Respond with overwhelming force

It wasn’t long after her call that Ember heard the footfalls of her first student coming to join her lesson, and to no surprise, she turned to spy her handsome viking striding in with his usual calm confidence. Em greeted him with a sweet smile, humming happily when his lips brushed her cheek with a gentle kiss. "Thanks for coming. I promise to go easy on you," she teased him. She truly was grateful for Erik’s assistance with her lesson. He was always willing to volunteer for whatever she needed. She just hoped that by the end of this lesson, he wouldn’t regret jumping in head first.

Afterwards came the quartet of her cousins from Aunt Bowen—Titus, Spriggan, Ballad, and Kolt. All four of the pups looked at Erik with wariness and suspicion, which she understood. Erik was still very new to the Hallows and had been kept busy with tending to his ailing father and likely hadn’t had a chance to socialize much—not that he was much of a talker anyway. Well that was fine; Ember could do the talking for the both of them today. Titus asked if they’d be getting to train with swords today or if it was a theoretical lesson. Ember simply shot the lad a mischievous smirk. "No theoreticals with me, Titus. We’re getting paws on today!" While Ember had learned under the tutelage of her father and his lessons were always half theoretical, half practical, Em preferred to learn and teach by doing.

Once she was sure no one else was coming, Ember addressed the group as a whole. "Today, we’re going to be going over a valuable lesson from two different directions—how to handle a larger and stronger opponent, and how to take on multiple opponents at once." Fixing her cool-toned gaze on her younger cousins, Ember posed them a challenge, "Everyone take a look at Erik. Let's say you're defending the Hallows and you encounter an opponent like Erik. How would you go about taking on someone with a size and strength advantage? What ways can you four work together to take down a bigger foe?" Then her attention turned to Erik with a mischievous grin. "And you, you have the size advantage, but you're outnumbered four to one. How would you leverage your skills to defeat your enemies?" Ember wanted to hear the ideas each side came up with before she pitted them against one another to put their plans into practice.

"Ember Carpathius" | "Carpathian"