You can't blame me for hating it
12-30-2020, 12:57 AM
It was perhaps a bit of over kill given the fact that he could fairly easily go over to the Armada's lands and use their training set up if he so chose, but he enjoyed having an area of his own tucked away among the trees of the archipelago for him to do his training. It cut down on the amount of time he had to spend outside of Ashen's lands and made it easier for him to practice more frequently for less dedicated amounts of time. He could squeeze in a a bit of practice between patrols or other various pack activities instead of having to dedicate a whole half of his day to finding somewhere to train. Because of that, he had a straw dummy set up in a secluded portion of the archipelago and while he didn't intend to keep it to himself, he also hadn't tried to share it with anyone else and he hadn't really crossed paths with anyone as of yet while he was out here. He almost preferred that it stay that way. He had gotten quite used to his quiet, solitary existence while he was solely focused on his training and now that he was around the members of the pack again he had quickly begun to realize how much he missed having that constant silence to think. He hefted the weapon he had crafted recently, giving it a few test swings to feel how the weight shifted and rebounded against the pull of gravity. There was certainly still some tweaks and fine tuning he could give to it to make it perfect, but he was too curious to see how it would be in action to keep himself from testing it out before it was completely done. He also had his armor on as well just to give himself some more time with it on to get used to the feeling of it. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it did make him adjust how he moved to better optimize where the protected portions of his body were. Facing off with the straw fighting dummy, he made a leap forward while also giving a swing of his head, sending the boar skull flail swinging forward. He misjudged the swing a couple of times and quickly leaned to keep the flail toward the right side of his body so that if it happened to swing back toward him it would rebound off of the skull that adorned his shoulder rather than hitting himself with the heavy weapon. After a bit of practice he was consistently hitting the dummy with progressively harder swings, though he was getting even more ideas for how he wanted to tweak the weapon as he went. After a good bit of time he backed away from his fake training partner, panting hard from the effort swinging the heavy flail had taken. Perhaps taking a bit of the weight out of it would be better just for his own stamina. He turned away and went over to a plush bit of grasses where the sand of the beach began to fade into the forested area and fell down onto his stomach, dropping the flail while he stretched and moved his jaw. With a sigh, he turned his emerald gaze out over the rolling ocean in front of him. He simply hoped that all of this work he was putting into himself would actually turn into something at the end of the day. A thoughtful frown pulled at his lips and he shifted to pull and slip the armor off over his head, letting it fall to the ground beside the flail and he looked at the dark, grim bits of leather, bone, and chain that he had spent the last few weeks carefully crafting. They had a hard, vicious look to them. It had been an intentional choice, something to visually represent the harshness he wished to portray. Finding his niche within the pack since his return had been more difficult than he had imagined. He had hoped that perhaps Venom would have a specific task for him or there would be a empty piece in the ranks that he could easily fill, but that so far hadn't been the case. There seemed to be more chaos than he had realized was happening among his family and it was hard to see where he would be able to make the most impact. The confrontation between Venom and their sisters... he felt more like a fly on the wall than an actual participant in the conversation. It made him wonder if it had even been worth coming back here at all. Had his presence really been missed? The months and months he had spent away from his family, dedicating his time and energy to his training, had all been for them - for their family. He knew his place was here. There was no questioning that... at least he didn't think there was. The uncertainty and the scrambling for a purpose left him unnerved and wondering what the state of their empire actually was. What would the future actually hold? Not just for him, but for the whole of Ashen? It wasn't really his question to ask he supposed, but he wanted it to be. He wanted to play a larger role, but finding his place in this circus was difficult. He gave a small shake of his head to clear it of all the brooding, pondering thought that clung to his mind no matter how hard he tried. The most he supposed he could do was speak his mind to his sister, but he wasn't sure what that would get him. He feared that the damage had already been done and his absence - no matter how well intended it had been - had done too much damage. He'd lost his footing and finding it felt like a constant, uphill climb. |
