Sharpen the Steel II

Caladia wasted no time expressing her enthusiasm to begin her training lessons with him, and Artorias beamed at the young girl with delight, his bushy tail wagging in shared excitement. He listened while his niece explained what Fern had taught him so far—the basics stances mostly—and nods his head. So he had his work cut out for him, it seemed. That was fine; in some ways, it was easier to work with a blank canvas when molding his students into skilled warriors. "Then it sounds like we'd better get started. We've got a lot of work to do to hone you into a fearsome swordswolf," he said, taking up one of the two blunted sparring swords and setting it down at Callie's paws. He then kicked his sparring sword upright with a bit of flair, catching the hilt in his jaws midair and bringing the sword up to bear. "Pick up your sword, Callie. We're going to learn how to use real steel today."

Artorias led Caladia over to one of the training dummies, standing with his pupil before the dummy as he let her get used to holding the weight of an actual steel sword in her jaws. "Take a moment and get used to that. The heft, the balance, it's worlds different from that wooden sword, isn't it?" Art tipped his head in the direction of the training dummy. "Show me what you've learned so far." Taking a single step back to give Callie some space to maneuver as she pleased, the Aegis began to observe and study his niece's skills she'd developed so far.

"Artorias Carpathius"