Sparring

[Shaeandra]

Ry'den had accepted this challenge many times before. Shaeandra would come to him, her eyes hardened steel, ready for more practice. After all, it made perfect--didn't it?--and the female would not accept anything less. So it was that they were out in the fields this day, though their training had since begun a full hour ago.

Shaeandra came at him deceptively slow now, suddenly leaping up when she was directly in front of him, and twisted with her momentum. Ry'den barely had time to register the fluid movement before dual katana's slapped at the sides of his face. A clawed appendage rose to meet the challenge, but a moment later, the dragon realized that was exactly what his master had hoped for. As she dropped, Shaeandra sliced at the claws, gouging a deep cut into the right side.

She was wind.

Ry'den raised another clawed fist, meaning to pin her, but Shaeandra had broken her fall with a roll. She dove to the side, forcing the dragon to turn to face her. The woman kept moving in a counter-clockwise motion, scoring a number of minor blows as she went. Ry'den accepted them with stoicism, silently marvelling the fluid motions of the fighter.

She was water.

Yet there was something she had not anticipated, and Ry'den did not hesitate. As Shaeandra worked around the dragon, she had put herself in line with his fiercesome tail. The beast twitched his muscles, lashing out at her. Shaeandra, cursing herself for her carelessness, simply set her stance and brought up both blades in a cross. The blow slammed in with enough force to push her backward, but Shaeandra stood her ground.

She was earth.

By this point, Ry'den had squared off with his partner. He decided to try a new tactic, though it was against his better judgement. As Shaeandra readied herself for another charge, the dragon sucked in a moderate amount of air, exhaling a moment later in a blast of flame.

The training ended as abruptly as it had begun. Having dodged the blast, Shaeandra berated her mount with a barrage of stinging slaps; however, this was far from part of the sparring match. To the onlooker, the woman looked absolutely livid... to the astute observer, her demeanor was more akin to furious terror.

She was not fire.

[tyr]

After playing in the pool, Murchadh was willing to admit that he wasn't having a terribly productive day. After leaving the pool, he had wandered around a bit, not really knowing where he was going. He had thought about going to the forge to see if he could get his knives sharpened, and contemplated going to the kitchens to get some food. He had pondered going to visit Liadan, but in the end, he did none of these things, and just wandered some more.

Which was how he ended up watching Shaeandra's training. The door was open a crack, so he could hear what was going on, and as he drew nearer, he ended up standing in the doorway. The movements were almost mesmerizing, not that Murchadh needed any more reason to be dazed and confused.

Murchadh almost never came to this part of the sanctuary. Strictly speaking, he had no business there. It was for fire and electric training, and as a water elemental, he really didn't have a reason to drop by. Even so, he found himself entering to get a better view.

Lacking anything better to do, he watched her, thinking something along the lines of, thank Deus she's on our side. Well, he thought that until the fire bit. She practically exploded. Had they maybe agreed not to use the elements? He didn't know. He didn't know her too well, but he had known her for a long time, and to his knowledge, she didn't really get angry like this. She was really more of a quiet resentment type. Her earlier grace and ease was not part of this slapping, and she was obviously in a temper.

Which was exactly the moment he realized that she probably wouldn't look kindly on his watching. Really, it would have been better had he not come in at all, but he didn't think that he could get out without her seeing him. He had already made a mistake, so he decided that it was "go big or go home." And since not going home was part of his mistake, he felt that there was no real option left except to make his mistake worse. And so, he did something very stupid.

"Well, that's an interesting tactic Incenda. I was unaware that when we go out raiding, we'll be slapping our enemies. I suppose I've been doing it wrong for close on two hundred years." He made himself put on an insolent grin, but inside, he was cursing himself.