fandomhighdorms | The Salle [Wednesday, After Classes]

So apparently some people weren't as crazy as Kate, and preferred not to get up at the ass-crack of dawn to play with swords. Possibly that was because she was alone in that particular habit. Or just she spent time with the ones inclined to lie-ins.

Either way she was breaking that habit once again today. She couldn't help but wonder, idly, as she ran a cloth over Slayer's blade if maybe teaching someone to do as she did, didn't come somewhere under Tyrion's 'nothing that'll get anyone killed' clause. The thought wasn't giving her any pause, though, and she'd brought an extra sword, assuming that her partner would probably show. Hoped she did, actually, since she was intrigued to know if this would work.

Her lips twitched in a slight grimace as she encountered a weakness in the enchanted blade. "I'll feed you tomorrow."

... She liked to pretend it could understand her sometimes. Hush.

[[Kate is waiting for someone specific, but the post is still open and she's around should anyone want to bother her before that.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kenzi bounced in after the adventures in theft and art installation, and grinned at Kate. "Hey! Thanks for this again. Where do we start?"

Wow. Someone was extra chipper today. That was probably a good sign.

"I don't know," Kate answered, pausing her blade buffing to talk. "Have you ever actually held a sword before?" That was a good place to start.

"A fake sword?" Kenzi winced a little, but looked hopefully at the blades. "And I sucked at it. Trying to keep Bo off me. When she was a crazy monster."

"Fake doesn't mean 'plastic' does it?" Because Kate had fought Bo when she was a crazy monster, and she couldn't imagine anything flimsy doing much good.

Possibly why she'd sucked at it and all.

"No, just not sharp. It was a thing I picked up from the back of a theater," Kenzi admitted. "I ended up going with the hairspray. Which worked way better than I expected."

"Huh." Apparently even creepy grey people didn't like getting shit in their eyes.

"... We'll call that a start." Or something. "This one is sharp, so just... promise me you won't accidentally cut off your own fingers or anything?" Kate's med-mage skills were limited, and she'd rather not have to drag her down to the clinic to have anything reattached.

"I am a fan of keeping everything where it belongs," Kenzi promised, carefully taking the sword. "Fingers, nowhere near the cutting surfaces." She held onto it carefully, arms sticking out, more like it was a bat than anything else.

Kate huffed out a little breath of amusement. "You can keep your fingers away from the pointy bits without looking like you're up to bat. Loosen up your grip a little and relax. You'll want your main hand higher on the hilt than your off hand."

She finally dropped the cloth she'd been using and stood to give her some idea of her own stance and hold.

Kenzi tried to loosen up, the sword dipping a little before she corrected, and moved her hands back the way Kate said. She tried to copy Kate's stance, but with her feet further apart than her shoulders, knees bent a bit more. "How long have you been studying this?"

"That's less baseball more sumo," Kate told her with a mild smirk. Such a caring teacher, this one.

She shrugged and ran her fingers up the base of her sword's blade. "Since I can remember," she answered. "Knives at first. I was maybe five. My dad was big on me being able to defend myself." Perhaps a little too big on it for most people's comfort.

"Not as weird in my world as it might've been in this one."

"Wow. Hard-core." Kenzi's face was sober, and she re-adjusted her stance, smirking a little, then asked, "What's the biggest thing you've tried to use a sword on?"

Kate tilted her head as she considered that, and shrugged. "Troll, maybe?" she suggested. "But sometimes there's things in the wilderness out there you just can't really tell what they are."

So there could be bigger, she just couldn't ID what it might've been.

"Trolls feel a little like fighting a giant sentient tree." They were very... barky.

"Does a sword even work on something like that?" Kenzi asked, trying a small swing with her sword, looking appalled. Very quietly, she murmured, "Arrrrr."

"They're still humanoid. Sort of," Kate answered, hitching a shrug. "They just have extra thick skin. It's not the easiest, but it can be done."

"Feeling better with that?" she checked. To be trying a little of the piratey, she assumed she must be.

Kenzi shot her a grin. "Uh-hunh. I liiiike it." Swooshity! Swash! Buckle!

"Should've found you a cutlass," she remarked with a smirk. Then the 'arr' would've fitted even better.

"I'd rock that," Kenzi decided, then settled down again. "Stabbity. So, what next?"

"Not stabbity yet," Kate replied. Things didn't get stabbed until she was a little more confident in Kenzi's ability to handle a blade.

"But I was going to do some drills, and today you're doing them with me." Sadly, the basics were important... if repetitive and kind of boring.

She'd be doing things a lot slower, to allow Kenzi to mimic what she was doing at first. "The blade is one I got Greg to bring up on the weekend. It should be a good one. No vibrations up your arm and well made."

"Cooooool. Thank you," Kenzi said, meaning it. She carefully mimicked Kate, and while she wasn't perfect, she had most of the angles right now. All that dance training when she was little probably helped. "Who's Greg?"

Kate made a few arcs with her sword before she answered with, "Guardian. He came down for the parent thing."

"He's a knight, so... He has swords around." Well, weapons of all sorts. Greg was more of a mace kind of guy.

"Ah. My aunt made it." For solidarity of had-someone, not-parents. Kenzi wasn't going to ask where Kate's were. You never knew what answers you'd get. "So he does the whole 'defend the realm' thing?" Kenzi carefully mimicked Kate again, muttering "Avast!" under her breath.

The Salle [Wednesday, After Classes]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject