isleofavalon | July Catch-All

🧙 WHO: Nash + You
⚔️️ WHAT: Open quest prompts + closed starters.
🕒 WHEN: July
🗺️ WHERE: Avalon and its surroundings.
⚠️ WARNINGS: Possible violence in the possible violence quest, will add in any other warnings as they appear.

🛡️Summer Fever!
[ This place has stuck Nash with healing magic, so he figures he ought to pitch in. But he isn't very experienced, not with the magic or with comforting the ill. He doesn't have much in the way of a bedside manner— at least, not that kind of bedside manner. If there's one thing life's taught Nash so far, though, it's that you can pretend until it isn't pretending anymore.

If he sees another healer who seems to know what they're doing, he'll approach them on the way out. ]

Hey, do you mind showing me how you did that?

[ Otherwise, you might find him the music seems thickest, perversely seeming to enjoy any amateur musician, no matter how off-key. Even if the performances aren't meant for him. ]

Spotted Dicklivery
🛡️i.

[ Nash is an agreeable enough questing companion. Well, maybe not agreeable. Maybe the word is competent. He does seem to know how to hike, how to set up a camp, and how to keep a good pace— it's just that he also spends his resting moments asking his fellow travelers questions about their favorite color, marital status, and also if they know anything about that bird over there.

When the group stops for camp, though, he has no problem contribuiting something besides inane chatter. ]

Do you want to cook something, or should I? I can't promise anything fancy, but foot always tastes better when you're hungry, right?

[ Well, most of the time. ]

🗡️ ii.

[ Coming back to the camp after a quick foraging mission, though, the place is wrecked. Any food left unsecured has obviously been pawed through, and one of the tents has been ripped to shreds. ]

Wait. [ Nash holds an hand out, a gesture that means what he says. ] I think whatever did this might be in there.

[ And it could be dangerous. His eyes search other Otherworlder— did they come armed? ]

OOC
Feel free to hmu through PMs here or

elsinore if you'd like a closed starter or one of the other prompts. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nash's expression is a bit rueful as he searches the rack of dull practice swords, evidently trying to find one whose size and weight he likes. He picks one up, gingerly, and then rejects it, even though all these blades are of like make, with little if anything to distinguish between them. Is he getting cold feet?

Finally, after this little production, he settles on a blade, holding it a little awkwardly by its dull practice edge.

"Alright," he nods at Chris, ready to proceed after this little bit of theater. "The idea is that you stick the sharp part into the other guy, right?"

He shrugs, as if to say, "how hard could it be?" but knows she probably sees through his small distractions. But the uncertainty isn't all feigned. Nash practiced his swordsmanship often back home, sparring with his Aunt Lena, but it's been years since he thought about actually bringing a blade to battle. And he knows that when Chris finds out he's better with a sword than he is with all the tricks up his sleeve, it will only invite more questions.

Chris selected her blade with ease, well aware of the type of blade she's best with. But she lets Nash go through his routine. "More or less." She replies, knowing the jest is a deflection.

She leads him out onto the training field, then turns and nods at him. "All right, show me your stance." She tells him. Best place to start she's found, and it'll give her an idea of what she has to work with.

That command brings him back to the cadet yards in Crystal Valley, where he spent what felt like hours holding a wooden blade still while the instructor found and corrected every imperfection in his form and his arm started to go numb. In those days, he even tried to swallow his own snide commentary.

That hadn't stuck, obviously, but the form he studied was drilled in sure enough Nash thought he could probably hit it in his sleep. It's the usual sword stance of Harmonian military training, and if it differs from the stance of the Zexen knights, it isn't by much.

Chris circles Nash, taking in his form. It's good. Most Harmonian footsoldiers favoured heavy halberds during the Grasslands war, but a few officers, generally being drawn from the First Class caste, retained swords as their weapon of choice, so Chris has some recent experience with Harmonian swordsmanship she can draw on. "Good form. Footing looks solid. All right."

She stops in front of Nash, a few feet away and drops into her own stance. "Then let me see your guards. Slow to begin, picking up speed as we go. Begin!"

She raises her sword for a high strike to start, then opposite side strikes, before coming in low. With each strike the speed of the next intensifies. She knows Nash isn't a novice whatever claims he makes otherwise, so she doesn't have to spend as much time building up as she would with someone who was completely new. With each strike she pushes forward. When the final strike is, hopefully blocked, she quickly switches to a defensive stance.

"Your turn. Begin."

For all his diversions, Nash never bothered to develop a fake swordfighting style. He wasn't even sure that was possible— so much of surviving in a fight is relying on training deep enough to be instinct.

Maybe that was why he'd given it up. In a setting like this, with a single blade and no tricks up his sleeve, he can't fight like anyone besides a Harmonian aristocrat. Talk about a professional liability. Even if Nash had always been better with a sword than with the tricks up his sleeve.

He parries the last blow, then nods once, before striking.

"Do they teach you by the numbers?"

There was a set of numbered attacks all the cadets in the Temple Guard had to master, each with a corresponding defense. Prime, second, third— the further on through the sequence the more difficult the technique. Nash goes through the whole sequence, at least a year's worth of dedicated training.

[ Taichi likes to help out when he can, especially when it's a good chance to practice his healing. The problem with learning healing magic is that it's hard to get a lot of practice unless people are hurting. Taichi is mostly working with the younger kids, even making balloon animals for them at the end of healing sessions, and looks surprised to hear an older voice asking him for help. Despite that he's an older brother, he doesn't often leave people with that impression, so it's weird to him to be asked for help by someone older than him.

..He seems pretty happy about it. ]

Yeah, sure! I don't know about anything super advanced, but I've got the basics down. What are you trying?

[Eleven has spent the trip smiling and chatting whenever addressed. It's nice to get out of the city again for a while. The trip to Celliwig had cut through the fog of trauma and despair enough to remind him how fun traveling is.

He's an experienced hiker and does his best trying to help set up camp... back home his companions usually handled that part.]

I'm rubbish at cooking but if you make something I can help you eat it. I'm famished!

July Catch-All

for chris

back from vacation!

welcome back

no subject

no subject

summer fever!

Spotted Dicklivery