The fourth day of spring, 515 AV
Warm hands pressed against him, holding him tight and drawing him in nearer. There was no pain, no fear, only the lulling, soothing scent of earth, sweat, and... him. He was there, staring back at him with a face that was not quite his face but his face none the less. Then, there was distance; it was dark and deep and treacherous, and it separated them completely. For a moment, there was silence. His eyes strained, scanning for the one he'd lost, but it was in vain. The only thing, at first, to rise in greeting to his search were the shadows. Faceless until they weren't, their skeletal hands reached out, grabbing his naked skin with the searing flames of pain he had thought he might have escaped. There was a struggle, though it was barely more than a frantic shifting of his weight before they pulled him into their darkness. Cracked skin, dripping with blood rubbed against him, whispers of his inadequacies and failures at the tip of every tongue that rose in a raucous cacophony until they eventually joined together into a piercing, blood curdling scream.
Keene jerked awake, for a moment his breath seemed to escape him as the darkness of his cavernous room pressed in around him from all sides, the humid heat doing little to assuage the glistening sweat that covered his body. When he felt almost faint from the emptiness of his lungs, only then did they seem capable of function. Falling back onto the damp fabric of his mattress, Keene gasped for several chimes, his breathing more panting than anything else. He let his eyes close, the difference hardly noticeable in the stillness of the cave, though for some strange reason that his sleep laden mind couldn't quite pin down, it comforted him, if only slightly. The images of the dream were still clear and crisp; though their time had passed, echoes and reflections remained, plaguing him with both sight and sound.
When his breathing was finally under some semblance of control, Keene rose, a part of his djed separating into a small ball of res that drifted upwards from his palm before sputtering to life with a pale, bluish flame. The advent of vision to his otherwise blind plight of lonesome isolation served to hold the nightmares at bay for the time being. Though they scratched and scraped at the edges of the light's influence, it gave Keene the time he needed to rise out of his bed and begin the short walk to the main cavern. His bare feet slapped against the warm, almost living stone beneath him, the sound echoing down the hall and back. He paused, frowning, before beginning again, only this time he put each foot down with care, reducing the speed of his movement and eliminating the louder clap of skin on stone in favor of a more muted patter.
Once he able, Keene flicked the flame over to the candles, igniting only two of them to keep the majority of the cavern in a muted shadow before snuffing out the original light. As he was already in a state of undress, Keene simply squatted down onto the floor where he stood, easing back into a seated position with one leg bent do that his foot lay on the ground in front of him while his other leg was extended towards the side. Leaning towards the more distance foot, Keene let himself stretch, warming up his body for the more taxing exercises he had planned for the morning. He continued the stretch for about a chime before switching to the other leg. When that was done, Keene continued on through the rest of his limbering drills, taking time to keep his breathing steady and relaxed in spite of the gnawing at the back of his mind.
Slowly, he stood up, tilting his head from side to side to work out the kinks in his neck as he made his way over to the sands where he had become accustomed to training on a daily basis. Settling into his stance that had, just as Atziri had explained, become a more natural and fitting position, Keene tensed his muscles a tick before extending his leg forward in a slow, careful kick. He moved through the positions Atziri had outlined for him, the linear progression of the action drawn out and calculated as he let his knee almost straighten before drawing his foot back in and down to be replaced in the divot in the sand he'd left behind. Next, his body shifted, twisting to deliver and equally slow and methodical punch forward. The muscles in his back and stomach protested some, their trials from the days before still remembered in their ache; unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing he remembered.
Gradually, the speed of his strikes increased. The hiss of effort that passed between his teeth began to fill the room with a steady rhythm as he began to feel the familiar strain on his body. It was a relaxing sensation, in a way, drawing his mind away from the soulless eyes of his nightmares and onto the present: the trickles of sweat down the nape of his neck, the way his knee would sometimes smack into the back of his leg if he was too careless to keep it from doing so, the gentle burn of air rushing into and out of his lungs. The phantom fighting calmed him, it centered him on the present in a way that rational, logical thought could not. His fists moved through the air, sometimes quick and piercing, other times slow, arcing, almost graceful if not for an awkward shuffle or post-adjustment of trajectory. He threw himself into it, occasionally making a simple mistake that would deliver him a new bruise and draw him back into a more objective attention for a time before he would drift back into the pseudo-meditative stupor that the practiced forms seemed to have over him.
Warm hands pressed against him, holding him tight and drawing him in nearer. There was no pain, no fear, only the lulling, soothing scent of earth, sweat, and... him. He was there, staring back at him with a face that was not quite his face but his face none the less. Then, there was distance; it was dark and deep and treacherous, and it separated them completely. For a moment, there was silence. His eyes strained, scanning for the one he'd lost, but it was in vain. The only thing, at first, to rise in greeting to his search were the shadows. Faceless until they weren't, their skeletal hands reached out, grabbing his naked skin with the searing flames of pain he had thought he might have escaped. There was a struggle, though it was barely more than a frantic shifting of his weight before they pulled him into their darkness. Cracked skin, dripping with blood rubbed against him, whispers of his inadequacies and failures at the tip of every tongue that rose in a raucous cacophony until they eventually joined together into a piercing, blood curdling scream.
Keene jerked awake, for a moment his breath seemed to escape him as the darkness of his cavernous room pressed in around him from all sides, the humid heat doing little to assuage the glistening sweat that covered his body. When he felt almost faint from the emptiness of his lungs, only then did they seem capable of function. Falling back onto the damp fabric of his mattress, Keene gasped for several chimes, his breathing more panting than anything else. He let his eyes close, the difference hardly noticeable in the stillness of the cave, though for some strange reason that his sleep laden mind couldn't quite pin down, it comforted him, if only slightly. The images of the dream were still clear and crisp; though their time had passed, echoes and reflections remained, plaguing him with both sight and sound.
When his breathing was finally under some semblance of control, Keene rose, a part of his djed separating into a small ball of res that drifted upwards from his palm before sputtering to life with a pale, bluish flame. The advent of vision to his otherwise blind plight of lonesome isolation served to hold the nightmares at bay for the time being. Though they scratched and scraped at the edges of the light's influence, it gave Keene the time he needed to rise out of his bed and begin the short walk to the main cavern. His bare feet slapped against the warm, almost living stone beneath him, the sound echoing down the hall and back. He paused, frowning, before beginning again, only this time he put each foot down with care, reducing the speed of his movement and eliminating the louder clap of skin on stone in favor of a more muted patter.
Once he able, Keene flicked the flame over to the candles, igniting only two of them to keep the majority of the cavern in a muted shadow before snuffing out the original light. As he was already in a state of undress, Keene simply squatted down onto the floor where he stood, easing back into a seated position with one leg bent do that his foot lay on the ground in front of him while his other leg was extended towards the side. Leaning towards the more distance foot, Keene let himself stretch, warming up his body for the more taxing exercises he had planned for the morning. He continued the stretch for about a chime before switching to the other leg. When that was done, Keene continued on through the rest of his limbering drills, taking time to keep his breathing steady and relaxed in spite of the gnawing at the back of his mind.
Slowly, he stood up, tilting his head from side to side to work out the kinks in his neck as he made his way over to the sands where he had become accustomed to training on a daily basis. Settling into his stance that had, just as Atziri had explained, become a more natural and fitting position, Keene tensed his muscles a tick before extending his leg forward in a slow, careful kick. He moved through the positions Atziri had outlined for him, the linear progression of the action drawn out and calculated as he let his knee almost straighten before drawing his foot back in and down to be replaced in the divot in the sand he'd left behind. Next, his body shifted, twisting to deliver and equally slow and methodical punch forward. The muscles in his back and stomach protested some, their trials from the days before still remembered in their ache; unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing he remembered.
Gradually, the speed of his strikes increased. The hiss of effort that passed between his teeth began to fill the room with a steady rhythm as he began to feel the familiar strain on his body. It was a relaxing sensation, in a way, drawing his mind away from the soulless eyes of his nightmares and onto the present: the trickles of sweat down the nape of his neck, the way his knee would sometimes smack into the back of his leg if he was too careless to keep it from doing so, the gentle burn of air rushing into and out of his lungs. The phantom fighting calmed him, it centered him on the present in a way that rational, logical thought could not. His fists moved through the air, sometimes quick and piercing, other times slow, arcing, almost graceful if not for an awkward shuffle or post-adjustment of trajectory. He threw himself into it, occasionally making a simple mistake that would deliver him a new bruise and draw him back into a more objective attention for a time before he would drift back into the pseudo-meditative stupor that the practiced forms seemed to have over him.
