My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts
87th of Fall, 514.
Days were growing shorter. All of them were. Both in the sky, and in the squirrels eyes. Spending five years preparing for the upcoming day that he would be knighted reminded him just how old he was, and just what he'd already gone through. How much more he'd end up fighting, he couldn't even fathom. Whether he survived, well, that was yet to be seen. All he could do was prepare for the moment that his strength would be called upon. No no, not strength. You're not Ser Iros. All those days listening to the Akalak talk had slowly seeped into the squirrels mind, no matter how much he tried to hold it at bay. Being kept at his beck and call for the majority of a season, possibly two, had driven holes so deep that he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to scrape whatever was inside out again.
He wasn't here to battle with himself, either way. He'd escaped from the stuffy squire dormitories for a bit of open-air training. Where better than the courtyard otherwise known as the Fighters Pit, with his old 'friend' Hammer Fist. It'd been a while since he'd actually spared enough time for a lesson with the old Py-Ken teacher. Then again, she'd shown him the basics in almost everything, and he'd worked to take it beyond that by himself. He needed to learn things for himself - being taught everything by someone else wasn't the way for one to live their life, and he knew it just as much as every other Pycon that had enough clay to call themselves one. Once he knew what he needed to know, he'd gone out and put it to good use, just as anyone would. There wasn't really any need to come back and ask for more help.. only, this time, he wasn't really asking for help.
It didn't take long to find her, leaning against the knee-high walls lining the outside edges of the arena. He wasn't really sure if she was leaning, though - because of her odd shape, somewhat like a human arm, it was impossible to ever compare her body to anything else he'd seen before. It made her extremely awkward to fight, but at the same time, it made her quite predictable with that strange elbow that meant she only ever bent forwards. The stubby little arms were always deceptive, because they could stretch out in an instant; nobody could ever escape the range of her swings, really. That giant hand, that also doubled for a face, could sweep down instantly and grab anyone within her reach and crush them under her immense strength. Goodness, he'd barely seen her, and already he was trying to think of the quickest way to beat her.
It'd taken even less time for Fist to spot the familiar squirrel than it'd taken for the squirrel to notice her, but she remained still and didn't budge until he'd crossed most of the pit to take a spot next to her, looking out over the fighters. Wrestlers throwing one-another to the ground, blunt and dulled longswords clashing over and over; the place was alive with the sounds of combat, as usual. It was nothing short of a miracle that the place actually managed to remain moderately active, given the fact that it was nothing more than a decrepit piece of land owned by a knight castaway. "Got some spare time?" He was trying to come off as casual, but of course it didn't work.
"Five Gold Mizas, and I'll give you another session in whatever weapon you've brought with you today." As a matter of fact, he hadn't brought any weapons with him - not even stored away inside his clay. The only things he had were five Gold Mizas packed away tightly in his midsection, which were soon handed over to the other Pycon. Though he did manage to make the instructor pause for just a moment.
"I want to spar with you. See how far I've come, what needs to be improved.. that stuff.." Well, he'd already gone through quite a few training sessions with her. Some had required the use of a human to describe the key weaknesses of the human body, and which pressure points were best to strike. Apart from the few occasions where he'd been pitted against Ball, mostly for training purposes or to teach him in something, he'd never actually gone out into a spar with another Pycon. Even the times he'd gone into it with Fist, it'd been for training purposes.
"You realize you won't last. You're fast, but you can't swing for shyke." Funnily enough, even as she spoke, her body was shifting to something altogether more humanoid than a strange stubby arm.. but still less human than an actual human. The stubby little arms and legs grew, with an extra limb forming at the back, and an actual head forming from the misshapen palm. Soon, a near-identical mimic of the squirrel stood before him, in grey instead of dark reds. "I'll give you one. For the purposes of training. I don't do fights for fun any more. I did enough of those for my life."
