(This is a thread from Mizahar's fantasy role play forums. Why don't you register today? This message is not shown when you are logged in. Come roleplay with us, it's fun!)
This shining population center is considered the jewel of The Sylira Region. Home of the vast majority of Mizahar's population, Syliras is nestled in a quiet, sprawling valley on the shores of the Suvan Sea. [Lore]
The moment Aren left for the day, Sayana was ready to begin the series of tasks she had set aside for herself. As much as she loved being with the Akalak, as her departing kiss surely showed, there were some things she simply couldn’t get done in his presence. For one, he was incredibly distracting. Secondly, they could hardly spar without it turning into kisses and suggestive touches. And finally, he didn’t like her cooking.
Alright, so he smiled when he had a bite of this and that, especially when it wasn’t burnt but she got the sense that he was dissatisfied. He still wanted to marry her, and the rings upon her fingers showed that but the least she could do was provide a meal that he didn’t have to strain to keep a straight face.
So that was the first thing she’d work on. Sayana set a pot of water over the hearth to boil and added an extra log to the fire to keep the flames going. The previous day she had asked for a couple of vegetables from Remi and she was more than happy to provide a sampling of this and that. There was an onion, a couple of potatoes, a few carrots and some green beans. The chicken Sayana got herself since she didn’t want to infringe upon Remi’s hospitality any more than she had to. It was a full chicken, feathers and all, and the butcher said that it would need to be plucked and the guts taken out. He also gave a tip to scald the bird before trying to pluck the feathers.
She decided she’d tackle the bird first. It seemed much more challenging and she figured the vegetables would cook quickly and easily enough. As she waited for the water to boil she started flipping one of her throwing daggers. Flip up, and catch. Up, and catch. Up, and whoops! She quickly snatched her hands out of the way as the dagger came down blade first and clattered on the table. She took another glance at the pot and the water still wasn’t boiling. So instead she collected all four of her throwing daggers and strode over to her archery target board. While it was probably better suited for arrows, she was finding it a decent practice board.
The Eypharian positioned herself several feet from the board and readied her throwing daggers in her high and mid hands. Then she did four consecutive throws. Right, left, right, left. Top hands followed by her mids. While her throws with her right hands were considerably stronger and more accurate, all four blades managed to get into the target point first. But that was just a warm up.
Sayana pulled out the daggers from the target board and positioned herself further back this time. She placed her left leg slightly forwards and eyed the target board judging the distance and the amount of spin she’d need. This time it would be trickier since each throw would require more and more spin. Not by much, but a little. Pulling her high right arm back, she threw the dagger while stepping forwards with her right foot. Just as she was releasing the blade, her left high hand was prepping for the next throw. She tried to do these four throws smooth and fluidly yet she still felt like it was jerky and that she was waddling forwards. She completed the exercise a second and a third time until she was feeling more comfortable with it.
Sayana was broken out of her concentration when she realized the pot was finally boiling. She left the daggers in the target board and scampered over to the bird. She looked at the bird and then the pot. Would it even fit? Awkwardly she brought it over to the pot and tried to put it in. With the help of a couple of large spoons she managed to submerge the chicken, however, the flames hissed loudly whenever a bit of water overflowed from the pot.
Right. Scalding accomplished. For good measure she rotated the bird a couple of times within the pot before taking it out and placing it dripping on the table. She then dumped out the old water into her washbasin and refilled the pot with fresh water from a bucket. She wasn’t sure how clean it was but she didn’t really want to use the same water for the soup. Now for the plucking. At first it felt weird tearing the feathers off but soon she got the hang of it. They weren’t too hard to pull but it was easy to miss a feather here and there when she was nearing the end.
Now she was supposed to gut it. At this point she made the executive decision to try to cut around the guts. If it meant she missed some of the meat, then so be it. She took her sharpest knife and started cutting the meat into small chunks. Some of the bones she tossed into the pot and the rest of the pieces she put onto skewers.
Taking out a pan she added some oil to the bottom and put the skewers of chicken into it. Then she carefully found a good place to rest the pan on the hot coals and raised up a little by two thicker logs. After washing her hands, she decided that would take a while to cook and she could go back to her training.
This time she left her daggers and instead went to the punching bag. The Eypharian warmed up with a few quick punches, alternating hands. She was sure to keep her thumbs tucked under and protected, and let her knuckles take most of the pounding. A punch up to the imaginary chin, a hook around to the side of the cheek. She tried to keep herself light on her feet and moving, but it meant that several times she had to prop up the punching bag after she tipped it over.
Sayana stretched out her hands and wiggled her fingers. Her knuckles stung a bit but her punches were getting stronger and more accurate. She did a couple of stretches with her arms too. She bent her body left and then right and crossed each arm across her body in various stretches. Often she’d do three arms at once, one side and then the other but sometimes it wasn’t so convenient. As she started to stretch her legs in various lunges, she realized she hadn’t tried any kicks.
She faced the punching bag and aimed a forwards kick to the middle. It landed with an abysmal amount of force. The second time it was marginally better but when she tried with her other leg, she missed the punching bag entirely. Those she would have to work on.
A rather childish idea suddenly came to her mind. When was the last time she tried doing a handstand? With a grin, she made sure she’d have enough room and then launched her feet up into the air as her high hands touched the floor with her mid hands ready to brace herself should she wobble. However, she hardly managed to gain any height and was soon back on her feet.
Again. The Eypharian kicked off once more and landed her high hands upon the ground. She got much more height and focused on keeping her body straight with her toes pointed. That’s what the true performers did, didn’t they? She used her mid hands to balance herself and managed to hold it for several ticks. The next time she did the handstand, she held it for a full ten ticks and after a few more times she reached a record of thirty ticks. Sayana shook her head a little to clear the blood that had rushed to her face during the last one and tried to remember other tricks she had tried as a child. A rotating handstand?
Sayana hitched her first leg up before going into a cartwheel. First time wasn’t so elegant, but the first time never counts. Unless it’s combat. She grinned and did a second. She focused on getting her legs high into the air and keeping the cartwheel straight. Then she thought of a marvelous yet dangerous idea.
She went to the target board to remove her throwing daggers. Two of them she placed on a table off to the side and the other two she readied in her low hands. Taking a good look at the target board, Sayana then turned her back to it a couple of paces away. Then she launched into a handstand and took a tick or two to steady herself. Without wasting anymore time lest her balance fail, she threw one, then the other at the target board. It was disorienting being upside down and her usual amount of spin was a bit off. One of the daggers sunk into the target board at a big angle and the other clattered upon the floor.
What about for a cartwheel? This time she was really glad Aren wasn’t in the room. Both her daggers landed abysmally going in all directions it seemed. Neither her throw with her right low nor her left were any good and it was probably because she was moving too quickly with the cartwheel. That trick she’d have to work on.
After she collected up the daggers and checked to make sure they weren’t damaged, Sayana returned to the kitchen area of her apartment. Her arms were getting sore from all the handstands, particularly her highs and she could use a break and some water. She had a glass of water and stretched her high arms. Maybe after more practice she’d get stronger and be able to last longer. But she might as well check on the chicken.
Sayana flipped over the chicken skewers. They were starting to look pretty good. Curious, she got a knife and cut into one but it looked reddish pink on the inside. Suddenly skeptical of her cooking she decided to wait a while longer. She didn’t think it was supposed to look red or even pink. But then sometimes steak looked like that… After some humming and hawing she decided to stay on the safe side and cook it for longer. The coals were still hot and it seemed to be doing fine.
As Sayana stared into the flames, her hands gravitated towards her stomach. While it was hardly noticeable to others, as a mother she knew that her baby was there and starting to grow. She hoped that her acrobatic activities weren’t stressing her unborn son but it was probably a good thing to stay fit with a strong body. The better her body was, the more able she would be to deliver him into the world.
She’d have to eat right too. Curiously she got up to dig through her chest and find Orin’s cookbook for pregnant mothers and for babies. Her eyes tended to glaze over with so much writing as she started to flip through it. However, she did notice one word that seemed to pop up a lot. Mashed. It was probably mashed this and mashed that, so that the baby would be able to eat it alright. Orin had also mentioned that it was good to eat bland food. Oh, her ginger. That would spice it up nicely.
Setting aside the book, Sayana took out a hunk of ginger and started chopping it into thin slices. She probably used far more than she really needed but she hadn’t had something nice and hot in a while. After wiping the knife clean, she went over to the pot with chicken bones and water and dumped the ginger into it. That should give the soup a nice spiced flavour.
The Eypharian rotated the chicken skewers again but still wasn’t convinced that they were done. Perhaps she could work on strengthening her body. The core was always the most important part while dancing so she started with that. Sayana found a spot she could lay down on the floor and did twenty sit ups, pausing after the first ten. After fifteen she was really starting to feel it in her stomach but it would be rather pointless to stop there so she kept going to twenty. She then moved onto push ups, aiming to do ten with each set of arms. However, what she forgot was just how much the stomach was engaged in keeping her body straight like a board. The first ten were manageable but for all the others she strained to keep her stomach squeezed in so that she would not falter with movements with her arms.
She collapsed on the floor for a chime or two after the last push up. She really needed to work on those to build more strength in her body. But even while lying there and feeling the strain in her stomach and arms she imagined what it might be like to try a flip of sorts. Something easy, maybe out of a handstand…
With a faint smile despite her groaning muscles, the Eypharian gathered some pillows from her couches and laid them out on the floor like a mat. That was perhaps the only rational thing she did, since at this point she wasn’t in much condition to try new and fancy tricks. Regardless, Sayana prepared herself at the edge of the make-shift mat of cushions and launched herself into a handstand. She paused for only a tick with her feet up, and then used her momentum to continue and push off hard with her mid and high hands. She landed with little to no grace, partly on her back and mostly on her rear. At least she hadn’t landed on her head. Once more she lay collapsed on the ground, but this time with pillows underneath her.
It was the faint smell of burning that stirred her into a stand. The chicken. Sayana got up quickly and rushed over to the sizzling pan. She managed to pry the skewers off the pan despite them sticking and fortunately they were only a little burned on the bottom. Now that the chicken was thoroughly cooked, she used a fork to slide the chunks off and plop them into the beginnings of the soup.
Now for the vegetables. She started with the onion and was careful to keep the onion fumes far away from her as she cut it. She still teared up a little but it certainly helped. After dumping the onion into the pot she washed the carrots and potatoes and started peeling them. The carrots she made fine progress with but the potatoes were awkward to peel. Partway through she decided to simply leave the potatoes and just chop them up instead. When the carrots were peel she set up two of them at a time and chopped them into disks using both her mid and high hands. Rather smug at her efficiency, she dumped them into the pot along with the chopped potatoes. Last were the green beans that just needed a quick rinse and the ends chopped off. For good measure, she cut them in half before putting them into the pot too. The soup was now quite full of chicken and vegetables and she hoped it would turn out well.
The time spent chopping up vegetables was enough to give Sayana a break from her earlier activities. Now she was ready to return full speed ahead. However, instead of going immediately to her daggers or even trying a variation on a handstand, she drew her Lakan instead. It was a curious blade. Curved and with intricate carvings along the metal. It seemed rather ceremonial than functional but if she knew Aren at all, she knew he liked weapons with a flair to them. She swung it left and right and then tried for some diagonal slashes. It had a different weight to it and a different balance. It also seemed more for slashing than stabling. She continued trying out some more practice swings and switched hands every so often. All and all, it was a fine blade but one she would have to practice.
What she needed now was a good work out session. What if she started combining different elements into a routine? Sayana first made sure she had all her daggers and then stood at the edge of her make-shift mat of pillows. Starting with a summersault, she leaped out of it and into several punches aimed for the punching bag. She then tried out a spinning kick to an imaginary target which turned her around to face her target board. In two swift movements, she had her four throwing daggers drawn. With a running leap into the air, she turned her torso mid jump and let all four daggers fly at the target. Thud-a-thud-thud. Only one actually got within the middle ring but they all hit the target point first.
This was starting to remind her of something. The Semhu.
Sayana had always had mixed feelings about the Semhu. She regarded it highly, yet she also envied any who danced it. As a child her family didn’t have enough status and money to enroll her in the prestigious dance and the outcome was that she instead learned a more sensual concubine dance. A couple times she had tried to mimic aspects of it but she had never truly tried to replicate it, mostly due to her lack of talent in acrobatics and martial arts. But now that she was getting better and had been practicing her handstands all morning…
Pensively, Sayana thought back to those stunning performances. The flipping and tumbling acrobats, the smooth and skilled fighting styles, all to the beautiful old music of ancient Ahnatep. A tune caught in her memory and while it was more of a folk song than a true performance song she started humming the tune. The more she hummed, the more the words started to come back to her and she cleared away the pillows from the floor to create an open space. She picked up her two pairs of finger cymbals and readied them in her low hands.
Then the Eypharian began to sing. She sang softly without too much projection but it was clear enough. As she sang she kept time with the finger cymbals and she started to dance.
Feel the heat of the sands In our home, these burning lands The old river by the sea We are loved by Makutsi
Ahnatep, oh so fair The Valterrain stripped it bare In these halls that were grand It is where we make a stand
We are young, we are strong There’s nothing that we hide See our beauty, see our grace This is Eypharian pride
The tune was slow and so her dancing was fairly slow and controlled. A kick with her right leg that spun her into a roll then up again with a couple of punches. Spinning to the left she drew two daggers in her mids and slashed up, down, and a double thrust. With a couple of light dancing steps, she launched into a cart wheel using her high hands and the moment she was up again she did a double slash with the daggers in her mids.
Sayana sang the last section again, the chorus, now singing louder and more clearly. Even though some of her kicks and acrobatics were unpracticed, she joined them together with the skill and grace of a true dancer. The finger cymbals continued to ring out clearly and at the end she thrust her daggers down to her sides and looked up towards the heavens.
And so she danced the Semhu. Or at least the best she could do with a single person and limited ability to do flips. The real performance of the dance would often have dozens of people but parts of it might only involve a single top performer.
She practiced and practiced. For every kick she did, she tried to make it higher and more precise. Her cartwheels became straighter and she was able to immediately produce effective attacks out of them. She even worked in some of her handstands from earlier and threw her daggers with both her mid hands while balancing on her highs. Her aim was getting better too and not only did she hit the target board regularly but she often got one and sometimes both daggers in the middle circle.
Again and again she worked on the routine. She smoothed out the transitions and made them flow seamlessly from one to the next. Her spins were more controlled and her jumps with the daggers both slashing at once became more and more effective. Her voice was also getting a little better. The high notes were clearer and the words more passionate. She had turned the day into a day of rigorous training. She wanted to excel and prove that she could master a dance as tricky as the Semhu. Even when her muscles began to strain from the effort she pushed herself harder and longer and worked in new ways to combine the acrobatics, dance and fighting styles into her dance.
When she felt she had choreographed an effective routine that incorporated all the different elements and fit well with the music and lyrics, she ran through it a couple more times and then decided to call it a day. Her arms ached and her stomach had a bit of a cramp but she felt good as well as accomplished. That’s when she remembered her soup.
She quickly sprung to the kitchen area and took the pot out of the hearth. Some of the potatoes and carrots were a little over cooked and mushy, but for the most part it seemed alright. If anything, it was more like a stew than a soup due to how long they had been cooking for. Yet the taste of it brought a smile to her face. The ginger had done its work and made it lovely and spicy. Perhaps she might make baby food a similar way since the vegetables only needed a little longer to completely turn to mush.
Sayana smiled as she sipped at the hot meal. Despite being away from Ahnatep for so long, the dance brought back good memories. She craved to start a performing group to spread the dance and stories of her homeland. She still had much to work at but maybe she’d manage to bring that dream into a reality.
Multitasking certainly suits an Eypharian!
