Solo [The Old Mill] Dagger Antics Part 2

[Caela Dorin]

4th Summer 514AV

Switching something from one hand to another could be difficult at the best of times. Passing something sharp between your hands and maintaining a safe grip on it was definitely not an easy task. If Caela tried it, she could see her hands getting cut to bits. While she didn't really need her hands in order to do her job, she was quite attached to them. She didn't want to have them full of slashes just because of her incompetence. The dancer would try it though and if she didn't get anywhere then she wasn't going to continue to do it.

Dismantling her practice dummy, she took some of smaller pieces of sacking and wound them around her hands so that she would have some sort of protection. Her fingers were wrapped separately so as not to hinder her movement but yet the protective wear felt strange and cumbersome all the same. It was awkward but if she wanted to try this then she couldn't risk doing it with bare hands. If she succeeded in doing what she intended then she might be able to risk taking the protection off. The dancer couldn't say that she was confident about what she was about to attempt. She could only imagine herself fumbling with the dagger uselessly and dropping it repeatedly. But she had to at least try.

Beginning with the dagger in her right hand in the forward grip that she was used to, she stabbed forward and then withdrew her arm and tried to pass the dagger from one hand to the other. She couldn't get a grip on it fast enough and so it clattered to the ground. The dancer repeated the action again with the same result before deciding to reassess things. She couldn't do it quickly enough but maybe she should work up to speed. It'd make more sense to be able to pass it safely without injury before learning to do it quickly.

Trying again, she thrust the dagger forward almost theatrically slow and drew it back. The young woman moved her hand to the left, pressing the hilt of the knife into her left hand and switching her grip to the new hand. She did the same thing a few more times switching between one hand and the other before beginning to speed the action up. The blonde dropped it a few times but picked it back up again and kept trying. She tried slashing the air and then switching hands which proved more difficult but she got the hang of that too after a few chimes.

The young woman wasn't sure that her speed was good enough. Yes, she could swap the blade from one hand to the other and at a reasonable speed but she wasn't sure that it was fast enough for a fighting situation. Trying to go any faster than she was already doing succeeded in her dropping the dagger most of the time. She doubted that she'd get faster anytime soon.

The young woman managed to grab the blade wrong, making a shallow cut in her left palm. As soon as she felt the edge bite in, the blade was released. She untied and retied the sacking so that it could serve as a bandage instead of protection. Flexing her fingers, she felt her palm sting with the movement. She could still train but it wouldn't be very comfortable. Perhaps it was time for a change in what she was doing so as not to risk injury again. Finding new gripping techniques perhaps? That seemed like the best course of action. She wouldn't remain here much longer anyway. It'd be better to have the cut seen soon just in case. No point delaying its healing any longer than necessary.

Word Count629 words

[Caela Dorin]

The young woman considered how she would grip a knife if she wanted to do things differently. She'd seen other people holding knives and daggers differently to how she'd been taught but there was an additional grip that Mal had shown her when he'd explained dagger usage to her in the first place. Avoiding the use of her left hand for now, the girl used her normal grip and moved her thumb up higher, out of contact with other fingers. She paused, scrunching her face up in concentration as she tried to remember how it had looked. Her thumb moved to the top of the dagger's hilt so that it was on the opposite side to her finger tips. That had been the one but there was a lot of danger in it.

There was no guard where the blade met the hilt and so if her grip loosened for a second, her thumb could end up on the edge of the blade. That wasn't something that she wanted. Instead she adjusted the angle of the blade so that her thumb would be safer even if a slip occurred. She moved it so that if her thumb moved position it would end up on the flat of the blade instead. She tested it, stabbing and slashing at the air but it didn't feel very secure. She wouldn't use that one again. Her normal grip was much safer. If she got a dagger with a guard though it might be a useful grip to use.

Experimentation was the key. She considered how else she could hold the knife. Placing the thumb on the flat of the blade had made her consider new, potentially dangerous possibilities. If she held the dagger normally with an edge up and an edge down then she could always move her thumb and place it on the flat of the blade. The dancer tried it but it made the weapon felt awkward in her hand. So that was a con to this particular hold, what else was wrong with it though. If something hit the tip of the blade hard enough and if her grip was just slightly too loose, the dagger might be pushed backwards, slicing into her hand in the process. It'd cut through the fleshy base of her thumb and probably through her palm as well. It was a sickening thought and one that she didn't want to entertain. She went back to her normal grip.

There weren't any other forward grips that she could think of or come up with so she considered another grip that she'd been thought, although she'd never used it. It hadn't seemed particularly helpful. She'd always expected to be attacked by targets taller than her so a forward grip made more sense. It allowed her to cut upwards but softer areas like the stomach were easily accessible. The other grip had always seemed like it could be blocked too easily but she'd been told that it could be useful. Turning the dagger so that it was positioned point down, she wrapped her fingers around the hilt and placed her thumb on the very end of the dagger. With this she could stab downwards but that didn't seem like a valuable attack. If she stabbed downwards like she was doing, whoever she was attacking was likely to see the attack coming long before she had a chance of making contact. It wasn't something that she could hold at her side either, at least not with any safety. The blonde was convinced that she was going to manage to stab herself in the leg.

Trying a different reverse grip, she tried to copy the way she normally held it except upside down. Her fingers wrapped around it and then her thumb wrapped around it, coming to rest across her index finger. It was more comfortable, more secure but she still wasn't sure that it was a position that she liked. The young woman placed the blade back into her belt and ran a hand through her hair in frustration. There was little that she could do on her own. She'd known that, had always known that, yet she'd tried. All it had shown her was how desperately she needed a sparring partner. There was no way for her to truly improve until she was in a somewhat real fight situation.

Giving the inside of the Mill one last look around, the dancer made her way outside. Where could she find someone to spar with her? Matthew was out because... well, she wouldn't be able to bear looking at him, let alone sparring with him. She could always go looking for Mal but she didn't know if he was dead or alive and she didn't want to see him again either. That left her with nobody. There were mercenaries that she could ask but they might be more inclined to laugh at her then help her. It was a tricky situation but there had to be someone in Sunberth who could help her out. It was a big city with all sorts of people in it so there had to be at least one person who could help her out. For a price of course.

Her left hand throbbed from where she'd cut it and she doubted that the damp and dirty bit of sacking that she'd tied around it had helped matters much. A quick glance showed that the sacking had been stained through with blood. This was definitely something that she'd have to have looked at. There was no point treating her own cut and maybe have it fester later. It seemed that a visit to the good Doctor was in order although the man creeped her out. If she could help it, she wouldn't go to him at all because he seemed more than a little warped in the head to her. But there was nobody else. Or was there? There had been rumours lately about a new medical place opening up somewhere. If she could find that then she wouldn't have to go to Doctor Loon. Whether the place existed or not, she was getting good medical care somewhere for sure.

Word Count1034 words