closed.

[heorte]

WHO: ellis + athessa
WHAT: attempted stabbing
WHEN: right after the jungle, probably solace. whenever athessa's schedule allows.
WHERE: training yard
NOTES: n/a

Marcoulf has been a good teacher. Ellis cannot keep up with him, does not assume he ever will, but it doesn't mean Marcoulf hasn't taught him plenty of how to fight with a dagger.

It does mean that Ellis isn't entirely outmatched in the training yard when Athessa steps into the ring, but he can't keep up with her either. It's more difficult, in some ways. She's small and slight and quick. He'd fare better if this were the kind of fight where he was trying to hit her with a mace instead of counter her with a set of daggers but—

"Yield," he says, as Athessa's dagger whips towards his throat. "That's three times, I think you've sufficiently bested me."

It's good-humored. He's learning. And better to be bested in the training ring than on the field, where Athessa pulls her blows instead of pushing her dagger through his throat.

Comments

[sulahnan]

"Best four outta five?" She suggests, half joking and half hopeful. She's still got energy to spend even if she's breathing hard after repeated bouts in the ring. In this momentary reprieve, Athessa fetches up a waterskin and takes a swig before offering it to Ellis. It's not the hottest it'll get today, but it's not like they're hanging out in the shade.

"I noticed," she says after handing the water over, "You're swinging too much from your shoulder. You gotta use your wrist and forearm more, it'll give you more time to recover."

[heorte]

"Marcoulf has said as much as well."

And even understanding where the action comes from, it's frustrating to consider how long it's going to take him to break that habit. Exchanging blows with Marcoulf and Athessa is one thing; they won't open his neck when he inevitably leaves them an opening. But it'll be different if he gets caught out on the field.

He'd like to have made more progress after so much time.

"I usually rely on hitting someone so hard they can't get back up," Ellis flashes a smile, before swigging from the waterskin. "Recovery time isn't so much of a concern that way."

A weird thing to make light of, but discussing the best ways to fight someone and win usually lends itself to strangely morbid levity.

[sulahnan]

Athessa laughs. "It's clearly served you well, since you're ya know. Still here to talk about it. But maybe if we put a rope around your shoulders...might force you to use more finesse."

It'd also restrict his movement, so to be a truly fair sparring match Athessa would have to have the same restriction.

"Are you practicing for yourself, or to teach Wysteria and Sonia?"

[heorte]

There's a moment where Ellis' expression pinches into confusion, but he clearly makes the decision to ask explicitly about how exactly the rope would be tied to prohibit his movement. It seems an invitation to innuendo, and Ellis reserves that mostly for Tony.

"For myself."

And because strangely he's found himself less embroiled in combat here than he'd anticipated.

"I'd rather Sonia and Wysteria sought you out, or someone more adept. No need for them to pick up my bad habits."

He offers back the waterskin, giving it a small shake in Athessa's direction.

"Sonia seemed willing, before what happened in the Crossroads."

[sulahnan]

Oddly enough, Athessa hadn't even considered the possible innuendo there. She was just thinking of a way to take shoulder-driven swings out of the equation.

"Oh, good," she nods, taking back the water. "Now I don't have to feel bad when I say I'm already working with Sonia. Since she's not big on actually fighting anyone, I figured I'd show her some evasive moves, how to get away if grabbed, that kinda thing."

Her volume trails off as she puts the waterskin wherever it belongs, because she starts scanning the resources available in the training yard to see what else she might use to help Ellis get the whole finesse thing down. Maybe if they lined up the training dummies to make a narrow path between them? Naaah. Too much work. There's a perfectly good rope just hanging on a sawhorse over there.

[heorte]

"She's going to need to get used to it," is Ellis' less than gentle summation.

It's certainly not a response he'd offer to either Wysteria or Sonia, but in the wake of the kidnapping there are certain things that seem necessary. Making sure the pair of them had a weapon and weren't shy about using it seems crucial.

"But I'm not skilled at fighting that way. So better she spends time working with you than muddling along with me."

An easy assessment to make. Ellis is far past the point of approaching his own skills with anything other than quiet scrutiny. There's room for improvement. There will always be room for improvement until the day he dies.

"Is she learning faster than I am?"

[sulahnan]

He is right, to a certain extent. War doesn't care whether or not violence is welcome; it just is. But Athessa would rather preserve Sonia's innocence, for lack of a better word, as long as she can. Maybe it's because it's a mercy she was never given, or simply because she recognized the fear in Sonia's eyes that first night and wants to save her from feeling that way again.

But no matter how she feels, personally, she doesn't argue the point.

Athessa screws up her eyebrows and looks at Ellis, with the very clear air of you wot?

"How should I know? I'm not your teacher."

[heorte]

"You just trounced me three times, I think that gives you some authority to sum up my ability."

And she'd likely have outplayed him a fourth time, if they went again.

As he speaks, he sheathes the borrowed dagger. At some point, he should look into purchasing his own. It isn't as if he's doing much else with his stipend, after all.

[sulahnan]

"Your ability, sure, but not how you compare to an absolute novice in terms of learning speed," Her proposition of a fourth round officially denied, Athessa also stows her daggers. For fighting in the training yard, she uses a set that belong to the armory, rather than her own, in the interest of keeping hers battle-ready and limiting the wear on them. The other dagger that has been consistently strapped to her hip ever since their return from the jungle, seems purely decorative.

Back to the matter at hand. Athessa takes a moment after her rebuttal to actually consider the question, to appraise the Warden.

"You're a good fighter. You have training and experience and instincts that are already honed for a specific purpose. The Lady Barra doesn't. On the one hand, she doesn't have habits she has to unlearn, but she has fear to move past. In some ways that's gonna be a lot harder than you learning to use a different set of muscles than you're used to. But I don't think comparing yourself to a novice is really gonna help anyone."

[heorte]

It's a fair assessment. Ellis accepts it with a nod, setting the daggers down on the bench and then cracking his knuckles absently.

"The kidnapping is not going to be helpful to her in overcoming that."

The glimpse of what he'd seen in the Crossroads had needled at his own experiences, his own life. Fereldans all carry the Blight differently. Sonia seems to feel the weight of it acutely, more presently than Ellis.

[sulahnan]

"No," she agrees, "But there's not much we can do about it. She's either gotta learn to use the fear, or suppress it, and I don't know much of anything about how to teach that."

Kidnappings? In this organization? It's more likely than you think.

"I'd just like to stave off her having to learn the hard way, ya know?"

[heorte]

It's a sweet sentiment, and one Ellis doesn't really know what to do with. He doesn't believe it's possible, but is not what he tries often to accomplish with Wysteria?

"That is kind," he says, at last. "I hope you manage it."

He can be sincere, even if it feels hopeless.

"We can try this again next month, see if I can manage to land at least one blow."

[sulahnan]

"It's a date," she says, grinning so he knows she's joking. "But if you manage to beat me I'll foot the bill for your own set of daggers."

She thinks that'd be a more amenable prize than buying him a drink or dinner, even though it'll amount to more coin spent.