fandomhighdorms | The Salle, Monday Afternoon

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The Salle, Monday Afternoon

Kate hadn't actually ever been in the salle before. She wouldn't have even been in the salle today if she hadn't made some plans with Luke, yesterday. It felt more than a little surreal that her life had come to a point where making plans like this seemed to be necessary, but she was just going with it. And she was tired of feeling like there wasn't much she could do in the face of danger or monsters.

And if nothing else, maybe this'd at least provide the distraction she so desperately needed. Maybe it'd work a little like her dancing had, before she'd given that up out of general laziness.

For now, she was poking curiously at the practice dummies while half lost in her thoughts, occasionally tugging absently on the light scarf she was still wearing.

[ooc: Girl has shown up for Luke, but open post is open for all your Kate-bothering/salle-using needs!]

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Luke showed up a few minutes later, his sword resting casually across his shoulder and wearing his leather Greek armor over his wrists and t-shirt. Kate might not have been able to get hurt with the weapons they were using, but Luke could and he had enough scars at the moment.

"Hey," he said when he came in, looking as close to cheerful as he got. He really did love teaching people. "Glad you didn't get lost on the way here."

Kate managed something approaching a wry smile when she glanced over at him. Wasn't much but what she lacked in anything approaching cheer, she made up for in at least having picked out some sensible clothes that allowed for movement.

"Hey," she greeted him back, from beside one of the dummies she'd been examining. "Never been here before, but it's kinda hard not to know where everything is after a year and half of living here."

"Year and a half? Wow, you blow my seven months here out of the water," Luke said, looking impressed. "You had to have seen way more weird than me and I've been fighting monsters since I was seven."

"Well, it's definitely been a long year and a half," she replied, with some more of that wryness. "But yeah, the weird shit just keeps coming so the longer you stay the more of it you have to face. Thank fuck some of it's not bad, right?"

Like helpful demigods, for instance.

"Some of it is downright enjoyable. I love the stuff with the free candy," Luke said. He lowered his sword from his shoulder and planted it on the ground, using it for balance as he leaned against it. "You ready to get started?"

"Uh huh, I suppose I am," Kate replied, nodding easily as she took a step away from the dummy, eyes flicking briefly down to the sword. It was still weird to see those not just as props for fantastic paintings. "Even did some warm up stuff already."

"Good. Pulling a muscle would really suck," he said. "I was in here earlier with my cousin so I don't need a warm up."

He didn't think he was gonna strain himself too bad this time around anyway.

Luke snapped his fingers and a long knife sheathed in a leather holder appeared in his hand. "Excuse that display of power."

Kate's eyes widened some, of course they did. She shook her head.

"Yeah, I'm never really getting used to people doing that."

"Trust me, if you ever lived in a cabin with ten people that can do the exact same thing, you'd get used to it," Luke said. He unsheathed the knife, which was bronze and about seven inches long. He handed it over to Kate hilt-first. "This is for you."

"For me." That may have been intended as a semi-question, but it didn't quite sound that way in the end. She was far too distracted by weighing the knife in her hand, eyes on the blade. "Cool."

Maybe that wasn't the right word but it was what came out.

"I know this is gonna sound creepy, but go ahead and try to nick yourself with it," Luke said. "It'll go right through you."

Kate snorted. "Not even the creepiest thing I've heard within the last week." I can wait to kill you may have taken that honor.

She trusted him, but she still did it extremely gingerly, touching the blade to one of her fingertips, looking ready to wince.

Which she didn't need to because yeah. "Wow, well, that's... a little freaky. But good."

"Yeah, celestial bronze is pretty cool. Comes straight from Mount Olympus, but I won't bother going into the whole process of mining it because it's long and confusing," he said. "All you need to know is that you don't have to worry about hurting mortals by accident; you just need to be careful around non-humans you do like and anybody I happen to be related to."

She looked up at him, quirking a brow. "But I thought you said Percy could heal himself?"

And that, that was Kate's first actual smirk of the new year. First proper joke, too.

Luke smiled. "Point. Only stab him if he really deserves it."

"Just about once a week, then," she returned, before turning her attention back to the knife. "So, I guess there's more to using this thing than just waving it about and hoping you hit a monster or an annoying brat in the process?"

"Just one or two things," he said, looking amused. "The first, and most important thing, is that you need to get a feel for your weapon. That's true for any knife, sword, gun, whatever. If you're not confident in your ability to use that knife it's gonna show when you really need to use it."

Luke stopped leaning off his sword and casually twirled it a few times. "I'm not saying you have to spend every minute of the day in the salle. But doing stuff like I'm doing right now in your room will help you get comfortable with handling a weapon."

"Isn't there a rule about no weapons actually in the rooms?" Kate wondered, not that it was a rule she was particularly adamant on not breaking, as evidenced by how quickly she moved from the question to other comments.

"I get what you're saying, though," she said, weighing the knife again, turning her wrist a couple of times. Wasn't going to try any twirling right now, but she understood the concept. "It's one of those things I can't just bullshit my way through."

"Right," he said with a nod. He didn't answer her first question because he figured Kate was smart enough not to get caught if she did practice in her room. He was a son of Hermes, he was a proponent of rule breaking.

"Knives are a lot different that swords. You need to be closer to your opponent to strike, so quick reflexes are key," Luke explained. "It'll be easy for this guy to hit you back if you don't hurt him right away, so you need to work on being able to strike and move away as quickly as possible. I don't know if you've ever tried using punching bags, but exercising with them can help with those sort of movements"

Kate listened pretty intently, nodding a few times as he spoke.

"I haven't," she said then. Punching bags hadn't been much of a a priority for a dancer. "Looks like I'll be having to hit the gym, too."

Probably not a bad idea in general. She was a skinny little thing.

Luke smiled and gave her a shrug. "It's more than just swinging weapons around. But it's worth it."

Said the guy who thought working out was the best thing in the world.

"Okay, enough talking for now," Luke said. He pointed over at the dummy. "Attack that guy and show me how you think a knife should be used."

Oh. Kate had been feeling pretty confident up until this point, but that kind of got drained away once it was time to actually do anything. "This is gonna be so fucking embarrassing," she muttered to herself, but that was probably the only way to learn, right? Do it the wrong way so someone can tell you the right way, or whatever.

That's what she was telling herself, anyway, as she took a step closer to the dummy and tried pushing away all that useless paranoia about looking like an idiot. She'd used a less flashy knife on a bunch of creatures back when the island was disappearing, and she tried thinking back to that before she made what counted as an attack from her.

She did hit the dummy with a diagonal slash across its chest, but it was damn obvious she was going to do it, and it was a little on the flaily side as far as movements went, too.

Luke watched this all very carefully and after a moment walked up to the dummy to get a closer look at where Kate stabbed it. "That actually wasn't half bad. Could've been smoother and had more power behind it, but I've seen worse."

"I know in movies people tend to stab people from above," Luke said, using his free hand to mimic the way Norman Bates killed Janet Leigh in Psycho. "But it's better to do it under handed. You'll have more control and he'll have trouble grabbing your wrist to stop you."

In any other situation, Kate would've beamed or looked smug at the slightest compliment, but right now she was actually paying attention.

"So... Under handed like how, exactly?"

[And here's where I need to crash for the night omg.]

"Oh, right, sorry--" He adjusted his hand on the hilt on his own sword and stood beside Kate so she could see what he was doing. "See how my thumb's facing up on the hilt? That's how you want to hold it. When you attack it'll be more of a jabbing motion that slashing one. It'll make you less...flaily."

That was totally the technical term.

"I don't flail." Yes, she kind of did, and she knew it, so that mildly indignant response was all the arguing he was going to hear on that point.

She checked how he was holding his sword, then adjusted the position of her own hand. "Jabbing, not slashing," she said, as she tried thrusting the knife forward some, then drew it back. "Right."

"See? Less flailing already," he teased lightly. There was really no point in being a teacher if you couldn't have fun teasing your students.

"Also, you went for the chest, which is fine. That would still hurt. But the guy's taller than you, right? The chest isn't where you'll be able to get your most powerful hit." Luke started at pointing parts of himself since he was about 6'1" and was on the tall side for a guy. "Try the lower stomach or on the side."

Kate rolled her eyes on the teasing, but it was good-natured.

"Yeah, he's about your height, actually," she said then. Of course, Hannibal had looked even taller these last two times, but she was putting that down to him just being really fucking scary. "Last time I went for the groin, so I'm no stranger to aiming low."

Though that had been more a question of opportunity. But that was kind of a joke, anyway.

"Well that's one surefire way to get rid of a guy, that's for sure," he said, chuckling a little. "As a personal favor, try to avoid that move when you're fighting me in here, okay?"

"Well, if you don't intend on calling me a whore, I'm sure I can restrain myself," she returned with a half smirk. "Those are good ground rules, right?"

"Oh, definitely. I can work with that," Luke said. "My name calling is usually reserved for Percy, anyway."

And Percy had kneed him in the groin several times in return, so.

Kate huffed out a quiet little laugh. "And I'm sure he just loves that," she drawled, gaze flicking towards the dummy again. "So, going for the low parts is good, I can get that."

"Go ahead and stab the dummy in the gut," Luke encouraged. "Feel the difference for yourself."

Kate did as instructed, a look of concentration on her face as she thrust the knife forwards again, this time in the general area of the dummy's imaginary lower stomach.

She didn't have all that much strength to put into it, but it did feel a litttle more steady, a little more direct. Maybe more violent too but she wasn't thinking too hard on that.

"Better, right?" he asked. "More controlled?"

"Much," she agreed with a nod. "Kinda feels like it's actually going somewhere specific. So, less flaily."

"Good. Those are pretty much the basics. If you practice with that stuff in mind you'll do all right," Luke assured her. "You can learn a lot of fancy moves but during a fight they don't mean anything. Really you just need the basics and the ability to not panic when you're in danger."

"And I'm surprisingly good at that already," Kate noted with a nod. She'd pretty much found the one context in her life where it was actually helpful that she tended to default to anger if she didn't quite know how to act otherwise. "And I'm totally not looking to be a master... kniveswoman or whatever. Just interested in staying alive."

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The Salle, Monday Afternoon

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