Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

He knew that stillness was required for this. He'd seen it practiced and heard it discussed several times. That had been the common thread. A whirling rush of activity would not aid this discipline; it would only bombard it with more stimulus, more sounds, sights, tastes, problems and distractions for it to solve in that unconscious way a man had no control over. So quietude was the answer. Sitting or kneeling. Hands balanced on the knees. Eyes closed. Breathing steady and rote and acting as a sort of metronome for the rest of your body.

Stillness. Immobility.

Stagnation. Imprisonment.

Inactivity. Boredom.

Not fucking likely.

Kasoria huffed like a bull at the end of the dock, glaring out across the idyllic water at Rharne. He didn't know why this was called a "lake"; he was sure he'd read about seas smaller than this vast expanse of water. Two hundred miles wide, that was what he'd heard. Fates, there were bodies of water separating continents that weren't so huge. There were even islands within it, and he guessed likely settlements there. Strange folk both human and Mer, raised and raising the next generation to never leave their islands, to stay close, stay isolated. He peered out into the watery horizon that stretched as far as soaring eagle's could see, and wondered if some clam-fishing wanker was doing much the same. Wondering if there was any life beyond the island his father and his father and his father had been raised on. Never knowing the vastness of civilization, just a short swim away.

Or a quick drowning. Depends how well you can swim.

He sighed again and let his annoyance bubble up. Froth into pacing steps, eyes downcast, face contorted in a grimace. He knew he had to let it out; exorcise the irritation until he was cleansed of it. As he walked, the length of steel hanging from his hip smacked his leg. A steady beat - thump, thump, thump - dogging his steps. A sword, an ax. A karambit, a set of brass knuckles. The shadow ward that never left his neck, a meager purse of gold... the clothes he wore, stood in at that moment.

The house up the path from the dock. The people in there, weird and wild and shit-assed and innocent all. These were the things he had in his life, right now.

This isn't helping.

Might do.

The assassin reached down and undid his belt. The gladius fell from it, scabbard and all. When he walked back up the dock... it was just his footsteps. No jangling metal. No banging leather. He reached the end of it, and he removed the karambit at his back, the knuckles in his pocket, and set them on the end of the little wooden pier... and then, as an afterthought, his shoes.

Kasoria closed his eyes and felt almost weightless. Stripped of his protection and professional tools both... but he was a dangerous man far before he'd learned how to use such weapons. He gauged the distance over his shoulder, and tossed his shrunken little purse over to where his gladius was. Then he face the water again, vast and faceless and silent save for the waves.

Like the breath of the lake. The rhythm of its soul. Kasoria closed his eyes and let himself submerge in it without even getting wet. Barefoot and clad only in breeches and tunic. Until his heart matched the lapping of the waves... and his hands came up in readiness.

He didn't wonder what he might look like to whoever might be watching, because he didn't care. His debt to those people was paid, and now they were all just killing time together until they could leave... or, more accurately, until he could leave. He didn't know if they planned to stay on this plot of land forever or never return to it. Again, he didn't care. He had a son a thousand miles away and more, and business to finish up back home. Those were all that mattered to him. That and spending his time in a... constructive manner.

The man on the pier moved with a fluidity tempered only by recent injury, not age. He seemed assailed on all sides, forearms and shins blocking or parrying blows, elbows and fist retaliating with ripostes a moment later. To his front, his sides, turning with eerie poise to his rear and launching a fresh series of blows. There was form in brief combinations of moves, as if they'd been learned long again and were now so natural he could execute them in a blur... but there as no broader, grander form. Every series was chopped up, jammed together, thrown into a blender and then hurled out by the man when he needed just this move, or just that counter. Nothing was consistent. Nothing seemed taboo, either.

Then again, this was Ki'Enaq. Known beyond the smoky confines of Etzos, but rarely seen by his eyes. Although, if he was being honest, that was mostly because it was essentially glorified street-fighting. He smiled briefly at the thought, but his lips soon became a hard, pressed line of concentration again. Ah... now there was some pattern, here. Every movement came with the crash or retreat of a wave. Kasoria wasn't fighting the lake, but he was... letting it dictate his own fight.

For some time he stood there. Fighting endlessly and invisibly. His heartbeat and his breathing and his arms and legs... all of them reached an accord with the water below and around him. When he found that moment, body settling back into the "Go Stance" he'd learned decades ago at the Blackguard Academy, Kasoria opened his eyes.

The same expanse deep, sparkling dark blue. The same stars and moon, undying in this season, celebrating every night with cascading lights that almost sufficed for the suns, but not quite. The same wind rippling across it, as if the riot of color and life that was Rharne was blowing it his way. All the same sights from before, yet he felt different. Not peace, for that was a rare thing for him. More a... calm.

The ragged old man smiled, and turned one hand, so it was palm up to the sky. He breathed deep, and his ether bloomed and lit the darkness around him before he'd even started to exhale.