Closed Warriors Worth Their Salt (Kelski)

[Neras Frostfawn]

Time Stamp: 37th of Spring, 518AV
Location: Proving Ground
Who: Neras and Kelski

Waking up early, Neras got up and ran a comb through his thick black hair. The young noticed his hair was much longer than a season ago, so he needed to comb it everyday, so it doesn't become to unruly or unmanageable. When he was finished with his hair, he shaved the short stubble completely off before he got his clothing together. He had gotten used to not wearing shirts from the injury, so he put on his grey linen pants, black leather boots, and walked down to the mess hall. Filling his water skin, he strapped it to the to his waist along with his short sword and scabbard. He didn't bother to put on a shirt because it wasn't cold. He heard from his mother that his Inarta father never wore a shirt, so he figured petch it. He needed to embrace his father culture too even if he never met the man. Walking down to the mess hall, he ate his fill and drank enough water to not feel thirsty.

When Neras was finished with his breakfast, he did some minor stretches to loosen up his muscles. Bending over, he reached down to touch his toes, but he didn't only made it to the lower ankle. He felt the muscles in his lower back, buttock, and hamstring start to stretch. He held that position for thirty ticks till his muscles started to burn, so he released the tension and stood up. Putting his left foot straight back, he bent down on his right leg for thirty ticks. He could feel the muscles in the top of his legs start to burn as they stretched along with the muscles on top of the bent right leg. He held it there aging for the designated time than he repeated the stretch on the opposite leg. This was all the stretching that he was going to do in front of the barracks.

When Neras was finished, he stood up, and started to jog to the Proving Ground. As the young man jogged through the street, he had to weave his way through the crowd of people. He ran for five chimes, and he could feel his heart racing, so he stopped to catch his breath. When he was ready again, he continued to jog through the streets of Sunberth. Nobody paid him any mind because he just looked like a smart duster getting exercise. He took occasional breaks to catch his breath because he didn't have the endurance to run for a long time without stopping, so eventually, he made it to the Proving Ground. He could see a lot of people in line to pay to get into the Sun Birth training ground, but he had no intention of standing in line and stopping his aerobics. When he the gate, he saw the burly guards standing there, so he just showed his brand to them. They gave Neras a nod and waved the young man into the Proving Ground.

When Neras was inside, he immediately went to the punching bags. As he waited, he started to do the splits to stretch out the muscles in the inside of the legs. He stayed in the split position, so he reached over to his left leg, but he could only reach the mid ankle. He could feel the stretch stretching out both his legs, but it was especially stretching the muscles in his right leg. He held the position till they started to burn, so he counted out five ticks. It equaled thirty five seconds. When he was finished with the left leg, he switched position to the middle, still doing the splits, and tried to touch the ground in front of him. With each position shift, he tried to extend the splits further. He could only reach the about six inches from the ground with his hands; however, the he could feel the muscles in the back of his legs back to burn. He waited another thirty five ticks. When he was finished with the middle position, he turned his body and tried to reach out to his right leg with both hands. He could really feel the burn now, so he started to control his breathing to lesson the burn on his muscles. Feeling most of the burn in his left leg now, he held the position for thirty ticks. When he was finished, he slowly straighten out his body to relax his leg muscles.

The raider was still punching the bag, so Neras crossed his right arm across his body to stretch out his shoulder and his muscles in the arm. He repeated the stretch on the opposite arm. The human started to roll his head around the neck to loosen up the joints and muscles in the neck. He went in the right direction first than he switched to the left direction second. He started moving his arms in circles to loosen the joints and muscles in the shoulder. If he was going to punch the bag this stretch was import, so he doesn't hurt anything. When his arms were done, he placed his hands on his hips and started to move them without moving his legs this stretch was to loosen the joints in the hips essential of movement for kicks. When he was finished with his hips, he moved his hands down to touch his knees. He started to to move his knees in circles without moving his hips to loosen up the knees.

When Neras was finished with the knees, he moved his left foot backwards, so it was on it's toes. He started to move his ankles in a circle motion, so he loosen up the ankles. He repeated on the right foot when he was finished. Neras rolled his eyes at raider and crossed his arms and patiently waited his turn on the bag. If it was last season, he would have said something nasty to him, but the guardian had all the time in the world to just sit here and enjoy the beautiful morning.

Suddenly, Neras felt a familiar presence behind him, and he looked over his shoulder saw Iztel staring at him with a annoyed eyes. She stalked over to him and snapped, “For the love of the gods, Neras you had enough rest for the rest of year! If your going to wait for the bag than you better be doing something in the meantime!”

Why the hell did Iztel have the ability to make him feel like a child? Neras stammered, “...I was doing my stretches, so I figured I could take a break and enjoy the day...”

Wrong answer.

Iztel faced turned red, and she said in a low tone, “If you want to ENJOY the day, you can do it at a brothel or at the docks. Not my petching training ground! Practice your punches or do your hand stands or cartwheels while you wait. I don't want to see you slacking, or you will regret it!”

Neras was bugged eyes as the marshal commanded him to do something, so he got into his forward facing fighting stance. He put his left back behind him, so it slightly farther than his shoulder length, put his right leg forward, and he lowered himself into the stance till his right front leg was slightly bent. Making a fist with both hands, he put his left fist on his left hip and stuck out his right fist until it aiming at the opponents imaginary face. Marshal Iztel walked away to do her round around the training grounds, but she was suddenly replaced by Captain Eleuia. Neras enjoyed the calm woman a lot more than her loud sister since she had more patience for the new recruits, and she yelled a lot less. The captain walked over and said simply, “You need to get lower in your forward facing stance, Jinx. Your back foot is in the wrong position, so it probably explains your unstable stance.” She moved used her foot move his back foot into the position that she wanted him to be in. She said with smile, “Now, I want you sit low into your stance and hold it when you are done start your punches slowly, Jinx. I want proper form. Power can come in time...”

Neras just sat their in his stance, and he had to admit when he did it right. The stance was not uncomfortable. He started to punch, so as he brought back his right arm, he slowly move his left hand forward to punch the imaginary target in the face. When Captain Eleuia was happy, she walked away to check on more of her pupils. Neras continued practicing his punches with the proper form. He noticed that every time that he finished the punch. His hips moved in tandem with his arms. It was a good exercise while he waited for the bag, so he continued his strikes as he waited for the bag to open up.

[Kelski]

The men were making no secret about their conversation. It was two of the larger Guardians, Darvin, and a fourth man. They were obviously working out, though the subject of their conversation wasn’t their routine as they lifted weights. “Have you stuffed that bird yet?” One asked, and Darvin laughed shaking his head. “Naw, not yet. One of these days though… he’s getting ready to move her. I’ll for sure sample that before its gone though.” The big man said, hefting iron high and carefully setting it back on the ground.

“I have her in here training now. You boys wouldn’t believe it. I gave some nice little piece of svefra ass some of my goods and she went crazy. Dragged my little birdy into a cage, telling her she was going to kill her. And that bird grew some wicked talons and just slaughtered her without batting an eyelash. I put a last-minute bet on the fight and won a months’ worth of wages as if I was in the lab day in and day out.” He said, hefting more iron up and over his head. “I turned her over to Captain Eleuia. I want her trained up in Unarmed Combat… and then I’m going to throw her into more cage matches if I can get away with it.” He grinned, not knowing Neras was listening. The men continued talking, the subject varying wildly from great matches they’d seen at Tall Johnny’s to matches they’d like to see, including suggesting opponents for Darvin for Kelski.

Meanwhile, a ways away on an open matt, Captain Eleuia was busy working with Kelski. The woman had the little slave girl doing basic warmups. She had a piece of rope and was jumping it while the woman was driving her to jump it faster and faster until the Kelvic was breathing hard and sweating. After that, she had her lunge sideways, forwards, backwards and sideways again, panting the whole time. To let her rest, the woman stood her still and instructed her on how to do ankle bounces, which involved the Kelvic standing in place and jumping straight up higher and higher until she was several feet off the ground, coming down and bouncing back up again. The woman moved away from the kelvic, making the rounds to other students, including Neras, until she was back at the Kelvic again.

Eleuia demonstrated jumping jacks, hip circles, and leg swings until Kelski had the routine down and was running through those stretches herself. The Kelvic then moved into power skips and mountain climbers, dripping sweat now as she panted her way through tremendous amounts of stretching. Once she was done with that, one of Eleuia’s assistance stopped the Kelvic and walked her over to a padded wall that contained a figure of a man. There was also a padded ‘log’ type thing set onto the floor about the size of a body. Neras could see the man carefully instruct the Kelvic on how to properly kick.

“Girl… raise your rear leg vertically as high as you can then bring it down against your target. This is an Axe kick. It comes up, in, and around… girl. It confuses an enemy and they don’t know what you are doing. Its like an overhand right hook that breaks a guard and still hits the guy. Come up… in, and once you get to your highest point bring your heel down right in his face. Start from the rear you get more power… but you can start from the leading leg too. Rear starting… you have more balance. It’s a powerful kick… up around chop down with your heel. Put your enemy off balance. If you fight clean in this city, you won’t go far… you’ll die.” He ran her through the kick again and Kelski gave it a few more tries, finally understanding what he was trying to show her. She ran through the axe kick a few more times then the assistant went down on the ground, rolling down to his back and lifting his feet in the air with his knees bent. “When your enemy goes down, use that same hit to the head, take them down…. You’ll knock them right down.” He said with a grin, beckoning her to try… but on the form on the ground, not on him.

Kelski ran through that move as well and then nodded when Captain Eleuia came back by, gestured for her to run by the kick, and nodded.

“I have another beginner student here too. Once we get you both up to speed on some basic kicks and punches, we’ll set you to training together.” She said, gesturing over to Neras. Kelski turned her head, spotted the Sun Birth’s youth, and nodded.

“Back to work!” She barked, gesturing to her assistant to get Kelski started on the next kick.

[Neras Frostfawn]

Neras rolled his eyes at Darvin when he boasted to the other goons that he was going to petch Kelski one of these days. It sounded like something Greasy would say to the other recruits on the Proving Grounds as they drool over the female recruits. Neras started to move closer to Kelski as he slowly moved his upside down fist forward and turned it over when he finished the punch. At the end of the punch, he could feel his muscles in his arm tense. Slowly, he brought his right fist backward, and as he brought the left fist forward. When he got close to Kelski, he warned quietly, “Hey Sky. I didn't know you were learning martial arts. It a good skill to learn especially with the horny old man as your keeper. By the way if he tries to touch you inappropriately. You grab him by the balls and twist. He will go down right quick...”

As Neras slowly practiced his form punching, he overheard Darvin and group of other men talk about Kelski. Kelski's keeper seemed to brag about how the kelvic viciously killed some Svefra woman in a cage fight. The youth screwed up his sequence of movements when he heard it. He was shocked that Darvin was stupid enough to have her fight in one of those matches in the first place. It wasn't like he cared; however, he sort of did too. When he met her, she seemed like a gentle soul and good nature person, but the more Kelski hung around Darvin. He was noticing a change in her. He was worried the ugliness of the city would consume her if she wasn't careful. If she let him get his way, she would become the thing that she most hated. The youth looked at Darvin and said to with a smirk, “I know you want to make her into a killing machine, but you might want to be careful. Someday, she might turn on you and hang you up by your small parts, Old Man!”

Neras chuckled to himself and figured the old man will come back with colorful retort of his own when after he heard his jab at him. The old man was old enough to be his grandfather, but he figured that he was one of the gang now, so exchanging jabs with one of his older comrades was part of the job. The boy started to speed up his punches. When he started to break a sweat, he slowed down his sequence till he came to a stop. Suddenly, he heard Eleuia say to him, “Alright Jinx, I want you to do a inside block, downward block, and a forward punch combo.”

When Neras was finished, he stood up a moment, shook out his arms, and got back into his forward facing stance. Putting his left fist on his hips, he lifted his right arm and made a fist. It was out in front of his abdomen looking like a backward L coming off his shoulder. Eleuia walked over and corrected the block by lifting his elbow, so his upper arm and the forearm were straighter and made a right angle at the elbow. She said to him with a nod, “Neras, I taught you the inside block before, but I want you to move across your chest to intercept a imaginary punch. When you are finished with your inside block, I want you to continue you inside block and finish with a downward block. Imagine someone kicking you in the balls and trying to block it with your arm.”

Eleuia stepped back and dropped into her forward facing stance with her left fist on his hip. She raised her right fist out in front of her till her arm made right angle. Slowly, she brought her arm over to the left side of her chest this caused her whole right shoulder to move with it. When she was finished with the inside block, she dropped her right fist down and swung down across her groin till it was about a inch away from leg. To Neras, it looked like she swung it in a half circle motion when she did the punch. As she finished the downward block, she punched forward with her left fist turning her punch over till it connected with the target. When she finished, she got out of her stance, and said to him, “Do you understand what I did Neras?”

Neras nodded slowly to her, dropped into his forward facing stance, put his left fist on his left hip, and lift his right fist in front of his abdomen till it sort of made a right angle. He looked at his right arm and straightened out his forearm and upper arm till it made a right angle. When he swung it over, he felt like he brought it over to quickly, so his arm seemed wobbly when it came across his body. Eleuia looked at him and said, “Continue through the sequence. Also slow down your inside block and just work on the movement, Neras.”

When Eleuia left him, he said to her without looking at her, “I overheard Darvin that you killed a woman. How are you doing? I know when I first killed a person. I was wreak for a couple weeks. I couldn't get his face and dying words out of my head. How are you holding up?” Neras didn't know if a kelvic had the same human comprehension of emotions and morals, but he had to ask. He continued with the sequences of the combo, so he moved his right down in a circle motion in front of his body, across his groin, and hit his leg! The youth grimaced when he hit his leg in the block, but he continued with the sequence and finished the combo with a punch. Chuckling to himself, he said to Kelski, “I don't think I am supposed to punch myself when I defend..Oops!”