Xenofos — Straw Weaver Camp By The Morning
????, Darkness Season, Season/Movement Week
Context
Darkness Season/Movement Week/Clay Day/Morning. For Xenofos continues from [[[Xenofos:Daughter of Eiritha]]] [[[s02:session-21|Session 21]]]
Events
The morning after the feast, Xenofos makes his way to the training ground, a little later than usual and via a different route.
Berra, on patrol, is on the outside of the camp – not far away, but not training.
She catches a glimpse of a familiar form making his way to the training ground. Berra knows Varanis has been there since before dawn, saluting Yelm and running through solitary drills.
Berra walks on, with a lazy lift of the hand to the figure in question.
As he makes his way towards the training field, Xenofos spots Berra walking the camp perimeter, off to his left. Ahead of him, Varanis is practicing solitary exercises. She does not seem to have noticed him yet.
Xenofos greets Berra with a handwave.
And continues walking towards Varanis.
The guard gets on with guarding, alert.
Xenofos stops to look at Varanis for a while, takes off his cloak and hat and starts drill of Eight major cuts.
When he finishes his own drill, he finds Varanis watching him. Her helmet is tucked under her arm and she’s smiling more brightly than she ought to be, given the amount of kumiss she drank the night before. Her eyes gleam with speculation.
“You look well this morning,” she comments.
He smiles freely and his cheeks are kind of flushed from the exercise. “I do feel fine.”
She arches an eyebrow at him. “Did you… do you want to spar?” That obviously wasn’t what she had originally intended to ask.
“I did not have that in mind. But fighting is not about wanting to or mood so, yes, let us spar a bit.” His eyes look for wasters.
She hasn’t brought them out.
“I’ll fetch the blunts. Do you wish to use shields?”
She shrugs. “I left mine at the yurt, but I suppose I can get it if that’s what you want to practice.”
“Single sword? Fine by me.”
Vingan grins at scholar’s answer
He is way more relaxed than yesterday.1 LoL. Funny how that works. He looks alert enough, but his eyes betray tiredness. Or maybe it is yesterday’s wind.
When he comes back with the wasters, she’s already got her helmet back on. She moves restlessly around the practice field.
He walks over and gives her choice of singlesticks marking rapiers.
His eyes have become more alert, even as he sweeps errand strand of hair from his face, he is prepared to react if Varanis decides to make a surprise start.
She selects a blade and steps back, giving him space.
He makes a wristcut to test balance of the stick and makes a salute.
She returns his salute and launches directly into her attack.2 3 rolls and storytelling Varanis has pass, pass and special, Xenofos three passes
Xenofos voids the first assault with ease and returns with attack of his own, easily warded by Varanis.
She comes in again quickly, attempting to knock his blade off line and follows through with a thrust towards his chest.
Blade that was knocked offline gained momentum of the strike and returns to displace Varanis’ blade. A compasstep takes Xenofos offline and cut from below tries to mar Vingan’s face.3 Varanis:Not the face! :rofl: X:mark their face he said. Pretty boys are really afraid of that.
She evades his attack by virtue of no longer being in the way of the sword. Lightning quick, she dances to the side, then darts in close, reversing her sword for a pommel strike to the face.4Evade that one and we can call that the first of the three? X: taking that as conclusion 🙂 Varanis: ((:eyes:))
If I break your nose, Neela might kill me, one night stand or not!
Too bad Xenofos’ stick is in position to ward a cut. He jerks his head and whole body away from coming blow but it still hits his left cheek and plants him in the snow.
Varanis swears, something very Praxian sounding, and drops to her knees beside him. “You ok? I tried to pull it when I saw it was going to hit, but…”
He raises his left hand ” Nothing major I think. Your bout.”5 Varanis spots a fresh, red scar in form of fertility rune in Xenofos’ left palm V: New? Obviously. Hmmm.
There’s no blood, but the skin is red and turning purple already. It looks like it might become a spectacular bruise. “I could heal that if you want,” she offers.
“Sure. I don’t think anything is broken though.” He grimaces a bit when he says that.
Gentle fingers explore the bruise. They are like ice on his skin, which probably feels ok, all things considered.
“Thank you Ranie.”
She mutters something in Stormspeech and he can feel the healing in his cheek. When it’s done, she takes his hand and turns it over so she can study his palm. “What’s this?”
He seems a bit surprised when she takes his hand. “Oh. That. Almost healed already. “
She cocks an eyebrow at him. “And? It’s new. When and where, Xenofos? For that matter, why?”
He shrugs. “I had no wine or anything else suitable for the offer. “
“That’s not much of an answer. What did you offer and to whom?” She sounds impatient now. “Xenofos, sometimes it’s impossible to get you to talk to me!”
“I did some praying yesterday. And gave some of my blood to better carry my words to the gods.” He looks at her calmly.
She takes a deep breath. “At the hill? Well, it’s good that we didn’t use shields then. It might have opened the wound.”
“It was not that deep. Just enough to get blood flow evenly.” He smiles wryly. “I do prefer to let a hog or pigeon do the bleeding for me so I am not aiming to make this a habit. Don’t worry.”
“Did it help?”‘she asks, studying his face.
He shrugs and looks towards west. “I don’t know. Time may tell.”
After a pause he nods slowly. “Maybe.”
“C’mon,” she says, clasping his hand and pulling him to his feet. “You’ll get soaked through sitting in the snow like that.”
He rises up and looks at the white plains. His eyes scan for something.
They stop when they see a guardswoman on her round.
Varanis watches him, sadness in her eyes. She shakes her head and puts her smile firmly back into place.
- 1LoL. Funny how that works.
- 23 rolls and storytelling Varanis has pass, pass and special, Xenofos three passes
- 3Varanis:Not the face! :rofl: X:mark their face he said. Pretty boys are really afraid of that.
- 4Evade that one and we can call that the first of the three? X: taking that as conclusion 🙂 Varanis: ((:eyes:))
If I break your nose, Neela might kill me, one night stand or not! - 5Varanis spots a fresh, red scar in form of fertility rune in Xenofos’ left palm V: New? Obviously. Hmmm.
