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GUARD TRAINING GROUNDS - MORNING
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Louma shades her eyes as the morning sun fully reveals itself from behind Eastern peaks, squinting ahead toward the closed gates. Her outfit and demeanor are vastly different from the night she met her current companion, dressed in a stiff uniform that nicely matches her stiff expression.
Damina is busy stretching herself out in preparation for this exercise. She's more than a little nervous but is still confident that she can put on a good showing.
Louma glances toward Damina as they approach the gate, her expression breaking into a slight smile. "You really do look ready for this, I'm glad. After you." She motions forward as she pushes the gate open.
Damina shrugs. "That's good. I can only hope I outperform your expectations."
Louma chuckles lightly. "I hope so too, Damina." She enters the training ground, where a set of odd looking dummies have been prepared, and a small selection of basic weapons laid out on a prep table. The dummies rest on heavy round bases, have chain-link jointed arms, and are bound to a set of ropes lying in the dust a few feet away.
Damina looks at the weapons that have been set up. "Huh. Am I gonna be using those?"
Louma shrugs, stopping near the dummies. "The guard are allowed personal weapons, if they have them, so you can use your punching daggers if you'd prefer. I might ask you to demonstrate your skill with other weapons, if you don't seem skilled enough with your daggers, though."
Damina gives Louma a curious look, but turns her attention to the dummies. "Tell me when to start."
Louma grins, twisting back with a strange combination of swan and snake grace as she dips behind the dummies and takes up two ropes in her hands, using her tail to hold the third. "Right, now!"
Damina draws her daggers, and swiftly pounces on top of the nearest dummy, wasting no time in stabbing what she can on it.
Louma is impressed by her agility, giving the rope to that dummy a light tug, trying to rotate it clockwise. "Ah, so fast!"
Damina has grabbed it around the shoulders and is now stabbing whatever passes for its face repeatedly.
Louma is a little unnerved by Damina's ferocity. It's effective, sure, but... She responds by hauling the rope on the second dummy, causing it's flail-like arms to swing toward Damina as the dummy spins in place. "Your back!"
Damina swiftly responds by turning around and thrusting her daggers into the dummy's chest before kicking it.
Louma nods, dropping the ropes of the defeated dummies. "Well! I've got to say that was far better than I expected. Most people hesitate when their training dummy moves and mocks striking back."
Damina stands up and loosens up a bit. "I wondered what those ropes were for."
Louma laughs slightly. "Yes, they're a bit unrefined. Primitive, even, but we don't really need them, much, either." She slithers around the dummies to Damina's side.
Damina side-eyes the dummies. "I suppose they're good for the novelty factor. Practice just has more nuance to it when your target can move."
Louma nods, resting back on her tail as she considers Damina. "True, a stiff board with some hay strapped to it isn't exactly threatening. Why did you join the guard ranks, Damina?"
Damina shakes her head. "If I'm gonna be honest? I wanted to have purpose ever since I found my way here, and to find a job where my skills would have use." She finds a place to sit down. "I'm not gonna exactly be a good farmer or whatever because I can punch very hard."
Louma nods, her tail dragging the third rope and wrapping it around it's dummy as she speaks. "Fair enough, just thought I'd ask. Your fighting style is... Fierce. Self taught?"
Damina nods. "Yep. I don't know how I got this far, if I'm going to be honest. Before coming here, I went through a lot of things that should have just killed me."
Louma: "Ah, well I'm glad you made it here in one piece, in that case. I'm going to ask one thing in particular, though. Try to refrain from stabbing a suspect in the face, if you can."
Damina gets a good laugh from that. "Right, only if there's no other option!" She stands up and walks over to Louma. "Well, I hope you enjoyed that brief demonstration. If things go well we won't need to see that ever again."
Louma chuckles lightly. "Right, hopefully Respite remains as peaceful as it has. You'll do fine here, I think." She looks beyond Damina at the rising sun, now well above the distant peaks. "Hm, but I think we both have duties we should get to."
Damina nods. "Alright then. Suppose we should get to those, whatever they are.'
Louma pauses, narrowing her eyes slightly, but also already running late. "The postings are at the barracks and sent to each guardhouse every week. I'm going to assume you knew that, though, guard Damina." Her tone has tightened, a light reminder to be careful behind her words.
Damina realizes her casual tone is starting to get stupid so she tightens up. "Of course. I'll get to my post right away."
Louma nods, easing up ever so slightly. "Be well." She gives a quick salute before spreading her wings, taking off over the rooftops in a beeline for the main barracks. A long morning of paperwork ahead of her, putting her thoughts of Damina's performance on hold for the time being.
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RESPITE STREETS - EARLY AFTERNOON
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Annika was nervous, she had her little shortlist of places that seemed hopefully, and her other list of 'musts' and 'nice to haves'. All that remained was for her to meet up with May, which wasn't the nervy bit, it was the idea of actually needing to spend all this money at once, and even the idea of having that much money to spend in the first place!
Maybelline manages her crutches with growing skill as she manuevers herself towards the spot she and Annika agreed upon. Surprisingly, she's not all that nervous at all, feeling a bit excited, as to her, this is just a bit of fun, though she does take her commitment to help Annika seriously. When she spots the fox, she calls out happily, "Ah! I'm here! Sorry that took longer then I thought."
Annika: "It's okay! I've just been pacing here because I was early!" She holds out the two pieces of paper "Here we go! This is the plan!" The two sheets have the houses, which are all spread out on the edge of the 'nice' bits of town, where it more transitions to the 'careful now' parts, and the Musts, which are '2 Bedrooms', 'Water, Heating, and a small garden', 'Walking distance to work' and 'Not a rough part of town'. The 'Nices' are lot vaguer, and more around the look of the building and surroundings, which have a very rustic vibe to them. She is hoping to get a balcony though.
Maybelline chuckles, seemingly a bit less 'on-edge' then usual, "Yeah, I prefer to be early, but still getting used to the crutches. I hopefully won't need them for long." She glances over the papers, reading quickly. She's not so familiar with what qualifies as the 'good' or 'bad' parts of town just yet, but has a bit of a sense. "You're certainly organized and prepared! Guess I can't blame you. So, where to first?"
Annika: "This way!" She also has a map "So, it's a little cottage that's just beside a nice little park, there's a school nearby too, and I'm not too far from work, so I can get there and back really easily" They're there quickly, and they can have a look around "It's a bit small..but it's nice, I think!"
Maybelline does her best to keep up with the crutches, "Guess we'll find out!" She glances up at the house, a rather small, brick thing in relatively good shape, if looking a little dusty. "Seems nice from the outside at least."
Annika: "Yeah" She peers inside, before letting them in, the sleepy looking estate agent in the corner letting them do their thing "It's cosy inside..and there's all the proper stuff inside" She steps around the place "Two bedrooms..." She stops "Oh, yeah..." She rubs the back of her head embarrassed "I never mentioned, once I move in here, I'll be bringing my little brother in with me. He's been staying with Mr. Shaw until I get myself set up."
Maybelline tilts her head, "Oh? Is that so? I'm guessing that's Oliver? I remember when you had me deliver that letter." She starts looking around the living room carefully, making mental notes of the structural integrity more then she's paying attention to the rooms themselves. She's eyeing a small attic door, "I guess roof leaks aren't as big a deal here, though I've heard there's a 'rainy season' coming up..."
Annika: "Yeah. Oliver" She nods, smiling "Mr. Shaw has been really helpful since I came here. I couldn't really have him in the Minnow. It's full of..uh..characters that a kid shouldn't be around, so he's been in the manor for a while, but I want him with me" Her eyes are drawn to the attic door "Oh, would that be leaky then? I'm not really good with stuff like that"
Maybelline shrugs, "Might be? I'd have to get up there. Just worth noting. My Dad taught me to be all kinds of handy. It's why I ended up getting into engineering. So if you do end up having issues wherever you decide to buy, I can help." She chuckles, "You don't want to expose your brother to a soused Stoat? Can't blame you there. I'm... glad to hear Mr. Shaw has been helpful. I uh, admit, I don't really know the relationship between you two, but when I first met you, I was really worried."
Annika: "Well, he's just my boss, but he's been trying to help me out. My old boss...wasn't the best, and when he took over the estate they had, I..think he felt kinda responsible for setting things right..but I've also been working super hard to make up for all he's done" She shrugs "I don't know, he expects a lot from me, and I've been working pretty long hours. If I had to guess, he treats all his house staff really well, because of all the meetings and stuff he has, that we don't talk about"
Maybelline frowns a little, "I mean... that makes it sound a little shady... but... it's not my business, it's yours." She smiles at Annika, "So long as you're taking care of yourself. I'm certainly no stranger to having shady friends. Err, not you uh, I mean... n-nevermind." She chuckles a bit awkwardly.
Annika gives May a squeeze on the shoulder "It's okay, I understand..but like..all business people need privacy, there isn't any shady, really!" Even though she's just said that he basically buys his staff's loyalty outright. She's totally non-biased you guys! "But..it's fine. You can trust or not trust people as you like"
Maybelline shrugs, "Like I said, not my business... and I'm good at letting things lie. Unless it gets my friends hurt. So I'll trust your judgement." She glances into the kitchen, opening the door under the sink to look for evidence of mildew, then nods in satisfaction. "Place seems well taken care of, at least. Small, but it's solid."
Annika: "Okay! So...We'll put this down as a firm maybe" She looks around "I could see this place working out for sure..but..we gotta try other places too! The next spot is uh..a few streets down actually! It's near the market, which is probably good, right?"
Maybelline nods, straightening out to readjust her crutches. "If it becomes a front-runner, I'd ask to inspect the attic. Otherwise, yeah, I think I'm satisfied. Let's move on!"
Narrator: The next place is actually on the second floor, above a hardware store, one with a reallllly nice wrench in the front window, one of those ones with that new ratchet mechanism that means you can just turn it over and back without taking it off the nut. The house has a few little window boxes..and the wrench is made of real steel! It's wonderful to see, that kinda thing is so hard to get around here! "Having to go up stairs is kinda bad..but its the biggest place of them all, and.." She talks about things that aren't the insulated grip, to prevent electrocutions when working with generators....
Maybelline is half-listening as she examines the mechanics of the window wrench. Fiddling with it slightly, though at the moment it doesn't seem to be getting any power from Strix's makeshift solutions. "Mmmhmm. I just... wow. This is the kind of thing you'd see in a high end place in Sarn. Who lived here before to get this installed?" She grins back at Annika. "I don't know, this place seems really nice! Or at least, uh... it's real fancy. The space is nice too. Would the noise from the market get too loud?"
Annika: "Well, maybe, but it closes at night, and I think by the time it gets busy in the morning we'd be awake. It wouldn't keep us up..and then I'd be able to get there early for all the best deals!" She looks the window boxes "Oh! I keep have a little herb garden there too! That would be sooo nice"
Maybelline nods, staring out at the wrench. She glances down and spots the crank to open the window. "Sun would be real nice through here in the afternoon too. And you can open the windows easily, check this out." With minimal effort, she manually pops the window open, letting in a tiny breeze.
Annika: "Oh, so its like, an automatic window opener thing?" She's interested, but not instantly amazed at the perfectly oiled mechanism that made everything slide up without even a squeak! It's obviously been custom made, a passion project, nothing that had been commissioned, May can tell the signs of something that had been worked on bit by bit over a long time, rather than done over a few days . "That's kinda neat"
Maybelline nods, clearly more excited about this then Annika. "Yeah! I mean, really neat! And uh, oh, I guess I should look at the rest of the house too, uh, sorry. I get sorta distracted by this kind of thing..." She closes the window back down and awkwardly stands, grinning guiltily.
Annika: "Oh! That's no problem!" She smiles, and has a look around "It has the two bedrooms, which is nice, the cooker seems a bit odd..loads of different little nobs and stuff..I hope its there's a manual" As she looks around, she totally misses all the little gadgets and gizmos for making life easier dotting around the rooms. Some of which, if May was forced to admit, probably are more trouble that they are worth..but an automatic jam dispenser is too cool to -not- spend time filling up.
Maybelline grins, "I like it a lot, but uh, I guess it could be overwhelming? ...honestly I want to try to install some of these things in my house. Everything I see would put this at number one for me, but that's me. Gotta be your decision, ultimately."
Annika: "Y..Yeah" She looks around "I..I suppose it could be cool...I will keep it in mind though! If I want a place that will be easy to have you over for tea in, this'll be the pick" She giggles, before moving on to the next place.
Maybelline nods as she gives one last look at overly complicated gimble installed in the living room, designed to hold books while one is lying down. "Y-yeah... I mean, it's the dream house I never knew I wanted..." She sighs a little as they head out, wishing she had a little more time to do home improvements rather then building the generator.