Hoping for a Challenge (Open)

[Mabil&Dara]

anyone can join, this is a battle training thread for Mabil and anyone else that would like to join. 


Time and Date:: early morning in December
Weather:: colder than usual, with light snowfall
Previous Threads?:: n/a


    Mabil darted in and out between the trees, never looking behind her and not letting herself slow down. She could hear Dara close behind her, and she never seemed to increase the distance. She darted to the side and rolled behind a log, hoping to throw Dara off her tracks. Unfortunately, she misjudged the distance and had to crawl forward to place herself correctly behind the log. She moved too slow, and Dara was able to spot her. The Nadder jumped excitedly onto her rider, sitting on her to keep her from moving anywhere.

    "This training better pay off eventually," Mabil muttered, struggling to shove Dara off of her. Dara, not understanding her, just cocked her head to the side before jumping off of Mabil and beginning to groom herself. The young ViT stood up and brushed herself off, finding half of a raw fish in her bag and throwing it to Dara who slurped it up greedily.  

    "Come on, you. We can't waste any of our training time." Mabil walked off deeper into the forest, Dara close on her heels. Mabil was agile and quick, but she had to train on the daily in order to improve her stamina and endurance. She also always hoped that this training would help improve her strength, but it never really did. She gave up on strength training a long time ago since it never got her anywhere, but she was becoming bored with the training she did do. All she really wanted now was a new challenge, and somebody to train with her.

[Harvast]

Blasted cold, this was such a poor excuse for a good idea.  Even chilling his breath with snow wasn't helping him get himself ready for springing out.  He had been waiting all day for something to pass by.  Anything.  The crack of a twig caught his attention and only his eyes moved.  Deer were a nice gentle creature, but their meat was quite prized for food stuffs, as well as their pelts.  One could never have too many pelts.

A six-pointer, and a handsome one at that.  Hopefully it wasn't as strong as it looked.  From where he sat in the bushes, he waited, his breath starting to take a cloudy appearance.  Two steps closer and he hurled with the swiftness of a coiled serpent.  The harpoon thudded into the animal's torso and made it stagger.  Trying to leave, it found that it wasn't possible with the harpoon tied to the tree.  Drawing his carving knife, he grinned and bellowed, "Gonna eat good tonight!"

Leaping from the bushes, he gave a battle cry and lunged at the beast, his weight landing on it's back and barreling it to the ground.  Avoiding flailing limbs long enough to slice it's throat and hold on for dear life.  Blood wasn't fun to roll around in, and he had his fair share by now.  Finally, it stopped moving after the horrid racket that it had tried to make.  Sighing and spitting, he sat down on the corpse and wiped his face off a little, he was going to smell copper for days.

[Mabil&Dara]

Mabil slowed down, trying to catch her breath before continuing with her training. She watched the wisps of her breath disappear into the air while she tried to think of something else she could work on. Dara came up behind her and nudged her, nearly knocking Mabil onto her face.

“Stop it, Dara,” Mabil said, obviously annoyed with her dragon’s antics. Dara kept tugging on Mabil, trying to lead her towards something. Mabil shoved her dragon away, but that just encouraged the nadder. She nudged Mabil again, this time forcing Mabil to walk towards whatever she was trying to get to.

“Dara, quit it!” Mabil shouted. That’s when she suddenly heard somebody bellow from deeper in the forest, and she stopped in her tracks. Dara hopped towards whoever had made the noise. Mabil put her arm on Dara’s shoulder, attempting to keep her from running towards the person. Mabil creeped through the trees silently, until finally she could see who had shouted.

She hesitated, uncertain of whether to confront the guy or to leave him alone. He didn’t seem like the type of person who could be a outcast, but she hadn’t ever seen him before. He had to be an outsider. Mabil came out of her hiding spot and walked towards the man, Dara eagerly on her heels. “Who are you?” she questioned, a look of genuine curiosity etched across her face.

[Harvast]

So focused was he, he hardly noticed their approach.  The young man worked quickly on the dear, cleaning it with a hand that looked like it had done this before.  Embedding the dagger into a nearby tree, he kept working.  With most of the meat neatly wrapped and bound in leather, her question caught his ear.

Jumping up from where he had been crouching, his blooded hands went to his sword on his belt, the harpoon still lodged in the carcass.  His eyes fell on the young woman standing there, and then flew up to the dragon, "Fae spit."  His body went ridged and visibly shaken by the sight of a Nadder, "Can I help you, miss?"  Eyes wide, and not on her, he kept his ground, hoping that he wasn't in for a fight.

His Adam's apple bobbed as he looked back down to the deer and the wrapped meat, wondering if it was really worth fighting for.  His hand slowly released his sword, hoping for the best in this situation.  His shoulders slowly rounded into a relaxed posture, his back straightening.  Still on guard, but now trying to look friendly.  A strained smile slipped onto his face as he wiped some of the blood onto a cloth he pulled from his kilt pouch.

[Mabil&Dara]

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Mabil nearly shouted. She pushed back on Dara as much as she could while also holding a hand out towards the man, trying to separate the now startled dragon from the stranger. Dara had tensed and gotten ready to strike at the man as he reached for his sword. Although Mabil wasn’t looking for a fight, she reached for her small iron dagger as well. The man seemed to relax a little and took his hand off his sword, so Mabil did the same. She couldn’t help but notice that his eyes never strayed from Dara.

“We’re not looking for a fight, but I won’t go down easy if that’s what you’re after,” Mabil warned. She looked down at the man’s deer. “I’m not a big fan of deer meat, anyway.” Mabil patted Dara, who had now calmed down and seemed distracted with a bird overhead. “She won’t attack either, unless she thinks you’re actually going to hurt one of us. I was just curious as to who the heck you are, since I haven’t seen you around Berk and it’s good to be wary of strangers,” Mabil explained, quite serious and still in training mode. Sometimes strangers could be good for her training anyway, she could always learn a bit about the way other Vikings did things.

[Harvast]

The young man gave an uncomfortable smile, "Believe it or not, I am a trader from far shores." Managing to tear his eyes away from the nadder with no small will, he met her eyes and stood straight.  A massive form of a young man, he dipped his head towards her in greeting, "Harvast, sailor, trader, and fisherman.  A pleasure to meet you and your dragon, miss...?"

He moved slowly with his hands in plain sight so as to not disturb the distracted spike-thrower, and returned to his work, taking the knife and opening up the ribs enough so that he could remove his harpoon.  The piece was fairly plain, though the red shaft was different compared to these parts, and bore a few sigils that weren't native.  "Does the dragon eat deer?  I'd rather start off on a better foot than before.  Very little love for the beasts, myself.  Bit of a history there."

His nervous chuckle wasn't borne from fear, but just normal unease that non-dragon riding cultures might have exhibited.  Once the harpoon was clean, Harvast set it aside to make sure that it wouldn't fall, "Out for a ride?  I've seen a few Nadders around here with riders.  You one of 'em?"  Flipping the deer over, he began cleaning the other side, separating the hide from the meat and finally working at the meat itself.