The Dagger of the Mind ~Reynold~

[ashara]

The summer gone and with it, so many other loves and hopes. Not that I hoped much, but when I, Adela Llafynne had first arrived at the Ranch, my vision had been of a slightly different setting.

 

Quickly Adela unsheathed the dagger throwing it hard and fast at the dummy they had erected to guide her through her training. It missed. Anger rose quickly inside her and she spun around once more, using her second dagger. It missed again. Without a word, without a second to pause and scream, she walked up to her daggers and picked them up again. She had been doing this all morning, missing and then achieving and then missing again. Kane was not to be here for another hour, but that was the whole point. To Adela, it didn’t matter if she could hold the blade with more awareness now, that her eyes could fix on the right targets. In totality, what would count in the future would be whether or not the knife in her hand reached the target or not. That was simply not coming to her as much as it should. And so she worked.

 

Things are awkward with Nona. Distant. I had never foreseen that either. So many unsaid words, so many secrets. It is my fault, I know. But it is also my life.

“Use less force and more sense. No point throwing knives around with a blind eye. Aim it. Don’t strain so much.†Looking down at her hand as she was about to throw at the dummy once again, Adela noted the tension with which she was clutching the dagger. Her arm was taut and rigid, gripping the hilt with an intensity that would definitely cause her to miss. Less force. With effort she loosened her hold on the dagger and looked towards her target once more. More sense.

 

Raised back,

 

Target fixed,

 

Thrown,

 

And killed.

[Wayfarer]

Nodding, Reynold gestured for Adela to throw again. Smiling and clapping as she found the mark again, he found himself approving of her progress. She was his only real piece of entertainment while he waited out his time at the farm. A farm he found himself wondering about, Adela's slip had caused him to examine things around him more closely. Everything was orderly, too orderly in Reynold's mind. Sure, it was a farm, but he had to admit that around Nona he found himself thinking he needed to watch himself.

 

That and when he had begun to instruct Adela about herbs, she'd revealed an extensive amount of knowledge. Far more than a girl of her age needed, it was like she was the apprentice of a wisdom but that wasn't her role at the farm. Those two things combined led Reynold to be very careful of what he ate while he was at the farm, and it had made his meals exciting if nothing else.

 

But, he needed to bring his mind back to the present. From his folded arms he withdrew a pair of roughly hewn wooden daggers. Blunt and rounded off, he'd decided they would be handy so he didn't stab the woman by accident. Tossing one over to the girl, she snagged it out of the air before looking it over. Allowing her a moment, Reynold began to speak with a smirk on his face.

 

"There are two grips for a dagger. One is a soldier's grip." Holding the blade up for her to see, he held the mock dagger so the blade poked out from between his thumb and index finger. "Then there is the murderer's grip." Reversing the dagger, it poked out of the bottom of his hand instead.

 

"Both are useful, so you'll learn to use both. The soldier's is handy because one can thrust, it gives you extra reach. The murderer's grip is better suited for slashing and hacking down on a person to bury the blade, much stronger."

 

Settling into a loose stance, his knee's were bent and he held the blade in his right hand in a murderer's grip. He held his left arm before him and across, ready to catch another's blow or divert it. "In a knife fight, while you can use two blades at once, its also handy to have a hand free. Snag your opponent, use your forearm to deflect their arm rather than the blade, get inside their guard."

 

"As to technique, you learn much faster by doing rather than watching. Come along dear, you can have first stab."

 

 

Reynold Quaestero

Blackguard

[ashara]

Listening carefully to what Kane had to say, she found herself wanting to him carry on and on, discovering a thirst in her she did not know existed. Bitter as she was, Adela found that Kane’s teaching was worth paying attention to. Oh she hated and burned on the inside as much as ever, but she saw intelligence when it was present. Even when she was forced to recognize it. And so she would placate herself, clamping all those emotions down with an iron hand and focus everything on learning.

 

"There are two grips for a dagger. One is a soldier's grip."

 

Watching intrigued as he showed her how to hold the dagger, Adela instantly tried it herself. It was not hard, but then she hardly doubted learning how to grip a dagger was going to be the hard part of her training. Nona had told her many weeks ago when she had first brought up the…issues, that Adela had long years of practice to look ahead for. And it do be hard, Nona had exclaimed, smiling at Adela as she had wiped the sweat from her brow. They had been cooking, Nona teaching, Adela cautiously trying. The result had been a successful meal for the Rashads, with Adela feeling the same sense of pride she always did when something new had been cemented in her life."Both are useful, so you'll learn to use both. The soldier's is handy because one can thrust, it gives you extra reach. The murderer's grip is better suited for slashing and hacking down on a person to bury the blade, much stronger." Adela felt herself go slightly cold. The talk of death never ceased and she found herself struggling. Struggling between following the urge to learn about Death and blades, and the hope to avoid actually sticking a knife into someone. And yet her heart soared whenever she was alone, slashing into the air as she pictured men and women she would kill and hack. Was it the sense of adventure, the fairytale belief or was it the feeling that it somehow suited her?

 

"As to technique, you learn much faster by doing rather than watching. Come along dear, you can have first stab." Although she refused to admit or show it, Adela was nervous. She had never tried this on a real person, and blunt as the dagger he had given her was, it was more the fear of making a fool out of herself that worried her. To soothe herself, she tried to sum up what she knew, watching him all the while that did so. He was much stronger, so that would mean she would be dependent on speed…and perhaps undertaking the unexpected. Moving away and then running back towards him fiercely, the smile on his face did nothing to help. She made as if to stab at his left, only to grab his left arm as firmly as she could when she suddenly found herself fumbling to get the right grip. Burn it, she was never going to get it like this!

 

 

~Adela

Late poster and how

 

OOC: Got carried away, I know, but I hadnt written her in a while. Hope what I've written is alright!

[Wayfarer]

Pulling back to his left and bringing Adela off balance, Reynold's right foot lashed out and swept the girl's feet out from under her. Her grip loosening as she fell, Reynold kicked her slash at his shins aside but spared her from the kick to the head he would have given a real opponent as he took a couple of steps back. Even as she rolled away and to her feet, Reynold was already reproving her. "You're trying to be too fancy. If you'd been a real opponent my knife would have been lodged in your kidneys and then ripped up until it hit your ribs. Basics, simple slashes and blows, these are your bread and butter for now. Try again."

 

He'd had her from the start of course, from even before she'd fumbled. Sensitive though she was under bitter thoughts and smart rejoinders, she decided that the way to go about this was going to be accepting what he said without taking it personally. Nodding, she picked up her dagger once more. Grip tightened and facing Kane, she focused herself. Eyes fixed on Kane's shoulder till then, she turned them suddenly to the other and made an effort to slash downwards in an arc like motion, ignoring the flash of fear that went off in her mind. How long had he been doing this?

 

Diverting her blow, Reynold slipped to one side and stepped back from the quick slash leveled his way as Adela spun towards him. Allowing her space at first, Reynold slowly worked closer, leaving her less and less room as their fight contracted. Blows came faster, but Reynold was content to simply parry them aside or slip about them. The aim was to get her used to violence, get her used to striking out, occasionally he would lash out when she did something too stupid. Sometimes a blow to the ribs, other times to the thighs, places where her bruises would not have to be explained later but would serve as a reminder to her.

 

Stepping aside a thrust, Reynold grabbed her dagger wrist and twisted it, forcing her mock blade free from her grip even as he forced her downward while he held her arm behind her. “Never fully extend your arm or that will happen to you. You shouldn’t need to lock your arm to get the power you need. Also, you’re only using your dagger to attack. You have a free hand, you have elbows, you have knees, legs, feet and even a head to use amongst other tools. Every part of you is a weapon, use them.” Releasing her, Reynold stepped back and gave her room to pick up her mock blade and attack again.

 

 

Reynold Quaestero

Blackguard

 

Adela

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