In general, Raiha was less than fond of the icy-cold, bone-chilling drenching rain that came with the cold winds that roared over Riverfall like a bad joke late in the fall season. She had had plans to go foraging again today, had the weather held out, but today was very clearly not her day. The horses could hardly be let out in this dreck, not without needing warm sponge baths afterwards, and with so many horses, that was just not an advisable way to spend manpower. To make it worse, she couldn’t fly any birds in this deluge that was coming down so hard you could hardly stand upright, and trying to teach the dogs about trailing was useless. No scent she made would stick, not in this shyke. It would be as good as trying to scent in a moving river. She had energy to burn, and she didn’t much want to sit and study, which had been a perfectly viable option.
No, this afternoon, she had one of her flanged maces out, and was attacking the heavy wood-and-canvas dummy that had been stuffed with cattails to prevent her from breaking it with the mace. She had dragged it up from the courtyard to the mews one night when the others had slept, and was using it to practice. Uzima and Chuki had already had their fun perching on it, but now, they were safe in their flights as rain pounded overhead on the roof. The shutters were open, barely, to allow what bleak grey light there was in. But Raiha didn’t worry about the light - truthfully, she didn’t need it. Between seeing the body heat of different people and auristics, there was nothing to worry about. And now, with the medium-low lighting, the shadows were at their most expansive here.
They were everywhere, whispering, circling, resting, sharing. Raiha had put a lot of effort into befriending and making alliances of sorts with Akajia’s children that hung around the Sanctuary. She listened to the conversations all around her as she stepped into the blow, bringing her mace down in a hard, overhand swing. She struck the solid dummy with the flanged, cold-iron head, producing a rather dull thunk. The heavy bags of rocks kept the target mannequin from moving on impact, ad the dogs looked on. Diallo and Dara had claimed the bed, while the remaining deerstalkers were a multi-coloured ball of fur on the woven rag rug on the floor at the end of the bed. Dynm raised his head with interest at each resounding song of impact. Raiha stepped back and swung again, circling the dummy before hitting it underhand. The shock reverberated up her arm to her shoulder, which she rotated and rolled to shake off before switching hands with the weapon, and striking it again. She stepped lightly, keeping her center of gravity low, bringing the long-handled mace in a backwards swing to slam it into the dummy, threatening to upend it with the strength behind the blow. Raiha exhaled, and stepped back, rotating her arm, and swinging overhead.
She worked herself into the routine as she circled the dummy, concentration knitting on her brow as the dummy rocked and shook again and again with the blows. Step, smash, retreat, circle, step, smash... only once both of her arms were sore did she pause and put the mace down at the end of the bed, where Dara sniffed at it. The Akontak hugged herself, getting her hands on her shoulders and closed her eyes, rubbing and squeezing the muscles, beginning to massage them with long, fingers as she urged the muscle ache away with Rak’keli’s power, making the middle of the room, where she stood, glow faintly. That always made her feel better - a bit of a self-massage, soothing sore muscles, and beating the stuffing out of an innocent dummy. Daddy would be so proud, Kanikra almost laughed. Speaking of, let’s see what we can do with his Lakan.
Raiha hadn’t hardly ever touched it, but she got picked it up from where she hid it under her pillow, where Sulvanon also rested, and unsheathed it, looking at it, stroking the blade carefully with her fingers. She understood the significance of the weapon that she held. She knew full well she had a piece of her father here, and it deserved respect. She laid the leather sheath on the pillow, and stepped up to the dummy, getting a feeling for the weight of the weapon, just remembering how he had held it as she eyed the dummy before making an experimental thrust with it, lunging forward at an invisible enemy and slashing upwards. She’d only slice the canvas to tatters if she used it on it, after all, so she was just going to have to imagine attacking something else. She lunged at the air again, the weapon moving downwards. Sort of like the suvai. Sort of, but not quite.
This was going to take some work...
