Son of a Monster

The noise caused the large Argonian to start slightly, as he had been consumed with his thoughts as he looked out over the plains, but a small smile made its way to his face when he saw the source of the voice.

Indes watched him, eyeing his movements as he began to concentrate. It was not the way she expected him to start… whatever this was. Was he going to try to go under her own spear somehow? Was that why his was pointed to low? She took a step back in preparation, making sure that her footing was sure. Her own concentration held… until the sparks began.

She jumped back slightly out of instinct, not at all prepared for a spell. Cursing under her breath when the spear came from the complete opposite direction from the spearhead, the mer brought up the butt of her own spear in an effort to deflect the blow. In a real fight it likely would have only knocked it out of the way some, but because of Seewul’s carefulness she was able to keep most of it from hitting her unprotected shoulder directly, though it did still graze her. Once everything was said and done, she took another couple of steps back, watching to see if he would try to follow it up with another strike.

“Looks like you almost got me back from earlier,” she said, glancing down very briefly at the place she was hit. “Did you come up with that on your own?”

As soon as Indes stepped back, Seewul relaxed, letting the end of the spear rest against the ground, and leaning on it a bit. He did seem to have caught her off guard, and that had been the point: the magic was simply to surprise and distract.

Indes followed him, loosely rolling her own shoulders as she stretched, warming her muscles back up from the quick break in action. She took her place in front of Seewul, at a good defending distance, and nodded.

“Sounds good,” she replied, readying herself to hold a defensive stance for the time being. The spear was held at an angle, ready to block if necessary, but also ready to counter, though she doubted she would do that. “Whenever you’re ready, let me see what you’ve got.”

Seewul lowered the point of the spear near the ground, leaning forward into an aggressive posture, and taking a slow, deep breath. He seemed to concentrate as he breathed, almost staring past Indes. Then, two fingers of his front hand pointed along the shaft of the spear towards the tip, and a crackle sounded as lightning jumped from his fingertips to the spear head, and arced in sizzling tendrils into the ground. He twisted the spear head up away from the ground slowly, the crackling growing louder as the bolts reaching the ground grew longer, until they broke free, and the lightning began dissipating into the air in every direction around the spear head. As this happened, Seewul lunged forwards, raising the the spear up overhead as though he were going to bring it crashing back down onto Indes.

Done wrapping, Indes tied off the gauze and moved to start putting away everything back into the basket while listening. She responded with a thoughtful sound, then walked to where her own practice spear was, picking it up to examine the head.

“Well, you’re all patched up now. Hopefully a little more practice won’t put a strain on that wound.” She motioned toward the training yard. “If you feel up to it, we can try it right now before the others come out to train.”

Seewul nodded, putting his hand to the bandages, and stretching his arm out carefully, making sure that he wasn’t too restricted by the injury. The dull blade had made it through his skin, but seemed to have only nipped at the muscle beneath, as the twinging pain was relatively minor. Satisfied, the Argonian stood, taking a slow breath and picking up his practice spear from where he had leaned it.

With the length of gauze in her hand, she put down the rest of the roll to check the length one last time. Satisfied that it would work for the time being, she moved to stand next to Seewul, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. “Hold this end down for me while I wrap it,” she said, putting the end of the gauze she indicated on his arm and beginning to wrap the rest carefully.

“I know my height really doesn’t help with that,” she continued, chuckling under her breath. “Which is why it probably would not hurt to stay at a little bit of distance if you can just to see your opponent better. But it’s good to hear you feel more confident. It’s a good sign of improvement, but be careful you don’t get too comfortable in any bad habits.” She thought for a second. “What kind of things have you been practicing on your own?”

Seewul nodded, holding down the end of the gauze, and watching as she wrapped the wound. It was true, her height didn’t help with the problem, though no ones height did, really. They had little choice but to angle the spear up at him, as much as he had little choice but to level the spear down towards them. Perhaps he could find a way to work around it, but for now, it wasn’t of too much concern, as he rarely came across others who used a spear.

A clean cloth and the opened salve were held out for Seewul to take. “Here. I’ll let you do this yourself while I get the rest ready. It’ll make this go quicker.”

Indes returned to the roll of gauze, beginning to let it out to measure how much she figured they would need, occasionally glancing at the Naga’s arm in an attempt to measure it by sight alone. She chuckled a little as she did so. “Yes, she would spend the entire evening about how we could have made it worse if we kept going and what have you.” She paused to make a tear in the gauze and start cutting it off. “But you were doing very well. You just have to watch for those odd angles when another spear is coming at you. They can be tricky.”

Seewul took them, cleaning the wound with the corner of the cloth, and then beginning to apply the salve. The wound stung, certainly, though he did little about it besides let out an uncomfortable sigh under his breath.

The Naga opened his mouth to say something as Nidhel approached, but froze as the ring of flowers began to drift upwards, his mouth closing as his eyes followed it with an intent interest. He had been able to move objects with magic before, but never so effortlessly as Nidhel appeared to do it.

Seewul instinctively looked up when he felt something touched the top of his head, causing the flower that had been carefully placed there to fall. He caught its movement as it landed on his shoulder, reaching to pick it up and inspect it. Glancing over his shoulder, the Argonian noticed Tort standing just behind him as he sat, and gave a short hum at the realization of what had happened.

On the rare occasions that he saw Tasava, he had become accustomed to her sometimes doing things he didn’t expect, such as this occasion when he suddenly found a woven circle of flowers sitting on his head. Eyes turning up for a moment as though to look at them -- though he couldn’t really see them -- he looked back down at the smaller Argonian, nodding carefully.

Seewul hadn’t spoken to Korgul’s sister much if at all before, and thus was surprised when she approached him and placed a ring of flowers on his head while he sat in the main hall of Jorrvaskr. He was silent for a moment, before he looked at Zhugul, his head tilting somewhat, though not enough to risk the flowers falling off of his head.