The burn in her muscles was a long familiar sensation, but Khari had to admit that Michäel knew how to really bring up the intensity. She hadn't exactly been stagnating before she started training under him, but she'd lacked the knowledge he had. How to bring her exercise to the next level, so to speak, to maximize the efficiency of her drills so she was worn out by the end of a session, but not so battered she wouldn't be able to push through it again the next day.
She finished the last repetition, slowly letting her arms relax, and the heavy practice blade in her hands droop towards the ground, though she kept firm hold of it. He had her doing sword forms, which she didn't mind. Some people might have seen the repetition of fundamentals and things she'd already learned as insulting, but Khari at least understood the importance of maintaining the basics while trying to keep moving ahead. It was about time to finish for today, though, and she glanced to him just to confirm that there weren't any more drills he wanted her to run. Sometimes if he thought she wasn't exhausted enough, he made her do extra, the bastard. She appreciated it though; sometimes the last set was exactly what she needed.
"Alright, take a breath," Michäel said, a practice sword of his own resting across his shoulder. To his credit, he always went through the forms alongside her, though he kept out of her way when she went through the more intensive practices--though his booming voice was always with her, demanding things, telling her to do better, be quicker, anything to push her to complete the next set.
Pierre was among them for this session, the boy having returned from his winter with his grandmother. The kid managed to find a few extra inches during his time away--eventually he'd even reach his old man's lofty height. He stood some distance away, watching their practice with piqued interest.
Michäel looked skyward for a moment and judged how much sunlight they had left. "Right, to finish off, I have a surprise for you. Go outfit yourself in something comfortable to fight in, and find a practice blade that won't kill you to swing," He waited only a moment before he pounded his palm with the pommel of his own blade. "Go on now, we do not have all day.
Khari rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, fine. And people say I'm impatient." She really didn't want to waste time, though, so she took off at a brisk trot for the armory, despite the protestations of her legs at the additional punishment. She'd ignored worse.
Once inside, she shucked off her platemail shell, replacing it on one of the armor racks before sliding into something different. A little heavier than what she'd usually wear into the field, but it was still practice, and she still wanted to make it count. The blade, she changed out for one closer to Intercessor, but he'd specified that it was to be one of the blunt ones, so using her own was out of the question.
It didn't take her more than three minutes in total before she was jogging back onto the field, newly-equipped. Her time to get in and out of the plate was shrinking, thankfully.
"Decent time," Michäel noted upon her return. He was alone now, Pierre apparently having departed while she was swapping out her equipment. "You'll have to bear with me for a while, your surprise will be ready in a moment," he said, with a rather mischievous grin.
About ten minutes passed before it finally arrived. Or rather, she. Lady Marceline strode toward them, Pierre trailing behind her. She was outfitted for what seemed like battle with her hair tied up into a bun and equipped with a suit of finely made plate. As she drew closer, it was apparently clear that the armor was custom made for her and her alone.
From a glance, the plates seemed lightweight and moved with her easily, with the thicker ones covering her chest, thighs and forearms, including a pair of boots and plated gloves. It left her joints exposed-- only black cloth between her skin and the air which accented the polished shine the rest of the armor was given. In lieu of her own personal coat-of-arms, the Inquisition's standard was instead engraved upon the chest piece, a flaming eye with a sword pointed downward behind it.
She was still adjusting her gloves when she pulled up to stand beside Michäel. Pierre stopped not too far away, a pair of practice weapons resting in his hands. Michäel wore a smile that was somehow both a mixture of pride and deviousness. "And here she is," introducing her with a flourish of his practice sword. "Lady Marceline."
Khari blinked. “You want me to spar Marcy? —Er, Lady Marceline, sorry." Khari wasn't against it—if the woman bothered to get really damn shiny custom armor made for herself, she probably knew what to do with it. She just figured it was kind of a weird thing to ask her to do. There were plenty of quick-footed types around he could have had her spar with instead, but this was the first time he'd actually set her against one on purpose. She'd been working on fighting people substantially physically stronger than herself, because most people were. Marcy was one of the few who really wasn't.
"That was his intention, yes," Marceline answered, inspecting the front and back of her glove. Apparently satisfied with whatever she saw, she finally looked up and spared Khari a glance. A polite smile crossed lips before she turned expectantly toward Pierre. The boy took a step toward his mother and held out the weapons he'd carried with them for her to take. The first was a cup-hilt rapier of sorts though it held no cutting edge and the piercing tip was blunted-- a practice blade. The other was a shorter dagger, with a wide crossguard in addition to another cup to protect the hand.
Once in her hands, she spun the rapier once to test its weight and readjusted her grip to something more comfortable. "Unless you are against it?" Marceline added.
“Uh... no, not really." Khari shrugged. She wasn't the kind of person to turn down an interesting challenge, and while she had no idea what their angle was with all of this, she was willing to go along with it and find out the hard way. So she took a couple steps back, bowing in the genteel way Mick had said was the standard for duels or practice ones, and waiting for the indication that it was okay to begin, watching Marcy get into position and trying to read her likely moves from that.
Marceline took her place across from her and replicated the bow, and added "Death before dishonor." After the salute, Marceline settled into her stance, rapier facing the front and the dagger not too far away.
With that, Michäel nodded toward his son, and Pierre began to count down. "Three, two, one-- début!"
The dagger was mostly meant to parry, but that would be kind of a dangerous thing for Marcy to try and do with one hand to Khari's two. Maybe she had other plans for it. In any case, she was going to get the best idea how the other woman fought by actually fighting with her. No point in wasting time. She lunged, swinging hard and fast for Marcy's midsection.
A shuffle of her feet and Marceline danced away from the swing. While the blade slipped passed her midsection, she was already taking steps forward while she tried slapping her rapier against Khari's hands-- in an effort to disrupt her timing than trying to do any damage considering their strength difference. The real damage would come from the dagger, as Marceline tried to close the distance quickly and put herself deep inside Khari's guard, the tinier blade making its way in an attempt to rest against Khari's neck.
A practice rapier wasn't going to do a lot to hands in plated gauntlets, but Khari noticed the hit, drawing back slightly. The distraction cost her, allowing Marcy to move in closer than she'd have let her otherwise. Khari'd had enough knives aimed for her throat to know what to look for, and while she couldn't block it, she turned her body slightly, rising onto the balls of her feet and leaning a bit aside.
The practice knife hit the gorget of her armor, just a few inches too low to actually threaten the exposed part of her neck, and Khari took the opportunity to shift her grip on her sword to one hand and grab for Marcy's arm. They were in grappling range now, and that was something she bet a fleet duelist didn't have to do often.
Khari felt an impact below the knee, Marceline's armored boot clashing against her shin plate. It did nothing more than provide another distraction however, but gave Marceline enough time to lean away from the grasping hand. She spun away and quickly put distance between them, coming to a stop and then resetting her stance.
"She is already doing better than you had, love," Marceline stated, though her eyes never left Khari. From somewhere to their side, Khari could hear Michäel grunt and mutter something under his breath. Though she couldn't hear it, whatever it was made Pierre laugh. "Again, but this time pretend like you know what you are doing," Marceline taunted.
Khari scowled. The verbal hit glanced, as far as they went, but the near miss from before had already got her blood pumping, so to speak. She avoided sinking into the adrenaline or reaching for the anger that so often carried her through a fight. She wanted to understand everything that happened here, and she was honestly too tired to risk it at the moment. Not without a better reason than a spar.
Rolling her shoulders back, Khari bounced on her feet a few times, feeling the heaviness in her body from the day's practice, then doing her best to ignore it. Find whatever it was in her that let her forget that pain mattered, even if she couldn't quite forget that she was feeling it. When she lunged the second time, it was sudden. She hadn't braced herself or taken a deep breath or even shifted her weight. She just burst forward, like she'd seen Leon do from a dead stop, and swung low. Footwork was no help if your feet weren't under you.
Marceline wasn't caught off guard however, tilting her rapier down and driving the tip deep into the ground in between herself and Khari's blade. The sword stopped with a shudder, though the rapier's blade was thick and durable enough to take the hit with little give. As if to put a point on it, Marceline stepped on Khari's blade and taunted again. "Come now, you must do better," she said, ripping the rapier from the ground and replacing the distance between.
The fight continued in that manner, Marcy demonstrating grace, fluidity, and precision by evading or parrying every attack that Khari came at her with, usually punctuated with a taunt of some sort. Up until one moment Khari slipped up and exposed an opening. Marceline capitalized, thrusting her rapier forward and letting it rest against the crook between Khari's shoulder and neck. "Dead," she stated with a finality.
By that point, Khari's breath was coming hard and fast. She frowned when Marcy's blade touched the space between two of her armor plates. She might have debated whether taking a hit there would have killed her or not, but it was fair enough. She nodded, lowering her practice blade, and as soon as the rapier moved away, she doubled over, putting her hands on her knees and gulping in more air. Her arms and legs trembled slightly from exertion, but the dizziness would pass quickly if she regulated her breath and let it work its way out.
A minute later, she pushed away from her bend and stood upright again. She turned expectantly to Mick. This was the point where he usually told her how she'd fucked up and how to do better next time.
"If it makes you feel better, you fared better than I had when I first sparred with her," Michäel stated, the pride clear in his voice. Though, it was difficult to tell if it was for her, or for Marceline. "She had me with that first maneuver with the dagger before Ser Lucas made us reset."
Marceline smiled at the memory. "I distinctly remember father laughing heavily all the while." Pierre had gone to his mother and graciously accepted both of her practice weapons, he then went to Khari to see if she wished to pass it off onto him as well.
Michäel frowned and deigned not to respond to that, instead turning back to Khari. "Regardless, it taught me the same lesson I attempting to teach you now... Do you know what it was?" he asked, his hands resting on the pommel of his practice sword.
She had a pretty good idea, honestly. Hesitating before handing her weapon off to Pierre—it felt weird to have other people do that kind of thing for her—she sighed. “That I need to be more patient and fight smarter?" It wouldn't be a lesson about underestimating anyone, because Khari hadn't done that. So that left something about how Marcy fought that Mick thought she needed to work on. And she really doubted the takeaway was that she needed to mock people while she sparred with them, so...
"Correct, though taunting is optional," Michäel answered, sparing Marceline a sidelong glance. She simply shrugged and crossed her arms.
"Understand that there will always be someone stronger and faster than you or I, but you can always be the more patient one. Conserve your strength while they waste theirs and allow them to make their mistakes so that you can exploit them." She glanced at Michäel, "The taunting helps in expediting that, but yes. It is optional."
Michäel chuckled, taking a small victory in her own admission. "Granted, I am not telling you to fight like Marcy. There is only one Khari and one Marcy-- and that one is mine. I simply want you to incorporate the knowledge into the tactics you are learning, understand?"
“Well, yeah. Not like I'm gonna go pick up a glorified fireplace poker and a knife now." She grinned to show she wasn't serious about the poker part, than shrugged. “But... I can try some of it, sure." She didn't really do the 'conserving energy' thing; Khari only got around some of her bigger challenges because she had so much to expend, but... she could think about how to do so in smarter ways, at least.
“Thanks for the fight, Marcy." She bowed again, just like at the start, and nodded to Mick. It seemed like practice was over today. Now was probably a nice time to soak in a tub somewhere to make sure she could move tomorrow.
She finished the last repetition, slowly letting her arms relax, and the heavy practice blade in her hands droop towards the ground, though she kept firm hold of it. He had her doing sword forms, which she didn't mind. Some people might have seen the repetition of fundamentals and things she'd already learned as insulting, but Khari at least understood the importance of maintaining the basics while trying to keep moving ahead. It was about time to finish for today, though, and she glanced to him just to confirm that there weren't any more drills he wanted her to run. Sometimes if he thought she wasn't exhausted enough, he made her do extra, the bastard. She appreciated it though; sometimes the last set was exactly what she needed.
"Alright, take a breath," Michäel said, a practice sword of his own resting across his shoulder. To his credit, he always went through the forms alongside her, though he kept out of her way when she went through the more intensive practices--though his booming voice was always with her, demanding things, telling her to do better, be quicker, anything to push her to complete the next set.
Pierre was among them for this session, the boy having returned from his winter with his grandmother. The kid managed to find a few extra inches during his time away--eventually he'd even reach his old man's lofty height. He stood some distance away, watching their practice with piqued interest.
Michäel looked skyward for a moment and judged how much sunlight they had left. "Right, to finish off, I have a surprise for you. Go outfit yourself in something comfortable to fight in, and find a practice blade that won't kill you to swing," He waited only a moment before he pounded his palm with the pommel of his own blade. "Go on now, we do not have all day.
Khari rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, fine. And people say I'm impatient." She really didn't want to waste time, though, so she took off at a brisk trot for the armory, despite the protestations of her legs at the additional punishment. She'd ignored worse.
Once inside, she shucked off her platemail shell, replacing it on one of the armor racks before sliding into something different. A little heavier than what she'd usually wear into the field, but it was still practice, and she still wanted to make it count. The blade, she changed out for one closer to Intercessor, but he'd specified that it was to be one of the blunt ones, so using her own was out of the question.
It didn't take her more than three minutes in total before she was jogging back onto the field, newly-equipped. Her time to get in and out of the plate was shrinking, thankfully.
"Decent time," Michäel noted upon her return. He was alone now, Pierre apparently having departed while she was swapping out her equipment. "You'll have to bear with me for a while, your surprise will be ready in a moment," he said, with a rather mischievous grin.
About ten minutes passed before it finally arrived. Or rather, she. Lady Marceline strode toward them, Pierre trailing behind her. She was outfitted for what seemed like battle with her hair tied up into a bun and equipped with a suit of finely made plate. As she drew closer, it was apparently clear that the armor was custom made for her and her alone.
From a glance, the plates seemed lightweight and moved with her easily, with the thicker ones covering her chest, thighs and forearms, including a pair of boots and plated gloves. It left her joints exposed-- only black cloth between her skin and the air which accented the polished shine the rest of the armor was given. In lieu of her own personal coat-of-arms, the Inquisition's standard was instead engraved upon the chest piece, a flaming eye with a sword pointed downward behind it.
She was still adjusting her gloves when she pulled up to stand beside Michäel. Pierre stopped not too far away, a pair of practice weapons resting in his hands. Michäel wore a smile that was somehow both a mixture of pride and deviousness. "And here she is," introducing her with a flourish of his practice sword. "Lady Marceline."
Khari blinked. “You want me to spar Marcy? —Er, Lady Marceline, sorry." Khari wasn't against it—if the woman bothered to get really damn shiny custom armor made for herself, she probably knew what to do with it. She just figured it was kind of a weird thing to ask her to do. There were plenty of quick-footed types around he could have had her spar with instead, but this was the first time he'd actually set her against one on purpose. She'd been working on fighting people substantially physically stronger than herself, because most people were. Marcy was one of the few who really wasn't.
"That was his intention, yes," Marceline answered, inspecting the front and back of her glove. Apparently satisfied with whatever she saw, she finally looked up and spared Khari a glance. A polite smile crossed lips before she turned expectantly toward Pierre. The boy took a step toward his mother and held out the weapons he'd carried with them for her to take. The first was a cup-hilt rapier of sorts though it held no cutting edge and the piercing tip was blunted-- a practice blade. The other was a shorter dagger, with a wide crossguard in addition to another cup to protect the hand.
Once in her hands, she spun the rapier once to test its weight and readjusted her grip to something more comfortable. "Unless you are against it?" Marceline added.
“Uh... no, not really." Khari shrugged. She wasn't the kind of person to turn down an interesting challenge, and while she had no idea what their angle was with all of this, she was willing to go along with it and find out the hard way. So she took a couple steps back, bowing in the genteel way Mick had said was the standard for duels or practice ones, and waiting for the indication that it was okay to begin, watching Marcy get into position and trying to read her likely moves from that.
Marceline took her place across from her and replicated the bow, and added "Death before dishonor." After the salute, Marceline settled into her stance, rapier facing the front and the dagger not too far away.
With that, Michäel nodded toward his son, and Pierre began to count down. "Three, two, one-- début!"
The dagger was mostly meant to parry, but that would be kind of a dangerous thing for Marcy to try and do with one hand to Khari's two. Maybe she had other plans for it. In any case, she was going to get the best idea how the other woman fought by actually fighting with her. No point in wasting time. She lunged, swinging hard and fast for Marcy's midsection.
A shuffle of her feet and Marceline danced away from the swing. While the blade slipped passed her midsection, she was already taking steps forward while she tried slapping her rapier against Khari's hands-- in an effort to disrupt her timing than trying to do any damage considering their strength difference. The real damage would come from the dagger, as Marceline tried to close the distance quickly and put herself deep inside Khari's guard, the tinier blade making its way in an attempt to rest against Khari's neck.
A practice rapier wasn't going to do a lot to hands in plated gauntlets, but Khari noticed the hit, drawing back slightly. The distraction cost her, allowing Marcy to move in closer than she'd have let her otherwise. Khari'd had enough knives aimed for her throat to know what to look for, and while she couldn't block it, she turned her body slightly, rising onto the balls of her feet and leaning a bit aside.
The practice knife hit the gorget of her armor, just a few inches too low to actually threaten the exposed part of her neck, and Khari took the opportunity to shift her grip on her sword to one hand and grab for Marcy's arm. They were in grappling range now, and that was something she bet a fleet duelist didn't have to do often.
Khari felt an impact below the knee, Marceline's armored boot clashing against her shin plate. It did nothing more than provide another distraction however, but gave Marceline enough time to lean away from the grasping hand. She spun away and quickly put distance between them, coming to a stop and then resetting her stance.
"She is already doing better than you had, love," Marceline stated, though her eyes never left Khari. From somewhere to their side, Khari could hear Michäel grunt and mutter something under his breath. Though she couldn't hear it, whatever it was made Pierre laugh. "Again, but this time pretend like you know what you are doing," Marceline taunted.
Khari scowled. The verbal hit glanced, as far as they went, but the near miss from before had already got her blood pumping, so to speak. She avoided sinking into the adrenaline or reaching for the anger that so often carried her through a fight. She wanted to understand everything that happened here, and she was honestly too tired to risk it at the moment. Not without a better reason than a spar.
Rolling her shoulders back, Khari bounced on her feet a few times, feeling the heaviness in her body from the day's practice, then doing her best to ignore it. Find whatever it was in her that let her forget that pain mattered, even if she couldn't quite forget that she was feeling it. When she lunged the second time, it was sudden. She hadn't braced herself or taken a deep breath or even shifted her weight. She just burst forward, like she'd seen Leon do from a dead stop, and swung low. Footwork was no help if your feet weren't under you.
Marceline wasn't caught off guard however, tilting her rapier down and driving the tip deep into the ground in between herself and Khari's blade. The sword stopped with a shudder, though the rapier's blade was thick and durable enough to take the hit with little give. As if to put a point on it, Marceline stepped on Khari's blade and taunted again. "Come now, you must do better," she said, ripping the rapier from the ground and replacing the distance between.
The fight continued in that manner, Marcy demonstrating grace, fluidity, and precision by evading or parrying every attack that Khari came at her with, usually punctuated with a taunt of some sort. Up until one moment Khari slipped up and exposed an opening. Marceline capitalized, thrusting her rapier forward and letting it rest against the crook between Khari's shoulder and neck. "Dead," she stated with a finality.
By that point, Khari's breath was coming hard and fast. She frowned when Marcy's blade touched the space between two of her armor plates. She might have debated whether taking a hit there would have killed her or not, but it was fair enough. She nodded, lowering her practice blade, and as soon as the rapier moved away, she doubled over, putting her hands on her knees and gulping in more air. Her arms and legs trembled slightly from exertion, but the dizziness would pass quickly if she regulated her breath and let it work its way out.
A minute later, she pushed away from her bend and stood upright again. She turned expectantly to Mick. This was the point where he usually told her how she'd fucked up and how to do better next time.
"If it makes you feel better, you fared better than I had when I first sparred with her," Michäel stated, the pride clear in his voice. Though, it was difficult to tell if it was for her, or for Marceline. "She had me with that first maneuver with the dagger before Ser Lucas made us reset."
Marceline smiled at the memory. "I distinctly remember father laughing heavily all the while." Pierre had gone to his mother and graciously accepted both of her practice weapons, he then went to Khari to see if she wished to pass it off onto him as well.
Michäel frowned and deigned not to respond to that, instead turning back to Khari. "Regardless, it taught me the same lesson I attempting to teach you now... Do you know what it was?" he asked, his hands resting on the pommel of his practice sword.
She had a pretty good idea, honestly. Hesitating before handing her weapon off to Pierre—it felt weird to have other people do that kind of thing for her—she sighed. “That I need to be more patient and fight smarter?" It wouldn't be a lesson about underestimating anyone, because Khari hadn't done that. So that left something about how Marcy fought that Mick thought she needed to work on. And she really doubted the takeaway was that she needed to mock people while she sparred with them, so...
"Correct, though taunting is optional," Michäel answered, sparing Marceline a sidelong glance. She simply shrugged and crossed her arms.
"Understand that there will always be someone stronger and faster than you or I, but you can always be the more patient one. Conserve your strength while they waste theirs and allow them to make their mistakes so that you can exploit them." She glanced at Michäel, "The taunting helps in expediting that, but yes. It is optional."
Michäel chuckled, taking a small victory in her own admission. "Granted, I am not telling you to fight like Marcy. There is only one Khari and one Marcy-- and that one is mine. I simply want you to incorporate the knowledge into the tactics you are learning, understand?"
“Well, yeah. Not like I'm gonna go pick up a glorified fireplace poker and a knife now." She grinned to show she wasn't serious about the poker part, than shrugged. “But... I can try some of it, sure." She didn't really do the 'conserving energy' thing; Khari only got around some of her bigger challenges because she had so much to expend, but... she could think about how to do so in smarter ways, at least.
“Thanks for the fight, Marcy." She bowed again, just like at the start, and nodded to Mick. It seemed like practice was over today. Now was probably a nice time to soak in a tub somewhere to make sure she could move tomorrow.