-insert "And my axe!" meme-

Solarie had never doubted that his dad would have some kind of brilliant idea or plan for their training session. After all, his dad was the best fighter and teacher! Still, he looked at his father curiously as he started talking about how he had come up with a way for him to practice safely since he had the only axe in the hallows. He watched as his dad left the ring for a moment to pick up a pair of quarterstaffs and he looked at them with a curious tilt of his head. Taking one of the quarterstaffs when it was offered to him, he moved it one way and then another experimentally while his dad explained how it would have a similar kind of motion as when he was using his axe, but would be safer for them to use for practice. "Ooooh, that's so smart," he replied with a grin, his tail wagging happily at the idea. Everyone else pretty much used swords and daggers that had wooden or dulled variations of them readily available for practice, but since he wanted such a unique weapon his training would have to be unique too!

He followed his dad over to the training dummy and listened closely to the first part of their lesson, watching with curious, wide eyes while his dad spoke about how each end of Firekeeper had to be used differently to be effective. Wide, swinging motions for the end with the double bit blades and a stabbing for the other end to use the spiked pommel like a spear. The idea of that was easy enough to follow, but he paid close attention to his dad's movements since he knew he'd have to try and imitate what he was doing soon enough and he had a feeling it was probably harder than his father made it look. When Artorias stepped back and motioned for him to give it a try, Solaire stepped up to stand in front of the dummy and made a few smaller, experimental swings with his staff to get a feel of it before he turned his head to give a harder, more intentional swing of his current weapon at his pretend opponent.

The only problem was he hadn't really paid attention to how long the staff was or how far away he was from the target and the end of the staff swung past the nose of the dummy with a wishing sound through the air and the force of his swing nearly knocked him off of his paws. He blinked with surprise as he staggered a bit and had to catch himself. When he realized what he had done he giggled at himself and gave his dad a bashful grin around the staff before resetting his stance–this time a bit closer. His swing was much more successful this time, landing with a solid thump against the neck of the training dummy. Figuring out the best way to turn his head to line up the other end of the staff with his target to make a stabbing motion was a little more awkward at first, but after a couple of moments of trial and error he managed it. After a few more swings and stabs he began to feel more comfortable and natural with his movements, landing hits on a couple of different parts of the dummy.

"Solaire Carpathius"