Ciri (wolfcub) wrote in valloic, @ 2022-05-07 02:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, emelan: briar moss, ₴ inactive: ciri |
ciri and Briar do a bit of sparring at Kaer Morhen!WARNINGS None
Having grown up in Winding Circle grounds, if not in the actual temple, sword training had not exactly been an option. If he’d thought of it, he could have sought out the harriers or the other soldiers who guarded the city of Summersea, who drilled in all kinds of weapons, but his mage training had always come first. That and weeding, and other gardening and general chores. Plus there had been pirate attacks and plagues and things. He’d been busy.
After a trek through a magical portal and halfway up a mountain, he vaulted easily over a fence and landed in the dust of the training ground. If nothing else, he needed to meet more people here, and this seemed like a good opportunity. So far he’d made one friend, and that friend was made of plants, and he was yet to come to grips with how he felt about that.
Kaer Morhen was quiet regardless of whether it was in her actual world or in the world of Vallo, but things had just seemed a lot more solitary since Geralt had left. There was no hard and fast rule that she was required to live up here by any means and perhaps she would have felt better if she didn’t, but she somewhat felt like she owed it to Vesemir to at least spend a few months getting it in as good shape as she possibly could before she moved into Vallo City proper. Or the woods, or- really, anywhere that wasn’t populated by nothing but the occasional bird and herself.
It wasn’t as though she had no friends here, but making some more would probably be a good idea - if she could figure out how to, exactly. She had lived so long with the threat of the Wild Hunt hanging over her head that even a year on, being somewhere long enough to have put her proverbial roots down was just… odd.
The sound of somebody entering Kaer Morhen made her look up, a smile on her face as she grabbed an armful of wooden swords from the chair she’d set them down on. Probably far too many, but still - she carried them over to the newcomer and dropped them on the floor by the fence, sticking her hand out to him as a greeting. “Ciri. Nice to actually meet you?”
“Briar Moss,” he said, taking her hand to shake in reply. There were situations where he would have kissed the hand of a girl who offered it to him, but it did not seem appropriate in this instance. As they shook, the flower and vine tattoos that covered his hands shifted visibly under the skin, blooms changing from cool blue to excitable pinks and yellows. “Thanks for the offer,” he went on - “nice place you’ve got all the way up here. Peaceful. The air’s a little thin, but that’s mountains for you.”
“You get used to thin air when you grow up in the mountains. It’s safer than most places here, but far too quiet for just me,” she glanced down at his hand when they shook, catching the movement of his tattoos out of the corner of her eye. Her eyes widened just a little at the sight of them, narrowly resisting the urge to indulge in her curiosity. “Peaceful is nice, but after so much excitement in my life I’d say it’s probably a bit too peaceful. I wouldn’t mind occasionally if something wanted to jump over the walls to give me a challenge,” she shot him a grin as she dropped his hand, blinking away into blue light and reappearing in front of the wooden swords, picking two up. “Do you know anything at all about swords, or are we starting from the beginning of ‘don’t stab yourself’?”
“Lakik’s teeth,” Briar exclaimed, spinning around. He was still getting used to the bizarre kinds of magic that were to be found here. “How did you - no, you know what, don’t tell me, we’ll be here for days.” He rubbed his eyes; he was used to being able to see magic, and it was disconcerting to feel blind in one way while being entirely unaltered in another. “Swords - right. Just big long knives?” He caught the one she tossed him easily. “Dodge the point and the edges?”
She wasn’t sure who - or what, perhaps - Lakik was, but the meaning was very easy to get across as she shot a grin at him. “Sorry. It’s a habit I’m trying to not rely on too heavily after realising we can get taken to places where our powers are gone. If you’re curious, it’s not something I mind explaining,” maybe once they’d gone through sword training a little bit. She wasn’t quite cruel enough to make him use the pendulum, but footwork was inherently important to staying alive. “Dodge the point and the edges is a good start. The general idea is to always try to be a step ahead of your opponent, but boring stuff first. I’m not going to make you do footwork and stance for months before touching one of these, but we should probably start with the very basics.”
Briar nodded; he certainly understood the necessity of a decent grounding before attempting anything advanced. It was easy to get killed that way either with weapons or magic. He could only hope what little he already knew might be enough to help him skip some of the more awkward stages. He settled into the first stance she showed him and then the second, and practised switching between them a few times. He realised that he felt comfortable here; not that it was any more familiar than anywhere else, but it certainly reminded him more of home than anywhere in the city. It was much quieter, for one thing, no other-worldly beeping or sounds coming out of screens or other things which while interesting were wildly unnatural. He could feel the earth around here, ancient and settled and growing thick hardy pines. Even as he began to sweat from effort, he could feel the strange anxiety that had been almost constant since his arrival flow away, sinking into the ground and calming his heart. It was like a form of meditation.
Ciri couldn’t say that teaching was relaxing, but it was a far cry from everything else that had been happening lately - a far cry from anything she’d been few in the past few years, even. It was nice to not be the one everybody was looking at like she was still an unruly kid who was disobeying orders rather than somebody with a murderous group of elves following her every move, across dimensions and time and space. “You’ve got a solid stance. It’s obvious you’ve fought before - is it the same with staff work? Trying to be a couple of steps ahead of what your enemy’s doing wherever possible?”
“Definitely seems familiar.” He stretched and shrugged. “Pretty good philosophy to have in any aspect of life, I suppose.” He grinned. “Am I allowed to hit things yet?”
“I suppose I could let you hit some things,” she grinned a little, straightening up and stretching an arm across her chest. “I’m not as mean as Vesemir. I wasn’t allowed to hit anything for something like a month, but I think it’s more fun to learn the fun stuff,” she shrugged a little and took a stance, holding her sword up. “Take a swing. Three hits and I’m out?”
“A swing??” Briar laughed nervously. This was like something his foster sister Daja might do, five seconds before he was flat on his back in the dirt. Sure, take a swing against a trained swordswoman, see how far you get. His first attempt was not exactly backed by all his strength, and he was very glad they were using practice weapons.
Ciri gave him a little grin. “You don’t need to look so worried,” she teased lightly and Briar’s first swing was easy enough to block, although that was fairly expected. “You’re not going to hurt me, if that’s something you’re worried about. The worst I’m going to get is a bruise,” she took a few steps back. “Like you mean it, this time. Like I’m about to stab you.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” Briar murmured. He wasn’t concerned about hurting her in the least, he was no stranger to sparring with girls and had had anything resembling that kind of boyish hard-headedness knocked out of him long ago. He took a deep breath of refreshingly chill air through his nostrils, keeping his eyes intentionally open, and went into the exercise with more intention, trying not to flinch whenever the blunt point of Ciri’s weapon came near his limbs.
Ciri couldn’t help but laugh at the little under-his-breath comment Briar made, blocking his swings in a slightly awkward-yet-determined dance of block, dodge, swing, the clack of wood on wood keeping her focused on a task she used to find incredibly dull. It was refreshing in a way, practising with somebody who clearly had training - just not in her specific style of swordplay. “You’re better at this than you led me to believe,” she teased, light and airy as she ducked under his ‘blade’ and aimed for his side, less looking to hit and more looking to tap.
“Ow,” Briar muttered, although it hadn’t hurt, really. Daja would have hit harder. When she aimed for him again, he actually managed to block the swing, though he could tell his hold was off by the way it reverberated all the way up his arm. After an hour of this however, he could feel himself improving in lots of little ways, and his mind was quieter than it had been since his arrival in Vallo. He was breathing hard and sweating despite the chill air when they finally put down the practice blades. “Thanks,” he said, resting his hands for a moment on his knees while he caught his breath. “I needed that.”
Ciri grinned a little and bumped him with the tip of the blade before letting it drop to the floor, flopping down next to him after giving her limbs a good stretch. “Yeah. I really did too, honestly. It’s kind of easy to get wound up about the things happening here,” and the mere mention of the Wild Hunt had sent her into a mild panic-spiral a few months ago, something she hadn’t fully recovered from the threat of, yet. “You’re welcome to come up any time you like,” Geralt and Vesemir wouldn’t have liked it, but as it stood, it was Ciri’s castle currently. Her rules, unless Vesemir showed up one day. “I’ll go grab us some drinks and walk you back whenever you’re ready.”