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WHO: Krem and anyone that happens along.
WHAT: Krem is growing fidgety between missions and helping the repair effort, while Bull is out and about doing Important Inquisition Things
WHEN: Any time after the training ring is set up
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Nothing in particular except it's a Krem and he's making a little bit of a spectacle of himself.

If there was one thing Krem was good at, it was winding himself up. While he and the Chargers had their missions, more often than not, he was around Skyhold, and he could almost feel himself atrophying.

The training ring had been set up almost immediately by Commander Cullen's forces, but for the moment, it was empty. Off on assignment, or else occupied elsewhere, this meant that there wasn't much by way of distraction when the bored, slightly agitated Charger when he rounded the posts marking the border of it. He had stripped off his armor except for his leathers, mail, and chestplate, leaving his arms exposed to the air He had his maul in hands wrapped with soft leather, and he seemed to be doing warmup maneuvers with it.

Over time though, it got more complex. Strikes turned into flowing stances, booted feet ground into the dusty dirt and kicked it up when he turned in place. It was clear why Bull valued him as a fighter, with a weapon heavier than the average human could easily wield turned into a blur around him. This was why he was a front-line fighter, how he'd kept himself alive through skirmishes, and how he kept his skills sharp on and off the battlefield.

He was faintly shining with sweat when he came to a halt, slinging his weapon over his back, heading for a bucket filled with cool water and dipping a tin cup into it that was resting on the nearby stones. Part of it was splashed on his face and rubbed through his hair as he caught his breath.

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"A fair amount," Krem replied casually, leaning on the end of the maul with the head of it in the dust. He wiped his hand across his forehead and flicked the sweat off his fingers, looking over at Dorian with his head at a tilt. Not often he could recall the mage speaking to him, at least not for more than a passing greeting. He had always been more inclined toward Bull's company than he was with the rest of the Chargers. With a quiet snort, he looked down at the spiked, heavy stone by his feet.

"Generally people know to give me a wide berth. I go in first more often than not. More intimidating, seeing a single man with a weapon made for the Avvar." He turned his attention back up to Dorian, glancing at the staff he'd picked up, a soft smirk on his lips. "Fancy a practice match?"

"That all depends on your weapon of choice, lieutenant."

But there is a gameness in Dorian's stance that indicates his intention to take the Charger up on his offer, one hand planted on waist and the other keeping staff balanced. He raises the former to point at the maul. "That one would wipe my face clean away with one strike, which would be an unmitigated tragedy to the Inquisition at large, never mind me personally."

Krem laughs and swings the maul up and onto his shoulder, before heading to the edge of the ring and stopping just in front of Dorian, looking up at the mage with an easy smirk. He shrugs the weapon off and places it against the fence, then pulls the knife at his hip and holds it up by the blade, tapping Dorian's shoulder with it.

"Little fairer this way, right?" he asks as his grin widens, before he retreats back to the center of the ring, waiting for Dorian to follow and possibly put him in his place.

Dorian's eyebrows hike up at that little tap, as if equal parts impressed and amused by the audacity of the soporati, and certainly not put off. He follows Krem with a jaunty step, the air hissing as he brings his staff around into a defensive stance.

Brightly; "You'll bring a knife to a stick fight, Aclassi? Have it your way."

It's expected that a battlemage ought to hold their own in a fight when their mana runs dry, and even then, all that twirling and prancing about is still twirling and prancing about with a heavy two-handed weapon, regardless as to the sparks flying out the end of it, of which there will be none this match. Dorian's stance is practiced and neat.

Despite the fact that Krem is smaller than he is, and the reach of his weapon close-quarters, he's a little expecting to lose. (But only a little.)

"Would you rather I be able to crack you over the head from a distance, Lord Pavus?" Krem replies with a soft snort, turning the blade in his hand and dropping his stance. He knew by now how mages from most regions fought, and 'vints were no exception. He likes that Dorian can put up with the lip he gives, too. He'd have to be able to, to be able to spend as much time around the Chief as he seems to like to.

Rather than watching the staff itself, Krem's eyes are on Dorian's body language. Confidence, training. He can appreciate that. It's not going to save Dorian from at least getting dirty, but still. He moves easily, finding one or two openings he can exploit before ducking low, his arm already moving in the direction the staff seems the most likely to go, while the knife-wielding hand was coming up toward the mage's other side, blunt edge forward. Dorian's smart, now it was just a matter of seeing just how good his reaction time was.

Dorian is not so skilled in the art of ordinary combat that he can make much assessment of Krem's technique save for that he is fast and forcing him to concentrate, but it gets him by well enough. To underestimate a mercenary under the Iron Bull's command would be the first stupid thing that Dorian could do.

He plays at defense and avoidance, using the reach of his staff to the advantage of forcing Krem to keep at bay. At one stage, his teeth flash in pearly smile at some cleverness on his own part executed in steering away a strike, but then Krem finds his open and ah, there it is. Dorian expels an unwilling breath when he feels blunt steel scrape his leathers, and he brings the staff around to clip sharp and mean at Krem's leg upon breaking apart, although it's born of frustration, easier to see coming than Krem's feinting.

"It's going to be like that, is it?" sounds merry enough, if now more breathless, before switching gears. Where defense was militant and economical, attack is flashier, gaining territory with one spin of the staff before he swings for knife wielding shoulder. He doesn't put too much investment in landing it; it's the other end of the staff, in the same motion, that is even faster to come around and exploit the necessary dodge.

While the staff connects with Krem's knee and makes him stumble, there is also a reason that he wore his bracers while training, as much rock tended to fly while he was actually striking with his maul. It didn't hurt as much as it could have, but that didn't stop it from reverberating through the metal and making him clench his jaw against a grunt of pain.

"Could make it harder if you prefer," Krem replies, just as chipper, though he was eyeing Dorian with his lip curling just a little bit. He follows the motion of Dorian's hands, listening to the whistling of the staff cutting through the air, and when the end of it comes down at his shoulder, he twists, lifting that arm then catching the staff in his free hand, his stance dropping and one foot coming down atop Dorian's. In the same motion, he brings the knife hand up and stops mid-swing, before the blade can make contact with Dorian's adam's apple. He gives the mage a toothy grin, leaning with his arm still wrapped around the staff, using where his foot is still pinned to the ground to unbalance him.

There's a joke there somewhere. Dorian is too busy not getting his arse kicked to make it.

But it's for naught, ultimately. Strength braces up his shoulders when he feels the impact of his staff caught, focus splitting into two when boot comes down on his own, and then a flash of that knife hand, jerking his head back in instinct even as the blade stops short. His eyes flash with renewed fight, shrill and adrenalised and bright, briefly making eye contact to see that grin just as the world tilts.

"Fasta--"

Thump, Dorian lands unceremoniously arse-first in the training grounds dirt.

In his more usual speaking voice, he finishes the curse; "Vass." He's still clinging to his staff out of sheer white-knuckled instinct as if it were a true staff, tugging it back.

Krem lets go of that staff as soon as Dorian goes down, standing back up straight with his hands on his hips after his knife goes back into its sheath. He tilts his head at Dorian there on the ground, that grin growing just a little bit wider.

"Vicimus," he chuckled, offering his hand to pull Dorian back to his feet. "Care for another around? You win this time, I'll buy drinks."

Dorian's hand claps into Krem's, unabashed in using the offer up to get out of the dirt. For an academic, his palm and fingers are as coarse as they need to be to twirl staves in combat situations, and grip strong in a demanding sort of way. Once his hand is released, he pats down the back of his thighs, dislodging the worst of the loose dirt.

"To help wash down my reclaimed dignity, yes? You're too kind."

He steps back, without actually ceding territory. Round two close at hand, he takes a moment to get his breath back, pacing a circle around the training ground. "And vice versa, of course. The southern swill they serve at the tavern makes a fitting accompaniment to bitter defeat either way." He hefts staff, twirling it once, keeping his hands warm. "Did the Bull teach you how to get 'round a mage's staff, or did you learn that on your own?"

"Of course," Krem laughs, giving Dorian that toothy smirk again and dusting his hands off when the other lets go. He moves as Dorian does, watching him and copying his stance, though his hands were free.

The question makes him shrug. "A little of both. Started learning while I was still in Tevinter, Bull saw during a fight and offered to help make it faster, more fluid. Good at that, taking a basic move and turning it into something better." To say he was proud to be working with the Iron Bull was an understatement; there was definite admiration in the way he spoke about his work with the commander of the Chargers, no matter how he talked to the massive qunari himself.

Dorian is better at smiling with his eyes than with his mouth, which tends to be smart and sarcastic at the best of times; here, lines deepen a touch around the corners of his eyes, recognising warmth with warmth in return, though he doesn't comment on it. He hasn't decided what to make of Bull and his Chargers.

His gaze drops down to where Krem's feet are lining up, his empty hands at a hover, and Dorian tips his head. His circling pace edging close. "You aren't going at this empty handed, are you? It won't stop me putting you in the dirt in return, you know."

"Maybe I've decided to give you a handicap," Krem teases in return, his stance subtly widening. He would damn well grapple with Dorian, if the mage didn't outright object to it. That warmth Dorian had shown was odd, coming from anyone in a position above him that wasn't Bull. Krem won't admit that he's just a little bit rattled by it.

It feels ridiculous to him, but he's actually coming to like Dorian, or at the very least tolerate him and the sway he holds over the Chief. The fact that he's still there in the ring, facing him with his head up out of more than just the arrogance of every mage above the laetan is certainly doing him some favors. It doesn't stop Krem making a move, twisting in place and moving to Dorian's side to hook his leg around the other man's, arm coming up and across his neck to break his balance and put him in a hold.

Hahaha-- oh shit.

Let it never be said that Dorian's never grappled with another man before in context of sporting horseplay, both larger and smaller than he, but it's definitely been some time. He's considering his dignity only after Krem is suddenly there, disrupting balance, arm coming down across the back of his neck. He makes a grab for the Charger's leg.

It doesn't take a long time for him to give in, or maybe he's been timing this all along, but after a crucial minute of stubborn refusal to go down easily (landing on his arse was one thing, but getting dirt on his face is entirely another matter), Dorian-- well, probably here in the South, it's cheating, but the mild if still sharp zap of electrical magic feels a little like the sting of a horse whip where solitary finger of lightning springs from Dorian's hand to Krem's ankle.

The shock at Krem's ankle rattles him to the core, and suddenly, this isn't a friendly spar anymore. He arm clamps down on Dorian's neck hard, putting him in a true headlock as Krem's weight is thrown back. Not only does Dorian's face hit the dirt, it does so in such a way that it's ground in, and Krem twists to put his hand on the back of the Mage's head. His knee ends up in the small of Dorian's back, pinning one of his hands there while the other boot comes and pins his free hand to the ground. Even if Dorian were to kick out, he would likely find it difficult to find enough purchase to do more than wiggle ineffectually under the Charger's pin.

A moment of thunderous pulsing in his ears, then the world comes back to him, and Krem freezes. This isn't Tevinter. He's not being chased. He might have legitimately injured one of the few mages from his homeland that didn't want to take him to some prison in Minrathous for desertion.

"Kaffas..." He hisses and pulls his weight away, sitting in the dirt and rubbing a slightly shaky hand across his brow. "Penitet. Stolidus quod."

Edited 2015-10-27 08:17 (UTC)

Dorian would be a bad mage indeed if there was any particular concern that Krem's sudden shift in gears would inspire an instinctive, more aggressive use of magic. Bad in the Southern sense, and bad in the Tevinter sense -- control is key to greatness, and so, the finger is well off the trigger before Dorian even has time to think about the young man's daring, more occupied in making an undignified, pained nyargh sound as his face mashes into dirt. This is the opposite of what he wanted.

But his muscles all coil, taut as pulled bowstring beneath the various points that Krem has him on the ground, teeth flashing and a thrash kicking down a leg. His own heart is pumping, adrenaline fiery, and he springs to roll away as soon as he's let up.

He lands on his knees, poised, until he realises that Krem is sitting, and apologising, and Dorian settles on his own haunches as the tension drains out of him, hands coming up to gingerly touch his face. The worst of the dirt is knuckled away, fresh grazes pushing pin-pricks of blood to surface. Faces bleed easily, and his is flush. A curl of mustache is split out of shape.

"Are you certain that isn't my line," he says, even if fluster still colours his voice. "Mind you, if I knew I had that coming, I'd have made it a bigger bolt."

Krem's hands pat around his person briefly, before coming up with a slightly dingy but mostly clean handkerchief. He offers it to Dorian with a grimace.

"Can't say I actually knew you had that coming," he sighed, his elbow coming to prop on his knee, forehead in his hand. If Dorian HAD made it a bigger bolt, there was no guarantee that the man would be walking away with all of his teeth.

_{"Bull's gonna kill me for this..."}

Dorian reaches out a hand to take the handkerchief on instinct, and on second thoughts, retracts it with a little 'no, but thank you' wiggle of his fingers.

"I'll manfully wash myself down in one of those barrels I see the recruits favour," he says, working now on getting to his feet. The last of 'rattled' is still working out of his system, and craving some distance motivates him all the way upright. Still, he doesn't take off so conspicuously without offering Krem a hand up.

He huffs a laugh. "You're still his favourite Vint, I'm certain. There's no accounting for taste."

Krem looks at the offered hand, as if expecting fire to erupt from it as soon as he took it, but he did so anyway, getting up mostly under his own power. He folds and tucks away the handkerchief with a sour expression.

"Give it time, you'll end up taking up as much of his free time as either of you'll be able to stand," he snorts, heading back to the bucket to fetch more water, crouching beside it then simply lingering there, ears burning. He'd been so certain he was past all of that miserable shit, too...

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I'm making it up as I go just a little bit where Tevene is concerned, basing it in latin.

a good call

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