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GUARD TRAINING GRONDS - EARLY AFTERNOON
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Louma doesn't hesitate to take advantage of the bonus time Brunilda's help has afforded her. At the training ground, the snake has a bundle of various weapons, many of which she's not touched in months. Currently, the swansnake is beating on a straw dummy with an oak club, a good warm-up workout.
Nesseth arrives at the training grounds a few minutes after Louma gets into her rhythm. He intended to practice his marksmanship as usual, but the sight of Louma practicing against a straw dummy catches his eye. Turning away from the target range, he makes his way over to the serpent, grinning a bit. "Finally found some time to get out here again, eh, Louma? Caught up on all that paperwork, then?"
Louma finishes with a downward crush on the dummy's shoulder, puffing as she turns to greet Nesseth, her feathers astray as she smiles at him. "A light load this morning, that's all." She hefts the club up to hold both ends, looking down at it. "Haven't picked up a club in two years. Heavier than I remember."
Nesseth chuckles as he sets his own gear down nearby. "That's the same club you used to practice with back before your promotion, right? Sounds like you're just a little out of practice is all."
Louma nods, tapping the weapon on her palm before carrying it to the table where her other gear rests. "First weapon they gave me on signing up for the guard, in fact." She glances over Nesseth's gear, grinning. "You're here to make everyone else jealous of your accuracy again, I suppose?"
Nesseth flashes a toothy grin again. "Well, I was, but I suppose I could practice my footwork a bit if you need a sparring partner. I might be getting a little too comfortable sitting still while shooting as of late."
Louma blinks at him, looking over to the clear sparring arena. "I wager we're equally rusty in that sense. Should be a fair bout, sure." She turns to move into the ring, the half circle of buried wood behind her painted red. "Rules?"
Nesseth interlaces his fingers and gives them a stretch, cracking his knuckles as he takes the opportunity to limber up a bit as he follows Louma over to the ring. "Same as we used to do, I guess. No throws and whatnot? Honestly, it's been long enough that I kind of forgot our usual rules..."
Louma grins. "I seem to remember a no biting tails rule." She pulls her wings tight against her back, stretching briefly before taking up a basic fighting stance. "Toss the handkerchief whenever you like."
Nesseth laughs a bit as he picks up weighted piece of cloth and takes up a position opposite Louma in the ring. "Fair enough. Alright, then. Ready?"
Louma lowers her head, a playful smile backed by a determined glint in her eye. "Honestly? Not in the slightest. But that's the fun part."
Nesseth smiles in turn as he settles down into a mostly-proper stance, the cloth held in one hand. After a few moments, he tosses the bundle high into the air and readies up. "Let's dust off some of the rust, then."
Louma stares at Nesseth as the cloth descends, her tail tensing behind her. At the low thud, she immediately bolts for him like a spring, ducking low and aiming a thrusting palm toward Nesseth's abdomen.
Nesseth 's gaze sharpens when the cloth hits the ground and he stands still as Louma surges forward towards him. He tenses when he sees the incoming strike and quickly sidesteps, then uses his momentum to spring back away from her, untouched.
Louma puts too much into the move, unable to recover with any grace. She hesitates slightly before reeling back, turning to Nesseth again, huffing at herself as she resets her stance.
Nesseth smirks and launches himself forward as Louma hesitates, closing the gap between them as he launches his own open-palmed strike at her abdomen in an attempt to go on the offensive.
Louma grunts, drawing backward out of the basic training stance into one from farther in her past, but cut deeper into memory. She sways bodily around the strike, using her new position to send her tail around in one direction, and her torso in the other. In a flash, Louma's body surrounds Nesseth in three rings.
Nesseth staggers as his attack goes further than expected from the dodge. He tries to flail as he overbalances, but finds every limb except for the arm he attacked with bound up in tight coils. "Aagh...! You're not as rusty as you say, Louma."
Louma flinches, gripping her side where her mismatched anatomies meet, a deep cramp forcing her to loosen her grip immediately. "Tell that to my muscles!" She hisses from behind Nesseth's head.
Nesseth wiggles his other arm free as he feels Louma's coils loosening. He braces his hands against her top-most coil and grunts as he manages to pull himself free before she can rally. He tumbles to the ground and scrambles back a bit to catch his breath. "Almost had me, there...! Almost!"
Louma pulls back, an odd 'limp' in her tail movements as she cramp settles. She forces herself back into the basic stance, before making for a clearly strained palm strike aimed for Nesseth's right shoulder.
Nesseth stands back up just in time to see the palm strike coming, but too slow to dodge it well. Instead, he twists and lets the hit clip him rather solidly on the shoulder, but still less solidly than if he didn't move. Standing his ground, he pivots on his feet, braces and then counters with a palm strike aimed just below Louma's sternum.
Louma feels her attack connect, but has no time to enjoy it. She recognizes the situation immediately, a familiar trick. She attempts to reel away, but her stiffness hasn't subsided, the cramping pain now joined by a biting flash in her gut.
Nesseth steps back after his attack connects, taking a moment to catch his breath and massage his shoulder. He's breathing a little hard from the exertion, but seems okay for now. "That trick didn't work on you before, Louma. You alright?"
Louma blinks back a tear of pain, rubbing the strike point. "Yeah, thank you," a bit breathlessly, "Sitting behind a desk seems to have made me a little sluggish." She coughs out a laugh, straightening up as best she can.
Nesseth grins as he rolls his shoulder again and readies up once more. "Then it's good you've got time to come out and practice again. Can't be losing you to a sand gator or something, right?"
Louma laughs, which hurts right now. "Is it bad that I was thinking of going for a hunt instead of coming here, then?"
Brunilda is standing at the edge of the sparring grounds, smiling and eating a bit of salad. Seeing a lull in the combat, she dares to walk forward: "You're looking good, Captain. You as well, Nesseth." She's in her armor... well, half of it. She's wearing the pants, but only has her usual chest wrap on her upper body because of the burns. She's also holding her halberd.
Louma turns to Brun's voice, her expression not fully betraying her embarrassment to have had an audience to that. "Ah, good afternoon Brunilda. You're out for a bit of exercise as well, I take it?"
Nesseth chuckles, grinning. "Depends on what you were planning to hunt." He pauses, then turns towards the voice at the edge of the ring, "Oh, hey there, Brun. You've recovered enough to wear some of your gear, huh?"
Brunilda nods as she sticks her halberd to the ground: "Yeah, figured I can't get entirely rusty just yet." She then turns to Louma: "Although I also hoped I'd find you here. There was something I forgot to mention yesterday."
Louma sighs as the sharp pain begins subsiding into a dull throb, visibly relaxing. "Oh? What's on your mind?"
Nesseth eases up on his stance as he waits for Brunilda to deliver whatever she needs to report. He takes the opportunity to continue massaging the dull ache out of his shoulder from where Louma hit him.
Brunilda glances between the two: "I am probably not wrong in assuming you both know Bracvar, the crab merchant type that comes in here. Met him the other day. He was a bit agitated about some kind of... snake-type, coming here to... hunt his own kind, or something along those lines. He was pretty vague on the details."
Louma looks toward Nesseth at Bracvar's name, raising an eyebrow before the rest of the news snaps her attention back. "What? A snake hunting snakes?"
Nesseth 's grin slides off of his face at the mention of another snake making their way to Respite. He glances towards Louma for a moment, then gives Brunilda a curious look. "So... a snake hunting other snakes...? Like, hunting to kill or...?"
Brunilda shakes her head: "I do not know. I only know that a something of a warrior-type snake was heading this way - Bracvar said he'd met him somewhere near Bairnell, looking for Respite - and intent on finding snakes..." She sighs, shrugging: "Sorry I don't have more to go on from, Cap'n."
Louma shakes her head. "Only one other snake has arrived in Respite, and none since after the crab's caravan came through the gate, as far as reports are concerned." She rubs her chin, looking to Nesseth. "If someone is travelling alone, how quickly can they make the trip?"
Nesseth shrugs a little, though the motion makes him wince just a touch. "Depends on how good they are at procuring supplies and avoiding or dealing with whatever wild creatures might be wandering around, not to mention how persistent they are. Without a caravan slowing someone down, I could see someone making such a trip in... maybe four days or so?"
Brunilda frowns a bit, considering this: "...so they might already be here."
Louma sighs, unconsciously massaging her injury, feeling the tenderness of a bruise under the feathers. "Xochi arrived in a caravan though. Unless Albert picked her up? I don't like this rumor."
Nesseth shakes his head. "From what I remember of Xochi when she first arrived, she was too well-dressed to have been hiking on the road for very long. I doubt Albert picked her up as a hitchhiker."
Brunilda shrugs slightly: "What do you reckon we should do? Or just keep an eye out."
Louma sighs in slight relief as Nesseth alleviates her fear. She nods to Brun, "Yes. I will discuss it with the other captains, but most likely orders are going to go out to keep an eye out for an unfamiliar snake. We'll need to make sure Xochi is excluded." She turns to Nesseth again. "Perhaps even protected."
Nesseth tilts his head at Louma. "We can keep an eye out for an unfamiliar snake easily enough. The only two snakes I know of in Respite are you and Xochi, at this point. How are we going to protect Xochi if need be, though?"
Brunilda looks at the two in slight confusion: "Xochi?"
Louma turns to Brun, nodding. "Yes, Xochi. She's an Orelan serpent like me, but all snake. We could assign her a bodyguard, though that's up to her, and doing so based off of a vague crab rumor could be a mistake."
Nesseth rubs his neck with an awkward little grimace. "And if she does agree to a bodyguard, I doubt she'd want a Lizard guard for, uh... obvious reasons."
Brunilda nods, thinking on this: "Well, I'm not of much use at the moment anyway." She picks up her halberd: "...but I best get to at least trying to keep myself together."
Louma tilts her head at Nesseth. "You may be right. I know you didn't see her tail, but when I met her I got the impression she's... Not particularly young." Louma turns back to Brun, smiling at her. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Brunilda. I think I'll have to call a meeting today."
Nesseth gives Brun a bit of a wry smile. "Which means I hope your afternoon is free for a few hours for that meeting, Brun."
Brunilda shrugs, smiling: "I'm free enough to come down here for a few swings, am I not? Just tell me where I'm needed."
Louma turns to Nesseth, grinning. "Oh, but you've also met her, and can provide an accurate description as well as relate her arrival in person."
Nesseth scoffs, still smiling. "I didn't say I was gonna avoid showing up for the meeting, right?"
Brunilda chuckles softly, hefting her halberd in her hands just to get a feel again: "I'll do a few test swings and show up back at the barracks, then?"
Louma slumps her shoulders slightly, looking at the pile of untouched practice weapons on the table over yonder, shaking her head and muttering, "Figures, get one afternoon..." She slithers towards the table, turning her neck to continue talking to the other two. "Take your time, you probably have roughly an hour before we'll all get together." She starts packing her gear up, thinking about how to effectively bring this information to the others.
Brunilda follows Louma's expression, frowning slightly: "Sorry, Cap'n."
Nesseth goes to pick up the handkerchief from its spot near the edge of the ring. "We can always get back to practice tomorrow or something. The weekend is almost here, so one of the other captains has that shift, right?"
Louma turns, hefting the bundle of weapons up into the crook of her arm. "It's not your fault, Brunilda, just comes with the job. Yeah, you can beat me up some more come Saturday, don't worry." She salutes to the two, spreading her wings and taking off with a pouf of dust and white down. She reels in the air toward the barracks, rubbing her bruise absently.
Brunilda looks at Louma go, then turns to Nesseth with a smile: "Up for another round with me before we head back, then?"
Nesseth gives Louma a salute, though his movement is a little less crisp than usual from the hit to the shoulder he took. As Louma leaves, he turns to smile at Brunilda as he gives his undoubtedly bruised shoulder a stretch. "Yeah... Yeah, I'm good to go for another round, I think."
Brunilda smiles: "I'll go easy on you. Burned back and all that."
Nesseth nods as he bounces the handkerchief in his hand. "And I'll take it easy on you, too. Kinda feeling a bit sore from sparring with Louma, still." He smiles as he steps a little ways away, "Let me know when you're ready."
Brunilda smirks, taking a couple of steps as she settles into a combat stance: "Let's dance."