Night #2 - "Getting to know your sword"

While the group is vast asleep, Jian and Sharpe are keeping watch over the camp.
To break the awkward silence, Sharpe decides to teach the man how to stand his ground and keep cool in dire situations.

Sharpe stands up and lights a candle in a lantern, placing the lantern on a tree stump nearby. The night is cool but yet there is a warmth to be had in the night, as if they were casually camping.

Sharpe draws his 12-inch straight silver, something he'll only use if absolutely necessary. Like Jian's dagger, it's more of something important than something practical. Still, it does have it's capabilities, it won't break at the slightest touch.

"Alright, I'll give you some basics on how to fight with some weapons and against enemies who you'd maybe fight on a regular basis. For weapons, I'll show you your knife, a sword, and maybe the gun. The sword in the sense that later on you might get one, and the gun in case you have to pick up mine or find one lying around." He explains. He paces a bit, letting that soak in.

"As far as enemies are concerned, bandits are a great example of human targets, since I would say it's completely legal to kill them, as they are outlaws. As far as beasts are concerned, Wolves would be the topic. Now of course though, I'll teach you both killing techniques and non-lethal ones since we can't exactly go around killing people willy-nilly, now can we?"

He stops and looks at Jian dead-on, crossing his arms. He stares straight into his eyes.

"Along the way, you must learn to keep your composure. Rage that isn't directed is needless rage, and Fury that isn't kept under control spirals out of it, flying away like a flock of ravens from your body, dispersing to the wind. Mayhem ensues, and you might hurt or even kill someone you did not intend to in the process. I've seen it happen, where men lose it and panic, or they go into that bloodlust, and they get their entire group killed, be it by leaving them behind and accidentally falling into traps, or mistaking them for targets in their confusion."

He scratches his stumble has he pauses to draw breath.

"I know you're peaceful, and you would harm any other without intent, but as the saying goes - Beware the nice ones."

Sharpe steps back a bit and sits on a rock, clasping his hands.

"Got it? If you do, you may start by showing me what you already know."

Jian stands there, listening to what Sharpe has to say. And while all of it makes sense, he somewhat doesn't seem to fully follow. Regardless of that he was asked to show off what he knows. A few seconds pass and he simply shrugs.

"Are you expecting some kind of fight stances or such? I can tell you right from the get-go that I don't have anything of that kind to show off. I swing my blade if I need to... Or rather when I actually can bring myself to do so. Unless that, I use it for carving. So yeah, not much to show off, unless you want to learn something about that kind of craftmanship."

He then pulls out his blade, which is battle scarred, if that's fitting for it. It actually just gone through tons of carving and travelling, and cutting herbs. Speaking of that, he hasn't gathered any spices or herbs since they left off, he should restock at some point to sell it to people that doesn't really know what kind of spices are edible around here. He has impressed a ton of people that way, even if it only happened ocasionally and not frequently.

He then sits down again, shrugging once more.

"I guess the best thing would be, if you would show me something first, before I can present something in return. Sounds fair enough to me. Don't expect any wonders though, I really am not too fond with combat and such."

"Well I guess that sounds about right, I just said strut your stuff if you knew anything. You don't, that's fine."

He leans forward while sitting on a stump.

"Now let me get this straight though... You said you swing it? I can excuse you for not being experienced, but still, knives are better for thrusting deep into organs. Internal bleeding and organ damage is what does you in."

Sharpe bolts up and draws his 12-inch straight silver.

"Watch."

He takes in a deep breath then suddenly jets the blade out like lightning. He stabs so powerfully that the blade is almost impossible to see, safe for a fuzzy afterimage.

"Alternatively, you can do it back-handedly."

He twirls the blade around to a reverse position in his hand then starts to swipe and stab again, now with more power.

"The key to backhand however is to use your fist as a weight to drive the blade."

He turns back to Jian.

"Go ahead and try that. Remember, force with precision. Be fast, but be precise."

Hearing things about internal bleeding and organ damage makes him cringe as everything related to that just makes him think about his past. He needs to get rid of that thought at some point but it keep hunting him down. He tries to focus though and takes out his blade to do as he was told. He grabs it tight, then thrusting forward as fast as possible. Repeating it countless of times, alternating between standard and back-handed stabs.

After a few times of watching Jian swing the blade a few times, Sharpe notices that he's getting better at it. However, his resolve will really need the work. He gets up and approaches.


"Alright, I think that's about enough practice like that. I do need to discuss something rather important with you, since it's pretty much the linchpin to this training."


He pauses, thinking how he will phrase what he'll say.


"I know you've seen some shit, but I can see you're holding back a little. You're afraid. I don't know what it was... but I can see it. The way you shiver when you think of combat, or hell trouble and stress in general. Whatever you saw... it scarred you, bad, and now your will to fight is pretty much next to nihil. Maybe it pertains to your family, or someone important from your past... or perhaps one of the people that hurt you. So, what I want you to do is, pretend whatever you're attacking IS the source of your problems. It may not be, but it sure as hell might work. And then, you could always consider the fact that who we'll fight may very well have something to do with your past, or at least in an indirect way. Before you attack, breath deep. While you attack, keep breathing, in through your nose, out through your mouth, and shut out distractions. You need to say to yourself 'This is not relevant to the task at hand. Knowing how to disable my enemies and not getting disabled or killed myself is what is relevant.'"


Sharpe lets him think on that.


"If you can prove to me you can do that, then I know I can count on you."

Jian sighs. People keep telling him that they know what "kind of shit" he went through or rather how it feels. But even then, nobody honestly can tell. Not even Jian himself at some point, it just happened too fast. Listening to what Sharpe had to say though, he takes a deeper thought into it. Considering the source to make it be more stable... He might aswell risk to try that.

He takes a deep breath in, letting it all flash back up to the point where he sees the woman with the tank top from the market a day ago. His face turns into pure anger and he thrusts forward. He leaves off a yell, harsher than anything one has ever heard from him before. It accompanies every single thrust he's making. Not caring if he might wake up anyone, he charges into the air...

A few minutes pass and Jian has a new source flashing in front of him, as he thrusts again, he sees his brother flashing before him, making keep his arm streched. He's like frozen, his eyes wide and his arm cramped up. He drops the blade and looks at his hand. What if it really will come down to stabbing his brother to death like that. He raises his other hand aswell, looking back and forth at both of them. His wide eyes with small pupils hectically jump left and right, his breathing turning uncontrolled. Having that thought on his hands will do him no good and he surely doesn't want this encounter to happen. All went well and went to this in a second and Jian is now stunned.

Sharpe starts walking around Jian, as he has his little lapse.

"Hmmm..." he utters, studying and trying to figure out the precise issue.

"You must be facing something you can't kill, no matter what. Either you're seeing something too powerful, or something too close. If that's the case, I have an idea... perhaps we need simply the raw fury you have pent up."

Sharpe finishes his orbit around Jian and stands straight in front of him. He draws his knife again and gets into a stance, his left hand near his face and the knife pointed up. 12 inches of silver glimmers by moonlight.

"Maybe you just need a live target."

He bows before Jian.

"You may have the alpha strike. I'm positive this'll work."

Confusion strikes Jian as he hears that. Why would he now attack him? Or rather, why would he risk hurting someone that is actually his... well friend might not fit so far, they know each other for two days now. But even then, they are not foes either. They are more like partners, for now. But even then, is that a common thing to hold a blade against his partner to train? Jian only recalls using wooden, hand-made weapons which didn't have the intent to hurt, but to work on combat skills. His dad and granddad had one to train nearly daily.

Regardless of what he thinks, his only option most likely is to just stand his ground and fight, even though he doesn't agree with that idea. He then carefully picks up his blade, bowing in front of Sharpe. Jian doesn't know why Sharpe bowed earlier as it didn't seem common here in the west to do so.

As he then tightly grips his blade, a tear of sweat runs down his face. Hesitation keeps striking, but using the moment of control he then closes his eyes frantically and stabs into Sharpe's direction with as much force as possible....

Sharpe simply sidesteps and parries Jian's blade with just the right amount of force to send his blade off center. He flips the knife and drives it down to stab Jian's neck as he overexerts himself - and stops just inches from his flesh.

"Just a note, this is a simple spar. I don't carry wooden weapons around as that would be utterly impractical for me."

He re-centers himself opposite of Jian and flips the blade up.

"Don't close your eyes either. You need to keep you eyes open and keep track of your opponent. If you know a martial art style, I'm sure that would have been taught."

"This time, I'll strike."

He breathes in, closing his eyes as he does so, then opens them. Without utter a sound, he dashes forward with the blade and unfurls the force he had coiled up in his muscles in a precise but powerful stab. He isn't aiming to hit him though; He's hoping he can develop Jian's reaction speed enough that he'll block or parry, then counter.

Jian's senses are expiriencing something that he felt the last time when he was slashed open. He grabs Sharpe's hand, pulls the arm past him, then holding it tight between his arm and hip, He bends the arm into the joint's opposite direction, forcing Sharpe to let go of the blade. As he drops the blade, Jian rolls around the arm in a very fast manner, gripping his blade tight, thrusting into the direction of Sharpe's stomach. The blade stops just in time in front of the skin as Jian realised that this is not real and snapping out of it. The tip just dug in deep enough to leave a little hole in the clothes of Sharpe. Jian's panting deeply, his adrenaline shot up high, he quickly tumbles back and falls on his knees and bows with the forehead touching his ground. It's a gesture of apolagy directed towards Sharpe, as he doesn't even want to know what would've happened if he actually stabbed fully into him.

Just as Sharpe thought, Jain has a side to him. where combat takes precedence over all. That he can use memory as a tool in such a way... he could be very dangerous indeed.

"Don't worry about it. I think though... when you are remembering something, you relive it, and your body and mind go into survival mode, and adrenaline takes you from there. For being able to do such a thing, you needn't apologize. What you would apologize for is if you lost complete control, and injured someone."

He extends his hand for his Silver back.

"I think you just need to train up your ability to control that. You always worry about being shit in a fight, but you've clearly demonstrated to me that you are in no way incompetent. You just need to have that anger controlled is all."

"I think for the future, you should practice retaining some awareness of your surroundings while you go into that fury of yours."

After the little training session, each kept to their own for the remainder of the shift. Halfway through the night sharpe goes to wake up Airgetlam and Atrium as the groups exchange shifts.