15th Day of Fall, 510 AV The ring of the 5th bell is heard throughout Syliras... The day was young. Pain drank greedily from her waterskin, wiping the runaway fluid from the sides of her mouth with a bandaged forearm. She had left the city gates of Syliras moments ago, now heading south alongside the road. Of course, her trusty companion Tanny trotted alongside her, wagging his tail in anticipation for the days events. Pain glanced down at his face, and he seemed to be smiling. Could a dog smile? Well, hers could. She reached into her satchel, rummaging through the pockets until she found a small morsel of dog food. Holding it out in her palm, she allowed Tanny to jump and pull the treat from her hand. "Good boy!" She said, sounding a little too motherly for her tastes. She made exceptions for Tanny. After a few more minutes of walking, the two broke away from the beaten path, approaching a small tree that stood alone in the grass. Pain had been here several times, and had scraped the bark off one side of the tree to a height of about five feet. This was where she practiced. Now, fighting wasn't something Pain thought she would ever do regularly. Far from it. It had simply turned out that she was quite good at it, and she was not one to waste talent. As Tanny took his position aside the tree and curled into a ball, Pain began to hop up and down on the balls of her feet. She would usually stretch for a few minutes before doing anything rigorous. Pulling muscles and having cramps weren't exactly her idea of staying fit. She pulled her arms back to stretch her chest muscles, and pushed her neck to loosen it up. A few more ritualized patterns of stretching, and Pain felt warm enough to begin. "Don't worry Tanny, you don't have to move. Momma won't miss." She cooed, observing that her companion's ears twitched. Of course, he was allready asleep. What a beautiful life. Without preamble, she began. Pain's methodology for fighting was a balance of focused aggresion and close quarters manuvering. She started off by jabbing the tree, and following up with a punch from her opposite reach arm. The punches came slow, at half speed at first, until a few cycles she began impacting the tree with a solid thud. Her fists were wrapped in a manner to brace her hand and knuckles, and a piece of leather was placed inbetween the bandages across her knuckles to both increase abrasiveness to the enemy, and soften the blow to her own body. As she was satisfied with her punching form, Pain began to integrate elbow attacks into her steady stream of jabs and rear arm jabs. The trick with using her elbows was to fold her hand into her chest when she struck to to fully extend her elbow's bony edge. Otherwise, her forearm may be the point of contact, and that was marginally effective if at all. Not to mention punching herself in the sternum on occasion was most unpleasant. Left jab, right jab, right elbow, left elbow... she struck the tree purposefully, making sure to swivel her hips in the direction of the attack for increased momentum. To practice elbow attacks was tricky, because the nature of the target surface usually ended with her scraping and cutting the thin skin that covered the bony bludgeons. Of course, this time was no different. "Urghh!" Tanny lifted an ear, and half opened his eyes to see pain inspecting her right elbow. She had come across too hard on the softened surface of the tree, and even without it's bark, she had managed to split open a new wound. Pain muttered to herself as she walked to her satchel, casually flung to the ground several feet away. She produced a long, thin piece of cloth and wrapped it around her elbow. As she tied it off and was satisfied that she had stymied the bloodflow, she returned to her tree. "Tanny, I know what you're thinking..." she said, as she began to bounce on the balls of her feet and assumed her stance yet again. "You're thinking... master, you're an artist! Why do you always come out here and beat up trees?" The statement was punctuated by the solid thud of her lower shin pounding the tree, a trademark kick having been executed. Pain brought her leg down, and inverted her stance. She would put her weight on the ball of her forward foot, and swing her leg in an arcing motion to roughly the area of her opponent's neck. Meanwhile, utmost care had to be taken to maintain the her guard, which meant keeping her right fist centered near her chin and denying it the impulse to flail about. Her other hand, however, was released from guard duty, and allowed to swing backwards to increase momentum. Her hips movement could not be forgotten either. Foot, hips, arm; the three areas of focus for momentum and balance in Pain's kick, all equally important. The kick was executed much as the other, impacting the tree with the bottom of her shin. "Well Tanny..." she gasped inbetween kicks. "I'll tell you! It's because... studying only one thing... huah! Is worthless... You have to make sure... that you remain well rounded!" Another thud, and Pain's shins had taken enough beating for the day. She walked to her dog, and bent down to scratch behind his ears. "You see Tanny, if you want master art, you have to master the fist. If you focus only on art, you will become one dimensional, and boring. You can never attain greatness in something by ignoring everything else. That's the mark of obsession, and obsession only leads to failure." Tanny responded by rolling onto his back, begging for a belly scratch. Pain obliged, humoring her friend with a battary of tickles and scratches. "So why fighting? Well, i'm good at it. I learn things when I fight, about perspective and observation... I learn patience and focus. These are lessons wouldn't come to me in the same way if I only sat around and sketched." Content with his nap and massage, Tanny got to his feet. He looked up at her, showcasing the aging white fur around his eyes and running down his back. "Okay, I know, you don't care about that, right? We're done for today. You hungry boy? Me too... lets head back to town and get something for the both of us." Pain's knuckles, shins, elbows and knees all ached. It was a glorious feeling. Even more so, it was a glorious beginning to yet another normal, routine day. |