[Knirin Gardens] First Days are Always the Hardest (Closed)

[Aren]

2nd of Spring, 512 AV Riverfall, the Knirin Gardens "Today is the first day... of the rest of your life. After today, the person who you were will cease to be, and a new individual will be born in it's place," Aren's back was turned to his audience, as he parroted his father's own words, from so long ago. He must have been what, seven or eight years old, the first time his father had brought him to the gardens with a weapon in hand. The towering man had seemed so imposing, so frightening, amidst the sounds of rushing water and sparring warriors. Of course, now the water that coursed through the gardens was nothing but black goop, and there were no warriors sparring anywhere around. In fact, there wasn't much of anyone around. Most people were still busy dealing with the aftereffects of the djed storm, either helping with the reconstruction, or just trying to figure out what to do with themselves amidst all the chaos. Aren looked back, with a bit of a mischievous smile, "I don't believe in that crap, though..." he said, turning around. "What I do believe in, however, is that strength is not something you're born with. It's something you earn. It's something you fight for, tooth and nail. You pay for it, with your body and your mind. If, at the end of the day, your blood and your sweat aren't covering the ground... then you did something wrong," Aren explained his philosophy for training, which, although admittedly a bit exaggerated, had not steered him wrong in more than a century of existence. "I will show you no mercy, because your enemy will show you none. I will feel no pity, because your enemy will feel none. I will come at you with all the fury I possess, because I do you a disservice otherwise," the akalak uttered, sounding a little over the top, but that was the point. Meera had to realize that this wasn't going to be the same thing they had done at the gardens last time. That had just been a little light exercise, something to tire the drykas out a bit. This was going to be something else entirely. "Are you ready?" he asked, sincerely.

[Meera]

Meera stood alone in his audience against a disgusting backdrop of sludge tumbling slowly over boulders and rocks. She stood in one of her new chemises - a flowery thing. It was another one of those attempts to be more feminine and it was in a new Spring cut. Meera had never felt so fashionable in her life. At her back, as a complete juxtaposition to her lovely shirt, a quiver full of arrows was slung and her curved bow hung off the sleeve. Osri's hilt took its usual spot on her calf by sticking out of her boots and in her hand did she wield her short blade, holding on to it like it was a knight's broadsword. Her hands flexed their grip several times as the tip aimed low.

She stifled a bit of laughter as best she could as Aren spoke as though he were some grand master of everything ever. He sounded so pompus and pious and not like Aren at all that it was quite funny. Thankfully, Aren found himself at least a little bit humourous and when he explained his own personal views on what he said, Meera outright guffawed in his face, her hold on the sword faltering as she broke concentration. A hand covered her mouth as she did so, as though in effort to muffle the loud laugh. Her face strained as she tried to keep herself composed and her mouth twitched as it struggled to lose its smile.

It was easy enough to lose once Aren decided to get serious. He took on a whole new presence, one that was aggressive and dominant. It challenged Meera's own personality. She was the take-charge woman, the one who called the shots. Seeing him diminish her authority in a blink of an eye Meera felt a growing presence of hostility inside her. At the Akalak's warning that he would show no mercy, all Meera could think was how much she wanted him to hit her. Let his large body try swing a fist fast enough to hit her wiry frame. Let his large, slow scythe try cut her like the weed she was. Everything about himself was so grand and large that Meera couldn't help but think that she had already won this fight. He would feel no pity along with his lack of mercy? Then Meera would laugh as he bled and she would dance as she walked away.

This "training" session was definitely not what she had expected. Granted, the woman would still have fun with it because it reminded her of how Patros taught her to find makeshift weapons and how to use her environment to her advantage. She was gangly, but short compared to him. Would Aren remember to aim low? Because Meera would. She was already well educated in the weak points of a man - she was a pretty child and pretty children needed to be taught how to defend themselves. Meera would not just defend, she would attack. Her arrows would pierce deep, her blade would find organs, and her hands would choke him until he turned purple, because she certainly did not think a blue man would continue to be blue with lack of precious air.

He sure was talking a lot, Meera observed, and she started to grow slightly weary of his tirade. It seemed almost like he was stalling. Maybe he didn't want to spar with her, maybe he had originally wanted what the Drykas had expected: an almost clinical representation of Aren's weakpoints. Cut the throat, sweep the leg, split him navel to nose with her blade. Meera had chosen to start with her short sword. She had purchased it and had yet to use it, and spilling the blood of her suitor seemed a great way to christen the blade. Again she flexed her hold on the sword.

Would it be better to fight with herself so stacked with weaponry, or to leave her arrows some place where she could get them if she needed to? Meera held the sword in her good hand as she looped her hand into the strap for the quiver and bow to remove. Meera was not particularly a swift runner, and Aren did have a longer stride than her, but this was something she had confidence in.

Should she start with the bow instead? Aren would probably charge at her with his scythe, she thought. It would be better to keep a distance. No, she decided. She would keep the arrows and bow at her back incase she needed them. If they slowed her too much she could drop them.

"Ready." She answered and spread her legs into a wider stance to lower her already low centre of gravity and readied her sword.

[Aren]

Aren smiled, as he crossed his hands behind his back. He walked around Meera, his eyes always on her, without drawing any closer. As he did so, he used his body to hide the fact that his hands were producing a large amount of res. The gooey substance floated around his arms, and there was enough of it that if it was all transmuted at the same time, the subsequent blast of wind was capable of knocking a full grown akalak off their feet. The effect it would have on a tiny human girl was anybody's guess. "First lesson..." the akalak said, as Meera answered his question. The drykas was as prepared as she could get. Her stance was good, nice and low to the ground, and her weapons looked like they were in a position to do some damage. The akalak knew, however, that being prepared only meant that you now had a chance to win. "You're never ready!" Aren shouted, as he suddenly thrust a hand out in front of him, a potent, concentrated blast of wind following the action. He didn't think Meera would still be standing after the attack, but even if she was, Aren still had another arm ready to bring her to the ground in case of that eventuality. His goal was to teach her the first, and arguably most important lesson for any true warrior to learn: readiness is an illusion. You can think you are capable of defeating your opponent, you can think that you have what it takes to fight them, you can think that you know what they're going to throw at you. Unfortunately, in this world, those very thoughts could be ideas planted in your mind by an enemy you have already lost to.

[Meera]

It was obvious Meera would no longer be standing after the blast of wind.

Meera had waited for Aren to attack first, to run with his large scythe and swing at her weed-body. When he failed to move, he tucked his hands behind his back and stared her down. She didn't like that. His eyes which were at one point friendly quickly became eerie and almost horrifying to the young woman. Meera thought that perhaps he was waiting for her to make the first move and so she took half a step -- and that's when he attacked. She was caught and lifted up, soaring like a leaf in the wind, twisting around in the air several turns before landing on her back, which knocked the wind out of her. Osri's hilt whacked against her leg and caused a spasm of pain in her calf muscle.

Meera turned her face to stare at Aren, her mouth agape and her eyes wide with surprise. She was caught completely off guard. It wasn't fair! He didn't say he would use magic! Meera still thought he was dumb to use magic, but she kept quiet. Her mouth closed as she rolled onto her front to stand and she felt for her bow to make sure it was still intact. If that wind shyke made her bow break on her landing, she was outright petched.

It was the most beautiful sight in the world at the moment: her bow was intact. She was so thankful and she said prayers of thanks to Zulrav for not allowing him to do more damage than spin her around. She quickly nocked an arrow once she was standing and fired at him. He was large and lumbering compared to Meera, so she knew if her aim was true he couldn't dodge the arrow in time. She fired at his leg, just above the knee. Twang. Gods, she loved that sound.

Haing fired her arrow she did not remain in place. The muscle spasm had not fully subsided so she did her best to strafe to the side, collecting her fallen sword and firing off another arrow, aiming for his other leg. She dropped the bow around her quiver and readied her sword. She did not expect the arrows to fell him. She expected them to continue to slow him down or cause him stumble.

[Aren]

Aren was silently relieved that he hadn't lost control of his djed again. He had been gambling on the hope that the effects of the storm would have subsided by now, or his attack could have become something more than he had intended. Now that the first lesson was conveyed, the akalak wanted to give Meera some time to absorb it. He couldn't simply tell her the words and expect her to truly understand. To really know what he meant, she had to come to the realization of it's meaning on her own. She had to experience the fact that she faced an enemy she couldn't possibly be ready for. She had to feel it in her bones. Then, and only then, could she learn lesson two. As the drykas swiftly came to her feet, Aren nodded in approval. Another person would have been reeling for awhile, as the surprise of the blast and the pain from hitting the ground addled their minds. Meera was up and on the offensive as quickly as her body allowed it, however, which was as good of a sign as you could hope for. Aren extended his other arm out, as she was getting up, preparing to knock her back down to the ground. She was quick, however, swiftly firing an arrow and dashing off. The blast of wind swatted the arrow out of the air, but she was already gone. The akalak kept her eyes on her as she moved, smiling all the while. More res poured out of his body, this time rather visibly, as she strafed around him. Meera nocked another arrow, and Aren swiftly converted the res around him into what could be termed a protective vortex of wind. It was not an easy task, to say the least, but he knew he had to make her think that he could do this all day. As the drykas exchanged her bow for her sword, Aren was silently glad of it. He honestly didn't know how many more arrows he could deflect, before his spells started going out of control. "Do you still think you're ready?" he asked, sounding cocky as all hell, as wisps of translucent res floated around him, ready to do his bidding at a moment's notice. Of course, they were mostly just there as a deterrent. Meera wasn't stupid. She knew that as long as Aren had his djed, bows and arrows would be useless against him. At least, that's what he wanted her to think. The fact that she didn't know anything about magic was a problem, and one he would have to remedy at some point. Not right now, though. Right now she had to learn more fundamental things. "Come at me, then. Show me how well you can use that thing," Aren stated, already guessing just how well she could use the weapon in her hand. He had noticed her readjusting her grip on the sword before, like someone who's not used to it... the whole thing was in stark contrast to the quickness and confidence with which she used a bow.

[Meera]

An open invitation sounded like a trap. He easily brushed his hand and swatted her arrows out of the air like they were inconsequential flies buzzing around his food. It made Meera frustrated, but she knew their battle had just started, and she couldn't think this would be easy. Being frustrated would not help her win. Now that she was on the business end of his manipulations of wind, Meera did not want to be there again. She did want to bust his skull open with her sword, and could she really think Aren wouldn't blast her with another gust of Djed? She could see it still accumulating on his fingers. Had he no concern for her at all - that he would just throw himself out into the world like that, and throw himself away at her?

Good. She didn't want the sappy shyke with him anyways. Being sappy and girly just wasn't her and it bothered her on a deep level that she thought it was a good idea to buy special clothes strictly because they were courting. The thought could easily make her vomit, but at least that garbage was over with. Now they were in a relationship - a proper one: beating the crap out of each other. Meera gave a wormwood smile.

The temptation to run and swing was too great. She couldn't keep using her arrows, though. They did next to nothing with his wind. If Meera ran fast, she could probably pummel through the wind and get a jab in or two, but she couldn't run head-on.

She took off on a running start, allowing herself to walk into the trap. It might be her only chance to get close to him to use her sword. Meera's braid swayed wildly behind her as she bolted towards him and serpentined her run, zigging and zagging. Being three feet from him she dropped and swung out her body, with hopes of catching him with her foot behind the ankle. In her hands she raised her sword to swing down, hopefully to cut him deep across his thigh.

[Aren]

Aren smiled, noticing that it didn't seem to be too hard for Meera to forget who she was fighting. Some people just couldn't bring themselves to try and hurt someone they cared about. Even he, despite all he had said, could not really bring himself to be merciless, to be pitiless. Though he himself could not help but hold back, the drykas didn't seem to have that problem. Maybe it was because she recognized that if she didn't give it her all, she wouldn't be able to do much of anything, or maybe it was because she wouldn't feel too bad if she cut Aren up a little. Either way, it was a good sign that she had what it took to end his life, from an emotional perspective, if it ever came to that. Now, all he had to do was make sure she could actually do it. The akalak inched his body out of the way of her clumsy strike, "That would have been close... if you had a few more feet of blade," he said with a mild laugh, mocking the drykas' swordsmanship, which was practically nonexistent. Readjusting his body, Aren turned towards Meera as she slid past him, a single eyebrow raised in obvious contempt of her skills, "Are you sure you were ready when I asked? Because I can give you a minute if you need to catch your breath," his golden eyes seemed to suggest that she was as much of a threat to him as a newborn child. Being as stubborn as Meera was, Aren doubted she would easily cede to his point of view. The girl had stuck her hand in a glassbeak's mouth just so that she could kill it; she hadn't had much of a choice, in that particular instance, but she had assumed the action would be the end of the beast. A justifiable assumption, but she had to learn that she couldn't think that way in combat, especially combat against another person. In addition, her recklessness was not something that was going to serve her well in the future, and it was certainly going to be a flaw that Seros would exploit to lethal effect. Stubborn or not, however, fearless or not... Aren was determined to get his point across. The fact that she was rushing at him like a crazed lunatic, though, meant she wasn't quite there yet.

[Meera]

The fact that Aren was talking to her so much told her that he did not particularly want to fight her. She had grown up fighting a man that she had cared for if only in a fatherly sense and he had sparred with the young child to teach her. It became apparent that Aren's cockiness was something he fell back on constantly. His ego was his weapon, she thought. The blade was a weapon she was very unfamiliar with and Aren saw that truthfully; her lack of skill with the weapon, with the weakened strength in her dominant hand, would be her downfall in this fight. She needed to gain skill with the sword and she did need to gain her strength in her arm, but was this the appropriate time to do so? Meera was able to disassociate herself from Aren for the time being, it was true. Once she cut him however, she wasn't sure how she would handle it. On the other hand, Aren had beaten himself up over her Glassbeak scars - scars she was very proud of - and it wasn't even his error. Now, he threw wind at her like he was Zulrav himself and didn't bat an eye at her wellbeing, or how her leg still seemed to twitch with ache. She could fight through her leg pain. She knew it wouldn't incapacitate her nor be fatal. Aren was using range to keep her from him, though. He was constantly distancing himself from her, and this was not what the blonde expected. She expected a lumbering fool of a man and to a degree he was. Aren was slow, but Meera was slower still. She was swift with only two things: Darksand and Osri.

He had rolled easily out of her sweep and strike and recovered, but he had not backed away. Meera swung with her long blade, reaching far with her body to catch him low in the shins or ankles - it mattered not. Osri would taste his blood and be sated. She grabbed the hilt and bathed the jade in bright sunlight as Aren was winding down his speech. Keeping the blade against her arm concealed the weapon as she stood, doing her best to keep her strength up and be upright in a timely manner. She was rushing herself, exhausting herself. She hadn't sparred in almost two moons, and now she was injured.

But that's what Aren wanted. He was talking to keep her angry, to shut her down. To treat her like the girl he still believed her to be. To keep Meera frustrated would wear her down faster, and still being drunk from the night before helped her rise to his bait. Meera stood and came up with a strategy.

She could throw Osri once she gained some distance. He would preoccupy himself with the blade's trajectory, allowing her the time to ready and fire an arrow - something that she was sure would hit him. Aren had used a lot of magic so far. There must certainly be a limit. If he used magic on Osri he shouldn't be able to use it again without giving too much of himself, she thought. Or he could simply dodge Osri, use Djed on the arrow, and then she could run at him with the blade. He couldn't avoid her forever.

She took a few quick steps behind her and as she did that she flung the dagger to land somewhere off to his side to land a step behind him to his right. Before she could see where the precious dagger landed she quickly readied the bow, firing off an arrow to the other side of him, then another directly square in the chest for good measure.
She dashed at him then, crouching in her sprint to keep herself from being flung and to collect her dropped sword without losing time.

[Aren]

Aren knew that jade dagger of her's was bound to make an appearance, but he didn't put much faith in her ability to use the weapon. He had seen her use it first hand, and he knew that she had no real skill with it. When Meera threw the blade at him, the akalak simply couldn't help but ignore it. Even if she knew how, a blade like that was not meant to be used as a throwing weapon and so the chances of it doing any damage, even if it connected, were very small. The drykas returned to her bow. It was a smart choice. She knew every other weapon in her arsenal was worthless, so she was betting on what she was good at. Aren smiled, realizing that he would likely have to resort to magic once again, therefore this couldn't go on much longer. She was going to learn, even if he had to use himself as an object lesson. At Meera's first arrow, Aren swatted it away as he normally did. Her second arrow, he noticed, seemed to be more on target. This one, he decided, would be the one. The akalak placed his hands in front of him, in a defensive posture, covering any vital spots. When the arrow hit, it pierced his thick forearm, penetrating almost halfway through. Lucky, Aren though, as it seemed to be a clean through and through, missing the bone. "Ow..." he commented in a bit of a monotone, sounding like he actually didn't feel any pain at all. The moment he felt the sting in his arm, however, Aren sprinted forward to meet his assailant. Using her own momentum, applying some pressure to her head or her back would make it easy for the akalak to bring her to the ground, and then use his weight to keep her there. It was going to be tricky, with one arm, but Aren was confident that he could manage it. Meera had no dagger now, only a cumbersome sword she didn't know how to use and a bow she couldn't use while they were charging towards each other. If she decided to backpedal all of a sudden, he'd be on top of her before she could pull out an arrow. If she decided to swerve to avoid the imminent collision, his longer stride would see her caught before she got too far. Using an arrow as a makeshift dagger would be an equally bad idea, as Aren was not a mindless glassbeak that would recklessly stick his mouth in her hand.

[Meera]

At least she had first blood, and that was exciting. He couldn't avoid injury forever and now she had pegged him with her arrow. Still was it lodged in his arm when he charged to meet her. Deciding it was worthless to try and avoid him when she was running up to meet him, she continued her path head-on, her left hand aiming the sword at him as steady as she could.

Aren was upon her faster than the young woman could blink. No sooner had she scratched him with her sword did he pummel her, and so Meera took a quick hold in the arrow still lodged in his arm, realizing the clean entry and twisted the shaft with all her willpower. It hadn't hurt Aren before to be shot with an arrow, it was likely this wouldn't hurt him either, but she had to try. She shifted and pressed her body against Aren for a brief moment to avoid the spilling of blood on her clothes. She wouldn't want another shirt completely bloody if she could avoid it.

Meera twisted underneath him as she had done to Patros. The move, squirming her body underneath the Akalak's, was one that was always effective. It distracted her opponent into focusing on specific parts of her body, and those parts when they brushed against her opponent, usually changed the dynamic in their head and suddenly the interest in fighting was lost, leaving Meera an opening.