The Salle, Sunday Crack o'Dawn Until Well Into The Afternoon

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

You got used to certain things, in Jaeger Academy. Like getting up at five sharp and spending the next fourteen hours in the Kwoon, working your arse off. Chuck didn't have any instructors now, or any fellow students to practice against-- didn't matter. He'd been slacking for over a week now, waiting for this new school, and it was time to pick things back up again.

Even if he was nursing a minor hangover. In fact, the hangover helped pick up the right level of aggression - that level that he was unleashing on one of the poor practice dummies right now. Going through the forms, hitting at least half of the major ones. Keep going. Keep working at it.

When he got back to the Academy in summer, he had to be in the same shape as everyone else. It didn't matter he'd be forced to stick to a crazy island boarding school, or that his father seemed to have lost his goddamned mind-- he was gonna keep working for it.

Max sat in the corner of the room, his leash tied to one of the benches. Training or not, there was no way Chuck was letting the pup out of his sight.

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Comments

[bearmaidenfair]

Vider and her berserker-standard insomnia showed up at the salle not long after Chuck. "Good morning," she said to the boy she didn't recognize as she crossed the room to fetch her practice spear.

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

"Morning," Chuck grunted, without bothering to look up from the dummy he was currently assaulting. "Make yourself at home."

[bearmaidenfair]

Vider rolled her eyes and lifted the blunted spear down from its rack. "Thanks, I was waiting for your permission." She hoped they had sarcasm wherever he was from.

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

They did, and Chuck was a local expert at it, too. "No problem," he snarked back, finishing up this round of blows and taking a step back. "You're welcome."

There was a dull thud as Max attempted to dash towards Vider and was unfortunately stopped mid-way by his leash.

[bearmaidenfair]

Vider wasn't exactly one to go puppy-mad, but the little guy was awfully cute, and it looked pretty uncomfortable, straining at his leash like that, so she went over to him and crouched down to let the dog sniff her hand. It was only polite.

"You're new, aren't you?" she asked Chuck. "I don't remember you. Or your dog. He is yours, right?" Because if someone had just left their dog in the salle she was going to have to track them down and yell at them.

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, he's mine." Chuck picked up his towel and slung it over his shoulders, casting a glance towards Max. "And yeah, I'm new. Got in yesterday."

Hence the hangover.

Max sniffed her hand enthusiastically. There were so many new people here! Females! Female humans! He was having the time of his life.

[bearmaidenfair]

Vider hadn't noticed first exposure to the school inspiring quite so much anger amongst anyone in her own cohort, but then, she'd been fairly confused at the time. Or maybe the boy was just angry. It wasn't like she could throw any stones on that score, not when she was what she was.

"Well, welcome to Fandom High, then," Vider said. "I'm Vider Bearskin." She scritched behind Max's ears and told him softly, "Good dog."

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

Chuck was a fairly angry boy by nature; the current circumstances didn't make that any better. However, he was more inclined to be lenient towards anyone who showed his dog the attention Max deserved, which meant some of the worst belligerence was gone from his voice when he spoke again. "Chuck Hansen," he said. His eyes darted towards her weapon. "Spears, eh? How good are you with that thing?"

Maybe he'd be able to wrangle a sparring dummy out of this that actually fought back.

[bearmaidenfair]

"I'm getting better," Vider said matter-of-factly, still scritchng the dog's ears, "but no one would call me an expert yet. I only needed to know enough for holmgang until recently." Oh, right, no one here knew what that was. The lack of a holmgang ring here had been one of the things that tripped her up, at first. "Holmgang is a type of trial by combat, where I come from.

"What's his name?"

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle was stretching her arms as she came in. No dress today, although everything she was wearing still looked a little frilly for a salle. But she had a shiny whip coiled at her hip.

And she raised an eyebrow. "Oh, hello."

... That was actually directed towards Max. There was a wave and everything.

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

Max made happy squeaky puppy noises at her, once again nearly pulling his leash to shreds in his effort to get to Isabelle. Who was way too far away.

Chuck ignored her. He didn't need a hello, thank you.

Well, ignored her for just long enough that the "Oh, it's you" sounded especially dismissive.

[seveninchmotto]

It would've been more effective if he'd just ignored her completely. Like Isabelle was doing to him right now. Although her excuse was striding over to Max so the poor leash could catch a break.

For a cat person, she was quite good at dog scritches.

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

Max didn't need much to fall in love with a person, really. Good dog scritches were good enough. He made happy little squeaky noises and leaned into it.

Chuck ignored the both of them, though he did hit the dummy a little bit harder.

[seveninchmotto]

"Aww, good boy," Isabelle cooed to Max. "You'll do very well in Fandom."

Unlike some other life forms in this very room, maybe.

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

"Try not to chew on anything she's wearing, Max," Chuck threw the pup's way. "You don't know where it's been."

Oh, classy.

[seveninchmotto]

"Did you come up with that line all by yourself?" Isabelle retorted without even a glance over.

She'd been insulted in more creative ways, thanks.

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

"I got better things to do than come up with clever ways to insult you, sweetheart," he said, dodging an invisible enemy. "You'll have to settle for stock."

[nottrivial]

Alec was here bright and early (possibly dark and early; this was the winter months, after all) with a broadsword to practice with - if he was going to be teaching that girl how to fence, he thought he'd change up his usual training routine and practice with one a while.

He nodded at the new guy and proceeded to go about his training routine as if he were alone. Small talk while training wasn't his style. Though after a minute or two, he did grunt, "Are you good enough at what you're doing here that that dog's not in any danger from you?"

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

"You think the dog would be here if I wasn't?" Chuck said, pausing only briefly as that question connected.

[nottrivial]

"I'm not about to underestimate how stupid some people can be," Alec replied. He was running through basic parries, so most of his attention was on that, but he did glance Chuck's way for long enough to size him up.

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

Chuck moved like a guy who'd spent the past seventeen weeks doing combat training in various disciplines 14 hours a day; his own style tended towards heavy brawling rather than smooth acrobatics, but he definitely knew what he was doing.

"I'm not some people," he snapped. "You sure you're not any danger to my dog?"

[nottrivial]

Hmm. Alec surveyed Chuck for a minute, then looked away; he clearly wasn't glaringly incompetent.

"Pretty certain," Alec said dryly.

He moved sharply from a low parry into an offensive swipe at a training dummy, thwacking it at the knee. The gesture was clearly not designed to show off or punctuate what he'd just said; he moved, as always, subtly, like he didn't think he was being watched.

"Though I obviously can't speak for anyone else who might come in here."

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

Chuck stole a glance his way to size him up in turn. All right, not entirely incompetent. Fine.

"We'll burn that bridge when we get to it," he said. "Didn't think this place would be this busy--"

Whack across the shoulder. Mm, Jaeger Bushido.

[nottrivial]

Two quick stabs to the dummy's shoulder followed. Alec believed in being thorough when it came to getting dummy stuffing all over the floor.

And killing demons. Also that.

"It's usually not," he said, pausing in his attacks to wipe sweat from his forehead. "I'm here every morning. My sister too, sometimes. Usually pretty quiet other than that."

Though to be fair, that could just be because he got in the zone and didn't pay attention.

"I'm guessing you're new?"

[jaegerborn.livejournal.com]

That was getting to be a familiar question.

"Got in yesterday."

He finished this round and paused briefly to pick up his towel. "I suppose I could be slightly worse off with the training facilities..."

Very slightly, was the general gist of his tone.