Fifth Dispatch. Practice Makes Perfect, And Perfect is Me. Action.

[trinkett]

[It's a hot afternoon, and Effie Trinket has sneaked into the Barracks -- first checking to make sure no one else is in there.

No one is.

It's far too hot and dusty and anyone in her right mind would choose the techy comforts of the Battle Dome over this place.

This is a good thing. Effie doesn't WANT to meet anyone today. For one thing, she feels very awkwardly dressed: running shorts and a bright yellow T-shirt (yellow is a Power Color); white athletic socks with that 1970s-era striping at the top; sneakers. No heels, no shoulder pads, no wig, no makeup.

She is here -- VERY GRUDGINGLY, MIND -- to train for warfare. Her last announcement to the village brought on plenty of warnings, and even a subtle death threat or two, and at least a few people giving well-meaning advice. She can hardly believe any of the doubters who'd said the Malnosso would sacrifice her in a battle, but better safe than sorry. One never knows when the higher-ups might make a clerical error or shifting error and accidentally send a valued subject into dire straits.

The second reason she doesn't particularly want to meet anyone is because she knows none of the Luceti peons like her very much. That's fine with Effie. Eventually the Malnosso will take her into the inner workings of the organization and place her right where she belongs. Until then? Well. She can and has been staying indoors a great deal, being a bored journal stalker.

Unfortunately, this lonesome round in the Barracks confirms that Ms. Trinket is not cut out for warfare at all. It turns into hesitant prods at practice dummies with wooden swords, a lot of staring out the windows, and a frustrating turn at a punching bag.

Fighting is horrible and she's horrible at it and consequently is in a horrible mood.]

Comments

action.

[greenjacketed]

Richard Sharpe did not often seek out the shore. But today, he was looking for David Long -- for Sharpe was awful interested in continuing his suit for the sailor's sister, and he thought he might find the man out by that navy ship. But first he had to travel through the barracks. And travelling through the barracks brought him past some sad-looking blonde thing attempting to...what? Give a dummy a splinter? The Major laughed -- a large guffawing sound, hardly pleasant -- and realized all too late that he was laughing at a housemate.

Christ. He held his posture a little straighter as he tried to stride past Effie, heading for the transporter. But after a few feet he turns on a heel, and: "Lunge like you want to go through the bloody thing, Miss Trinket. Or all you'll accomplish is is givin' the bastard a scratch."

action.

[onlyeffie]

Of all the people who could've walked in on this, and it had to be him.

"I was testing the distance. Of the sword."

Because sword fighters do that.

action.

[greenjacketed]

Bloody discombobulating -- seeing her without her...uniform. Her whatever-it-was she made certain she wore.

"There's the sword and there's your arm. You can see the distance already."

action.

[onlyeffie]

She had none of her usual protections against the strange people here. No wig. No Ultraviolent Violet shoulder-padded restructured trench from Oscilla. No kickass pumps.

"One has to make sure in situations of the sword that the distance can be reached by the...sword-thruster."

There. Let him find fault with THAT.

[greenjacketed]

He dropped his palm against his own sword's pommel; he knew its yard of steel like he knew his own stride. Long and lethal, if unrefined. The 1799 had always been a cheap pattern, when it came to blades. But this one had been carefully reworked and practically bespoke -- tailored for him, in his convalescence, by one Patrick Harper. A replacement for when his first sword had shattered under Leroux's Klingenthal. Oh, how Sharpe had lusted after that sword much as he'd lusted after Leroux's sister. Oh, but he hadn't known whose sister she was -- or anything else about her, for that matter. Only that she was beautiful and dangerous and he wanted her.

Effie, on the other hand, did not look dangerous. Beautiful? Yes -- but in a frank and honest way, today, that he could not marry to the painted harridan he'd come to know and learned to loathe. Her rouge and her shoes were more dangerous than this. They were weapons he couldn't understand. But swords? Sharpe knew swords.

"The length of your arm never changes. The length of a sword? Well, Miss Trinket, you can see it well enough for yourself. Do the bloody math in your head before your enemy does it for you. You don't get practice swings in real battle, so I don't see why you should get'em here."

Here was the drill sergeant. The teacher. The man who brought green troops to readiness. He was not a kind or easygoing when he spoke like this, but he had a strange patience about him -- as if he took pride in what he could impart. No matter how uneasy she made him.

[onlyeffie]

Effie certainly didn't FEEL beautiful. Just doubly vulnerable, standing here in "workout clothes" with a wooden sword while an obviously lethal man in ordinary getup stood only yards away. Giving her advice.

"Because this is a PRACTICE DUMMY," was clearly the best way to reply, in the most superior tone possible. "He's not going to fight back!"

[greenjacketed]

"So practice as if your cursed life depended on it, ma'am. Because some day, it might."

It was for this very same reason, he suspected, that the British army practiced shooting with live ammunition; no bloody wonder they outshot the French in nearly every battle.

[ruthlessismore]

"STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO."

She hated his barking tone and his smelly green jacket and his stupid eagle. So. Damn. Much.

Effie whirled her sword-stick at the closest dummy and missed. She righted herself and whirled again, smacking it in the hip. It teetered.

"My LIFE is PERFECTLY -- " she grunted and landed another unimpressive blow against the strawman's shoulder -- "ASSUREDLY SAFE."

[greenjacketed]

...Sharpe flinched. Not because he couldn't take an old fashioned yelling -- one got quite used to that, after all, in the army. But he'd rather comfortably slipped into his old sergeant's boots and -- quite frankly -- he never would have expected a subordinate soldier to shout at him. Not if they cared for their ribs and their life. But then again, Effie was no soldier. No Chosen Man. No volunteer. Just, he suspected, a small creature backed into a corner. Well...he'd been one of those, once, too. And even a creature in a corner could turn the tide of a fight, when all that anger was harnessed. It was why -- ultimately -- he welcomed her reaction.

"Better," he delivered his verdict in a gruff tone. Certainly, her attacks would do little against a trained swordsman...but they showed more promise than those feeble first jabs. "Keep in mind your sword's edge. I know that piece of junk is some poor tree's limb but...a real one'll have a point. And it'll be good for slicing or it'll be good for stabbing. Be lucky and it might be good for both. Do it again," he ordered in the kind of voice that brooked no protest, though Effie was welcome to protest all the same, "but slice instead of smack. Think of it...think of like when you're cuttin' vegetables for dinner. You don't bloody well just chop down, eh?"

He made a slicing motion with the hand that wasn't still resting on his sword's hilt.

[onlyeffie]

"YOU'RE a vegetable."

It was the most absurd insult ever, but Effie was pissed that he was still even bothering.

She tried to slice. Broad pieces of wood don't really do that, so she succeeded in skittering the flat edge in a two-handed swipe across the strawman's belly. Several dry stalks bled to the floor.

She flushed that he should be here watching. Maybe it was time to move on to the punching bag.

[greenjacketed]

"I am, am I?" He recalled their fickle name-calling in the garden. Scarecrows and whatnot. He was starting to wonder whether such a descent into simple, hurled insults was a tell of hers. Perhaps it revealed a chink in her armour -- such as it was.

"In that case--" Sharpe relinquished the hold on his hilt and held his arms up. Open. "Give us a chop, then?"

What harm could she do to him? None, he suspected, that he didn't invite on a daily basis back in the army. Certainly not with a wooden sword. It would be no worse than the birch switch back at the foundling home, that was certain. And it would do to show her that a moving -- living -- target would not sit so compliantly and wait for the blows to fall.

[onlyeffie]

He wasn't the only one who remembered that gardening dispute. "Stupid bean." That was the barest warning Effie gave before descending on him with what for HER -- a slim woman without a whole lot to write home about in the muscle department -- was a strong blow. She was trying to aim for mid-trunk. It would be too mean to aim for his face, really. "Not in the face" was a rule that Effie sort of accepted as what was fair in love and war.

[greenjacketed]

Sharpe did not evade. He did not dodge. Rather, he stepped into her attack -- turning only slightly so that his left side and arm were relegated to soaking as much of the blow as possible. And although it hurt -- he could feel the shudder and thud right down to his bone; the sudden sting of impact; the searing vibration of every nerve -- it wasn't enough to make him stumble. He suffered the pain with a slight grunt and bare wince.

More importantly, he brought himself beyond her sword's length and as the wood bounced against his left, he lifted his right arm. The edge of a flat palm reached out and touched her shoulder -- right were it joined her neck. A touch -- just a touch. But it made his point.

"It ain't only your own reach you must worry about, Miss Trinket," he said through grit teeth.

[onlyeffie]

She winced away from him and his frightening reminder that she was as good as dead if she were ever sent to battle.

It had been almost as troubling as Zevran, that thought. As good as dead if they mistakenly

Instead of answering, she tried to drive the pointy part of her wooden stick into his belly. Surprise attack. Effie the rifleman slayer.

/keywords

[greenjacketed]

And now Richard Sharpe was a hypocrite. For he'd told her to treat practice as the real thing while clearly not doing her the kind favour in return of treating her as a genuine threat. Here he was, deep in someone else's defenses, and he hadn't bothered to parry his way out or even shove her away. For all intents and purposes of the demonstration, she had been 'killed' -- a threat dispatched.

So the last blow caught him by surprise -- it jammed into his gut and, although he didn't fall, he did at least double over. Winded. One arm clutched his belly and he growled some very blue words, ending with: "Buggeritchristyousackofsh--" She's a woman, Sharpe. He huffed a wordless finale and stood up straight once again.

Although he wasn't smiling, he was at least vaguely impressed. He never looked down on a person for fighting dirty; most days, it was the only way you could reliably get ahead.

XD

[onlyeffie]

"Sack of WHAT, dear Richard?" she fairly crowed, certain that she'd just slain the dragon.

A very gloaty look crossed her features and she reached out to bop him on the head with the flat of her blade. The greatest indignity, probably.

[greenjacketed]

Like Hell she would. Though winded, he wasn't lost to the situation. And as the blade raised, so too did his hand. He caught the wood in his palm and tightened his grip -- risking splinters as he tried to wrench the thing away from her. The action itself was hardly gentle.

"Shite, Miss Trinket. A goddamned preened and painted sack of shite. Shite in a silk stocking."

But she wasn't painted. Not right now. And so the insult rang false as the sounds of laboured breathing still lingered.

[onlyeffie]

"So I guess I'll be alright."

She had to let go of the sword. She certainly did not want splinters in her fine, soft hands.

"If there's any accidents."

She'd always had herself to rely on for her entire life. The drafts didn't have to be any different in the event that the Malnosso DID suffer an oversight.

[greenjacketed]

"...Accidents like wha'?"

[inyourfavor]

"If I get sent. If they make a mistake."

They couldn't possibly. They'd chosen her because she WAS such an asset, assuredly. Placed her here.

[greenjacketed]

"Conscription's no accident. Only a bloody insult."

Idly, he spun the wooden sword -- marvelling at how light it felt. How different it was from leather and steel.

[onlyeffie]

An insult. She thought about that for a moment. Had the Malnosso directly tried to insult her? She'd only ever been helpful to them...

[greenjacketed]

"...Anyway, if you're so damned eager not end up someone's accident--" Huff. "You should get yerself a real blade."

Sharpe tossed aside the wooden sword; clearly it had been found wanting. Instead, he at along last dragged the heavy cavalry sabre from its scabbard's throat. The scrape of steel was harsh and unmistakeable. So, too, was his intention. He did not brandish the weapon, but allowed its point to fall against the floor. The sword itself was terribly plain, and it showed its scars from where Harper had reshaped the guard himself. Its original guard had been made for a man who would wear the sword while in saddle -- but it had been doomed to stick an infantryman in the ribs if he wore it while walking. So the sword was repurposed, and here it stood -- its back-blade ground down to a wicked edge that mirrored the front. It wasn't the point the sword was meant to have, but it was the point that Sharpe lied: a blade with two edges and a point that was symmetrical. The better to drive home and slice up and out of a Frechman's belly.

"If you're lookin' to learn anything, you ought to learn with the real thing. Not some child's toy."

[onlyeffie]

"Why are you doing this?"

[greenjacketed]

"...Death penalties cause problems."

Katniss had been unable to sing; while that had been tragic, it held no candle to the mischief Sokka's penalty had caused. Sharpe barely understood it, but he could at long last gleam that it had been something lost in death that had turned the lad into such an utter bastard. The hows and whys were unimportant. All he needed to know was that dying had been at the root of the problem, and that he did not want to invite more of those problems down on his household. His mismatched unit. He didn't dare think of the word family.

"And I don't care much for problems under m--our roof."