Solo Cousinly Love: Part II

[Ayatah]

|| 23rd Summer, 504 || The Scattered Bones’ family home || 12th Bell.

The traumatic training continued for Ayatah, two days a week. Roseane made her demands very clear; Ayatah was to train hard, and throw in every effort she had. To do otherwise would mean that Roseane would punish her younger cousin mercilessly, either by making her run laps or climb trees, or anything that Roseane thought was suitable.

Their training sessions had been solely focusing on Ayatah’s double-bladed dagger work, as Roseane thoroughly believed that it was where Ayatah was more like to die (a cheerful thought). Her cousin was a silent trainer, save for the demands she would give out. When the two women were in the midst of battle (and sometimes, Ayatah really did feel that she was being treated as an enemy) the only sounds were gasps and squeaks of pain - the latter usually from Ayatah.

“You need to incorporate your other arm.” Roseanne was saying. “Whilst you stab an enemy, you have to make sure they’re not stabbing you.”[googlefont=raleway]

She didn’t verbally reply, but Ayatah gave a single nod. Her chest was heaving, sweat rolling down her smooth skin. She was tiring, but Roseane had plenty of steam left in her. The other woman had been training and practising her weaponry skills for years - Ayatah’s first memories of her cousin were of her yielding her various blades. Even when she had been pregnant with her children, Roseane had hunted and trained just as hard, much to the distress of her mate.

Roseane suddenly rushed forwards, barging into Ayatah and almost knocking her to the ground.

Almost.

She managed to steady herself just in time, stepping backwards to catch her weight with her own foot. Something that her mother said popped in her mind at the moment: fighting is a little like dancing. It was something that Paira had told her daughter when Ayatah was much younger, and it had taken years for Ayatah to learn the truth in those words.

She pushed herself backwards, half-skipping to the side. Her oddly poetic movement levelled her with Roseanne, but the women were facing opposite directions. Out of the corner of her eye, Ayatah saw her cousin turn towards her, but mixed blood ran quicker than pure, and for once, she was ready.

When Roseane punched her blade forward, Ayatah brushed away her arm with a strike. The sheer speed with which she had struck her cousin’s forearm knocked it off target, and the pointed wooden blade missed Ayatah by a good few inches.

There was no time to smug, though.

She drove home her own blade with an undercut that connected her wooden dagger to Roseane’s ribcage. In the same way that her cousin had taught her just days before, she twisted her wrist back and forth, walking the two blades of the dagger across her cousin’s body.

”This time, you’re dead.” She tried to fight the pride out of her voice, but a small smile certainly tugged at her lips.

Roseane was less impressed. “One success out of a dozen does not make you a solider.” There was hardly any expression in her cousin’s voice, as always. If anything, there was slight disdain. Her face was calm, straight, focused. Roseane let nothing distract her from battle or training, not even a small smile or laugh. She is wired for fighting Ayatah thought as they positioned themselves again.

“This time, you’re not going to stab blindly and hope for a hit,” Roseane arched her back, her bones clicking and releasing thankfully “instead, you’re going to parry my stabs, and simply try to stop me stabbing you.” It sounded easy in words, but Ayatah knew that the task would be far from it. Her cousin was much, much stronger than herself, to the point that a strength-based task would be mere child’s play to Roseane. Why is she doing this?

All the same, Ayatah mirrored her cousin, who stood facing her with her blade held up high. When Roseane bought her dagger down slowly and pointedly, Ayatah did the same. Eventually, the two women stood positioned as if their daggers were tiny swords. Confusion still clouded Ayatah’s thoughts, but she shook her head to clear her mind. If she was distracted for even a fraction of a second, her cousin would know and punish Ayatah mercilessly.

“You say that you are not a true Myrian, but that is nothing more than an excuse” Her voice was so calm that when Roseane suddenly put her weight behind her dagger, Ayatah nearly fell backwards. She struggled to pull herself upright, struggling to hold her cousin’s weight back with her own strength.

”Wh-at?”

“Since you were a small girl, you have denied being half Eypharian. But when you ask me to help you train, you used it as an excuse.” Slowly, Roseane pushed against Ayatah’s blade with more weight and strength behind her own, “so which is it? Are you a weak half-blood, or a strong Myrian?” Her race had always been a touchy subject with Ayatah; the Myrian people were famously xenophobic, and as a child she had been teased by mean boys (and meaner girls) for having dirtied blood. But her family had never said anything negative about it before - in fact, very little was ever said about the Eypharian blood in Ayatah’s veins. The fact that Rosenae had spoken about it so bluntly, and accused Ayatah of using her mixed blood for her own misguided benefit…

She stepped away from her cousin. The game and training had ceased for a few moments. Roseane grunted, almost falling forwards without Ayatah’s counterweight balancing her own. ”What do you mean?” The was something is Ayatah’s voice that broke a little as she spoke. It wasn’t hurt or pain - it was betrayal. Her cousin had found her weakness, and was abusing it.

“When you train for your military service, you will receive huge amounts of abuse each time you fail,” Roseane toyed with the wooden dagger in her hands as she spoke, “we all did. But you’re different because you have a… thing about you that will make it easy for them to distract from the task at hand. They will call you sorts of names, but you have to ignore it or else you will prove them right.”

|| Ayatah's speech || Ayatah's thoughts || Others' speech ||

[Ayatah]

It was difficult to swallow, but Ayatah knew that her cousin was right. The military training was infamously ruthless; the instructors were known to have wicked weapons as well as wicked tongues. I will have to simply… man up. Ayatah thought as she mulled over what Rosenane had told her. The words didn’t matter - it was the meaning behind them that was important. Ayatah realised that in Roseane’s case, at least, they were not meant to hurt her - the words were meant to desensitise her against them. In the training ground, though, the same words were going to be used to try and exploit Ayatah’s weakness, to eventually shape her into a suitable solider.

And she simply wouldn’t allow such petty things as words to cause her hurt.

Eventually, she nodded, biting her bottom lip as she imagined being face-to-face with a fearless Myrian trainer who would insult her heritage.

”You’re right.” She shrugged her shoulders, and that was that for conversation.

Roseane nodded to her cousin to reposition herself, and Ayatah obliged. Her cousin came towards fast and furiously, and Ayatah was only just ready. When Roseane bought her dagger-hand sharply down to Ayatah’s side, she reacted by driving her empty fist to her cousin’s stomach.

Dagger and fist both struck bare skin, and the two women winced in harmony.

But there was no time to suffer. Roseane had twisted her hand, directing the point of her blade towards Ayatah.

Who shifted her weight to her left leg, and bought her right in a low singing motion to Roseane’s ankle. Her cousin stumbled, fell sideways, and dropphed her dagger.

Ayatah pointed her wooden blade to Roseane’s throat, in much of the same that her cousin had done when it was herself that was on the floor.

The other woman grabbed Ayatah’s wrist, pulled her straight to the floor, and left her sprawled on her stomach. Roseane was up and armed once again in no more than two chimes.

Rolling to her back, Ayatah grappled at the ground for her dagger. Luckily, she found it, but not before Roseane was squatting down beside her, her wooden dagger dragging down from her ribs to navel.

”But…” Ayatah shut herself up; I sound like a child complaining after losing a game.

Roseane helped her younger cousin to her feet, “In battle, you would have killed me, but in training, it doesn’t simply end when you have pretended to win. It continues until the trainer says stop.” Blowing out air forcibly from her behind her teeth, Ayatah nodded. Until this point, their battles had stopped when one of them had won over the other. The merely idea of continuous fighting certainly exhausted the young woman.

But not Roseane.

Her cousin was waiting, an unimpressed look on her face. She knew that Ayatah was tiring, but that would not influence Roseane’s plans for their training session. “One more attempt, and then climbing.” Myri, my muscles! Ayatah rolled her shoulders in their joints, nodded, and held her dagger at the ready. Her tiredness would certainly be held against her, but she would not give up yet. Losing to Roseane was an experience that Ayatah was getting used to, but to give up without even trying would trigger utter disgust from her cousin.

Roseane’s attacks were short, sharp and painful. She hit Ayatah repetitively with her dagger, the strikes climbing up and down the entirety of her left side. Ayatah tried to kick her cousin to the ground as she had done before, but Roseane had rooted herself steadily on both feet, and did not move an inch.

Her cousin began to bring her dagger towards Ayatah’s waist once again, so Ayatah countered the attack with her own dagger. There was a dull thud as wooden blade clashed with wooden blade.

Both of the cousins retracted their punches, and Ayatah saw that Rose was aiming higher than before, as if she was going to hit her square in the face. She ducked, went to meet her dagger with Roseane’s trunk once again --

But as usual, her cousin was one step ahead of her. The other woman’s swinging punch turned into a dropping elbow, which landed painfully onto Ayatah’s shoulder and had her heading, once again, towards the grass.

There was no time for Ayatah her even try to stand up; Roseane tucked her foot under her stomach, and half-rolled, half-pushed her onto her back. Facing upwards, Ayatah watched as her cousin circled her like a tiger does dying prey.

|| Ayatah's speech || Ayatah's thoughts || Others' speech ||

[Ayatah]

"Are you just going to lie there?"

Yes, when I'm on the ground I'm [i]not being beaten to a pulp.[/i]

"No, I'm not."

Roseane nodded, and waited for Ayatah to clamber back up to her feet. She had not even straightened her spine before her cousin took a swing at her, dagger trained for Ayatah's face

"Roseane! I don't have a weapon!" She ducked, missing the swing by a good few inches, but utterly confused as to why her cousin was still attacking her when the playing field was so tilted in her own favour.

"Sometimes you'll lose your weapon. Sometimes, you might not even have a weapon. You can't cry to your enemy and hope that they'll sympathise. You have to learn to block attacks." She took another swing to Ayatah, holding the blade in a low forward grip and aiming for her navel

Ayatah attempted to push her cousin's arm away, but regardless the blade scraped painfully across her stomach.

"I said block, not swipe at the arm of your enemy like a kitten. Look, like this-"

Roseane crossed her forearms in front of herself, and nodded for Ayatah to copy the action. Slowly, her cousin bought the dagger in the same low stabbing motion that she had done previously, but this time the dagger stopped at Ayatah's arms, the tip of blade missing her stomach by two or three inches. "See? Now, do the same to me."

This time it was Ayatah who attacked her cousin, just as slow as Roseane had, so she could clearly see her cousin's actions. As soon as the central hilt met Roseane's wrist, she twitched her arm upwards and knocked the dagger out of Ayatah's hand. Before it even hit the ground, she had caught it.

Her speed is impressibly fast Ayatah thought with a small rueful smile, but I can be quicker.

"Your turn."

||END||

|| Ayatah's speech || Ayatah's thoughts || Others' speech ||

[Jackalope]

Ayatah

Award

Skill	XP Earned	Lore Earned
Doubled Bladed Dagger	+2	Are You a Half Blood or Not?
Unarmed Combat	+4	Ignoring Pain to Counter an Attack
Observation	+1	Sometimes you'll fight without a weapon

Witty Remark Here

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