Their meal concluded, Ulric was interested in picking his Shadow's brain about the lack of visible goings on but he was denied nearly instantly.
"We do not have time for me to indulge your interrogations if you are to be at the instructional site on time. When the doors to the lecture hall close, they do not open again until it is done. That such an opportunity was provided by my father would mean your missing its very first day, for no good reason, would be to say that it was without value to you. This is not a great insult but it reflects poorly on you. As your Shadow, it is my duty to best serve your interests and, given that you seem to never run out of questions, it is in your best interest to go, on time, to instruction." Geyrt said with serious tone.
She wasn't even being snide so it must have been important. Graciously, Ulric invited her to lead the way and she did so at a fair clip. She left her dishes stacked on the table so Ulric did the same. Maybe they operated on five star hotel rules around here: don't deliberately make messes but trust the staff to keeps things to order. It turned out that Geyrt's haste was reasonable. The paired stars were already well into their rise and the lecture hall was on the third level of Irielhos. They walked to a lift, a journey of almost ten minutes, and then had another ten-minute walk from the lift to the lecture hall, barely making it in time. Ulric had never asked how these Elves managed to keep time with no visible clocks but they never seemed to have trouble knowing the time down to the minute.
The lecture hall was a rather severe building on the shadow side of the trunk of the tree into which it was built. It was one of those recessed structures, set deep into the massive bole. The recess, coupled with the time of day, resulted in a rather claustrophobic environment quite unlike anywhere else he'd been in the fortress city. The normal airy atmosphere of engraved vines and leaves now held a much more umbral feel. This was a place where One is Meant to Work. That unto itself was a curiosity for Ulric. Everywhere else had given off the feeling of freedom and fleeting passions burning intensely that then shifted with the wind. Here though, he could almost taste the intense focus of scholars burning untold hours with single minded purpose. It almost felt like he'd stepped back into the lab in his graduate school.
Appropriately thematic candles burned inside wall sconces and room after room held scrolls of paper, leather and wood bound books on full wall book shelves, stands holding replacement candles by the thousands, stacks of spare paper, blank scrolls, and what seemed to be as many types of writing utensil as attachments on a swiss army knife. Knife pens, soft tipped pens, brushes, pencils tipped by who knows what, charcoal, fifty colors of ink, and, gods great and small, CHALK! Where there was chalk there would be chalkboards. Surely these civilized folk were not heathens in disguise? And, lo, there in a room was a full-size black slate chalkboard, spanning the entire wall. It was beautiful. Ulric ached to go and write out the derivation of the Fourier transform from the series of the same name. Just because. Just to feel the dust on his hands again.
But his Shadow led on past the room and it was lost to the dim recesses. Someday board, he told himself. The lecture hall was so large that it had actual stories. Spiral stairs took them up into the trunk, now entirely enclosed inside the body of the great tree. A few turns later and Geyrt stopped before a wide set of double doors. Ulric was completely lost within the building. Fortunately, they had arrived on time though and the sounds of Elven children poured into the hallway. Confused, Ulric looked around for another set of doors. Nope. Empty. In fact, the vast majority of the rooms had been empty, contributing to the near funerary atmosphere of this level.
"Is this it?" Ulric asked eyebrow raised.
"It is. We are on time, but only just, now go in. I will remain in the hall to guard the door." Geyrt said with a too steady tone. Her face was rigid with control.
Ulric's arachnid senses were tingling. He knew when a joke had been played and the more he heard of the childlike voices inside the more he was convinced that he knew what type of prank it was. But there was little choice left him. Sighing he entered the room to face the truth: it was a classroom full of children. He was in a kid's lesson. Close to thirty elf lads and lasses of ages seemingly similar to Brighteyes were arrayed in sets of five around tables. At the front of the room stood a rather severe Elven man of great age, in a set of fine velvet robes, dark grey in color. He had completely white hair and, for the first time since Ulric had been exposed to the Iriel'en, wore a beard. Now this guy was ancient. Ulric was almost sure he could hear echoes of the roars of dinosaurs when he moved, which he seemed to do only infrequently.
"It is time. Let us take our seats and begin the day's lesson." the ancient Elf instructor announced.
Instantly every child sat, backs straight, dead silent. Ulric was left no choice now, this was going to be awkward as shit. He quickly sat at a table of three and endured the gawping faces of the room. Ulric was really, really hoping that they'd just ignore him and do as they would normally do. Maybe they'd just go on like he wasn't even there.
"Let us welcome our new student. He was granted space with us by our generous Lord and we should offer him our deepest hospitality, yes?" The paleological man said in a deep baritone.
"Yes instructor." Chorused the children.
"Welcome Glade Chief, to the intermediate session. May the wisdom of the Ancients guide us ever on." Intoned the wizened elf.
"May the wisdom of the Ancients guide us ever on." Again, the class rang out in unison.
Ok, Ulric was getting some deeply creepy children of the corn vibes. Bald'rt. That bastard. Of course he'd make sure it was a children's class. He could almost hear the man laughing from his throne room. Probably rolling around on the floor pissing himself with glee at Ulric's chafing discomfort. And Geyrt too. Her stony expression wasn't discomfort, it was to keep a straight face. Before he could dwell on it, the instructor rolled on, with all the steadiness of a glacier.
"We are all here known to each other but introductions are in order. We will delay class just a few minutes to make them. Please excuse the interruption of our usual routine children, needs must." Spoke the instructor with the same deep monotone as before.
Ah. There. Ulric was catching it now. He was implying that Ulric was a distraction and he did not appreciate it. He wasn't wrong. Still. It wasn't like Ulric had chosen the man or his classroom; that had been decided by the black hearted jackal that called himself Lord of Iriel, for whom Ulric would spend his days calculating a proper vengeance.
While Ulric's thoughts turned to blood the man had continued on in the same monotone voice
"I am Instructor Gother Cenur'it. I am called Instructor Gother or, simply, Instructor, if you like."
He then proceeded to name each and every child in the room first calling them to stand, naming them, and asking them to sit. Each child stood instantly at the call of their name and remained at attention until they were called to sit. Never a word was uttered by any of them throughout the entire process. This was going to be awful. When the instructor reached Ulric, instead of asking him to introduce himself he merely pointed in Ulric's general direction and said "Our Guest."
It was just about enough to make a guy sore. Especially when he launched into some talk about bark harvesting and wood beetles with no preamble. Ulric could mostly follow the droning lecture, minus some of the more technical words, probably proper names for things. At least, he could understand the words being said, the point of the whole thing was entirely absent any context. Why are they harvesting the bark? Why do you bury the grubs in the soil at the base of the tree? A hundred more questions he had. None of it made sense.
It went on for a solid hour. Worse, nobody moved or said anything the entire time. Nobody even wrote anything down. Did they actually remember all of this? Ulric wasn't going to ask any questions. Not until one of the kids did. He tried hard to remain fully engaged. But the droning monologue soon broke his will and he zoned out. Just when Ulric was laying out ideas for a sewage filled pit trap outside of Bald'rt's throne room, the guards distracted by a timely fire, the torture ended.
"And that will be all for today. Class is abbreviated that you may all assist in the Winter's Herald preparations and festival. We will reconvene in three day's time. Dismissed."
The old elf turned immediately and left the room, vanishing like a mirage. Spry then, for his age. Once he was gone, the children all started moving around and chattering, like a switch was turned on. Ulric was ready to get the fuck out of there. He stood and strode to the door. Glances and gazes followed him out. As well they should. A room full of Elven children in loose light long sleeved shirts and pants and there he was a full-grown man in heathen bone armor. At least he'd left the spear in his rooms.
Exiting the room, Ulric saw Geyrt turn so he wouldn't see her satisfied smirk. That was fine, he knew the source of this. There would be an opportunity to return this favor. For now, though, he was going to take this as a chance to improve his language skills, to learn what things were important enough to teach children, which would give him insights into the cultural levers that moved these people, and to confuse his adversary by pretending to be a completely willing victim. Lulling them into a false sense of security might prompt them to reveal a flaw in their defenses. There was even some remote chance that Bald'rt actually thought these sorts of lessons were valuable in and of themselves. A laughably small chance, but not something to disregard out of hand.
He took off down the hall at a rapid pace. Turning into one of the empty rooms he went to a bookcase and picked a tome at random, opening it gently. Before his eyes crawled a pace full of symbols vaguely akin to sanskrit in appearance. He saw repeats of symbols, accents of base symbols, and line breaks that suggested the text was written vertically. Whether left to right or right to left, or perhaps even something more complex was unknown. About this Ulric was willing to tolerate no jests, he was not happy about being illiterate. Turning to Geyrt who had entered behind him, for a change, he said in a tone that brooked no nonsense.
"You will begin teaching me to read and write the Elf script. We can use this book as a primer. I intend to be fluent before the end of winter. I read prodigiously in my old world and I find the lack of such to be a deficiency in this life that must be corrected. Immediately."
It would seem that if he was going to get anywhere this morning with learning anything it would only be if he was at the helm. He'd already put up with an hour of their nonsense and one of the things Ulric found truly intolerable was to have his time wasted. Not to mention that, if he had to endure Geyrt, he was going to at least put her to use.
Pointing to the page of the open book he commanded "Read you this page to me, in your own tongue, tracing a finger over the words as you read them. It will help me to understand the flow of the text."
If the woman took offense, she didn't show it. Instead, she began reading the page, tracing her finger lightly over the page. Top to bottom, right to left, the symbols appeared to be phonyms. That little dash was some kind of comma or phrase separator, those accents were tied to tense, somehow, and it appeared that a line underneath the symbol denoted the end of a sentence while a double underline marked the end of a paragraph. Ulric wasn't worried about what the actual meaning of the page, he merely wanted the structure. Thanks be to the Watcher's miracle orbs that they didn't have a completely different lingual and written structure. Like the Swiss with their Swiss-German spoken language and their high German written language, the mad men. Or, forbid the thought, an ideogram script, like the Han characters of old Chinese, that bears almost no connection to its spoken construct. No, this was more akin to the northern european languages of his old world. So similar to Icelandic, that Ulric had to wonder if there were linguistic transfers between worlds. Maybe people like him contributed to minor cultural transfers between worlds. Dimensional immigrants. That very nearly pulled a laugh out of him.
Geyrt, for her part, merely accepted her Honor's smile as more evidence of his insanity. As she read the page, she couldn't help but be surprised at the intensity of his study of the page. He seemed to her to flit between a childlike naivete and a predator's focus. It was disorienting. Now was fully the hunting bird. His stupid grin did nothing to bely the hawkish study of the text over which her finger traced as she read. This, at least, was a less objectionable use of time than being used as a page as some Shadows were employed.
She was vaguely worried. He hadn't responded greatly to the joke lesson earlier. Surely he didn't think that it was unintentional that he be attending a children's class? Her father's prank was well played. He had met his commitment in full, had secured her Honor a place with one of the premier instructors in the entire citadel, but for the youths' time slot. And yet, the strange man had gone in, had made no noise, had attended the full lesson, and had left with no apparent rancor. Had he missed it? Or was he pretending ignorance out of respect? Impossible to know with this one. She would keep her guard up, he had shown he was of a mind with her father and that man could wait years to make even a debt.
Ulric would have been glad that his Shadow was so off balance and would have, if he knew, been unable to resist prodding to see if she would topple. As it was, the page was all. Spoken grammar was similar to written grammar and while he couldn't nail down a specific alphabet or set of phonemes just yet, he had a big picture sort of idea how it went. This was doable. He wouldn't have to memorize ten thousand distinct characters, just figure out the rules for punctuation and the spelling norms. After that he would be able to construct simple sentences himself and, once his vocabulary improved, be able to read the lower-level texts. Hopefully these people didn't tend towards Victorian writing styles, an absolute chore to chew through.
When his Shadow finished the page, he retreated into his own mind letting the patterns and symbols scrawl around while his brain kicked things into place. Fingers snapping, he was immersed in how the punctuation marks were used to chunk the script into phrases and distinct statements. This book, apparently some kind of catalogue of trade agreements through history, kept things brief and tidy. Names, dates, details of arrangements, and without embellishment. It was actually a good primer. He could figure out verb subject object agreement, tenses, dating and numerical standards, and get some cultural insights as to the values of different things produced by the Elves, as well as what they saw valuable to obtain from Otherkin. All in all, a lucky strike.
Turning suddenly to his Shadow he saw she was studying him as intently as he studied the page. A ball of mysteries was this woman. Beautiful and reserved. Bold but defensive. And always so serious. To look so much like her father, she had inherited none of his good humor. At least they appeared to have achieved a semblance of peace between them. There would always be friction though even were he not a sarcastic bastard. Even her brother Brighteyes had admitted that she was a difficult person and her father had more than implied that she was a pain in the ass. It had only been a couple of days though, maybe they'd get used to each other.
"Thank you for that Geyrt. I will review my observations now about the way this is constructed. If I make a mistake, please correct me." Ulric asked of her in Elvish.
He'd basically had the broad strokes correct. The odd accents could not only be verb tenses though, they could also denote prepositions. In, on, towards, away, all utilized a particular accent in a particular position. This use made the text slightly hard to read, but he’d get used to it once he memorized where things belonged. At least they didn’t invert verb subject agreement. The droids you are looking for, these are not. Making specific adjustments to the verbs’ symbols to modify them seemed a strangely straightforward way of handling the situation and would be easier to remember. When he asked if he could take the tome with him though he was greeted with a negative however. Books and scrolls from the libraries could not be removed from their respective rooms. A copy could be ordered but such a thing would take the back burner for the upcoming war preparations. It might be weeks before anyone could get to doing it. Looks like he would be burning some midnight oil in this stygian hall of education.
Geyrt reminded him that they were slated for a training session with the warriors, led by Bald'rt's chief guard just after noon. That should be interesting. He'd never done any kind of fight training personally, not outside of his mandatory military service, which hadn’t gone to great lengths on hand to hand fighting, cause, you know, guns and all. A history buff, he’d enjoyed depictions of war and action movies, random collections of videos online regarding archaic combat forms, and a dedicated following of the olympics were the extent of his knowledge. It had been surprising how much you could pick up, especially when your body did what you told it to. He wondered if he would be able to learn to move like the Elves from this. Geyrt's flowing grace during her ambush had been a wonderful thing to behold, even if it had been aimed at him. Hal'et had done it too during their play. She'd moved like liquid around him. Probably not something he'd be able to replicate any time soon, no matter how fit he was. But that would all be later, they had at least an hour to kill.
Ulric refused to ask about the "lesson" he'd attended. That would be allowed to play out as it would. Instead, he found himself wanting to go outside and watch the storm roll through. At his request Geyrt led the way.
They retraced their steps to leave the lecture hall. As soon as they left the rather closed in atmosphere they were blasted by an arctic wind. Gusts pushed, waned, and returned with redoubled force. The clouds were rolling in dark, forboding. Twenty minutes walking found them on a pavilion on the eleventh level of Irielhos, where most of the royal guard would bunk, dine, and train. Ulric asked if these warriors rotated duties like the others. That was an affirmative, although they almost never took a year off, instead rotating into the ranks of the active Hunters. Geyrt told him with pride in her people that there was a yearly competition to determine who would get to hold a position as royal guard. It sounded like a ferocious ordeal, days without sleep, physical exhaustion tests, combat training, and sparring, all scored for points. After a week the best two hundred would be selected for royal guard, the rest would return to their normal duties as Hunters, or warriors, or whatever. When Ulric asked if the royal guard were better fighters than the warriors they’d seen in the other pavilions, she actually laughed. These guys were, apparently, on another level. And of their leader Idra, Geyrt spoke of the man with an awe that said he had gone even further beyond.
"Idra'se, se being how we refer to knighted warriors, is very nearly the equal of my father. He is one of the few that the Lord of Iriel cannot simply mow down through overwhelming power. For all his japes, his casual attitudes, my father, Bald'rt Iriel, is the strongest pure fighter in Orlethrem. Idra'se is probably number four. Lumyt'seit's mother, Mother Bathe, is number two, by the way. If she wanted to, she could probably defeat father but prefers to make peace and allies rather than leave a wreckage wherever she strides, unlike Father Bald'rt. You will listen to every command of Idra'se, he is doing you a great service by granting you himself as an instructor while we ready for war. Many warriors would fight for the opportunity to build on your tree." Geyrt lectured.
She sounded almost warm speaking of Bald'rt's scarred senior guard. Interesting. A mentor? A lover? A comrade in arms? Maybe all of the above. Whatever the case, clearly this guy rated a step higher than the rest. Ulric was actually looking forward to this now. Here he'd been thinking it would be like the supposed lesson earlier.
They had arrived at the exposed pavilion a full hour early. Ulric very deliberately did not want to eat before the training just in case there was a lot of "drop and give me fifty Mr!" kind of activity. Not that he'd ever seen an elf do a pushup, but you can never be too careful. As a result, they saw Idra coming. He turned the corner and, Ulric had to admit, was the very image of a hardened soldier. Face controlled, eyes seemed to absorb the entire sight before him, and he strode with the same liquid grace, but firmer, as if he had no intent of going around anything. The scar that drug at his mouth ran halfway up his face and must have been a wicked wound while fresh.
Ulric waved.
The warrior gave no outward sign he saw the gesture but, upon seeing them bore down on them with the surety of a stone down a rock face. Ulric was absentmindedly dodging Geyrt's hair ring as it whipped about in the gusting wind and the woman herself was pretending he wasn't playing a game with her hair. He'd have the head movement of a professional boxer if they stood out there all day. He gave it up when his Shadow glared at him, and grabbed her own flailing hair ring. Idra actually smiled at these antics when he reached them, an expression that would have scared a hardened man to piss himself in a dark alley with those scars. He also gave Geyrt a small nod, just a subtle acknowledgment of her presence. Ulric had nearly forgotten that most of the Elves were actually rather fun to be around with only few exceptions.
"Welcome to the royal guard barracks Ulric Glade Chief, it is good that you arrive early. How has the day found you?" the Warrior inquired in a mellow baritone, first in Elvish and then in Human.
"It finds us well today Idra'se. We have breakfasted and attended a most fascinating morning lesson. We might discuss the finer points of bark shaving if you find leisure time. How does yourself fare?" Ulric returned in his limited, but improving! Elvish.
Ulric's comment about the lesson turned the man's smile into a sardonic grin. It would seem then, that everyone was in the know.
"I have graduated Instructor Gother's lessons once in this life, therefore I believe that I have had my fill. We will surely find other topics for discussion, unless your passion drives you in that direction. I am busy, as I will always be in these times, and, probably, until my roots wither and my trunk stands bare." Returned the soldier.
The smile faded to his default cool consideration as the warrior turned their meeting to business.
"What know you about combat with body and weapons Glade Chief? I must determine your level of experience, that I can remove all of the bad habits they have instilled." Idra'se requested.
That was an easy one, and, yet, perhaps more complicated than it first seemed.
"I am an experienced hunter Idra'se, with a bow. I have hunted with spear as well but this was mostly done to challenge my stalking skills, not to learn fighting. Other than that, I have watched a great deal of demonstration by masters of hand to hand fighting, and some less…practical demonstrations by weapons. My experience in both is minimal. I am afraid I have leaned mostly on my magical abilities and agility in battles so far, with the exception of harpooning and knifing some [Heckler Monkeys]." Ulric replied, hoping his mention of watching professional MMA, Boxing, HEMA, and Olympic fighting sports wasn't too unfair to describe as watching masters.
Later, he would find out it wasn’t the same. At all.
The Elvish was coming easier now. Practice makes perfect, after all, and it was probably no small thing to have sat under Instructor Gother's droning lecture, droning but immaculately pronounced, to improve his grasp of the language.
Idra nodded along and briefly smiled when Ulric mentioned the monkeys. Brighteyes had done a hell of a pantomime of the fight with them in the throne room, to the joy of all. His enthusiastic jabs, stabs, and leaps depicting the battle in full were better than any play Ulric had ever seen.
After a moment's contemplation the Warrior came to a decision about his approach.
"Then you know next to nothing. That is good, there will be little to undo. I have been tasked with teaching you how to fight and I will do so in the way of Elves. If you want to learn how it is Otherkin, Humans included, conduct themselves you will need one of them to teach you. I have only been on the other side of that and have not been impressed greatly. Not that they had long to try, mind. Efficiency of motion is, among many other concepts, one of the things I hope to instill in you." spoke Idra'se, in a businesslike manner.
"It probably would not have changed my estimation greatly but it is good to know, at least, that we may start clean. If you wish, you may challenge me to a spar now, to get it out of the way. All young Elves believe they know better than the trainers and we always end up giving them an applied lesson to drive home the importance of fundamentals. If not, we will begin the lesson immediately, though you may, at any time, request a spar if you feel it necessary. I will have less time to directly oversee you when the others arrive at the pavilion." he continued.
Ulric nearly choked when Idra offered to spar but as he went on it seemed that it was just a veteran teacher's experience with Elven rookies. Spar this man? Yeah, right, Ulric thought, just give me a second to sign this will.
"Nope, I'm good Idra'se. Not gonna be necessary today. You just do what you think is best and I'll try to follow along." Said Ulric.
"Excellent Glade Chief." Idra said in Human before continuing.
"Then here is where we will begin. As the Heartwood underneath us is the firmament upon which we stand, the Heartwood of combat is positioning and positioning is determined by footwork. The victory is gained, without exception, by having the ability to break your enemy’s defenses, to move past them or to prevent them from offering counter to your attack. Magic changes the conditions for what constitutes your and your opponents' positions but we will leave that out. Such lessons come much higher up in the branches, when your fundamentals are sound. Today, and for all the days we have together I would guess, we will learn the Dance of One Thousand Steps."
That was a suitably confounding mix of arcane and practical. Ulric felt like Idra should probably invest in a long white hair wig and a long, narrow, beard of the same color. Probably some White robes as well. He was giving off some real Grandmaster of the Leaf Palm Fist vibes. But if this man stood close to that monster on the throne, he was well worth listening to and Ulric was determined to do whatever it took to not get killed to death.
"Show me, Sensei." Ulric said, seriously.
At Idra's confused look, Ulric had to explain that the term meant the master of a school of combat. Apparently, Earth terms did not translate to human automatically, you had to intentionally think of the Earth term to use it, otherwise the words that spilled out of your mouth would be in Human.
After clarifying though, Idra continued on, assuming a stance with feet placed precisely just outside of hips, one foot leading hips by a third of a meter, the back foot behind by the same distance, feet turned so that the lead foot was about fifteen degrees counterclockwise of north, the rear twenty five degrees counterclockwise of north shoulders turned so that the lead shoulder was aligned with lead hip, knees bent in a light crouch. And, just like that, Idra transformed from a dedicated guardsman into a weapon. He gave off a feeling like a drawn blade, it nearly made Ulric's hackles rise. The elf only came up to Ulric's chin but he felt like he was twenty feet tall.
All that, just from a simple change of stance. Both feet were planted but his weight was perfectly balanced just ever so slightly more on the back foot than the front. Ulric hoped that was comfortable and, admittedly, the Elf looked like he could petrify at any moment, so still he was. Ulric had a feeling he was going to be doing it for a while. How hard could it be?
Oh child, Future Ulric whispered across time.
"In the Dance there are many steps but this one is the first. This is called the covered ready, with the left foot back. The next step is the advance ready." Idra explained before sliding his feet to reverse his stance without a single wiggle in balance.
"The backmost foot is called the root, the front the branch. This is because the back leg is the source of your support, your connection to the ground, and around which you must center your balance. The branch is your connection to the air your mobility, your advance or your retreat. Any step which transfers your weight to your branch leg is called a committed step because once you have done this you are obligated to move your root or have your stance destroyed. Such movements are meant to be transitional and transient. You never want your opponent to read these or they will attack you knowing that you must move your root. In the Dance, each step is meant to gain advantage, even if that advantage is gained by giving ground or sacrificing a lesser position for a greater one later." The Warrior continued his body held in utter stillness.
The elf left his ready and that weird pressure disappeared. Wild. He came over to stand next to Ulric, Hmming as he did.
"You have no other clothes, Glade Chief? You should have something comfortable and light to practice in. This armor is strong and not badly made but it changes your balance and you should learn the Dance with only your body. You will adjust naturally in armor to accommodate it but it is a hindrance now." Idra said seriously before turning to address Geyrt.
"Shadow, you know where the spare silks are stored, retrieve a set for your Honor, he is tall but there should be some suitable." He commanded.
Geyrt snapped to attention by instinct and then ran into the airy building behind the pavilion. She was only gone a few moments before she returned with a set of those black under clothes and stuffed them into his chest. Almost letting them drop to the floor before Ulric caught them.
Ulric was amazed. Just like that, not a scowl, not a hesitation, not a single thing but this Taipan was sent running to fetch. He might have [Snake Charmer] but Idra was the [King Cobra].
"I gotta learn how you did that." Ulric mumbled.
Both sets of long ears twitched. One owner scowled while the other's lips twitched upwards.
He stood there for a second holding the silks. Appropriately named. Looking around briefly at the empty pavilion Ulric shrugged before removing his armor, stripping out of his clothes and dressing in the provided clothes. They were absolutely the best feeling clothes he'd ever worn. Smooth, light, flexible. While tight they didn't constrict him at all, having an easy elasticity. The long sleeves ended only a few centimeters from his wrist and ankles, so not a bad fit. Thus dressed he turned back to find the two Elves on the pavilion looking bemused.
"What?" Ulric asked.
"You would have been able to change inside the barracks Glade Chief, but it is good that you do not fear your own body's sight." Idra said with suppressed humor.
Geyrt merely sniffed and muttered to herself. Ah yeah, he had just used his own nakedness to tease her earlier hadn't he? Well, if you've got it flaunt it. An ass like this was wasted in clothes anyway. He looked to Idra and thanked him earnestly.
"I will keep that in mind Idra'se. And, thank you, really, for the use of these clothes. They are a truly wonderful gift. I've never worn anything so fine."
Nodding the elf dismissed it as nothing and set about getting Ulric into the first step of their Dance. He was precise as a clockmaker, pushing here, shifting a foot there. He didn't stop until he had Ulric situated in that light crouch with perfection.
"There. That is it. This is the first step, the undan ready. It is how you will engage your opponents, it is the foundation of your Dance, and it must be flawless. Any weakness, any imperfection of balance and the opponent will begin to chip away at you if they don't destroy you instantly." Idra spoke.
"Now, watch and see how to move into the second step, the fyir ready. Some dogmas would have it that the undan ready is the only starting point for the dance but this is not so. Undan or fyir, they are equivalent and an effective warrior should be as comfortable in one as the other. If you ever find yourself, Glade Chief, favoring one over the other you should spend an entire week deliberately strengthening the weaker stance. Failure to do so will lead to a tell, a habit to move to one side over the other, which an observant enemy will quickly identify and use against you." The elf warned, before sliding into the reverse stance with weightless grace.
Ulric's mind immediately flashed to the game with Hal'et. The only way he'd managed to close the gap with her was one such tell. Ambidextrous was the way to go, as Ulric had begun to practice back in the glade. It was why he used the bow, his knife, his axe, all tools with both hands. He favored his right hand too much, as he learned when a shrapnel wound put that hand into painful reminder for every task. He was cross-dominant in all kinds of fucked up ways anyhow. Bat right handed, throw left handed. Brush your teeth left handed, shave right handed. Write left handed, draw or paint right handed. Much of that had translated to Ulric's new form, probably more from habit than anything else. If Idra said laterality was a weakness Ulric would be determined to snuff it out.
Putting thought into action he mimicked the veteran warrior's transition from the southpaw stance, the undan, to the orthodox, fyir stance. It felt alright, his balance was good, neither leaning forwards or backwards. He felt like he could change direction whichever way he needed. Idra-sensei was not impressed, as he immediately left his position to nudge, prod, push, and origami Ulric into the proper state. Millimeters were kilometers to this exacting taskmaster. Wonder of wonders though, Ulric could feel the difference in those adjustments. A slight improvement to his center of balance, a greater feeling of control of his position.
Satisfied, Idra'se stepped back to observe for an entire minute, silent. He was looking for something but Ulric had no idea what it was and simply stood, arms hanging to his sides. Eventually the elf finished checking off whatever boxes he needed to decide what would come next.
"You are passable. You do not wobble, your feet remain rooted, and the balance is good. Did you find either of these more or less comfortable?" the Warrior asked.
Ulric thought about it a moment. Both positions were odd given their specificity so was anything really comfortable? He decided it would mostly come down to trying to move out of this and do something to know.
"Not particularly. I don't think I'll know until I start trying to move. The exact orientation you have moved me into is oddly stable, and I can see why you did it now, the feeling is different. I don't think I could just do it on my own though, something would be off." Ulric replied.
The Elf had moved his left foot by literal one or two degrees to be satisfied. Surely that was unfeasible in an actual duel, that kind of exacting body positioning.
"Do you really have this kind of precision when you fight?" Ulric queried somewhat disbelieving.
"You may find out whenever you wish Glade Chief, I will always accept your spar." said Idra.
There was something there, Ulric's senses were tingling. The warrior was baiting a trap. No. Not yet. Ulric wasn't going to put his foot in it, not until he had a better idea of the nature of the game. Elves played hard ball, he wasn't going to take any chances. Besides, when he'd demonstrated the movements the Master Warrior actually had been exactly perfect every time. Amazing what a few hundred years of practice will do for you.
"Not necessary, Idra'se. Just…impressive as hell is all." Ulric replied, accepting the word of the master.
Idra took the compliment with a slight nod of acknowledgment and echoed Ulrics own thoughts.
"Dedicated practice, for three hundred or so years, produces mastery even for the clumsiest bungler. But you do not have so long to work so let us both hope for a little talent, eh? Come, we return to it." Idra joked, along similar lines to what Ulric had just been thinking.
He took Ulric through the next ten steps starting from their southpaw ready. A root forward step that put Ulric in a deep lunge, knee over ankle. Return to undan ready. A root side step, resulting in a deep side lunge, like a runner's stretch. Return to undan ready. A root back step, that Ulric automatically turned into fyir ready until Idra prodded and modified into something like a wrestling crouch. Ulric did not like this root back step, it felt awkward as hell. Return to undan ready. A root cross step, even worse than the back step as it had one knee nearly tucked behind the other. Return to undan ready.
Next, Ulric was guided through a series of branching steps, his weight remained firmly on the rooting foot but partially shifted to the stepping foot which was extended almost fully. He had no idea what purpose these served. He adhered to his instruction and suffered through his corrections to perform the branching side step, forward step, backward step, and crossing steps. They then went back through the entire thing from the Fyir ready feet reversed. Lastly two squared up steps the first, twinned roots, that put Ulric into a deep linebacker's crouch, and the next a straight-legged attention, the sky step, an appropriate name, as it was the highest his shoulders had been for the last hour.
At each turn Idra found errors and corrected them. Each ready was fixed to perfection. Ulric was amazed to find that he was sweating. It wasn't that what they were doing was exactly hard, it was just…precise. It demanded complete attention and control. Ulric's body was overcompensating, tightening muscles that probably didn't need to be tightened while he focused on meeting the exacting demands of his trainer. All the while Ulric had no clue how you were supposed to do this during an actual fight.
Warriors began trickling in as they finished going through the steps. What was it, twelve of them now? Dance of One Thousand Steps. Surely to fuck they were kidding?
Their meal concluded, Ulric was interested in picking his Shadow's brain about the lack of visible goings on but he was denied nearly instantly.
"We do not have time for me to indulge your interrogations if you are to be at the instructional site on time. When the doors to the lecture hall close, they do not open again until it is done. That such an opportunity was provided by my father would mean your missing its very first day, for no good reason, would be to say that it was without value to you. This is not a great insult but it reflects poorly on you. As your Shadow, it is my duty to best serve your interests and, given that you seem to never run out of questions, it is in your best interest to go, on time, to instruction." Geyrt said with serious tone.
She wasn't even being snide so it must have been important. Graciously, Ulric invited her to lead the way and she did so at a fair clip. She left her dishes stacked on the table so Ulric did the same. Maybe they operated on five star hotel rules around here: don't deliberately make messes but trust the staff to keeps things to order. It turned out that Geyrt's haste was reasonable. The paired stars were already well into their rise and the lecture hall was on the third level of Irielhos. They walked to a lift, a journey of almost ten minutes, and then had another ten-minute walk from the lift to the lecture hall, barely making it in time. Ulric had never asked how these Elves managed to keep time with no visible clocks but they never seemed to have trouble knowing the time down to the minute.
The lecture hall was a rather severe building on the shadow side of the trunk of the tree into which it was built. It was one of those recessed structures, set deep into the massive bole. The recess, coupled with the time of day, resulted in a rather claustrophobic environment quite unlike anywhere else he'd been in the fortress city. The normal airy atmosphere of engraved vines and leaves now held a much more umbral feel. This was a place where One is Meant to Work. That unto itself was a curiosity for Ulric. Everywhere else had given off the feeling of freedom and fleeting passions burning intensely that then shifted with the wind. Here though, he could almost taste the intense focus of scholars burning untold hours with single minded purpose. It almost felt like he'd stepped back into the lab in his graduate school.
Appropriately thematic candles burned inside wall sconces and room after room held scrolls of paper, leather and wood bound books on full wall book shelves, stands holding replacement candles by the thousands, stacks of spare paper, blank scrolls, and what seemed to be as many types of writing utensil as attachments on a swiss army knife. Knife pens, soft tipped pens, brushes, pencils tipped by who knows what, charcoal, fifty colors of ink, and, gods great and small, CHALK! Where there was chalk there would be chalkboards. Surely these civilized folk were not heathens in disguise? And, lo, there in a room was a full-size black slate chalkboard, spanning the entire wall. It was beautiful. Ulric ached to go and write out the derivation of the Fourier transform from the series of the same name. Just because. Just to feel the dust on his hands again.
But his Shadow led on past the room and it was lost to the dim recesses. Someday board, he told himself. The lecture hall was so large that it had actual stories. Spiral stairs took them up into the trunk, now entirely enclosed inside the body of the great tree. A few turns later and Geyrt stopped before a wide set of double doors. Ulric was completely lost within the building. Fortunately, they had arrived on time though and the sounds of Elven children poured into the hallway. Confused, Ulric looked around for another set of doors. Nope. Empty. In fact, the vast majority of the rooms had been empty, contributing to the near funerary atmosphere of this level.
"Is this it?" Ulric asked eyebrow raised.
"It is. We are on time, but only just, now go in. I will remain in the hall to guard the door." Geyrt said with a too steady tone. Her face was rigid with control.
Ulric's arachnid senses were tingling. He knew when a joke had been played and the more he heard of the childlike voices inside the more he was convinced that he knew what type of prank it was. But there was little choice left him. Sighing he entered the room to face the truth: it was a classroom full of children. He was in a kid's lesson. Close to thirty elf lads and lasses of ages seemingly similar to Brighteyes were arrayed in sets of five around tables. At the front of the room stood a rather severe Elven man of great age, in a set of fine velvet robes, dark grey in color. He had completely white hair and, for the first time since Ulric had been exposed to the Iriel'en, wore a beard. Now this guy was ancient. Ulric was almost sure he could hear echoes of the roars of dinosaurs when he moved, which he seemed to do only infrequently.
"It is time. Let us take our seats and begin the day's lesson." the ancient Elf instructor announced.
Instantly every child sat, backs straight, dead silent. Ulric was left no choice now, this was going to be awkward as shit. He quickly sat at a table of three and endured the gawping faces of the room. Ulric was really, really hoping that they'd just ignore him and do as they would normally do. Maybe they'd just go on like he wasn't even there.
"Let us welcome our new student. He was granted space with us by our generous Lord and we should offer him our deepest hospitality, yes?" The paleological man said in a deep baritone.
"Yes instructor." Chorused the children.
"Welcome Glade Chief, to the intermediate session. May the wisdom of the Ancients guide us ever on." Intoned the wizened elf.
"May the wisdom of the Ancients guide us ever on." Again, the class rang out in unison.
Ok, Ulric was getting some deeply creepy children of the corn vibes. Bald'rt. That bastard. Of course he'd make sure it was a children's class. He could almost hear the man laughing from his throne room. Probably rolling around on the floor pissing himself with glee at Ulric's chafing discomfort. And Geyrt too. Her stony expression wasn't discomfort, it was to keep a straight face. Before he could dwell on it, the instructor rolled on, with all the steadiness of a glacier.
"We are all here known to each other but introductions are in order. We will delay class just a few minutes to make them. Please excuse the interruption of our usual routine children, needs must." Spoke the instructor with the same deep monotone as before.
Ah. There. Ulric was catching it now. He was implying that Ulric was a distraction and he did not appreciate it. He wasn't wrong. Still. It wasn't like Ulric had chosen the man or his classroom; that had been decided by the black hearted jackal that called himself Lord of Iriel, for whom Ulric would spend his days calculating a proper vengeance.
While Ulric's thoughts turned to blood the man had continued on in the same monotone voice
"I am Instructor Gother Cenur'it. I am called Instructor Gother or, simply, Instructor, if you like."
He then proceeded to name each and every child in the room first calling them to stand, naming them, and asking them to sit. Each child stood instantly at the call of their name and remained at attention until they were called to sit. Never a word was uttered by any of them throughout the entire process. This was going to be awful. When the instructor reached Ulric, instead of asking him to introduce himself he merely pointed in Ulric's general direction and said "Our Guest."
It was just about enough to make a guy sore. Especially when he launched into some talk about bark harvesting and wood beetles with no preamble. Ulric could mostly follow the droning lecture, minus some of the more technical words, probably proper names for things. At least, he could understand the words being said, the point of the whole thing was entirely absent any context. Why are they harvesting the bark? Why do you bury the grubs in the soil at the base of the tree? A hundred more questions he had. None of it made sense.
It went on for a solid hour. Worse, nobody moved or said anything the entire time. Nobody even wrote anything down. Did they actually remember all of this? Ulric wasn't going to ask any questions. Not until one of the kids did. He tried hard to remain fully engaged. But the droning monologue soon broke his will and he zoned out. Just when Ulric was laying out ideas for a sewage filled pit trap outside of Bald'rt's throne room, the guards distracted by a timely fire, the torture ended.
"And that will be all for today. Class is abbreviated that you may all assist in the Winter's Herald preparations and festival. We will reconvene in three day's time. Dismissed."
The old elf turned immediately and left the room, vanishing like a mirage. Spry then, for his age. Once he was gone, the children all started moving around and chattering, like a switch was turned on. Ulric was ready to get the fuck out of there. He stood and strode to the door. Glances and gazes followed him out. As well they should. A room full of Elven children in loose light long sleeved shirts and pants and there he was a full-grown man in heathen bone armor. At least he'd left the spear in his rooms.
Exiting the room, Ulric saw Geyrt turn so he wouldn't see her satisfied smirk. That was fine, he knew the source of this. There would be an opportunity to return this favor. For now, though, he was going to take this as a chance to improve his language skills, to learn what things were important enough to teach children, which would give him insights into the cultural levers that moved these people, and to confuse his adversary by pretending to be a completely willing victim. Lulling them into a false sense of security might prompt them to reveal a flaw in their defenses. There was even some remote chance that Bald'rt actually thought these sorts of lessons were valuable in and of themselves. A laughably small chance, but not something to disregard out of hand.
He took off down the hall at a rapid pace. Turning into one of the empty rooms he went to a bookcase and picked a tome at random, opening it gently. Before his eyes crawled a pace full of symbols vaguely akin to sanskrit in appearance. He saw repeats of symbols, accents of base symbols, and line breaks that suggested the text was written vertically. Whether left to right or right to left, or perhaps even something more complex was unknown. About this Ulric was willing to tolerate no jests, he was not happy about being illiterate. Turning to Geyrt who had entered behind him, for a change, he said in a tone that brooked no nonsense.
"You will begin teaching me to read and write the Elf script. We can use this book as a primer. I intend to be fluent before the end of winter. I read prodigiously in my old world and I find the lack of such to be a deficiency in this life that must be corrected. Immediately."
It would seem that if he was going to get anywhere this morning with learning anything it would only be if he was at the helm. He'd already put up with an hour of their nonsense and one of the things Ulric found truly intolerable was to have his time wasted. Not to mention that, if he had to endure Geyrt, he was going to at least put her to use.
Pointing to the page of the open book he commanded "Read you this page to me, in your own tongue, tracing a finger over the words as you read them. It will help me to understand the flow of the text."
If the woman took offense, she didn't show it. Instead, she began reading the page, tracing her finger lightly over the page. Top to bottom, right to left, the symbols appeared to be phonyms. That little dash was some kind of comma or phrase separator, those accents were tied to tense, somehow, and it appeared that a line underneath the symbol denoted the end of a sentence while a double underline marked the end of a paragraph. Ulric wasn't worried about what the actual meaning of the page, he merely wanted the structure. Thanks be to the Watcher's miracle orbs that they didn't have a completely different lingual and written structure. Like the Swiss with their Swiss-German spoken language and their high German written language, the mad men. Or, forbid the thought, an ideogram script, like the Han characters of old Chinese, that bears almost no connection to its spoken construct. No, this was more akin to the northern european languages of his old world. So similar to Icelandic, that Ulric had to wonder if there were linguistic transfers between worlds. Maybe people like him contributed to minor cultural transfers between worlds. Dimensional immigrants. That very nearly pulled a laugh out of him.
Geyrt, for her part, merely accepted her Honor's smile as more evidence of his insanity. As she read the page, she couldn't help but be surprised at the intensity of his study of the page. He seemed to her to flit between a childlike naivete and a predator's focus. It was disorienting. Now was fully the hunting bird. His stupid grin did nothing to bely the hawkish study of the text over which her finger traced as she read. This, at least, was a less objectionable use of time than being used as a page as some Shadows were employed.
She was vaguely worried. He hadn't responded greatly to the joke lesson earlier. Surely he didn't think that it was unintentional that he be attending a children's class? Her father's prank was well played. He had met his commitment in full, had secured her Honor a place with one of the premier instructors in the entire citadel, but for the youths' time slot. And yet, the strange man had gone in, had made no noise, had attended the full lesson, and had left with no apparent rancor. Had he missed it? Or was he pretending ignorance out of respect? Impossible to know with this one. She would keep her guard up, he had shown he was of a mind with her father and that man could wait years to make even a debt.
Ulric would have been glad that his Shadow was so off balance and would have, if he knew, been unable to resist prodding to see if she would topple. As it was, the page was all. Spoken grammar was similar to written grammar and while he couldn't nail down a specific alphabet or set of phonemes just yet, he had a big picture sort of idea how it went. This was doable. He wouldn't have to memorize ten thousand distinct characters, just figure out the rules for punctuation and the spelling norms. After that he would be able to construct simple sentences himself and, once his vocabulary improved, be able to read the lower-level texts. Hopefully these people didn't tend towards Victorian writing styles, an absolute chore to chew through.
When his Shadow finished the page, he retreated into his own mind letting the patterns and symbols scrawl around while his brain kicked things into place. Fingers snapping, he was immersed in how the punctuation marks were used to chunk the script into phrases and distinct statements. This book, apparently some kind of catalogue of trade agreements through history, kept things brief and tidy. Names, dates, details of arrangements, and without embellishment. It was actually a good primer. He could figure out verb subject object agreement, tenses, dating and numerical standards, and get some cultural insights as to the values of different things produced by the Elves, as well as what they saw valuable to obtain from Otherkin. All in all, a lucky strike.
Turning suddenly to his Shadow he saw she was studying him as intently as he studied the page. A ball of mysteries was this woman. Beautiful and reserved. Bold but defensive. And always so serious. To look so much like her father, she had inherited none of his good humor. At least they appeared to have achieved a semblance of peace between them. There would always be friction though even were he not a sarcastic bastard. Even her brother Brighteyes had admitted that she was a difficult person and her father had more than implied that she was a pain in the ass. It had only been a couple of days though, maybe they'd get used to each other.
"Thank you for that Geyrt. I will review my observations now about the way this is constructed. If I make a mistake, please correct me." Ulric asked of her in Elvish.
He'd basically had the broad strokes correct. The odd accents could not only be verb tenses though, they could also denote prepositions. In, on, towards, away, all utilized a particular accent in a particular position. This use made the text slightly hard to read, but he’d get used to it once he memorized where things belonged. At least they didn’t invert verb subject agreement. The droids you are looking for, these are not. Making specific adjustments to the verbs’ symbols to modify them seemed a strangely straightforward way of handling the situation and would be easier to remember. When he asked if he could take the tome with him though he was greeted with a negative however. Books and scrolls from the libraries could not be removed from their respective rooms. A copy could be ordered but such a thing would take the back burner for the upcoming war preparations. It might be weeks before anyone could get to doing it. Looks like he would be burning some midnight oil in this stygian hall of education.
Geyrt reminded him that they were slated for a training session with the warriors, led by Bald'rt's chief guard just after noon. That should be interesting. He'd never done any kind of fight training personally, not outside of his mandatory military service, which hadn’t gone to great lengths on hand to hand fighting, cause, you know, guns and all. A history buff, he’d enjoyed depictions of war and action movies, random collections of videos online regarding archaic combat forms, and a dedicated following of the olympics were the extent of his knowledge. It had been surprising how much you could pick up, especially when your body did what you told it to. He wondered if he would be able to learn to move like the Elves from this. Geyrt's flowing grace during her ambush had been a wonderful thing to behold, even if it had been aimed at him. Hal'et had done it too during their play. She'd moved like liquid around him. Probably not something he'd be able to replicate any time soon, no matter how fit he was. But that would all be later, they had at least an hour to kill.
Ulric refused to ask about the "lesson" he'd attended. That would be allowed to play out as it would. Instead, he found himself wanting to go outside and watch the storm roll through. At his request Geyrt led the way.
They retraced their steps to leave the lecture hall. As soon as they left the rather closed in atmosphere they were blasted by an arctic wind. Gusts pushed, waned, and returned with redoubled force. The clouds were rolling in dark, forboding. Twenty minutes walking found them on a pavilion on the eleventh level of Irielhos, where most of the royal guard would bunk, dine, and train. Ulric asked if these warriors rotated duties like the others. That was an affirmative, although they almost never took a year off, instead rotating into the ranks of the active Hunters. Geyrt told him with pride in her people that there was a yearly competition to determine who would get to hold a position as royal guard. It sounded like a ferocious ordeal, days without sleep, physical exhaustion tests, combat training, and sparring, all scored for points. After a week the best two hundred would be selected for royal guard, the rest would return to their normal duties as Hunters, or warriors, or whatever. When Ulric asked if the royal guard were better fighters than the warriors they’d seen in the other pavilions, she actually laughed. These guys were, apparently, on another level. And of their leader Idra, Geyrt spoke of the man with an awe that said he had gone even further beyond.
"Idra'se, se being how we refer to knighted warriors, is very nearly the equal of my father. He is one of the few that the Lord of Iriel cannot simply mow down through overwhelming power. For all his japes, his casual attitudes, my father, Bald'rt Iriel, is the strongest pure fighter in Orlethrem. Idra'se is probably number four. Lumyt'seit's mother, Mother Bathe, is number two, by the way. If she wanted to, she could probably defeat father but prefers to make peace and allies rather than leave a wreckage wherever she strides, unlike Father Bald'rt. You will listen to every command of Idra'se, he is doing you a great service by granting you himself as an instructor while we ready for war. Many warriors would fight for the opportunity to build on your tree." Geyrt lectured.
She sounded almost warm speaking of Bald'rt's scarred senior guard. Interesting. A mentor? A lover? A comrade in arms? Maybe all of the above. Whatever the case, clearly this guy rated a step higher than the rest. Ulric was actually looking forward to this now. Here he'd been thinking it would be like the supposed lesson earlier.
They had arrived at the exposed pavilion a full hour early. Ulric very deliberately did not want to eat before the training just in case there was a lot of "drop and give me fifty Mr!" kind of activity. Not that he'd ever seen an elf do a pushup, but you can never be too careful. As a result, they saw Idra coming. He turned the corner and, Ulric had to admit, was the very image of a hardened soldier. Face controlled, eyes seemed to absorb the entire sight before him, and he strode with the same liquid grace, but firmer, as if he had no intent of going around anything. The scar that drug at his mouth ran halfway up his face and must have been a wicked wound while fresh.
Ulric waved.
The warrior gave no outward sign he saw the gesture but, upon seeing them bore down on them with the surety of a stone down a rock face. Ulric was absentmindedly dodging Geyrt's hair ring as it whipped about in the gusting wind and the woman herself was pretending he wasn't playing a game with her hair. He'd have the head movement of a professional boxer if they stood out there all day. He gave it up when his Shadow glared at him, and grabbed her own flailing hair ring. Idra actually smiled at these antics when he reached them, an expression that would have scared a hardened man to piss himself in a dark alley with those scars. He also gave Geyrt a small nod, just a subtle acknowledgment of her presence. Ulric had nearly forgotten that most of the Elves were actually rather fun to be around with only few exceptions.
"Welcome to the royal guard barracks Ulric Glade Chief, it is good that you arrive early. How has the day found you?" the Warrior inquired in a mellow baritone, first in Elvish and then in Human.
"It finds us well today Idra'se. We have breakfasted and attended a most fascinating morning lesson. We might discuss the finer points of bark shaving if you find leisure time. How does yourself fare?" Ulric returned in his limited, but improving! Elvish.
Ulric's comment about the lesson turned the man's smile into a sardonic grin. It would seem then, that everyone was in the know.
"I have graduated Instructor Gother's lessons once in this life, therefore I believe that I have had my fill. We will surely find other topics for discussion, unless your passion drives you in that direction. I am busy, as I will always be in these times, and, probably, until my roots wither and my trunk stands bare." Returned the soldier.
The smile faded to his default cool consideration as the warrior turned their meeting to business.
"What know you about combat with body and weapons Glade Chief? I must determine your level of experience, that I can remove all of the bad habits they have instilled." Idra'se requested.
That was an easy one, and, yet, perhaps more complicated than it first seemed.
"I am an experienced hunter Idra'se, with a bow. I have hunted with spear as well but this was mostly done to challenge my stalking skills, not to learn fighting. Other than that, I have watched a great deal of demonstration by masters of hand to hand fighting, and some less…practical demonstrations by weapons. My experience in both is minimal. I am afraid I have leaned mostly on my magical abilities and agility in battles so far, with the exception of harpooning and knifing some [Heckler Monkeys]." Ulric replied, hoping his mention of watching professional MMA, Boxing, HEMA, and Olympic fighting sports wasn't too unfair to describe as watching masters.
Later, he would find out it wasn’t the same. At all.
The Elvish was coming easier now. Practice makes perfect, after all, and it was probably no small thing to have sat under Instructor Gother's droning lecture, droning but immaculately pronounced, to improve his grasp of the language.
Idra nodded along and briefly smiled when Ulric mentioned the monkeys. Brighteyes had done a hell of a pantomime of the fight with them in the throne room, to the joy of all. His enthusiastic jabs, stabs, and leaps depicting the battle in full were better than any play Ulric had ever seen.
After a moment's contemplation the Warrior came to a decision about his approach.
"Then you know next to nothing. That is good, there will be little to undo. I have been tasked with teaching you how to fight and I will do so in the way of Elves. If you want to learn how it is Otherkin, Humans included, conduct themselves you will need one of them to teach you. I have only been on the other side of that and have not been impressed greatly. Not that they had long to try, mind. Efficiency of motion is, among many other concepts, one of the things I hope to instill in you." spoke Idra'se, in a businesslike manner.
"It probably would not have changed my estimation greatly but it is good to know, at least, that we may start clean. If you wish, you may challenge me to a spar now, to get it out of the way. All young Elves believe they know better than the trainers and we always end up giving them an applied lesson to drive home the importance of fundamentals. If not, we will begin the lesson immediately, though you may, at any time, request a spar if you feel it necessary. I will have less time to directly oversee you when the others arrive at the pavilion." he continued.
Ulric nearly choked when Idra offered to spar but as he went on it seemed that it was just a veteran teacher's experience with Elven rookies. Spar this man? Yeah, right, Ulric thought, just give me a second to sign this will.
"Nope, I'm good Idra'se. Not gonna be necessary today. You just do what you think is best and I'll try to follow along." Said Ulric.
"Excellent Glade Chief." Idra said in Human before continuing.
"Then here is where we will begin. As the Heartwood underneath us is the firmament upon which we stand, the Heartwood of combat is positioning and positioning is determined by footwork. The victory is gained, without exception, by having the ability to break your enemy’s defenses, to move past them or to prevent them from offering counter to your attack. Magic changes the conditions for what constitutes your and your opponents' positions but we will leave that out. Such lessons come much higher up in the branches, when your fundamentals are sound. Today, and for all the days we have together I would guess, we will learn the Dance of One Thousand Steps."
That was a suitably confounding mix of arcane and practical. Ulric felt like Idra should probably invest in a long white hair wig and a long, narrow, beard of the same color. Probably some White robes as well. He was giving off some real Grandmaster of the Leaf Palm Fist vibes. But if this man stood close to that monster on the throne, he was well worth listening to and Ulric was determined to do whatever it took to not get killed to death.
"Show me, Sensei." Ulric said, seriously.
At Idra's confused look, Ulric had to explain that the term meant the master of a school of combat. Apparently, Earth terms did not translate to human automatically, you had to intentionally think of the Earth term to use it, otherwise the words that spilled out of your mouth would be in Human.
After clarifying though, Idra continued on, assuming a stance with feet placed precisely just outside of hips, one foot leading hips by a third of a meter, the back foot behind by the same distance, feet turned so that the lead foot was about fifteen degrees counterclockwise of north, the rear twenty five degrees counterclockwise of north shoulders turned so that the lead shoulder was aligned with lead hip, knees bent in a light crouch. And, just like that, Idra transformed from a dedicated guardsman into a weapon. He gave off a feeling like a drawn blade, it nearly made Ulric's hackles rise. The elf only came up to Ulric's chin but he felt like he was twenty feet tall.
All that, just from a simple change of stance. Both feet were planted but his weight was perfectly balanced just ever so slightly more on the back foot than the front. Ulric hoped that was comfortable and, admittedly, the Elf looked like he could petrify at any moment, so still he was. Ulric had a feeling he was going to be doing it for a while. How hard could it be?
Oh child, Future Ulric whispered across time.
"In the Dance there are many steps but this one is the first. This is called the covered ready, with the left foot back. The next step is the advance ready." Idra explained before sliding his feet to reverse his stance without a single wiggle in balance.
"The backmost foot is called the root, the front the branch. This is because the back leg is the source of your support, your connection to the ground, and around which you must center your balance. The branch is your connection to the air your mobility, your advance or your retreat. Any step which transfers your weight to your branch leg is called a committed step because once you have done this you are obligated to move your root or have your stance destroyed. Such movements are meant to be transitional and transient. You never want your opponent to read these or they will attack you knowing that you must move your root. In the Dance, each step is meant to gain advantage, even if that advantage is gained by giving ground or sacrificing a lesser position for a greater one later." The Warrior continued his body held in utter stillness.
The elf left his ready and that weird pressure disappeared. Wild. He came over to stand next to Ulric, Hmming as he did.
"You have no other clothes, Glade Chief? You should have something comfortable and light to practice in. This armor is strong and not badly made but it changes your balance and you should learn the Dance with only your body. You will adjust naturally in armor to accommodate it but it is a hindrance now." Idra said seriously before turning to address Geyrt.
"Shadow, you know where the spare silks are stored, retrieve a set for your Honor, he is tall but there should be some suitable." He commanded.
Geyrt snapped to attention by instinct and then ran into the airy building behind the pavilion. She was only gone a few moments before she returned with a set of those black under clothes and stuffed them into his chest. Almost letting them drop to the floor before Ulric caught them.
Ulric was amazed. Just like that, not a scowl, not a hesitation, not a single thing but this Taipan was sent running to fetch. He might have [Snake Charmer] but Idra was the [King Cobra].
"I gotta learn how you did that." Ulric mumbled.
Both sets of long ears twitched. One owner scowled while the other's lips twitched upwards.
He stood there for a second holding the silks. Appropriately named. Looking around briefly at the empty pavilion Ulric shrugged before removing his armor, stripping out of his clothes and dressing in the provided clothes. They were absolutely the best feeling clothes he'd ever worn. Smooth, light, flexible. While tight they didn't constrict him at all, having an easy elasticity. The long sleeves ended only a few centimeters from his wrist and ankles, so not a bad fit. Thus dressed he turned back to find the two Elves on the pavilion looking bemused.
"What?" Ulric asked.
"You would have been able to change inside the barracks Glade Chief, but it is good that you do not fear your own body's sight." Idra said with suppressed humor.
Geyrt merely sniffed and muttered to herself. Ah yeah, he had just used his own nakedness to tease her earlier hadn't he? Well, if you've got it flaunt it. An ass like this was wasted in clothes anyway. He looked to Idra and thanked him earnestly.
"I will keep that in mind Idra'se. And, thank you, really, for the use of these clothes. They are a truly wonderful gift. I've never worn anything so fine."
Nodding the elf dismissed it as nothing and set about getting Ulric into the first step of their Dance. He was precise as a clockmaker, pushing here, shifting a foot there. He didn't stop until he had Ulric situated in that light crouch with perfection.
"There. That is it. This is the first step, the undan ready. It is how you will engage your opponents, it is the foundation of your Dance, and it must be flawless. Any weakness, any imperfection of balance and the opponent will begin to chip away at you if they don't destroy you instantly." Idra spoke.
"Now, watch and see how to move into the second step, the fyir ready. Some dogmas would have it that the undan ready is the only starting point for the dance but this is not so. Undan or fyir, they are equivalent and an effective warrior should be as comfortable in one as the other. If you ever find yourself, Glade Chief, favoring one over the other you should spend an entire week deliberately strengthening the weaker stance. Failure to do so will lead to a tell, a habit to move to one side over the other, which an observant enemy will quickly identify and use against you." The elf warned, before sliding into the reverse stance with weightless grace.
Ulric's mind immediately flashed to the game with Hal'et. The only way he'd managed to close the gap with her was one such tell. Ambidextrous was the way to go, as Ulric had begun to practice back in the glade. It was why he used the bow, his knife, his axe, all tools with both hands. He favored his right hand too much, as he learned when a shrapnel wound put that hand into painful reminder for every task. He was cross-dominant in all kinds of fucked up ways anyhow. Bat right handed, throw left handed. Brush your teeth left handed, shave right handed. Write left handed, draw or paint right handed. Much of that had translated to Ulric's new form, probably more from habit than anything else. If Idra said laterality was a weakness Ulric would be determined to snuff it out.
Putting thought into action he mimicked the veteran warrior's transition from the southpaw stance, the undan, to the orthodox, fyir stance. It felt alright, his balance was good, neither leaning forwards or backwards. He felt like he could change direction whichever way he needed. Idra-sensei was not impressed, as he immediately left his position to nudge, prod, push, and origami Ulric into the proper state. Millimeters were kilometers to this exacting taskmaster. Wonder of wonders though, Ulric could feel the difference in those adjustments. A slight improvement to his center of balance, a greater feeling of control of his position.
Satisfied, Idra'se stepped back to observe for an entire minute, silent. He was looking for something but Ulric had no idea what it was and simply stood, arms hanging to his sides. Eventually the elf finished checking off whatever boxes he needed to decide what would come next.
"You are passable. You do not wobble, your feet remain rooted, and the balance is good. Did you find either of these more or less comfortable?" the Warrior asked.
Ulric thought about it a moment. Both positions were odd given their specificity so was anything really comfortable? He decided it would mostly come down to trying to move out of this and do something to know.
"Not particularly. I don't think I'll know until I start trying to move. The exact orientation you have moved me into is oddly stable, and I can see why you did it now, the feeling is different. I don't think I could just do it on my own though, something would be off." Ulric replied.
The Elf had moved his left foot by literal one or two degrees to be satisfied. Surely that was unfeasible in an actual duel, that kind of exacting body positioning.
"Do you really have this kind of precision when you fight?" Ulric queried somewhat disbelieving.
"You may find out whenever you wish Glade Chief, I will always accept your spar." said Idra.
There was something there, Ulric's senses were tingling. The warrior was baiting a trap. No. Not yet. Ulric wasn't going to put his foot in it, not until he had a better idea of the nature of the game. Elves played hard ball, he wasn't going to take any chances. Besides, when he'd demonstrated the movements the Master Warrior actually had been exactly perfect every time. Amazing what a few hundred years of practice will do for you.
"Not necessary, Idra'se. Just…impressive as hell is all." Ulric replied, accepting the word of the master.
Idra took the compliment with a slight nod of acknowledgment and echoed Ulrics own thoughts.
"Dedicated practice, for three hundred or so years, produces mastery even for the clumsiest bungler. But you do not have so long to work so let us both hope for a little talent, eh? Come, we return to it." Idra joked, along similar lines to what Ulric had just been thinking.
He took Ulric through the next ten steps starting from their southpaw ready. A root forward step that put Ulric in a deep lunge, knee over ankle. Return to undan ready. A root side step, resulting in a deep side lunge, like a runner's stretch. Return to undan ready. A root back step, that Ulric automatically turned into fyir ready until Idra prodded and modified into something like a wrestling crouch. Ulric did not like this root back step, it felt awkward as hell. Return to undan ready. A root cross step, even worse than the back step as it had one knee nearly tucked behind the other. Return to undan ready.
Next, Ulric was guided through a series of branching steps, his weight remained firmly on the rooting foot but partially shifted to the stepping foot which was extended almost fully. He had no idea what purpose these served. He adhered to his instruction and suffered through his corrections to perform the branching side step, forward step, backward step, and crossing steps. They then went back through the entire thing from the Fyir ready feet reversed. Lastly two squared up steps the first, twinned roots, that put Ulric into a deep linebacker's crouch, and the next a straight-legged attention, the sky step, an appropriate name, as it was the highest his shoulders had been for the last hour.
At each turn Idra found errors and corrected them. Each ready was fixed to perfection. Ulric was amazed to find that he was sweating. It wasn't that what they were doing was exactly hard, it was just…precise. It demanded complete attention and control. Ulric's body was overcompensating, tightening muscles that probably didn't need to be tightened while he focused on meeting the exacting demands of his trainer. All the while Ulric had no clue how you were supposed to do this during an actual fight.
Warriors began trickling in as they finished going through the steps. What was it, twelve of them now? Dance of One Thousand Steps. Surely to fuck they were kidding?
