[Bronze Wood] Only my Wit is Sharper than my Dagger (Eris)

[Tyuru]

((That's okay - I really should be studying for mid-year exams, but haven't quite gotten around to it, yet. ^.^' I was also away recently, which is why this post is delayed, too...))

Still feeling angry with herself, Tyuru nodded at Eris'... encouragement? Acknowledgement? It was hard to tell. She took a few deep breaths. Damn it, she felt like a child all over again, throwing tantrums or sulking for days on end. Hadn't she grown up at all since fifteen?

Just as she was straightening up, Eris made another of her graceful swipes with her dagger. Tyuru had time to envy the perfect precision before she was forced to step backward or be impaled in the shoulder. This time, keeping her head on, she ducked low so as to avoid the path of the dagger and made an awkward swipe upward at the underside of Eris' right arm, the only retaliation that occured to her - if you take out the arm, you take out the hand, and thus, the dagger.

[Eris]

Eris watched her adversary fall back, ducking her head in the process. Well, at least this time, the girl had enough sense to avoid the blow. Angling her dagger downward, she met Tyuru’s weapon with her own, driving it off-course. In the process, however, she felt herself slide back slightly, the force of the left-handed blow throwing her off-balance. She gave an imperceptible nod of approval as she moved to retaliate.

This time she crouched down, aiming her stroke at Tyuru’s left leg. The girl seemed to have finally found a stable stance – time to throw her off. As her dagger swooped down, she made a mental note to herself to pay closer attention to the left-handed attacks.

[Tyuru]

What an excellent movement, Tyuru thought, the clang of the blades echoing in her ears. She didn’t even have to think about it, she just did it. It looked so easy. Was that a slight stumble? A nod?

Tyuru had time to feel a little better before she registered the oncoming blade, even if she wasn’t sure of what she saw. The only movement that occurred to her was to make an awkward jump. The blade swept her skirt aside, cutting it slightly, but not coming into contact with any flesh. Tyuru’s feet connected with the ground again and she took on an exaggerated pose of exasperation.

‘I can’t believe it. I love this skirt. Not to mention it’s the only one I have.’ She grinned at Eris. ‘You’ll have to pay for a whole new outfit, at this rate!’

Feeling a bit like a child in the easy way her moods changed, Tyuru paused to consider her next movement. If Eris seemed to… have trouble? No, not trouble, that wasn’t the right word. It seemed to Tyuru that nothing she could do could actually harm Eris, but it did seem to inconvenience the woman that she was left handed.

Taking note of this, she decided to focus all attacks on Eris’ left side, seeing as it would be the most awkward side for Eris to defend.

Feeling brave and wanting to try something new, Tyuru made a movement like she was going to stab at Eris’ right shoulder, then suddenly changed course, aiming at her left instead. The movement wasn't particularly well executed, and she was still rather slow, but Tyuru thought that perhaps she was making progress.

[Eris]

A brief smile crossed Eris’s lips at the girl’s comment and then, at her change of strategy.

So, the girl did have some sense, after all! Eris was almost triumphant in this thought, even as she watched her opponent’s dagger change course. Eris moved her hand in a horizontal arc, starting at where the dagger should have initially hit and slashing through the air to the blade’s new target. She ended up having to change her stance at the last moment, meeting the dagger just as it was inches away from her shoulders. The blades clanged, forming a cross for the single second that they met. Then, Eris pushed the blade away from her, wasting no time in switching to offensive mode.

She was picking up the pace, with the hope that the girl would be able to keep up. After all, in a real combat situation, an enemy wouldn’t stop after every stroke to give critique. Eris figured that they would need to take a break after one or two more lunges. She had been wanting to ask the girl a few things and there was no better time for a light interrogation than after the person had been worn out.

[Tyuru]

The clang actually made her smile, this time. Of course, she’d known there was no way she could harm Eris – she was just too inexperienced. Tyuru was just glad she was making some slow form of progress.

The stance she was in now was unbalanced. Her dagger hand was almost touching her right arm from Eris’ retaliation, and her feet were too close together. She was forced to make a stabbing motion toward Eris to move her arm into a more comfortable place and took a step with her left foot to balance her weight more evenly. Even if it was clumsy, she was getting better, and her stance was sturdier. It still felt alien and weird to try to harm someone and the beautiful dagger was still almost frightening, but she was feeling more comfortable by the minute, watching the ruby flash and the knotwork shine in the strengthening sunlight.

[Eris]

Eris jumped back nimbly from Tyuru’s dagger, not even using her own blade to block it. For a moment, she felt as if she was engaged in a sort of dance – skipping back and force, lunging, shifting position constantly… She grinned wryly to herself. The dance of the dagger was really the only one she knew how to perform.

As she jumped back, her arm flew around toward Tyuru’s left side. Her wrist jutting out slightly, the edge of the dagger followed close behind. At the last moment, the she uncurled her fingers from the dagger’s hilt, and tossed it into her left hand. She had very limited practice fighting with her other hand. In fact, she probably wouldn’t be able to deal a serious blow to her opponent if she was using her left hand. But the girl didn’t need to know that yet… She twisted the weapon slightly as if preparing to strik. But once again, as her arm was cutting through air, she allowed the weapon to change hands. Once the dagger returned to its original position, she finished her stroke, aiming at Tyuru’s left arm.

She was setting the stage for disarming her opponent. The key was to get her muddled and dizzy enough to loosen her grip on the dagger. Another smile flashed across Eris’s lips. The first time Joel tried that on her, she was positively awful and entirely confused. She had bothered the man for weeks afterward, begging him to teach her the maneuver. But it was only two years later that she finally learned the trick.

[Tyuru]

Tyuru watched the dagger dance in Eris’ hands. It was a beautiful thing, beautiful and deadly and frightening. A great and terrible beauty.

She felt like a small child held in awe by the magic of a street performer or the movements of an acrobat. It was amazing and perfectly executed and graceful and precise and thousands of excellent adjectives that escaped her. It took a moment for her to realise the dagger’s path was on a collision course with her arm.

Surprised by the thought, she felt like she was moving in slow motion. Her grip was slack on the handle of the dagger as she brought it up awkwardly. The position she was forcing her arm into was uncomfortable and stiff. At the same time, her mouth formed into an O of surprise and she stumbled backward, the instinctual movement that somebody performs when they realise too late something is coming at them.

The blades clanged and the terribly beautiful ruby dagger fell from her hand like a dead thing to glint at her from the decaying leaves littering the ground. Somehow Eris’ dagger nicked Tyuru’s hand and the delicate skin broke. The side of her smallest finger had a fine red line up the side of it that began to ooze blood, blood as red as the stone inset in the hilt of her dagger. Time sped up to normal time and she clutched her hand to her chest. It wasn’t deep and it wasn’t bleeding hard, but the unwonted movement she had made had triggered something in her brain and she felt adrenaline pump through her. Exhilarated and frightened, she breathed hard, breaking into a shaky smile.

‘You have to teach me to do that.’

[Eris]

Eris laughed – not at the girl’s injury or her actions, but rather at that look of befuddled awe. For a second she felt as if she was looking at a mirror. She must have been about fourteen when Joel had shown her the maneuver, but Tyuru looked to be older than that. By how much, Eris couldn’t really tell.

Her eyes traveled at the droplets of blood seeping out of Tyuru’s finger. She wasn’t sorry in the least. On the contrary, she was quite pleased. Not pleased with causing the girl harm, of course, but rather with the fact that Tyuru seemed to take the injury in stride. A small part of her had expected the girl to make more of a scene and she was glad to see that she was wrong.

Sheathing her dagger, Eris moved silently to her satchel which she had dropped by a tree before they started their sparring. She rummaged in the bag for a few seconds, finally pulling out her arm with a roll of bandages.

“Bind that so infection doesn’t get in and you’ll be fine,” she said, tossing the roll at Tyuru.

“I say we take a break for now,” she said, dropping down to the ground and crossing her legs underneath her. “Your balance has improved, but you need to work on not getting distracted. Once you’re no longer fazed by that little trick with the dagger, I might show you how it’s done,” she added with a small smile.

[Tyuru]

There was still adrenaline pumping though her and she felt like running a thousand miles but she sat, wrapping some of the bandages around her hand. It stung, and she knew it would hurt later, but for now she barely felt it and besides, it wasn’t bleeding very hard, anyway.

It seemed like Eris was enjoying herself. Tyuru could tell she wasn’t amused at her injury, but beyond that she couldn’t decide what was making her mysterious teacher smile. Tyuru crossed her legs on the ground and tucked the loose end of the bandage back into the part tightly wrapped around the cut.

‘I would absolutely love to be taught how to do that. It looked so… so…’ Words escaped her so she fell silent. There was a contented half smile on her face. Without realizing what she was doing, she took deeper breaths to calm herself and stop the unnecessary energy buzzing through her. She began to feel slightly less on edge, but there was still a fresh kind of breeze in her veins that reminded her of her homeland.

‘Hey hey hey, wait, I don’t get distracted all that eas- aw, look, a squirrel!’

[Eris]

A squirrel, indeed. Eris caught herself grinning again. This girl seemed to have some mysterious control over her facial muscles, always making her laugh. It was a strange thing to Eris…to feel at ease and cheerful even when grasping her dagger in her hand… She decided that life had finally taken a toll on her sanity, but she didn’t mind much. It couldn’t hurt to be happy once in a while, right?

“So,” she said tucking her legs underneath her, “mind telling me why a girl like you would want to suddenly learn how to kill people? I reckon it’s more than just self defense