“Sorry for him.” Annie apologised half-heartedly, after gesturing for them both to follow. “The big guy can be an arsehole, but he’s one of the militia’s lieutenants for a reason.”
Equinox waved off her apology – though based on the frigid look on Wyntir’s face, she wasn’t feeling nearly as charitable. “Don’t worry about it. On that note, how many lieutenants does the militia have? And, this might be a bit late, but are you the one in charge?”
Annie chuckled good-naturedly, stride remaining strong. “Better late than never, right? As for the militia, I have two vice-captains and five lieutenants under me, but I do answer to the Village Chief, so I’m technically not in charge.”
“Village Chief?” He parroted, head tilted in curiosity. “I don’t think I’ve heard any mention of him or her.”
Slowing down a tad, she took her time to navigate between a cluster of closely spaced, mostly occupied sparring rings; all the garishly-dressed militia promptly snapping off sharp salutes as she approached, a sea of curious eyes fixed on himself and Wyntir in staggered tandem.
“Yes, Golden Trees Village’s Village Chief.” She confirmed after bypassing the cluster. “Eustace is the second one who has taken up the post since our village’s founding.”
“Ah I see.” He stopped walking for a moment, letting a chattering five-woman gaggle of fellow players stroll pass before continuing. “Who was the first?”
“His grandfather. Luckily for us, we don’t have to deal with him anymore. According to my elders, Chief Mica was a far harder man to deal with, back in those days.”
“Interesting.”
Equinox fell silent after that, thinking over what Annie had revealed.
Meanwhile, as the two conversed, Wyntir had been cooling down—or perhaps, warming up, more accurately—from her short-lived confrontation with the aggravating manchild.
It didn’t help that his parting shot was an attempt, even if a rather poor one, at creating a wedge between herself and Equinox. Although it wouldn’t have worked, the attempt, in and of itself, was enough for her to etch his name in her internal list of enemies.
The partial silverette only decided to pick the conversation back up once she was sure her wroth was back where it belonged.
“Excuse me, Captain, but what exactly does the Village Chief have authority over?” Wyntir inquired, causing Equinox’s ears to perk up, drawn out of his thoughts.
Coming to a stop at the same spot where she had trained them yesterday, Annie tapped her chin musingly, only providing an answer after half a minute or so. “Long story short, he deals with the administrative, non-combat side of running the village.”
Walking over to the rack of weapons, she picked up a pair of shortswords and started absently swinging them around, starting up what was obviously a warmup routine. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like Eustace doesn’t have any influence in the more martial aspects of the village—that’s what we’re here for, after all—but compared to the Guards, the Militia is woefully outmatched.”
As if awakening from a trance, Annie shook her head slightly and slowly came to a stop; pair of shortswords brought in an elegant arc from shoulder to hip and crisscrossing along the way, dual blunted weapons hanging by her sides as she switched tracks.
“Sorry sorry, I have a bad habit of rambling sometimes. Back on topic, the Village Chief is responsible for the everyday running of Golden Trees Village, such as intervillage trade, resource acquisition, and permit approvals, amongst other such… larger scale issues. Does that answer your question?”
“It does, thank you.” Wyntir confirmed, dropping into a slight, polite bow.
Equinox answered affirmatively when the question was aimed at him. Nodding to herself, Annie confidently strode into the delineated sparring ring and gestured at Wyntir provocatively. “Well then! Let’s get some training done, shall we?”
Unlike the day before, Annie made use of the School of Hard Knocks to train the pair up.
After all, experience was the best teacher, or so she claimed. Tell them and they forget, teach them and they may remember, but involve them and they will learn.
As sparring progressed, the captain kept repeating the incisive refrain, as if trying to firmly nail it into their skulls even as a pair of shortswords and then a solitary scimitar tried to do the same by inking down the lesson in a tapestry of bruises and pain.
Equinox would have been far more embarrassed that Annie was having more success with training Wyntir if he didn’t intimately know how capable the latter was. Watching on for a moment as the pair clashed in a flurry of sparks and singing steel, he looked away, before ripping out a blunted throwing knife from the brace wrapped around his thigh.
Assuming the stance Annie had taught him—left foot forward, right foot slightly behind, and back straight as a Pyrite Tree—he focused on the straw-padded dummy, aimed at its torso, and threw the knife with a flick of the wrist; hilt first.
After a second or so of tense anticipation, the knife thumped into the dummy’s torso, slightly off-centre from his desired target. Unfortunately, it did so, hilt first.
“You’re going to need to add a bit more oomph to your throw, boyo.” Annie shouted, nearly paying for her lapse of concentration when Wyntir swung for her head, missing it by mere inches. Retaliating with a counterthrust and forcing the partial silverette to hurriedly backstep, the brunette calmly continued her instruction. “Also, stand a bit closer to the dummy. With how you’re holding the knife, it won’t sink into the straw, blade first, at such a range.”
“Got it!” He shouted back. With nothing else to say, Annie focused back on Wyntir, dashing forward to resume exchanging blows.
Looking away and taking a step or two forward, he judged that the distance between himself and the dummy was just under two metres before whipping out his second last throwing knife and flicking it at the dummy’s torso.
After spinning just north of one full rotation, it sunk into tightly packed straw and embedded itself into the soft wood underneath with a dull thump.
At least it landed this time – even if it was still, unfortunately, somewhat off-centre from the spot he was aiming for.
With the mostly-success still fresh in mind, he yanked out the last throwing knife and flicked it at the dummy in one smooth motion, causing its blunted tip to embed itself inches to the side of his previous successful throw.
Instead of retrieving all five throwing knives immediately, he paused for a moment, thinking on what he could have done better; determined to land all five, if not on target, then at least on the dummy in his next attempt.
Trying to memorise the force he used for the last two throws, he absently strode over to the five knives—both successful and not—and picked up the lot, sheathing them in their respective places around his left thigh.
Shuffling back over to his initial spot, he carefully repeated his throws and was lulled into a bit of a trance as the thunk-thunk-thunk of successful knives piercing wood filled the mid-morning air.
He was only broken out of said trance when his fingers met empty leather brace; all five throwing knives already having been thrown.
Focusing back on the here and now, he saw that three of the five knives stuck out from the dummy’s torso – two of them, unfortunately, lying at its feet, clearly having failed to stick their landing.
Equinox immediately strode over, retrieved every single projectile, and retreated back to his initial spot; ready to throw them all over again until all five stuck the landing.
At this point, he would be content with just that.
The Sun was close to reaching its zenith in the cloudless blue sky by the time Equinox gave up on practice. Somehow, one out of every five throws would fail to hit the dummy – whether that be the second or third or fourth, but never the first or fifth.
It would have been infuriating, if his attention hadn’t been stolen by Wyntir and Annie clashing blades metres away from where he stood, giving him an avenue to take his mind off the mostly-successes-but-still-failures from time to time.
By the time Annie called off their training for the day, the partial silverette was a picture of dishevelled fatigue; strands of silver-streaked white hair sticking out of her single, long braid here and there, while strands of straw stuck to her rumpled blouse and pants from when she was forced to take an evasive tumble.
“That’s all for today y’all. See you here tomorrow?” Annie asked, not a single hair out of place in her tightly done up bun of silky brown locks even after the close to hour long period of exertion.
Walking over to the racks of weapons, she leaned the pair of shortswords she had been using up against other swords, only taking enough time to make sure none of them fell before walking back.
“Thanks again for the training.” He offered, resheathing the last throwing knife back where it belonged. “Speaking of, is there any way to locate you besides searching all through the training grounds?”
“See that building over there?” She gestured at an area behind her, getting him to look.
Close to the leftmost edge of the training grounds was a tall building made of timber and roughly hewn stone, scores of garishly-garbed militia streaming in and out of its thrown open double doors like a colony of ants.
“Yeah I see it.” He confirmed. “Is that your headquarters or something?”
“How astute of you.” She said, playful lilt to her words. “But in all seriousness, yes, it is. I can be found there on most days, but take a gander around the training grounds itself, first, before looking in there. Most like, I’ll be out here, training a bunch of new recruits or one of you otherworldly foreigners.”
He nodded appreciatively. “Got it. Thanks for the heads up.”
“If there’s nothing else…?” She asked, trailing off leadingly while looking between Equinox and Wyntir. At their pair of verbalised negatives, she snapped off a salute then sharply about-faced, heading off without a further word.
“So, what do you want to do next?” While the brunet and brunette had been talking, Wyntir had been making herself presentable again. Only once she was done with that did she bring attention to herself. “We have about six or seven hours, give or take, before the village’s gates close.”
“Hmm.” Humming thoughtfully, he strode over to the rack, picking up another brace of five throwing knives then strapping it around his right thigh as options flashed through his mind. “You okay if we detour to that Essence Condensate shop before doing anything else? I want to check out the prices of GSFs.”
“Are you talking about Becca’s Emporium of Essence Condensates?” She asked without missing a beat. He nodded, impressed as always by her easy ability to recall such things. “Sure, that is fine with me. We should find somewhere to fill up our water canteens on the way too, however. I am not keen on experiencing dehydration in-game.”
“Point.” Slipping a hand into his pocket, he summoned out the canteen in question, causing a deflated, stoppered leather pouch to materialise in his free hand.
Bringing it up to eye level, he rotated it this way and that, examining it with a critical eye. “The canteen is a bit of a letdown, isn’t it?”
Not bothering to take out her own water canteen, Wyntir glided over and pushed down his arm, getting it in a prime position to comfortably hook hers in his. “Put that away. We are wasting daylight, you know?”
Palming his spatial pouch and mentally willing the canteen to be stored away as bade, Equinox mock-frowned down at her. “Pushy, much?”
She impishly winked up at him but then gently tugged at his arm, clearly intent on taking leave of the training grounds as soon as possible. “You would not have me any other way, I am sure.”
While he didn’t resist her pull, he couldn’t help but have the last word. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes~ I~ am~!”
