[Flashback] Tips and Tricks (Dhalvasha)

[Alvena Celandine]

16th of Spring, 505 AV Her attention waned gradually as she sat in a reasonably comfortable armchair, listening to a lively conversation that the hunters were having in the room. She had feigned interest at first, but as the bragging dragged on, she felt more and more disinterested. When it came to hunting, Alvena could only feel her focus and interest spike when she located and brought down her target. The trophies and the conquests never attracted her. "I'll be in the training room," she murmured, leaving the room in silence as the rest barely acknowledged her departure. She tread lightly on the fabric that connected the hangout to the next room, moving in a casual manner. Her father had allowed her to borrow his bow for the day, the worn object slung over her back loosely. She didn't spend too much time at the Sickle and Arrow, but Alvena enjoyed visiting occasionally when prayer did not tempt her. The room was as she remembered it, the weapon filled chests placed where they always were. She sifted through the myriad of objects, careful not to cut herself on the edge of one of the blades. It wasn't long before she found a used quiver stocked with about 6 arrows. This will do, she thought, grabbing it and slinging across her right shoulder. The previous occupant of the room had placed three small targets on the far end, aligned horizontally and each about a meter or two apart. Alvena pulled out an arrow and gingerly placed it in the notch of her bow, pulling the string back slowly as she carefully aimed her shot at the target on the far left. After a moment of adjusting, she released, and the arrow planted itself near the middle, accurately enough. My aiming isn't fast enough. She pulled out another arrow swiftly as though she were against the clock, shot the arrow almost immediately at the center target, not stopping to see her results before pulling out another arrow and shooting it at the one on the right. The two arrows were way off their intended marks. Alvena cursed under her breath. She would have to practice the proper balance between speed and accuracy. She was too slow at firing her weapon, and was painstakingly aware of that. She walked over to the end of the room to retrieve her arrows.

[Dhalvasha]

As was custom in his web, Dhalvasha was expected to accomplish something of import, or perhaps serve a specialized function in the community. His father had always expected his son to be a hunter, following in a long line of warrior Symnestra, hunters all.

His disappointment had been growing slowly since Dhalvasha had received work in the Place of Purging, turning his attention more to the classification of plants, poisons, and body parts than any real appreciation for taking life. Any prayer offered to Vitrassa was met with silence. Dhalvasha never changed, and his father grew more frustrated by the year.

It had become a new custom to bar his son entrance to their web's home until he had returned tired from the rigors of training. Climbing, Acrobatics, Hunting, Crossbows...all were expected to strengthen the wayward Symnestra and show him the truth of his place in the world. Their family were hunters and he would become one as well.

Now Dhalvasha scaled one of the overhanging walls, hand by steady hand. There was a certain liberty to crawling up stone that even Dhalvasha would not admit to himself. It was degrading in one sense, to act as a spider merely for the pleasure of doing so, but so exhilarating in another sense...to defy the laws of weight and scale where no human hands could hope to reach. Crossbow hanging from a belt and a few bolts with him, Dhalvasha scurried from cleft to crack, taking care not to misplace his palms or feet as he ascended through the webs of Kalinor.

His father had already sent word ahead. He was to appear at the Sickle and the Arrow to use the practice dummies in the back. Learning how to point and fire the crossbow was an art tantamount to his continued service to the Symnestra race.

Foolish backwards codger...a father mired in old glory and a redundant sense of destiny.

Shifting over the webs and straightening, he drifted into the Sickle and the Arrow, nodding hesitantly at the purveyor. The larger Symnestra jerked his head at the back, offering the youth little more than the simple order.

Sighing, Dhalvasha entered just as a young, female Symnestra retrieved her arrows from the far side of the room. She was beautiful, as all Symnestra tended to be, graceful and lithe as a willow reed and nearly glowing with the pale vibrancy of her skin.

He noted the place of the first arrow, and the two others, leaning in the doorway with a wry smile.

"A woman after my father's own heart," he remarked, slipping inside and closing the door, "Training to fell a dinner? Or have you more ambitious targets in mind?"

[Alvena Celandine]

It was the moment she reached for the third arrow that she heard the man's voice right behind her. She gasped and turned around in surprise, her crimson eyes opened wide in momentary shock. She hadn't met the man before, and certainly didn't remember seeing him at the hunter's gather, a place mostly frequented by regulars. His neat, orderly appearance didn't give off the air of being a hunter at all, in fact. He spoke with a confidence that she would have tolerated elsewhere, but coupled with the sudden interruption that had sent her heart momentarily racing, she couldn't help but feel somewhat annoyed. "Just some practice before the next hunt," she responded curtly, tugging the third arrow out of the target. She placed it back into the quiver, and resumed her place from before, studying him a little closer as she brushed past him. Again, she placed the first arrow in the notch and fired, sending the next two out consecutively. She didn't go as fast as earlier, hoping to gain accuracy. Sure enough, they were closer than earlier, but not close enough to the center for it to be to her liking. "Do you hunt?" She asked, sighing again again after what she deemed a failure. She stomped back over to the end of the room. "I haven't seen you around," She said, her back turned towards him as she pulled out the arrows one by one.

[Dhalvasha]

He answered her first comment with a smile, white glistening teeth gaining area beneath pale lips. She was concentrating on her art, drawing a string and firing. The targets did not move, did not prance, did not do anything more than stare blankly at the huntress as she assailed them. Could they truly be considered practice then...these immobile useless things? Would her prey be so generous as well? Perhaps this was a new custom in Symenestra hunting he was unaware of...or more likely she was doing the best she could with the limited means presented of her.

Even so, hardly a practical simulation of hunting.

So while she practiced on her pretend prey, all glass eyed and paralyzed for her convenience, Dhalvasha would return home. After all, he had only promised he would come here...not that he would waste time figuring out how to work a crossbow...a crossbow that he had no need of.

Her question caught him by surprise, a merry little observation he felt necessary to answer in his own way.

Unclipping his crossbow, he slipped in a bolt and held the loaded weapon against her back, just pressing enough to make her aware of his presence.

"If I were, and would you have been my prey, I don't think our conversation would have continued past this point." He chuckled. "Although as it stands," aiming the crossbow up and toward a target, he fired. The bolt lanced across the room and bounced uselessly off the stone, far from its mark, "You don't have to worry. My profession involves making sure if a Hunter bits off more than she can chew, she'll live to do so again."

It was a mirthless grin, the truth of his profession really. It was annoying how many Symenestra did not learn their lessons the first time.

[Dhalvasha]

As she turned back to her own work, Dhalvasha discarded the crossbow, taking a place across the room near one of the practice dummies. It wasn't his nature to engage in hand to hand combat, hardly the place of such a fragile creature to waste his hands on such pointless efforts. However, his father had taught him with all the bite of a soldier and all the expectation of another race. It wasn't in Dhlavasha's ready ability to comprehend the finer points of combat. He was a doctor, after all, and not some spear hurling barbarian. Often the Symenestra played at what they were not. Manipulators perhaps, murderers maybe, but they were all given a body ripe for subterfuge that bent in the harsh realities of battle like a dead reed.

Hurling hand forward, Dhalvasha slashed at the dummy, bring his hand up and scoring deeper divides across its burlap flesh. It tore hesitantly, a whisper of fabric as his claws dug along the body and beyond the shoulder. Twisting on his feet, turning even as he spun, the Symenestra scored another hit in the face, bringing other claws to bare across its stomach and, at last, its sides. He cared little for who watches, or how they winced as his frail muscles strained at the resistance of his toils.

He could hear his father in his ears, the bellowing voice of a madman, a creature who never wanted to be what he turned out to be...who never wanted a son like Dhalvasha turned out to be. Growling through the pain of it all, the Symenestra danced back on his feet and struck, again and again, his fists wild and form wilder. There was no grace to him, not then, not in the insanity of the moment. His chest heaved and he pulled back his arm, elbow bending before pushing it forward again, long arm spinning just beyond the reach of a human to lash black claws against brown skin...leaving marks there, the progress of his barbaric approach.

Chest heaving, Dhalvasha stepped back, turning and spinning a kick up at its head. It missed its mark, soaring lower and catching the thing by the neck. the momentum hurled the Symenestra off his feet and he twirled as he fell, desperately trying to land with some grace.

It was for naught and the clatter of stone brought painful perspective to his progress.

Sighing, he tried again, aiming higher. He had picked himself off the floor, but some of his drive was left, his punches and kicks leaving less of an impression now as exhaustion and frustration stole the confidence from his movements.

Again and again he hurled claws and feet at the thing till only a tattered waste of fabric remained.

Satisfied that he'd eviscerated the thing with enough result to motivate its eventual removal, Dhalvasha took a discarded Symenestra lash from the bin of available weapons to use and coiled the length. His father had once showed him the graces of such a weapon, a popular one among the people. Its length allowed for the distance most of them needed, and its manipulative end was more than capable of striking what was needed. Whipping it out, clumsily, the Symenestra twirled its length over his head before bringing it down against the dummy itself. Catching the fabric, the whip momentarily was pulled from Dhalvasha's hand. He stomached the embarrassment with a grimace, picking up the handle again and once more laying into the sackcloth thing. Again and again he swung the lash, catching it at its apex and whipping again to allow the thing to slash outward. A striking snake then, its purpose to cut and entangle. He allowed himself the smallest of smiles, ripping the corded lash around the tangled mess that he'd left behind and pulling sharply. It tore, fabric giving away to stronger material.

It tore like flesh.

Dhalvasha was suddenly uncomfortable.

He let out his breath then, all the annoyance at his father and nagging patients. He was done for the day, turning from her and heading to the door, taking his discarded crossbow and discarding the lash along the way.

He said nothing as he left, his demeanor as cold as when he entered.

In the grand scheme of things...she was not important.