Solo [The Terrace] Annoying Weather...

[Reisen Widerspruch]

58th of spring 516 AV, 19th Bell

Reisen wasn’t much a fan of the rain even if it was helping against the fires in the swamps, he had nothing against it but it did make ones night a boring affair. He usually was out to eat dinner at this hour but with the rain deciding otherwise, instead forcing him to eat one of his rations. After residing in Kenash for only a brief time, old habits made themselves known and he usually came home at the 22nd hour to sleep.

The rain however, forced him to come home earlier than intended and so he was beginning to realize one of his mistakes….. There was nothing to do in his bare bones home other than work out his body and fists unless he wanted to sleep early, but Reisen wasn’t tired enough and he was a creature of habit; He slept at a specific time and awoke at a specific, deviation simply did not work.

So with a sense of resignation and after a bit of time allowing the food in his belly to settle, he took off his shirt and tossed it on his bed then grabbed his sport gloves, fitting them snuggly around his hands and flexing his fingers as he did so.

He looked at the punching which hanged in the corner of his home, looking like an eager target for which to take out his boredom on. He took the basic boxing stance of bringing his fists up, kept his feet shoulder length apart and his back slightly hunched.

Suddenly with his left, he threw a left jab. The impact of the light punch was what one would expect of the quick punch, meant more often to distract and disrupt an opponent’s rhythm, thus setting up the chance for a cross punch or right hook or uppercut. However, reisen was not satisfied with that jab as he through another, tapping the bag with a bit more force this time but still he threw another with the same force followed once more by another before eventually culminating into throwing a right uppercut that would have represented a blow to the chest in a humanoid opponent.

The bag stirred back and was soon stirring back again with another series of jab, this time culiminating into a straight cross punch that would have represented someone’s face. The sound of raindrops splashing into the Laviku’s ocean and tapping against Reisen’s home helped suddenly turned of what was supposed to be an outlet for boredom to something to vent frustration.

A subtle reminder and representation that the rain had him caged inhis own home and to go out was to risk his health. Reisen did not like being forced to stay put, often taking orders of such as suggestions that he willingly took. The rain instead was making him stay against his will and he did not like that.

With another straight punch that sent the Punching back swaying back and leaving Reisen an annoyed mess, he resumed his position and threw another jab.

‘Petching rain…’

[Reisen Widerspruch]

Another pounding sound erupted as Reisen’s left fist connected with the punching bag as a left hook. His rhythm established, Reisen couldn’t help but experiment. Punching combos were a mainstay of Boxing, after one has mastered the four basic punches one is free to experiment and make up varying combos with the purpose to create a pattern of blows to knock out the opposition.

One such in the classic One, Two; a simple two-punch technique that was as basic as throwing a rock into water. Reisen threw a jab at less then full strength at what could be presumed to be the head, measuring not only the distance between himself and the bag but as a point of obscuring his preparation to throw a right cross.

As his left fist was drawn back into a guard, the right fist would flay forward at full strength, striking the bag with a very satisfactory pounding sound that sent swinging back a bit. Basic but deadly was the one-two’s modus oprendi and here it showed.

The same combo could be extended with a hook shot at the end or even an uppercut. He could have replaced his cross with a straight or hook, both devastating in their own ways.

There was an endless possibilities of combos for him to experiment with and so he pressed forward throwing a left hook followed by a right. Another combo he attempted was to throw a series of left jabs the suddenly transformed into a straight left cross, in his mind acting like gentle taps against a door before being violently knocked down, culminating in a right uppercut against what would have been the abdomen.

Unfortunately, despite his enthusiasm for his training, Reisen was distinctly away of two things…. Two things that limited the effectiveness of his boxing. The first thing was that he lacked strength, while it sounded satisfactory to his ears the way the bag swayed made it clear that his punches wouldn’t knock down stacked bales of hay.

The second, as his muscles shouted at him and his breathing wavered, he lacked stamina. He could probably walk long hours but he certainly couldn’t last more than a few minutes where his stamina was concerned and that irked him.

He didn’t take up the cutlass and boxing just to ‘adequately’ defend himself, he took them up to defend himself right and proper and his sorry state was a grim reminder on how lax he’d been. With a grumble of further resignation, he threw another left hook into the bag. He knew what he’d need to do next, but for now he’d need to stick with punching the bags for as there was little point in not finishing his boxing practice at this stage.

Stilling the swaying bag, he resumed his position and threw a few more jabs, reestablishing his rhythm as he went for a right cross and a left hook blow. If anything practicing his punches should at least help with his endurance for now.

[Reisen Widerspruch]

As he punched, he began recalling the times he asked an old Svefra sailor to teach him how to fight. The man was a retired sailor apparently and was originally from something called ‘pods’, something like the old Knight Houses of Syliras but still very different.

It was so many years ago but it stuck to him how the old sailor gave into his request so easily. His face popping into his mind as he threw another right cross. He probably could have asked a knight to train him, but the proud protectors of Syliras were the busy sort who had their own squires to train…. They didn’t have time to train someone who wasn’t even joining the order and Reis never held much interest in being a knight, too restrictive for one such as himself.

Reis’ arms were beginning to get annoyed with him, that’s how he worded the fatigue in his own mind. He noticed that he was getting slower with his punches and not as powerful, but he soldiered on. Throwing a jab with his right instead.

It paid to vary your punches, mixing up an orthodox style with a southpaw. That’s what they call the stances; a predominately right handed style was orthodox and the opposite was southpaw. He had no knowledge on how the naming came to be nor did he care and it wasn’t limited to boxing. The purpose of switching between them was to throw off the oppositions rhythm. It was like a swordsman who predominantly used and fought opponents using the same hand suddenly going against someone who used the left.

Suddenly his thoughts veered on the old Svefra again, the one who started him on the path to fighting. He remember how he hated getting punched despite the Svefra’s warning that he would do so, Reisin simply didn’t enjoy pain just as he didn’t enjoy the strain in his arms. His arms felt heavier now unfortunately and that annoyed him as well.

In his annoyance he threw another slew of punches against the bag, this time a series of jabs. He would have gone on further, however this time his arms were screaming at him from the strain and so he stopped. Now simply stilling the bag and wrapping his arms against in as if he were hugging it. His breathing was heavy and now he could feel the sensation of his heart beating against his chest.

Letting go of ht ebag and turning around, Reis his way to the chair and unceremoniously sat upon it, leaning against the back as sweat dripped from his brow whilst trying to regain his breath. It was clear for now that his training for boxing would be over, but that training itself was not yet over…

His mind flashed back to the old svefra, one of the only other male figures in his life. He knew the old coot was dead, and they weren’t quite close or so he believed. But, he still couldn’t help but wonder if the old coot passed on peacefully while out on Laviku’s waters…

[Reisen Widerspruch]

After a while, once he had regained some semblance of regular breathing, Reisen looked at hisBody Building equipment on the corner of the room. They were to be his next target he knew and they seemed to be tempting him much like some attractive siren of a woman…. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect as the equipment was not an attractive siren of a woman but instead muscle aching muscle acher of muscle achiness.

But Reis did what he was told, even if it came from himself. So with a degree of trepidation, such a degree he slowly scooted towards the equipment rather than move like a normal person. After about two chimes he finally reached the assoretedc collection of weights and doodads.

Heeding the fact that his arms were still tired to a degree, he grabbed a couple of 3 kgs weights and scooted off back to the chair. Along the way he decided that he was no longer hesitant, though he worried about the soreness he’d feel tomorrow…. Then again he didn’t work tomorrow on the account of the intense heavy rain so there was that…..

That didn’t stop heim from feeling another sense of resignation as he sat down, collected his breath, and began lifting the weight in his left hand. The movement was limited from his fist to his elbow and so began with a count of “ One, two, three.”

It would have a simple set of 20, yet even then it was adifficult set for someone who was abit out of shape and had just finished practicing his boxing. But there was an old saying that went ‘ No pain, no gain’ and his arms weren’t at the point that he should stop completely. He would press on as he lifted the weight, then lowered back down…the lift back up, only to go back down, and so on and so forth.

It was mind numbing, it was boring, it was uninteresting and it was 100% percent torture to a man who liked interesting things. But alas, those who wished for something must often set aside ‘fun’ as they perceive and go through this period of torture.

After finishing the first set, he switched to his left and began doing the same. Lifting his hand till his elbow reached its full zenith against his shoulder, then lowering back down only to be repeated about twenty times only to switch back to the other arm again.

Oh yes, there was nothing fun about this. It didn’t help that he couldn’t tune out the rain as it slammed against his home and the water surrounding it. He only hoped that as soon as he was done with his training it would stop and he’d get a night’s sleep. He had no illusion what kind of torture it would be to try to sleep with the sound of rain against the wooden boards of his house with sore arms on top of it.

But he wold persevere even if it did, just to spite it…

[Reisen Widerspruch]

After what felt like an eternity, he was done with his sets. He knew he was done because he dropped one of the weights on his foot and was now hopping around like a loon as he yelped about how much it hurts. After calming down a bit, exhaustion in not just his arms made it quite clear that he was tired and quite ready to drop dead.

He ignored the weights, leaving them be on the ground as he trotted towards his bed. Once there he tossed his shirt off it and promptly collapsed on it. He didn’t go to sleep on that moment; sadly the rain was still its annoying self by being rain and did not have the decency to stop being raind and stop so that Reis may have his comfort.

If there was one thing that Reis decided for sure about Kenash was that it’s weather was not on his list of favorite things. It had interesting sights yes, but weather that made living on the docks of Syliras a much more preferable thing…. Even though you could only live on the docks if you owned a ship and Reisen did not own a ship.

‘What would do with a ship? I can’t even sail it… though if I could then it would be interesting to see a shark and a whale’ came the random thoughts. He pushed them back for a bit, realizing how nonsensical he sounded at the moment. Unfortunately the sound of rain against wood was not a sound that allowed one to sleep easy and so his thoughts came back in full force.

‘No, no thinking. Thinking will keep me up longer and I have no desire to think. Thinking go away’ Of course, the more he thought about stopping to think he was only further thinking thus perpetuating the cycle of thought that he so wished would go away and allow him to sleep.

After time passed for a bit, his thought process finally decided to grind to a halt and sleep slowly deigned to make its presence known with a yawn from Reisen. His eyes grew heavy and even the sound of the rain suddenly felt like a quiet distance thing.

He didn’t know what he would do tomorrow if the weather persists, but he did realize that one more day pent up in his villa would drive him insane. Tomorrow he would probably brave the rain if it meant escaping the confines of his own home!

Wait, wait… he was doing that thinking thing again. He tiredly muttered a curse as he bonked his head against the mattress trying to get rid of the thoughts. Slowly but surely, sleep overtook him and now he was in the domain of a dreamless sleep and taking comfort in the fact that rain currently did not bother him.

Though prior to his sleep, a final thought did struck him and it would be his favorite thought of the week ‘Cursed rain…’

[Konrad Venger]

Hey, dude! Once you get back and deduct your Seasonal Expenses, I'll grade this up, no problem. PM me when you get back!