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

[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."

[onlyeffie]

Which was why, she suspected, he didn't care for her. Like the rest of Luceti, Richard Sharpe saw her as a colossal problem.

Well, wouldn't they just feel terrible when the Malnosso finally exalted her and she had all the friends and influence in the world? Maybe then she would remember Major Richard Sharpe. Possibly.

She reached for his sword.

"So this will prevent me dying, then?"

Clearly she didn't believe it.

[greenjacketed]

"Not this one," he chuckled coolly but leaned the hilt into her palm all the same. "Damned big for a lass like you, I'd say."

Hell, it was almost too big for Sharpe. The scabbard slings had been shortened so the guard's handle sat at the bottom of his left rib-cage, rather than at his waist. Sharpe remembered the first day he'd held the sword -- still healing near Salamanca -- and he'd barely been able to lift it, he was still so weak from his wounds.

He stepped back, happily giving her a wide berth so that give the blade a try. It was poorly balanced to begin with -- no luxury steel to be seen. But it had been made with devotion and friendship and maybe just a little Celtic magic. And in homage to the perfectionist in Harper, Sharpe kept the top seven inches razor sharp. It was a butcher's sword and it was clumsy, but it had never failed him.

[onlyeffie]

She tried to lift it with one hand. Nope. Two hands on the hilt earned her the satisfaction of seeing the tip rise off the floor with some trouble.

Effie would have to reach further down to get the leverage necessary to actually lift the sword to a useful stabby slashy height.

She grabbed hold of the nearest bit of blade, to lift, and dropped the whole thing unceremoniously in the sawdust.


"OH!"

[greenjacketed]

Although he sorely wanted to, Sharpe didn't laugh.

"You'd be better served by a light sabre, if it's truly a sword you're after--" Because now he didn't half wonder if the woman might be served by some better fail-safe, if all she wanted to do was not die.

[onlyeffie]

"I'm better at the swinging bag."

A thin red line welled up on her palm; alarmed, she shoved her hand into her pocket.

"The wooden sword was just here. Hanging on the wall." There were spears, too, but Effie had found them too big and clumsy. The things that looked like axes she hadn't even wanted to look at.

[greenjacketed]

...Sharpe wasn't even certain what the swinging bag was. But he didn't want to admit so, not when he'd set himself up as a kind of expert in the field. Instead, he asked: "Can you aim?"

And he stooped to retrieve his sword, pretending as though he didn't see the way she hid her hand.

[onlyeffie]

Could she aim? Effie had never tried.

"Everyone can aim!" she retorted as she backed away toward the punching bag hanging in the corner. She'd show Richard Sharpe what she was capable of.

"You just point."

[greenjacketed]

A slight scoffing sound -- though, if he was truly honest, Dan Hagman had muttered something similar. Once, when pressed about his unnatural accuracy with a rifle: it's just a matter of pointing and shooting, sir. The men had laughed. Sharpe had laughed, too.

"With a gun, Miss Trinket. Can you aim a gun?" But his tone dropped, because now he was curiously watching what on Earth it was she was doing.

[ruthlessismore]

"Guns are so vulgar."

She began to slap the bag. SLAP it. Like a naughty schoolboy.

The bag swung away a little bit; then it swung back and she ducked out of the way and slapped it some more.

[greenjacketed]

Well, Christ. Now he couldn't help but laugh -- loud and deep and from the belly, which still stung from her sucker hit with the wooden stick. He winced and laid an arm across his stomach.

"A bullet is damned tidy when compared to a sword. Or, I should add, yer fists."

Because a man who'd been pulverized to death? Aye, that looked mighty vulgar.

[onlyeffie]

She wasn't even USING her fists. She'd learned with Clint -- that hurt. Her knuckles hadn't been the same for days.

"I don't have a gun."

That was true; there were no guns or ammunition in the Barracks. Effie licked her palm and scrubbed it on her shorts. A coppery flavor spread over her tongue. She stopped the bag's gentle swinging and leaned against it, choosing to regard Sharpe with cool blue eyes.

"Besides. It's snack time."

Anything to get blood flavor out of one's mouth. Ugh.

[greenjacketed]

It's entirely possible that this man -- who'd once squirmed his way through a Danish chimney and another time tracked naked through a sewer in Coimbra -- actually pulled a face when he watched Effie lick the blood off her hand. He swore softly under his breath, then wondered whether he hadn't developed a sensibility or two since arriving in this town.

"You get nabbed by one of their bloody lists, Miss Trinket? And I'll make certain you've a pistol and ample cartridge." Anything, really, to keep her alive -- but he'd hand a precious firearm over no sooner than a draft itself. He cared for those guns; perhaps more than he cared for her.

[inyourfavor]

"What's a cartridge?" That sounded interesting, actually. USEFUL maybe. She found her duffle bag in the corner and unzipped it.

[greenjacketed]

"Ammunition."

Conveniently enough, his black cross-belt held his cartridge pouch. With his sword sheathed, he could reach one arm behind his back and deftly select a round from the leather-bound box. What he'd called a cartridge looked more like a fat cigarette with a slight bulge at one end. Sharpe wasted no time in biting off the bulge and spitting a dark round hunk of metal onto his palm. The rest of the cartridge held fine powder which he also poured onto his hand in an unceremonious heap around the bullet. Although he kept his distance, he tilted his hand to show the vital parts.

Personally, he preferred to load ball and patch -- but one never failed to have cartridges handy just in case speed was required.

[inyourfavor]

Effie looked. Oh. That was a cartridge. It didn't look useful at all. It looked messy. She would have to wear gloves on any draft she was accidentally sent on. If it happened. Heavy, thick, protective gloves.

She grabbed a clean silk scarf from her duffle and wound it around her palm.

"You must always have a horrid aftertaste in your mouth."

[greenjacketed]

"...You get used to it." And you get thirsty. Even now, once the powder was brushed from his hands and the ball pocketed for a later rewrapping, he dragged his canteen from his hip. He drank deep. "There's fancy guns what just have the bullets. Easier to load; I've seen'em. Modern things. But it ain't easy to get their ammunition -- the Malnosso ain't keen on handing it out."

Sharpe's way? Ah, well. He could make his own with a little help from the smithy. He sometimes wondered if he wasn't the best stocked gunner in the whole village on account of his backwards ways.

[inyourfavor]

"Katniss uses a bow and arrows."

Might as well keep this unfortunate conversation going. That, at least, was one of her talents.

Effie lifted a locked metal box from her duffle.

[greenjacketed]

"And to great effect. Better'n I ever could. But bows and arrows don't maintain accuracy at a distance the way a rifle can."

Granted, he knew nothing of grand fancy modern bows versus his old Baker. "An' the wounds are different. An arrow to the gut is a blessing compared to a musket ball." It was a difference between slicing and blunt force trauma.

"Of course, arrows are damned near silent. That's a boon."

[inyourfavor]

If life in the Capitol had granted her anything, it was stoicism in the face of horrible wound descriptions.

"Swords are silent, too."

She lifted a chain from around her neck; on the end was a small key. Effie unlocked the box and brought out an array of labeled and wrapped food. Granola bars represented the bulk of it, but there were also small metal cannisters of dried fruit and nuts and other snacky things.

"But I don't think I like them much."

[greenjacketed]

Having had a ball in the gut before, he could not stay so stoic -- and a familiar itch in his abdomen drove him to change the subject: "You lock up your food? Clever."

After all, he suspected she was still spooked by certain threats. So he decided not to tell her about what a lockpick could do that lunch pail.

[inyourfavor]

She hadn't eaten fresh food in a while. Not since their garden conversation over The Lieutenant's Handmaiden's Hunger. No -- everything had to be either from a metal can or locked under key or wrapped in such a way that tampering would be impossible. Safety Seal had become Effie's middle name.

She took out a clear pink-tinted plastic bottle filled with water.

"They won't get me THAT way," she assured him with a certain grim confidence. Maybe this was training for Panemanian politics. Helpful.

"When the Malnosso take me on, I'll make sure certain people pay."