Fable - Ask The Last Day

[Henk]

Henk felt his mouth hang slightly agape as she ran him through everything she'd built into the things. The straps kept things far more secure than the makeshift sleeves he'd always cut for himself, and the scales that he could adjust to control the level of light reaching his skin... "That's brilliant." he muttered.

It wasn't too different than the slits he cut in his sleeves, but those were permanent. With this, he could save so much time and effort. Invaluable in a fight, certainly. When her demonstration was over, he tested the crank out a little and finished by pulling the tab and stripping them off of his arms, scooping them underneath one to hang from his grip in a fluid motion.

"Just looking to keep building debt by saving my life ahead of time. I owe you one, really." After a pause, he added. "You know as well as I do there isn't much of a later for us. After today we won't be seeing much of one another." Henk knew better than to get too sentimental with Ralene, so he kept it simple. "It's been an honor serving with you, Ral. I've greatly enjoyed our time together."

 

[Samantha Black]

Dark brows quirked in bemusement and Ralene rolled her eyes beneath them at his shared sentiments. She shook her head, the half-smirk resting on her lips the closest thing he'd get to anything approaching mawkishness.

"You make Graduation sound so final, Henk - enough to make a girl think you're gonna miss her. I'll still be in Vel Anir when I'm not on missions. Besides," Ral stepped around the Initiate and promptly smacked him on the ass, "day's not over yet. Plenty of later left."

With a backwards grin at him she pushed on her previously intended route of heading back to her own dorm.

 

[Henk]

Henk tilted his head, a lackadaisical smile on his face as she teased him. "I know better than to admit to missing you, Ralene. It'll go right to your head." A low chuckle rumbled in his throat as she stepped around him and brought his hand to his backside, body stiffening a bit as he jumped forward an inch or two. "Hey now!"

Henk spun around just in time to watch her sauntering away like she hadn't just done that. Smug fucker, she could be. "Yeah, yeah. Says the one hitting and running." His voice follows her. "I'll see you later then, one way or another."

Taking a complimentary glance at her own retreating figure, Henk returns his attention to his new toys. He hadn't wanted to tell her the sinking feeling in his stomach about tomorrow... If that ended up the last time he saw her, he wanted the memory to be a happy one.

 

[Fennec]

Kristen weathered the incoming strikes with determination instead of the harried dismay characteristic of her first year.

Her defending sword was batted out of position while she thrust herself upward and to her feet.

The next strike missed her ankle as she moved back but clipped her toes inside of her fatigue boots. A sharp pain, the grandfather of all stubbed toes.

The third she actually caught. Horizontal guard.

Noels words, often echoed in some form by many others: Dont hold back.

Whilst in the bind Kristen launched a savage kick toward the smaller girl.

Fennec

The kick landed hard and resulted in a sudden parting of ways. Fennec flew several feet, tumbled, then caught herself with her free hand and flipped with the quickness of a cat back to land on the soles of her boots, slightly crouched.

Her painted face held a permanent scowl, but a twitch of the charcoal on her lips hinted at the smirk there.

Good, Kristen had managed to find an ounce of ruthlessness in her. Fen righted herself with a stiffness that suggested the kick had given her a bit of a sting, assumed a ready pose, lifted her free hand and motioned for Kristen to come at her.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen, as she had with Graham, as she had with Zael, lost this sword bout with Fennec. The titanic stature of experience, as of yet, was too great a cliff for her to scale. Though her body suffered the bruises of poorly dodged strikes, poorly parried strokes, each one carried with it a lesson. Mayhap the same lessons Graham, Zael, and Fennec had all learned in their own time many years ago.

And as the class she had been thrown in with was preparing to graduate on the morrow, Kristen was all too aware now that she had to run at a much faster pace to cover the same ground her fellow Initiates already had. Two years left. Two years to reach something approaching parity with her peers.

Kristen lay on the ground. Panting. The tip of Fen's sword was lodged into the soft plate under her chin.

"I yield," Kristen said. Words not so unfamiliar to her tongue.

Fennec

 

[Zael Castomir]

Zael gave a little nonchalant shrug. Hell, he remembered his most embarrassing loss. To fuckin Bull of all people. But the Academy was full of hard-knocks. Zael had gotten his. Fennec had gotten hers. And Kristen was gettin hers right now, Revolution or not.

"It ain't so bad, Kristen," Zael said. "If you wanna be good at anythin, first you're gonna suck at it. Unless you're Alistair and the thing in question is math, damn, you ever seen him tear up some parchment with all his equations? I bet he helped his mom add some shit up when he was in the womb."

Fennec

 

[Fennec]

If there was one thing Fennec could appreciate, it was a new challenge. She'd yet faced Kristen, and having expected the larger girl to dominate the duel with strength and reach, only to learn of her inexperience was something of a weird disappointment. Either way, she'd enjoyed getting her licks in and watching Kristen attempt to find her feet. Got a few hits in herself - not just the kick. Fennec was a small, agile target but without the use of her magic it wasn't always possible to get out of the way every time.

So the small Initiate withdrew at the yield because ... well, that was what you did now. Never would have happened before. Hell, they wouldn't have been using blunted swords to spar either and Kristen would have been painted with her own blood.

Fen stepped back, eyes shifting to Zael as she stuck the tip of her blade into the ground to free her hands.

Kristen did, indeed, suck. She was slow, stiff, and moved like someone practicing forms instead of someone in a fight for their life. A fact that Fennec blamed on the Revolution - she wasn't exactly fighting for her life anymore and more's the pity.

[You will never fight like I do,] Fennec signed to the girl on the ground, [you are too big and slow. You should spar with M A S E N O.] The name spelled out by letter because, well, there wasn't a sign for it. [He is big and slow too.]

 

[Kristen Pirian]

You are too big and slow.

"Mercy," Kristen said, a touch humorously, a tiny half-laugh accompanying it. "I am already down upon the ground, mercy I ask."

It wasn't so much the slow part of that which bothered her. The perennial hole in her proverbial chainmail was her height. And, well, nowhere was it more clearly demonstrated, much to Kristen's dismay, than standing in the proximity of Fennec (she really was adorable...putting the face paint aside).

She sat up. "I suppose I will be becoming more acquainted with Maseno and all the rest of the class prior come tomorrow." She sighed, and there was a slight mournful look in her expression. "It shall be much like starting over again, I imagine."

Fennec

 

[Fennec]

Fennec's blackened eyes shrank in faint distaste at the request for mercy.

They shrank even more at the mention of the rest of their own class - a subject of sour thoughts for the small Initiate. Her gaze shifted to Zael, a senior with whom she had some familiarity through a shared mission, [Your class will be the last true Dreadlords. There is too much mercy in mine.]

[I asked Proctor Harkenov to let me join the Graduation testing tomorrow with your class - she would not allow it.]

 

[Zael Castomir]

Zael grinned. Nah, humor was never Fen's thing. He didn't even know her all that well and that much was pretty clear.

Well. Wouldn't stop him. "Huh. That's funny. I don't know why Proctor Harkenov wants to keep it a secret, it's just fingerpaintin."

His grin grew a little, and he made a bunch of exaggerated hand signs with even more exaggerated finger wiggling. "Probably Hark didn't want you to skunk our whole class, you'd be amazin with those deft hands. Think about it."

Fennec

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen stood. Fennec's literal take on her comment was...concerning. What virtue was there in a lack of mercy? It would be some time yet, she reckoned, before there where Initiates who had no contact with the old way, not even in Kristen's own approximate sense, being around those who for years lived through it.

She felt compelled to say, "It is not fingerpainting."

Zael smacked his forehead with the palm of a hand, turning his face skyward. He groaned. Then looked back to her and Fennec. "I wish I had more time to find your funny bones."

Fennec

 

[Fennec]

If it seemed her eyes couldn't get any narrower, they somehow managed to.

Fingerpainting.

Fennec eyed the blond boy, head tilting with intense, silent deliberation of his words. Was he ... was he having a go at her? The gesticulation of his hands drove the furrowed brow deeper until he was facing the smollest, most insultedest skull this side of the Vel Anirian territory.

"It is not fingerpainting."

Fennec looked at Kristen, suddenly reminded of her extensive elevation at having to crane her neck.

[His lack of gravitas for tomorrow disturbs me.]

 

[Zael Castomir]

"I leave the gravitas to Kalix," Zael said.

Kristen didn't look particularly amused. Fennec, always a tough crowd, never looked particularly amused.

"Get it? Gravitas. Gravity. Kalix...ah fuck it, not every sword slash strikes flesh."

Fennec Kalix

 

[Kristen Pirian]

After Zael's little joke, Kristen just looked back to Fennec and said, "And in that sentiment we have an accord. There is an appropriate weight that comes with so immense an occasion."

Zael, undeterred, said, "Kris. Fen." He paused for just a moment, as if interrupted (in his mind, he'd stumbled on to the most fitting name if in the supreme off chance those two ever became an item. Heh. KrisFen.) Nevertheless, he continued, "Listen. You've got me all wrong. Tomorrow's comin. Whether I like it or not. But today's not the time for worryin and luggin around all that 'gravitas.' There'll be plenty of time for that tomorrow. Now though? It's the present moment. And I'm right as rain."

Fennec

 

[Fennec]

Fennec met Kristen's glance after that plunker, unamused but content to share this solidarity of thought with Kristen. She'd had very little interaction with her, heard most of the rumors and gossip, but thus far Kristen seemed alright by her. Fen's eyes shifted to Zael as he verbally sloughed off any desire to treat his situation serious.

[He was like this at O S T D O R F too.]

 

[Zael Castomir]

"And I had the best time at Ostdorf," Zael said with an assured shrug and twist of his head. Oh Fen. Oh Kristen. "Live a little, eh? That's probably the best advice I could ever give anyone. And you can't really do that if you're up to your neck in worry or rage or whatever. You'll drown in all your negativity if you let yourself."

He couldn't know how his own words dangled above him in that moment, a sword suspended merely by a hair, poised over his head.

Fennec

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen glanced from Fennec to Zael.

"I suppose that, in my own time, I will come to see how warranted is my concern." She, too, would face graduation, whatever form it happened to take in this new age of the Academy.

Back to Fennec.

"Yet first, I must integrate into a whole new class."

She was about to ask Fennec a question about what friends she might have had. It was perched upon her tongue, this question, ready to be spoken, her mouth open and prepared to form the words.

And then she stopped herself. Thought better of it.

Fennec

 

[Fennec]

Fennec gave Zael a look of boredom. She knew how to enjoy herself, those moments just happened to involve the more violent portions of her day. Potayto. Potahto.

[I know how to swim.] she answered the older Initiate before looking back up at Kristen.

[You are a noble,] an obvious fact but one she felt compelled to reiterate, [I suggest starting with the other nobles. They have a fair amount of clout.]

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Not so much clout here in the Academy (Kristen could attest), but that likely wasn't Fennec's meaning.

"Certainly there is no shortage of nobility. Even amongst my erstwhile class there were many. Now, simply plucking names from memory: there's Maseno Luana, of course...Cassi and Corvus Azura...Caeso Diemut...and surely I am missing a few more."

"Hey, that's good," Zael said. "Hell, I thought there wouldn't be any nobility here when I first arrived. To be fair, I barely even knew what a noble was."

"Good?"

"Yeah. You guys are in the suck too." Zael mimed riding a steed, grinning. "Better than you guys ridin around turnin your noses up on a high horse." Then, if Kristen wasn't mistaken, Zael did his best impression of an ironic Liliana then, "Ew. Dreadlord? That's for peasants."

With his thoughts elucidated, Kristen agreed. "Yes, I do believe in fairness in this regard. 'Twouldn't be right if those of nobleblood were excluded and the entirety of the burden fell upon the lowborn."

Kristen glanced Fennec's way. Did she...have a family name? Somehow it seemed a certain degree of rude to ask. Family, life outside of the Academy, was a touchy topic for most Initiates.

Fennec