Tough Love Training (Moritz x Evalynn)

[Evalynn Frostfawn]

Syka: Spring 14, 522AV

Having been led to the beach as a more appropriate area to spar at, Eva takes her time to look around. They were passing some sort of bar, a sign out front said the name was Tidepool? They looked pretty interesting, and the smell of food that came out was pleasant as well. On the other side was a bit more open and showed a few other people there practicing all sorts of things. Most of the stuff she had never seen before, so she assumed it was just unarmed combat. When Moritz finally stopped, Eva did too and gave a smile of anticipation.

"This looks like a nice place to practice at. What will you teach me first?" She spoke inquisitively as she placed down any extra gear she was carrying. She kept her fathers dagger on her hip though, as she didn't trust letting it out of her sight. Then she had an idea come to her and she fiddled with her shirt as she asked. "Actually, I know I just asked, but do you think you could teach me how to use a dagger? I've only ever used one when I was on the road, and that was mainly cutting food."

Eva gave a chuckle and rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. Admitting to not having ever used a dagger for combat gets kind of embarrassing, especially since she heard it's the first weapon most kids tend to use. However, her parents didn't teach her much about combat as her main priority and interest was to tend to the homestead and make sure everyone was happy. She wasn't too into adventures outside of stories as the travel was always unappealing. But now, she had no choice as she was basically homeless, and the added appeal of having someone train her that caused her heart to flutter was even better.

WC: 317

[Moritz Craven]

14 Spring 522 Continued

After leading Evalynn out to the sand and taking on a ready position, he had begun to wait and expected her to make the first move. How else could he gauge her current level? He stood somewhat frozen like this for a bit, before he realized the woman had intention of attacking or showing her chops.

Rather... Instead she began talking. Which, Moritz thought with a sigh as he relaxed his body, was a bit disappointing. He had expected her to lighten herself and get rid of unneeded things, but not to try to change the avenue completely after they tried to but had not actually yet begun.

When she switched tacks by bringing up the dagger she was wearing and bringing his attention to the weapon, Moritz glanced down at the weapon sitting on her hip. He could not help but glance across her waist, examining both hips and the area between for a moment before jerking back his attention to the weapon on the other one. As he did he felt the worm in his guts squirm, though he was unsure if that was due to the looking or the proximity to follow as he went to examine the weapon.

Taking a few steps closer Moritz slowly held out his hand, waiting for her to offer him the weapon. If she did not he would take another half step in and carefully draw the weapon out of its sheath, holding it with the blade pointing away from either of them.

While he had some training daggers none of them were on his person, all of them back at his home, which made sense seeing as he was lightly equipped due to having been on a run when Evalynn found him. It did not take long to see the weapon was sharp and meant for usage in practice not for training, and after a bit he would return the weapon to its sheath or to Evalynn's hand hilt first depending on if she had handed it to him or he had taken it. Either way he would return it in the same fashion he had taken it.

"I know a decent bit about daggers, and I could certainly show you... Of course, training with a live real weapon, no possible issues with that, nope no danger at all. Not like a beginner should start off with some safer weapons, which of course I keep on me when I'm going for a run and not back at my house... You don't mind losing a finger or two, right? So we can just begin with this one."

Turning and heading back across the commons Moritz would lead the way, not direclty saying he was taking her there since he knew if he tried it would come out twisted. Instead he simply moved a bit and then waited for her to follow him while looking back at her, waiting to walk at full speed until she was clearly coming after him.

In that time Moritz spent a few moments of orienting himself and recalling the best way to navigate home. He was here... The beach, back to the shrine... And off tot he commons... Here... And across that the cobbled path continued that way... Eventually ending up where the bungalows where... With a nod he confirmed it in his mind.

Back to his house was a bit of a ways of a walk, back all the way across the commons, down the cobbled path some more, and eventually coming upon the bungalows just off this pathway, Moritz' bungalow was on the side on the edge of the cleared jungle off the path, which Moritz would lead her along to.

If on the way Evalynn tried to talk to him he would respond, otherwise Moritz would just focus on leading the way and navigating to make sure he did not get lost or take a wrong turn until they arrived outside his residence. From the outside his bungalow looked more or less like any other, if the woman had actually seen any at least.

WC: 681

[Evalynn Frostfawn]

Evalynn felt a bit embarrassed when she finally understood that Moritz was expecting her to come at him. However, by the time she realized this Moritz had already come out of his stance and was approaching her. What for? Eva furrowed her brow only slightly before he had come nearly six inches from her face. Heat welled up in her face and her bright brown eyes flashed a bit of color while his attention was on the blade. Once he withdrew, Evalynn quickly covered her mouth and turned away to gather her emotions. She felt her heart beating loudly in her chest and wondered if Moritz could hear it too, as it was nearly deafening. By the time she had taken some deep breaths and calmed down enough to turn around, Moritz was already stepping closer to return the dagger back to its sheath. Evalynn squeaked in surprise, but this time she immediately plastered on a smile.

Nevertheless, he talked about live dagger training and Evalynn’s mood quickly switched to concern. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the way he talked seemed a bit off. Especially now, as he seemed to speak about there being no dangers in live dagger training, but not entirely convinced that it was true. This was something that Evalynn took a mental note on the longer she would talk with Moritz. Was he being sarcastic? Perhaps he was teasing her lack of skill. Could he be lying to her and secretly be trying to figure out who she was? Evalynn narrowed her eyes as Moritz turned his back and talked about leading the way to a new destination.

’Be thoughtful, he may make your stomach flutter, but you cannot forget that he is a complete stranger. You are a wanted criminal, with the way this man is talking, should you really get close to him?’

She followed Moritz through the settlement, scanning the area for possible routes of escape. Her combat may be lacking, but running and escaping was something she felt self-confident in, since she had been doing it for a couple of years. However, the further they went, the more of the area she recognized before she realized where they were. The Bungalows? Was this man leading her to his home for training?

“Is this where we are holding our training now? Or are you here to grab something? If you didn’t have a dagger, I would have been okay learning any kind of combat, I just presumed it was dagger training we were doing since I had mentioned it.”

Evalynn soon would take note just how close the two of them lived, allowing her mind to wander just a bit. From bad to good, she pondered away the walk and part of the wait outside, as she opted to just stand along the path instead of going inside if offered. She took a good look on the outside of the bungalow and noticed no immediate variation that would differentiate his home from the others. At any given moment, one might just walk up and say ‘this is my home’ and everyone would never tell. But that wasn’t the point, if this is where he lived, was he really an established resident like she believed?

WC: 542

[Moritz Craven]

Smiles were a bit confusing to Moritz. He did not totally get the use, and had yet to master the art of faking one. If he smiled it was generally real, not a facade. Due to this he was perhaps a bit better versed in trying to force a smile than some might be, and a bit better at recognizing such a thing. When Evalynn stuck one on her own face Moritz frowned in response, pondering why she was doing so.

He tried to trace things back, but was finding a lack of reasons of why she would be doing so... He had collected the dagger from her to inspect it... She had grown a bit flushed and moved around a bit while he was doing so... And then he had returned it, only for her to be faking a smile. He was fairly certain she was faking or forcing one, but was unsure why, but as they had more important things to discuss he set this aside for now to the more immediate things he needed to consider.

She had also made an odd noise, like some small animal being sat on, before she had done so... Pushing this aside he focused again.

At her new question as they arrived at his bungalow Moritz shrugged rather than answering as he continued on and headed inside, preferring in this case to answer by showing her rather than telling her. Grabbing his pack he checked inside to see his various daggers, both real steel and training ones made of wood, were inside. Tossing aside a few other items he would not need and making sure all of the needed weapons were inside Moritz headed back out to Evalynn with his pack on his front so he could easily reach into it while keeping his hands free.

For some reason as the training grew nearer Moritz actually felt... More calm. At least compared to earlier when he was first meeting Evalynn and trying to guide her. Now that he was on a topic he at least had some knowledge of, and back into training, he felt a bit more confident. Plus he had spent quite a bit of time sparring with various skilled woman who could leave him on his rear as easily as greet him, and so facing off and trying to teach something to someone seemed much less scary by comparison. Context and clarity seemed to make the Kelvic more comfortable.

Pulling out his equipment one by one and showing them to Evalynn Moritz went through each item. A pair of steel daggers, unsheathing each one in turn and showing the metal before returning them to the bag. He also took out a pair of wooden practice daggers, one of which he handed to Evalynn while the other he set aside for himself.

Beyond that were also two more daggers, but these were a pair of much slimmer throwing daggers meant for ranged use unlike the more normal thicker daggers for melee usage. These he also pulled out of their sheathes one by one to give Evalynn a better view, before placing them back inside and pulling out all four of the wooden practice throwing daggers.

With all of the armaments shown Moritz mimed tossing one of the wooden training throwing daggers, before replacing it in his pack and setting it aside. With that he was left with only the one wooden training dagger he was to use, and the one he had offered to Evalynn.

He hoped if nothing else his intent had been made clear, and so unencumbered again he took on a ready stance similar to one he used for unarmed combat, however now he held the wooden dagger in his forward hand by his hip, blade out, while his other bare hand hovered defensively up by his head. Feet apart just so. Knees and elbows somewhat bent, neither fully extended nor fully curved. With his eyes on Evalynn he then waited for her to do the same or to perhaps come at him. If after several chimes she did not do anything he would step forward and make a slow swipe of his dagger to put her on the defensive, not expecting it to hit but hoping to put her on guard and force her to follow along.

After doing this it would occur to Moritz that it might be a good idea to assess her djed, something he had not done yet, and with a willing of djed to his eyes he awakened his Iraso sight, the sunburst patterns marking him as an Iraso around his pupils glowing to life.

WC: 775

[Evalynn Frostfawn]

When Moritz returned to Evalynn, he had a pack on his front and was silent for the next few steps. He began to show Evalynn the various weapons and tools he possessed for training in both close proximity and ranged. Her eyes seemed to sparkle when she understood why they had come here and she nodded to show she understood, politely taking one of the wooden daggers in her hand. She then, once again, shed off all her gear except her dagger, and trotted just a few feet away from Moritz. She watched him get into a defensive stance and she attempted to mimic the stance as well. It felt awkward, nothing like she had seen before on her travels. But then again it was her first time attempting it.

Evalynn recalled a memory of how a dagger fight would go by word of mouth and applied that knowledge now by lunging forward and jabbing the dagger at Moritz gut. It was clumsy and slow, easily displaying just how lacking in skill she was. Especially if Moritz dodged her and watched as she stumbled forward, yelping and falling on her face from improper weight distribution and her dagger flying into the air. She gave a groan and got up on her hands and knees, only to have salt rubbed into the wound when her training dagger came back down and hitting her in her head. At that, she hissed in pain and held her head where it hit, contemplating her next move. Once the pain had subsided, which only lasted about a minute, Evalynn grabbed her dagger and stood up to face Moritz once more.

“Okay, lets go again. I’m ready for overcome this embarrassing weakness of mine.”

Evalynn got into position again, but this time she examined his position as if it was going to help her win. Except, what she seen was his eyes glowing in a wonderful multitude of color and almost looking through her. Her body felt naked under his gazed, but not by clothing but deeper, on a more magic level. With a shiver running down her spine, she shook it off and refocused on the situation at hand the best she could. She attempted to imitate his stance again and felt strange doing it but once again just chalking it up to not being used to it. The only difference she seemed to make subconsciously was keep her dagger hidden behind her back when mentally she thought it was next to her hip. After a few moments of waiting, she lunged forward again and attempted to jab the dagger at his ribs instead


WC:439

[Moritz Craven]

While Moritz had many faults, he knew planning was not one of them. He tended to over prepare for most things, if not outright overthinking them when it came to anything of major importance. The fact that he had decided in such a short span of time to pick up his life and ended up in Syka was one of the few if not only instances of him not over preparing.

And so when he had decided to take up daggers, he had once more overprepared by acquiring each type of them and in various forms both standard for combat usage and wooden training types for safer combat training. His taking his time to show each item to Evalynn was a bit of his way of showing off his prepared nature, not overlooking important details and thinking things through. Rather than training with a live dagger and someone losing a finger... Or worse.

Seeing her excitement on her face as he went through them seemed to make all of this effort worth it, and ended up putting another smile on his face. Perhaps some might even call a grin, which was countered by his otherwise serious manner as their combat was about to begin.

Moritz waited while Evalynn prepared herself, ditching her extra gear and holding the single wooden dagger in her hand, before attempting to copy Moritz own stance which was meant more for unarmed combat but which he was slightly adjusting in hopes it would function for armed combat as well. He reasoned that since combat was all combat, and similiar things were desired such as surefootedness, defensiveness, and a strong stance one could not easily be knocked over, then there would be similarities between the two. While she did not quite properly mimic his stance, it was clear she was making an attempt.

The Kelvic stood and waited in his ready stance until finally Evalynn moving, making a lunch clearly aimed at his stomach area. Holding the dagger forward he reacted without fully thinking, and moved to dodge and sidestep to the side. As he did Evalynn managed to miss him entirely, stumbling as she missed Moritz - perhaps from having over committed to the attack - and landed more or less on her face. She also managed to lose her grip on the weapon as she fell, tossing it into the air and by some chance landing it back on her own head where it bonked her.

Not able to help himself Moritz commented here as he saw her strike herself with her own borrowed blade right in the head, reminded that she had originally planned to train with her actual steel weapon..

"Yep, we totally should have used the real blade instead of the training ones. I mean you would have only ended up with a dagger stuck in your head, a minor enough wound. Probably something you could just walk off. Perhaps you would like to go back to the real ones for the training? As you saw I have some extras."

Soon after being struck by her own weapon Evalynn picked herself back up and readied herself again with the weapon. If nothing else it proved the woman had some grit and did not give up. Which in Moritz mind was an important thing to have, being something his former instructors had heavily stressed as important. Anyone could show up once or twice, but skill took time and training and repetition. And those things needed grit and endurance to keep at things.

As he stood there having awakened his Iraso sight he truly SAW Evalynn. Something only an Iraso like him could do, and which he could not properly explain to someone who was not one. No more than a blind man could have a color explained to them. He could see not just her in his mundane sight, but also at the same time he could see HER, her djed, what she was. As always her djed was unique and its own, not quite like any other he had seen. So far as he knew no two peoples djed were the same, which meant each left their own unique djed pathway.

Focusing for a moment beyond her djed body he focused on the paths behind her, seeing the movement along the air near them of the recent tracks left by her moving earlier. He could see the trail moving backward the way she had done, putting her back on the ground where she had fallen, looping back further and back to up, and ended up more or less right where she was standing now.

However for the moment he focused inward on just her djed body, trying to understand her and her djed and commit it to memory as he had done a few times before. If he wanted to know her djed when he saw it, he would need to do so. Learning someones unique djed signature was not easy, it took time and focus for him, and generally he had to spend time watching the persons djed and slowly come to understand it.. So far he knew his own, his mothers, Aja who had instructed and initiated him, and one or two others. Learning Evalynn's seemed like a good idea. If nothing else it meant he could find her if needed, and could rule it out as someones trail if he saw one.

Having gotten a general idea of her djed he decided to just let his eyes wash over the djed over time, growing slowly acquainted and familiar with it as they trained.

He watched as Evalynn took on a stance, readying herself for another round, before finally lunging forward in another attack. Focusing on his arms and the blade he held this time Moritz did not plan to just dodge as before. If he was to learn his weapon well, he would need to use it, and so as the blade came in for a lunging stab he swung it upward to knock it off track. However not being quite familiar with he weapon, similar to Evalynn, he did not quite judge the distances right now the range of the weapons reach, and missed in his sweep. Unable to knock the weapon off track he did then move to dodge at the last moment, shifting a bit to the side and turning his body such that the weapon only just grazed him but more caught on the edge of his clothing rather than actually hitting him.

Once the blow was done and mostly dodged Moritz would take a few steps back to give them some distance, while readying his own weapon.

Done being on the offensive for the moment Moritz held up his blade and readied himself, before running forward at the woman. Rather than one attack he would make several, trying for a strong offense rather than a defensive posture like before.

Once he got close enough he would make several sweeping slices at the woman on the side, aiming at her side on her left, then at her right shoulder, and then a lunging stab similar to Evalynn's aimed at her stomach.

If these landed he would give the woman some time to recover afterwards without attacking, simply waiting defensively, though he was more hoping Evalynn would try to block or dodge them in which case he would drive onward to the next blow immediately. Learning from Evalynn's mistake Moritz gripped the blade tightly in his hand, wanting to make sure he did not loose his grip on his weapon like she had.

WC: 1,265

[Evalynn Frostfawn]

The comments that Moritz made still lingered in the back of her mind. He sounded so sarcastic and taunting, making her determination stronger. She thought about it very briefly before she initiated her attack. Why was he saying these things like this? Was it intentional? Maybe her couldn't help it. The thoughts traveled through her mind and stuck to the back of her brain the moment her body moved. Nothing else was a focus except the drive to land an attack.

Eva felt a bit proud of herself after being able to land a somewhat decent attack. Her confidence boosted even more when she was able to keep her balance. A smile was on her face when she turned around to Moritz and gush over her small accomplishment. That smile quickly faded to one of surprise when he came at her with three consecutive attacks. The first one was a sloppy block from her left hand, causing the wooden dagger to vibrate and her fingers to tingle. She hissed and winced, but kept ahold of it tightly, not letting it slip from her hand again. Her feet quickly carried her back as she switched her stance to a defensive one. Her feet planted themselves as best they could as she anticipated the next attack.

On the second attack, she went for a parry like she had seen people do in bar fights. She brought her dagger across her body and caught the blade against the hilt of the dagger. She then attempted to deflect it by flinging his attack away, but before she could he retracted his weapon. At that, Eva tried shuffling back again, but Moritz was right on her with a jab to her stomach. She let out a surprise whoa before swiping downward with her knife to Parry his attack off to the left. At this point, she left like her hand was numb and she could barely hold her blade, but she gritted her teeth and continued on.

If the parry threw him off balance, Eva would immediately go on the offensive. She would keep the point of the dagger upward and raise it above her head, thrusting the butt of the hilt down at his back. If it would land, it would likely knock the wind out of him or at least cause him to become dizzy. If it missed, she would advance forward swinging her dagger upwards to strike in a wide diagonal from right hip to left shoulder.

WC: 415

[Moritz Craven]

Rushing in Moritz waited to see how Evalynn would respond, a smile coming to his lips when she succeeded in blocking them where he himself had failed to do so on her own strike against him.

Managing to get her weapon up in time she blocked the first one, the force of his strike making her hand and weapon shake. She seemed to pull back a bit from that, letting out a hiss of air, but did not retreat nor drop her weapon. The next one she did not directly block, having taking the time to ready herself, and instead managed to parry the blow and divert it away rather than just blocking his attack directly. With his larger size and weight he had the advantage in brute strength, and so she was better off not directly taking on his attacks.

The last in his series of blows was aimed down lower at her guts which she managed to knock off to the side again away from her body. Seeing Moritz pause then Evalynn went back on the offensive. As he watched her move around Moritz kept his eyes awash in her djed. Rather than trying to focus on her trails or paths or other things he normally did while training his Iraso sight Moritz simply tried to understand her. Her djed. How it moved, how it reacted, its nuances as she spoke or attacked or stood still. The more he watched it the more he felt he got a grasp on its particular uniqueness, the essence of what made it her djed and not someone elses.

Trying to come around his side while he was bending a bit lower to aim at her stomach she came around and moved to use the hilt of her weapon to knock him like it was a blunt attack. Though, the entire thing being made of wood and not sharp in truth the entire thing was a blunt weapon of sorts.

He generally managed to keep his feet however, more surefooted than some, and in truth better at keeping his balance than he was at using blades to attack, however in this case rather than resisting her attack Moritz went with it.

Using an acrobatics maneuver he knew Moritz moved along with the attack, and then carried away in that direction dived and rolled by bending his body up and over and after landing on his shoulder continued the roll to pop up land in a crouch with the blade still in hand, well out of the way of her follow up attack.

Then with a pivot he turned back to face Evalynn, having created some distance between the two by his movement. It took him a moment to rise back up and regain his earlier posture, but he expected that by the time she would get back to him he would have had time to rise and prepare himself again.

Pausing for only a moment Moritz met Evalynn's eyes and then moved in again, coming at her and swinging his blade wildly from left to right several times, vaguely aiming at her torso and using his longer reach to - he hope- get within her guard and force her on the defense once more. Or if not that then to push her back and upset her footing. Not skilled enough to work with much finesse at this point he settled on fast motions, a longer reach, and tried to overpower his foe of a similar amount of skill in blades if not other things.

WC: 591

[Evalynn Frostfawn]

She noticed the little smile that Moritz had given her at the beginning gave her a bit of a light footed feel. She felt confident and fancy as she was attacking, but the dream was broken when she noticed how Mortiz dodged her blunt attack. He rolled out of the way and landed like a skilled attacker before he stood to look at her. She only had a second to process his maneuver before he was back on her with attacks.

His movements were wild, with a long reach and a randomized pattern. Eva was a bit taken aback when he swung first and she attempted to deflect the blow away from her, finding that all she could do was cause it not to actually hit her. The wooden blade hit hers and slit downwards, barely catching on her shirt. The action caused it to come loose from its knot and free flow down as she stumbled back.

Moritz's next attack came from below, and Eva gripped her dagger with both hands and gave a little jump, taking the hit full on. The blow shook her dagger loose in her hands and she used the small bit of power from the attack to once again retreat backwards. Now, Eva had the very real thought that she was about to get pummeled soon. Her hands felt numb from that block and she couldn't get a good grip on her dagger with just one hand. However, she didn't show that weakness as she now stood strong with the dagger in both hands, now anticipating that Moritz was going to swing downward.

And her thoughts were correct as his next attack came from the left. She went to go parry, but misjudged her grip on her dagger, watching it be ripped from her hands and slow motion fly off to the right as Moritz's dagger caught on her shirt once more. This time, it ripped off a chunk of her shirt, exposing her stomach and making her blush. This was just enough of an opportunity for her opponent to land a blow to her ribs. It knocked the breath out of her and made her lose her footing, stubling her badly as she had never felt something like this before.

She found herself having trouble trying to stay on her feet, but her efforts were in vain as she went to her knees and started gasping for air. The adrenaline she was on throughout the fight now wore off and all the pain of the parries and blocking crashed down on her body. Her limbs started to shake and she collapsed to the side, sprawling out and giving a tired and weak laugh. Her eyes went over and looked at Moritz, giving a thumbs up before dropping her arm and closing her eyes. She gave a tired smile that she got to experience this feeling for the first time ever, and now she knew what she was to expect from the next time they spared.

WC: 502

[Moritz Craven]

While Moritz was new to using daggers, he was not to acrobatics, and it was not above him to show off a bit in one of the few things he actually had some decent skills in. He certainly was not going to do so with his series of wild attacks with no finesse and that worked more by luck and numbers than any actual strategy or technique.

His first attack was parried by Evalynn, ending up tugging a bit on his grip as it caught a bit on the edge of her shirts fabric. He knew it it had been a real blade that likely would have cut her there, or at least sliced through the clothing, but seeing as the weapon was blunted and wood it did not do much at all. Even had it been real he did not suppose it would do too much, certainly nothing fatal.

After that the next wild attack Moritz threw at her the woman tried to block, and while he was not striking full force as he did not want to injure someone in a spar it was still strong enough to give her some trouble. So much so that it seemed she lost her grip on her weapon and the blade was sent flying out of her hand again on his next strike. This time not by her being clumsy but by him actually landing a blow that forced it to, the thought of which made him smile at his tiny success. Even if it was at someone even less skilled than he, which was saying something what with how unskilled he was. He had spent more time wildly flailing and hoping to land an attack than with actual concerted aimed strikes.

This time he did hear a bit of tearing fabric, and he puzzled for a moment on why. Was she wearing old clothes? He wasn't using a real blade, so how had his strike managed to tear it? The only thing he could come to was that the clothing was old or in ill repair, and a seam or stitch or something that was ready to tear lose had hit its final snag and come tearing loose as he struck.

By this time Moritz had realized the woman was unarmed and so stopped his series of attacks, ending by gently prodding the woman with the tip of his blade to her ribs as if to say 'got you'! without saying so in so many words.

He was expecting several possible reactions as he paused and waited for Evalynn to continue, but he was caught quite off guard as the woman seemed to sort of... Fall over. Or collapse? Was she out of breath? Tired? They had not been fighting that long, and he did not think she was injured, which simply left... Was she really, really, really out of shape and not used to such bursts of exertion as even their limited spar? How bad was her physical stamina or endurance?

While Moritz was not fully breathing evenly he was not that tired from their short bout, and felt his breathing slowly coming back to normal from their exertions today. Of course he had been training his stamina and endurance for years, around two so perhaps back to when he was a year old or so, and also spent time running and exercising, so it did make sense he'd be in better shape than her... But still!

He looked at her stumble, fall, land on her knees, and end up falling over completely, but while he looked at her with both his mundane sight and djed vision she seemed okay. Not bleeding out. Still breathing as her chest rose and fell regularly, if a bit fast. Perhaps she was a fainter?

As he viewed her there lying in repose of sorts, he spent some more time seeing her. Truly seeing as only he and those like him could. In this still state he could see the thisness of her djed still, some things different but still uniquely her. Having spent the time he had viewing and deeply examining her djed Moritz also picked up on something from her djed he had not noticed before, a nuance... Her djed felt... Feminine. He vaguely recalled his Iraso mentioning being able to sense other things in time, but she had not been specific. Was this what she meant? For he could certainly sense from her djed she was a woman, though it had only come over time as he continued to examine her djed. And it was her djed, something he was somewhat certain he would recognize the next time he saw it as he could only say for a few other djed signatures.

As he watched over Evalynn and waited a bit for her to calm down or something he smiled for a moment as his face faded to a more neutral expression, walking over to her and extending out a hand to help pull her up if she wanted.

However he also noticed that as the fighting ended and the known context of a spar ended, he once more felt that churning of the worm working about in his stomach trying to work its way out.

He tried to ask her how she was, but instead- having once more forgotten in the moment the curse would twist his words- he ended up asking something entirely different.

"So, done being dead are we? It was quite a severe bout, was it not, I am surprised either of us survived. Though usually with these sorts of things, the winner is awarded some kind of reward by the other party... "

WC: 947