From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
06-16-2021, 09:29 PM (This post was last modified: 06-16-2021, 09:31 PM by Seren.)
Dark hair for catching the wind, not to veil the sight of a cold world
"Alright. He's all yours!" Pleased that she was given something to do, Seren nodded her approval - she was in no shape to spar, it was true. Umbra seemed keen on the idea however, and came splashing over. Looking around them, she realized that the tight quarters made for both good and bad practice area; the man would not have to run or walk too much, but he would also have to meet the dragon's assaults up front, while minding his footing.
"Be gentle," Seren murmured through the bond, and the Blue snorted in response.
As Falke took his stance, Seren stepped up to his side and inspected the way he stood, the way he held the cane. Falling into a cadance that sought to mimic the instructors - and particularly her father - she turned rather efficient and corrected posture and grip with gentle, impersonal nudges of bandaged fingers.
"Lesson number one - maintain your balance at all times. Bend your knees slightly while placing the weight forward onto the balls of your feet, so that you are always ready to move in any direction. Use your blade for blocking incoming attacks, and if you see an opening, try to retaliate."
Stepping back, Seren prompted her dragon forward with a mental nudge; bounding forward, the dragon snaked out his neck and aimed a playful nip at Falke's knees. His body, neck and nose was covered in hard blue scales, small and woven together like chainmail; even the eyelids were guarded, and a normal sword would simply bounce off.
Seren
✰ Starlight (Passive) | Starfilled night billow around her like a veil as she moves. It is more noticeable in daytime and when she make sudden movements.
Falke takes the adjustments as they come, shifting and lowering or raising as prompted until he’s in a stance that feels stable yet odd. As long as Seren feels satisfied with it, the Fixer thinks its a good place to start.
“Okay.” In theory he understands - and look, Falke knows he isn’t dumb - he just lacks a bit of proprioception and rarely feels in his body the way he imagines fighters must feel. Still, he will try. Really try. Leaning his weight forward to the balls of his feet, the half-cripple makes an effort to try and stay… buoyant.
He knows Umbra will be his opponent, but Falke is not expecting the speed of the dragonling. A quick sound of surprise, a half-laugh, and he is swinging the cane towards the companion, trying to sharply swat him away. There is little thought given to retaliation, unfortunately.
Dark hair for catching the wind, not to veil the sight of a cold world
The cane connected with the side of Umbra's neck with a dull thump. With a snort the dragon leaped away and shook out his head, a paw reaching up to scratch at the spot. It had not hurt per se, but was not comfortable either.
"Come now, big puppy," Seren smirked at her companion. "You're tougher than that when we play." The smile was kinder when she turned to Falke, and her nod was approving. "Well done. Let's try again. Try to expect the unexpected, when you end up in unfamiliar situations. Few things ever go quite as we plan, or think they will." A second lesson the instructors were keen to engrain into their bones.
On Seren's prompting, Umbra made another playful attack. This time, he turned around and tried to whack the Fixer on his good leg with a thickly muscled tail. There were no barbs to look out for, but being struck might sting a bit all the same.
Seren
✰ Starlight (Passive) | Starfilled night billow around her like a veil as she moves. It is more noticeable in daytime and when she make sudden movements.
He’s genuinely surprised that the cane hits, thinking that the dragonling was certainly faster than his less-than-stellar reflexes. There’s also a sharp burst of guilt, brief but poignant, and he falters in the follow-through. Hurting others is not his thing - apparently even when he’d agreed to it. It probably has something to do with perception of the dragonling as a smaller, younger creature rather than the soldier he will be - but that’s an analysis for another day.
Nevertheless, he must persist, and after Seren tells Umbra to toughen up, he no longer feels quite so bad. What she says is probably true. “Okay.” Nodding, the Fixer tries to settle himself back into a stance that screams I’m expecting the unexpected because really, all of this is an unfamiliar situation.
He doesn’t anticipate the reversal, and as he tries to follow Umbra’s trajectory, the cane goes wide and a dark blue tail slaps into his calf, feeling much like he’s bumped his shin on something - but the other side, of course. Exhaling a sound of surprise, it quickly turns into a bright chuckle. That was a good one.
Dark hair for catching the wind, not to veil the sight of a cold world
Seren, for all her lack of experience, could rather quickly see where some of Falke's strengths and weaknesses lay. She smiled at him for the surprised laughter, and quietly urged Umbrato go again.
Without warning this time, the dragon kept turning around and repeated the same tagging motion of his nose, intending to tap the Fixer in the good leg.
"From what I can tell, you seem to be a defensive fighter," she commented, offering feedback. "That can be a very good thing. Make yourself hard to take down, keep a resilient mind and you will probably get out of any tricky situations. If you find yourself in a tough spot, try to use the surroundings to your advantage. There is always a way to reverse any situation. The goal in any fight is always to stay alive."
Another lecture remembered, and perhaps one of her favorite ones.
Seren
✰ Starlight (Passive) | Starfilled night billow around her like a veil as she moves. It is more noticeable in daytime and when she make sudden movements.
He’s a bit more ready for it this time around; the circling dragon projects a familiar path and Falke does his best to sneak the cane in before the companion taps him. “You’re sneaky,” he comments to Umbra with a cheeky wag of a finger, before Seren adds her assessment to their session.
And to be honest, a defensive fighter doesn’t sound so bad. It’s nice to have a name to a style, something that he can go to someone else and say, I’m best like this - and be able to accurately describe something. The Fixer nods along, appreciating everything the young demigod says. “We think about fights in terms of winning, but staying alive is a form of winning, is it not?”
Glancing around at the space they’re in, he asks one more question. “In a space like this, what might you suggest using?”
Dark hair for catching the wind, not to veil the sight of a cold world
The cane quite successfully blocked the dragon's sneaking approach, and with a chatty kind of sound Umbra withdrew, and began to circle in the other direction instead. Attempting, for what it was worth, to get behind the Fixer.
Seren looked around the room, taking note of the tools and equipment that hung on walls, stacked in neat piles and rested in crates along the walls. Everything was orderly and precisely placed, but that could change, if necessary.
"You don't move very quickly, right? You could place obstacles on the floor, to make it so that others can't use their speed against you. Consider your objective. If it is to flee, ensure that you leave an escape route clear. If it is to hold your ground, or stall for time, make it difficult for your opponent to leave." Seren looked down at Umbra with a smile. "He has claws and teeth, but his real strength lies in agility and flight. In here, he can't use his wings. So that leaves you with one goal; ensure that he faces you where you are most comfortable. Head on, from the front."
Seren pointed to a corner, where Falke's back and sides would be quite well protected, while still leaving room for the cane to be swung. The dragon squawked in protest as she made it more difficult for him, but the young woman only grinned. Who would have success first? Umbra, trying to catch Falke's back... or Falke, who needed to relocate in order to secure his back from the young hatchling? She leaned back, watching with interest what the man would do.
Seren
✰ Starlight (Passive) | Starfilled night billow around her like a veil as she moves. It is more noticeable in daytime and when she make sudden movements.
07-13-2021, 02:37 PM (This post was last modified: 07-13-2021, 02:37 PM by Falke.)
Falke
pull up a seat right next to men and
pull out a pen, write down your memory
“Not compared to others, no,” he readily admits with good humor. No shame there. On his good days he’s got average speed and you’d never know he uses a cane. On his bad days, he’s slow and gimpy. So it goes.
And the advice she gives makes sense - Falke must do the best with what he’s got and improvise the same way he does in his sessions. His gaze goes distant as he contemplates the obstacles in the space and how to best use them - what’s his goal right now? To stall for time. Hold his ground. And the little dragon has proven more than once that he can take a bit of ruffling, so the Fixer doesn’t hesitate.
Reaching out for a box, he tries to knock it to the ground between himself and Umbra, creating both a diversion and an obstacle. Then he tries to move into the corner, hoping that the box and its contents (whether it spilled or not) would give him the time to back up to a wall or something. Falke keeps his cane in front of him as a guard and tries to balance between watching the blue-black speedster and where he’s going.
Dark hair for catching the wind, not to veil the sight of a cold world
It was a sound tactic and a very good choice indeed. The box Falke threw onto the ground turned out to contain a number of semi-soft rubber balls, weighted yet with enough bounce that they filled the space between himself and Umbra. The dragon squawked in surprise and tried to dart after the man as he made it for the corner, but the hatchling almost immediately stepped on one ball, tripped over the other and tumbled nose over tail into a rack of wooden staffs.
By the time he had untangled himself and was back on task, Falke was very securely sequestered within his corner, and Umbra's only avenue of attack was from the front. Since Seren had banned his flames, that meant a nose first approach, which... given the staff, would be painful and clumsy no matter how unused the Fixer was to his new weapon.
"Well done!" Seren said, trying very hard not to laugh at the disappointed dragon or the general mess they had made. "I'd say that's your win, Falke. I don't know... does any of this help you at all?" They had strayed quite a bit from ordinary training, but perhaps that was for the best. Seren was not skilled enough to give accurate instructions or correct bad form - some proper instructor could do that.
"You should probably talk to the training masters about your cane... I'm really new at this myself." She rubbed the back of her neck and offered the man a cheeky grin.
Seren
✰ Starlight (Passive) | Starfilled night billow around her like a veil as she moves. It is more noticeable in daytime and when she make sudden movements.
Looking at Seren with surprise, Falke begins to nod emphatically as he lowers the cane. “Of course it does. I know the heft and weight of this better than I did before. And I have a solid tactic for staying alive.” Gesturing to the box that’s on the floor, he grins impishly. “Never get caught unless I’m in a storage facility and have things to topple over.”
And, like the responsible person that he is. Falke begins to pick up some of the balls, tossing them back into the righted box. “Don’t sell yourself short,” he says firmly with a shake of his head as she begins to - at least to his ears - try to qualify her advice. “I’m a healer and an academic. You’re already way ahead of me. And it was a very comfortable environment.” And speaking of - the booming voice of the commanding officer drifts through the rain, a definitive call for the troops to call it a day and head inside.
“That’s my cue,” Falke says. “Though I imagine they’ll hit the showers first.”
Dark hair for catching the wind, not to veil the sight of a cold world
Kneeling down to help sort the balls back into their crate, Seren seemed gratified by the assurances. Even Umbra came to help, when he was done sulking over his defeat.
"I'm glad we could help," she smiled. "It's the first time I try to teach anything... It was rather fun. Let me know if you ever want to get more practice in. Next time I can face you myself."
A quick wink - it was difficult to say if her as opponent would be more or less of a challenge - and then the instructor outside was calling an end to the exercise.
"My cue as well. It was nice to meet you, Falke. See you around!" Bounding off into the rain with her dragon in tow, Seren fell in at the back of the line as her group disappeared into the barracks. Spirits lifted, she splashed merrily into a large puddle - so that by the time everyone was back in the common room, she too could complain about soggy boots and wet feet.
- Fin
Seren
✰ Starlight (Passive) | Starfilled night billow around her like a veil as she moves. It is more noticeable in daytime and when she make sudden movements.
