72nd of Spring, 515AV
Orin woke early as was his custom. Moving carefully so as not to disturb Sylvette, Orin threw on his clothes and slipped on his boots. Easing the door open carefully, Orin shut it just as slowly, not letting it slam shut and awaken Sylvette. If she did wake up it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but Orin tried to be conscientious of his Kelvic. She worked hard and Orin tried not to impose on her needlessly. He still couldn’t quite believe he of all people had ended up bonded. However, there was something he’d been trying to prevent. In all of his careful inquiries about Kelvic and the bonds they formed, he’d discovered that many people thought of the Kelvic bondmate as more of a glorified servant at best and a slave at worst. Not everyone had said that in so many words but it was the distinct impression Orin had received. And Orin refused to let that be the case between Sylvette and himself. There had been no reason for that assumption about Kelvic except that was how people thought of them. Not so much in Syliras where slavery was forbidden but travelers who ate at The Rearing Stallion had been a much more useful source of information. While they hadn’t outright stated their opinions, being afraid of the Syliran Order finding out most likely, they had made it quite easy to read between the lines.
Still, such musings could be put off to a later time and a later date. Orin had some training to get to. He’d finally figured out, after almost a season and a half, how to cut down on his training time. He’d been running laps around the Anthonius Fighter’s Pits as a warm-up and to work on his endurance until one morning he’d had a brilliant idea. If he ran to the Pits, then he’d have more time to work on his actual combat skills each day. So he set off in an easy lope. He always started a bit slowly, having just woken up, but eventually, about halfway between his apartment and the pits Orin had reached a faster run. It wasn’t quite a sprint but it was about as fast as Orin could sustainably run for a decent distance. Luckily his apartment wasn’t too far from the Pits so this exercise wasn’t excruciatingly painful. Still Orin was running for long enough that when he finally did arrive his chest was heaving and he had the beginning of a stitch in his side. He dropped to a walk and kept moving, gulping in huge bursts of air, until his body had marginally settled down.
Still feeling a burn, albeit a more pleasant and manageable one, Orin took a quick glance around the Pits. It was sparsely populated, as it usually was during the mornings but there were a few people scattered here and there. The sun was covered by a thin layer of clouds and the air had a bit of a chill to it, unusual but not impossible this late in the season. Orin just hoped it warmed up a bit later, although if it got too hot that would be even worse. The kitchen was unbearable during the truly hot spells. Still, there was nothing Orin could do about the weather so he went to work on his roll. All season Orin had been working to master his forward and backwards roll but since he could barely do the first few steps of the forward one, he’d never gotten up the courage to attempt the backwards roll. And he wouldn’t until the forward roll was mastered. Keeping his knees loose, Orin threw himself forward. Keeping his arms out of the way, Orin made sure to hit shoulder first, his right shoulder this time, and rolled to his opposite hip. However, as usual, instead of the motion continuing, Orin just stayed there flat on his back. If he did it right, this was supposed to let him spring to his feet at the end of the tumble. Unfortunately, Orin never ever did it correctly. Supremely frustrated, Orin got to his feet then repeated the whole process over again, this time aiming for his left shoulder. Channeling his annoyance at himself, Orin fell forward with an extra spring and more force than usual. He hit his shoulder jarringly but managed to continue into the roll. And, like a miracle, Orin found his feet and still had momentum at the end, so he sprang up, then stumbled a few steps before catching himself. It was far from pretty but at least Orin had been marginally successful in his endeavor. Not wanting to ruin the moment by attempting another roll and failing, Orin simply left it, vowing to come back and work another day.
Unsheathing his dagger, Orin went to go work on his form. He ran through his basic high, middle, and low slashes and his stabs. He did a few spins ending in a thrust to be used on an opponent that was behind him, then practiced switching from grip to grip in the middle of a sequence to see if he had enough control over the blade to manage it. It turned out he didn’t as his blade dropped during one such switch. In general, his attacks had been sluggish and lackluster. Orin wasn’t really feeling much enthusiasm towards working on his dagger today. Giving it up as a lost cause, Orin put the knife away, then scanned the Fighter’s Pits for a spare dummy. When he spotted one, Orin went over to it, then squared off. Making fists, Orin threw a punch with his right hand then immediately followed it with an uppercut with his left. While his technique was sloppy, this was infinitely more satisfying than slashing at the air, since Orin was actually hitting something. However, Orin had worked on his punches quite a bit and had realized that he didn’t really know how to kick at all. Unlike when he had learned to punch, there wasn’t anyone working on their own kicks today so there wasn’t anything Orin could base it off of. So, instead Orin tried to remember the kick Aren had used on him. It had kind of swept across Orin’s legs and knocked them out from under them, but Orin hadn’t been able to tell exactly how it had worked in the heat of the moment. However, Orin kicked at the dummy and tried to make it travel across the dummy’s body. The dummy, though, was stationary and instead of falling over as Orin had it simply bruised Orin’s right shin to make that attack. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Orin just kicked at the dummy with his foot, the sole of his boot landing on the lower part of it. Orin liked to think it had just landed on the dummy’s privates, if indeed it had such. Still, overall Orin was quite unhappy with his training today.
