SaDiablo Hall, Dhemlan, Kaeleer

[wwiii]

Training. Studying in Kaeleeran Court protocols, poring over any information that he could get his hands on regarding sanitary setups for new settlements in untamed territories, digging around for maps that could help Warren get a better idea as to where they were, and where they were trying to get... It was fairly safe to say that, when Warren wasn't busy running himself ragged in Kaeleer, trying to get budgets to balance and to work out supply options that weren't going to explode in his face, he was spending practically every waking hour training.

His teeth ground together as a stick whipped around, smacking him in the ribs with an audible crack.

Some types of training were easier than others, especially when he was running himself to the ground. He was tired, and it was starting to show. That wouldn't be so bad, if the person that was seeing it at the moment wasn't a sadistic Eyrien with a stick.

With a wince and a ruffle of feathers as he gasped to get his breath back, Warren straightened up and raised his stick again.

[For them what are in Kaeleer!]

Comments

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

Hey now. His brother was the Sadist. Lucivar was a Prick. Get it right, puppy.

Lucivar watched Warren through narrowed eyes, his face impassive. Unlike the first few days, Warren was bringing his stick up back in the proper position, rather than standing up and only then moving into position.

Good. That meant that it was time to change things up again.

Lucivar feinted to the left high, only instead of following through with the strike, brought up the bottom right. Until now, he'd been keeping their practices fairly straightforward, making sure Warren had a feel for the basic moves. Now that they were getting ground into reflex--and after thirty sets of stances every few hours, they were damn well getting ground in--Warren got to learn something new.

Wasn't learning grand?

[wwiii]

Learning was great. Or so Warren was telling himself, over and over, particularly when he caught the business end of the stick in, say, his shin, sweeping his feet out neatly from underneath him.

At least this time, he made some use of that fall. He'd had plenty of practise with hitting the ground over the past few days too, after all, and even as his chest smacked against the ground, he was reaching out to swing his stick, hard, at Lucivar's ankles.

[glacial_queen]

Karla stepped into of the shower with a groan of relief. Warren wasn't the only one being run into the ground with extra stick lessons. With the possibility of her facing combat growing larger as they started getting ready to go to Glacia, Lucivar had tapped Jaenelle to tutor Karla.

If Karla had thought she'd lucked out getting her best friend, she'd sadly forgotten about how much of an asshole Lucivar was. And how worried Jaenelle might be.

"Owie," she whimpered, reaching for the soap. "Everyone in this damn place is a bloody sadist."

See, Warren? Karla agreed with you!

She was feeling a little better when she stepped out half an hour later, but it was the difference between 'being dragged through Hell facedown' and just 'being dragged through Hell.' Even her aches had aches.

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

Lucivar jumped easily over the stick, but gave an approving grunt. "Good. Even when you're going down, give them something to remember you by," he instructed. "If you do, it's possible that they won't past you to her. Now up you go. Because even better than swinging when you're going down is getting back up before they can keep you there."

[wwiii]

Warren's own aches were not particularly achy anymore. His healing factor took care of those, at least. But he was looking a little worse for the wear nevertheless, his wings spread out to his sides and drip-drying over a heap of towels that he'd set out across the floor.

He looked like a big, soggy seabird.

"That's what I thought," he offered, along with a tired smile. "But it's important. I mean... right?"

[wwiii]

Warren spit out his mouthful of dirt and nodded, heaving himself back up to his feet again and getting back into his stance as though nothing had smacked him in the shin in the first place.

Okay. Lucivar was starting to feint on him, now. That just meant that he had to be more aware. Or that he should have been more aware to begin with. He frowned at that thought, chiding himself for being such an easy target.

Against someone who had several thousand years of experience on him, but all the same...

[glacial_queen]

"If we're judging importance by the number of bruises I'm wracking up, then this is possibly the most important undertaking in the history of the Blood," Karla groaned, fixing Warren with a pathetic glance and then transferring it to her towel. It was all the way over there! She would have to stretch to get it! That could very well kill her!

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

Lucivar's training had started in childhood and had a Warlord Prince's temper and arrogance behind it, even if both were muted right now while he was training.

This time his feint was a feint and the stick went hurtling at Warren left high.

What? Warren hadn't expected more of the same, had he?

[wwiii]

Hey, now. Wasn't she the one who could float things across the room?

Still, Warren gave her an indulgent little twitch of a smile, getting up and making for the towel, dripping as he went. Not only were post-shower wings unattractive, they were kind of messy, too.

"Well, it's nothing to scoff at," he noted, picking up the towel and making his way the couple of steps back to her with it. "But if they manage to kill us before we get that far, we're not going to get much done, really."

[wwiii]

... Dammit. Warren had lunged in completely the wrong direction with the stick, and his swing was taking it in the wrong direction with too much force for him to right himself to block. It was his left wing that swung up to block instead, protecting his head, at least.

He swallowed, hard, at the snap. And then he was taking a few deep breaths and folding it gingerly at his back again.

New lesson learned: Don't block a sturdy stick being swung by an Eyrien Warlord Prince with your own body parts. Especially not a wing swinging in the opposite direction with just as much force. Sticks versus hollow bones meant that the odds weren't exactly stacked in his favor.

"I could have handled that better," he gasped, still reeling a bit.

[glacial_queen]

See? She was too sore to have even thought of that bit of Craft.

"They won't kill us," Karla said, wrapping the towel around herself. "Death would be a blessed, blessed release. They're too cruel."

And their day was just beginning. Shoot her now.

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

"Oh, shit," Lucivar said, actually going to far as to drop his stick. If there had been any witnesses to the event, a collective gasp would have gone up from the crowd. "We need to get you to one of the Healers, Jaenelle or Raven or Gabrielle, maybe."

Not Karla. Karla would beat the shit out of him for breaking one of Warren's wings. And the way he felt right now, he'd let her.

[wwiii]

"We haven't even had breakfast yet," Warren added, frowning and stepping around her to give her shoulders a rub.

Not even breakfast, and already he'd managed to break a wing. He hoped that wasn't an omen for how the rest of the day was going to be.

"Wow, you're pretty tense, there."

[glacial_queen]

"It's one of Lucivar's rules," Karla said, almost melting under Warren's hands. She was too tense to actually do so; she was pretty sure she heard something go sproing in her shoulders as his thumb hit a knot. "No practice after breakfast because no one wants to dance around in it if you get whacked in the belly."

Which, you know, made sense. That didn't stop Karla from hating it.

"I think I'm pretty tense everywhere," she admitted. "Didn't sleep well again last night."

Not that this was exactly news to Warren or anything...

[wwiii]

Warren's gaze travelled from Lucivar to the stick, and then back again. And then he shook his head a bit. Great. This was... great.

"Relax. Just help me set it," he ground out, holding up a hand and taking a seat right there on the ground. Or, kind of just buckling at the knees. Same thing. "I can reach, but I don't think I can do it myself."

And there wasn't enough time to go looking for somebody before the bones started to knit themselves together as they were. He'd let his bones heal strangely before. It always took them weeks to reorient themselves properly, afterwards.

[wwiii]

"Me either," he offered, putting a little bit more muscle into the backrub. It wasn't exactly gentle as a result, but when people got that tense, gentle didn't generally do a whole heck of a lot. "There's just too much on the go. Have you even had a moment edgewise to breathe, aside from showers and tossing and turning?"

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

"Relax?!" Lucivar spat. "This is your Darkness bedamned wing we're talking about. If we don't get that taken care of, it could cause you pain every time you try to fly!"

Especially since the break was right before the heaviest part of the wing. The weight could pull it down and cause further damage.

Which was the only reason he was reaching out to set it like Warren had suggested. He needed to keep the weight off. "C'mon, boyo," he said, his touch gentle compared to the bite in his voice. "No reason to pretend to be cool for me. Or if you have to, put it towards standing up so we can get you to a Healer."

He wanted to call for Cat, but she was still sparring with Karla. No reason to draw the witchling's eyes this way. Yet.

[wwiii]

"I've had worse," Warren breathed, stubbornly. "Do you want Karla to find out about this?"

Even Warren didn't particularly want Karla to find out about this. Because if she went and killed Lucivar, who would be left to teach him sticks?

"Just..." He raised his hand to his mouth, shaking just a little. He could already feel the bone fragments beginning to stitch themselves together, all wrong. Much longer, and properly setting the bone was going to require re-breaking it, first. "Quickly, please."

[glacial_queen]

"I breathe!" Karla said, moaning a bit as he worked on her back. It wasn't a particularly sensual sound, filled as pain as it was. "All the time."

So not what he meant, and she knew it.

"You're doing as much as me, if not more," she argued. "You've got extra sessions with Lucivar and Protocol lessons with Saetan!"

[wwiii]

"Yeah, all the work, and probably not even half the weight sitting on my shoulders as you must have," Warren replied. "People don't expect anything from me, except for Lucivar and Saetan."

It wasn't his territory under fire. He didn't know these people.

"You're wearing yourself out, Karla."

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

Lucivar was disposed to argue--Lucivar was always disposed to argue--but the desperation in Warren's voice stopped him. He moved the bones in place, wincing a bit as he ground the edges together before finding the right angle. "Mother Night, Warren, I'm sorry."

There was real concern and apology in Lucivar's voice. Losing his wings was his worst nightmare.

"She's going to find out," he decided. "Unless we can get Raven out here, I need to get Jaenelle. She's the best Healer we have. If you want to fly--"

He broke off. What the Hell...?

[glacial_queen]

"Actually," Karla said with a breathy laugh that turned into a gasp halfway through. "I think you have like...twice the weight on yours. Maybe...three times."

Maybe if she cracked a joke, she wouldn't have to acknowledge his point!

[wwiii]

Warren's hand was now bloody, too, because he'd bitten down on the meat at the base of the thumb while Lucivar had fiddled with his bones. It was the other hand that he reached up with to stubbornly wipe at his eyes. His thumb was better already, but there was a little trail of blood running the length of his arm to his elbow, by that point.

"Just hold it," he murmured, staring down at the ground while the pain in his wing dulled somewhat. "Just for a couple of minutes. Please? It's okay. This was my fault, I moved into it stupidly, I know better..."

[wwiii]

"Wings don't count," Warren chided, reaching forward with one of his to give her a gentle thump to the back of the head. That way, he didn't have to stop rubbing her back. See his brilliance? "When's the last full night's sleep you've had?"

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

Lucivar was staring in disbelief at the the wing under his hand. The skin was so thin there, he could feel the the bones shifting, smoothing out beneath his fingers. "What?"

His eyes flickered down to the spreading scarlet stain on Warren's forearm. Blood, from no visible wound.

Warren never had visible wounds. Or bruises, even when Lucivar whacked him hard enough to make one blossom. Or even red marks. Hell's fire, Saetan had taken him aside and asked if maybe he wasn't going too lightly on the lad.

"Talk to me," he said. "Why aren't we yelling for the Healers, boyo?"