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Post by Cloud of Diamonds on Apr 17, 2010 16:35:30 GMT -5
Oh great. Time for one of her favorite things. Not. She'd never ased for an apprentice, nor had she ever wanted one. But apprently Gingerstar didn't know this, because when the little brown furball had come to the Clan, guess who got to be his mentor.
Wonderful.
At least he was nice; he even made her feel ashamed because she wasn't exactly the nicest mentor he could have. But what could she do? Change? When badgers flew.
Well, time to get down to business. She faced the small tom, considering what to teach him. He had the basics down already, which she supposed was good. There was still so much she had to teach him...ugh.
Maybe she could teach him the sideswipe lunge...it was a useful move, though hard to pull off if you were hefty like her.
Might as well give it a shot.
"Move out of my way and I'll demonstrate a move called the sideswipe lunge. I'm not real good at it, but you should be able to tell how I do it. Hopefully."
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Post by swift on Apr 17, 2010 17:12:11 GMT -5
The "little brown furball" was resting quietly under the shade of a nearby tree. He tucked his paws neatly under his body and coiled his long tail into a tight ball before resting it on top of his knees. There was a fine breeze blowing about the clearing, and to keep his fur from shifting into his eyes, he tilted his head slightly, all the while making sure to have Swallowpelt in his line of sight. The net result of his efforts to please both himself and his mentor was a very odd contortion of the body. His head was practically on his left shoulder with his ears pricked towards the direction opposite against the wind to catch Swallowpelt's words, and his eyes were also trained on her, leaving his neck to twist this way and turn that way and scream in protest. The rest of his body was frozen in a sitting position, which would've been normal if it wasn't for the bizarre shape he had attempted to contort his neck into.
"Move out of my way and I'll demonstrate a move called the sideswipe lunge."
Relief washed over his face as he let himself collapse on the ground. The muscles in his neck twitched spasmodically. Ow.
"I'm not real good at it, but you should be able to tell how I do it."
At this, Tigerpaw's ears perked up.
"Hopefully."
They dropped again.
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Post by Cloud of Diamonds on Apr 20, 2010 16:40:30 GMT -5
The heavy gray warrior ignored her apprentice and focused only on the difficult move she was doing. Leaping forward, she swerved and lashed out with her left paw, as if to claw an opponent. The clever part of the move was that even if your opponent was quick enough to strike back, they wouldn't be able to get more than one hit in unless they tackled you, and she was hard to tackle, being as big or more than most of the toms in her Clan.
However, she'd never been much for moves that required jumping. She was less of an agile hitter than a strong one, able to take some real damage before going down. Still, the scarred she-cat tried to do the moves that would be best for the small, light apprentice to learn, and not her. He probably won't be a real good fighter anyway, she thought. What with me training him and all, and him being so puny.
Lumbering back into her normal position, she said, "Here, try it on me except without claws. I don't expect you'll get it first go, but maybe I'll be slow enough or you'll be lucky enough."
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Post by swift on Apr 21, 2010 5:57:34 GMT -5
She was going to let him try it? After just seeing it once? He stared at her, open-mouthed and incredulous. He was going to make an absolute fool of himself. He could practically see that very expectation in her eyes. Suddenly, he felt infuriated. How dare she underestimate him? Just because he was smaller than her? He was going to grow. He was only eight for crying out loud.
He immediately sank into his knees, his eyes steeled with determination. He was going to show her. He was going to make her eat her words. His mind immediately shifted into gear and he felt the cogs churning, the adrenaline weaving through his veins, his heart drumming against his chest...
He leaped into the air and twisted, his feet completely off the ground. For a moment, he was suspended in midair, practically soaring. He had never felt so light. And then, he was hurtling back to the ground. He instinctively positioned his feet below him to absorb the impact as he brought out his claws and raised his arm above his head. He swept it in an arc down towards the ground, crushing the skull of an enemy cat underneath, and landed just inches away from Swallowpelt.
Hah.
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Post by Cloud of Diamonds on Apr 21, 2010 20:34:26 GMT -5
"Not bad." She admitted. "Let's do it again, except this time think about how you would land if an opponent were striking back at you."
The big PineClanner padded back a few steps, then turned around and sat down on the rocky ground, her long tail wrapped around her. He was pretty good, for his relative lack of experience. But he'd probably be overconfident or something. There was always a flaw with even the best fighters.
But then, there were flaws with everything. Life was made of flaws with a few good bits in between. Like a mostly rotten mouse with a few good patches.
Mmph. The philosophical was not her strong point.
She stretched, and glumly reflected that she was getting lazy, owing to her time in the nursery. Leaving Tigerpaw to himself for bit, she slowly started doing the basic exercises, the frontal swipe, basic leaps, etc. The scarred warrior gradually found herself becoming more enthusiastic, even if it was more effort to do them than usual. Then she stopped. How stupid she must look.
Swallowpelt growled silently at herself. Nice job, mousebrain.
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Post by swift on Apr 24, 2010 10:04:04 GMT -5
Tigerpaw watched in awe as Swallowpelt--no, scratch that: his mentor--started easing her way through some awesome battle moves. Sure she had some excess pounds still stubbornly hanging on to her legs and hips from her previous pregnancy, and the scars on her sides were badly healed and ugly, but all the little imperfections didn't seem to matter anymore. She leaped through the air as if she as weightless, drew her paw across her body and through the chest of an invisible foe as easy as breathing.
He felt his eyes bug out of his head. The fluidity with which she transitioned from offense to defense, and the grace with which she executed her blows and dodges were indescribably perfect. Accurate. Precise. He wanted to fight like that--like her.
And then he remembered that she had asked him to do it again. He recollected himself and sank back down to his knees on the grass. Which way should he spring? How should he land if an enemy cat was gonna try to land a good whack on his head as soon as he managed to reach the ground again? For a while, he debated with himself, laid out all the options in front of him. Then he leaped into the air, a perfect copy of before, but in midair, he didn't just let himself glide. He stuck his paw out in front of him and twisted. He began to spin as he hurtled back down, and at the last second before he hit the ground, he slid his feet out under him to take the impact, all the while using the momentum from his spinning to cut through the neck, or flank, or maybe even the chest, or all three (because he was still spinning) of his intangible opponent.
"How was that?" he mewed breathlessly, his eyes bright.
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Post by Cloud of Diamonds on Apr 25, 2010 9:16:58 GMT -5
Swallowpelt couldn't hide it; she was impressed. Her jaw actually dropped slightly and hung there for a moment before she remembered to close it. "Good. You obviously have reliable instincts. Planning is good; but always remember what's most likely to happen, and leave yourself room in case you make a mistake, because in battle, anything could happen: unusual terrain, a wounded warrior who you land on, another warrior coming past - I don't mean to dump it on you, you've been coming along well. Just remember you've got a ways to go."
A positively cheerful speech, for her. Yet again she felt a tiny pang of guilt. Did she really have a right to be so hard on him? Duh, of course she did. Warriors didn't become warriors being coddled like kittypets. And life was hard; why shouldn't she be? Being all sweet and kindly like some nutty elder would only make the shock of what life was like harder for the little tom. Yet...still, it was hard to make him so unhappy. So...like her. And she didn't much like herself.
But she couldn't change. It was just too hard. She couldn't fly, like her son.
All she could do was go along as best she could.
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Post by swift on Apr 27, 2010 17:02:55 GMT -5
Tigerpaw panted, his chest burning. Maybe he shouldn’t have overdone the spinning so much. He felt foolish, replaying the past few seconds in his head. Leaping so high, twirling in the air like a ballerina—ridiculous.
”Good, you obviously have reliable instincts.”
His eyes widened. What? Was his mentor actually praising him? The rest was lost to him as his cheeks began to color. His face glowed pink, a side-effect of the exercise and a little embarrassment. He shuffled awkwardly on his paws and lifted his face to sneak a glance at Swallowpelt’s face to see if she really meant what she was saying before averting his gaze again.
”I don’t mean to dump it on you, you’ve been coming along well. Just remember you’ve got a ways to go.”
A way’s to go, huh? He shivered with excitement, refusing to let the hint of warning pull down her first compliments of his progress. He tried to imagine himself in a year later, big and strong, fighting valiant in the thick of battle, emerging torn and bloody but victorious. How the ladies would swoon over him. His eyes shined with the prospect. And a pretty little grey she-cat in particular, with glittering emerald eyes.
"Teach me," he meowed, fixing his eyes on Swallowpelt. "Please, teach me more."
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Post by Cloud of Diamonds on Apr 29, 2010 21:25:42 GMT -5
OOC: I find it so ironic that there are only three she-cat apprentices in Pine. And he likes Swallowpelt's daughter. If she ever finds out...xD
"Uh. Okay." She was honestly well and truly shocked. Any normal apprentice would've probably been put down by her speech. Obviously, he hadn't. The gray warrior felt confused and even slightly defiant. Why was he so happy, so eager? It was strange. Oh well. Time to be getting on with it.
"First show me how you would do that move except that during it you had been disturbed by something. Show me your improvisation skills. Because I'll tell you something; it's always important to learn moves and techniques, but in battle, half of it is pure instinct because it's so confusing. And we need to train your instincts. They're essentially okay, but they don't cover everything, so after you show me that improvised move, I'll take you through a series of possible scenarios. They're immensely complex, however; I don't expect you to grasp all of them first go, it would be practically impossible."
Funnily enough, she almost yawned at her own speech. It had been so boring learning technique when she was an apprentice; she just liked cutting to the action with pinning and slashing. But she knew it was important to learn them, because without them you would only be a recipe battler - in short, one who only knew how to do things one way specifically. And recipe battlers quickly got beat by the more creative ones; it had happened to her enough times in training. Even brute strength was no match for properly used technique.
But he'd probably take four moons to learn it, like she did.
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Post by swift on Apr 30, 2010 16:32:30 GMT -5
As if he was distracted? He tried to make sense of the phrase, but to no avail. What was he supposed to do? Pretend that he had just been punched in the gut by some random passerby? Slipped on some grass, maybe? He narrowed his eyes. He had to admit that he was irked by Swallowpelt’s lack of—of everything. Detail. Elaboration—the specifics of what she wanted him to do. Structure. Guidelines—what should he not do?
The questions jumbled about and built up in his head; but as a matter of fact, he got when, which was right now, where, which was right here, and why, because he needed to practice and improve, but what about how? Or even what? Was his mentor, the very one he had been so proud to be a student of, actually too sloppy a cat to have the ability to teach?
Nevertheless, he decided to humor her. She had just been relieved of her maternity leave, and instead of repairing to the warriors’ den as most queens would, she had stayed behind, and even offered to pass on her skills to him. In the first place, it was she who had approached him for this session. He should be feeling grateful that he hadn’t gotten stuck with a newly made warrior who didn’t know slack.
“Okay,” he mewed, feeling a bit edgy. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach. “Uh… I’m going to start now.”
He inched towards the end of the clearing, where the grass stopped and the wide expanse of woodland began. Then he took a deep, really long breath of fresh air. Probably the last he’d have in a while. The most comforting thought of all of this nonsense was that if he failed, the worst that could happen was utter humiliation and a broken leg… or two.
Pushing these thoughts to the back of his mind, Tigerpaw braced himself. He coiled the muscles in his shoulders tight and planted his feet firmly into the ground. Then he swayed to his right towards the ground with a gasp, as if someone had just barreled into his side, and managed to recover just before he fell onto the limp grass. He shut his eyes as he did this, all the better to visualize the battle scene. High-pitched screams of terror, flashes of blood-streaked claws, cats rendered unrecognizable by horrendous gashes and opening wounds—their ears sliced to ribbons and the flesh hanging off their faces…
No, no, no. Tigerpaw shook his head furiously. This wasn’t battle, not war. It was massacre. He grimaced. And he wanted no part in it. He blocked out the terrible images and focused on the victory celebration instead, all smiles and laughter--all happiness. Shouts, no longer of pain, but of joy as mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, and lovers found each other in the throng and celebrated their survival. And along with these warm thoughts surfaced an image: the small, heart-shaped face of a cat with soft-looking grey fur and dazzling green eyes, her mouth quirked in a tight smile.
Taking encouragement from the memory, he gathered up all the strength he could muster and leaped. Not into the air as last time, but forward in a single, powerful bound. His muscles instantly relaxed and then tensed as he hit the ground a few tail-lengths closer to her and brought his paw down in a swiping motion. It stopped right before his claws extended and then dropped to his side.
“Did I do it right?” he asked, his eyes uncertain.
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We have a cbox again and we're opening the place up as a closed, members only rp