OPEN | so be easy and free,

[poleaxed]

WHO: Jone and thou
WHAT: jock stuff.
WHEN: Post Orzammar.
WHERE: The training yard & Tennis Court.
NOTES: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

a. FOR TRAINING.

If you need a sparring partner, Jone is at the main training yard during most daylight hours. She may have promised to work over some new techniques with you. She may have promised to assess your skills. She may have never spoken to you before, and you're just here to train.

For once, she isn't cajoling from the sidelines, trying to get new combatants. That doesn't make herself easy to miss, though. The self-described six-foot bitch, ginger hair shining in the sun, is always up for a go.

"Hullo, then. Let's get to it."

b. FOR TENNIS.

Or maybe you're here for another sort of skill. The Tennis Court is completed and ready, and Jone looks to be happily in her element. Shirt-sleeves peeled back to reveal solid muscle, she bounces a tennis ball against her racket, ready and waiting.

Maybe you were promised a match. Maybe you want a rematch. Maybe you're just curious. If you stare a second to long, Jone will wave you over. "Oi! We doing this or not, mate? If I stand out around much longer I'll start peeling."

c. FOR EVERYHING ELSE.

There's wildcard.

(I'm up for anything. If you're not sure, feel free to hmu.)

Comments

a.

[molineux]

"Adrasteia bought me a knife," Margaery says by way of greeting - a rather sunny one, from the pleased smile dancing at her lips. "So I was hoping you'd help me learn how to use it. It'd be much easier on me too, wouldn't it? Learning to handle something like this rather than a weapon I can barely lift?"

She's got her long hair up for once, braided like coils around her head and piled at the top like a curled mess of a crown - and looks vastly different from their trip to Sundermount in general: more comfortable, in pants, in practical wear - in her environment. Even her smile, as freely as it was given then, sparks more implication of life behind her eyes now.

a

[altusimperius]

"I won't stab you in the heart."

It's sort of a joke and sort of not, but Benedict has been religiously attending his morning training and, with Jone's goading, has finally taken her up on it. He's holding his wooden training staff, looking a little afraid of her, yet prepared. He won't win, this much is obvious: but showing that he's trying seems like the bare minimum.

[poleaxed]

All good signs on a pretty girl. Jone dips her head in the echo of an instinctual bow, and takes the knife.

She holds it between her fingers, studying. "Good balance. Good grip. Hold it for me, would you?" She hands it back.

[poleaxed]

The thing is, winning isn't the point, not in a fight as uneven as this. All she needs to do is teach him something, anything, Maker, please.

It's why she's holding a wooden sword, not a staff herself.

"If you land a solid hit on me, even if it's to the heart, I'd love to see it." Her sword slides against the pole Ben holds. "This is to be a mage's staff, luv?"

[altusimperius]

He nods, his expression pleasant-- it seems reasonable enough that he'd use a staff in combat, since trying to deal with a sword might muddle up his casting.
And he's a beginner, after all.

[molineux]

She'd watched her brother get outwitted by masters too many times for her not to take the knife back and grip it tightly, with the assumption that Jone might use her hold to knock it out of her hand or somehow twist it upon her instead.

She winds up holding it pointed toward Jone, vaguely threatening. "Like this?"

[poleaxed]

She takes a knife from her belt, and cuts a strip from one side of Ben's pole. "There. That is the blade. Don't forget it. Attack with the blade, block with the rest, aye?"

She makes an opening stance, legs apart, centering her gravity.

[poleaxed]

Jone nods. "A knife can be held many ways. It depends on your grip, and what strike you mean to make."

She walks over to a straw and cloth dummy, this one missing much of its head. Someone has painted a red heart on its chest, roughly where a heart should be, and an upside down heart between its legs. Bollocks, it's bollocks.

"Where would you strike?"

[altusimperius]

His eyes fixing on the "blade", Benedict nods once more, then adopts a stance similar to Jone's. His brow is furrowed in unsmiling concentration: he's done this hundreds of times by now, having been coming to training every day, but there's a huge difference between drilling stances and actually sparring.
Perhaps the same amount of difference between sparring and actually fighting, but at least nobody's likely to get killed in this case.

Eyeing Jone's wooden sword, Bene starts in with a jerk of the staff; it's a feint, however, and he quickly steps back in search of an opening.

b.

[clawings]

Erik's got his dreads, much longer than they were when he first woke up here, tied back off his forehead with a leather string. He's holding a racket loosely in his right hand and has been staring. "Aight, but I know fuck-all about tennis, except you gotta hit the ball before it bounces on your side." Scoring? Who knows that shit. "What else I need'ta know?"

[molineux]

"The neck."

Her answer comes decisively, as if it's a question she's actually mulled over.

"At my skill level, I imagine it will be paramount for me to strike fast, and strike true. Otherwise, any lingering moments with my target alive will be dangerous to me, and I will most likely end up with a mortal wound myself."

She's seen enough to know that death isn't graceful, by any means. Or with a guaranteed speed. Sometimes it comes slow. The neck bleeds excessively, and is much easier to swipe at than stabbing in the chest and hoping for the best.

[poleaxed]

Jone snaps her fingers, clearly pleased. "You've got the shape of it, you have! In a dirty fight-- and they all are, luv-- you wanna win fast and ugly. Honor's for people with breath. Some folk go for the heart and the gut, but that's harder, more like to leave you with an angry enemy. The neck, the armpits, the thighs. Fuckers bleed like stuck pigs, die in seconds."

She steps back, gesturing at the dummy. "Have a go, then. Give it your all, like. Pretend he's the bloke you hate most."

[poleaxed]

Jone blocks the blow with her sword, smacking it away without much effort. She leaves an opening in her leg, letting it protrude too far away from her. He could sweep her leg, stab her artery, or just give her a solid thwack.

She wants to see what he does. How does he move his body, now, with all this training?

[poleaxed]

"A little blood keeps it interesting," Jone says with a shrug. The grander nobles of the courts always scurried away when someone so much as scratched themselves. What a fucking waste of time.

Does Erik know, that Jone gets stronger in the presence of pain? Well, this'll be a funny way to find out.

She tosses a ball to him, over the net. "You serve first, la."

[altusimperius]

It seems this was, at least partially, his plan, never mind that Jone is a step ahead of him.
Tipping the pole in the other direction, he moves to sweep her leg out, his expression bearing the dark focus of a cat watching its prey.
Or, in this case, a bundle of fabric tied to a string masquerading as a mouse.

[clawings]

"Cool." A nod as he catches the ball.

Blissfully unaware of Jone's ability to get real in the face of pain, he bounces the tennis ball a few times to get a sense of how heavyhanded he needs to be with the racket. Erik still manages to hit it a little harder than strictly necessary, but it does make it over the net at the very least.

"Are balls to the face how that's usually happening?" The bleeding bit.

A

[nonvenomous]

For this to happen, Jone’s ginger hair will need to be shining in the moonlight, at an hour where the sound of their scuffling is unlikely to draw laughter from witnesses.

Dick Dickerson is bolt upright opposite her, gripping a short sword or a long dagger. It’s made out of wood. Obviously. He’s lean in his thieving leathers, a dark shape against a dark field. The wash of lunar light over the yard glances harsh off his brow, the beak of his nose.

“Are we starting?” he asks, his voice quiet in the night. His brow furrows. Did they already discuss this?

“Should I start?”

[poleaxed]

Jone doesn't falter, but she does click her tongue and smile. She manages to avoid the sweep, moving her leg over the staff, but it's the thought that counts.

"Good! Keep an eye out for when the enemy's left himself open."

[poleaxed]

Jone answers his volley with a simple one, testing his skill. "Not how posh birds play it, but I were never one for tradition."

[poleaxed]

For Si's benefit, Jone is holding a wooden sword. She isn't as good with a sword, and more importantly, most folk in this world use one. It's a longsword, no seaxe, no rapier-- though the though of making that out of wood is a laugh.

She holds herself in a defensive stance, one hand open, sword currently serving as defense. She ought to have a shield as well, but she's worried she'd accidentally crush the poor bastard.

"Yeah," she says, "try'n kill me, Si."

[molineux]

She can't help a smile at that - honor's for people with breath is truly an understatement - and nods before facing the straw and cloth dummy.

It's startlingly easy to pretend that the dummy is Cersei Lannister, but Margaery hesitates for a moment anyway, changing her grip to reflect how it might fit in her hand when she's pulled it out of its sheath. But when she does move, it's obvious she's taken Jone's advice to heart, as her stabs are furious and deep and clumsily rapid.

When she decides the straws have been tortured enough, she pulls away, vaguely surprised she's already breathing a bit harder.

[poleaxed]

Well, at least the girl has motivation. Jone pats Margaery's shoulder. "Good start," she says. "What'll matter in a fight like this, though, it ain't anger."

Not for a girl like Margaery, anyway.

"You'll wanna end it soon as possible. So don't go for the heart or the stomach, that might kill 'em but you'll die first. Go for these places-" Jone touches the dummy's throat, its armpits, and its inner thighs. "You get one of them good and deep, they'll bleed out."

[nonvenomous]

There is something shrewd about his continued pause once he’s put a bend to his knee and eased off his chokehold on the dagger -- the wiggling measure of a cat gauging the distance to an especially precarious perch. It’s unusual for him to square up against a martial combatant one on one, and even more unusual for it to be in a situation where they can see him plain, with dagger in hand.

He lunges.

To his credit, he is viper quick, the point of his dagger brought up in a fish hook pull for her armpit. He is also long, and wide open across the ear, the throat, the middle. He guards his groin and flank with his offhand -- the vestigial marker of a bad time had previously in that area.

[poleaxed]

It's pretty fucking immediately obvious Si's too quick to dodge. Not for someone of her skill, anyway. She refuses to loose ground by backing away, though, and per the unspoken rules of the game, she isn't a reaver. She can't just take the hit and see what happens.

But she is used to taking hits and managing them. He gets close with his dagger, and she catches his wrist in her armpit, wondering if, in a real fight, he'd have nicked her badly.

The momentum sends her scrabbling on the back foot. She isn't accustomed to his sort of fighting either, preferring everything to be pure strength and blood. This is... definitely not that.

[nonvenomous]

There’s a reactive sizzle and pop of green light from his far hand when he’s locked at the wrist, electricity stifled well before there’s any threat of a jolt to Jone’s person. There are rules for a reason. In lieu of that, he is clearly stymied -- that same hand twisted in cold to rake around her belt for a secondary weapon he might use to kill her with in close quarters.