ooc: Beginning of thread is set at the border of Ashen Armada that leads into the Weeping Willows. Once everyone gathers Tamsyn will lead them to the Lover's Mangroves. First round is due 8/26! Let me know if you need another day or two to reply! She had been pondering and reworking this training for quite a while, but she finally decided that her idea was going to be as fleshed out as it was going to be and rethinking it wasn't going to make it any better. The only way she was going to know that this was a helpful, solid training was to actually do it and see how it went. She was a bit nervous, but she was more excited than she was nervous - especially after going to see the mangroves with Sirius and having him confirm that they would be a good location to start with. Tamsyn settled on her haunches right at the border where the Armada's territory ended and led into the willow tree forest. She was wearing the bracers that Sirius had presented to her when she was promoted to General and her new lemur friend was holding on to the thick fur of her scruff and had his head testing on top of hers so that he could peek over and see what she was seeing. She was quickly getting used to the feeling of Blue's weight on her back and liked his constant companionship. They were still learning to understand each other, but he was smart and was picking up on what her words meant faster than she had anticipated. He had started helping her with a new piece of armor that she was working on, but it wasn't quite finished yet so she left that behind this time. "Shall we go ahead and call for everyone then?" she asked as she peeked at Blue over her shoulder. He gave her a few quick nods and she smiled before turning her head back toward the pack's territory to lift her muzzle in a howl. She called for all of the Armada's students as well as Resin and Natha since she hoped that the two Lieutenants would be able to assist her with this training... plus she just wanted her two favorite pack mates to be there for moral support. Of course, any of the pack's Warriors were welcome to join in if they wished. She certainly wouldn't stop them from participating. Once that call went out over the pack's territory she settled in to wait for everyone to join. "Talk" Think

She and Tamsyn had spoken about training for the pack, though she wasn't exactly sure when the day would be. As a summoning howl rang out, she guessed that Tam had chosen today. Having been nearby, the patrolling woman altered her course, moving towards the Weeping Woods. She hoped that Tam would get a good turn out. With Tamsyn in sight, the large ash and onyx dame padded forward, not stopping until she pressed her forehead against the obsidian woman's. While they were the only two present, she bestowed a kiss upon Tam. "You'll do well." She tried to bolster the General's confidence before stepping aside and taking a seat. They would wait for the others together. "Speech"

Aslatiel had been in the Weeping Woods anyway. She'd learned to climb trees, so that was where she'd been sleeping when the howl rang out. Purple eyes shot open wide as she searched for the culprit. She lazed about for a while as she waited to see who would answer Tamsyn's call. Surprisingly, her grandmother arrived and began kissing... Ohhhhhh..... They were kissing! Wait, girls could kiss each other? Oh man! Girls could kiss each other! She couldn't wait to give Kaizer a kiss. Maybe girl lips felt different. When her grandmother sat and things got boring, the cream and grey girl dropped from the tree. She padded forward, sitting beside the big grey and black wolf and leaning against her legs. One foreleg raised to rub the rest of the sleep from her eyes. "What are we doing?" She looked from her grandmother to Tam. She wanted to ask them about the kiss, but she didn't think now was the right time. "Speech"

Dunkan arrived in silence along with his Jaguar. Dunkan will never turn down any training lessons like this so once he heard the call he was right on the way, with his cold expression placed on his eyes.He hoped he could still join these lessons despite being a student no more. The call came from another place which surprised him faintly,but either way he was coming.And there as he arrived he took notice of those already there. Aslatiel,Tamsyn, and Resin. Resin and Tamsyn kissing... He swallowed dry remembering his kiss with Asla.He was glad he could hide his emotions pretty well,right now his heart pounded a bit faster than usual.As he walked in he gave them a quick glance before sitting down on his own place,a bit close to Aslatiel but not too much. Urasa sat by the other side of Dunkan. "Speak"

Indigo loped easily forward after putting Meadow in charge of the garden. There wasn’t anyone else but her that seemed as passionate as he felt about that little plot of land. even the star scope had seemed mostly untouched, though when the boy most missed his sister he’d point it towards their favorite stars.

Though he was pretty obsessed with his garden Indy wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to train in battle. His deep violet tail wagged happily as blue eyes fell on Aslatiel and he didn’t help but rush to her side. His gaze strayed to their General and Grandmother, and their blatant affection reminded him again of the boundaries put in place for himself and Aslatiel. Though he realized all he wanted to do was cross those boundaries ever since the spar. He tried to be a good boy but he loved Asla so much…

He swallowed the thought and gave his sister a gentle nudge with his shoulder as he mirrored her question silently and looked up at their elders eagerly.

Natha spent her afternoons in the the tallgrass plains hunting rabbits. It was still a strong instinct to hunt every day, even if she was now part of a pack that had food stores. Instinct drove her to hunt as well as habit. She had just finished snacking on one unlucky rabbit when she heard Tamsyn's call summoning the warriors. Curious what the younger woman had planned Natha leapt to her feet and trotted in direction of the call. She was proud of her friend's promotion and eager to see how she intended to train the warriors of the Armada. She hoped she could be of help.

When Natha arrived a number of wolves had already gathered. She sauntered over to her fellow lieutenant Resin and took a seat next to the she-wolf. She shot a smile of encouragement to Tamsyn.

The Archer-Lyall was not one to dawdle when summoned, but she had been in the middle of digging a rather deep hole for a project yet to be fulfilled and it took her a moment to shake the sandy soil from her coat. Even ignoring the soil that still clung to her nose and front legs, there would be no mistaking what she had been about when the call went up. She approached the gathering with an easily waving tail, head dipping respectfully to Tamsyn, the only wolf she readily recognised from those gathered thus far. It was with some interest that she took in the gathered wolves (and lynx, she certainly hadn’t been expecting that!), all different shades and colours, some she had never seen before. She would rest easily on her paws, silently awaiting direction. She might have been tested already, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t take advantage of seeing how things were done outside of her own birth pack.

"speech".

we wear red so they don’t see us bleed

Life's just a game

Borias was obligated to go, if he was to learn of the Ashen Armada's people then he would have to be a good student. Despite his dislike for the rank he came to the call quickly. He didn't feel like a yearling ready to train, but perhaps he just shouldn't see it that way. Borias was a new member and his ambitions were clear - to create an extension of the Ashen pack that ran the lands. Powerful giant beasts - strong warriors, perhaps a supporting paw for either Deathbelle or Sirius children who will one day take a throne. The brown striped male strode up to the call and nodded his head to the teacher looking to the others who had already arrived.

"Greetings, my name is Borias I'm new to the Armada." he introduced himself as he shifted. Borias saw one of Sirius' children here. The princess. He only knew because she striked him as such and had his scent over her. Then again he noticed this his pelt was slowly melting with the pack scent. He'd never been in a pack before, somehow it was almost an uncomfortable feeling.

MADE BY MINNIE of BTN

He had caught a fish! It hadn't been a graceful catch as the first bite had earned him a fish tail in his face, the second had ended with a gulp of water instead of fish. However the fish had swam the wrong direction to escape and Naiche had grabbed the back of the fish in that final bite. Naiche had just started to pivot to take his hard won prize back to shore when he heard the call for a training session.  The fish was dropped and it dashed back into the water.  

Naiche watched it swim off, snuffing in disgust at losing it.  There would be another chance, and the lost meal wouldn't cause him an empty stomach.  There was no time to eat at any rate.  Naiche moved into an even stride till he paced the battling ring and then picked up speed.  The howl had been farther out, sounding as if it was from the far end of the grass plains.  Naiche tended to go no faster than necessary but as he reached the beginning of the deep grace he stretched out his body, legs striding out as far and fast as they could.  It would not due to be late to his first official pack training lesson.

By the time Naiche arrived he saw several other members had beat him.  There were a few faces he recognized and several the young wolf did not.  That made this an even more important period of time.  He could train to be stronger, introduce himself to some, get a feeling for how hard the others work and how competent they were.  The Lynx got an interested look but then Naiche chose to go sit near Sedna.  The choice was simply one of the wolves he had not met yet, it seemed to meet his goals more than moving to a wolf he already had some knowledge of.  Naiche remained quiet for the moment, waiting to get a feel for the situation and those around."Speech"

A training session with the whole pack had made her excited. When she got to the group as well she made a b line to Aslatiel. She found herself gravitating to the princess. In the back of her mind it was her princess too, though she was just as much of an equal. Never did Kaizer treat friends as objects but lately that's who she had thought of it. Guard and knight, best friend? All words she wanted to hold dear. Kaizer would wag her tail with a smile, "Morning Aslatiel, know what were doing today?" she asked as she looked at Tam who seemed to be leading the training. "My name's Kaizer, I'm a new student in the Armada." she felt the need to introduce herself with a respectful dip of her head. Though most of her attention was on Aslatiel, training together the excitement rippled through her easily. She still tried to keep herself composed, she was a warrior. The student couldn't wait to climb the ranks, after all she needed to match up with the wolf she was supposed to serve. Not stay as some low life for too long.

ooc: Thanks for joining in everyone! I'd like to get this thread to three rounds as an actual lesson and then we'll break out into individual spars - double the opportunity for points! Next post will be due September 4th, but I'll post again before then if everyone replies before the 4th. We don't necessarily need to follow an exact posting order. Just post whenever you can! Seeing Resin arrive first immediately calmed her nerves and pulled a smile to her face. She easily returned the kiss she was given and she gave the larger woman a grateful smile to the reassurance she was given. "Thanks, I hope you're right," she replied with a chuckle before looking to see who else would join them. Only a moment later Aslatiel appeared beside them, questioning what they would be doing. Tamsyn smiled and replied, "A bit of fighting training! I'll explain everything after everyone else gets here." And soon enough they did. Everyone responded very quickly and for that she was grateful. She was afraid that she'd have Students that wouldn't show, but it didn't seem like any of their fighting inclined Students had done that. There was even a few full fledged Warriors that appeared as well and she was extra grateful for their participation. She greeted everyone with a nod as they approached, first to Dunkan and Indigo and then an extra grin given to Natha when she appeared. Good, both of the Lieutenants had joined in for the training as she had hoped. Sirius had been pretty insistent on bringing some experienced fighters with her if they were going to be out of the pack's lands and she felt like this more than covered that requirement. Sedna joined in as well and she was soon followed by a male that Tam wasn't familiar with. She looked to the brown-hued male curiously and he was kind enough to introduce himself before she had to ask for his name. She gave him a smile and a nod, replying, "Welcome, Adralius! Thank you for joining us." The more familiar face of Naiche came next with yet another new face bringing up the rear. The younger woman introduced herself as well and Tamsyn offered her a smile. "Welcome, Kaizer! I'm glad to see some new faces - this will be a great chance for you and Adralius to get to know your fellow Warriors." She gave it just another moment or two to make sure that everyone that had wanted to join had and then she gave a nod of finality and turned her attention to the small crowd ahead of her. She was pleased with how many had decided to attend. "Okay! I guess we'll get started then. To our new members, my name is Tamsyn. I'm the General for the Armada. We're going to be training in fighting today... but not here. We're going to take a bit of a field trip." She grinned and got to her paws and nodded over her shoulder. "If everyone will follow me, I'll take you to where we'll be training today." With that she turned and made her way though the willow trees and away from the Armada's borders. It wasn't a long walk to get to the other side of the cluster of willow trees and then they passed into the Lover's Mangroves. The trees grew closer together here and didn't leave a lot of space to move - or at least not nearly as much as they were used to in the plains. A good portion of what space was left between the trees was obstructed with streams and puddles and was fairly damp in general. It was the complete opposite of the neat, open environment of the training areas they used by the beach so it would do very well for the lesson she wanted to teach today. Once they reached a small clearing that she had picked out before hand during her scouting with Sirius she paused and turned to face everyone, giving them a moment to gather around before she began to speak. "As most of you have experienced by now, raids are a fairly common thing for the Armada. It's something that I want us to continue to work on and be prepared for. Just because our last raid was successful doesn't mean that we can ease up on our training." She paused as Blue leapt from her back and climbed up into the tree that was beside her, giving the black lemur a glance before continuing on. "This also means that we need to be ready to fight in any terrain. Not every pack is going to live in pretty, open plains that have lots of room to move. We need to be ready to face whatever we find when we get there. Today, these mangroves are going to act as our unusual, uneven terrain." She paused before giving a nod toward the trees around them. "Give yourselves a moment to scout out the area and get pick out what you think might be a challenge for you when it comes to fighting. That's something we would do before launching an attack on a pack so it's realistic to the scenario we're trying to create here. Once you're done scouting come back here and I'll give you your next instructions." With that she let them go, giving Resin a glance and a smile to see what her lover thought of the training so far. "Talk"

Natha listened attentively as Tamsyn started the meeting and she nodded her approval as Tamsyn lead them off somewhere else to train. The majority of Armada training was done within the packlands which was all well and good but it would indeed be helpful to have experience fighting in other terrains in the case of raids. Tamysn said as much as she continued. As they were sent on their way Natha immediately scaled the nearest tree. Scrambling along a branch she scouted from her perch to get a view of the terrain around. She wrinkled her nose as she eyed the muck. She almost didn't want to say anything as she was certain Tamsyn was going to make her fight in it. Natha could certainly fight in mud if she really honestly had to but she'd rather try to lure a wolf up a tree. Enough of them were getting claws now. Still, she wouldn't lie to Tamsyn over something so silly so with a deep breath she let out one last sigh.

"Personally, I'm not fond of fighting in the mud and the gunk. I rely on my speed in fights and mud will slow you down and could even trap you if you get in to deep."

His sister garnered quite a bit of attention and Indigo wasn’t sure how he felt about that. An uncomfortable feeling welled up inside him and the huge violet boy shuffled and shifted lightly beside her. Brows furrowed as he tried to ignore it and focus on the training. That was easier once everyone arrived. Indigo was quick to get to his feet, torn between walking ahead and beside Aslatiel.

Tamsyn spoke once they arrived and Indy didn’t take long to know what he’d need help with. The close quarters of the mangroves. He couldn’t move quite as fast as smaller wolves like Aslatiel, what if he got stuck between the roots, or couldn’t maneuver through them fast enough?

Indigo took a deep breath and moved off to scout a little, somewhere he would be forced to think about his ever movement. Though if he could manage to corner someone in such close quarters… Maybe it could turn into an advantage if he sat on his opponent. The thought made him grin as he forgot about the jealous feelings and returned to the General. ”I’m not the fastest, I’m afraid what I can’t do if I’m in too close a space.” He spoke softly for how big he was. Natha had a good point too, he certainly didn’t want to ge stuck in the mud.

Listening to the instructions intently, the Archer-Lyall allowed a small smile to tug at the corner of her lips as they moved under the cover of the trees, now this was more like it. The briny sludge stank of home, the wide lagoon and the thick forest that bordered it’s northern banks. Her toes spread naturally, much like they would if she were traversing snow, distributing her weight more evenly and preventing her from sinking too deep in the mud others may have found offensive.

An ear turned catching Indigo’s statement about not being fast. Under usual circumstances, she would have quipped back that he could always back his ass up to a tree and not have to worry about it being bitten, but looking up to Natha, she remembered she wasn’t in Kansas Wildwood anymore, and wolves here had cat claws and could probably climb trees too. Her enthusiasm was waning as she realised the terrain presented a perfect opportunity for ambush. "Just as important to look up in a place like this, gotta watch where you put your feet..." too many places to look at once. It was far from ideal, but rarely would life make things easy for anyone, so how was she going to make the most of it?

Sedna wasn’t sure if they had toe snapping turtles or angry eels in a place like this, but she was almost certain there would have to be something similar. The squelching of mud was giving them away. "Also harder to keep quiet, if you were going to plan an ambush, you’d need to plan way out."

"speech".

we wear red so they don’t see us bleed

Soon all of the wolves came rushing in. Dunkan sat a little close to her and Asla graced the boy with a sweet smile. "Hello, Dunkan." Kaizer arrived soon after and also came to sit near her. The cream and grey girl shot her friend a wink. "With Tam, Natha and my grandmother here? Fighting." She grinned, happy at the prospect of battle, as always. Naiche showed his ugly, yellow face and Asla shot him an exaggerated grimace of annoyance, but followed it with a little grin. She was always happy to annoy him. Though she had friends all around, Asla was all about Indigo. He had placed himself close to her and she leaned into him for a moment, the action subtle, but definitely there. She enjoyed the attention from others, but his attention was the most desired and appreciated. With the focus of this training session given, Aslatiel sat still while others moved off to find terrain that might be difficult for them. The girl listened as others explained what they might have trouble with, but she tilted her head, fixing her gaze on Tamsyn. "I don't have trouble with particular terrains, but I need to know how to better fight someone that's much bigger than I am." Maybe she'd get paired up with Indigo in this case. "Speech"

He waited for Tamsyn's speech if there was any,and finally after some time he found himself regaining the serene and cold meanor he always carried,and when Asla spoke to him he just nodded keeping eyes focused on the general who soon began to speak.She began by introducing herself and then she stood up and he as told to he followed her and sat nearby once they arrived to the intended place. "As most of you have experienced by now, raids are a fairly common thing for the Armada. It's something that I want us to continue to work on and be prepared for. Just because our last raid was successful doesn't mean that we can ease up on our training." He looked away, remembering his defeat with shame on himself. "This also means that we need to be ready to fight in any terrain. Not every pack is going to live in pretty, open plains that have lots of room to move. We need to be ready to face whatever we find when we get there. Today, these mangroves are going to act as our unusual, uneven terrain." As she then asked to pick a place where they could find difficulties in fights he went up to a nearby creek placing himself in the water. "I wanna learn to fight in water." "Speak"

Naiche had very much ignored Aslatiel when she had noticed him.  Last thing he needed was to deal with her when he wanted to be learning, even if she had proved herself competent.  She would be a distraction in one form or another.  So he only focused on Tamsyn and when it was time to chase after her he did so with upcoming training his only focus.

Once at the mangrove he listened then started roaming about, getting a feel for the footing, the scents and how things looked.  Everyone was making good points of troubles.  Naiche wasn't too worried about the water, he felt comfortable on his footing in there, and the mud was questionable.  It could work for or against him.  Spending enough time traveling had him relatively confident in his footing for the most part, but it was true there was such a wide variety of it.

Naiche took his time considering the different aspects before going back to where Tamsyn was. "If a fight to take place at an hour where the shadows were all around us, and especially if wind caused the shadows to move much it could make the footing even more treachorous.  The way the footing is not flat, with all of the trees, mud, water tree roots, well and plenty of other things, it would be easy to be off balance when being attacked."  There was no risk walking around in here at night when a wolf could take his time but in a battle was an entirely different matter.
"Speech"

Kaizer was by Aslatiel's side but she made an observation. Indigo was the brother she had spoken about the one that she was close to. Judging by the way they acted they were like two peas in a pod. Respectfully she moved a bit away allowing the huge wolf to be within his comfort zone. She would have to talk to him later - after all if she was to be Aslatiel's guard - an equal, then what better way than to talk with her brother about it. She didn't want any ill will between any of them. Kaizer's concentration then turned to Tamsyn to the lesson at hand. Harsh terrain....She didn't get to participate in the raid but she had before in her home pack. "The only tough terrain I'm used to is harsh mountains, rocky area's. I'm not too experienced in tree's or water." Kaizer didn't think it'd be too difficult though. Tough terrain could be used to your advantage if you were smart about it. Unless it was their homeland in that case you had to be careful about where you moved and placed your footing. Like many other places, one wrong step could mean life or death if an opponent decided to go for the throat.

Life's just a game

The man was silent for the most part, he tried to remain friendly but his mind was on the task at hand. The other would stand forward and explain their fighting experience and he would have to search through his memories. The murder of his father, protection of his slaves. He suddenly realized that he didn't have much experience fighting other wolves. Borias looked around, he had terrain in the bag Auster had a lot of different terrain and it was much more unique than Boreas was that was for sure. Yet the sudden realization of his downsides put him off slightly.

"I don't have much experience sparring with other wolves. I once did with my father - but other than that it's all been large predators. Maybe to occasional loner but they've never been strong enough nor were they good fighters. As for terrain I've fought in mountains, in castles and more." he would explain. Despite his embarassment he seemed confident. That's how the gentleman usually acted and he couldn't help it. He had his way with words after all.

MADE BY MINNIE of BTN

Tamsyn watched as her students for the day began to disperse, most of them chiming in to say what they disliked about the terrain, what they found difficult, the sorts of places they were used to fighting in, and the like. Natha in particular made her smirk when the feline climbed a nearby tree to get away from the water-logged ground. She nodded in understanding to Indigo when he spoke of how his size was going to be a factor here. She started gathering each of their concerns in her mind and tried to find some common themes so that she could address them as a group. Sedna in particular seemed to have some very good insights and she watched how the gray woman quickly adapted to the softer soil. She glanced to Aslatiel when the smaller woman mentioned needing practice with fighting larger opponents and she nodded in agreement. She knew from experience that was something that was more difficult as a smaller wolf so she would keep that in mind for later. Her gaze shifted to Dunkan with a pleased smile. Fighting in water hadn't been the intended purpose of this particular training, but it was certainly a factor here so she appreciated him thinking outside of the box. Perhaps their next training should focus around water... Before she could really begin plotting such a thing, Naiche spoke up and mentioned how the shadows of the trees could cause even more difficulties finding their footing and she nodded in agreement. She had specifically picked this place over other forests in their area because of how the streams and tree roots made the ground so uneven. It was a very stark contrast from where they normally trained so it was perfect for this kind of exercise. Since Kaizer and Adralius were the newest to her out of the group she paid special attention to their statements about what terrains they were most used to. It would help her shape her training in the future and would tell her what she could rely on them for to help teach in the future. Adralius interested her the most since he stated that he'd never really sparred with wolves before, but she wasn't too concerned over it. She had never even thought of fighting before she came to the Armada so there was still plenty of time for him to learn yet. Once they had all finished their exploration and observations of the area and had all come back together in the clearing she spoke, addressing the crowd as a whole. "All of your observations were spot on," she told him with a proud grin. "These would all be things that we would need to take into consideration before we launched a raid on a pack. Maybe this land would be a bad place to stage an attack, maybe it would be better to do some more scouting to see if they hold another territory that would be easier to fight in even if it's farther from our borders. But, for the sake of our training today, lets say they don't have another territory or this other land is blocked off where we can't reach and this is our only option. How do we deal with things like not having enough space to move, with having uneven terrain, with the shadows of the trees blocking our view... We stop thinking of those things as hindrances and start trying to find ways to use them to our advantage." "There's always a way to work around something that is a challenge for you. Natha can climb the trees and attack from above so she doesn't have to try and be as quick and agile in the mud. Indigo, you could use your size to back a smaller wolf into a corner in these trees so you don't have to move around as much. As Naiche pointed out the shadows can make it harder to see the ground, but if we're moving in slowly and stealthily instead of charging in head first then we'd be able to move over the uneven train more easily and use the shadows to our advantage to hide." She paused her lecture, looking around at all of them with a small smile. "My point is, I want you to think about what your challenges are and find out how you can work around them or use them to your advantage. This goes for every fight, but for this example we'll use these mangroves as our challenge." "Now, I'd like for you to take a moment to practice on this terrain a bit and get a better feel for it - do a few practice lunges, see what it would feel like to get a paw caught in a tree root so you can get untangled quickly, things like that. Think about how you can adapt your current style to fighting up close and personal because there's not going to be room for fancy footwork here. Once you've done that everyone is going to pair off and give it a whirl. We'll all head back together once everyone has had a chance to spar." "Talk"