Timestamp: 35th of Summer, 522 A.V.
There was a kind of power in swinging a weapon. Tazrae understood what Gracelin had meant by calling it an extension of her body. And because she was wielding a bard’s weapon, the unity she felt linking her with the blade was almost a tangible thing. She’d promised Gracelin to practice faithfully, creating her wall of edge and defending herself behind it. There were other lessons she learned in her practice.
Her torso, for example, contained organs she couldn’t afford to get damaged. Her lungs, her heart, her kidneys, liver… even her stomach were vulnerable. She wanted children someday, so she had to guard even her ovaries and uterus. Taz created that defensive wall with her machete and made sure her body was behind it as she swung her machete through the forms, minding her breathing, and concentrating on keeping the weapon moving and lethal.
She kept her left arm as her shield, protecting her throat, face and chest. She wanted to take wounds on that arm, not on her body. Her arm between the machete and her torso was also her ‘in between’ protection and she didn’t forget that, moving it offensively against invisible enemies as she trained.
Each fight with her machete wasn’t a battle or a contest between her and someone else. It was, according to Gracelin, to be a timed event where she didn’t counter her oponent’s moves, but rather an opportunity to see how quickly she could disarm or disable her opponent.
If she couldn’t do either, death was also an option. She reminded herself in quick curt sentences in her mind that she wasn’t to drag it out. Be quick. Aim for the hand that’s holding the weapon to disarm an opponent. Cut fingers off. Cut limbs off. Cut a head off. Never hesitate. Blood is good, especially if it wasn’t her own. In that way, Taz could embrace her more feral aspect, fighting for keeps instead of fighting for technique. The dead don’t care how pretty a fighter looked. They were dead.
Gracelin wasn’t her only teacher though. Buraga had come around more than once and given her some pointers. She incorporated his teaching into her practice as well. He’d made some valid points. While Gracelin was an elegant fighter with a machete, Buraga advocated quick and dirty fighting, which was the style Gracelin had pushed Tazrae too. But Buraga’s approach was different. He had shown her how to lead with her empty hand, keeping her machete off her opponent’s view and notice until the very last minute when it might have been a mistake.
By leading with her empty hand, she kept her enemies focus on the hand that wasn’t deadly and off the one holding the machete. It was true that Sweet Refrain was larger than most machete’s, and more like a short sword, but people had a tendency to focus on the threat immediately before them rather than the threat immediately behind the threat immediately in front of them.