[Self training] Another day another struggle

[Fade]

It was early morning in Syliras, Fade had woken up at dawn as always and early riser after a night of sleeping rough.

Fade was working on another contortion. She would divide her days into 4 of rigours painful training and 3 for comfortable stretching.

She pulled her leg into a vertical split and hoisted herself up into a hand stand. Then she twisted until she coudn move anymore. She stayed in that position until her muscles twanged then she unravelled. Fade then did some bending exercise always pushing herself to her limit, and over. After some time she contorted again like before pleased that she could go a bit further.
A thin trickle of sweat fell from her forehead as she repeated this many times.

Then she took out pencil and paper twisted herself so her ankles were under her chin, stretched and started to write. She was proud of knowing how to read and write so she exercised, noting new words. She first made a list of all the things she could see and then added an adjective:
She wrote carefully taking great care in calligraphy, trying out different styles.

After some times her muscles started to protest but she ignored the pain.
Pain, she thought what is pain? Describe Pain
Pain is an unpleasant physical or emotional experience when we get hurt.
What I feel: Physical: Pulsing temples, Sharp pain streaking through my legs, Tingling and throbbing muscles.
Mental: Dullness, Crying, Depression.
Words that rhyme with pain: gain, insane, plain, sane, stain, slain, vane, vein, wane main, rain, blame, same, lame, chain.

She stopped as pain shot up her leg. She regained a normal position, standing up, her whole body protested. Contortionists are broken into two divisions: back benders and front benders. As this division implies, some are more flexible when they bend forwards, while others have spines which flex backwards more easily. Fade was a back bender.
She did a series of stretches that focused on her spine, arms and shoulders to warm up the muscles She held her arms straight up above her head and tensed the muscles to make them stiff and supple enough to support her weight and bent backwards slowly towards the ground.

She then took out her ball and started to toss it in the air catching it like you would an egg. The secret was cradling the ball not gripping it so it looked very fluent. She threw catching it first with one hand then the next trying to look at the ball the least possible. She then caught it behind her back and with the crook of her elbows.

She then did a ball routine:
Shifting her weight to the right, through plié. She then changed the ball to the left hand in front of her body, right arm extended to a high side diagonal.
She circled the ball to the left and around her body, arching backward in a body circumduction.
She rolled the ball in her right arm and cached it with her left hand by the right shoulder.
She then rolled the ball out the left arm and caught it in her left hand.
Leaning the upper body forward, she placed the ball on the back of the neck and released it so the ball rolled down her back, she then caught it with both her hands. She bounced the ball once with her hand then with her knee catching it then tossed it, did a back flip and caught it. She then put it on her back and did a vertical split and tried to pivot, the ball fell. She tried again this time managing a whole turned, she repeated this 5 times just to be sure. She did a handstand one foot pushing the ball against her leg as she contorted

She then rolled the ball up and down her body then from hand to hand then content she went to stretching again.

[Fade]

She saw a flight of steps so she went to them put her leg on the 3rd step the other one on the ground and did an oversplit.
The door burst open an angry man with an aquiline nose ran down the steps tripping neatly over Fade who suppressed a chuckle at the figure sprawled into the dirt.
The man got up venom in his eyes opened his mouth squinted at her and closed it.
He then said “Oh, and what is a beautiful young lady doing at this time of morning?” Fade groaned, she would have preferred some insults, now she had a nosy parker on her hands. She replied curtly getting up “I’m sorry that you tripped sir, good day”
She walked to the porch where her stuff was, he followed her. She ignored him and carried on stretching but he got on her nerves at one point “Can I help you?” “I’m a doctor you know!” He said patting his chest, she replied “And I’m a performer” He grinned at her saying “I can see that!” Fade’s patience came to an abrupt end, she gathered up her stuff and walked away hoping against hope he wouldn’t follow her, he did.

She walked randomly around sighed and turned sharply, he was still trailing after her grinning like an oaf. She sarcastically said “Yes, you are following me, very macho of you, now tell me what do you want.” He didn’t answer, of course he didn’t, he had nothing to say. She wandered a bit more, the man always on her tracks.
She turned into an alley with a dead end and walked till it's end, he came after her, she silently drew out her dagger and threw it at him.
It tore threw his shirt collar.
She lied “That was your lucky miss, want to see how lucky I can get” She made a show of groping for other daggers the man went away. He was the coward type lucky for her, she sighed and went to retrieve her dagger. She pondered as she passed it through her hands, she could catch knifes, a skill she had been taught by her only friend, but she couldn’t throw them, what a paradox. She was lucky she hadn’t hurt the man, but her throw had been completely random.

[Fade]

She threw the dagger into the air and caught it without effort like when she caught her ball.
She never made it fall, she experimented by throwing it first by the hilt then by the blade, she caught them no problem. When she was with the circus a boy had been employed for some time as a kitchen helper, he was obsessed with knifes. He showed her patiently how to catch them. He would throw, she would catch, being ambidextrous only helped. He had been much older than her she was, Fade remembered fondly his bright grey glinting eyes. What happened to him she didn’t know, and it was along time ago she mused.He had been her first and only friend, she sighed and walked out of the alley pushing the dagger into its sheath at her side.

The city was waking up, she looked around for the man, there was no sign of him. She sought out a new place were to train for a bit and write.

She made her way through the city until she spotted a good place, she settled down into a split and after taking paper and writing things out she started to write in a rich and ornate writing the whole alphabet, she took her time. Her legs didn’t ache this time, the split being such a normal position for her.

All of a sudden she started sneezing and coughing explosively. Ah, spring she thought, she was allergic to some pollen in the air. All of a sudden inspiration hit her, she wrote:

NEW YEAR...new year. We forget ourselves in the shimmering light as we shout and hope for a better future. The next day we wake up and nothing changes in our hearts. Weeks pass and yet we do not alter.
Oh, to collect those new year promises.Oh, to place them in a bottomless jar and crush them one by one. Oh, to dine on our shattered souls. The dates change around us but we stand fast in our pure stupidity hoping for the miracle that ,alas, shall never come. We believe in what can save us. We wait as children for a toy tinker that does not exist.

Grim, she thought as she re read the words she had written, it had nothing to do with spring though, strange how you could write something while thinking something else.


She then did some push ups, and gathered her things, ready for another day in Syliras

[Dusk]

XP Award! Fade XP Award: Acrobatics: 1 XP, Throwing Daggers: 1 XP, Writing: 1 XP Lore Award: Lore of Stalkers, Lore of Spring Allergies Additional Note Not a bad start for a training thread! You'll get more XP for longer threads/more posts, and for more action within those posts. But this was a very good start, and you definitely understood the point of a training thread - which is to exercise your skills! Also, I think you need to work your way through the Starting Guide for your CS - you don't have any housing listed, and you have several items on there that you haven't subtracted from your ledger. You'll need to look up their prices and figure all of that out. If you choose Housing in Syliras, please keep in mind that it will be a room within Stormhold Castle, not a cottage. And as an added bonus, your Racial Bonus as a human is +15, not +10, so you've got five more points to spend (although the max for any skill starting out is 30 points). PM me if you have any questions!