Vykor Temmer - Bruising Time Beat Down (Attn: U4ea)

[Kalthandrix]

Vykor stepped out in the training yards just as the sun was brightening the sky. It would be a beautiful day is the coolness remained and the skies overhead maintained their unblemished blue color. He had been told to report to the Training yard for his evaluation before he would be allowed to train further...something about his placement in classes or something.

 

Today he wore a somber, dark green wool coat, buttoned to the neck and with silver embroidery of waves upon the cuffs, hem, and neck. As all his coats did, the garment buttoned on the side. His sword and satchel, the straps of both made of good leather, crossed over his chest. Black trousers with the legs tucked into black suede boots that came to his knees completed picture.

 

There were a few other early risers already in the yard, but he did not know who it was exactly he was waiting for, so he just made sure he was visible and watched the other men practicing the forms.

 

He had yet to see much of anything of the city, having only had time to settle into his rooms last night and check on his horse in the stables before he locked himself into his room. He had also pulled the bed over in front of the door as well, to make sure that no one could enter, before he wove a Gateway to take him to the Boarderlands to check in with an informant. His hunt for those Light-cursed Darkfriends may have no official support any longer, since all trace of them had disappeared over a year ago, he Vykor would be kicked before he stopped his hunt.

 

The information gained had been nothing substantial, so when he returned three hours later with the hour well past the middle of night, he regreated the energy and time stent Traveling there and back. That and the headache he had from the strain of making those weaves left him unable to sleep for a good while afterwards.

 

But now, here he was, and as bright eyed as possible after swilling almost a pot of the darkest, strongest tea he could find.

Perhaps my next trip will have to be into Seanchan lands to get some of their kaf, he thought idly as he waited.

 

[U4ea]

Edana sat under her favorite tree, watching the Yards for a sign of the trainee she'd been told to play with this morning. The Captain hadn't looked terribly happy about assigning her, but since he'd put everyone else to work, he didn't have much choice. Was it her fault she enjoyed annoying him? She smirked. It was totally her fault and she seriously loved every minute. He was just so much fun to harass!

 

She saw a trainee standing in the middle of the Yards and tilted her head to watch him for a moment. He was wearing a coat, so he was either lost or just didn't realize what he was about. The morning air was cool, but not overly so. She'd stopped wearing coats around the grounds a week after she arrived. She smiled, pushing herself to her feet and walking towards him. He'd figure it out, sooner or later. She hoped it was sooner, since summer was coming. She wasn't a small girl, my any means, but she didn't want to be the one dragging him to the infirmary when he passed out from the heat!

 

She stopped a few feet away, laughter still dancing in her eyes. "Good morning! Is there someone I can help you find?"

 

~Edana

[Kalthandrix]

"Good morning, my lady," Vykor replied with a polite bow. As he looked up at the woman standing before him, he could see that she had the face of one used to smiling and a twinkle of mischief-yet-complete in her eyes and could not help but give her a grin.

 

"Lights truth, but I do no know if you can or not because I do not know who exactly I am waiting for myself. I was ordered to appear here at first light and be ready for an evaluation of my swordsmanship before I am set into training classes." He realized that he was still grinning and straightened his face before continuing. "My name is Vykor al'Tem and I am just newly arrived."

 

He hooked his thumbs behind the straps crossing his chest and mentally cursed himself. Stupid wool-brain! Of course you are newly arrived if you have not been assigned to specific classes!

 

"If you know who it is that might be performing my evaluation, I would be grateful enough to buy you a glass or two of wine if you were to point them out to me."

 

[U4ea]

My Lady? Edana nearly choked on her laughter, at that. Not even Sandre had thrown that term at her. So, this was the recruit she was set to test, huh? She watched his stance a moment while he talked. He was focused a bit inward, so it wasn't hard to hide that she was sizing him up. She shifted a bit to one side, watching his eyes. One of them was discolored enough that she had to wonder whether it worked properly or not. It wouldn't stop him from being effective, it would just double the work he had to do to get there.

 

When his gaze followed her, she nodded inwardly. The scar on his face looked rather mean, but she knew better than to be intimidated by scars. She'd given far too many of them to be daunted by it. "Alas, I'm afraid I am the one charged with your Evaluation, though if you try to bribe me with wine, I'll have to let the Mistress of Trainees know you need training in more than just swordsmanship." She grinned and nodded a few feet away at a stand holding a pair of lathes. "Come, let's see what you know so you don't expire of boredom with the trainees who barely know which end of a sword to hold."

 

She walked next to him as they made their way over to the lathes, measuring his stride and watching the way his body moved as they walked. Alright, so he knew how to carry himself. Now, to see if he knew how to handle a sword. She waved him towards the stand, allowing him to pick a lathe first and then wrapping her fingers around the one that was left. "Have you had much training with a sword?"

 

~Edana

[Kalthandrix]

Oh Light! he cursed himself for ten kinds of fool.

 

"I would never try and influence your decision in regards to my evaluation." As the pair of them approached the laths, Vykor was more than a little bit flustered and thinking fast to try and come up with something to say that did not paint him a fool. With practiced ease, he took control of saidin and began to form the weaves of air that would pull a bundled lathe practice weapon into his outstretched hand. It was only at the very last instant before the weave touched them that he realized what he was doing - channeling in front of a woman, a Tower guard none-the-less, in the heart of the White Tower. He cut off the flows of air as swiftly as he could and before they moved the practice weapon. So used to doing most every task imaginable with the One Power had be become that he had almost given himself away.

 

The he also realized that he was still holding out his hand in a rather imperious manner, as if he expected her to hand him one of the practice weapons, that he almost stumbled in his haste to cross the last few paces to where they lay before he picked one up at the same time that he released the Power. He remained in the Void though, feeding his embarrassment into the Flame and clearing all the distractions from his mind as he stepped away, falling into the casual-looking walking stance known as Emptiness. It looked as if he were just walking, but a trained eye would see that he was already moving into position in perfect balance.

 

"I have had some training in the way of the sword."

 

In the calmness of the Void, he realized he had not removed his other weapon or coat and then shrugged the thought away as unimportant. While at the Black Tower, he had made himself train at odd hours, in various types of weather, and even sometimes in different degrees of dress. An attack could come at anytime and you had to be willing and able to fight when it came.

 

With his practice weapon held in a low guard, he was ready for her.

 

[U4ea]

Edana nodded slowly, watching him set himself and noting how easily he slid into a ready stance. “You win,” she grinned. “I’m impressed. Now let’s see if you know what to do with that sword, once you’re ready for an attack.”

 

She leaned forward and pressed his guard, starting low to meet his stance and moving high. The Creeper Embraces the Oak started low rather than high, followed by Lightning of the Three Prongs, which would test how quickly he bantered back from a fluid form. She pressed still more, her blade shifting to a mid-stance to check his balance there and then still higher to this shoulders.  She shifted from origin to origin, testing how quickly he shifted and finding the places where he had a hesitation.

 

She finally stepped back into Lion on the Hill, smiling. “Not half bad! Now, you try advancing,” she waited, watching everything about him at once for any hint of a direction he’d choose.

 

 

~Edana

OOC: I am really sorry this isn't more in depth. I wanted to get you something to work with while I'm closing up at school. If you have trouble with it, just let me know and I'll try again tomorrow when I can think clearly!

[Kalthandrix]

“You win,” Edana grinned. “I’m impressed. Now let’s see if you know what to do with that sword, once you’re ready for an attack.”

 

"Well, as for that, I have always been told that the pointy end should be placed in the other fellow, but if the Warders are teaching otherwise...?" The quip flashed thought his mind and past his lips before he realized. The Void freed him of any nervousness and it was not uncommon for him to say something while within it that he might not have at another time.

 

The low guard he used, properly named Mosiev'Val, allowed him shift to the defensive form of Leaf Floating on the Breeze to foil The Creeper Embraces the Oak and then answered Lightning of the Three Prongs with Lightning of the Three Prongs. Vykor knew that his movements could not have been said to flow, but he moved well and solidly. Farm life and then the hard physical training in the Black Tower had given him a strong, lean body that balanced strength, speed, and endurance.

 

That Edana was better than him with a sword he had not doubted and as she pressed he knew that she was not putting her all behind her moves. It was a much different training style then in the Black Tower, where you fought as hard as you could, for as long as you could or you paid the price for it with your body. Healing was usually always at hand to keep training fatalities to a minimum, but those who stayed and lived soon learned to fight as if their lives depending upon it.

 

The bundled lathes brushed his cheek from a thrust that he barely avoided taking in the throat. Well, maybe she was not taking it as easy on him as he had thought. If they had truely held blades he was sure he would have been bleeding from no less then half a dozen serious cuts by the time she gave up her press and settled back into Lion on the Hill, her grin still quirking her lips.

 

He was still centered in the Void, ignoring the flickering sirens call of saidin. He mirrored her stance, standing off just a little, breath quickened from the practice but not allowing himself to sweat.

 

“Not half bad! Now, you try advancing,” came her invitation and so he did.

 

His mentor Isha had told him of Mo’Kai’La, the discipline of Strike and Hold in the Old Tongue. It was beautiful in its simplicity thought difficult to master. Simply put, you must attack - always attacking and unrelenting in it until your opponent fell or you did. So without a word of banter this time that is what Vykor did.

 

With a flurry of measured steps, he closed upon Edana, practice lathes lancing out. The Kingfisher Takes A Silverback was a simple downward thrust at her abdomen, followed a thrust to her throat called Kissing The Adder. River Undercuts The Bank was a long horizontal slash to her abdomen that he delivered as he dropped to a knee but he allowed the momentum of his cut to carry him back up, twisting as he did to thrust at the underside of the woman's chin in an attack called Whirlwind On The Mountain.

 

He moved from stance to stance, each new move taking him into a position to attack again and again. He used his one slight advantage of greater physical strength, though he knew that raw power did not usually win a sword fight, and kept the tiredness closed off from him while he existed inside the Void. His forms were rough in some cases, lacking the fluid, sinuous movement of a unconscious thought, but had a practiced look to them.

 

 

[U4ea]

Edana's lips quirked at his sarcasm, but she didn't let up on him. She countered his attack, losing a step or two as he pressed a bit harder than she expected. She wasn't about to lose to a newcomer, though. Master Kynwric... heck, even Sandre! But not someone she just met!

 

He nearly got her as he shifted quickly from his knee back to swing at her throat, but she managed to duck a breath before the lathe struck. His swing put him at a disadvantage, so she took it. If he was aiming for her throat, she was aiming lower! She used the hilt of the lathe and punched it into his stomach, turning as his body bowed in recoil and dancing away from the swinging blade she was sure was headed her way. She swung back around, meeting the flash of his lathe with renewed vigor. A Courtier Taps His Fan glinted down at him and she didn't pull up on her swing, curious to see how fast he could recover and match her. She didn't give him much time, as she used the downward motion of the stroke to move seamlessly into The Boar Rushes Down the Mountain. She nearly started humming as she danced from foot to foot to move through Tower of Morning before stepping back away from him.

 

~Edana

[Kalthandrix]

With a bit more flare then he expected he had had in him, Vykor feigned curling around the hilt as it punched into him, though the grunt was real enough and he was sure he would have a bruise, but the Void buffered him from the pain and he thought to play it up to his advantage.

 

Edana spun away and he saw her practice weapon coming up overhead as he straightened in what he thought was Courtier Taps His Fan. Thanks to a rather entertaining and accommodating acrobatic lass he had met at a traveling circus and become close to while behind Seanchan lines, Vykor threw his whole body backwards. It was a graceless maneuver and he only just braced himself up on one arm to just keep from smacking face first onto the hard packed earth. As it was he did crack his sharply upon the unforgiving ground and it sent a jolt of pain skittering just outside of the Void

 

The downward cut from Courtier Taps His Fan and the shift to Boar Rushes Down the Mountain required a shift of stances that just gave him a second of breathing room as he struggled to get to his knees...which he did just in time to see Tower of Morning sweep up into a long vertical slash before him.

 

As he was kneeling upon the ground he had just enough time to try and execute Unfolding the Fan, but he was not fast enough to do more then deflect it a hair. The tip of the practice lathe smacked the bottom of his chin and clacked his teeth together with a noise he was sure could be heard a good ten paces away.

 

Dark spots and bright sparks of light bloomed across his vision and he staggered to his feet, but the grinning Edana was already dancing away from him. She must have just made it look like she was fouling up her footwork to draw him into doing something foolish and it appeared that he had complied from the large smile on her lips.

 

[U4ea]

Ed waited on him, tilting her head. Her smile was still stretched across her lips. "Not bad, though you could use a little work on reading body language. I don't think it'll take long before you get the hang of it, though." She straightened up slowly, her hand relaxing around her lathe. "Are you injured badly? The infirmary is top-notch, though I don't recommend becoming a regular there unless you're prepared to get bonded before you can get your list of ailments past your lips..."

 

She waited for his reply, taking note of any injuries she may have inflicted. Men didn't always believe in honesty when it came to admitting they were hurt. Light knew Sandre wouldn't tell her if he was bleeding! The thought made her smile soften a bit and she leaned on the lathe while she waited for Vykor to admit where he hurt or hide them.

 

~Edana

[Kalthandrix]

Dazed as he was, Vykor found his feet steady under him and the sparks of light and dark quickly cleared from his sight. A gobbet of only red-tinged saliva hit the hard packed training yard as he spit.

 

"I think I will be fine. I've been smacked harder by my mother when she thought I was being too glib, but if you have had enough..."

 

Vykor could not believe the words that leaked forth from his lips, but could no more recall them as put spilt ink back in the jar. It was that smile of hers that must be doing it because he could never imagine as scenario in which he would have said anything like that to Asha'man Isha when he had been first teaching him the way of the sword.

 

He did not know how she would take his comment, but found that he could not bring himself to sally some kind of apologetic recovery. He had been soundly thrashed by the Mistress of Trainees and it had sparked a resolute fire within him that he would not allow to dim regardless of what was done to him upon the practice yard.

 

He had vowed to himself to work twice had hard as any other men or woman on the field and prove himself and he would not let his time here go by lightly. From the sound of Edana's voice, she might have been ready to let him go off and seek healing, but that would have most likely signaled the end to this and he knew he did not want to put up the practice weapon yet.

 

[U4ea]

Edana felt her eyebrow arch at his tone, though she was more inclined to laugh at his words. Was he trying to bait her? Truly? She was hardly the best trained fighter in the Yards, but he must know she wouldn't have been assigned to Evaluate him if she couldn't handle him. She shrugged, her smile still in place, though now it had even more of a humorous tilt to it. "I never knew my mother, so you'll forgive me if I don't have a comparison."

 

She drew patterns in the dirt with the bundled lathes in her hand and shook her head at him. "And I'll let you know when I've had enough, trainee. I fear you'll find yourself on your back before it happens, though."

 

She moved forward, closing her mind off as forms started and flowed through her. He met most of them, though one or two with a hastily thrown up defense that she easily pushed through. She aimed at the middle first, keeping her attacks localized. A few times the lathe struck his side, though she did pull the swing up just a fraction before it struck to keep it from delivering the full weight of her blow. When he'd shifted to compensate for that, she moved her attack lower, battering his legs and ankles. "Do you dance, Vykor?" she asked, grinning at him as her swings made him shift from foot to foot like he was dancing a waltz. "This is hardly the time for court foolery, you know?"

 

Yeah, she was baiting him. It was part of the Evaluation, seeing whether he could set anger aside... but in this case, it was also kind of fun. Her smile never faltered as she continued to swing the lathe.

 

~Edana