Who | |
What |
The execution of training can, at times, mean training at more than one thing simultaneously. standard ryker warnings: violence and misogyny |
When |
It is midmorning of the twenty-second day of the tenth month of the tenth turn of the 12th pass. |
Where |
Caravan Grounds, Igen Weyr |
OOC Date | 30 Apr 2017 05:00 |
Weaknesses always out.
Caravan Grounds
Deep grooves in the hard packed earth criss-cross a large patch of denuded ground, bearing mute testament to the caravans that frequent this area. Despite the midden holes set back a ways from the main center of traffic, the air is sweet, redolent with the sagebrush that forms a loose perimeter around the flattened expanse. In what is as close to its center as the vague boundaries suggest, a stone ringed fire pit has been dug and surrounded with the odd log or two, ash overflowing from its darkly blackened core.
There is a difference between laboring to survive and laboring under the yoke of a cause that one loves. This is not to say that Ryker loves the cause, be it as it may, but that he loves the rightness of putting things to right.
It has been a long time indeed since he has had the opportunity to right what is wrong in his own life.
“And strike - again! But this time, quit acting like you all belong in the creche.”
Yaliemos is a hard trainer, but not sadistic. He seems to judge to a nicety his charges’ various points of exhaustion, like a confectioner watching a spindle of taffy weaving thinner and thinner, until the thread is gossamer. He judges them to there, and takes them brutally a step beyond, until the second-day sore drives deep into one’s bones. It’s an old man’s trick, to press and push and press again, and wait for the weakness to show themselves.
Weaknesses always out.
Ryker licks his cracked lips and gauges his opponent. For all his condescension, Kafalla made it past her second interview. She’s still bold as brass, crass in the manner of a woman affecting a man’s purview.
That Ryker can’t stand her is self-evident. That he controls himself to a nicety is also. … except in sparring, where there is no room for either of them to give graciously to her status.
She’s a tall woman, built broad across the shoulders and sturdy through the hips. At full fighting trim, Ryker would outweigh her by some few stone, but neither of the trainees are in guard condition. Kafalla’s soft in the places that women should be, the gentle curve of her lower belly, the swell of hips and breast.
Ryker thinks again that she would be better off birthing babies and bossing around a husband than this, as he takes a solid blow from her stave to his left shoulder. He shouldn’t have let himself wool gather, but the moment’s here, and it paths much quicker than his wandering thoughts.
His own staff is returned to single-handed status, his left fingers numb and prickling from the blow just received. Grey-green eyes snap up and Kafalla’s nostrils flare in anticipation of a good row.
A lot of the other men take it easy on her. She doesn’t get that here.
He’s predictable in his objectives, functional and brutally direct: he goes for her legs, her stance, her knees, whipping his staff in blows judged to a nicety. They are deflected, bam bam bam, but his sudden assault has done what it should and has the woman on defensive.
She’s ready for his left-handed punch, not fooled by his favoring of that fist, lifting both arms to block. Her body twists and long-armed Ryker closes to a range where their staves are made obsolete.
Her eyes widen concurrent to her boot-heel stomping on his instep. Ryker grits through the pain and for several long moments it’s the solid grappling of strength and will. A primal will, a primal force - two contestants, one victor. There’s blood. There always is. Sweating exertion.
Fighting never takes as long as fiction makes it seem. There are limits to endurance, and adrenaline will have its due; this one ends in a draw, Kafalla’s holdout knife resting against the inside of the wrist attached to the fist around her throat.
Yaliemos comes over, looks at them down in the dust, grunts his opinion. “Sloppy work. Both of you.” He turns with an efficiency of motion, grinding his heel against the dirt to rotate him toward the next pair.
“Again.”
Ryker doesn’t offer her a hand up, though he gains his feet first. If she wants to be treated like a man, he'll give her the opportunity. His opinion will not change on where she belongs, but like any good guard, he follows the orders given him. He might not respect her, but he'll work with her, and he'll learn her edges and her weaknesses.
And her strengths. He lifts a hand to his mouth - it’s broken, his lower lip, and he splits blood through a crimson-toothed smile.
She’ll pay for that.
But there’s always a price for laboring under the yoke of a cause that one loves.
You don't disappoint in vigs.