undergrounds | hazy shade of winter

Caroline does the same, already beginning to brace herself for what's to come. But even while it is physically demanding - and painful, at times - she's glad to be doing this. If she wants to get more involved in cleaning up the Nest and keeping things running smoothly, she's going to need any advantage she can get.

The girl can move, so at least Evie's got something she can work with. Imagine if Caroline had been blundering and oafish. The whole thing would have been a complete disaster. But luckily, Evie had good taste when it came to who she accepted.

Following the blocks, Evie had her working on proper form to throw a punch. She'd traded in her gloves for those pads you can hit without causing any damage, urging Caroline to alternate from one target to the other. And, if she didn't keep her arm up?

Well, then Evie had no problem giving her a light thwack on the head with those same pads.

"Keep your arm up."

Caroline isn't a complete newcomer to fighting, even if she hasn't had much official training, beyond a few weaponry lessons from Alaric. She knows there is a lot to learn but it's hard to remember all of it. Especially the part about keeping an arm up. Apparently, she's more offence, less defence.

But eventually, she's blocking the pad more often then it hits her, and she really does feel like she's making progress.

Caroline is making progress, and Evie finds herself grinning through the exercise.

"Good!" She tells her at last, signaling to end the round. "You're already better than when you first stepped in here."

Caroline is happy for another break and quickly gets a drink. "Good, because I'm definitely sorer too." At least she'd been in good shape when she became a vampire, aside from the whole internal bleeding thing that had landed her in the hospital. She isn't sure if she would have been able to get much stronger otherwise.

"I'll give you another water bottle for the road," she promises her. "we'll make sure to stretch out before you go home." At least their accelerated healing made being sore a lot less of a problem.

"But I think that's enough for work today, don't you?" Evie pulls her hoodie back on and begins to walk to a spot further down the room. There, she had a few practice swords. They were dull, of course, though still metal. When you're a vampire, you don't have to worry about the messy side effects, but that doesn't stop her from grabbing two face masks similar to what a fencer might wear, and a glove for each of them, to protect their sword hand.

"Here." She tosses Caroline the sword. "Keep the tip down until it's time to start. Don't worry about hitting me. We're going to go to five touches." Plus, if she had Caroline swinging at her now, she could show off a little.

Caroline is very excited to see the swords, even if she knows this will be even harder, since she has no experience with them. But how cool would it be to change that?

The sword is heavy and it takes her a few moments for her to find a comfortable grip. "Does the touch have to be on the torso?" she asks, trying to remember anything she knows about fencing.

"Usually, if we were doing proper fencing." And if they were doing proper fencing, she would have htem in more than just masks and gloves. Like, protective covering.

But then again: vampires, and these things were metal. They were in no danger except via accidental decapitation. She doubted Caroline had the strength to do it, anyway, with her blunted sword.

She also doubted that Caroline would be able to best her, but then again, sometimes you didn't have to be good, you just had to be extremely lucky (or unlucky, as the case may be). "But, because it's your first time, no. You can hit anywhere above the waist." That was a more traditional saber style of fighting. Then again, fencing was very different from dueling and Evie was apt to teach her to duel.

Evie placed her mask on, and moved to the far-side of the mat. Bringing her sword up, she gave a small bow and salute of her weapon. "When you're ready."

Edited 2017-01-14 04:58 (UTC)

Caroline does the same and gets herself settled and ready. And then she stands there for a moment, realizing how much harder this will be than the sparring earlier. She remembers some advice about about watching her opponent's eyes to see where they would attack next that she must have picked up from a book or movie. Keeping that in mind, she moves forward, watching Evie closely while also trying not to telegraph what she was going to do too much.

Evie kept her eyes on Caroline, moving on the balls of her feet with an easy grace. She circles Caroline, letting her lead. She had no intentions of moving to attack until Caroline did the same.

It was going to be surprisingly hard not to show off.

While Caroline can do patience, she prefers to be more direct, and so finally she makes a quick move, aiming for Evie's shoulder. The movement feels clumsy right away but she doesn't pull back, since she might as well learn from yet another mistake.

It's a clumsy move alright, but Evie takes a step back and raises her blade up to parry.

"all your movements should come from the wrist," she tells her, and flicks her blade lightly to show her.

Caroline's blade is knocked aside easily and she takes a few steps back to regroup. "From the wrist, okay." She practices a few swings, before getting ready to try again.

This was going to take awhile.

"Little movements, that's it." She lets Caroline take a few swings at her, dodging easily out of the way, then back in again.

"Not bad," she tells her.

Caroline smiles, ignoring her arms which are beginning to ache from all this exertion. "Only 9,999 hours to go before I'm a master. Assuming that whole 10,000 hours thing is actually true."

Evie chuckles. "I think it takes a bit more than that to become a Master Assassin." But here she is, check her out.

"Though I'm not training you for that." Just self defense, mostly. A bit of offense.

"Master Assassin. I like that sound of that."

Well, except for the assassinating part. She'll kill if she has to but it's not exactly her favourite thing.

Evie gives a chuckle. "I don't think my way of living is something you'd enjoy much." It was a hard life. Not for everyone, and she was all too aware of that.

"Maybe not, but the title still sounds pretty impressive." There were a lot of titles going around these days, actually. It's a bit odd, especially for an American.

"Master Assassin, Countess, Dame." All three of her titles, each from different organizations. "But you're not too bad yourself- I think I heard you were Prom Queen?"

So maybe she'd done a little googling.

"Actually, my friend Bonnie was Prom Queen. But I won the Miss Mystic Falls competition." That seemed like forever ago now. She'd been human then.

Evie snaps the fingers that don't hold her sword.

"That's it- well, even I'm getting old." 170. She was a child, in comparison to some vampires.

Caroline grins. "It's an easy to get mixed up." At least for someone who isn't from Mystic Falls. And isn't a teenager.

"Don't worry, it's a mistake I won't make twice." She signals for Caroline to put down her weapon.

"I think that's enough for today. What did you think? If I'm rubbish, say so. It's been some time since I've trained anyone else." That had mostly been Jacob's cup of tea. He'd always been so great at training the others.

"No, this has been great. I know I have a long way to go but I can actually see myself getting there now." Time is a vampire's most abundant resource, after all.

"Is there anything I can do at home to practice? I'm pretty much stuck in my apartment during the day."

hazy shade of winter - january open post

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