Open A Friendly Spar

[Vigor]

Date: 11 Winter 519
Location: Shinyama Pavillion

The long the sound of a door opening startled Vigor into opening his eyes and looking around. A random man walking around was nothing to worry about. Pushing his hands on his knees to pull himself up, he stretched before pocketing both hands and beginning to walk toward the door.

When he finally made it to the training area take a good look at the sparring that was going on. For a while he wondered about if what he'd done so far was the right course of action, or if simply he should have gone home and given up on ever getting proficient with a knife. Putting his doubts to rest, he shook his clothes and then pulled the practice dagger from his side. He wasn't sure if there was a ban on using actual weapons inside of the area or not, so he'd have to just use a training weapon that was provided.

Pulling a large wooden dagger from one of the many racks, he stuffed it into his sheathe and then pocketed both hands, to walk out of the area. It was strange to some, but made perfect sense to him. Walking toward the sparring area he looked around wide eyed. It looked like there was the potential for lots to train here. He didn’t see his friend though, the one that he was supposed to meet here, “well I guess he had something more important to do.” Or so Vigor thought. It was at that moment that he heard some shouting. "You're late rookie, but you'll learn, soon enough." Called the voice.

Looking around with his hands out of his pockets now he crouched slightly and then moved his right hand up to the hilt of his wooden blade. The guard or soldier, or whatever his actual title was, was approaching and he was now decked out in training gear. ”Should I tell him that I’m not a soldier,” Vigor asked himself. He felt like he was about to get beaten to a pulp if they decided to spar with him and anxiety was starting to kick in.

This person was much stronger than any foe he'd handled before. Back stepping several times, he turned to run away and began shouting, "Hey! This is too much, I’m just here for some sparring not some death match!" He called back to him as he came at him. This wasn’t the friend he had been waiting for, why was he being attacked? Vigor stood there flimsily waving his arms about above his head, desperate. It seemed as if his cries for help were going to go unanswered. Vigor turned and held up his practice dagger just in time to intercept the heavy wooden sword that swung down at his shoulder. That alone was a stroke of luck to pull off but due to being unskilled his weapon flew out of his hand and onto the ground behind him. The sword was then pressed against him and Vigor held onto it, pushing with all his might. There was no competing with this muscular opponent of his, but he could at least try. The two would hold the position for a minute, during which Vigor’s hands steadily gave up.

Lucky for him, before his opponent could follow up, the man backed off. "Huh, you’re a lot weaker than I thought you would be. What happened Smitty?" A confused expression stuck on the man’s face, looking down at Vigor who had dropped his blade and massaged his hands. It was at this very moment that the brawler considered the fact that callouses would have come in handy with holding his weapon.

"Oi, what’s going on over there? You’re supposed to be sparring me! I’ve been waiting for an hour!"

Both combatants looked to see a man that looked nothing like Vigor. ”Did this guy really just mistake me for that guy? What kind of imbecils are defending our city?” Vigor thought as he picked up the practice blade. His assailant gave his apologies, but it was too late. His intention had been to train but he was no longer in the mood. The brawler would plop down at the edge of the sparring area and simply watch for a while. He didn’t have the mind to do much else until his muscles stopped aching. Stretches were always good, but he wasn’t any great shakes at those either. He just spread his legs out and stretched from side to side to pass the time. Having the flexibility to weave in and out of danger was a necessity and one didn’t build that flexibility without stretches!

Vigor gave it about half an hour until calling it quits on waiting for his friend so he was just going to have to go on his own. Though he finally had a group he could call friends he was still a complete novicite at meeting new people. Just recalling how he almost got pummeled by a stranger just now was enough to make him cautious about drawing any more unwanted attention. “What to do, what to do,” he wondered while looking around.

WC: 855

[Ennisa]

11th Winter 519
"speech"
"others"

"I think I might need to go to the Shinya, Ennisa."

Ennisa looked up from her cross-legged position atop the bed. The baby, as of yet unnamed, continued to gurgle softly to himself as he sat stodgily on her lap. The three of them, Ennisa, Itzi, and the baby had been spending a lazy day indoors away from the cold. Ennisa had been fiddling with the fabric she had bought from the Silk Palace and had managed to fashion a messy-looking but serviceable baby carrier through a series of knots, which she was just finishing up when her friend Itzi spoke. They had been chatting on and off casually all day, but there was something in her friend's voice which threw her.

When Ennisa caught her eyes, she saw Itzi staring steadfastly back at her. "What do you mean, Itz?"
"About Cle..- about what happened last season. He hasn't come back to find me, but what if... What if he's doing that to someone else?" Ennisa's smile faded as she registered what the woman was saying. Last season, her best friend had succumbed to a manipulator, and their friendship had almost fallen apart as a result. Thankfully, through good luck and dogged determination, Ennisa with the help of a ghost named Autumn had managed to rescue her from the grasp of manipulative freak and his ghostly wife, but she'd always known that something needed to be done to stop their plans.

She hadn't been expecting Itzi to go to the Shinya about it though. She frowned. "Itzi, seriously... what the petch are they going to do about it? There's nothing to prove it, which," she hastened to add, "Which isn't to say nothing happened. But I don't know if they will listen." Besides, if they know about him, it means I can't petch him up. The darker thought followed. Itzi was shaking her head, her expression clouded. "I don't know, but I think... I think I have to, don't I?"

-----------

So it was that they left their flat and walked over to the Shinyama Pavilion. Ennisa strapped the child to her front and wrapped the blanket around him to stop the cold getting to him. He was asleep, which didn't bode well for the evening, but it meant there weren't any eyes on her and her glowing baby, and that suited her. Itzi walked solemnly and carefully across the crisp snow, whilst Ennisa sniffled in the cold air. She was reluctant to go, but Itzi had decided she wanted to try and talk to them, so she would go with her.

Finally, they reached the Pavilion. The bottom floor was split between a welcome area and a training place. Ennisa had planned to accompany Itzi as moral support, but to her surprise when they arrived she stopped her outside. "Ennisa, if you don't mind... I want to do this by myself." She was studying her fingers carefully. Ennisa was once again reminded of her fragility, that day back in autumn in Clement's house. She stiffened, but relaxed and smiled, to reassure her friend more than anything else. "Sure. I'll be looking at the people training."

She bade farewell to Itzi and walked through to the training ground. It had been a long while since she'd been here. The various blue and white-robed Shinya guards milling about the place, some training, others watching, set her a little on edge, but she ignored them as best she could. Her eyes were instead drawn to an amusing encounter between a black-haired man and his attacker, a man who seemed oblivious to his opponent's protestations.

She leaned against the wall and watched the goings-on with amusement. The altercation over with, the black-haired man retired to the side of the room like her to do some stretches. She watched him for a little while, wondered where the petch Itzi had got to, then decided to go and talk to the man who looked like he was looking for someone.

"Hi. I take it you weren't expecting to be bashed about like that today, were you?" She teased. She came and sat next to him, and studied his face carefully. He was plain, but not too bad-looking. "What are you waiting for? A sparring partner?" An idea hit her then. Her hand went to her belt where her dagger was usually strapped, but to her dismay it was no longer there. "Petch it!" She swore out loud. Too loud. The baby stirred, and she waited with bated breath to see if he would wake up properly, but to her relief he hiccuped once and his eyes fluttered shut again.

"Anyway. What kind of weapon do you normally carry? I've always wanted to learn how to knife-fight." This was true. Ever since she was little, she and her brother had fought with pretend sticks. He'd favoured stick-swords, she'd preferred stick-daggers. Yet the urge to practice hadn't reared its head properly until now. And, truthfully, the main driving reason was so that she could kill Clement. She tilted her head encouragingly towards the black-haired man and gestured at the practice dagger he had in his grasp. "If you have another of these, would you like to fight me?"

WC: 870

credit : Ines

[Vigor]

Vigor wasn’t all too enthused to get up and proactively search for sparring partners. It was very clear that this facility was meant for the guard force of Lhavit, and those that weren’t uniformed still looked competent in their choice weaponry. Vigor hadn’t seen anyone quite as… green as himself when it came to these things. Not to say that he felt he couldn’t hold his own against the average chump, but he felt a league below the others in here.

So Vigor just sat around, until he was approached by a lady who had a baby. He gave her a puzzled look. She was certainly the only one with a kid here, and he seriously doubted that it was a wise decision to bring a young one into an environment like this. Still, he tried to be as polite as he could. For all he knew this was the norm. This was his first visit here after all. As long as he wasn’t getting yelled at for some reason or another, he figured he wasn’t breaking any rules by sitting around and waiting.

“Hi there, no, I wasn’t expecting to get bashed about. You’d think that they’d consider my utter lack of armor as a sign that I’m a beginner instead of coming at me like I’m a seasoned veteran. It was clear that he was still a little salty. “Yes, I suppose I’ve been waiting to see someone come in that’s around my skill level, or at least interested in daggers. I’m more of a punch kind of guy but I’m trying to pick up something new. This lot seems more interested in swords n such rather than daggers though.”

Vigor held the practice dagger in his hand and looked around. He spotted the rack that he picked his up from and held up a finger, “Just a second.” It wasn’t exactly close to their current position so he had to hug the border of the training area as he ran. He tried to keep his posture proper and his head held high and tried his best not to stumble as he ran as to not embarrass himself in front of anyone. If only he had paid a little more attention because he spent too much time focusing on form to notice a spare boot that was laying out on the floor. He stumbled, grunted, then blushed. “Whatever,” he thought as he swept up another dagger, then ran back to his visitor.

“Here you go. I’d love to get some practice. Oh, my name is Vigor by the way.” Vigor gave the woman some space and held out the dagger. He had no idea the proper way to hold it for combat so he just pointed it straight out at arm’s length. “it’s your move!” he encouraged, hoping that she would at least set the baby down before engaging. Vigor was so poor with a blade that he was just as likely to miss as he was to hit the broad side of a barn!

WC: 507

[Ennisa]

"speech"
"others"

Ennisa smiled encouragingly as the man wandered about the conversation. The dark-haired man seemed an innocent sort of person, at least from first appearances. He responded to her jokey small-talk without suspicion or prior judgement, and introduced himself as Vigor. Her offer had been made loosely as she hadn't been expecting him to agree, but to her surprise he willingly jogged off to fetch another practice dagger from a rack. He handed it to her once he'd returned.

She considered for a moment who to introduce herself as, but she was here with Itzi and Ennisa would have to explain her strange hobby of personas to her if she came back. With that in mind, she shrugged and to avoid unnecessary confusion, replied saying, "And I'm Ennisa." She ran her finger along the blunted blade and inspected the scuffed, leather-bound handle. Then she looked down at the baby strapped to her chest. Aah. She suddenly understood the couple of strange looks he'd cast her way.

"Here, hang on a moment." She wanted to fight, and she didn't want to keep him waiting too long. She set the practice knife down and sat herself back down, which allowed the baby's legs to rest in her lap. She then began the fiddly process of untying the knots that kept him in place. Some of them were tucked behind her back, and so in the course of jiggling and shuffling, the baby inevitably began to wake up. He began to cry, only quietly, but enough to trigger whatever response caused him to glow.

"Shh, shh!" She stroked the boy's thin, pale hair and wrapped him up in the straps and lengths of fabric of the carrier. His tears and the subtle glow faded as she entertained him by wiggling her tongue out and tapping her fingers distractingly on his nose. "One tick, Vigor!" She spoke this over her shoulder as she finished adjusting the baby's position. It was ungainly, but she had made a loose nest out of the blanket and other cloths on the floor for him to sit within. He wan't very old yet, so he couldn't walk or even crawl properly. Thank the gods.

Even so, as she stood up and faced Vigor on their patch of the training ground, her focus and attention wasn't fully paid to the man and the dagger he held. Her eyes would occasionally stray to the baby, to make sure he hadn't fallen over or had put himself in any danger.

The man faced her with the dagger pointing straight towards her. She shook her limbs out, and grinned broadly. She knew literally nothing about the man, or about fighting with a dagger, but in that moment she was reminded fiercely of her brother. Her old competitive streak returned as she did her best to put a bit of playful intimidation into her stance. She bounced on her toes, and carefully tossed the blade the short distance from one hand to the other. "Right, Vigor. You ready?"

Before he had the chance to reply yes or no, she lunged forwards. She held the practice dagger in her right hand. The hold was tight as she sprung to try to slash at the man's right-hand side. Her hand posture wasn't exactly the best for flexibility, so regardless of whether she hit or not, she would adjust her grip so it wasn't quite so python-like around the handle. As they pulled back to fight again, she would look at the man's eyes, her own gaze wide and staring as she attempted to keep a track of where he was looking. Their fighting would probably look clumsy and amateur-ish to anyone watching, but Ennisa didn't really give a petch.

WC: 622

credit : Ines

[Vigor]

Vigor was happy that the woman didn’t come at him while keeping the baby strapped to her. He let out an audible sigh of relief when she sat down to take him off of her chest and put him to the side. Vigor guessed the kid would be safe there, unless some idiot lost their weapon somehow. “I hope I’m not that idiot,” he thought with a nervous gulp. “Oh don’t worry. The kid’s crying. You’d have to be a fool to not notice him… or her?” Lost in his thoughts, he was taken back to reality when the woman faced him. She asked if he was ready and then attacked before he could formulate a response.

“Nice one,” he said with a grin after her blade came at him and poked him right in the shoulder. He tried to dodge, of course, but there wasn’t much dodging to be done when you were surprised. The blow hurt enough to make him not want to get hit again, but that was about it. No blood, and hopefully no bruising would come from it.

Vigor had to hesitate, because his natural reaction was to throw a hook with his left hand. That’d be cheating, he thought. So instead he took a step to his left and tried to slash at the left side of the woman’s stomach. He’d try twice to do so before taking a step back and reevaluating the skills of his opponent. So far, it seemed, she was better than himself… at least tactically.

"You do this often? I'll have to admit, this is my first time."

Wc: 256

[Ennisa]

"speech"
"others"

Ennisa suddenly grinned in response to his comment. She was pleased, actually. It was a nice one; she had not expected to get the hit in, and so she was proud. And after pride comes a fall. Ennisa's metaphorical fall came in the form of Vigor's left-stepping. She hadn't anticipated he would attack from that angle, and so she stumbled a little as she moved to avoid his slash. The first hit she managed to mostly avoid through sheer luck only. His practice weapon painfully hit the back of her right hand as she swung up instinctively to block it. Then, because her arm was in the wrong position, she attempted to jab at the man, but the blade of the dagger was facing the wrong petching way.

As amateur-ish as she was, she hadn't considered using her whole body to fight. Her strategy simply revolved around the actual weapon itself. As any warrior could have told her, this was stupid and liable to get her killed in an actual fight. Yet, this wasn't a true fight, and Ennisa didn't know any warriors. Her experience came from messing around with her brother, her friends, and play-acting by herself the stories of warriors. She lacked true experience.

Vigor had initiated the second attack, and his second slash found its mark. She winced and shoved him away, but though the practice weapon was metal, it was not sharpened to kill. "It's your first time training?" She smiled, and lied, "I can tell." Though she didn't reply properly, she smiled a little more wickedly, and hoped it would fool the man. Ennisa was just as clueless as he, but he didn't need to know that.

"What's your story Vigor? Why are you here?" It seemed conversation was a part of their sparring match, but she would be damned if they chatted passively. On the word, "Here," she closed the gap between them and aimed... aimed... She had lingered too long in deciding where to strike. If Vigor seized upon the hesitation, she would leave the entirety of her torso easy to stab. Even so, she used her left hand to tightly grapple his right bicep in as firm a grasp as she could manage. She pinned him as best she could, and with her right hand brought the dagger to his... hip? The dagger swing was wild and inexperienced, and placed far too low to actually have any useful impact. And by now, unless Vigor had something special up his sleeve, the fight had plateau-ed due to their matched levels of inexperience.

Whilst they struggled to place a hit upon each other, a not entirely friendly chuckle sounded from the side. Mid-grapple, Ennisa froze, then whipped her head to the source of the laughter. Anger shot through her before she really thought about it, and it clearly soured her face to anyone that looked at her. She released Vigor from her hold, and put a hand on her hip to face this unwelcome spectator.

"You two having fun?" The stranger wiggled his bushy eyebrows and smirked. It was probably a playful gesture, not designed to irritate, but irritate it did nonetheless. She took a good look at him, and wondered why he was idling around doing nothing expect being a pain in the..- "What do you want?" Ennisa shot back at him. The man raised an eyebrow at her rudeness, and strode forwards to stand just to the side of Vigor. He grinned at the dark-haired man encouragingly. "I've got your back, man." Apparently, theirs was a spectator's fight now. Whatever Vigor did, he had a supporter. Ennisa only rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, and readied herself.

She bounced on her toes, and this time looked at Vigor's lower half, trying to keep a track of his legs and feet and the direction they would go. She would watch to see this, let him mount the offensive, and do her best to grab ahold of his striking arm to stop the following blow.

ooc :

Hey, let me know if I hijack your thread too much, especially if I accidentally take it somewhere you don't want it to go.

WC: 669

credit : Ines