Closed Where All the Wounded Trees Wait

[Aramenta]

Ara frowned, staying in her crouch for a moment, still choked high in her right hand, her left held high.

//That sword is faster than my axe. I can't trick my way in to a blow. I'll have to make my ax faster? Lighter. Keep it moving, swinging, so its not so heavy on my arm.//

Awkwardly she frowned, still staying low. The man was taller than her, there was no reason to come up to his height, after all. She stayed back a bit, and without lunging forward yet, she started to swing the axe, back and forth, in a swooping, somewhat sloppy, figure eight. Her arm felt lighter, less clumsy, the arcs drawing the axe up by centripetal force, her triceps ready to pull the axe out of the arc when the time came, to redirect toward a leg, an arm, a sword to be hooked wwith the axe head and pulled...

Then, she stepped. She half turned when she did, to face the man on the side of his exposed guard arm, still half-crouched. She swept the leather-covered axe head down and out as she did, directly towards the man's knee: she had seen men crumple under a crushed knee, and figured this would be a wise place to start - the sword arm, held behind and to the opposite side would hopefully be slower to parry, the guard arm might find it difficult to reach through the figure eight of axe-blade to punch at her. Unless, of course, he turned in concert with her.

But a girl can't think of everything.

[Fox Starseer]

Fox wasn't quick enough to avoid the entire hit, the top edge of the axe head hit his knee, causing him to fall to his uninjured knee. He knew he would at least have a bruise to show for his efforts, at worst his knee might be broken. He tentatively moved around to the side of Ara, his knee hurt a lot, but didn't seem broken. As he moved he switched stance and brought his sword arm forward once more, he swung his sword up, hoping it would meet the axe as it came down again, or he wouldn't hit the axe and might barely hit his sparing partner.

[Aramenta]

Ara felt the axe hit the flesh at the side of the man's knee, and a queer trickle of emotion went through her. On the one hand, she heard Livvy hoot out a catcall from the sideline, and felt a little rush of pride. But larger than this was the gut instinctual feeling of 'I just hit someone, with a weapon'. The feel of swinging a blunt object into flesh is something that takes some getting used to, and Livvy was not, yet, used to it. She pulled instinctively back then, with an almost audible voiceless gasp, her eyes going wide, as she dropped the axe. She'd hit harder than she intended.

The backwards jerk, and the sudden disconnect from the axe she'd dropped threw her off balance, and her body started to topple backwards. She swung her arms, over compensating, and flew slightly forward, now unarmed, towards the larger man.

And as luck would have it, right into the path of the man's blow. The sword was already midmovement now, so it ended up chucking her hard under the chin. sending her tripping backwards again, blood coming from her nose and mouth. She fell back, hitting ground with the peculiar limpness of unconsciousness, her face smeary with a bloody nose and a bite in her tongue.

Livvy yelped, and leapt to her feet, her own bruised face dropping its poultice as she ran full tilt toward her mistress.

"Missy Ara! Missy Ara! You ok?"

[Fox Starseer]

Fox was already springing into action, dropping his sword and kneeling beside Ara. He tore a small section off his own shirt and presses it to the wound to try and stem the bleeding. He checked for a pulse and quickly found it. He took her hand gently in his. "Can you hear me? If you can, squeeze my hand" he said softly to her. He rolled her onto her side just to be sure any fluids wouldn't go back into her throat.

[Aramenta]

Ara was not out too long - there was a period of perhaps five seconds in which the world was very gray and hazy, and she felt a cracking discomfort in her ribs as she hit the ground hard. Something soft and cloth pressed against her bloody nose, and she breathed in, the lint of it flying back to drift through the bloody interior to hit the top of her nasal passages ticklingly. Tickling, and fine, and dry, and soft like ash almost...

She woke, with a start, and started to fight to sit up, but the movement immediately sent her lightheaded, and fuzzy-visioned. She jerked her hand away from the man's, feeling around her wildly to get her bearings.

Livvy arrived now, and tumbled down to her knees by the man. She pushed a hand firmly to the flesh over her mistress's breastbone, and firmly pushed her down to the earth, "What in Rhysol's piss do you think you doin', Missy? You lay right back down, right now!"

She nodded to the boy - the slave's manner was slightly standoffish, now, just in the rush of seeing her mistress clocked under the chin, though of course if asked consciously, she would never in a million years have blamed the boy. She put Ara's hand back into the boy's.

"You hearin' okay, Mussy? You hear the Master? Squeeze th'boy's hand. And come on, 'en, open them lips, Missy, lets see what you done t'yo'self."

Ara blinked, a few times, calming a bit hearing a voice she knew. She squeezed the boy's hand awkwardly, still laying splay-legged on the grass. But Livvy was here, she'd make sure nothing happened. She craned her head forward to whisper to Livvy, but the speaking just burbled out more blood from mouth: she hadn't bit the tongue deep, but deep enough. Tongues are bleeders, they are. She coughed out a bit more blood, and signed weakly, an apology.

Livvy saw it smirked at Ara, and turned to the boy, "She says thank you." Misinterpreting the gesture with careless abandon clearly offered Livvy absolutely zero moral scruples. She turned back to Ara, fishing a dirty finger between her lips to probe the girls teeth. No cracks. Thank the wind for that little blessing.

[Fox Starseer]

"Maybe we should get her home to rest, unless you want to go through the bother of going to a healers tent and having her seen to only to have them send her home anyway" Fox suggested. He knew, after this accident, that the sparing session was off, and maybe next time they should use the proper training equipment. He stood up and carefully, slowly helped the slightly injured Ara to her feet. "In the haste of our training I never gave you my name...I'm Fox, nice to meet you" he said, chuckling slightly.

[Aramenta]

Ara blinked, slightly dazed, and leaned up whispered to Livvy, her hand making a vague unsteady gesture over her chest.

"Master's right, Missy Ara, we need t'get you home."

Are nodded, letting the man pull her up to half-sitting, then felt Livvy's hands behind her shoulders, pulling her up from behind. She felt a bit shaky on her feet, but mostly just had a throbbing pain behind her eyes. She executed another soundless laugh, and leaned in by Livvy's ear.

Livvy snorted and looked at Fox, "Missy Ara say that you done her a favor, not letting her head get too big after she managed to get a whack in on you, and hopes maybe sometime you can do it again. Thissa Missy Aramenta of Stonewhistling Pavilion, from th'Amethyst clan, that there," she gestured to the horse who is pacing nervously by the tree, "That's Canterfoot, Strider of the Stonewhistling herds. She says pleasure to meet you."

The slave girl offers no particular information about her own name and identity - she likely simply thinks her identity irrelevant in the exchange. Ara executes a slightly ginger half-bow. She leans over to Ara, whispers something, with a gesture that speaks of 'If you please', and Livvy nods back, "Yes, 'm."

With a parting hand on the small of her mistress's back, the slave girl trotted over to take retrieve the horse, patting her neck and leading her forward.

"A'ight, Missy Canter. We bes' be gettin' you an' Missy Ara home, non?"

Ara puts a hand to her head, but pulls with the experience of long practice on the tack of the horse, to swing her legs up over the creature's back. She threads her fingers into the horse's mane, and leans forward to whisper in it's ear. The horse snorts and whistles, shaking its headm

[Fox Starseer]

"I would be glad to help train Ara again, and maybe next time we can use the training equipment so there are no more injuries" Fox said, smiling warmly. He gave a quick wistle and a white coloured strider troted up behind them. "And this is Moondancer, she is my strider, and has been for....almost 10 years, since I was 13" he said, stroking his strider's mane before swinging up onto her back. "I shall help to make sure Ara gets home safely first though" he added. He had slipped his sword back into it's scabbard just before calling for Moondancer.

[Aramenta]

Ara looks at the man queerly, a mild frown on her face for a moment but nods into a half bow from her horseback. Livvy gathers up her mistress's dropped weapon and hands it up to her with a smirk. Ara, blushing a bit, but maintaining her dignity, hangs if from her waist, and pulls the horse forward. Her mouth still oozes blood, and occaisionally, she leans over to the side, and spits a small mouthful of it onto the ground, and she is a little bit ginger with the bruised arm, but otherwise, she seems in fair shape for a nasty fall.

Livvy leads the horse, so the horse walks very slowly, her feet picking through the grass with delicate caution, feeling the discomfort of her rider, and wanting to spare her the pain of a jolt. Ara, even in her mild daze, has the natural rolling rhythm of musculature of a fairly competent rider - her haunches squeeze just perceptibly, and her spine rolls slightly with each step of the horse, her body rolling gently as if it were an extension of the horse's body, making her (now sweaty) braids jangle slightly against her neck with each step.

Livvy, for her part, has the length of jute-rope wound around her shoulder, and still touches gingerly at her bruised eye. Between her own shiner and her mistress's bloody face, the two look quite the sight, but Livvy smiles, in a mild, tired way as they thread through Endrykas. This is not a milk town, anyway - the people know what it is to have a bruise or a scar now and then. So a few faces look up and smirk, but most probably smirk more at the fact that the pretty young girl rides beside a young gentlemen.

The Stonewhistling Pavilion itself rests near the edge of the camp, and from its door, it was possible to see their herds wheeling in brown clouds through the sea-green grass below, the tall, steel figure of Ara's father in the midst of them, those of some of her brothers, sisters, and cousins dancing their Striders along the edges, with the long herdsman poles guiding wayward horses back into the central body. They were moving the herd, to keep them from overfeeding a section of pasture. Ara, still atop her horse, stuck two fingers between her lips, and whistled, a long, shrill tone, followed by another, second, higher tone. The father's hand went up in a gesture of welcome and questioning. Ara sent back a simple 'All's Well'. Father was perhaps a touch overprotective. It would be best to clean up before bringing things up with him.

She turned her horse, then, and leaned low in her seat so that her lips were right by Livvy's ear, one hand wound tight into Canter's mane, the other gesturing neutral pleasantry. Livvy nodded at the girl's whisper, and looked up to Fox.

"Missy Ara say thank you for your attention, and for the training 'pportunity, Master. And she hopes y'knee don't hurt too much." her hands move, much as Ara's had, in the gesture of polite pleasantry, of mild graciousness. Ara slips down from her horse, and the two girls pull Canter gently around to the back, to feed and comb her, and likely tend to their own wounds.

[Limey]

Ara Skill and Lore Rewards Skills Lore Riding 2 An Ax At A Gallop Ax 3 Livvy: Slave And Friend Observation 1 Rising To A Challenge Tactics 1 Instincts Can Be Wrong, Too Adapting Your Tactics Fox Skill and Lore Rewards Skills Lore Observation 2 Ara: Strange, Silent Beauty Sword 2 Pros And Cons Of Axes Medicine 1 Reacting Even When Wounded Helping The Wounded Additional Notes : Good little training thread, guys. I liked how you both approached this tactically, mindful of your opponent's weapons as much as each others. Very smart, and a bloody little meet-cute, so we'll see where it goes! Any questions or queries, please PM me.