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

[accepted]

[Sorry Effie, here comes someone to ruin your private practice time. Seeing as Brave Vesperia has its meetings in the barracks on occasion, Caius shows up with a few posters in his hand to hang up. The battle dome already has a poster outside, and it makes sense to advertise the guild where it actually meets now and then, so here he is.

He doesn't pay much attention to Effie at first, but when she starts poking at a practice dummy with one of the swords he can't help but watch. No one could possibly learn anything from doing that, surely...]

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."

[onlyeffie]

[She is red to the cheekbones that someone would even SEE her like this. But Effie takes a deep breath and a more-vicious-than-usual swipe at the dummy, which sort of...falls over.

Success.]

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.

[accepted]

[Uh, well. That was certainly something. That last swing was a lot better than the feeble poking he saw before, but still. He raises a hand and waves to see if he can catch her attention before speaking up.]

Hey, you're not going to do much like that! Attack it again like you did just now but put all of your strength and weight into it.

[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!"

[onlyeffie]

[Are you saying she's fat?

Effie glares at him, hating taking any kind of advice on this. She'd had to swallow ENOUGH of her pride without it getting turned into some kind of spectator sport.

With a mighty thwack she swung at another dummy. It rocked, but didn't fall.]

Thank you for your advice.

{She sounds not at all grateful, sadly.]

[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."

[accepted]

[Yes.

-He blinks at her response before glaring back.]

I'm only trying to help. I thought you were trying to knock them over.

[And not make them rock back and forth. Or tickle them with a strike like that, but maybe tickling the dummy would have better success in making it fall over than another of Effie's swings.]

[ruthlessismore]

Why would I want to knock them over? Then I'd just have to pick them all up again.

[She kicks at the fallen one. Maybe she won't even clean up afterward. This place is so filthy anyway.]

[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.

[accepted]

Yeah, but that's how you practice here. It's not like the dome you know, you have to set them back up once you deal with them.

[But if she's not trying to knock them over then what is that swing she's using.]

I can show you how it's done if you want.

[onlyeffie]

It's REALLY not that important. [it is so important. she sounds so offhanded about it, but it is so, so important.]

I'm just killing time. This place is SO boring.

[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.

[accepted]

[What.]

If it's not important and you think it's boring then why are you here?

[Seriously. There must be something else she could be doing if she's just here to waste time.]

[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.

[onlyeffie]

[Oh, THIS is a favorite topic of hers! And an OPENING! Splendid!]

The Malnosso. You see, I've heard that sometimes they mistakenly send otherwise-qualified people into battle....

[accepted]

Yeah, they do. It's not a mistake though, they always end up sending people who can't fight off on drafts.

[From the number of people he's protected and been told to protect in the past he knows this all too well.]

So wait, you're here because you want to learn how to fight in case you get drafted. Is that it? [... That's pretty important.]

[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 shakes a dismissive hand at him before wiping some sweat off her forehead.

Ugh. Sweat. Cinna would just DIE.]

No, nononono -- I'm not WORRIED about that! I think it highly unlikely that I would be drafted. They value my other skills too much for that. This is just to familiarize myself. That's all.