Reeds for Steel: And Tea for Two
Balin al'Brennan, Written by Misty
Posted on Fri, Jul 9, 2010 01:01 am
Thwack.
"Creator's palm shelter me," Balin gasped as Zeera pivoted away from his clumsy blow, a haphazard Black Pebbles on Snow, chosen because it would hurt least, then seriously reconsidered when Balin realized his partner had breasts. Frozen in midair, afraid to finish the stroke and be slapped for the highly improper way he'd aimed right at them, he winced and drew up his shoulders. Zeera batted his blade away and dove at him, leaving him to face her Arc of the Moon or snap his sword up to block it. His blade came - reluctantly – up. How under the Light had he managed to be given a female partner? And…well, what did he do now? He couldn't hit a woman.
They faced each other now, her sword tip out, hilt grasped lightly in her slender fingers. He held his more awkwardly, sweat slicking the wooden shaft in his hands. Helplessly, he glanced to the side, prepared to sidle that way – and she struck, a fast and vicious version of the Boar Rushes Down the Mountain, her legs parted for better balance, her stance determined as her expression. He'd thought her pretty, with all that dark hair and those lovely slanted eyes, but there was derision in her gaze even as they both realized that she had read his gesture and he had failed to follow through – out of sheer terror that he might hit her! She tapped her shoulders as he lifted his eyebrow, and he blinked. His shoulders? She sighed, lowered her sword, and brought her legs together. "Don't watch my face. Don't stare at my breasts, either," she said, coupled with a hot glare. "Watch my shoulders. And my hips. When I am going to move, what do I lead the motions with? My shoulders! And when I am going to retreat, what do I do first? Step back!"
"So when I thought about moving to the left…"
"You more than thought – you aimed your body that way. You feinted," she said, and he heard a note of pride in her voice, as if she were happy he had tricked her. "You drew my attention and if you had been prepared, we wouldn't be jawing like magpies over a sack of gold rings. Now," she said, squaring her small frame, pulling the sword up into the middle guard position of taer'val, her face smoothing over. "This time take it seriously," she warned him, tossing her curls over her shoulder absently.
And he did try.
His sword held high in the threatening pose of Leopard in the Tree, they circled one another warily, he shifting left, she twisting right. Her first attack, Tower of Morning, was met by the instinctual quick slice of his sword as her blade rose toward his face, veering it off course and to the side. She yelped as her wooden blade twisted in her fingers, and he dropped his in chagrin. "I am so sorry," he pleaded, trying to catch hold of her injured hand, which she was wagging as enthusiastically as a happy dog might his tail. He finally caught it and she jerked it loose, nodding at his sword. "I've had worse," she snapped testily, sliding back into position. "For the Light's sweet sake, what did you say your name was? Balin? You are almost as bad as the milksop idiot my father told me I should marry." Her mouth was sour and thin as she squared herself behind her blade once more, and he realized he was in the midst of a quandary.
Because he couldn't hit her – that would be completely wrong – but she had absolutely none of the same compunctions about him. And despite Elaryl's demand that this spar should be slow – like molasses, she had said, her expression brooking no shenanigans, an expression straight from his would-be mother in law's rich repertoire of sternly forbidding expressions – she was not coming at him slowly. Her wooden blade snapped out before her – she had Unfolded the Fan as her skipping gathered step put her at his right side, slightly off center for straight ahead – and he made the mistake of looking down long enough to ascertain where the slender dowel had fallen.
She fell on him.
Her Boar Rushes Down the Mountain clipped his shoulder rather than his noggin, whistling as it came, and it stung. He yelped and hopped back lithely, unfolding to his feet, his sword held first in the taer'val position, then in the more natural posture of Leopard in the Tree. She needled him from the side, her blade first high – Arc of the Moon – then lower – Black Pebbles on Snow. He met the inquisitive strikes with a sideswipe of his blade – a bastardized version, he realized, of Unfolding the Fan. Smoothly, he pivoted to face her, and realized that he was preparing to attack. Blood had rushed to the shoulder she had struck, leaving the hot aftershock of a rising bruise, and he felt a savage glee as he stepped forward.
Glee.
She struck out again – the upward thrust of Tower of Morning – and he countered with The Boar Rushes Down the Mountain. Their wooden lathes snapped together with a cracking sound that brought to mind chasing hoops, but if anything was removed from idyllic childhood memories, it was this. She pressed her blade against his, trying, he realized, to flip it from his grasp and unarm him. Doggedly, he hung on, and stepped forward, the shuffling half-step they'd been taught. From here, it was evident that his center of gravity had shifted, lending more strength to his grasp, and she withdrew, pirouetting away only to surge back at him.
Arc of the Moon met Tower of Morning with another sharp crack.
She jumped back as he stepped eagerly forward, and this time, they circled each other in earnest. He shifted left again, willing her to follow his body language. She flowed right, blocking him. He gritted his teeth and realized he was sweating. The day was clear, but it was evident summer was not long left for the world – or maybe it was just how much cooler Tar Valon was than the Mountains of Mist. He wasn't sure of that. All he was sure of was Zeera, taunting him with siege after siege, trying him, testing him, wearing him down. He finally struck her, flinching as the dull sound of wood meeting skin reverberated up his arm. She won the match, though, in his opinion, and as they stood a few hands from each other, sucking struck knuckles, he wondered what other things he'd learned that he would need to unlearn – and quickly, too.
"I'm sorry I made you angry," Zeera said, abruptly, popping her knuckles out of her mouth.
"No need to be sorry," he said, slowly. "I needed to be. I couldn't hit a girl," he said, shrugging, unaware of how insulting he sounded. "I just couldn't. But you made me want to and so I could."
She eyed him silently through those slanted eyes, and Balin realized two things. The first was that she was definitely female.
The second was that he was in more trouble than he knew how to escape.
In reply to Reeds for Steel: Two for Tea[show]/[hide]
The lathe did not feel like "an old friend" in his hand. Despite his hours of drilling, he had focused on steps and swings, and he stood awkwardly, stretching as if he could wring exhausted days and tiring nights from his muscles. One of the Gaidin had the habit of rousing the entire Barracks with a flaming bugle, and while Balin considered himself both charitable and not the sort to hold a grudge, he was flaming certain that the Creator would find a cozy corner of Shayol Ghul for the bastard. Just as soon, Balin reasoned, as he could kill the man. Hopefully by wringing his neck with that flaming horn. The violence - both emotional and physical - of his thoughts surprised him, and he warily shoved them away. Being a little taller than average in Deven Ride meant he'd learned to be careful, and the skill demanded in his father's forge meant he'd learned to be patient as well, but daily, he was reminded that these were lessons he should not value here. Patience here meant a cold bowl of water for bathing and caution was seen as an insult - and compared to the bulk of these men, Balin's frame was sorely lacking.
So he tried harder, trained longer, pushed himself. It couldn't help him here, with rapid-fire strings of commands pouring from Elaryl's lips, but he strained, pressing onward, not letting himself stop after a failure, merely shouldering his lathe and grimly shoving himself through the next sequence. He didn't make as many errors this lesson as he had last, but he was still grievously behind some of the more smug students. Pushing back the thought that they would, in turn, be lost behind an anvil, he forced himself to think only of his body and the motions that it needed to make. His mind found a quiet groove in which it floated, completely divorced from intrusive thoughts. When Elaryl called a halt to the drilling, he was startled.
He had practiced the stances she called for, of course: he had even practiced making sequences of them, as awkward as that was. He sensed there was some basic lesson he was unaware of, and so, her plunge into sword forms was a revelation. There was more to swordplay than he had suspected, but he sensed it would never be something he depended on as easily as the staff or the bow. Yet, it was required, as no other weapon was, and so, he would do his best. Not even for Cerawyn, he reflected, surprised by his new selfishness, but for himself. Maybe it was true that he'd been bullied, chivvied, and finally dropped before the Tower as a naughty cat was returned to her sandbox with the evidence of her crime to tutor her in what must be done there, but he hadn't hopped insolently back out again or taken the chance that Cerawyn and the Aes Sedai had offered him - the chance to go back home again and play the victim.
It wasn't in his personality, anyway.
He chanted answers with the other men, refocusing his mind on swordplay. Then, Elaryl stepped back, and Balin's eyes narrowed as she slid the sword from its sheath, rotating it into one of the five stances that they had learned. He had no sheath, but along with the twenty other lathes held by her pupils, Balin did his best to imitate her. Training moved so rapidly that keeping up seemed to be an almost impossible task, but he'd manage. He'd just have to try harder. Begin earlier. Go to bed later. Sighing, he thought about bed even now, and shook his dark head. Best not to consider what you couldn't have. Except it was a very, very seductive thought. Bugger the candlelight, roses, wine, and women - he'd give his left hand for six hours of uninterrupted sleep!
Reflecting that the Training Grounds had not been at all salubrious for his language, Balin grimaced and watched the demonstrations of forms. Leopard in the Tree was high - like its name suggested - and Boar Rushes Down the Mountain did exactly that, harnessing the power of gravity with a sublime menace. Arc of the Moon was the higher slice, and Black Pebbles on Snow he could only remember mnemonically by thinking that pebbles were lower than the moon. He would have to work on that. Tower of Morning went straight up, at least, making its name...sensible...as poetry went, anyway - and what was it with men and fans? The Courtier Taps His Fan? Balin snorted through his nose but mimicked the motion as exactly as he could. It was all clumsy, ridgid and unyielding, but he could, he thought, see sense in some of the positioning. The arms, in Tower of Morning, for instance - they lifted to protect the head, neck, and central chest.
He was still puzzling over the basics when the drill ended, and the class turned into a kicked antheap. Squirming in embarrassment as the men passed him by, choosing friends, choosing those who knew more of swords, he frowned hopelessly. The Mayener woman, her curls dark and enticing, gave him a measuring glance. "Choose a woman then," she suggested, gesturing to the gaggle of girls in uniform. Balin opened his mouth to protest - Cerawyn would skin him - but she had bounced off, separating two men whose spar was turning into a grudgematch, complete with kicking sand and punches thrown. It seemed everyone was paired off now, anyway: sidling closer to the lone young woman, standing irritably alone in the central courtyard, Balin knuckled his brow.
"I think it's just you and me now," he said, and apology crept into his voice. "I'm Balin al'Brennan. Of Andor," he threw in, and her gaze sharpened, slanted eyes raking over him. "In the southern parts, in the Mountains of Mist, we aren't tall as Aielmen and fair-haired," Balin answered, crossing his arms. He hadn't known the girl two minutes, and already she thought him a liar! Dark blood flushed his neck and cheeks as he shifted, offering his hand. She took it diffidently, mumbled that her name was Zeera, and tilted her head toward the far side of the courtyard, which was both empty and blessedly shaded by a tall tree that threw its shade in a wide pool across the even paving stones.
"After you," he said, with all the gallantry he could muster. Of course, in just a moment, he was going to hit her. What use courtesy in the face of that truth?
But some habits died very hard indeed.
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I assume I don't need to write from Zeera's point of view. Please let me know if that's a false assumption...
