Closed Mimicry

[Haya]

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67th day of Spring, 517AV
The Orchard.

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It was early morning when Haya made her way through the orchards, slow-paced and at ease. Rhavok had brought their sons with him to the training grounds at the break of dawn, wanting to show them around and have them witness his routine to give them an introduction to what their futures within this city might look like. This had left Haya free to wander for a bit, leisurely picking the fruits her makeshift family would feast upon coming lunch. Haya knew to spoil the men in her care, her backpack filled with not only dried fish and nuts, but now also a large number of the season's first ripened plums. She had plenty time left until noon, so before she would show Duvan her pick and pay her dues Haya decided to spend the coming hours in a blissfull kind of solitude. One that she didn't get to experience that often within the boundaries of the city.

She wandered away from the main paths in the orchard and veered towards its edges instead, meaning to avoid the presence of the few Akalak roaming about. Haya had come to have a reputation in this city -whispers about the Red One who bore Rhavok twins. And with her sons now walking on their own and brabbling their first sentences, she had been getting propositioned by other men increasingly. Haya knew she was expected to respond favouribly to one of them soon were she to remain in Riverfall, but the prospect didn't appeal to her. She'd been dreaming of kissing softer lips, of jaws without stubble. At night, her fingers ached to dig into thighs layered with pliant fat rather than hard muscle.

Haya found herself a nice spot, dropped her cane into the grass and rested her back against one of the older olive trees. She closed her eyes against the flickerings of sun through leaves, waiting for either sleep or meditation, whichever would come more natural in the moment. It turned out it was neither. Her body was simply too restless with energy so early in the day, and her mind started tuning in on small sounds in her surroundings by way of distracting and entertaining itself, longing for action. Haya let it be. Soon, she could locate many of the sounds relative to her own positioning, and had managed to group some of them that appeared to belong together. There were birds, some far-away chatter from different directions, the soft crack of a twig snapping (quite likely under the shifting weight of the young orchard constrictor in the tree above her).
Then there was one faint group of sounds that grabbed her attention very belatedly and she couldn't help but zoom in on them, barely audible yet there repeatedly. Haya's eyes snapped open. Her curiousity had been peaked, and her body -protesting her comfortable position- urged her to explore. She left her backpack and cane where they lay as she crawled over on hands and knees into the next lane of olive trees, and then the next, leaving grassy stains on her skirt. It wasn't until she reached the edge of the orchard where Cyphrus' grassy fields start their stretch towards the horizon that she found the source of the sounds; someone was using this secluded spot for training.

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[Quzon]

The sounds that Haya heard wasn't just one simple beat of a weapon, but a cacophony of hooves beating across a grassy pathway near the Orchard . Quzon was in the process of leading an obsidian colored Seme stallion into a canter, sprinting towards a practice dummy that rested squarely in the ground; the armored wooden post standing guard like an overly armored scarecrow. Out of respect for the Orchard trees, he made sure not to place it anywhere near any them.

Quzon bumped his Seme's sides with his calves, pressing against it as he shifted his bodyweight forward. The large beast excepted the command as it went from a trot into a sprinting canter. His bulky form jostled rapidly as he road the Seme bareback. Unlike most people who used saddles, he'd bought and ridden the stallion in Endrykas. It was the first mount he'd ever truly owned and used a proper Drykas yvas to control it.

And to be honest, he liked it more than a saddle since it also allowed him to use his arm strength in keeping his balance while riding. He kept a tight grip on one of yvas's handlebars with his left hand, as his right hand spun something attached to a piece of rope over his head...

Staying in one place, surrounded by people did not sit well with Quzon, who had taken his recent travel to Riverfall as a serious endeavor to find himself a new weapon. One made of heavy steel. One that carried within it an aura of power. He wanted a new weapon that would become his trusted future companion in battle. A weapon that would figuratively become the next extension of his body.

However, he'd yet to stumble upon once such impressive weapon. And that frustrated the half-Isur to no end. Out of some fickle need to satisfy the pleasure of owning a new weapon, Quzon had bought a simple weapon known as an Aclis and a set of spiked gauntlets while in Riverfall.

Like any warrior, there was only one thing to do after buying a new weapon and that was to practice with it. That was why Quzon rode through near the Orchard today, he'd parked his wagon along the edge near the training dummy and camped out there with the intent to stay there for the few days he was in Riverfall until he left for Endrykas, or until someone told him to leave.

As his gauntlet covered hands grasped the cord of the aclis, spinning the club mounted with a twenty-foot-long cord over his head. "Ya!" The Myrian yelled out to keep spur the Seme's speed on as he rotated wrist faster to swing the club with greater velocity.

Quzon kept his eye set on the dummy as the horse canted towards it, trying to do his best to gauge the distance between them to release the rope at the right moment.

His legs clasped tighter against the horses sides so that he didn't fall over. "Now" He thought to himself as he let go of the rope while lashing his arm forward, trying to guide the club into lunching towards the dummy.

Dice Roll :

Quzon rolls 1d100 and gets 4.
Since he has no skill with the weapon, I went with a dice roll to see if the attack hit... if I rolled a 1, it would have. I was so close.

The club rocketed through the air, missing the head of the dummy by a few inches. He'd tied the end of the cord to his wrist so that he could pull it back to him, but as the horse kept running, it simply dragged behind him on the ground.

Quzon rapt his heels against the Seme's sides three times while leaning back, pulling at the handlebars as a sign for the horse to slow down. It took a tick, but the stout tattooed man who only wore a loincloth manged to command the horse to slow it gait into a walk.

"Almost." He said to himself while leaning to the right and tapping his right heel against the horses side to turn him. Once turned around, he wrapped the cord slack around the wrist of his gauntlet until the club returned to his hand.

[Haya]

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From her place of hiding, Haya watched intently. She has seen many a curious figure in Riverfall, races that she would not even have imaged, or had only heard tales of back in the seclusion of Wind Reach. Tales she had never known whether to take to heart or reject as exaggeration or plain lunacy, even. This man's appearance was one she couldn't quite make sense of, not through stories and neither through her encounters in Riverfall. He had the grey-blueish skin that she knew from the Akalak, but his was much lighter, paler, and -though his physique was hardened and strong- he lacked their height. Was he what a half-breed of these blue giants would look like? That wasn't possible, right? She had surely never seen or even heard of one before.

He sure seemed to enjoy physical excersize and training for combat as much as Riverfall's residents. Such was clear enough from his muscular build and his current activity. Haya observed the man swing his weapon with mixed feelings. She has never thought much of fighting. Wind Reach's location was so remote that this factor alone provided much of its security, and not having any fields to plow or orchards to tend to meant that hunting was her people's prior means of survival. The Inarta trained to chase beasts, not other men or races.
In comparison, the Akalak were very much focused on their combat skills, each and every one of them a warrior in one aspect or another. It was part of their way of survival. She understood this, Riverfall a city of many riches that needed to be protected if they were to be maintained. The instinct ran strong, even with a people so focused on discipline and mental control.

Haya wondered what it was like, practicing solely to kill another. Wonders what it would feel like to have the strength and knowledge of murder. Would she enjoy such power?

Out of curiousity, she peeked around her tree a little further, risking being discovered if she weren't to pull back fast enough. Her object of study was almost naked, and -guided by her current train of thought- Haya started to compare their physique. She stuck out her fingers in front of her, skin speckled with little spots of sunlight where the beams managed to penetrate the canopy above. Her hands and arms were slim, despite the muscle she'd gained to compensate for her lame ankle, and her thighs had become rounded due to her nutricious diet. Her appearance lacked the cut musculature and agility of a fighter in every obvious manner.

She entertained herself with a mental projection of her own figure for a moment, appearing as build and practised as the man currently riding the plains. Wouldn't it be amusing? How would people react to her presence if she were to carry a weapon, rather than her cane? Would they treat her with more respect and reverence? Or would it have an opposite effect; would they grow more wary, more anticipent of trouble? She had gotten the idea that the Akalak enjoyed the fact that she wouldn't provide much of a challenge, if they were to collide in fury. They were courtious because it was obvious she lived and moved around freely only by their grace. Having the upper hand made one benevolent.

Taken by the idea of strength, and having little else to amuse herself with, Haya found herself focussing a small amount of her available djed, closing her eyes for a moment to heighten her concentration. She toyed around a bit with the energy she'd gathered, indecisive, before she guided its flow into her right arm and copied the tattoos she'd observed on the training figure in the fields. Unable to accurately trace them from this distance, she fell back to ink of Inartan design. It was an Endal tattoo, its lines placed to enchance muscle shape rather than underline the more delicate flow of her body. Haya grinned as she opened her eyes and observed herself. Even just this made her feel strong. She suddenly understood the appeal of such tattoos.

Yet, tattoos were only skin-deep. If she truly wanted to look imposing it was her frame that she had to bulk up, wasn't it? That would prove to be a bit of a challenge. Haya had never attempted such a transformation before. She rarely -if ever- strayed from the one form that she'd been practising towards religiously ever since Morphing had been first introduced to her. But then again, she thought, it shouldn't be that complicated. Other than building up her muscles, she wouldn't actively change anything about her own anatomy. And honestly, now she just ached to know; if she had the muscles, would she actually be able to use them at the level of strength they implied?

Haya sat back, seating herself in a more relaxed, symmetrical position for ease of transition, having to pull her lame ankle towards her with her hands. When she closed her eyes this time she took a couple of minutes, drawing her djed into her core consciously, building it's strength an volume with her every inhale. She let it form, let it swirl and dance as she build up the required energy, envisioning it as a moving mass of bright, liquid heat. Once confident with its strength and brightness, she started to send it out into her limbs in small measures, slow, with each exhale. She let it flow calmly, let it settle in the strings of tissue that bound together to form her muscles. She envisioned the tissue as thristy for her djed, drawing in its energies, swelling in volume the more it soaked up. Even with her eyes closed she could feel her body building itself up, tendons growing taut, shoulders growing wider. She stopped at a point that she felt she could sustain for a little while, even if she were to divide her attention. Releasing the remainder of djed that she'd gathered back into her system with a last exhale, Haya opened her eyes.

Immediately, she grinned with glee, observing herself with amusement. She moved her arms a bit, rolled her shoulders, delighted with how natural this form felt compared to the anatomy she was used to practising. With confidence -eager to test her strength- Haya pushed herself forward, positioning herself flat on the grass with her palms to the ground, snug under her shoulders. She bent her legs at the knee like she'd seen young Akalak do in their first weeks of training, using them as a point of support as she pushed up, grunting with effort as she managed to lift her body from the ground. It worked for her maybe twice, thrice -pushing her way up to stretched arms and then lowering her body to hoover close to the grass- before a cramp set in.

Haya tried to force herself through it, knowing a bit of pain to be part of any excersize, but she only managed to make it through three more push-ups before the sting became too unbearably sharp and overwhelming. On her last attempt to force her body upwards the pain shot straight up her arms, purposefull, white-hot and punishing. It had Haya break concentration and drop to the grass with a shout, rolling onto her back and rubbing her arms to soothe them as she groaned and cursed up at the sky in her mother's tongue. Her djed had dispersed, dissipating like smoke from a flame due to her lack of focus and leaving her body to rapidly return to its natural form. Shyke, she had asked too much. The pain she felt now was not due to her exersize, Haya knew so with certainty. This was her body protesting where her djed had forced it past its limits too hard and too soon. By the gods, she thought, heavily disgruntled, she would be sore for days...

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