Timestamp: 10th of Fall, 511 AV
Location: Training grounds
"Get up, you petching sha'lokk! You're getting ass all over the dirt."
For the second time that day in the span of three chimes, Siiri found herself lying on the training arena's earthen ground, her rump smarting painfully, but not much as her wounded pride. She couldn't remember how she ended up in a fight with Eena, the events of the past half hour came by too fast for her to think straight. Not that she could, being so pissed at her superior officer and all.
Or rather, ex-superior officer. Siiri had been temporarily discharged from service to give her injured arm time to heal, and the fact did not sit well with Eena. Siiri had been her second before her grievous injury, and without the skilled warrioress to act as the anchor for their fang in skirmishes outside the city walls, Eena's group had become the butt of jokes within the barracks. It was no secret that her fang had performed poorly over the last season because of Siiri's absence.
And so Eena had decided to vent her frustrations on the one person she thought was to blame for her loss of face. Marching up to Siiri, a storm brewing in her expression, the Swooping Talons interrupted the class her subordinate was teaching and let loose a plethora of rather unpolite words. Most of what she had said revolved around Siiri's widening hips and plumper-than-usual bosom, for the Snapping Jaws warrior had indeed put on a little weight from her time off, and not all of it was muscle. Now for her part, Siiri - also frustrated herself because of the lack of action due to her reprieve - realized that she did not have to stand to military protocol, and suggested to Eena that she do something anatomically impossible, though her words were much more colorful and her tone more forceful than a stampeding herd of tskanna. In the rational part of her mind, Siiri knew that Eena was just letting off steam. But then, Siiri was seldom rational when she herself as ticked off.
The next thing she knew, Siiri had left the class to the care of one of her sisters and had marched off to the training grounds to settle her differences with Eena. And now she was lying on her back.
Again.
A smattering of chuckles echoed through the loose crowd that gathered to watch the duel between the fangmates, the loudest among them belonging to Goro. Siiri did not have time to think of a curse word to direct at the lumbering fool, so focused was her anger at Eena. The woman was embarrassing her in front of everyone - Siiri had seen Kash'jiya, a one-time sponsor for her Tiger Trials, among the crowd, a frown on her face as she beheld the spectacle of the fight - and to add insult to injury, Eena was using a spear to school her. A spear! It was a well known fact that Siiri despised what she thought was the crudest and simplest form of weapon, and now Eena was using it to own her in the training grounds.
Without her injury, Siiri would have cleaved the spearhead off on her first move and told Eena that she would take away the shaft next and then tell her where she would put it. As it were, however, Siiri was technically fighting one handed. Oh, she could hold her greatsword with both hands now with hardly any pain on her once-broken right forearm, but swinging it around was another matter entirely. Her right arm was still covered by the quick-drying poultice Tingu had applied, and then wrapped with herbs that were supposed to seep into the poultice and promote healing, and then wrapped once more with bandages. The herbalist had told her that the broken bones had fused together just fine and it would be good as new in no time. At that moment however, to the warrioress, it felt like the limb was encased in stone. It hampered the speed of her swings, blocks and counterattacks, allowing Eena to beat on her with abandon.
And she's even using moves I patented, Siiri groused. Bitch.
The attacks that sent her sprawling in the dirt was a simple stabbing jab feint that, when blocked, was easily reversed to sweep the opponents of their feet. It was a trick Siiri had used to embarrass others, and now it was being used on her. Quite effectively too, since she was too slow to prevent it even if she knew it was coming.
But ever prideful, the Snapping Jaws warrioress refused to use her injury as an excuse.
For the second time that day, Siiri stood up, holding Slayer in a neutral position. She did not bother to dust off the dirt that clung to her tanned skin.