Lesson 7 (Desert Weyrlings)

[Requiem]

Lesson 7 (9 Jul 11 - 5 Aug 11)

Desert Weyrlings

Gold Nitrath ::: Impressed to Caden - 100/85/75/55/75/75/45 - 72.8
Bronze Epifayrmuth ::: Impressed to Mo'rya - 100/85/95/75/65/75/45 - 77.1
Blue/Albino Lketh ::: Impressed to Er'ani - 100/95/85/75/75/75/45 - 78.6

How Grades Work:
0 posts - 0
1 post - 45
2 posts - 55
3 posts - 65
4 posts - 75
5 posts - 85
6 posts - 95
7+ posts - 100[/size]

Certainly shouldn't have been surprising to the brownrider that Mo'rya would scramble to retreat, Er'ani would hang back and Caden would move to engage. Though it would be smarter of the lot of them to let Caden take most of his attention but still contribute. Comparing Caden to someone like E'rro or Ka'rys - his former sparring partners - wasn't a comparison. The bronzeweyrling had dodged neatly at least.

M'ta used his height much as Caden used hers. The woman had the longer reach but that didn't mean much when he dropped his stance low enough to force her to come at him at an angle and move closer by extension. He let her drive him wherever the fury of her attack took them while he got his bearings on the other two. Of a sudden he went from defense to offense, lashing out at her knee with a foot and slashing for her waist at the same moment to clear enough space for him to twist and send a throwing knife in Er'ani's direction. To catch his sleeve and pin it to the trunk of a nearby tree if M'ta's accuracy was on...which it almost always was.

He threw himself forward after the throw in anticipation of Caden's attempting something at his back, rolling to his feet and sprinting for Er'ani. The albinoweyrling was not nearly far enough for the bow to be very helpful. M'ta launched himself full at Er'ani's chest knees first, making a snatch for the boy's bow and scrambling away before the albinoweyrling could find his blade or pursuit could catch up with him. "I swear I'm going to break this sharded thing," he growled at Er'ani. "Stop. Aiming. At. People." He was not explaining a goldweyrling with a shaft through her gut to H'nes.

You're getting better, Behruth assured both of them. I know it feels a little weird, the gasses in your stomachs, but you need to try not to fight it. Let all the excess gas out. He belched another spurt of controlled flame for a few seconds, then settled back to watch with a flutter of his wings. Really it was something they'd have to feel out for themselves, but he didn't exactly want them practicing by themselves, at least not right now.

[Kisha-Ra]

Epifayrmuth shifted slightly to get a better view of his albino sibling, on this occasion, no matter how big Epifayrmuth had grown, and even if he’d grown to be the size of an average bronze rather than just a little bigger than Behruth, the dwarfed bronze couldn’t move close enough to let his shadow fall on Lketh. Not while both of them were supposed to be flaming, which turned out to be mort difficult than it looked. Turning his muzzle upward and flaring out his wings slightly (it seemed to help him for no rhyme or reason) Epifayrmuth made another attempt.

Sometimes Mo’rya wondered if their teacher had a well hidden sadsistic streak, and other times he wondered why he thought it was hidden. Obviously this had been planned, now they were tired, after their usual run to wear them down and a nice long session of weapons training there came The Test. Right when everyone was nearing the end of their energy. It would hardly be the first time something like this had been sprung on them, and very probably wouldn’t be the last time anyone here found themselves fighting in this situation. That, he reflected, was the thing about fights; they tended to go on far longer than anyone wanted them to.

However it seemed he had very little time for idle reflection, even as the bronzeweyrling completed that one line of thought he was already being forced to give ground, and was severely regretting that he’d ever bother to sheathe his weapon. Mo’rya didn’t bother with setting up a defence at first, he just jumped backward away from the first slash, and threw himself sideways to avoid the strike at his eyes, dropping to the ground and rolling away to a slightly safer point where he could draw his blade again and keep a wary eye on M’ta while he rose from crouching to standing, aware that his situation wasn’t ideal, and if no one else went after M’ta he’d likely still be the target.

[Ruby]

Nitrath had elected to watch her siblings - she spoke with Millieth on a regular basis, and although she would have been perfectly happy to spend more time with the other Gold, Caden's grumbly thought had given her pause. You gonna lead the Weyr without knowing how to Flame? Caden had asked, strapping on throwing knives and dirks. Just guess? Leave it to the Bronzes? She snorted aloud, showing her disgust. But Caden, my love, flames are used to kill and destroy, and there is simply no need for - And to destroy Thread. I know you don't like the war, Nitrath, but that's not all there is.[/i]

Appropriately chagrined, Nitrath had appeared at Flame training, sitting off to one side where she could see and listen in but wouldn't be in the way. So far, it looked like all you did was chew it up and belch it out... not so hard. Then again, both of her brothers seemed to be having some trouble, and neither of them were slackers. Maybe it was harder than it looked.

Knife-throwing had gone well enough for Caden; she'd gotten the form down long ago, and had been working on her speed and accuracy since then, especially speed and accuracy while moving, or against a moving target. It wasn't especially useful to be able to throw knives if you had to count off your paces, square yourself off, adjust your form, check your follow through, and then toss the sharding thing. She'd gotten better, but it would still take some practice. Good enough that she could hit just about anything just about anywhere over half the time. Not too bad.

Of course, she'd worked herself hard and was panting slightly, now; running back and forth and tossing knives for a candlemark or so wasn't the easiest thing to do after a long morning run. And, lo and behold, arms test. Caden should have known. As soon as M'ta announced it, though, she loosened her own dirk in its sheath and reached back to pull a throwing knife from behind her, ready (throwing knives could be used as off-hand knives, too, or at least the bigger ones Caden preferred could). She expected him to come at her first, being the Goldrider, but it looked like M'ta's logic was running along a line different from her own, to her detriment. Should have known not to try and guess where he was going before he moved.

She'd drawn her weapon and danced sideways, actually moving away from Mo'rya, who M'ta had gone for instead. She was a fool. She hissed at her mistake, glad the Bronzeweyrling had been able to get away, then slid smoothly towards M'ta with a left-handed jabbing, exploratory strike at his side not actually meant to land. She followed that up with a more earnest slice of her dirk, aiming for the fleshy part of his upper arm. She knew where to hit without truly maiming... but that wasn't her purpose. The Goldweyrling slid back into her Benden training, using her reach and height to aim as many blows as she could at M'ta; the goal was to keep him so focused on deflecting her knives that he wouldn't notice the other two, so they could sneak in and draw blood and end this. But neither of them were moving. Could she risk yelling for them? Yes. "Er'ani! Back!" Fool again, she realized too late - should have used the dragons.

[Rei]

Lketh rubbed his head against his foreleg, annoyed with the goggles covering his eyes. Needed to protect them from the glare of the sun but still utterly aggrivating. Lifting his head again he watched his bronze brother and then shifted to expel flame in the opposite direction. It wasn’t terribly hard. The most difficult part was trying to sustain the stream at a constant strength. Which the albino supposed more firestone might help with that. Titling his head he snorted. Most things came easily with just a bit of thought. This one was another matter it seemed. Shifting on the sand he flared his wings in a mimic of his brother and tried again.

Why was he not surprised? Er’ani fought against an audible groan when M’ta announced that today would be the arms test. Figured. Not that the albinorider was all that worried. He practiced his archery for candlemarks on candlemarks and also got instruction from Ba’sun. Which the weyrling swore that his bluerider teacher was a sadist. How many times had be gone home with bleeding fingers? Regardless you couldn’t argue with results and Er’ani was improving at a more then decent rate. In fact he could hit nearly everything he was aiming for with insane accuracy by this point. You didn’t spend near ten months learning from an expert and practicing like a madman and not gain anything.

As M’ta leapt for Mo’rya Er’ani was already trying to get some distance, hand reaching back for an arrow which he notched and held ready, as he quickly looked for some type of cover. He was trusting that Mo’rya and Caden could keep M’ta away from him. That way he could get a decent shot. Would all have to be planned carefully though. He was being trained to go for killing shots only. That kind of knowledge didn’t really apply here. So any shot the weyrling made would have to be grazing at best. Caden’s shout made him wrinkle his nose before he prodded Lketh to reply.

He knows. He is trying to get some decent distance, shooting at such short range is not all that effective.

[Requiem]

Lesson 7 (9 Jul 11 - 5 Aug 11)

Desert Weyrlings

Gold Nitrath ::: Impressed to Caden - 100/85/75/55/75/75/45 - 72.8
Bronze Epifayrmuth ::: Impressed to Mo'rya - 100/85/95/75/65/75/45 - 77.1
Blue/Albino Lketh ::: Impressed to Er'ani - 100/95/85/75/75/75/45 - 78.6

How Grades Work:
0 posts - 0
1 post - 45
2 posts - 55
3 posts - 65
4 posts - 75
5 posts - 85
6 posts - 95
7+ posts - 100[/size]

Certainly shouldn't have been surprising to the brownrider that Mo'rya would scramble to retreat, Er'ani would hang back and Caden would move to engage. Though it would be smarter of the lot of them to let Caden take most of his attention but still contribute. Comparing Caden to someone like E'rro or Ka'rys - his former sparring partners - wasn't a comparison. The bronzeweyrling had dodged neatly at least.

M'ta used his height much as Caden used hers. The woman had the longer reach but that didn't mean much when he dropped his stance low enough to force her to come at him at an angle and move closer by extension. He let her drive him wherever the fury of her attack took them while he got his bearings on the other two. Of a sudden he went from defense to offense, lashing out at her knee with a foot and slashing for her waist at the same moment to clear enough space for him to twist and send a throwing knife in Er'ani's direction. To catch his sleeve and pin it to the trunk of a nearby tree if M'ta's accuracy was on...which it almost always was.

He threw himself forward after the throw in anticipation of Caden's attempting something at his back, rolling to his feet and sprinting for Er'ani. The albinoweyrling was not nearly far enough for the bow to be very helpful. M'ta launched himself full at Er'ani's chest knees first, making a snatch for the boy's bow and scrambling away before the albinoweyrling could find his blade or pursuit could catch up with him. "I swear I'm going to break this sharded thing," he growled at Er'ani. "Stop. Aiming. At. People." He was not explaining a goldweyrling with a shaft through her gut to H'nes.

You're getting better, Behruth assured both of them. I know it feels a little weird, the gasses in your stomachs, but you need to try not to fight it. Let all the excess gas out. He belched another spurt of controlled flame for a few seconds, then settled back to watch with a flutter of his wings. Really it was something they'd have to feel out for themselves, but he didn't exactly want them practicing by themselves, at least not right now.

[Ruby]

Caden almost facepalmed. She hadn't meant with the bow, foolish boy (although thinking of Er'ani as a boy promptly made her blush mentally and correct that to young man), he had a dirk for a reason. Or had he forgotten? Nitrath! she shouted mentally, responding immediately to Lketh's mental touch. Er'ani's stupid. Arms test means dirks, not special weapons. Bow'll get one of us killed. Tell Lketh!

Nitrath passed the message on, omitting words like 'stupid' in favor of more diplomatic terms, like 'Caden suggests that Er'ani's tactics may not be the best for this situation'. Before the message got through to Lketh, though, Caden's momentary distraction caused her to miss that subtle shift in stance that meant attack instead of defense. Well, she didn't miss it, but she didn't process it fast enough to do anything about the knife to her waist or the foot to her knee except throw herself away and roll back to her feet, ignoring where the tip of the knife had snagged in the cloth of her shirt, ripping the midriff open but only barely scratching flesh (no way M'ta would be so uncontrolled as to do more than that). Stupid, she was thinking too much, not flowing. She should have been able to parry that. Thinking again!

M'ta was already beyond the reach of her counterattacking his back, especially since she'd rolled to disengage. Releasing her brain from the situation for a moment, she let her body take over, following instinct - until she realized she had a throwing knife in hand, wrist cocked, ready to take a shot at M'ta's back. Luckily she caught herself in time, re-directing the toss to thunk into a tree a good five feet away from the Blueweyrling and the Weyrlingmaster. Call it distraction. No more throwing knives, she decided, especially since she'd just told Er'ani to give up his bow... which apparently wasn't a problem, since M'ta had just taken it away, or tried anyway.

Well, no point in hanging back here. With a moment of the blurred vision that went along with dragonspeech, she called to Nitrath again. Call Mo'rya! Have to surround him. All three at once. Really, the three of them with knives should be able to blood M'ta within a reasonable amount of time- should have been able to blood him already, honestly. Sure, the Weyrlingmaster was slippery, but three against one was just ridiculous odds. Made it a hell of a lot easier if they all let M'ta take them on one at a time. Hanging back briefly so Mo'rya could catch up if he was coming, Caden barreled forward, not bothering with stealth. M'ta would be aware of where they all were anyway, no point in trying to be sneaky. She did, however, stop short just out of M'ta's reach, hopefully so Mo'rya and Er'ani could rush him, leaving the weyrlingmaster distracted enough for her to get a hit in. Hopefully. If they didn't come through, her pause would only be momentary before she moved to engage instead. Certainly couldn't blood anyone from five feet away.

[Rei]

Er’ani narrowed his eyes on M’ta as he lunged for Caden but said nothing, instead raising his bow and trying to get a good shot. Hard with them all moving around so much. But then if he had Lketh tell them to freeze like he did that one day in lessons… Before the thought could form further however there was a throwing knife heading in his direction. “Fuck.” He cursed out loud as his sleeve was pinned to the trunk of the tree he was standing in front of. Struggling to get free he caught sight of his teacher heading right for him. Damn. Bringing the bow up with his free hand and determined to use it as some sort of blocking shield or something the weyrling narrowed his eyes on his teacher. Jerking his trapped wrist free the albino rider hissed though his teeth as his weapon was taken from him. Full on glaring at the brownrider he spat.

“Don’t you dare break it. And if I don’t aim at people how am I supposed to kill them?” The words were given in a hiss as he jerked his blade out of it’s sheath and lunged after M’ta. Lketh’s words were shoved aside as he saw Caden coming at their teacher to. A small smile was directed at her before he tried to synch his movements with hers and made an attempted slash at M’ta’s side the attack meant to drive the smaller man into the goldrider’s strike. Where Mo’rya was he wasn’t sure but he should be there helping them soon right? Er’ani hoped so. He sucked at hand to hand and blade fighting. Not his forte at all despite turns and turns of practice.

Lketh tilted his head at Behruth’s words and twitched his wings before belching out another spurt of flame. Well that time it wasn’t so weak. Tail lashing across the sands he glanced at his bronze brother. He seemed to have an easier time of it. Hmm. Flaring his wings the albino gave it another shot and then snorted. It is much harder then it looks. Does the quantity of firestone consumed effect much?

[Kisha-Ra]

As far as Mo’rya could tell things were going fairly predictably, he’d dodged and put himself further away from M’ta, Caden had gone on the offensive, more or less as expected, and M’ta’s attention seemed focused on her. Mo’rya snorted slightly as he saw Er’ani draw back to try and get a clear shot. Oh nice approch Er’ani, try and skewer the goldrider! Mo’rya’s thought was scathing, and would probably have had a better effect if shouted at his classmate. but there seemed very little point in that at the moment. Or indeed at any moment when he gave it some consideration. So many truely great things to say were wasted though lack of oppourtunity, an interestung thought but not really a relevant one.

By the time Mo’rya stopped woolgathering for long enough to move and try and get a clear attack in himself not only had Caden driven M’ta further away but the brownrider had decided all on his own to throw a knife at (or rather near) Er’ani, and go and confiscate the other weyrling’s bow. Not really a course of action Mo’rya was opposed to but it did make it hard for him to get in on the action.

Epifayrmuth relayed the message from Caden in a neutral, distracted kind of tone. Clearly Mo’rya wasn’t going to get anything extra out of his dragon today, apparently learning to spit fire needed a great deal of concentration. Mo’rya gave a shrug, accepting that Caden probably knew what she was doing better than he did, the north did that to people it seemed. With that he went bounding after the brownrider with his weapon held low, stealth was probably futile at this point anyway. Mo’rya’s tactic was charmingly direct, he simply rushed in on the opposite side to Er’ani, someone was bound to hit M’ta eventually.

Epifayrmuth said nothing, something which the small bronze was often good at, and concentrated on his flame. Who knew it would need so much concentration to do something dragons were hatched for? A further attempt at flaming made a smaller flame, but a longer sustained one before Epifayrmuth desisted for a moment to await the answer to his brother’s question.