milliways_bar | (no subject)

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So getting a sheep was quicker than getting a gun, but in some ways more annoying. But that's in the past. Now, Karel's here with a sheep, am unharmed but very unhappy sheep at the end of a rope tether, and a bundle wrapped up in a big striped cloth that some here might recognize as an American flag.

He and his sheep wait outside, of course. For Shephard in particular, but he doesn't mind chatting with anyone else he knows.

((Warnings on the links, I guess for, uh, unarmed robbery and the intimidation of gentle mythological creatures?))

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"Very good", he says, smiling. "It's sensible to carry a knife, you never know what you might need it for."

"Yeah." You can't carry something like that when you don't have pockets, but Karel's starting to build up a whole list of things he likes to have around when he does have pockets.

He starts looking around for a good branch. The best ones are probably still on trees--or the trunk of a sapling would be strong--but he's not sure his knife is up to that. This is just practice, though.

Definitely just practice.

"You might find exactly the right one already fallen", Athelstan tells him, "but if they lie too long they start to rot. Usually fresh from the tree is better."

Karel nods absently. Yep, he's already on top of that idea. It doesn't take too long to find a tree with a good-looking branch, low enough to grab and break off. A little curved, but it should do for practice. He starts taking off the twigs and leaves.

Meanwhile, Athelstan is finding and preparing his own staff, fishing a boning knife out of his pocket to do the work with.

"Nearly done?" he calls over.

Karel brandishes his almost-ready stick to demonstrate, and then lopes over, cutting off the last few twigs as he goes. "You can't do this every time you need to fight. Too slow."

"No", he agrees. "Only if you know well in advance that you're going to need to. But a good stick can be used again and again until it breaks."

You could walk with a stick--if you were always on two feet. Well, it's still worth learning. Karel swings his branch around two-handed: a kid with a toy sword.

Athelstan watches with a critical eye, taking it seriously - and he's learned quite a bit from Sonya, he's always been a fast learner.

"That's not a bad way to get your force behind it... but maybe not so good for aiming."

Oh, he's just playing. Karel shrugs and drops the point of his weapon. "You show me."

We apologise, Karel. Athelstan's forgotten how to play, it's very sad.

"Like this." He demonstrates a strike with the stick.

Karel copies it closely: he's good at physical imitation and memory. "What if you fight someone with another kind of thing? You have a stick, she has a sword?"

"Then you block her sword with your stick as best you can, strike her if you can", he says pragmatically, "and try to make her lose her sword - or at least keep her from harming you with it. I'm told someone skilled with a staff can actually win such a fight."

"Show me." Abruptly, he swings his stick around again, like a sword. Well, like a stick in the hands of a kid who doesn't know how to use a sword, but he's trying.

"I'm not particularly skilled", Athelstan warns him - but then, neither is Karel. "But from what I do know, it's done like this."

He swings his branch against Karel's, slowly so the boy can watch the movement.

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