WHO: Solas, Six, Sidony, Ashen, you! WHAT: General character open post WHEN: Covering this month. WHERE: All over! NOTES: Free for all as I come back from hiatus.
Training is still familiar to her, even after all this time.
The motions that she was taught so many years ago, Adrian's eyes on her, adjusting her arm, just there, the way she balanced her greatsword against the curve of her palm, the slight bend in her shoulders, the pressure of her heel just so... It has been a great many years since she was his student, since she was young enough to be tutored by anyone, but sometimes she feels the emotions so deeply that it is as if she has been transported through time itself.
Her greatsword feels good in her hand, familiar and warm and wonderful, and Six breathes through the motions of twisting her body, the ache in her armas as familiar as it is uncomfortable. That's good; it means she is tightening the muscles, reshaping them into what she needs. A few weeks without proper training and she feels unfit all of a sudden, as if all her bulk has disappeared entirely.
She only pauses when she recognises a shock of bright hair, enough to capture her attention and drag it away from the turn of her body, dropping her blade to one side and pushing the hair from her face.
It's early in the day - so early that the lamps in the yard are still lit and the grey early morning has only just begun to cut the flow of their light. And the man crossing the yard now, removing his gloves, seems finished with his sword work for the morning. He's cutting across the margin of the training pitch and all his attention is fixed on the darkened archway leading away from this place.
He is not, strictly speaking, avoiding her. It has been months. There is no use to it. But he has been avoiding this. It's been ages since they sparred, weeks since he appeared in the yard in hours typical for finding partners. Perhaps he has been working an early rotation that keeps him away. Or perhaps--
Well, it doesn't matter. He stops when he hears his name as if he had been somehow expecting it, and half turns toward her.
He could lie. He has work to see to. He could say I've done my sparring for the day, maybe tomorrow.
Instead, he shifts fully around and pretends the uneasy thud of his pulse is someone else's.
There's a moment where it seems as though Six might protest - where she might tell Marcoulf that all is well, that she has no need of his company if he does not wish to give it. She is learning to be better about the nature of her strange relationship with Marcoulf and knows better than to question him, at least now. If he gives his time then she would be glad to take it, but she will make no more demands of him than that.
She dares not ask the question are we friends again, for fear of rejection colouring like red shame on her cheeks. That is not something she is keen to relive, no matter the situation. There's an anxious, awkward urge to turn away and flee somewhere else, to hide beneath the too-long locks of her hair (a cut is needed, surely, but who to do it?) but she stands her ground. Anxious at heart she is braver in spirit, and Six stands tall as she looks at him, nods, and tugs her blade close.
It might be easier if she were to swap to a longsword, but it matters little. She has new tricks to show him.
"Thank you."
Moving forward, twisting her ankle to relax the muscle, Six settles her weight. She's unarmoured, at least, in a cotton shirt and leather breeches, and she tilts her head as she watches his movements.
Why are you doing this?, some distant part asks himself. Rather than answer that thought, Marcoulf slides his gloves back on to draw the long parrying dagger from his belt and the rapier from its scabbard.
"All right."
It's fine. With the sword clenched in the unsteady grip of his right hand and the dagger readied in his left, he moves to begin circling her. Everything is normal.
What is most frustrating is that Six is still entirely too fond of the man; her kitten, now a growing tomcat with a hiss like an angry snake, is named for him and he greets her with a purr even when she has been away for hours. He has even befriended Two, which is a novelty in itself, and she sleeps with all her animals curled at her side.
If only the real Marcoulf was as easy to manage.
"Good." Her feet move and she shifts without thinking, adjusting her grip on her greatsword - still two-handed, she has not approached such sheer amounts of power just yet - and clicking her fingers, summoning the flame to her blade.
The hot spark of fire catches him off guard, and he balks visibly - sliding step turned halting before he realizes what he's doing.
(Draw up. She doesn't want to fight. She just wants to discuss the enchantment no doubt carved into the greatsword.)
With a rapid, snapping motion, Marcoulf closes. The rapier flashes out at her, lighting quick versus the heavier blade's arcing flame. He gets one shot at this.
Six uses that to her advantage; the point is not to burn him, after all, but to shock him. It prickles at her skin but she accepts it all the same - she pushes down on her heels and shifts, pulling back the flame just a little. She has control over it, and she won't burn him, but if it's enough to put some fear in his movements...
He closes quickly, but Six knows him, knows his movements. Perhaps not as well as she might have done a month or two before now, but enough that she can bear down and duck, shifting her body. He is quicker than lightning - and what she has in strength she lacks in speed, half tumbling to the ground to dodge him.
At least her legs are quick to push her back to her feet, moving a step away and adjusting her blade again, eyes narrowing. A lunge is easy, but she goes for his right but tries to signal left, to throw him off guard.
Were he leading with that fine blade in his right hand, it would be a sound tactic. He'd have brought the rapier up ready to turn the momentum behind the heavy fall of the sword and might have found himself twisting to escape the line of her attack as it ran counter to the throw of her shoulder. Months ago, when last they'd played this game, it would have been the right thing to do.
But he is not leading with the rapier. Instead he moves with long parrying dagger. He strikes cross bodied at the heavy weapon, locking it briefly with a twisting wrist between narrow blade and curving quillion.
He isn't strong enough to hold it. He isn't strong enough to stop the traveling line of her arm. But it's a powerful wrenching jerk nonetheless, driving the motion of the greatsword from him. The heat of the blade is close to his fingers, but the gloves are sturdy and he doesn't feel it in the instant required to flash the rapier overhand for her leading shoulder.
Marcoulf is still a remarkable sparring partner; almost too quick for her, too dangerous, pressure on her mind as she seeks to do something to counteract what he does and how he moves. It is good, especially after months of working alone, to test herself properly - battle does not wait for your training to be complete, for you to be ready. It comes, for the throat, and does not hesitate.
Her sword is locked and Six hisses a noise, gritting her teeth as it is pushed away. She has to try harder, has to do more, and she leans back just in time to miss the jab to her shoulder.
She knows him; he knows her. Six wants to win, to prove herself to him, and she loathes herself for her own desperation.
Adjusting her blade in hand, twisting it around the glove on her palm, she lurches forward, attempting to use herself - and the heat of her blade - as a physical battering ram.
The blunt force and the repellent heat of it has him falling back, twisting away - doing whatever lies in his power to escape the brutality of her strength and the flaming sword. This is a defense so much as it is retreat, knowing full well that he has no way to tackle an assault like that for a dozen reasons the least of which is--
Well it doesn't matter. She's strong, he's quick and in the mathematics of skittering away out of arm's reach one of those reliably comes out the victor no matter how broad the width of her attack. He sidesteps, falls back a pace to twist out from the immediate impact (it's a close thing) and strikes out again with the rapier. This time he goes for her middle, hoping to discourage her from further head on assault.
This is why she wants to practice with him more - this is why she wants to have him as a training partner. Marcoulf is quick and sharp, dangerous and deadly, and she wants to learn how best to fight back against that. She is more accustomed to monsters and beasts, dragons and beholders and the many things that might devour a group at home, but here? It is men and Darkspawn.
Dragons are a little less common.
Six literally stumbles back to avoid the movement of his rapier, feeling it almost scrape across the fabric of her cotton shirt. Breathing out hard, she slips back and ignores the wince as she uses her hand to hold herself up, to stop her hitting the ground completely before she leaps to try and get back to her feet.
She stumbles back and he follows, something heady and reflexive in the urgency to close distance. The opportunity is unexpected - there have been reasons for avoiding this, for avoiding the sparring yard and certainly for deflecting any opportunity to partner with Six and her terrifically strong arm -, the opening shocking enough to startle any pretense of caution from him and replace it with a sudden ravenous impulse to beat her.
Which puts him awfully close by the time she's upright. That fine silvered rapier is very bright against the dull early morning.
He is fast, faster than she is, and Six is almost disarmed by the speed of him and how quickly he takes in the space between them. Her stumble is near enough her downfall; she has won in the past, taken her victories, seen to it that she proves herself to someone who does not care how strong or powerful she is, and now she feels unmade. Marcoulf has informed her, quite clearly, that this is not the work of friends but of people that simply exist in the same space, but the disappointment is out of proportion all the same.
She is not fast enough to dodge him and a part of Six does not wish to.
She gives him the victory and accepts defeat in more than one sense, irrational and painful, giving him more than one victory.
One tap and she holds her hand up, dropping her greatsword, breathing hard as she tries to muster herself, to gather herself to speak even as words disappear from her throat.
The burning sword falls away. It leaves the pair of them, the rapier's sharp point hovering at her shoulder and him with a surge of satisfaction that doesn't translate into the steadiness of his hand. Paused here like this, there is some quavering quality to the line of the silvered blade - a shifting and wobbling that forces some unconscious (or painfully aware) reassessment of his grip on the weapon's hilt.
If she'd risen faster and parried hard, where would he be now? Maybe here. Or maybe he'd have dropped the sword. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
It doesn't really matter. Maybe counts for very little in swordplay and in the instant, he is unconcerned about the state of his grip and is instead visibly pleased with himself as he withdraws the sword's point. Both blades - rapier and parrying dagger - are sheathed.
There are many things that she might have blamed for her loss - exhaustion, the weight of magic, the flames on her face, his speed, her distraction - but Six is certain that it comes down to her own lack of desire for victory. It feels hollow and pointless, joy taken from it when she imagines him here by duty rather than for pleasure or for friendship; he does not wish for her company, truly, and she should not beg it of him.
What a sour, sad concept, that she is so desperate for the approval of a man who barely considers her of note. It is a startling, pained thing to realise, twinned with the knowledge that they were not friends, had not been friends, despite her hopes and her considerations.
Breathing out, she drops her sword into the ground, the flames going out, before she drops into an awkward, rehearsed bow, formal and dramatic.
If there is any flicker of feeling over the stilted quality of her bow, it doesn't find its way across his face.
"A lucky one," Marcoulf says, which is as least partly true even if he's not allowing it to touch his satisfaction in this moment. He can ignore that ding in his pride like he can ignore the sentiment in her and the absent buzzing in the fingertips of his hand. It's easy to do with the right motivation.
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MARCOULF.
The motions that she was taught so many years ago, Adrian's eyes on her, adjusting her arm, just there, the way she balanced her greatsword against the curve of her palm, the slight bend in her shoulders, the pressure of her heel just so... It has been a great many years since she was his student, since she was young enough to be tutored by anyone, but sometimes she feels the emotions so deeply that it is as if she has been transported through time itself.
Her greatsword feels good in her hand, familiar and warm and wonderful, and Six breathes through the motions of twisting her body, the ache in her armas as familiar as it is uncomfortable. That's good; it means she is tightening the muscles, reshaping them into what she needs. A few weeks without proper training and she feels unfit all of a sudden, as if all her bulk has disappeared entirely.
She only pauses when she recognises a shock of bright hair, enough to capture her attention and drag it away from the turn of her body, dropping her blade to one side and pushing the hair from her face.
"Marcoulf. A round?"
no subject
He is not, strictly speaking, avoiding her. It has been months. There is no use to it. But he has been avoiding this. It's been ages since they sparred, weeks since he appeared in the yard in hours typical for finding partners. Perhaps he has been working an early rotation that keeps him away. Or perhaps--
Well, it doesn't matter. He stops when he hears his name as if he had been somehow expecting it, and half turns toward her.
He could lie. He has work to see to. He could say I've done my sparring for the day, maybe tomorrow.
Instead, he shifts fully around and pretends the uneasy thud of his pulse is someone else's.
"If you like."
Same story, different chapter.
ah this friendship
She dares not ask the question are we friends again, for fear of rejection colouring like red shame on her cheeks. That is not something she is keen to relive, no matter the situation. There's an anxious, awkward urge to turn away and flee somewhere else, to hide beneath the too-long locks of her hair (a cut is needed, surely, but who to do it?) but she stands her ground. Anxious at heart she is braver in spirit, and Six stands tall as she looks at him, nods, and tugs her blade close.
It might be easier if she were to swap to a longsword, but it matters little. She has new tricks to show him.
"Thank you."
Moving forward, twisting her ankle to relax the muscle, Six settles her weight. She's unarmoured, at least, in a cotton shirt and leather breeches, and she tilts her head as she watches his movements.
"First hit."
no subject
"All right."
It's fine. With the sword clenched in the unsteady grip of his right hand and the dagger readied in his left, he moves to begin circling her. Everything is normal.
no subject
If only the real Marcoulf was as easy to manage.
"Good." Her feet move and she shifts without thinking, adjusting her grip on her greatsword - still two-handed, she has not approached such sheer amounts of power just yet - and clicking her fingers, summoning the flame to her blade.
no subject
(Draw up. She doesn't want to fight. She just wants to discuss the enchantment no doubt carved into the greatsword.)
With a rapid, snapping motion, Marcoulf closes. The rapier flashes out at her, lighting quick versus the heavier blade's arcing flame. He gets one shot at this.
no subject
He closes quickly, but Six knows him, knows his movements. Perhaps not as well as she might have done a month or two before now, but enough that she can bear down and duck, shifting her body. He is quicker than lightning - and what she has in strength she lacks in speed, half tumbling to the ground to dodge him.
At least her legs are quick to push her back to her feet, moving a step away and adjusting her blade again, eyes narrowing. A lunge is easy, but she goes for his right but tries to signal left, to throw him off guard.
no subject
But he is not leading with the rapier. Instead he moves with long parrying dagger. He strikes cross bodied at the heavy weapon, locking it briefly with a twisting wrist between narrow blade and curving quillion.
He isn't strong enough to hold it. He isn't strong enough to stop the traveling line of her arm. But it's a powerful wrenching jerk nonetheless, driving the motion of the greatsword from him. The heat of the blade is close to his fingers, but the gloves are sturdy and he doesn't feel it in the instant required to flash the rapier overhand for her leading shoulder.
no subject
Her sword is locked and Six hisses a noise, gritting her teeth as it is pushed away. She has to try harder, has to do more, and she leans back just in time to miss the jab to her shoulder.
She knows him; he knows her. Six wants to win, to prove herself to him, and she loathes herself for her own desperation.
Adjusting her blade in hand, twisting it around the glove on her palm, she lurches forward, attempting to use herself - and the heat of her blade - as a physical battering ram.
no subject
Well it doesn't matter. She's strong, he's quick and in the mathematics of skittering away out of arm's reach one of those reliably comes out the victor no matter how broad the width of her attack. He sidesteps, falls back a pace to twist out from the immediate impact (it's a close thing) and strikes out again with the rapier. This time he goes for her middle, hoping to discourage her from further head on assault.
no subject
Dragons are a little less common.
Six literally stumbles back to avoid the movement of his rapier, feeling it almost scrape across the fabric of her cotton shirt. Breathing out hard, she slips back and ignores the wince as she uses her hand to hold herself up, to stop her hitting the ground completely before she leaps to try and get back to her feet.
no subject
Which puts him awfully close by the time she's upright. That fine silvered rapier is very bright against the dull early morning.
this is a hideously depressing tag in context
She is not fast enough to dodge him and a part of Six does not wish to.
She gives him the victory and accepts defeat in more than one sense, irrational and painful, giving him more than one victory.
One tap and she holds her hand up, dropping her greatsword, breathing hard as she tries to muster herself, to gather herself to speak even as words disappear from her throat.
no subject
If she'd risen faster and parried hard, where would he be now? Maybe here. Or maybe he'd have dropped the sword. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
It doesn't really matter. Maybe counts for very little in swordplay and in the instant, he is unconcerned about the state of his grip and is instead visibly pleased with himself as he withdraws the sword's point. Both blades - rapier and parrying dagger - are sheathed.
no subject
What a sour, sad concept, that she is so desperate for the approval of a man who barely considers her of note. It is a startling, pained thing to realise, twinned with the knowledge that they were not friends, had not been friends, despite her hopes and her considerations.
Breathing out, she drops her sword into the ground, the flames going out, before she drops into an awkward, rehearsed bow, formal and dramatic.
"Congratulations. A good victory."
no subject
"A lucky one," Marcoulf says, which is as least partly true even if he's not allowing it to touch his satisfaction in this moment. He can ignore that ding in his pride like he can ignore the sentiment in her and the absent buzzing in the fingertips of his hand. It's easy to do with the right motivation.