pyr min solemnly swears he is up to no good (twinclaws) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-11-24 15:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, !plot: as i lay dying, cressida karth, pyr min |
every day is a chore, chore, chore
Who: Pyr Min & Cressida Karth
What: Training, aborted.
Where: Shieldwyrm Hall
When: Wednesday 11/20 (backdated)
Rating: G
Status: Complete
Cressida’s kick should not have connected—he’d seen it coming, but the order to duck had been lost in transit from his brain to his muscles. “Ow,” Pyr complained, and corrected his stance. He’d been off all day: he was making stupid mistakes, and his blows were weaker than normal, which was saying something. Cressida wasn’t hitting as hard as she usually did, either. Pyr sighed and moved in for a punch. His only consolation was that Sister Felicity wasn’t around to see him fight like a first-year squire. His punch landed, at least, for what good it did him. He couldn’t concentrate on the spar. And that nasty sensation that he was about to sneeze had been with him all day. His nose itched, and his head hurt. The reason he hadn’t cancelled was that he actually liked sparring with Cressida, compared to every other class he had to suffer through, and her survival exam was coming up, and he wanted to help as much as possible. Yet in his current condition, he couldn’t say sparring with him would prepare Cressida for any danger she might encounter in the Outlands, unless, by some strange twist of fate, she had to fight a squirrel—though, Pyr suspected, a squirrel might well be a far mightier opponent than he was at the moment. She was breathing a touch more heavily than usual, but it was understandable— evidently the small cold she’d contracted from her brother was turning into more of a flu, a most annoying illness that meant bedrest and less training when her exam was around the corner. Fatigue was slowing her movements, weakening her blows, and it made for a rather pathetic spar. Faram, what if she couldn’t do the exam because of a silly flu? Suddenly irritated with herself — and maybe, by some extension, her brother — she quickly stepped into position for a side kick and threw her heel. This time, his body and his mind launched a collaborative effort and he managed to step out of the way of the blow in time, though her foot still grazed his side. Pyr couldn’t get over how pointless the whole exercise was—they were both moving as gracefully as the drunks that had haunted the streets after Bierfest. He dropped his stance and sighed. “I’m sorry, Cress,” he said. “I don’t think this is going to be good practice for your exam. I can’t concentrate.” Her sigh was of relief. She hadn’t been wanting to call it quits first, and it showed in the way her stance relaxed, arms falling. “Neither can I. I thought I’d feel better today, but…” A tired hand rose to smooth a flyaway hair. “I’ve been feeling under the weather for days, and it’s getting worse, not better,” she explained, succumbing to a cough that suddenly crept into her chest. Possessed by an unlooked-for burst of empathy, Pyr started coughing too. It was clear they weren’t getting any more work done, so he walked over to his bag, which he’d left off to the side, and retrieved a tin of cookies. He returned to Cressida and flopped down on the ground. “Want one?” he asked, offering her the tin. A sigh. “Definitely,” the archer murmured, strolling over to drop down next to him. With a reach, she snagged her own bag and pulled out her bottle of water, the movement prompting another sigh. Before uncapping, she snatched a cookie. “At least we seem to both be sick with the same thing. Are your muscles abnormally sore?” This was an illness she’d encountered in the past, the flu, but somehow, something was different this time. What was it? “Define abnormally.” Pyr stuffed a cookie into his mouth and, through the munching, said, “I’m sore all the time.” He shrugged, swallowed. After a beat, he added, “But I guess I’m more tired than usual. Does your head hurt?” She bit into her cookie thoughtfully. “All of me hurts, but yeah, it does. I’m…” Swallow. “I’m torn between asking the council to postpone my exam, but I’m worried they’ll think I’ll want to call sick days every time I’m a little sick.” Would they hold it against her? They wouldn’t send her into snowy outlands with the flu, would they? There came a sigh, and a short cough. “Thanks for training with me anyway, even though you feel about as wretched as I do. I really appreciate it.” Pyr shook his head—a bad decision, he realised a half-second too late, as his vision swam. He blinked a few times and wished, not for the first time that day, that he could just return to his room and sleep for a whole week. “It’s cool. I’d rather train with you than some of the,” he looked around and, spotting one of his instructors beating the stuffing out of a dummy not too far away, continued, “honorable guild members I have to train with sometimes.” Never hurt to be careful, just in case. He didn’t see how the Council could devise an even worse training schedule for him, and he didn’t want to find out. “Maybe if you go see a healer and get him to sign you a note or something?” Pyr suggested. “It’s not like you’re skipping because you want to, right? And you need to be at your best for the exam!” At his admission, the archer smiled softly, not expecting that. Her, above the other amazing and talented Guild members? Still, it was a nice thought. His suggestion was a good one, and he made a valid point— she would never consider asking for an exam to be postponed if it wasn’t for a very good reason. And this, certainly, qualified as one. “The thing is, I don’t know if I’ll still be sick next week. But my body will feel it, so…” A sigh. “I might do that. It’s better than collapsing into my campfire.” She nibbled on her cookie, feeling ridiculously conflicted, despite it all. Take a chance with her illness, or take a chance with the council? Faram damn it all. “You’d have to spend a couple of days in the Outlands, right?” The epic images he’d envisioned when he’d first heard it was a survival exam—of Cressida wrestling wild boars with her bare hands, shooting several arrows at once at attacking monsters, kicking ass and taking names—were even unlikelier to ever take place in reality if Cress spent her whole exam coughing and rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I don’t think you should be doing that if you’re sick. No one will be there to help you, right?” “Maybe we should both take it easy,” she muttered. He took the two cookies out of the bag, handed one to Cressida and took a bite out of the other. “Taking it easy sounds perfect to me,” Pyr said. There was nothing quite like watching other people slave away at training while he chilled. Add sweets to the mix and he couldn’t think of a better way to while away the afternoon. |