Closed Season of Mists (Garland)

[Dove Brown]

40 Fall 516

The ever-present fog swirled sullenly outside the dimly lit barn as Dove stood in a cluster of other farmers and listened to the knightly pep-talk. Life should go on, despite the monsters in the mist, there would be extra patrols out in the fields, if you wanted to be sure of attracting a patrol's attention in an emergency there were whistles available...blah, blah, on, on. She looked over at the windowsill and saw the neat row of whistles there. Taking one might not be the worst ofideas, even though she hated the idea of attracting the knights' attention. She had her sling, but she still wasn't that good with it, and she didn't think the mist could be scared off by a glare, a wild stone, and a few harsh words.

The knight continued, "While we realise that none of you focus on fighting, in these circumstances we think it only fair to offer some basic lessons in defense to any who work outside the Outpost walls, in case of a monster appearing when a patrol is not immediately available. These lessons are of course, not compulsory, but simply available to those that desire them." Dove glanced up for a moment, to take in the expressions of the farmers around her. About half of them were interested, she guessed. The rest looked as tired of the knight's drone as she felt. Dove dropped her gaze back to the floorboards that she could hardly see in the gloom, trying to work out which category she fitted into.

She had had a lesson from a knight - well, a squire - before, when Nivel had decided she needed to learn a few things. That hadn't been bad exactly, but Nivel was Nivel, not your average knight. Most knights weren't tiny pycons, for a start. Some of the farmers around her filed out, and she realised she'd fallen by default into the lesson category, at least this time.

"The first lesson," the knight explained, "is fighting back when you can't see where your opponent is or much of what they are doing. This is common in close quarters when the fog thickens, and even more so at a distance. In formal terms, we call this blind-fighting." He blew out the only lantern, dimming the light in the empty barn even further, and began directing squires to pair up with farmers.

[Garland]

Garland came with the knights to help with the patrol, the problem is this was only a temporary solution.

The knights were not spread thin, in fact they're spread very thick, but this left the Mithryn outpost with minimal guard at best. Mithryn grew all the food, and it is important, but it was just out of the way.

And the knight leading their little band just kept yammering on. "If we really wanted to keep people safe we would teach them how to fight, the only place that does that is the Fighter's Pit, and I doubt any of these farmers have gone there regularly." Garland said under his breath, right before the knight leader said the exact same thing.

"Some bloody sense! Finally!" Garland almost shouted, drawing some of the attention from the crowd. Though what they were teaching was something a bit out of Garland's scope. He had never really practiced blind-fighting before, instead he just focused on keeping anything at bay until he had his eyesight back.

But he could see how this skill could be useful.

"First of all, let your eyes adjust to the minimal vision and try to keep your eyes on your enemy. If you can't, listen to the noises they make, in normal circumstances you should have your ears open for breathing, for footsteps, but since we also have fog to contend with, listen for any movement, and the whistling and whispers of the wind."

Garland stamped around the battlefield waiting if anyone was brave enough, and smart enough to find him. After a few ticks of stomping, he stopped and stepped lightly as possibly, he still made sound, you can't exactly stop the sounds of plate completely unless it was magecrafted but he tried his best.

[Dove Brown]

The knight in charge began to pair up squires and farmers, mostly matching them in size. Dove swallowed, lifted her gaze from the floor and looked for herself. There wasn't anyone her size among the squires. All of them were bigger than she was - that was the problem with being so small. The knight paused at Dove, and she dropped her gaze again. After a moment that dragged against Dove's nerves for what seemed like hours, the knight assigned her to one of the smaller squires and moved on.

Dove raised her head, reminded herself that she was allowed to fight this time, and listened. A loud clanking and stamping told her that the squire was trying to be heard. She drew out her sling, bound a stone into the centre pocket, and moved through the dimness towards Garland. She remembered how she had been able to hit Alex even without seeing him and wondered if she could do the same again. Alex hadn't been trying to dodge though...

Her old leather boots creaked softly as she padded across the floor, then suddenly there was a louder creak as she trod on a noisy floorboard. She mouthed a curse, and swung her sling back and forth in front of her, half feeling for her opponent. Her sling thumped into something and she froze, trying to tell if it was a person or an obstacle. Whatever it was, it was taller than her own scant height, and she braced herself, memories of her father's fists blazing up in her mind and quickening her breath to a gasp. She shifted her feet and eased sideways, circling, and wondering if her practice growing up would be any use here, where she couldn't see the blow coming. Unlike the squire, she had no armour, and no weapon but her sling.

[Garland]

Garland wasn't paying any attention and was too busy trying to listen for movement, the problem here was that everyone else was practicing and there was so much noise he couldn't focus on which one was coming for him.

Garland felt a strong thud on his face, like a rock being thrown at him. He stumbled back, more stunned than hurt, he listened closely and rushed forward to where he thought the attack came from.

He was a little off to the left and ran past Dove, and slammed right into a wall. He stumbled back a bit from the impact, nursing his head. "I hate blindfighting..." He muttered to himself between groans.

He stopped moving and just stood there and listened. Stupid petching plate mail... he thought.

He was no good fighting something he can't see. He stepped as lightly as he could, trying to mask his footsteps with other noises in the background.

He thought he was being stealthy and quiet but one loose floorboard ruined it for him, instincts kicked in and he crouched low hoping that if another slingshot came at him, it would miss.

The surrounding area was filled with noises and then sudden stops, followed by a few grunts, and then an occasional crash. The building was a den of noises then silence, some were having better luck than others, Garland was so far the loudest one there.

[Dove Brown]

Air rushed past Dove with the squire's passage, shortly followed by a crash as he hit the wall. The corners of her mouth twitched upward despite her attempts to control them and she turned and moved cautiously forward until she found the wall herself, and set her back against it for protection. Noise rang in her ears from the others practising. There were grunts and curses, creaks and thuds, clank of armour and pad of footstep. Feeling with her sling had worked once, she noted, sidling along the wall, but it also gave away where she was.

A particularly loud and close creak made her freeze where she was, as old old memories of her father rose up again in her mind. She pushed them away, her rough sleeve rasping against the wall as she moved. Had that been the same board that she had hit herself earlier? If it was... she tried to reckon up how far it was, and at what angle, then gritted her teeth and pushed away from the wall, hands up at a protective shoulder height. The squire was still taller than she was, even if he was shorter than many. She hadn't got her calculations quite right, and her shins hit him at an angle. Because of his crouch, her hands hit nothing, and the abrupt halt sent her falling over him into an ungainly sprawl.

She hit the ground hard and the breath was knocked out of her, but old habits died very hard and she was rolling, and trying to scramble back to her feet, arm up to protect her face from new blows, before her mind caught up with what had happened. Her eyes darted, trying to see through the gloom to catch anything from the person she had fallen over. Her bruised knee protested the new movement and she hissed through her teeth as she recalled the sensation of flesh connecting with metal.

[Garland]

Garland felt a swift kick to the chest, he stumbled back a bit, but kept his footing, he was more surprised at the kick than hurt, everyone here should know they were wearing plate and a kick would just hurt them more than the target. He tried to grab the leg judging from where it was but instead all he found was air.

He heard a loud crash on the ground, and he couldn't help but winch, it sounded painful, then he heard rolling. A good tactic to be sure, but in truth Garland' just smiled and stifled a giggle.

It was just comical imagining someone rolling around the floor while you just stand there waving your arms around trying to find them. Garland didn't really have a lot of time to see who he was fighting, but he did see he or she was a short person, even smaller than he was.

In truth he was a bit concerned, that kick would have really hurt if you weren't expecting it, and he was sure that no one expected it in the dark. Garland reached down and around on the floor, trying to find a grip on something.

He wrapped his hand around something thin, like an arm and punched to the floor next to where he thought his opponent's head was. He sighed, and smiled in the dark. "That was good, are you alright. That was a nasty fall you had there." He said and pulled her up from the ground.

[Dove Brown]

Dove didn't hear Garland's approach over the noise that she herself was making, so the first she knew of it was his hand closing around her arm, and his fist briefly pinning the long braid of her hair to the floor. She flinched instinctively as the ingrained memories of her body expected that he would hit her now that he'd caught her. Her mind might have grasped that this was only practice, but the rest of her hadn't, yet.

She flinched again as he pulled her upright and her bruised knee took her weight. That it did in fact take her weight was something to be grateful for, and when he asked if she was all right, he actually sounded as if he meant it. She managed a smile that was slightly more than just bared and gritted teeth. "Just a bruise," she said. "I've had worse. It'll heal. You caught me out when you crouched - I was trying to shove you, not knee you in the breastplate. Trust me, squire, if I was trying to use my knee, I'd have aimed a bit lower... and come up under the rigid armour. There are places even your armour doesn't protect."

She shrugged, pulling free with a strength earned hauling stones and water all day, guiding ploughs and harrows, and digging furrows by hand. "You weren't bad yourself." After a moment, she swallowed the lump of fear in her throat and asked, "Are you ok? I think I hit you with my sling at one point..." She reached a hand down to touch it. She still had a stone bound into the pocket with a scrap of spare leather thong so that she could use it up close, so she bent her head to peer closely at the knots in the gloom and pick them loose again.

[Garland]

Garland rubbed his head, a small wound was bleeding slowly. "Bah, doesn't matter, I've had worse. A shot in the dark and you still hit me, and you hit the only part of me that wasn't armored. You've either got a lot of luck or a lot of skill."

Garland could see the entire area was still dark and people were still fighting. "Hey do you want to have some fun?" Garland smiled in the dark and he leaned in to whisper. "Wanna trick the rest of em' that you beat me senseless?"

Garland didn't wait for a reply and just lied down on his back and started rubbing the wound on his head to spread the blood around. "Come on, pretend you're beating me senseless, it'll be fun." He said and started faking his pained groans.

He even slammed his fist down on the ground to create a fake sound of being knocked down.

[Dove Brown]

"Luck," Dove said, a dry note entering her voice, "definitely luck, and not to be depended on." She lifted her gaze from her sling as Garland laid himself down again, and the floorboards shuddered under her feet, and planted her fists on her boyish hips. "Fun for you maybe," she hissed back, her foot clanging off his armour as she misjudged what was meant to be a nudge. "You won't get dragged off for beating up a knight - even a squire. You're supposed to fight each other - you're allowed to... I might, I don't have your kind of protection." Were all squires this oblivious to the diferences? she wondered, remembering Alex's insistence on the knighthood being wonderful.

She tightened her fists until they ached and her nails dug into the palms. She'd probably get blamed anyway. She'd always been blamed for everything, starting with the death of her mother. And it wasn't as if she didn't want to hit back at the knighthood for all the pain it had caused her. It was that if she started, she might not be able stop - and then there would be questions. And probably punishment.... In for a lamb, in for a ewe.

"Oh, fine - idiot. If you take the blame." She waited a moment for a response, and then kicked him again, lightly but noisily, on his armour. Her hard-soled farmer's boots might be worn, but they were still tough enough to protect her toes from that much. She considered the options, squinting through the dimness, and caught the sound of hurrying feet coming towards them in response to the squire's groans. "Petch it, here they come!" she told him, then 'pinned' him down by kneeling on his chest, the knotted sling in her hand humming as she spun it ready to strike at short range.

[Garland]

"Oh, we're suppose to be training right? why not make people think you've beaten the utter crap out of me?" Garland just smiled in the dark, he did enjoy a good joke here and there.

When the knights finally turned the light back on and came over to see Garland being pinned down by a Dove, she was by no means weak since she worked the fields most of her days, but Garland wasn't an easy target to bring down.

When she took out her sling, Garland just gave a very over dramatic cry for mercy. "Mercy! Mercy!" he was clearly over playing it.

A few knights stiffled a laugh, but the head-knight and trainer just stared at Garland. "Get up, you idiot, you're not fooling anyone." He gave that stern frown that most older knights have come to adopt as their own.

Garland gave a disappointed frown and let Dove get off of him. After that he got up himself, and dusted off his armor.

"Right, squire, back to position, we'll talk about you not taking your duties seriously later." The knight gave another stern look and turned his attention to the rest of the training fights.

Garland waited until he was out of earshot and turned to Dove. "What a hard arse. Can't even take a joke, acts like he had a sword hilt shoved up where the sun don't shine if you know what I mean."