Solo [Kendoka Sasaran] Better stand back

[Starling Frost]

10th day of fall, year 513

Starling stood in the doorway of the Kendoka Sasaran, eyes somewhat wider than they usually were. Yesterday she had seen a man in a park practicing with an unusual weapon- long silken rope with a metal dart on the end. The rope and wound and unwound from his body as he seemed to dance between the whirling strands, dart lashing out from all angles and directions. It seemed like just the sort of think that Starling should learn- elegant, graceful, and in some sense technically a weapon which might get her citizenship.

The Kendoka Sasaran, however, was full of men with enormous muscles on their enormous frames, beating each other silly with wooden sticks. Not a nice place, and if one of them gave her a whack she had no doubt they would smoosh her down into a pulp on the floor.

A man similar in size to several mountains Starling had seen approached her, moving quietly for all of his size and so she gave a bit of a jump when he spoke to her.

"What can I help you with girl? Got a message for someone or something?'

Starling swallowed delicately.

"No sir, I thought that I would learn to fight."

"Did you now?"

"I sort of did, although I was hoping not to be slain whilst learning. That would sort of defeat the purpose."

The man grunted noncommittally, as if he'd not thought over that aspect of things before.

"I saw this man using a weapon in the park, a 'rope dart' he called it, and..."

The man held up a hand and Starling fell silent.

"Esook, this one is your problem."

Starling's eyes turned to follow the words, and she saw a man standing on the far side of the room. He was shorter, or at least what passed for short for Akalak, his skin a dark twilight blue. There was not an ounce of fat anywhere on him, which was abundantly clear due to his lack of a shirt. Casually he sauntered over, and stood looking down at Starling. Starling repeated her ambitions, and he gave a slow careful nod.

[Starling Frost]

Wordlessly, Esook disappeared out the door, and a few minutes later returned with a light silken rope and a small leather pouch which had been sewn shut around a small handful of sand. He handed these items to Starling.

"Rope dart is not a bad weapon for you," he said. "It's a light weapon, not much good against armor, but if you meet a guy in armor you should be running anyway. If you practice and learn the skill you can keep your attackers at a distance, which is good if you're a little girl."

Starling looked down at herself, giving her torso the critical eye.

"Well that's good, because it turns out that I am."

Esook nodded in agreement.

"First thing to learn is to tie your own practice weapon. Rope dart is a hard weapon to learn and you'll kill yourself if you use a real one. Here's what you do: put your hand out flat, all four fingers together. Now wrap the rope around them four times. Yeah, like that. OK, pull your fingers out. Now, wrap the rope around those coils four times, going perpendicular. No, not like that, like this."

Esook made motions with his hands, but did not touch the rope to show her how it was done, soon Starling got the idea.

"Now, you want to do four more loops, going over the ouside loops and under the inside loops. Yeah, like that, but don't pull it tight yet."

When Starling was done, he said "OK, now poke that bag into the middle of the loops, then you sort of pull the ends and get all the loops to tighten around it."



Esook took out a knife and trimmed off the short end of the rope, leaving the weighted ball on the end of a long strand or rope, which he shortened with the knife to 9 feet in length.

"Some people use a much longer rope, but that's not how we begin. Can't have you whacking everyone in the room."