Stick 'em with the pointy end

Briar chuckled at Artorias' compliment and came to join him in the training area he had set up, watching as he pulled out a training dagger for her to use for the time being. As she had assumed, they wouldn't be jumping right into swinging around honed blades. She nodded with understanding and unstrapped Momento's sheath from her leg, placing the dagger off to the side on a piece of driftwood before coming back to Artorias and standing in front of the training dagger that had been presented to her. First things first, it seemed, was just getting comfortable holding the blade. She had held Momento a few times, mostly just to show off her husband's thoughtful gift, but she certainly hadn't tried to use it in combat yet so that did feel like a good place to start.

She made sure to listen to his guidance first before she did anything, giving small nods to show she was understanding and listening. Trying to keep in mind the idea of not biting down too hard, but still holding on firmly enough to not let the blade slip, she picked up the dulled blade between her teeth, shifting it around a bit until she found a comfortable spot for it to sit in her mouth. It was hard at first to resist the urge to bite down harder as she started to mimic his motions and swing her head, afraid that it might slip free with the movement, but after a few testing swings so she could get used to the feel of the momentum it got a bit easier to know what that grip should feel like. She didn't feel as confident with it as Artorias looked, but this was far from her first training session and she knew that would all come with time and practice.

Briar watched her husband and followed his motions, trying to pay attention to the arc of his swing and how he moved the blade. She had grown up following her father's and brother's movements to replicate them herself so it was easy to fall back into that mindset. Some parts of the lesson felt like they should be very obvious, like the fact that she should keep the blade pointed toward her enemies, but how to move and handle the blade had a bit of a learning curve to it. Watching the way Artorias turned the blade around in his jaws with such ease was intriguing–and attractive if she was being honest. Trying not to let herself get too distracted just yet, she followed his lead and stepped up to one of the training dummies to try her hand at some of the movements Art was demonstrating.

She started with just shifting from one side to another while focusing on keeping the blade pointed toward the dummy, getting used to the feeling of strafing from side to side with it. It wasn't all that different from keeping her antlers pointed toward an enemy so she just had to translate that into something that was moveable and not affixed to her head. After watching Art do it several times, she made an attempt at spinning the blade around to face the other way, but she didn't quite give it enough momentum and it toppled right out of her mouth, falling blade first into the sand. She chuckled and grabbed the blade again, going through the motions again and again. It had been a long time since she had really trained and learned something new and this was making her remember how much she loved it.

"Briar Carpathius"