Juliette Coulombe (clearyourmind) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-04-07 00:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !narrative, juliette coulombe |
'Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar
Who: Juliette
What: Taking her class exam!
Where: Ashwyrm Hall
When: Today!
Rating: Tame
Status: Complete!
Sometimes -- not often, but sometimes -- Juliette wondered whether she had joined the wrong guild. The short written test which preceded the examination she would undertake -- considered terrifying by some of her fellow squires, who rarely cracked open books -- was by far the least worrisome portion of her day. The questions were fewer than she thought, and open-ended enough that even if she hadn’t listened to her teachers, it seemed she could easily compose answers that would satisfy the requirements. If only, she thought as she wrote her name atop the paper, the rest of the day could go this well… Of the panel of three monks who oversaw the next portion of the exam, she knew only two, and those not very well. Perhaps it had been foolish of her to hope that Councilor Liu, who thought well of her, might find the time to proctor the exam. She spotted her mentor by the wall, meeting his eyes for a brief moment. His expression said little, but he was here (he was, of those who mattered, the only one who had come), and she was uncertain whether the boost in confidence was worth the increase in anxiety, but she hoped desperately not to disappoint him. His expression gave away nothing. Her thoughts drifted and her hands shook slightly, a sure sign of nerves, but she yanked herself back to the present just in time to hear the words of the man sitting at the left side of the table. Hand-to-hand katas. She could do this, she reminded herself. She had done the first forms so often that she could practically do them half awake. As she worked, she pushed all other thoughts out of her mind, determined to show her best. Still, she did not relax into her usual confidence until the third form; as her mind finally emptied, all energy flowing instead to her muscles, her movements became more certain, quick and graceful in execution now where she had previously been stilted. By the final set, her heart was beating faster; she stopped once directed and reminded herself not to clasp her hands in front of her, not to drop her gaze. She was not a young lady here; of all places, here was where Lady Coulombe had to be put away. Even if she did not feel confident, she had to appear that way. The proctors’ faces revealed little, but the woman in the middle gave her a tiny nod of what seemed to be approval when she met her eyes. “Weapon of choice for the second portion?” “Claws,” she said, and prayed that in the brief time she had been training with them, it would be enough. “Fetch a pair.” Even as she was strapping them on, the instructions for a whole new set of forms began; she tried not to scramble to keep up. Teachers tended to pull their strength when sparring squires, even those who pushed the hardest. She knew it to be true -- they were attempting to instruct, not defeat (the first was much more difficult for a fully trained fighter than the second). The exam proctor did not do this. You don’t have to win, they had told her; she was painfully aware that setting her such a task against an experienced opponent would have ensured her failure. Still, though she knew she would take a beating, it was harder to stand each time. But she was strong enough to stand, she told herself, gritting her teeth. She wasn’t as strong as the proctor, but she would be. Someday. Today, she could only call upon her deepest well of tenacity and stand and attack, again and again. Some of her attacks connected. Not as many as her opponent’s, but some. Some would simply have to do. She fought internally too -- as her opponent provoked her and exploited her weaknesses, the frustration of not being good enough threatened to rise, to overwhelm the logical and rational part of her brain which was directing her makeshift strategy, but she would not be angry here. She tried to recall her many lessons from her many teachers, to use her speed to compensate for her mediocre strength, landed one more hit, took two, dodged one, landed one more. At the call of “Enough,” she stood, breathing hard and wiping at the trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth. But she was standing. That had to count for something. They asked her questions as she stood before them, now dusty and rumpled and bleeding. She tried not to stammer. She answered questions about philosophy -- hers and that of the fighting style she had chosen -- about technique, about tactics. But they all came back, in the end, to why. “The monk class is more than a set of physical skills, to me,” she said at last. “It is a search for something inside myself.” Certainty. Confidence. Calm. “I choose to fight this way because I wish to... master myself.” Anger is the enemy. Her first teacher had taught her well, and she had embraced the lesson, internalized it. She had struggled against herself, but in this, she had won, today. She was calm. Dazed, tired, and strangely hollowed out -- but no longer bleeding -- she left the hall by mid-afternoon, freshly washed hair braided over her shoulder, dirty clothing in a bag under her arm. What came now? She didn’t know, other than the strange limbo while she waited for the proctors to confer, to decide if this time, her best had been good enough. |