milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

mai,
sergeant wells

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Mai is sitting out by the lake (on a rock, where she won't get grass stains on her robes). A pile of small, flat stones is sitting next to her. There's no telling where they came from since she certainly wouldn't have expended the effort to collect them.

Still, there are stones, and Mai is skipping them out across the lake with seeming carelessness. She's pretty good at it, it's rare for a stone to sink before it's skipped at least six times.

A careful observer might note that the stones are skipping across precisely the same spots on the surface of the lake. At least out to the third skip. Mai is suppressing her frustration with the small variance in the positioning of the fourth.

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Annie had to open up the bakery today, so Harry headed off to the Academy before daylight. He's spent most of the day teaching, or at least most of the day back home. Around here he never knows what time it's going to be.

Hnh. Morning. Well, that happens. Means it'll be a while before Bar's really going to be happy about selling him beer. Eh, he can wait; he's got a few things to practise out here anyway. The Slayers're starting to catch up in earnest in several areas of one-on-one combat, so he's got to keep ahead somehow.

At the sound of someone else coming outside, Mai's head turns. She recognizes Wells, but she affects nonchalance and turns away. There's a moment of stillness before she tugs down on her sleeves to ensure that they cover most of her arms before switching to her left hand for stone-tossing.

Mai has had plenty of practice looking relaxed and bored, but there are other senses, and she doesn't have much experience trying to fool them.

Peppermint's a good place to start. Just sayin'.

At any rate, Wells happens to glance over towards the lake and spot the girl; he raises a hand in greeting, but she looks a mite busy just at the moment. If she's at all like the Slayers who've worn her sort of attitude, she's likely to ball up further if he intrudes.

Well, there are other ways to find out about a person. The first is to set up camp somewhere in their field of vision- say, off to one side, where they're not looking at you directly but where they'll catch your motion more often than not and almost have to look- and fall to doing something you've been meaning to do for a while. Proper practise at knife-throwing, say, since it's a skill Wells's had a few lessons in but not much in the way of experience.

Another is to make sure that you're downwind of the other person, which is a thing most humans don't notice until it's pointed out to them.

Wind direction is pretty important for throwing knives over any serious distance, so Mai actually relaxes a bit when he takes the disadvantaged position.

She does glance over occassionally, trying to appear disinterested, to observe his technique.

It doesn't stop her from continuing tossing the ever-shrinking pile of stones, sometimes without looking.

He's throwing slowly, to start with. Or, rather, he's taking his sweet time in between throws. It's better to get the form right to start with and work on your speed later, he figures. There's always time to go faster, but you don't always get the chance to rub out your mistakes once you've made them part of your habit.

He's not bad. For a beginner.

He isn't bad, really. His approach isn't like the one she was taught using, but it's not bad if he doesn't have a teacher to put the pressure on him.

Mai's occassional subtle glances grow less and less occassional and subtle as time wears on. It's not long before she's looking his way more often than not, still tossing stones without looking.

The pile is shrinking and it's going to run out soon. She's going to need to find something to do when that happens.

Somewhere along the way Wells has to stop and eye the latest knife stuck int he target and mutter to himself. Consistency in aim is something he prides himself on with the pistol. Here... well, here it's a little difficult to achieve. He glances sidelong at the girl. "I'm doin' something wrong here, I can tell," he says. "You know your way around those rocks pretty well- d'you mind takin' a look and telling me where I've got to change to get things put in order?"

His timing is perfect: the question comes just as Mai discovers she's thrown her last stone. She frowns and stands up smoothly.

She's still wary, and still managing to look relaxed and uncaring. Mai looks Wells up and down silently, evaluating. Then she nods, "You're wrist is too loose. Need it for control, but you need to keep it stiff enough that you don't lose power from the throw."

There are men who would bristle at that, even though they'd asked for the advice in the first place. Harry Wells is not one of them. He glances at the somewhat-askew gashes in the target, grunts in acknowledgment, and pulls his practice knives free. "Right," he says, heading back to the throwing line. "Let's try it like this, then."

The first one is the usual case of over-compensation after being corrected for a poor technique, but he's much closer to right on the second one.

"Hmm." Mai hums flatly. "Let me see your blade." It's not really a request, but she also manages to convey that she doesn't care if he refuses.

It's an ordinary steel blade. Unless she has some kind of ability to transmute metals, or some form of instant weapon enchantment, there is quite literally nothing that she could do with the knife that would do him any lasting harm. Not that he's thinking this consciously, but it's what informs the upper parts of his mind, and it translates into handing the throwing knife over without the slightest hesitation.

He's apparently not afraid of an armed girl standing next to him. Interesting.

The blade is hefted curiously. She checks the balance and weight and then tosses the knife lazily toward the target to get a feel for it. She's not really sure she's happy with the weapon's design for throwing.

Well, she might muck up his clothes, and then Annie would yell at him to bloody well learn to mend his own damn clothing, she knows he's capable of using a needle... but that's it, really. It's not a spoon-to-the-head offence, so he's not worried about it.

"Wasn't my first choice for learning to throw," Wells admits, "but it was the best balance I could lay my hands on in Yorkshire. I'd have to get up to Scotland to find someone who made and sold proper throwing blades." He eyes the hit and adds, "Nice form anyway."

Mai's far too used to people dying when you cut them across a major artery.

The look she gives him is slightly contemptuous. If she'd made such a sloppy throw, no matter how accurate it was, her teacher would have smacked her. Probably more than once.

"You should get something custom-made." Cost and effort have never been a concern for Mai.

Eh, most people do. It's a common failing.

"Might do, at that," Wells says. "There's a smith with a forge here who seems t'know his shit well enough. I dunno if he does throwing knives, but if he doesn't I know someone else who does."

He's not about to criticise her for sloppy form when he knows damned well that his own is currently worse. Generally he prefers to have a leg to stand on for that sort of thing.

Admitting curiosity is really against her habits, but Mai does so anyway. "Why." It's not exactly phrased as a question, but she does want to know why he's even bothering with knives.

"Why I know someone else who does? I met him here, and he's a friend of mine by now," Wells says. "Why I'm doin' this at all? I teach hand-to-hand and small group tactics at a school for young women, back home. It seems the sort of thing they'll need to know, someday."

"Oh. Like the Academy then." Mai has less-than-fond memories of the Academy. And she has very little respect for the way girls were taught to fight; as if no one expected them to ever use what they learned.

"Maybe," says Wells. "This isn't the most academic sort of school, so to speak. Mostly it's for girls who're supposed to go on and kill monsters and the like. There's regular classes and such, of course, but that's more to make sure they know what they're gonna go up against in the field. Bit more like a military school than anything, only the girls're mostly meant to be independent operators, not soldiers."

"Hmm."

That's a rather noncomittal "hmm". Mai doesn't sound or look doubtful, but it doesn't change the fact that she is.

Wells' mouth twitches just a moment in a suppressed smile. "One of 'em broke one of my ribs a month or so back," he says. "Damned good footwork, that girl- but that's close-in work. I'd like to see 'em have some distance options that aren't the longbow and the crossbow. Hence the knives."

"Knives aren't a casual skill," Mai's lips twitch down just enough to be called a frown.

"Neither's the crossbow," Wells returns. "They'll be fighting for lives. Theirs and other people's. Football's a casual skill."

Well.

Sort of.

If you're, you know, somebody else.

"You don't," now there's definitely a sour expression on her face, "dabble with knives."

That sounded like it was aimed at him more than the girls. Huh. Interesting.

"Who said anything about dabbling?" is all he says in answer; it's a subject that's got to be near to her heart, or she wouldn't break form to be visibly emotional about it. And now he's curious.

Which is enough to snap her back to attention. She simply scowls and then wipes any expression from her face. Why did she let him get to her like that?

She's good, this one. It's damned hard to put the poker face back on once it's had a crack like that.

"I take my weapons seriously," Wells says quietly. "All of 'em. Edged, blunt, projectile or thrown."

Practice. Lots of practice.

One eyebrow twitches and Mai's perfectly level voice returns, "If you are studying that many different things then you can master none of them."

"Well, that would depend, wouldn't it," says Wells. "On how long I've got to study, and how long I've already studied."

"And?"

Wells shrugs easily, and smiles; but the tone of his voice is as straight-forward and serious as can be when he says, "I don't make the mistake of underestimating people 'cos they're young, or 'cos they're female. Underestimating someone 'cos they're old's just as big of a mistake."

There's a brief gleam of amusement before the mask reasserts itself. "That's not something I'm likely to do." Her own instructor, well...

"Well then," says Wells. "There you are."

It's more than he would've been capable of at her age; he was a bloody stupid adolescent. In the meantime, he's going to check the knife over for nicks and dents. It's not the best throwing-weapon in the world, no, but it's all he's got.

While he looks over the blade, Mai turns to go. She needs to find her balance again, and talking to this man isn't helping with that.

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