Lesson One: You're So Offensive [Candidate Lesson]

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Ts'kal awoke to a pair of large, golden, blinking eyes looming over him. Without thinking he reacted, striking out with one hand and cracking it ineffectually into his simourv's beak. Aburoqaph trilled happily, waving his head to and fro and poking His in the belly with his nose. Lessons today, Mineminemine! Are you going to make the candidates wear the ugly vests again? Warbling cheerily, the rainbow pushed at Ts'kal again, who rolled his eyes and allowed the simourv to happily roll him back and forth. "Yes, Aburo. They're going to wear the ugly vests again. Now get your big silly face off me," the candidatemaster grumped, and his simourv withdrew with an excited trill. Oh, boy! The candidates were going to look silly again and they were going to hate it! Though he liked his candidates, the rainbow appeared to take a special pleasure in seeing them dislike Ts'kal for what he put them through. Oblivious to the fact that they disliked him just as much, he pranced away to the lip of the cave and rubbed his big head against the floor, wriggling in delight.

"You're an idiot, Aburo," commented the rider affectionately, and rolled himself out of bed. Humming to himself, he dug out one of the few shirts he owned, and pulled it on over his bare chest. By now his simourv had turned around to watch and was warbling in anticipation, spinning in circles around the main body of the cave. How he managed to do it, Ts'kal wasn't sure, because their eyling really wasn't very big. Either way, he merely shook his head and finished dressing, tilting his head in confusion at the spinning simourv. You're going to make yourself sick.

No I'm not, Mine! See, I found this great bright thing and I'm just following it around! Aburoqaph argued, and his voice was entirely filled with conviction. Ts'kal declined to point out that what he was chasing was actually his own tail, and left him to it. While the rainbow occupied himself with chasing his tail, the candidatemaster gathered up the vests the candidates would need for their lessons today. A small smirk graced his face as he recalled their disgusted expressions the last time they'd had to wear these, and shook his head. There were eight candidates now, he recalled, and a while ago he'd had more vests made to he'd have extras for larger classes. Either way, they were still all hideous to wear, but at least they provided the bodily protection the candidates were going to need.

"Come on, Aburo. I hope you can fly straight after that. Now call the candidates," he ordered, and the rainbow trilled joyfully. Okay! Candidates! Candidates! Mine wants you to get uppity up! He's making you wear the icky vests again! Oh, and he has icky gloves for you too! That said, he crouched down and patiently allowed Ts'kal to buckle on his harness and load the sacks of vests and gloves onto it. Within minutes the rider was on his back, and Aburo, leaping from the ledge, veered wildly from side to side. Less than thrilled, the candidatemaster rolled his eyes and prayed they wouldn't crash on the crazy descent to the candidates' barracks.

As it happened, they didn't (no doubt much to the candidates' annoyance). Both halves of the rainbowpair survived the trip, and Ts'kal immediately hefted the bags off Aburoqaph's back. By now the candidates were mostly present, and he laid out the vests in a row, as he had before, and also presented them with fifteen pairs of gloves. Those did have to fit properly so he'd had lots made, though he was poorer for it. Still, the gloves weren't as 'icky' as Aburo had claimed: they were well-made and reasonably attractive, of good dark leather with lots of padding across the backs and the knuckles. Laying out the gloves too, Ts'kal stood back. "Candidates," he intoned, "today you're going to fight one another. It's going to leave you with plenty of bruises but you're not to try to kill one another. Everyone, grab a vest and a pair of gloves and put them on; you're definitely going to need them."

Allowing a few minutes for his students to pick out an ugly vest and a less-ugly pair of gloves, the candidatemaster hummed idly to himself, and then resumed speaking when they were done. "You already know some of the basics of balance and self-defense, but now you get to learn something about offense too and exercise all three skill sets. What you want to keep in mind is that as long as you're on your feet, you're in a better position. You do not want to hit the ground if you can help it, and that's especially important if you're not a very big person. And power's not everything. If you're fast, you can get in more attacks and you can also get out of the way of your attacker's strikes. We're here to build up speed today." Casting a glance around at the assembled candidates, Ts'kal lifted a brow slightly. "I'm sure you all know how to throw a straightforward punch and kick. Get rid of that knowledge right now because the standard punch or kick leaves you open to attack." Here he narrowed his eyes, and most of the cheeriness of his manner evaporated. "That's a death sentence if your opponent is carrying a knife or a sword, for example, and you're unarmed. Of course, if you're in that situation your best bet is just to run away. But I digress. The faster your attacks are, the more they will hit and the less time you'll have to leave yourself open. Of course, power is reasonably important too, but you can build that up outside of combat by working your body."

Drawing a breath, Ts'kal paused a moment to look around for Aburoqaph, wondering exactly where he'd gone. Upon turning around, he figured it out: the rainbow had been standing behind him fluttering his wings, rolling his eyes and generally making stupid faces behind him. Narrowing his eyes, he glared at the simourv. Get out of here, he commanded, and Aburo snorted, tossed his head, and happily pranced off to go sit by the barracks, innocently flicking his tail. Ts'kal turned back to the candidates. "Today I'll allow you just to experiment with different attacks - which I'll demonstrate - so that you can find out what works best against a given defense." Here he waved his hand, summoning a nearby volunteer to come over. While he'd been speaking he had also been stretching his muscles, and it soon became apparent why. The man was huge and hulking, and also wearing protective gear just as the candidates were. Garbed in his flight gear, the rainbowrider deemed himself adequately armoured and launched into a swift offense against the giant. He explained each attack as it was launched: quick jabs, full-out punches, elbow strikes and kneeing when his opponent leaned down to try and grab him. He ducked fleetly out of the way, and then retreated, breathing a little harder than usual. "As you can see, if you move quickly, you've got a good chance of moving out of the way before you get hit. This," he added, moving towards his huge volunteer again, "is what happens when you're not fast enough." Assaulting the bigger man once again, Ts'kal deliberately slowed one of his attacks, leaving himself open to be grabbed and put into a headlock by the other. "As you can see," he commented dryly, being released from captivity, "a headlock is not a good position for you. You'll learn about more locks later but for now I want you to practice the attacks you've seen. Also feel free to make up some of your own, but," he swung a warning glance into the eyes of each candidate, "don't get too enthusiastic about it, and stretch all your muscles before you start, or you're going to pull something. And if you're not a contortionist, don't try anything that requires a massive amount of twisting and bending around because you're going to get hurt. Now, partner up and go to it," he called, and turned to his volunteer. A few words had the man escaping from his gear and wandering off to go do something else. Ts'kal, for his part, stood at the front of the group of candidates and watched them, making sure they were all stretching as they were supposed to. He was interested to see what attacks they'd come up with; surely some of them would be inventive fighters. And when it came to fighting, innovation was a very good thing.

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[zeis]

Serapais awoke with a start, to find herself once again in an unfamiliar and foreign place. The bed she lay in was not her own, and the room around her was not her own room. Somewhere in a hallway outside, people were talking and walking. She froze where she lay in confusion for several moments, before the painfully cheerful voice in her head brought it all back to her. This was the Eyrie, and this was her room in the candidates barracks. She and her sister had only been here fore a few days, and she was still slowly getting used to it. The young girl sat up and rubbed sleep out of her eyes, fixing a curious scowl on the doorway. What it was saying did not make much sense. Icky vests and icky gloves? What in the world was that voice talking about?

"Lessons." She spat with contempt, and glanced briefly toward Morgana's side of the room. The girl who had been assigned her room mate wasn't too terrible. The words that Serapais had exchanged with her had been witty, and laced liberally with all sorts of hidden meanings and judgments. Despite the other girl's dubious fashion sense, she found that she quite approved of her. The girl was interesting, and played so many of the same games that she did. Plus that raven of hers was neat. Her first impressions of the Eyrie had thus been good, but starting today, she fully expected to hate it.

She got dressed hastily, throwing on clothes that were well made, but were more characteristic of a boy her age than a girl. Though her outfit wasn't as nearly as gaudy as some of Morgana's clothes, she made an effort to make herself look presentable. After a few moments of dragging a brush through her hair, she was off after the other candidates. She arrived in time to see Ts'kal haul the equipment down from Aburoqaph, who was possibly the most colorful creature she had ever seen, and start laying everything out. Her interest was piqued by the armor, and as the Candidatemaster started speaking, she found herself having to re-evaluate her opinion of both him and the lessons. Back home, her lessons had been in embroidery, and etiquette. But here, here this man was going to teach them how to fight?

Her normally judging and cool eyes sparkled with delight as she donned the admittedly icky vest and gloves. She knew how to wrestle, yes, it really wasn't hard. But fighting? Legitimately fighting? The girl had always wanted to learn how to defend herself, and possibly, how to dominate others. Her parents would have never approved. The girl's sky blue gaze wandered wonderingly around the other candidates as she searched for a partner. How lucky these children were to be able to live like this. She paused momentarily on her sister, but dismissed the idea. She loved Shaegir, and the idea of attacking her twin was not one that pleased her The girl stalked through the group of candidates like a predator, looking each of them up and down as one might look at a horses being sold at market.

It was no contest. She reached out and tapped Morgana on the shoulder insistently to catch her attention, and offered in decisive, but slightly amused sounding tone. "We should be partners."

~~~~~~~

Shaegir had awoken with none of her twin's shock. For the past few days, living at the Eyrie had been like a dream. A distracting, and wholly wonderful dream. The sorrow and the worries that had plagued her heart seemed gradually less with each passing day. The Eyrie was beautiful, the simourv were beautiful, and the people were like characters out of a book. She had only spoken with a few of the Eyriefolk, but they were like uncut precious stones. Each interesting and valuable, but natural, flawed, and rough. Her room mate Amaryllis for instance. The girl was perhaps a bit unpolished, but Shaegir liked her more for that. It was so... so real!

So it was with a smile, and a small polite yawn, that she rose from her bed and got ready for the lesson. She had not understood what the simourv had meant by icky vests, and gloves, but that didn't diminish her hopes for the day. She was sure she'd find out soon enough. The girl had to search through her belongings to find a plain and light dress. If they were supposed to wear some other form of clothing, they probably weren't supposed to dress formally. It was a bit disappointing, as she very much wanted to make a good impression, but she could still manage, she was sure.

She arrived at the lesson with all these hopes and expectations building in her head. The girl had always enjoyed the lessons she received from her parents and tutors back home. It was always with a sense of beginning and excitement that she approached a new subject and area of study. The Candidatemaster certainly was a lot different from all her other instructors. For one, so young, and with a certain smiling quality that charmed her. She stood politely and patiently as he started speaking, listening with bright eyed attention. When they were told to don the armor, she tilted her head in mild confusion, but complied. The bulky leather and padding making her slight and diminutive frame look a little ridiculous.

When Ts'kal told them they'd have to fight, and started demonstrating the content of the lesson, her mouth dropped open in a momentary look of surprise. He expected them to... do what? She frowned, and bit her lip as she now struggled to pay attention. What sort of lesson was this? She supposed that rider M'ari had said something about hard work, but she had never expected anything like this. It was sort of interesting she supposed, and the idea of learning how to do all of those positively dreadful things did seem sort of... exciting. When they were told to partner up, she simply stood still where she was, at a loss. Her head turned immediately to seek out her sister only to see her twin seemed intent on asking someone else.

What a pity. Her shoulders slumped a little at first, but soon she regained her perfect posture. Her frown turned into a hopeful smile, as she turned to search the faces around her politely. Like it or not, it was not the place of the student to determine the content of the lesson. She had agreed to this life after all, and it would not say much about the content of her character if she refused the first lesson. The girl looked at the faces around her with a tentatively friendly expression, eager to make new friends even with the difficulties of the lesson ahead of her. She needed a partner, but... who?

[Kat]

Morgana was not going to the lesson. She refused. She heard Aburoqaph’s call, and she immediately ignored it. She had done this lesson before, and she did not need to do it again. It had been awful the first time. She had ended up with bruises all over her body, and her nightgown had been ruined. She had to buy another one, which was expensive, even if the new gown was far superior than the old one. The market place in the ground caverns was expanding quite nicely, and Morgana rarely felt that she could not get what she needed there. She was not made to wear an ugly vest like the ones that Ts’kal expected the candidates to wear. Morgana was a graceful, dainty creature. The girl pulled the pillow on which she slept out from behind her head, and she then slammed it down over her head, so that her ears were covered. The action, of course, did nothing to muffle the sound. Aburoqaph’s voice continued to ring in her head. Morgana snorted, and then she stretched her limbs out, before she wrapped her velvet quilt cover around her body, so that she could fall back to sleep. She was not going to wake up for this lesson. She refused.

When Serapais talked to Morgana, the older girl turned over and moaned. She did not want to have to explain that she was not going to be attending to the new roommate, who would probably not understand Morgana’s reluctance. Serapais was unintrusive and kind, and she seemed to like Morgana, but the elder blond had not yet forgiven the Eyrie for moving Am’ra out of their shared room. Morgana missed Am’ra most desperately, even though they saw each other quite often. But the new girl was not a problem; she just did not yet know how Morgana lived. Morgana rolled over onto her side, facing away from Serapais.
“Yes, yes, I’ve done this lesson before, so I’m not attending.”
Morgana announced with a flippant roll of her voice. She wondered if she should warn Serapais about the horrible lesson which awaited her, but no one had warned Morgana, so she decided that the other girl would have to deal as well. That was only fair.

And then Morgana remembered that if she did not attend, she might be bothered forever by that awful rainbow simourv. She opened her eyes, rolled out of bed, and slipped off her nightgown, completely unperturbed by the concept that her roommate might see her naked and not wish to do so. The nightgown was replaced with an old cotton dress, brown, which covered enough of Morgana’s skin to be an appropriate garment for the situation.
”Let’s get this shit over with.”
Morgana whined as she moved towards the lesson group. She listened with bored disinterest, her eyes glazing over with anger and bitterness. She did not want to do this again. Once Ts’kal was done speaking, not that Morgana had been listening, she felt Serapais’s hand, and she shrugged her shoulders.
”Whatever, but I’m not wearing one of those awful vests.”
Morgana announced. She did grab a pair of gloves, because they were not that bad, and she slipped them over her fingers. This was going to be a horrible day.

---

Cheerfulness made Jackson mad. He knew that he was being childish and trite, but when other people were happy, the man was filled with an overwhelming feeling that the world was not fair and that he deserved to be as happy as everyone else. So, Aburoqaph’s voice grated in Jackson’s mind, a tight, whiny drawl, and the man wished that he could vanquish it from his mind. At first, in fact, the man did not understand where the obsessive cheeriness derived from. He could not figure out how the voice sounded so loud when the person speaking could not be near him, but then Jackson remembered that the simourvs could communicate telepathically, which meant the voice that he heard with a figment of his mind, an imposed and unfortunate tone which filled his entire brain with sugary cheer. Jackson wished he could sound that cheerful, that enthusiastic, and at one time in his life, Jackson could speak with as much excitement, if in a deeper, more masculine tone. He wanted to banish the sound from his mind, but he did not know how to do that. Instead, the man grumbled, and then he moved out of his bed, dropping his feet to the ground and swinging his body into a standing position. He might as well get up. He was going to have to go to the lesson, anyway, and even though he was not the best worker, Jackson had always been good at waking himself up. He had to start early, most of the time, to maximize his number of tries at various tasks.

The man fumbled around in the near dark looking for something to cover his body in. He searched through his trunk, before he finally found a shirt, white and loose, and a pair of brown cotton pants which were only a few shades darker than his skin. And then Jackson dressed himself slowly, pulling his pants on first, and then tugging the shirt over his thin body. He belted his pants, because they did not fit without a belt. The man had bought too much weight recently, and his clothes now hung off of his form like limp rags. The excess fabric only made Jackson look thinner and more tired. But he did not care about his outward appearance. How he looked barely mattered anymore. While he should worry about making a good first impression on the other candidates, Jackson could not make himself care. He had no reason to care what they thought of him. They were all children, after all, and he was so far removed from them. Jackson had never cared much for his appearance. The only time he had put effort into his looks was when he was courting Isabel, and then she nagged him about his appearance when they were married, which made the man pay attention, if only because he wanted to please his wife more than he wanted to live his life.

Jackson reached the group of candidates in a decent amount of time, even though he was certainly not the first to arrive. He stomped to the back of the group, where he positioned himself in a place which ensured that he would not be seen immediately. He was not going to be enthusiastic. That was going to be his form of rebellion, because the horribly excited simourv made excitement seem sanguine and tedious to Jackson. The thin, but tall, man listened to Ts’kal, and he tightened his lips into a thin line. He then crossed his arms across his chest and stuck his body out at an angle, so that he looked completely disinterested. He listened, but he did so with his body and face postured into an expression of stony detachment. And finally, the lesson was over, and Jackson moved towards the vests. They were pretty unattractive looking, but that hardly mattered. He sized them with his eyes, before he reached down to pick one up off of the ground. Jackson draped it across his body and he strapped himself into it. The gloves were slipped on next, and Jackson flexed his fingers inside the leather. It felt constrictive.
”Do you have to speak so happily?”
Jackson accused Aburoqaph, and although his words were biting, his tone was almost calm, bored, but not mean, just flat. He was not going to search for a partner. He was going to allow someone to come to him, and so Jackson leaned backwards and turned a sad, downwards gaze towards the other people around him. His posture demonstrating his complete lack of desire for this entire situation. But at least he was here.