Lujayn's self-defense lesson. No blood!
RL Date: 3/29/08
IC Date: 10/31/15
Weyrling Training Room, High Reaches Weyr(#530RIJs$)
This large room was cut deep into the cliff side and is lit only by glows. There are two large stone tables running east and west. Behind each table is a stone bench for the weyrlings to sit on, not very comfortable admittedly, but wood is too valuable to use for this purpose. At the north end of the room is a smaller stone table and chair, used by the WeyrlingMaster. Behind that lies a map of the northern continent, the areas that each Weyr protects carefully marked.
On the east wall is a detailed depiction of a dragon's wing with the anatomy clearly marked. If you look at the west wall, it's covered with many Wing formations. In the back of the room are a couple old, scratched up couches. Originally they were in the colors of High Reaches Weyr, one black, one dark blue, but now it's a little difficult to tell which is which.
N'thei's wised up. This time, he's brought a big leather bag filled with sand, and he is just now getting the metal hook-and-chain contraption strung from the ceiling so that it hangs down just about person-height. With a grunt, he steps off the stool and, hands-to-hips, surveys his work, back to the entrance from the barracks.
Lujayn leans in the doorway, silently watching N'thei set up the sack and chain. "What's that?" She asks at last, stepping into the training room. A curious gold follows after, looking up and down with her rider's focus. Without waiting for a reply, Lu continues in mock disappointment, "I don't get to hit you?"
N'thei wraps his arm around the punching bag, leans his weight on it to test the mettle of the metal, swings around when Lujayn breaks silence. Still holding the bag like it's a person, arm draped around waist-level, he answers around a grin; "Afraid not, love, not just yet. But you're a goldrider now, so I'm sure you'll have the pleasure sooner or later. --Best if Rielsath stays in the barracks, neh? I've been in one piece nearly a week straight, trying to break the record."
Lujayn raises an eyebrow, turning momentarily to Rielsath. The gold huffs and retreats back through the entrance, though from time to time the telltale glimmer of her hide can be seen pacing past. Looking back to N'thei, Lu grins. "I can wait a little longer, then. As long as you don't get bored with being in one piece." She approaches the Weyrleader and the apparent punching bag. "Guess I'll stay put together too, if this thing doesn't hit back."
Impressed; "Well-behaved, isn't she?" N'thei sounds surprised, but he brushes that off quickly to flourish a gesture at the punching bag. "This is your new worst enemy, my dear girl. Everyone you've ever hated. It's all the people that you weren't allowed to back-talk, everybody that made you want to tear your hair. Long list, is it?" While the introductions are under-way, he walks round to a spot about arm's length from the bag, beckons Lujayn to come and stand roughly over here.
"She'll be fine as long as she can watch. We talked about it beforehand," Lujayn shows surprise not at Rielsath but at N'thei's own reaction. Even as he speaks, she's following and doing her best to put several faces on the punching bag at once. "How'd you know?" A little smirk.
N'thei answers with a knowing wink and nothing more. A businesslike demeanor overtakes him while he puts his hands up to guard his chin and squares off to the bag, crouched so he's nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with Lujayn. "All we want today, love, are good punches. You want your knuckles up by your chin, balls of your feet, pull across your body behind a throw." He demonstrates in slow-motion, fist to touch the bag but no force behind the movement. "Show me what you got."
Lujayn glances down to her own stance and over at N'thei a few times, attempting to match the position. Eventually she pulls up her fists and reaches out, not quite sure of the motion but doing her best in mimicry. "No one ever explained why we have to learn this," She mutters, dissatisfied with her first slow-motion attempt and trying one more time. "Who do I have to defend myself from?"
"Matters?" N'thei follows through the motion once more, quicker, then breaks his stance to come stand behind Lujayn. Simply, efficiently, he presses on her shoulders to put more bend in her knees, more weight on her toes, to square her off relative to the bag. "Likely, you'll never have to know how to do more than slap someone and walk away in a huff. Better to know it and never need it than the other way round though, isn't it." His hands come away; go again.
"Because I'm a girl, or do you bronzeriders get huffy too?" Lujayn puts her finger right on the issue that's caught her attention, though she doesn't balk at the corrections to her stance. Lower. This time her punch is fast, if not hasty, landing with a dull sound upon the sandbag. "Sure it matters."
N'thei suggests gamely, "Pick whichever answer you like-- or the one that you don't like, and give the bag a whallop in my honor." He nods at the landed punch, approving enough not to correct it, then taps his index finger across her left shoulder; other side, please. "That's the thing though. It doesn't matter. I'daur says you take self-defense lesson, you take self-defense lessons. He says take lessons in formations, you take lessons in formations. He says take lessons in under-water basket-weaving... See where this is going?"
Lujayn pulls back and takes N'thei's advice, shaking out her hand as it lands a little too painfully for her liking. Not as confident with her left, she starts up again with a punch in slow motion, leaning a bit strangely with the unfamiliar side. "I'daur's not stupid, though. He wouldn't have us do something if there wasn't a reason." Attempting to correct herself, Lu shuffles her feet around. "And the only reason I can think of for self-defense lessons is that there are people you need to defend yourself from."
N'thei points toward the hand Lujayn's shaking; "Next time, ask the healers for a little gauze, I'll show you how to wrap your hand." So saying, he pulls his own hand up and absently rakes his index finger over a scab on his own knuckles. "Bright girl, aren't you. Either I'daur's wasting your time and my time with pointless lessons, or it's worth knowing." He steps around again, illustrates a lower punch on the left, one that would swing around and hit right about the kidneys if the punching bag had kidneys. "You can always use it as time to clear your head."
"So who do I watch out for?" Lujayn asks, focusing straight ahead on the punching bag. Her left fist flies, followed by the right, taking a new pleasure in beating the poor sand dummy. "As long as you're admitting that there's a reason."
In answer, only a chuckle and a head-shake, N'thei's eyes bright again while he steps back from the bag and the weyrling to fold his arms and watch. "Hasn't anyone told you? This is High Reaches Weyr, love, everyone here's got a knife to your back. You'll be a full-fledged goldrider before much longer, making it that much worse for you." Crisp amusement in his tone.
"Oh?" Lujayn replies hopefully, aiming another blow. "If it's everyone who's after me," Something she doesn't seem to believe, judging by her sarcastic tone, "Then why are they after me?" Paranoia isn't something Lu does well, apparently.
"Don't know." N'thei muses about it though, still entertained while he beckons her off the bag with a fold of his fingers. "Maybe you're ambitious and they're threatened. Maybe you gave an order they didn't like. Maybe your hair is prettier than theirs or they wish your boyfriend was theirs. What reasons do girls fight, you'd know better than I would."
Lujayn doesn't try to hide her opinion, glowering at N'thei as she backs off from the punching bag - just when she'd like to hit it most. "Same reasons as anyone else. Being a girl doesn't have anything to do with fighting, or why anyone would want to fight me." Crossing her arms, waiting to see what comes next. "We didn't need self-defense as candidates, and I was as much of a girl back then as I am now. All of a sudden we're weyrlings and it matters?" She doesn't buy it.
N'thei starts with a breath like he's got his thoughts all lined up, but words never get past his teeth while he turns abruptly to face Lujayn, to look down at her with a handful of quick blinks; "Argumentative." Accusation!
"Evasive," Lujayn counters, drawing herself up as tall as she can manage. She stands waiting, whether for a continuation of the lesson or some kind of admission from N'thei.
N'thei sweeps a hand down from his chin to indicate the whole of himself, torso down to feet, then up to the smile that dawns on his face. "Permitted." Admitted without apology. "You ought to know what to do if someone comes at you, but we should have another weyrling go over that bit with you. Someone more your size. So it'll keep for now. Practice though, limber up, find a rhythm. Figure out your strengths, what you can take and what you can give." A question lines up in the back of his voice, is she following any of this?
Lujayn nods, arms still crossed as she listens. "I heard that Leova did really well. Maybe she'll practice with me." Finally relaxing a bit, she lets her arms swing loose at her sides with fists clenched. "Or I'll find one of those knife-to-my-back people, they sound like fun."
N'thei, not buying it. "Is that what you heard." Dead-panned too. He spares a brief laugh out of his nose at the knife-people comment, quirks a barely amused twinge at the corner of his mouth. Abruptly, he holds his hands flat out between himself and Lujayn like a platter, his attention dropped to her swinging fists. "Let's have a look then, love. See the state of your knuckles, first time they've gone to good use?"
Finally! Lujayn settles back into that stance, knees bent and weight even. See, it hasn't all left her in the wake of being argumentative. "I heard enough," She shrugs, fists raising. The first to fly is her right, not holding back any force - not to say that her force is overwhelming by any means.
N'thei catches her blow, his hand pulled back from absorbing the force then pushing against Lujayn's fist in response; he gives some, but the look on his face is unimpressed. "Try the other one." With hope that it might do a bit better, sounds like. "And try not to hit like a girl this time?" Egging...
"So you want me to take it easy on you, then?" Lujayn brings her right fist back to position before striking with the left, straight out and fast. Not a bit lighter.
N'thei catches again, wrist bending back. She's hitting hard enough, having his hand pull back toward his chest before rebounding back to put Lujayn's fist back in her own territory. "Quite a chip you've got on your shoulder there, anything I can do you can do better?" Again with the threads of laughter, again with a hand poised to catch her right fist. "Two more."
Lujayn just watches the hands, concentrating on the way the blows make such a satisfying sound. "It was the same way with some of the Runners, the boys," That's one down. "Who thought girls weren't quite as good." Switching to the left without having to be told, jaw set and face grim. "That's just stupid."
N'thei nods and lets the last punch go, dusts off his palms and then opens them toward Lujayn in a benediction gestures-- released! Free! "That's all a matter of what we're talking about, neh? I'd give ladies credit for cunning, foresight, caution. But if you want to beat the daylights out of someone, you don't go for some five-foot-eight blond, do you now."
"No," Lujayn sighs, glad to take a step or two back. "But cunning and caution help in a fight, too." First gender, now the color of her hair? She doesn't touch that one. "Are there people who think you're a dimglow just for being a man, then? Brawn and not brain, then?" Maybe this thing goes both ways.
N'thei shakes his head at her first, his attention absently fixed on scratching his nail down a callous on his palm, one alerted by catching Lujayn's fists a moment ago. "Depends on the fight, the fighters. You square off fairly, sure there's time for caution. Someone takes you unawares, there's no cunning in knowing how to fight back, that's impulse." Philosophy? "--Do you think it would bother me if there were? People who thought I was dim? You're not a strong girl, I'm not a smart man, everyone has a weakness."
Lujayn brushes off her knuckles, inspecting them for a moment. There's not much damage to be found, so she looks back up- "I can become strong if I try." She tells N'thei stubbornly even as she turns to leave. "Guess you can't fix brains like that, though." A little shrug, almost sympathetic, but Lu's had enough of debating.
N'thei argues none, wears half of a smile to chase Lujayn's shrug. His own shoulder picks up a hair, but that could just be leading into the steps that draw him to the punching bag. He has the courtesy to wait by it rather than start clubbing it while she's still in earshot.
Lujayn strides into the barracks.
Lujayn has left.
IC Date: 10/31/15
Weyrling Training Room, High Reaches Weyr(#530RIJs$)
This large room was cut deep into the cliff side and is lit only by glows. There are two large stone tables running east and west. Behind each table is a stone bench for the weyrlings to sit on, not very comfortable admittedly, but wood is too valuable to use for this purpose. At the north end of the room is a smaller stone table and chair, used by the WeyrlingMaster. Behind that lies a map of the northern continent, the areas that each Weyr protects carefully marked.
On the east wall is a detailed depiction of a dragon's wing with the anatomy clearly marked. If you look at the west wall, it's covered with many Wing formations. In the back of the room are a couple old, scratched up couches. Originally they were in the colors of High Reaches Weyr, one black, one dark blue, but now it's a little difficult to tell which is which.
N'thei's wised up. This time, he's brought a big leather bag filled with sand, and he is just now getting the metal hook-and-chain contraption strung from the ceiling so that it hangs down just about person-height. With a grunt, he steps off the stool and, hands-to-hips, surveys his work, back to the entrance from the barracks.
Lujayn leans in the doorway, silently watching N'thei set up the sack and chain. "What's that?" She asks at last, stepping into the training room. A curious gold follows after, looking up and down with her rider's focus. Without waiting for a reply, Lu continues in mock disappointment, "I don't get to hit you?"
N'thei wraps his arm around the punching bag, leans his weight on it to test the mettle of the metal, swings around when Lujayn breaks silence. Still holding the bag like it's a person, arm draped around waist-level, he answers around a grin; "Afraid not, love, not just yet. But you're a goldrider now, so I'm sure you'll have the pleasure sooner or later. --Best if Rielsath stays in the barracks, neh? I've been in one piece nearly a week straight, trying to break the record."
Lujayn raises an eyebrow, turning momentarily to Rielsath. The gold huffs and retreats back through the entrance, though from time to time the telltale glimmer of her hide can be seen pacing past. Looking back to N'thei, Lu grins. "I can wait a little longer, then. As long as you don't get bored with being in one piece." She approaches the Weyrleader and the apparent punching bag. "Guess I'll stay put together too, if this thing doesn't hit back."
Impressed; "Well-behaved, isn't she?" N'thei sounds surprised, but he brushes that off quickly to flourish a gesture at the punching bag. "This is your new worst enemy, my dear girl. Everyone you've ever hated. It's all the people that you weren't allowed to back-talk, everybody that made you want to tear your hair. Long list, is it?" While the introductions are under-way, he walks round to a spot about arm's length from the bag, beckons Lujayn to come and stand roughly over here.
"She'll be fine as long as she can watch. We talked about it beforehand," Lujayn shows surprise not at Rielsath but at N'thei's own reaction. Even as he speaks, she's following and doing her best to put several faces on the punching bag at once. "How'd you know?" A little smirk.
N'thei answers with a knowing wink and nothing more. A businesslike demeanor overtakes him while he puts his hands up to guard his chin and squares off to the bag, crouched so he's nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with Lujayn. "All we want today, love, are good punches. You want your knuckles up by your chin, balls of your feet, pull across your body behind a throw." He demonstrates in slow-motion, fist to touch the bag but no force behind the movement. "Show me what you got."
Lujayn glances down to her own stance and over at N'thei a few times, attempting to match the position. Eventually she pulls up her fists and reaches out, not quite sure of the motion but doing her best in mimicry. "No one ever explained why we have to learn this," She mutters, dissatisfied with her first slow-motion attempt and trying one more time. "Who do I have to defend myself from?"
"Matters?" N'thei follows through the motion once more, quicker, then breaks his stance to come stand behind Lujayn. Simply, efficiently, he presses on her shoulders to put more bend in her knees, more weight on her toes, to square her off relative to the bag. "Likely, you'll never have to know how to do more than slap someone and walk away in a huff. Better to know it and never need it than the other way round though, isn't it." His hands come away; go again.
"Because I'm a girl, or do you bronzeriders get huffy too?" Lujayn puts her finger right on the issue that's caught her attention, though she doesn't balk at the corrections to her stance. Lower. This time her punch is fast, if not hasty, landing with a dull sound upon the sandbag. "Sure it matters."
N'thei suggests gamely, "Pick whichever answer you like-- or the one that you don't like, and give the bag a whallop in my honor." He nods at the landed punch, approving enough not to correct it, then taps his index finger across her left shoulder; other side, please. "That's the thing though. It doesn't matter. I'daur says you take self-defense lesson, you take self-defense lessons. He says take lessons in formations, you take lessons in formations. He says take lessons in under-water basket-weaving... See where this is going?"
Lujayn pulls back and takes N'thei's advice, shaking out her hand as it lands a little too painfully for her liking. Not as confident with her left, she starts up again with a punch in slow motion, leaning a bit strangely with the unfamiliar side. "I'daur's not stupid, though. He wouldn't have us do something if there wasn't a reason." Attempting to correct herself, Lu shuffles her feet around. "And the only reason I can think of for self-defense lessons is that there are people you need to defend yourself from."
N'thei points toward the hand Lujayn's shaking; "Next time, ask the healers for a little gauze, I'll show you how to wrap your hand." So saying, he pulls his own hand up and absently rakes his index finger over a scab on his own knuckles. "Bright girl, aren't you. Either I'daur's wasting your time and my time with pointless lessons, or it's worth knowing." He steps around again, illustrates a lower punch on the left, one that would swing around and hit right about the kidneys if the punching bag had kidneys. "You can always use it as time to clear your head."
"So who do I watch out for?" Lujayn asks, focusing straight ahead on the punching bag. Her left fist flies, followed by the right, taking a new pleasure in beating the poor sand dummy. "As long as you're admitting that there's a reason."
In answer, only a chuckle and a head-shake, N'thei's eyes bright again while he steps back from the bag and the weyrling to fold his arms and watch. "Hasn't anyone told you? This is High Reaches Weyr, love, everyone here's got a knife to your back. You'll be a full-fledged goldrider before much longer, making it that much worse for you." Crisp amusement in his tone.
"Oh?" Lujayn replies hopefully, aiming another blow. "If it's everyone who's after me," Something she doesn't seem to believe, judging by her sarcastic tone, "Then why are they after me?" Paranoia isn't something Lu does well, apparently.
"Don't know." N'thei muses about it though, still entertained while he beckons her off the bag with a fold of his fingers. "Maybe you're ambitious and they're threatened. Maybe you gave an order they didn't like. Maybe your hair is prettier than theirs or they wish your boyfriend was theirs. What reasons do girls fight, you'd know better than I would."
Lujayn doesn't try to hide her opinion, glowering at N'thei as she backs off from the punching bag - just when she'd like to hit it most. "Same reasons as anyone else. Being a girl doesn't have anything to do with fighting, or why anyone would want to fight me." Crossing her arms, waiting to see what comes next. "We didn't need self-defense as candidates, and I was as much of a girl back then as I am now. All of a sudden we're weyrlings and it matters?" She doesn't buy it.
N'thei starts with a breath like he's got his thoughts all lined up, but words never get past his teeth while he turns abruptly to face Lujayn, to look down at her with a handful of quick blinks; "Argumentative." Accusation!
"Evasive," Lujayn counters, drawing herself up as tall as she can manage. She stands waiting, whether for a continuation of the lesson or some kind of admission from N'thei.
N'thei sweeps a hand down from his chin to indicate the whole of himself, torso down to feet, then up to the smile that dawns on his face. "Permitted." Admitted without apology. "You ought to know what to do if someone comes at you, but we should have another weyrling go over that bit with you. Someone more your size. So it'll keep for now. Practice though, limber up, find a rhythm. Figure out your strengths, what you can take and what you can give." A question lines up in the back of his voice, is she following any of this?
Lujayn nods, arms still crossed as she listens. "I heard that Leova did really well. Maybe she'll practice with me." Finally relaxing a bit, she lets her arms swing loose at her sides with fists clenched. "Or I'll find one of those knife-to-my-back people, they sound like fun."
N'thei, not buying it. "Is that what you heard." Dead-panned too. He spares a brief laugh out of his nose at the knife-people comment, quirks a barely amused twinge at the corner of his mouth. Abruptly, he holds his hands flat out between himself and Lujayn like a platter, his attention dropped to her swinging fists. "Let's have a look then, love. See the state of your knuckles, first time they've gone to good use?"
Finally! Lujayn settles back into that stance, knees bent and weight even. See, it hasn't all left her in the wake of being argumentative. "I heard enough," She shrugs, fists raising. The first to fly is her right, not holding back any force - not to say that her force is overwhelming by any means.
N'thei catches her blow, his hand pulled back from absorbing the force then pushing against Lujayn's fist in response; he gives some, but the look on his face is unimpressed. "Try the other one." With hope that it might do a bit better, sounds like. "And try not to hit like a girl this time?" Egging...
"So you want me to take it easy on you, then?" Lujayn brings her right fist back to position before striking with the left, straight out and fast. Not a bit lighter.
N'thei catches again, wrist bending back. She's hitting hard enough, having his hand pull back toward his chest before rebounding back to put Lujayn's fist back in her own territory. "Quite a chip you've got on your shoulder there, anything I can do you can do better?" Again with the threads of laughter, again with a hand poised to catch her right fist. "Two more."
Lujayn just watches the hands, concentrating on the way the blows make such a satisfying sound. "It was the same way with some of the Runners, the boys," That's one down. "Who thought girls weren't quite as good." Switching to the left without having to be told, jaw set and face grim. "That's just stupid."
N'thei nods and lets the last punch go, dusts off his palms and then opens them toward Lujayn in a benediction gestures-- released! Free! "That's all a matter of what we're talking about, neh? I'd give ladies credit for cunning, foresight, caution. But if you want to beat the daylights out of someone, you don't go for some five-foot-eight blond, do you now."
"No," Lujayn sighs, glad to take a step or two back. "But cunning and caution help in a fight, too." First gender, now the color of her hair? She doesn't touch that one. "Are there people who think you're a dimglow just for being a man, then? Brawn and not brain, then?" Maybe this thing goes both ways.
N'thei shakes his head at her first, his attention absently fixed on scratching his nail down a callous on his palm, one alerted by catching Lujayn's fists a moment ago. "Depends on the fight, the fighters. You square off fairly, sure there's time for caution. Someone takes you unawares, there's no cunning in knowing how to fight back, that's impulse." Philosophy? "--Do you think it would bother me if there were? People who thought I was dim? You're not a strong girl, I'm not a smart man, everyone has a weakness."
Lujayn brushes off her knuckles, inspecting them for a moment. There's not much damage to be found, so she looks back up- "I can become strong if I try." She tells N'thei stubbornly even as she turns to leave. "Guess you can't fix brains like that, though." A little shrug, almost sympathetic, but Lu's had enough of debating.
N'thei argues none, wears half of a smile to chase Lujayn's shrug. His own shoulder picks up a hair, but that could just be leading into the steps that draw him to the punching bag. He has the courtesy to wait by it rather than start clubbing it while she's still in earshot.
Lujayn strides into the barracks.
Lujayn has left.