gold Lake (second season)

Her restless nature grew even more restless the more days she ticked off. The golden-eyed trainer struggled to keep her mind occupied, and Lira grew more and more intolerant of her charge’s pacing and fidgeting. They wouldn’t let her near a kitchen for some reason, so she wasn’t able to cook. And whenever she even so much as lifted a duster to clean, Lira threw a fit. It was a Dominion, they said, and it never needed cleaning. Tazrae had her doubts. Everything needed cleaning. So that left the trainer to occupy her. And the only way he seemed to be able to do so was to physically put her to use.

She was ungainly now, so there wasn’t much they could do with machetes. The days of dancing with blades flashing were long over for Tazrae. And they wouldn’t come again until the babes were born. And the longbow was not something she wanted to pull, even a compound longbow like she was used to. It hurt her back too much, driving the muscles into an almost constant tense series of knots.

Being pregnant, Tazrae decided, was a minor form of torture.

So the trainer let her play with the whip. Taz imagined it was as awkward for people to watch as it was for her to practice. She waddled. She frequently got tired and had to sit and put her feet up. And while occupying her mind was first and foremost, the concern for the twins inside her never left her mind. She did just enough to stay busy and not enough to harm them or put a strain on them.

The golden-eyed man was constantly around. She grew used to his presence and then slowly dependent upon it. He set up targets of heavy stone vases, ones that would take abuse from an improperly thrown whip crack and not fall to the ground unless properly wrapped and yanked. And once they fell, they wouldn’t shatter. Tazrae was told all this, but it took action for her to really understand and believe that heavy vases would indeed take a head-on slash by a whip and go down gently without damage.

The thick layer of straw on the ground the man packed around the vase stands helped tremendously. Tazrae practiced without fail, tossing cracks in various manners from her cattleman’s to her coachman’s until she had repeatedly knocked all the heavy vases down once she got the hang of hitting the vases in such a way as to directly hit them with the crack or conversely coil the end of her whip around them. Once coiled, the yank was so satisfying. Watching them fall? Even better. She often pretended they were the heads of people she was frustrated with or whom she thought needed a good beheading.

After the first few rounds, the trainer even let her coil the whip, set it down, and move carefully forward to replace the heavy vases. It was heavy lifting she probably shouldn’t do, but during the course of her pregnancy, Taz was losing muscle tone and body mass… and that wasn’t something she wanted to actually happen. She was sure, without a doubt, if Shiress had been monitoring her pregnancy she’d have let her do all the things she did before for her sanity’s sake. Here? She had way too much leisure and a way too much time to think.

[Tazrae]

And when she all but mastered the five techniques he gave her, the golden-eyed trainer stepped forward and introduced her to more.

The underhand flick was one of her favorites by far. It was done with the palm facing forward towards her target or backward. It was an incredibly flexible move and one she could practice in multiple ways to see what worked best for her. She was taught to start the whip in her starting position with it played out behind her straight. Then she stretched her arm out behind her, at a forty-five-degree angle, in a straight line with the whip.

Tazrae would then swing her arm forward until it was about forty-five degrees in front of her. As she swung her arm forward, the golden-eyed trainer cautioned her to not let the nose of the whip move in an arc just because her arm was. Instead, she was to keep the nose of the whip at the same height off the ground throughout her entire motion.

If she bent her elbow slightly as it moved forward, then extended it as she passed the line of her body, she could carry that instruction out perfectly. Then, when she was at the end of her reach she could snap her wrist forward slightly. The crack was loud and satisfying. And she learned too that if she didn’t freeze her motion at the point she flicked, but rather anticipated where the whip will want to continue to rise… she could aid it in arcing over her head and back to the ground into a reset position. Or, better yet, she could fluidly move it into another type of crack.

The bullwhip was a fun weapon, and one she decided she could use from a mounted position easily enough. It would fluidly move with an Ixam’s gait, Taz decided early on and that made all the difference in the world with her willingness to continue training it.

With the Underhand Flick added to her whip moves, she cautiously asked the trainer for more. He simply looked pained, made her rest for ten bells and have some water, then went about teaching her more. It was odd, Taz thought – more than once in fact – that the man seemed to know her so well. It was like he’d been around her for years and seemed to know her.

“I’ll teach you the Cross Body Cattleman, the Cross Body Reverse Cattleman, and then the Cross Body Slow Figure Eight. If you can handle those three, I’ll teach you the Cross Body Fast Figure Eight.” He said, and that had her up on her feet again and moving back to the starting spot in front of the targets.

“What's a Cross Body Cattleman? Do I just do a cattleman’s crack across my body?” She asked, curious.

“Yes and no… It's more of a Cattleman’s Crack done to the rear on your offside. So you aren’t cracking across the front of your body, but crossing your sides and cracking behind. It’s a good crack to clear enemies out from behind you and give yourself more space in a fight that’s quickly becoming too condensed to swing your whip in.” He said, his words neutral, but she could see the concern in his gaze. Taz figured he was thinking she was doing too much. And the whole time she knew she was doing too little.

[Tazrae]

So he approached, his own whip in his hand, and started the demonstration. Taz was starting to be able to follow whip movements without having them broken down to their bare-bones actions, but the man was courteous enough to do it anyhow. “Start with the whip played out in front of you, even with your off-side shoulder.” He said, then paused as Taz adjusted her whip which had been played out behind her.

“Your arm should be across your body reaching out towards the whip, keeping the handle in line with the thong. Remember, when the handle and thong are inline, you aren’t breaking the line of energy, you are increasing the energy in the whip. So this means, when the crack finally happens behind you, it can take someone’s head off if it hits them at just the right spot. So be very very careful with these moves until you learn control. And by careful, I mean be aware of who is around you at all times.” He added. “It’s that safety factor. Awareness of space and who is occupying it around you is critical when you crack these backward and cross moves. They are dangerous.” He emphasized again.

“Now, that you are situated the right way and starting at the right plane and angle, draw the whip to the rear. As the whip passes your leg, make sure the handle is angled slightly away from your body. I like to think the motion is akin to sweeping a broom across the ground or even painting the ground with a broom-sized paintbrush. Continue the swing of your arm. Your upper arm will halt about level with the ground, but bend your elbow and continue the swinging motion until your forearm is pointing upwards. At this point, the thong should swing in an overhead arc. The arc should be huge, not tight. And when the cracker almost touches the ground in front, straighten your elbow and point the handle of the whip towards your imaginary target behind you. It will fly free and perform its strike.” He said, demonstrating twice more slowly, then once more in real-time.

Taz did the same, her eyes widening. Then a slow smile spread across her face. “I love this.” She said, gesturing down at the whip. “I love everything about it.” She added.

The man nodded. “So does your mother. She is a Master at the bullwhip. She was the one that taught me in fact. I see a great deal of her in you. She’s one of the Kois most intelligent fighters. She lives and breathes strategy. I hope one day you will get to meet her. She is… we call her The Bonfire. You two, her daughters, are like embers adrift floating off to become big burns all on your own. I know where you are, but I have no idea where Kami is… or even if she’s alive. You have your mother’s magic and her restlessness. Kami has your mother’s healing and her heart.” He said thoughtfully. The words, the most personal things he’d ever said to her after he’d admitted he was Kami’s husband, stunned her. They stunned her so badly that she almost dropped her bullwhip.

[Tazrae]

Getting a better grip on it, she took the words as a greedy child would take a piece of candy, and clutched them tightly to her soul as she stepped back, pretended to be apathetic to it all, and ran through the new whip crack until she had a good grip on it with both her thinking and her motor control. She had a lot of thinking to do, a decision to make. But she didn’t know how to make it, not yet… not now. Was Kami running from his man, or did she want him back in her life? Tazrae had no idea and now wished with all her heart she’d found time to reconnect with her sister. They’d met a few times, and talked, but the conversations had been strained and awkward. And they’d both held back, terrified of the other or what the other knew or how the other felt. Sran’tuka had effectively built a wall between them, separating them, and further weakening the Kois.

“It sounds like if we were together, joined as a force, then we’d be unstoppable.” She said with a slight grin.

The trainer shook his head. “Either that or the world would implode. The both of you, are so stubborn, so prideful, and smart. It’s a dangerous combination together. You’d either make the best of allies or the worst of enemies. And neither of you has a common ground to stand on, any shared experiences to level out your tempers and your energy. She’s restless, like you. She would work herself to death if she thought others needed her. You have none of her healing, but you do see through to the inside of people. Kami can do that as well. She looks at you with her emerald gaze and she stares directly at your soul.” He said thoughtfully, a slight smile playing across his face.

Taz wanted to tell him…. she wanted to tell him badly. Every instinct in her body was screaming … “TELL HIM” Yet she held back.

“What’s next?” She asked, as the golden-eyed man just stood there, staring off into nothing, as if deep in memory.

He blinked nodded and began on the next movement. “Reverse Cattleman’s Crack.” He said firmly, looking thoughtfully at his whip as he played it out in front of himself, opposite of the usual starting position for most whip cracks.

“So is it just exactly a Cattleman’s Crack in reverse?” Taz asked, interested and engaged in the learning process of this weapon.

The Trainer nodded. “Exactly that. You reverse the motion of the whip moves you make for a Cattleman’s Crack and make the whip crack behind you instead of in front of you. Your arm will not bend the same way backward as it does cracking forwards, so the only modification is in our adaptation of our arm movement. And you need to know this move to do a Cross Body Reverse Cattleman, an Overhead Reverse, and a Slow Figure Eight. And once you have those three added, you are going to be considered a competent marksman with the whip.” He said, stepping back, getting space between them, so he could manipulate his whip and run Tazrae through how the Reverse Cattleman worked with the talked-about modification.

[Tazrae]

Taz leaned forward, watching closely, her eyes noting the motion of the whip. The trainer drew the whip backward from its forward starting position, and at the same time drew it overhead in a large extended arc. He started with his arm straight, pointed slightly in front of him, and his palm facing upwards. The had the handle of the whip in a straight line with his arm as he swung his arm backward. When his arm was pointed straight down, he started to turn his palm to face outwards. She noted the rotation of his wrist, and how he let his elbow bend to keep rolling his wrist so the handle continued to move in a smooth circle behind him. Then, he brought his hand up to about level with his shoulder and continued to turn his wrist until the handle pointed forwards about forty-five degrees.

Just about the time, his cracker hit the ground in front of him, he swung the whip backward, forming the coil. He did that by bringing his hand back down towards his waist, straightening his wrist, and finishing with his arm almost straight down with the whip handle pointed straight out behind him level with the ground. It was a beautiful move, graceful, and the crack was so loud it caused Tazrae to jump a bit.

She smiled, slowly, and said… “Can you do that again? Slowly?” He nodded, re-demonstrated, and when she asked for the third time, she aligned opposite of him where their whips wouldn’t interfere with each other’s motions and followed along. It took her nearly a dozen tries to get it all timed right, but once she had it, it was like her brain became wired for it and she produced the move perfectly. The first ten or eleven times? It was poorly done, to say the least.

The trainer nodded, turned to the vases, and told her to start practicing the new moves on the vases, knocking them down or simply throttling them gently, without doing so. Tazrae had quickly learned, even without being told, that it took a great deal of skill to wrap a bullwhip around the throat of a stone vase without knocking it down. Each time she did so, she got a little bit better and a little bit stronger in her technique.

At that point, the golden-eyed man called a halt for the day. He suggested Taz return to her chambers, where he’d send a meal via Lira and she could take a bath and relax. He bribed her into actually doing so by promising to teach her the Overhead Reverse, Cross Body Reverse Cattleman and the Slow Figure Eight in the morning.

Words: 2671

[Tazrae]

Grading!

Tazrae -

Whip + 5, Endurance +2

Whip: Utilizing Whip To Exercise While Pregnant, Whip: Hitting Targets With Whips, Whip: Underhand Flick, Whip: Cross-Body Cattleman, Whip: Cross-Body Reverse Cattleman, Whip: Cross-Body Slow Figure Eight, Whip: Using Cracks On Offsides And Main Sides, Mother: Master Of Bullwhip, Mother: Called The Bonfire of The Kois