2018-09-14: Reap The Whirlwind

• Log: Reap The Whirlwind
• Cast: Cassidy Cain, Loren Voss
• Where: Meribia - Blue Dragon Way
• Date: September 13th 2018
• Summary: As agreed, Cassidy provides Loren with instruction on how to use a sword... and provides some other insight as well, whether he likes it or not. ICly takes place some time before the end of Act 3.

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<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

The last several weeks have seen Loren Voss go through various exercises that, upon first glance, doesn't appear to have much to do with swordfighting. Apart from typical routines involving physical conditioning - running laps, various exercises - he has spent most of Cassidy's tutelage in a circle, dodging things shot at him in quick succession and not allowed, in under any circumstances, to stray out of that circle. She has given him little guidance as to how to do this, or if there is a preferred method, she leaves it up to him to move however he wants, so long as he doesn't stray out of the perimeter that she has devised.

 And every time he gets better and has gotten accustomed to the boundaries she dictates, the very moment he showes signs of improvement, she recalibrates the circle, and makes it smaller.

 Needless to say he has never come away from them without a multitude of bruises, aches and pains. It would be enough to test anyone's patience, especially when he has yet to even wield a sword.

 It had come to the point where the circle had been so narrow that he was forced to parry things with his bare hands, so that he doesn't get hit in the face, or anywhere else that happened to be tender or sensitive.

 Finally, she deems him ready to learn basic forms.

 They are in the patio of her stolen villa, at the back where the shoreline could be glimpsed, crystal blue waters washing against the white sands of the beach. She's dressed in her typical beachwear - a swimsuit top with a large, unbuttoned shirt over it - probably belonging to the red-haired 'lord' of the villa, who has thankfully left Loren in peace today - and a pair of cutoffs. She claps in time with every change and transition he makes of the forms she has taught him.

 "You need tae be more bloody flexible," she calls out from the side. "Dinnae hold the sword like you're visualizing my neck in it, the way you're throttling it that way. Again!"

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    In some ways it's not dissimilar from the hand-to-hand training he'd had in Jugend -- purely for in the event of the last resort, when all else had failed a field medic -- if only in the sense that every day spent at this leaves him with a ridiculous number of bruises, aches, pains, and the vague sense that his instructor has it in for him.
    Some things never change.

    In other ways, it's completely different from what he's had in Jugend. He'd been a medic; most of his training had been for the brutal art of battlefield repair and the less blunt method of support, to say nothing of the Etheric arts. Someone trained for melee would have spent longer in it, been beaten down harder by their combat instructors, because nothing less than perfection can be accepted from the elite warriors.
    That, and dodging and parrying missiles was never part of anything he's ever done in Jugend. To say that the first several rounds of this exercise have been a demonstration in humiliation for him would be an accurate statement. But he'd learned. Shame and spite are good teachers.
    Sometimes, everything changes.

    Today he's opted for a sleeveless shirt, white, in a stark pairing with the black pants he wears. She's going to have him out here for hours under the sun, after all. Might as well not come back from it soaked in sweat.
    His glasses have similarly been cast aside -- not that he needs them to see anyway. It's just one more point where the young 'medical student' has demonstrated that things are not quite as they seem at first blush -- he might be support personnel, but he's still a soldier, and while no well-honed swordfighter or muscle-bound warrior, had hardly been the scrawny scholar one might have expected under that shirt.

    Right now his stance is too tight, his grip on the blade's hilt indeed like he's attempting to plunge it through someone's torso. Or throttle a neck, yes. An annoyed noise slips the young man's lips but...

    He does as he's told.

    Even if he still says: "Is this loose enough for you?"

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

"Nae. Nae even close. Swordsmen are fluid, ay? You need tae be able tae move in the blink of an eye, either tae strike or tae defend. So whatever stick is up your arse that prevents you from loosening up your shoulders and your wrist, eject it immediately."

 Cassidy exhales a breath, rolling her head back and looking up at the skies, as if to pray for divine intervention or simply patience, nevermind that she has spent the last few weeks using the boy as target practice. Raking fingers through pale gold tresses, she takes several steps towards the 'ring', picking up a wooden practice sword. She takes several steps, until she's in front of Loren, albeit a good few feet of distance away.

 "Parry," she says, before swinging the sword down for his head.

 And whenever he does, she slides the blade sideways immediately, to crack it lightly into his wrist if he doesn't react fast enough.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "Shut up," he says flatly, his immediate verbal response.

    Fluid, she says. Irritation settles over him like a shroud as he makes the visible attempt at it again, tries to exhale out the breath he's barely aware that he's been holding in and works to release the tension in his shoulders and spine. Maybe it's because he's aligned to earth so strongly, runs the thought--

    Except, no. Dominia shares his affinity and she's far more skilled at the blade, far more flexible even.
    Is that where he is? Coming in second even to a repurposed Lamb from a dead nation, however extensive her talents might be?

    He tries to settle out his pose. It doesn't really settle out. Instead, his eye is on her, watching as she picks up one of the practice swords and approaches him, as if paranoid about what she's about to do.

    No projectiles this time. Just a simple command.

    Parry. She swings down; his own practice sword rises to meet--

    oh no

    It's written in his eyes. That shot of alarm when he realizes just a fraction-of-a-second too late that she's changed her approach. He moves to parry it anyway, even if it comes too late. Even if the practice sword cracks against his wrist (however lightly) in what would have been a crippling strike if this were live.

    Frustration boils over. His grip on the practice sword goes white-knuckle tight. And the look he shoots her -- fleetingly livid, humiliated -- speaks louder than anything he can say.

    "And what was that supposed to teach me? That no one plays fair in a fight?"

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

Shut up.

 "Nae. You insisted on this, remember?" Cassidy's brilliant, cutting smile lances his way, tracing over his features with the biting flourishes of a well-practiced scalpel. "You get tae reap the whirlwind now, and all the little irritations that come with it."

 He parries and even without her sharp, attentive scrutiny, she will immediately gauge what's wrong. He doesn't know how to shift his center, has yet to properly get used to his footing. The dodging exercises were to get him acclimated to how he personally deals with things he knows his coming his way, but the man is a soldier, Jugend's training manuals couldn't have been written on him more legibly. To him, there is one way to learn a new art correctly and only one way.

 Except the art of killing has never been quite so rigid.

 His frustration is palpable. "You need tae forget, for the time being, that I make my living as a thief," she replies, before a lightning-fast movement snaps her sword against his knuckles in a light tap. It would be so easy to just crack it and make it hurt, every time she makes contact...but it is always controlled.

 Always.

 Not only can the woman move like the wind, she also knows how to pull her punches so deftly, she can execute them as such despite using the full force of a swing.

 "Anyone who's been in a fight already knows that. What that's meant tae teach you is that you're slow. And you ken why you're so slow? You're so bloody fixated on what's in front of you and doing what you're told and nae doing what you should, which is preparing yourself tae react tae the next thing that's out tae get you. You think someone who's about tae stab you is going tae stop at just one shot?"

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    He certainly did insist on this. Which might be why Loren exhales a sigh and instead sets her with a most withering of looks. "Don't remind me."
    But he has to learn, before he gets himself killed. Before he's useless. Who knows how long they'll be stuck on Lunar? It could be the rest of his natural life.
    And who else would teach him? His colleagues would only laugh at him. Neither is he about to turn to the so-called swordsmasters of this rock -- he would never be able to play the role of full-time student with his duties.
    She on the other hand...
    She beat him. She's a Lamb and she beat him. --Just because he was never tutored, and he doesn't know anything about the blade.

    But she still beat him, and it rankles.

    Which might be why he made that absurd demand to start with, and thus why he's collected so very many injuries in the last few weeks.
    In the end he's a stubborn, predictable young man. It even shows in his attempts at swordplay. Being methodic works in medicine, but on the battlefield...

    "Somehow, it's hard to forget that," he comments, dry as the desert. She might not hit hard enough to make it hurt, but he can still imagine how much force it would take to inflict pain given where the strikes land. Not much.

    She's controlled. He might play at it, but he's anything but.

    "...Slow?" he repeats, screwing up his face like she's told him to eat a bug. His fingers tighten then start to relax by degrees -- though never enough to really slacken on the practice sword he holds. "Fine. Then I guess I'm 'slow'," he states, staring her right in the eyes. "Though I'd prefer to think of it as thorough."

    Still, though. Still, as much as he attempts to ward off her verbal blows as if he were shielded in armor...

    'Azazel' had struck at him from a number of angles in the end. He'd attempted to shift his attention, tried to guess where the next would come from, only for the man to use that same redirection of his attention against him. Focus on what's in front of you, and you focus on what's in front of you -- it doesn't matter where you change your focus to, does it? It's still just on one thing.

    Dawn has started to break over the mountaintop, as it were.

    "So then... what? Let's say you're right about this," as a young man who is not entirely willing to admit he's miscalculating might put it. "Isn't that just a person's nature? How do you change that?"

    Or is this whole enterprise a mistake?
    Maybe he is cursed after all.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

"Ay, well. Thoroughness will nae save you from a blade tae the jugular if you're nae fast enough tae act on it," Cassidy remarks, and despite her words, there is no irritation or even exasperation implicit in her tone. It remains infuriatingly easy, as if teaching a reticent youth is the hour's equivalent to discussing the weather, or burning down a village on a Tuesday. "Toss whatever you've been taught before out the window, lad, since it's apparent that it'll nae help you where you are. It's incompatible, and if you cannae adapt, methinks you oughtae give due and thoughtful consideration tae maybe just sticking tae what you're good at....whatever that is."

 Whatever that is.

 Loren's next question turns into minefields that could be considered philosophical. It gets him a very emphatic roll of those green eyes shot with gold, and instead of replying right away...

 ...she attacks.

 She even makes him see that she's about to. She doesn't even put much speed into her movements. Like a lazy, languid dance, she sidesteps, curls her body as she widens her stance and strikes, her wooden blade arching in a swipe from underneath, and to the point as close to the hilt of Loren's blade as she can. The impact shudders along steel and if he is not careful, she will disarm him in one blow.

 And she doesn't stop. She takes another step, rotating towards his blindside, forcing him to twist on his axis if he doesn't compensate with proper footwork, and strikes again.

 And again.

 And again.

 She becomes faster, and faster, and faster by increments, and she gives him absolutely no time to recover. Her expression doesn't change throughout, her eyes twin points of placid green, reminiscent of peaceful emerald glades during sunrise. And despite the seemingly overwhelming challenge she presents, he would get the distinct impression that she isn't even using a fraction of what she must know about the art.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "Would you rather sloppiness? Maybe I should remind you I'm a medical student."

    Though the look he gives her might suggest otherwise, he...

    Yeah, there's not much saving you from bleeding out if a wound's taken in the wrong place. He's just been 'lucky' so far that even the most serious of wounds he's suffered he's been able to fix. Or been able to 'cheat' his way out of. But eventually even that 'luck' will run out.
    Eventually he'll cross an opponent that will not hesitate to stab a corpse. Eventually he'll take a wound that even sublime application of Ether won't fix.

    "Toss what? You should know as well as I do that there's nothing to toss," he snaps, in a display of naked bitterness. Just the ghost of an older brother's motion, watched from the edge of a courtyard.

    But in the end it's not the words she says. It's not even the part where she suggests he might as well just stick to what he's good at, though sting bitterly that choice of words does all the same.

    In the end, what are you good at? Just sitting on the sidelines, backing up everyone else who takes home the glory? Just waiting and hoping for the chance to die heroically? Someday, maybe?

    No. It's the way in which she says it. He doesn't matter. Even these past few weeks are nothing. She might as well have done anything else to kill the time as give him a bruise or two dozen.
    Something shifts beneath the surface, like the earth might begin to pitch before an earthquake. But whatever end that might have started to be directed into--

    He asks a question first.

    And her response is to attack. She even makes sure he can see it coming.
    It's more insult that he can stand.

    Avoiding it is impossible. But to redirect-- shift--
    Fighting is physics on a rapid scale, playing out without time for calculation. He has time to readjust his stance, to pull back, to prepare for a strike along the edge of the blade, but this time, at a point where he can hold his ground and dig in.

    But, much like she's promised, there's no stopping at one strike. He realizes what the point of this is. She's forcing him to--

    No room for thought. He twists, catching the strike on the side of his blade.

    Plant your feet. Move--
    There?
    He tries to guess. Tries to keep pace. For a few seconds though he might scramble for every inch of proverbial ground he maintains, he can hold--
    And then, he simply can't. She breaks the stance she's taught him, forced him into ungainly, awkward, amateurish swings.

    She's--

    Another strike catches the blade, sends it whirling out of his hands to land point down in the deck not far beside him. Realization, then, reluctant resignation alight as twin stars in the sky, and he holds his hands palms forward to suggest he yields.

    ...She might even be almost as good as the Major.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

There is hardly an escalation of breath or heartbeat on Cassidy's part and there are things that she is definitely not imparting on her young student - nothing that would touch upon her history, or where she has learned such skills despite, presumably, having no military background....should not have the discipline to harness the skill and properly direct it. After all, the woman is practically the antithesis of discipline, saying what she wants, doing what she wants, availing herself to what she wants and heedless of the consequences throughout. What she does make available to Loren, however, are the basic principles of different forms that she has picked up after over a decade of adventuring in Filgaia.

 To the young Solarian's credit, however, he is adapting. He moves. He parries. He tries to rise up to the challenge. For a novice, those weeks of dexterity training are paying off visibly and he moves closer to the way he ought. But she shows him no mercy and soon the blade goes flying, whirling out of his hands to clatter and skid across polished white stones...

 The blonde conwoman levels the point of the blade towards his throat.

 "You asked me earlier how you change a person's nature," she remarks, slowly lowering the blunted weapon. "I'll tell you now, lad - nothing changes a person faster than necessity. Nothing changes a person faster than when he's given nae choice but tae act, or die, or lose sommat as equally irreplaceable as his life."

 Her lashes lower over her eyes, a look that is feminine and feline at once, and she inclines her head in his direction. "Maybe that'll work as motivation," she murmurs. "Maybe every time we practice, I'll make you believe I'm serious about killing you. What do you think, lad? Under those circumstances, will you be able tae move faster, then?"

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    For a moment, he wonders, his gaze flickering down at the tip of the blade she holds near to his throat. If she were to kill him now--
    Ether pulses faintly, almost not there at all. It answers to his will after all, and though he doesn't have the problems of certain other members of his graduating class, without those glasses of his on it still metaphorically sits up more suddenly when he calls its name. For a moment there, he almost can swear that there's little keeping her from sliding that blade through that throat if she so chooses other than her own whims.

    You're a First Class Citizen, the other half of him scolds. The barest touch of Ether's presence fades, dying out into nothing.
    He's a First Class Citizen, so he shouldn't act like-- think that she might--

    It's an ugly thought and one he rejects out of hand.

    "...So it's fear." He doesn't take his eyes off her for a moment, and slowly begins to lower his hands. "Fear and, I don't know. What would you call it? Spite? Will?"

    "Hatred. I felt her hatred." He'd said that himself, speaking of another.

    "...Or hate? If someone is trying to take something irreplaceable from me or already did, I would hate them. With all my heart."
    He already does.

    He reaches out, lifting a hand to push the blade aside.

    There's no one he hates more than his brother.

    His gaze has never left hers. "So is that your proposition, then? To make me fear or hate you, and use those as motivation?" He exhales a breath, sharply. "...Then fine. I accept. I'll let you try to kill me." That look in those blue eyes of his shifts, hardening. "But don't think I'll let you succeed."

    If this is what it takes. If that's what it takes to change in the way he needs to change, if he's going to be of use, if he's going to die properly...
    He'll dig in and bear it. Again.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

Is it fear? Spite? Will?

 Cassidy plants her hand on one hip and regards him with a flat expression, but one steeped with the undercurrents of unmistakable bemusement. "Every person's different," she tells him and while the words are noncommittal, that, too, is objectively true. "So methinks you have tae ask yourself why you're defaulting tae those things. If anything, that says more about you than they do me, lad."

 She whirls the blade deftly along her side with a quick rotation of her wrist. She shifts - and he would note that she doesn't use the same stance as she had before.

 Just how many of these has she learned?!


 "Now. Let's try this again."