[Training] all this coast is vanishing

It’s been a few days since The Triumphant Return, and Koa is ready to crawl out of his skin. The luster of being out of the wilds was brilliant and short-lived, and with each passing hour the initial relief of getting to safety ebbs steadily into terror at what might be happening back home. He can’t stand to stand around, and he doesn’t dare go to Stormbreak yet.

So the soldier does what he does best: he buries his fear, and trains.

It’s barely an hour after dawn, and the tiny island Koa’s found is isolated and still. Barely big enough for him to take more than a few steps, it’s a perfect place to practice stances: quiet, calm, but near enough to shore that he doesn’t need to fear being lost once more. He’s left his bag on a nearby, larger islet, under Pipsqueak’s watchful gaze, swimming to his little landmass with nothing more than the wraps on his hands and the trunks on his ass.

Now as the early light glitters on the water, Koa preps for his routine. He sent a message to Hadama, asking the King if he’d care to join for an early morning spar. He’ll find the young soldier in a slow stretch, his broad body leaner, sunken, clearly still struggling from malnourished months. But there’s cold steel alloyed in the copper of his eyes, a honed focus that’s older than he’d been a year before. Koa may still be young, but he’s no longer so naive. He’s stared evil in the face, and been defeated by it.

Next time, his swings won't miss.

He had not been back in Torchline long. Returning from Halo had taken much longer than he was used to, when he could not simply aquaport around the world. Nevertheless, the journey had given him plenty of needed time to both meditate upon what he had become and to begin practicing with some of his new abilities. After meeting with Flora and the Mer court, he had confronted his pile of waiting correspondence, only to find a familiar name among the notes.

One he had not heard from in far too long.

Hadama was no stranger to dawn, and he still moved through the water with the slow, sweeping grace of a majestic sea flapflap manta ray as he approached the appointed island in his full animal shift, only taking his half-human(oid) form at the edge of the little spit of land that Koa had chosen.

”Koa,” he greeted, emerald eyes roaming the young warrior and noting the thinness of him, and how the laughter and passion in his eyes has been tempered into something a little harder, a little colder, but perhaps a little stronger as well. ”It is good to see you here again.” Alive. Whole. And hopefully uninfected. ”Will you join me for breakfast after this, and tell me what has happened?”

We won't insult Koa by saying he jumps at the sound of Hadama's voice, but no amount of denial can cover his flinch, or the animal fear that briefly clouds his face. It's gone as quickly as it appears, melting into warm relief as he recognizes the King. ”Lord Hadama. It’s good to see you, too.” Good to see any friendly face, after so many weeks alone.

With a final stretch of his shoulders and neck, Koa squares into a combat position. ”So I have a sort of weird request - I need to stay as still as possible while fighting. Figured it’d be easier with me stuck on this rock.” He shrugs half-apologetically, smile crooked. ”I thought maybe we could do some stances? I used to practice them with my mom.” He demonstrates by extending his arm, half-bent and palm vertical. The other hand is kept close to his chest, ready to block a blow. ”The goal is to get a body touch - and to block them,” Koa explains, hoping he’s made his intention clear.

Fear was a healthy reaction these days, with so many more threats than usual making their purple presences known. Relief, however, was a far more welcome one on a personal level, and Hadama’s stoic expression eased a little, allowing the corners of his eyes to crinkle in the warmth of his almost-smile. ”Mmh. A task from a god?” he asked, though such odd requirements for a training spar were usually due to one divine whim or another.

”If you will teach me, yes.” The agreement came easily, given how little the dragoon was asking of him. Besides, he had seen a group of humans - most older, though not all - on the beach some mornings at sunrise, going through slow forms together. He had been curious, but his body had lacked the proper support structures to participate.

Now, however…

The mermanta swam onto the edge of the little islet, and his tail melted away and split into a pair of legs clad in black leather trousers stitched with silver stars. He stood, a little wobbly at first but quickly finding his balance as he took his place across from the young man. Emerald eyes twinkled brightly in the early light, echoing the stars that had faded from the sky not so long ago as he carefully settled himself into a mirror of Koa’s stance and extended his arm. ”Show me.”

Oh well that was unexpected. Having never seen Hadama without his mer half intact, Koa’s eyes all but bulge out of his head as the King’s tail dissolves into honest-to-the-Gods legs. The lad’s encountered plenty of strange surprises over the past season, but somehow this one takes the cake. ”Oh. Uh. Guess this makes things cozy,” he chuckles, scooting to the edge of the tiny island to give Hadama more room.

Unsure of the polite way to comment on a merman’s legs, he opts to do his best to ignore them, eyes determinedly staying above Hadama’s belt. ”Alright. So the goal is very intentional, minimal movements. Like this.” Slowly, purposefully, Koa steps back, knees bending and arm extending in a steady sweep toward the mer. And despite the movements of his limbs the rest of his body is remarkably still, even breaths feeding a slow heart rate as he waits for the merman’s wrist to tap his.

Koa may have kept courteously quiet, but his wide eyes spoke volumes and Hadama was quietly pleased behind his serene facade. With the void flora and fauna only increasing with every passing season, he would take these small moments of light-heartedness when they came, appreciating them for the respite they were. ”Indeed,” he agreed, the mischief dancing in his eyes as the dragoon made space so that they could both stand - if barely - upon the little islet.

He listened to the instructions and watched Koa take his stance before attempting to emulate the soldier’s pose. The Tidebreaker was a man who moved with deliberate intention under most situations, but his unfamiliar center of balance was far less stable than Koa’s. For this first pass, however, he moved his arm with equal slow grace, focused on matching his partner-opponent’s speed as he brought his arm up and out to catch the dragoon’s wrist against his own.

But instead of leaving it at that he continued to push forward against Koa where their arms met, testing the other man’s strength and seeing what he would do as Hadama moved his hand at the same unhurried pace straight in towards the dragoon’s chest with a flex of powerful biceps and forearm muscles. ”Hmm. Like this?”

Attack 1

Under other circumstances Koa might have found it endearingly entertaining to watch Hadama struggle with his center of gravity. To Koa, the Mermanta has always been as steady and secure as a deep-sea current; the soldier can only imagine what it’s like having such a foundation tossed by the surface wave of change. But for now his focus is too absolute and his proximity too near to ponder such things.

And let’s face it: Dama may hold depths as vast as the ocean, but Koa’s always operated near the shallow end of the pool.

It is harder than it should be to hold steady against the pressure of Hadama’s movements, yet the Dragoon manages to keep his positioning as the merman tenses into his space. Even in his current poor physical condition, Koa’s stance work is expert, his feet secure as he holds his muscles still and tight. ”Good,” he murmurs, smiling through his concentration even as he slowly, deliberately, shifts his feet within the sand.

His right arm presses on Hadama’s extended one, a forceful invitation to bring it slowly arcing down. The left, meanwhile, makes a quiet thrust forward, slow-moving and deliberate, fingers pressing into Hadama’s shoulders in the suggestion the merman step out of the way.

Hey, the pool didn’t have to be deep when Koa looked that good dripping wet, right?

Hadama was well aware that experience was worth far more than brute strength in most situations, and he was unsurprised when Koa was able to use his greater knowledge and skill to deflect the Tidebreaker’s forward momentum slowly down and away from his absolutely banging body. The form was intriguing and appealing to the former-Mer, however, and he continued to move with the slow rhythm that Koa set instead of trying to speed up or jerk away.

The Dragoon’s other arm moved, adding a new layer to the complex shift of currents, but Hadama was used to yielding to the sea and as Koa pressed into his shoulder he turned his body, letting that shoulder turn back and away and bringing his other shoulder forward, increasing his reach. A reach that he did not need so close to his opponent, and so he rotated his elbow to bring his wrist away from Koa’s, shifting his forearm slowly around and up to try and press the back of his hand and wrist to the dragoon’s chest in an effort to push him gently back.

His own feet were far from stable, however. He was not shifting them instinctively as Koa did, overly-relying instead on the power of his core. It kept him upright, but weakened the power of his own pushes as he failed to find his center of gravity.

Attack 2

The trick now is to keep still while Hadama yields to him, to avoid falling into the pitfall of imbalance and thus throw off the game. It’s almost a dance in slow motion, the way they flow and move. A hand on a shoulder, another on a wrist; they might as well waltz through molasses, for all the action that outwardly appears.

Koa follows Hadama’s retreat, his body moving forward as the Tidebreaker shifts back. One leg slides through the coarse sand, fitting in between Hadama’s and then, just barely, behind. The other arm - the one not on Hadama’s chest - arcs back up, trying to bring the merman’s with it; to make his upper body move enough that he misses the trap, hopefully tripping backwards over the Dragoon’s well-toned calf.

There was time to think as they moved, though Hadama was quickly sensing that it was deceptively easy to overextend and overcommit without realizing it. He was patient, however, and had always preferred a defensive style of combat that prioritized protecting himself and his allies over the dealing of large amounts of damage. And he studied his opponents, so that when the time to deal damage came he could do it in the most efficient way.

Koa’s foot sliding forward was not missed by the newly-minted demigod. Hadama did not entirely understand the intent behind it, but he sensed a chance to use his own height and reach to his advantage by sliding his own foot forward in a delayed mirror until his knee was even with the middle of Koa’s thigh. It stretched his stance out as he twisted his chest and shoulders sideways with the rotation of his right shoulder away from the other man and his left shoulder towards him, but the King had long legs, even if they were shorter than his tail. It also allowed him to keep his torso upright so he didn’t have to lean as he pushed into the dragoon’s chest, though as Koa’s wrist rose he allowed his arm to be raised with a gleam in his emerald eyes.

Right until the moment he reached the top of Koa’s shoulder. Then he straightened his fingers and twisted his wrist to extend past his opponent’s neck and turned his hips and, most importantly, his forward leg, attempting to slowly and carefully push his knee against the dragoon’s thigh to try and interrupt his balance while his hand put pressure against the dragoon’s neck in an effort to topple him sideways from his stance.

Attack 3

Well, this is getting awfully cozy, isn't it? If Koa weren't a well-trained soldier incredibly comfortable with bodily contact, he might have flushed as the once-mer King pushed a thigh between his legs.

But he's too focused on the combat to notice this intimacy, attention instead focused on the hand that's pushing on his collar, attempting to throw him off his balance and into the sand (and surf) below. It's a difficult pressure to resist, Hadama being significantly stronger than the Dragoon even when he's not malnourished and weak. Clenching his jaw and knitting his eyebrows, Koa strives to hold against it, his own body still in counter-pressure--

--until, abruptly, he steps back, staggering quickly from Hadama's grasp. It means he's wound up in the water and thus, effectively, lost, but its also calculated to try and make Hadama lose his balance, because if Koa is going to to surrender, he might as well try to bring his opponent down as well.

Intimacy had never held much interest for the broad-shouldered former-Mer. Bodies were tools to be used and maintained, and at times they were weapons to be honed and polished, but Hadama preferred to indulge his appreciation of sensuality in good food and drink rather than lustier pursuits.

That, and he was still getting used to the finer points of human(oid) anatomy and how it differed from Mer anatomy. Every day was an education at this point.

One of those lessons was in gravity. Confident in his strength to the point of overconfidence, Hadama was unprepared for the way Koa moved out from beneath the pressure of his hand and knee. There was a moment where time seemed to stop and his serene expression shifted to perplexity. Then he was overbalancing, tilting forward and to the side as the dragoon's revenge brought the Tidebreaker slipping into the water, bruised but wiser than he had been.

"...I do not think either of us won that match," he admitted, shaking the water from his face and pushing himself back up to sit in the water, regarding Koa with a hint of amusement dancing in his emerald eyes. "I will need more practice. But shall we take a break for breakfast first?"

"I'd call it a draw." Koa extends a hand to the mer-king, boyish grin wide and bright. It'd been a good spar, overall, both of them a little unsteady, both of them learning some new things. He hadn't expected Hadama to actually fall as spectacularly as he did, but the other man's good natured response coupled with the lovely day and endorphin rush of exercise has Koa in a capital mood.

A mood that will be dampened soon, as he tells Hadama about his exile, and the kidnapping of Sohalia, and his fear for his home. But such things do not require dwelling, and we will leave the lads here: slick with sweat and sea-water in the light of a risen sun, gathering up abandoned supplies and heading off to a well-earned meal.

{fin!}