She blocked repeatedly, her face calm as she slowly calculated the finite number of moves he had with his sickle blades. Most fights required offense to win, but being a warrior who stayed alive meant knowing when to rely on defense to find an opponent's weakness first.
She waited for the eventual error.
"You're the one Taash decided to help? You're weak!" yelled Cutter. "Can't even get a swing in!"
Lilja refused to respond as she watched his eyes, where he was giving away each and every next move. A cut across at chest height, easily parried. A downward chop, stopped by her shield. At one point, Cutter went for another downward swing with one weapon while the other swung fast at her side. This was her opening. Lilja blocked upwards with her shield as she stepped forward into Cutter to dodge the blade heading to her side.
I was tagged by @vishantikaffar to try out this picrew and it got me thinking about my Rook's relationship to fighting
Silver is very good at fighting and she is surprisingly strong and resilient due to the defensive tattoos. To a certain degree, she enjoys it, she enjoys the thrill of it, but far too often that fighting involves having to hurt someone else or have to protect someone else, so a battle that is solely for sport would actually be very good for her.
Iustinian can fight, he is quick and clever and knows every dirty trick in the book, but he much more prefers to set traps. So if he is fighting hand to hand, know that he has some sort of dirty trick up his sleeves to ensure victory.
Decided to do Rook's schedule from this list, since that is what Silver's notebook is mostly filled with together with recipes and schematics and research notes
6:00 wake up, stretches, exercise, maybe sparring with Davrin
7:00 check in with Lace, see about any plans for today, look over messages from factions together, schedule a proper date
7:30 breakfast and check in with the team
make sure Bellara and Neve eat something (collect them from their rooms if need be)
see if they figured out anything during the night that needs to be looked into
listen to everyone's plans for the day, see who needs to go alone and who should have allies with (perhaps pair off Taash and Emmrich? they need to hang out a little more, Taash could use the exposure and Emmrich needs to interact with people who aren't academics
go through the list of necessary resources, repairs, shopping list etc. Lucanis said he'd handle food, but ask if he needs help
8:00 go out in the Crossroads
check the paths, clear of dangers, especially the ones the team wants to use for the day
clear other paths of Blight, see if you can find other, more strategically positioned eluvians (Minrathous might be good, the high city maybe)
see if the gathering spirits need anything (talking with them still difficult, but I'm getting better at my ancient elven)
11:00 pass through all faction headquarters
leads for Minrathous and the Venatori, follow throw on what Marcus sent about those young scions of powerful families, put in charger of the defence of the Archon's Palace. Some of them have to be in with the Venatori and they are weaker targets than the older, more experienced target (see if Lucanis is willing to join)
see Antoine's progress on Blight research
almost forgot, but lunch with Davrin in Lavendel, he is far too convinced that Anderfels food is all bad and I can't let that stand
the Mourn Watch mentioned that a new corridor suddenly opened, with elven influence in the architecture, take Bellara and Taash (might be too much for them) to investigate, possible piece of the Shattered Library
the Lords have information about some elven ruins that apparently Venatori tried to get into, see what that's about
Taash said they want to see if the Antaam in Treviso also dabbled in dragon kidnapping
Emmrich mentioned some sort of increase in spirit activity in a stretch of Arlathan, check if the Veil Jumpers had any trouble
18:00 hopeful return to Lighthouse and dinner
check in with the team, make sure all went all and everyone returned from their task hale and whole
gear check, none of these people take half as much care of their weapons and armour as they should
18:30 go convince Neve to let you join on her field trip to check a possible lead, especially if she didn't leave the Lighthouse all day
20:00 help Lace with her research, see if she needs any elven texts translated, also continue with gear repair
??? (hopefully no later than midnight): sleep
Note at end of day: I fought a giant mishapen monster made entirely of bones and pieces of masonry, a dragon, even more new kinds of darkspawn and some form of utlra-strong Venatori blood engine. No, none of them happened in the missions I expected them to
(no what are you talking about she isn't too busy)
Thank you @redaresss for tagging me in this, this was a fun thought experiment.
Here's the picrew I used.
Silver Iseril Thorne
Silver would wear something with notes of leather and pine, but also floral notes, something like rose and lavender, something that feels very natural and wild. Most of this comes from the soap she uses, but she does end up asking her mother for help in making a perfume to wear when she wants to be fancy.
Iustinian de Riva
Iustinian wears perfume as part of his disguises. Scent is very important for memory, so he uses to throw people off his trail or put them more at ease. But the few times he would wear his own scent, it would be surprisingly simple and airy, something with linen and sea-salt.
