Ascending Legends

[BookWyrm]

<Well,> Dayn shifted back to his human form, "I guess it served it's purpose, so don't beat yourself up too bad." Dayn smiled before kissing Arryn's forehead. Although he had been worried he knew that she was testing him. Better to know now than risk causing problems in battle. If Dayn wolfed in the middle of a fight and bit someone he would be forced to kill them, no matter who they were. And if they were rescuing slaves, especially children, and Dayn shifted it would put unneeded stress on the whole operation. "So, what's next?" He couldn't really hold the situation against her, how would they have known? Besides, there was more that they needed to know. Would he shift during stressful situations or during a fight? None of this could be learned without having to put himself through all of this.

 

[Dragongal]

"I'd make you practice falls and the like, but we're in the city. Let's go to the elven garden, then work on city-running." She took his hand and led him to the elven garden, locking the gate behind them. She led him to an area where the grass was lush and soft, gently kissed him, then backed up, saying, "Ok. You're going to learn how to fall now. Despite what you think, there's a wrong way. Take none of this personally. Just, let yourself fall and then react reflexively." Arryn gently pushed him over, with just enough force to make him fall back.

 

[BookWyrm]

Of course, Dayn wasn't expecting to be pushed over, but long lessons learned as a kid have a hard time disappearing. Dayn tucked his head and arms in and used the momentum to roll backwards and come up into a kneeling position, his left arm shooting out in a block as his right moved towards his dagger. One thing that had paid off for his knightly training was learning to roll in armor. The worst position a knight could find himself in was on his back in full plate, so learning to roll was imperative to survival.


As Dayn stood back up he recalled old lessons when he had been learning to roll and grapple on the ground. Those were some of the hardest maneuvers to learn, and he had bore the many bruises and smacks with his instructors rattan stick until he finally learned not only to roll but to defend yourself after a roll. Dayn looked back at Arryn after what he hoped was an impressive back roll.

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn smiled and nodded, saying, "Alright, this'll be easier than I thought." Arryn leaned against a large rock and said, "The big trick to raid-style is using your environment, even when it's not... fair. For example, if you attacked me at this moment, I wouldn't be stuck, I have just another weapon. I can move aside, block a blade, grab the back of your head, then continue with your momentum right into the rock. You gotta hit them so fast that they don't know what's happening, and can't scream. Don't feel like it's unfair to grab their wrist if your swords are locked. Grab their wrist, stab their wrist, do not hold still for one second."





"The biggest thing that came up training my team was that they focused on the enemy's weapon. That's the worst idea ever. You're not trying to defeat the weapon, you're trying to defeat the fighter." Arryn looked about and found two sticks, one shorter and one long, giving the long one to Dayn. "Don't worry about hurting me, ok? I mean, don't bash my brains out, but don't be gentle." Arryn made a lunge from the side and behind Dayn towards Dayn's chest, knowing he'd have to pivot to attack her and she could block his blade with her dagger.

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn pivoted against Arryn's lunge, holding his stick in a "half-sword" position to parry the blow before using the shaft to pass under her arm, the tip of the "blade" coming around towards Arryn's neck in a practiced technique used to attack the throat of an armored opponent.


(I'll let you react accordingly)

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn dropped her "dagger" and grabbed Dayn's wrist as he got close enough, simultaneously grabbing the dagger in her left hand as it fell and twisting his wrist and arm (not enough to hurt him) away as she pulled the rest of her body back away from the "blade", then letting go as she let her body hit the ground and rolled back, standing up with a smile on her face. "Very good! What I'd have done was grabbed the wrist and pulled forward with the left hand, then... dispatched the enemy with the blade in my right, but that works very well!"


"I'm going to block your first attack, then see what you're going to do after you're blocked, ok?" Arryn held her "dagger" out horizontally for him to hit so she could fake the parry and see his response.

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn postured up into a classic knightly two handed high guard before bringing his "sword" down at Arryn's "dagger", expecting her to parry and aim for his opening. When she began to parry, moving similarly to how he expected, Dayn changed his foot work and brought his "sword" across, her dagger "sliding" down the length of Dayn's stick as slipped a leg in behind Arryn before wrapping his left arm under hers as he pivoted her into a hip toss. As she landed Dayn dropped a knee onto her body to pin her as he held the point of his stick at her throat, waiting for a few seconds before offering her a hand up.


(Hope you don't mind)

 

[Dragongal]

"Not what I told you to do, but okay. Try that again." The moment Dayn's "sword" made contact with her "dagger" she stepped forward, pushing his blade aside and sliding her dagger down the "blade" while applying pressure to control where he moved the sword, dropped her dagger and grabbed his wrist, pulling him forward, then grabbing the back of his shirt with her left hand and finished pushing him. She picked up her dagger the moment he was out of her hands and stood waiting for him. She knew he'd roll out of it, but that wasn't the point.

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn got to his feet after the roll, pivoted, and postured into a low guard. When Arryn didn't follow through as he had expected he stood up, thought over the short dispute, and understood what she was getting at. "You're aiming to control the situation, aren't you? Use their force against them, knock them off balance and control the flow." Dayn thought over the tactics for a minute, leveling it against his own. "I can see the practicality of staying mobile and maneuverable, but it is going to take some getting used to."

 

[Dragongal]

"Well, you can just throw your weight around, I don't have much weight to throw around. If I can control the fight, I only need my enemy's weight. I could have tossed you into that rock over there, but that would be terrible of me. If I can feel where the enemy is, instead of having to watch them, I can keep my eyes open for other enemies, and use them against each other." Arryn got into a defensive stance and said, "Let's practice some more, then we'll get to magic."





An hour later, Arryn had collected a bunch of sticks and set them into two piles, one for damp wood, one for dry. She sat down and pulled on Dayn's hand to make him sit next to her in front of the pile of dry wood. "Light this pile without touching it."

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn sat and thought about the many possible ways of starting the fire, but all of them required his one forbidden rule of not touching the wood. Finally Dayn held his hands out and focused on the pile of wood. "FIRE!" Despite his struggle Dayn couldn't keep a straight face, having a good laugh before actually focusing on the task. Fire was warm and hot, so was the body. The body produced it's own heat and warmth, much like a fire. And the best way to feed a fire was with aged dried wood. Dayn focused on the pile of dry wood, thinking about seeing the pile light and how nice it would feel to have a fire at that moment. To his surprise he saw a spark kindle a stick in the bottom of the pile, which promptly began to burn and light a small fire, before smoldering out.


Dayn scratched at his chin as he pondered his options. Slowly he held out his hand and focused his heat on his palm, conjuring a small flame in the center of his palm. He closed his hand as he focused on the smoldering stick, using his aeromancy to stoke the small embers into a fire again. This time though he focused his aeromancy on feeding the flame and eventually the pile was burning without any help. Dayn turned and smiled at Arryn. "There you go."

 

[Dragongal]

She smiled to him and nodded, saying, "Not bad. I worry you're not feeling it, though." Arryn gestured to a clover flower that was between them, and it became a small rose. She snapped her fingers, and it was a clover flower again. "While I admit to being an innate mage, and know that you are not and there will likely be some differences, I believe you still have to feel it. When I cast, I can feel the mana, I can feel how the magic wraps around the flower and forms the image in my mind. When I heal, I can feel it flowing from my heart to my hand, to the person I am healing. You have to become attuned to that, so you know exactly what is happening with it. Luckily you aren't innate, otherwise I'd have to teach you a mana barrier: a kind of second layer of skin that keeps the magic in to prevent any accidental casts or problems with magic that's around the mage. Don't command the magic, guide it. It will do what you want, it only needs a bit of direction. It is like anything, if the rules are too strict, it will certainly fail, and once it has crossed the line into failure, it knows not what to do."





Arryn pointed to the pile of damp wood, and said, "Try to get that one to at least smoulder. Don't push yourself too hard, though. if I may offer advice, imagine the heat magic travelling through the air to the wood. It mayn't help, or perhaps it may, I don't know."

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn nodded before turning his attention to the pile of damp wood. Okay, focus on feeling the mana. Feel the warmth, feel the fire. As he focused Dayn felt his own warmth spread from his core out into the air. Guide it. Dayn focused on the wood, this time more or less with the thought of transferring the heat to the wood. To his surprise the wood began to steam as the excess moisture burned off. Now that the wood was warming up all it took was a little convincing and the pile of damp wood began to smolder. Dayn smiled, quite pleased with himself. "Sort of like that I'm guessing?"

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn smiled and kissed him lightly, saying, "Yes, something like that." She pointed to some fallen leaves and said,"Try to bring just one leaf to me, ok? Don't push too hard, don't want to have mana drain again."

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn raised an eyebrow questioningly, but shrugged it off before focusing on the leaf. Or, well, leaves it would seem, because a moment later the whole pile of leaves flew into the air as if some gust of air ignited below them. "Not exactly what I was aiming for, but I'll make it work." Dayn singled out only the prettiest leaf he could find, a falling purple maple leaf, before urging it over to land gracefully on Arryn's hand while the other leaves all fell on and around them. "I brought you one of them, the others didn't want to feel left out though."

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn laughed and leaned her head on Dayn's shoulder. "Good job, love." After a few moments, she stood and walked over toward the large boulder from earlier, stopping a few yards away. "Ok, now you can use your training with dodges for something fun." She ran, jumped, put her foot on the rock and pushed, launching forward, then hit the ground and rolled out of it and stood easily, having covered considerable distance in seconds. "Try it."

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn took off at a sprint, but found himself surprised by his own speed. This wasn't his usual running speed from before...wait. He wasn't himself any more. About the time Dayn came back to the here and now he found himself just two steps from the rock. Dayn launched himself off the rock with startling strength, impacting the ground with his shoulder before rolling, ungracefully, and standing up next to Arryn. "Dammit." Dayn rubbed his shoulder before rotating his arm, hearing the ssssnaap as it rotated back into place. "Uffern fynd ag ef. That hurt!"

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn gently put her hands on his shoulder, using her magic to ease the ache. "That's what happens when you dislocate your shoulder and put it back in place yourself, mo chroi." Healing Dayn was more difficult now, like trying to push rocks through a sieve, there was a kind of resistance, requiring her to burn more mana to produce the same effect. Eventually the sieve would become less fine, and there would be less burn, until it seemed normal, but she was far from there yet. She couldn't heal his wound, only ease the pain for now, but she was fairly sure his faster healing would help too. "We'll have to work on that, and controlling your wolf when adrenaline's high. Tonight, though, I think we should just walk around the city a bit. Ok? No city-running, no practicing, unless you want to pratce tracking a target or something, but we'll give you at least a day to heal before we do anything strenuous. Ok?" Arryn looked around the garden, her eyesight catching on something that sent a shiver down her spine. That was the scary thing, when she started seeing things she knew weren't real, and she wasn't just waking up from a nightmare. She focused on Dayn instead though, saying, "Yeah, let's go to the city."

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn almost asked what had happened but quickly decided against it. The city was nice and quiet, the streets now cleaned up. Everyone was either inside somewhere sleeping or more than likely drunk and passed out on their bed. Dayn led Arryn down to the river front, the two of them finding a nice grassy knoll to lay on and relax for a little while. His shoulder continued to drone the continuous dull ache, though he paid it little attention except for the occasional moment where it shot through his side when he moved just right. "Arryn," Dayn sat up and looked over at his love, "have you ever thought about what we would do if I was found out? I can't imagine what the minstrels would do if they found a story such as ours for one, but I also don't know how people would react. I mean, the story would travel yes, but it isn't like everyone would know me by sight, but it still could be dangerous."

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn leaned back, saying, "Well, dearest, figuring you're found and we escape - which would be easy enough, you can run damn fast as a wolf and I can create illusions - I supposed I'd go on about how it's another stupid rumor, and is physically impossible for whatever reasons. Perhaps touch your hand with some silver, and I'll cast to make it look like nothing happen, and you'll just have to keep a straight face. We can burn that bridge when we arrive." Arryn nuzzled lightly against Dayn's chest, then put her hand on his shoulder again to try to help ease the ache a bit. "We'll be okay. I promise."


After a time, Arryn and Dayn went to walk the city streets, Arryn looking into the windows of the shops. It was odd, all these little things she'd never seen before. She'd certainly never seen some of these things, like the finely woven rugs or brightly coloured toys, simple little wonderful items. And it wasn't crowded, which was wonderful. Arryn probably would have enjoyed walking around just abotu any city, just to see things, if it weren't for crowds. After a bit, she said, "Wait a minute, then find me. Ok?"


Arryn didn't wait for a reply, leisurely walking away, then running once she was out of sight, until she stepped in an alley, which was more like a small street that few people used, and waited. She glanced down to the end of the alley, then shut her eyes. In the daytime, it was easier to tell what wasn’t real and know it wasn’t real. She opened her eyes again, and sighed, still facing the end of the alley. Someone laid their hand on her shoulder, and she thought, Dayn’s not that fast…. and before she could react, they’d reached around and put their dagger into her stomach. Her breath caught, the sudden pain a complete surprise, and her enemy ran past her, intent on fleeing the scene.


Playing the children’s game king of the hill, Arryn had learned one thing: if she was going to go down, she was taking her enemies with her. She cast a shield, ignoring the pain (for had she not felt worse before?) and blocking the man in. By the time he looked back at her, he had a small crossbow bolt stuck in his skull. His corpse hit the ground with a solid thud. It was the man she had recognized earlier. Arryn sighed. Damn, I got too comfortable in this city, let my guard down, and my reflexes with it. At one time, I'd have been able to stab the man's hand the instant he touched me, I'd have been out of the way. Gods damn, what will Dayn think or do? I'll need him as a human, to carry me someplace safe... I'm not walking in this condition.


Arryn looked at the dagger hilt sticking out of her abdomen, shuddering. She paused; was that blood she tasted? She held her hand to her mouth and looked at it. Yes, that was blood. Arryn put one hand against the wall for support, then removed the dagger, dropping it on the ground. Once the dagger was removed, she had to act fast or risk worse damage or bleeding out. She put her hand over the wound, working on healing it from the inside out. After a few second, she could feel the weight on her mana, which was natural for a big wound like this one. Arryn kept healing it, watching darkness creep in on the edges of her vision as she started to slip from consciousness, her mana drain getting to her. But she couldn't stop, the wound wasn't close to completely healed yet. And all of this happened in just over a minute.

 

[BookWyrm]

"What is she up to now?" Dayn let her have a short head start before taking off after her, tracking her as easily as he did before. But again he smelt the distinct irony smell of blood in the air. "Dammit Arryn, we said we weren't doing this again." But as he got closer the smell grew in intensity. "Oh gods no, Arryn!" Dayn ran full bore, keeping his mind straight to avoid a shift during the last hours of daylight, and quickly closed the distance to find Arryn bleeding, a knife on the ground, and a dead body a few feet away. "No, no no no no no no no, Arryn!" Within seconds Dayn was knelt down checking over her wound. "You're going to be okay Arryn, just focus on me and stay awake alright? Alright, I'm going to pick you up and carry you to out. This is gonna hurt." She probably knew every bit of this already, but it didn't hurt to go ahead and tell her anyway. Dayn lifted her as gently as he could before taking one last look at the dead man and growled before he turned and headed out into the street.





"Hold tight beautiful, I'll have you somewhere quick just hold tight." Dayn surprised himself at how calmly he was talking to her and how smoothly he was moving through the streets. He rounded a corner and spotted the infirmary, the doctor just now exiting his shop as he looked to be closing. "DOCTOR! Keep it open! Emergency!" By this point Arryn seemed to be moving in and out of consciousness. The doctor turned and saw Dayn rushing, the blood stains on his clothing, and quickly opened the door up to let him through. "Stab wound to the abdomen, she's lost a lot of blood."


"Alright. We might need a transfusion if she's lost too much."


"I'll give every last drop to save her if I must."





(Cliff hangar, so tag, your it)

 

[Dragongal]

As Dayn carried her, Arryn opened her eyes a bit and nuzzled lightly against his chest, though it hurt to move much, and she tried to smile slightly, before closing her eyes again. She vauely heard him yelling something. She opened her eyes again when she felt herself laid down, seeing the doctor. She coughed a bit, clearing blood from her throat, before muttering, "I swear to gods, you better not put that bird mask on, doc." If there was one thing she hated about professional doctors, it was those stupid masks. Made the doctors seem like they weren't human, and she believed healing took a good deal of humanity. She tried to move around slightly, but her limbs felt too heavy. She reached out and took Dayn's hand. "Bloodloss i'n't bad 'nuff to be lethal now, it'll get there if it's not patched up. I healed... almost all of the internal damage... nothin' lethal anymore, at least... burnt my mana off..." Arryn smiled quickly up at Dayn, trying to comfort him to some extent, before she slipped from consciousness, going from pain to the sensuous narcotic blackness of exhaustion and bloodloss.

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn smiled faintly as he held Arryn's hand while she slowly nodded off. She was right, the majority of the internal damage had been repaired, but she still needed to be sewn up, which the doctor tended to swiftly. After patching her up the doctor gave Dayn a few items to help with the mana burn and aid the healing. Luckily the doctor remembered her being a mage so he didn't worry much about giving her anything she probably didn't already have access to. Dayn quietly thanked the man before giving a couple of coins and carrying Arryn back to the inn.


Dayn had managed to get Arryn back into the inn without waking her up. As he laid her on the bed her looked down at her shirt and the blood stain. He sighed, knowing that he needed to remove it, but also knowing that she had been very cautious about revealing her body to him. He wondered whether he should remove the shirt or not, eventually deciding just to trim off the shirt around her midriff to keep from upsetting her any.


Afterwards Dayn laid back against the headboard. His heart pounded in his chest as his emotions and adrenaline coursed through his system. He looked down at his hand, holding it out and watching it shake. He needed to burn some of it off. Quietly Dayn got up from the bed and changed out of his clothes and let his body shift into his wolf form, sighing in relief as he felt his body release some of the tension during the transition. He laid down in the floor next to Arryn's side of the bed as he waited for her to wake up.

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn woke up a few hours later, groaning quietly as she regained consciousness. Why did her whole body hurt so much? She tried to cast her magic to ease the ache, but nothing happened. She then realized how hollow she felt, which could only mean one thing: complete mana drain. She tried to sit up, but quickly decided this was a bad idea, sighing as she laid back down. She looked at the wound on her abdomen, noting that her shirt had been cut. Who had done that? Arryn froze. Is all of my back covered? Arryn was happy to note that it was, from her shoulders to her hips. Good. Now, where was Dayn? She looked to the side of her bed, smiling slightly. "Morning, mo chroi. Or, evening... or afternoon.... I'm not sure."

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn looked up at Arryn wearily, his tail waging slightly as he stretched out before standing up. <Morning, evening, I don't really care at the moment.> Dayn slowly shifted back to normal as he walked over to his pants. "I'm just glad you're able to keep your head while injured. Anyone else might have ended up worse off." Dayn crawled into the bed carefully, making sure to keep from jostling her too much. "I was going to try and get your shirt off, it was covered in blood, but with you being unconscious......mostly I didn't want to upset you. I know you are....cautious.....about your scars.....I didn't want you to break your trust in me."