Round Stone Crest I'm finished running

ooc: 8/14/2015, early afternoon, sunny. For @Gent. If anything here is off let me know so I can fix it. :D

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Calanthe was beyond impatient - it was well beyond time to get off her rump and do something. It had been two weeks since she had joined the Round Stone Crest pack, and she wasn't nearly so skinny or frail as she had been on arriving. She was strong enough that exploring her new territory no longer make her legs ache or her stomach feel cold and hollow. She was recovered enough that her nightmares were not quite the nightly occurrences they had been, and even though they were still frequent, they didn't keep her afraid and wide awake for hours on end anymore.

She needed to start paying back the massive debt she owed to these wolves. She couldn't do that if she was forever waiting around for her fur to completely grow back in, or for her sides to fill out as much as everyone else's sides were. That was going to take too long, and the longer she waited, the lazier she would get even despite the constant wandering she did through Stonewatch Timbers. She'd already been told she would eventually need to undergo some defensive training - it was a routine, it seemed, for members of this pack, and one she didn't object to at all.

She stopped pacing, standing near the edge of the little clearing she had come across. It looked big enough for whatever the training might be - certainly large enough to facilitate a pair of wolves scuffling, if that's what would happen. The ground looked to be relatively level, too, which hopefully meant nobody would be spraining or - luck forbid - breaking anything. She should probably see if Gent was nearby and give him a call...

She hesitated for a moment, then raised her head and let out a long call; this one was not distressed or grieving or confused as it had been when she had called for her family. This one was simply tentative, seeking the king's attention in the hopes that the attention could - and would - be spared for her, though perhaps some sadness lingered in her tone for the ones who should have been around to train her.

(This post was last modified: Sep 01, 2015, 01:05 PM by Calanthe.)

Now that their numbers and activity were increasing, Gent was growing accustomed to hearing song swim through the mountaintop trees. The sheer instance of notes piecing the air no longer alarmed him, though he would forever stiffen just slightly in apprehension of the worst, as it was simply his nature to always be prepared. Thus when his ears first registered the summons, his muscles braced, but swiftly this tension was released as his mind deciphered the benign nature of the call.

Departing from his current task of strengthening scent markers throughout the territory, Gent hauled his massive self back up the mountainside a few scales to meet with their newest entrant. Upon seeing her, the king thought that she very much looked like an entirely different wolf from when he'd first found her. She was filling in at a healthy pace, and would be ready to start contributing. Though, to be safe, the monarch had wanted to ask her to undergo any tasks just yet. It would only be bad for them all if she was pushed too far too soon and her recovery was lengthened thanks to it.

"Yes?" he sounded as his paws ate up the last few yards between them.

There is a family of deer nearby. Hunt Opportunity

Calanthe tried not to work herself up into nervousness as she waited for the King to appear, but she would be a liar if she tried to tell herself she wasn't just a tiny bit worried that he might be annoyed with the summons. Gent was an alpha, after all, and Calanthe was the no-rank newcomer to the pack he ruled alongside Minka. What business did she have calling him unless it was an emergency of some fashion or another?

Well... it was important business even still. Maybe not an emergency, certainly nothing as important as, say, locating a lone wolf near their borders or discovering one of the pups had gone missing - but still important! Surely he wouldn't be irritated about hearing that she wanted to start being useful to her packmates!

Her ears pricked for a moment as Gent approached, and she dipped her head and lowered her gaze and tail in respectful submission as she said, "I wanted to ask you about..." The words failed her for an instant - Subordinates don't ask anything of their King! her mind shrieked at her. One ear flicked infinitesimally as she shouldered past the thought. "About possibly receiving some sort of training, so that I can start contributing to the pack." She shrugged her shoulders a bit and added, "I feel strong enough to start pitching in around here, but I haven't had any training - I hadn't even started training yet in my old pack. I know I need to learn how to defend myself before anything, and I think I'm ready to get that part out of the way."

The king patiently awaited her words to complete themselves, noticing her nervousness but not entirely sure why it was present at all. He couldn't know of her previous pack's unwritten laws, nor her expectations of him to hold the etiquette true. He could only listen, and smile as the proposition impressed him as to just how in sync with the pack's needs she was proving to be.

"Excellent," he remarked. Her lack of experience guaranteed that this would not be a one time venture, but the patriarch did not mind spending the necessary time with her when it was such a clear benefit to the pack.

"I take it you are prepared to have your first lesson now?" he inquired, completely content himself to engage in a session here and now. " I was going to allow you more time to recover, honestly, but I'm glad that you've taken this initiative. Just remember, if you push yourself too hard you won't be helping anyone. I need you to communicate with me and tell me when you've had enough, alright?"

He hadn't the time yet to learn her personality, and therefor Gent didn't know if this was a woman who pushed her limits and didn't know when to leave well enough alone or not. Until she proved to be skilled at proper moderation, he would have to closely monitor her condition himself. Still, if she claimed to be ready, he would be glad to get in as much sparring time as possible.

The great King didn't seem at all put off by her request, which helped put Calanthe at least a little bit more to ease. He even seemed rather pleased with her request, which was a very far cry from the reaction she had been expecting - her memories of the King of Spirit's Gambol had given her some incredibly frightening ideas about what made a king and how one should be expected to behave. Gent was so far turning out to be very, very different in some regards.

The pale yellow woman's ears flicked again at the mention that they could, if she wanted to, start her first training session right this very moment - and that Gent seemed more than content to carry out that training, rather than pass her along to one of her pack mates, as had been the norm in Spirit's Gambol. She wasn't sure whether to feel honored by the chance to train with her King... or mortally terrified at the prospect of training with such a very large, powerful beast of a wolf for a mentor. It was probably a solid mix of both, since she was fairly convinced that Gent was going to end up squishing her without actually meaning to.

"I'm ready to start today." She couldn't back down now. She had already taken up Gent's time by calling him here; being a coward about it now that it was staring her in the face would be an even graver insult than cutting into the King's time and duties! Even if he was bigger than her... and faster... and stronger... and far more skilled all around... She resisted the urge to give herself a good shake. Scaring herself silly right before they started was not going to help her keep from being accidentally mauled.

She nodded in agreement at Gent's request that she not push her limits. "I won't push myself too hard, sir." She didn't exactly know what those limits were, yet, but she also understood well enough that injuring herself would make her a weak link rather than a steadily more useful member of the pack. With pups to look after, they didn't need any weak links. And Calanthe was not keen on getting hurt... more than she was probably about to, anyway. Hopefully Gent would at least attempt to keep her in one piece...

(This post was last modified: Aug 24, 2015, 09:58 AM by Calanthe.)

She still hadn't shaken her insecure demeanor, and it was certainly something different for Gent to have to deal with. He felt certain that she should be growing more comfortable here by now, though the king was unable to acknowledge that his expectations were far too high. While he had valued her story, he could not fully comprehend much less empathize with the toll it had taken on the girl. As it was, he hoped that this lesson would give them both a bit to be surprised about, and Calanthe something to be confident in.

He did not vocally respond, instead opting to nod once before his body shifted, settling into a battle ready posture. His memories turned toward the session he'd had with Raela, how his tactics had caught her off guard and confused her. Only proving to the king that it had been for the best. He was not raising up an army, not at this point; he merely wanted them to be able to defend themselves, and the enemies to be feared would not give them warning much less opportunity to compose themselves and plan their movements.

And so, much like he had done with his best friend, the monarch launched himself forward with suddenness. Jaws spread, he reared up at the last moment to bring his forelimbs down upon her shoulders. There was no indication of what he expected from her, for it was only after he saw how she reacted that he would be able to correct the girl.

Gent deals 12 damage; Calanthe misses.
Calanthe's HP: 22
Gent's HP: 44

Calanthe tried to ready herself as Gent did, tried to get her feet set properly and center her weight evenly on all four of them. She didn't expect the giant to charge at her before she was ready for him, much less without giving her any instruction, any warning, any idea at all what she should be doing or what he was getting ready to do or that she perhaps should do something much more productive than freezing in abject terror as her relatively benevolent King suddenly came bearing down on her like a great black streak of death.

His weight came down on her shoulders like a boulder, crushing the pale woman to the ground and driving all the breath from her lungs so sharply that she squeaked. The impact left her stunned for a few seconds as the world spun around her for a moment; shadows flickered at the edges of her vision, and with the blood roaring in her ears as it was she briefly mistook the strangled noise she had let out on impact for the creaking of her bones under the man's weight.

Fortunately her recovery was... not as agonizingly slow as it could have been, anyway. When she could move again, her first act was to wrestle herself out from under the much larger wolf, which was no small task. She tried to box him the second she came free, but wasn't balanced enough for the move (to say nothing of the fact that Gent swept immediately out of the way.) The only thing that came of such an unsteady attack was that Calanthe's paws swept past Gent completely, sending her stumbling clumsily forward.

Gent hadn't been expecting much from the woman, if the honest truth was to be told. Not only was she still frail from her time alone, but her stature and demeanor spoke nothing of physical skill when it came to an arena, even if only for self defense. Indeed, he didn't know anything of what her time had been spent practicing and learning in her home and for all he knew she had never needed to so much as bare her fangs to another wolf before. Still, through all of the mounting evidence, he had expected some kind of resistance when bearing down upon her.

When his legs connected with her shoulders and the give of her body was immediate, he shifted his momentum the best he could to lessen the blow and not harm her with his forceful weight. Harming Calanthe in any capacity was the last thing he wanted to come from this scuffle, and it crossed his mind that perhaps she was not at all ready for such a lesson. Yet just as he might act upon this thought, life returned to her and she began to wriggle her way out of his hold. Surprised by this sudden gusto, the king's relaxed grasp was relatively easy to pull out of.

Part of him expected her to continue the backpedaling until she was far from his reach, but the rest of him was prepared for retaliation, and he was pleased to see that she would take the later option. Her strikes were unskilled and easily dodged by the leviathan, and she ended up only taking herself out. Still, at least she was trying, and that fact alone reaffirmed with Gent that even if she needed some work, it had been an excellent choice to take her in.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you that you would be dead by now, if that's what I wanted," he said, his voice solemn but not unkind. It was his perception that those who had not been raised to fight could only rightfully trigger the instincts needed and build their skillset by fully realizing just how vulnerable they truly were. It would be difficult to simulate a true life or death match for the girl, but they closer they could come to that mindset, the better.

"I don't want you to just fend me off, or to even pin me. I want you to make me sorry I ever fucked with you. I want you to try and kill me."

As he spoke, he began to sink down, rolling his shoulders and coiling his muscles as he prepared to strike again. This time, his attack was not silent. This time, his lips curled backward and a snarl clawed up his throat, tearing through the air as he threw himself forward. His intentions were the same, and he would not put his full weight into forcing her down, but he wanted her to think that he might. He wanted to get that adrenaline kicking full force.

At least Gent didn't take advantage of Calanthe's scramble to stay on her feet. She took the blessing while she could, turning herself to face the leviathan again and this time steadying herself with every intent to move the second he did. When he started speaking, his words were cutting, but fair. She nodded grimly; she didn't have any doubt in her mind that she would have been dead before she realized what was happening if this had been a serious fight. All the same, it was a blow to hear it verbalized, and it took her a moment to drag herself back together again. She took his advice in with a sharp nod; as feeble as she was in his shadow, acting like this was a real fight was the only way she could have any hope of coming out of this uninjured, let alone landing any hits of her own. When he lowered himself to attack again she mimicked his stance, sinking down and staring hard at the way he stood. She flinched again when he charged, but this time she didn't let herself freeze. She couldn't, not unless she wanted him to smear her across the clearing. Somehow she forced herself to the side in time to avoid Gent's attack entirely - though he was still such a massive projectile that she didn't realize she was out of the way until she landed neatly on her feet, her side facing Gent as he went harmlessly by. Oh. Oh! NOW! With a snarl of her own, Calanthe whipped around and charged at Gent, more prepared this time to actually do something. He was bigger than her by a fair bit, so instead of trying to barrel over the top of him, she intended to try to knock his feet out from under him.