Hunting Death- Beginnings
#2 of Hunting Death
Beginnings
"Come on, you have to do much better than this."
I look down a moment before opening my mouth and pushing the object out of my mouth with my tongue, the wooden scythe clunking against the ground. I quickly gently scrape my tongue against my teeth to try and get the taste out of my mouth.
"Well I do much better if you didn't keep forcing me to fight like a human. Why can't I fight in a more natural manner?" I complain back at him.
"It's very simple," my companion responds. "The reason you have to fight like a human is that you just had to get a human weapon. If your weapon as a more normal weapon then you would be able to fight more normally. This is the last time I will be able to train you before you set off. I need you to at least be able to hit me before I'll let you go."
I huff at him before sitting down and raising a hind leg to scratch at an itch behind one of my ears. As if I could do that so easily. My mentor is a little bit bigger than I am as well as older and more experienced. He is one of the few that has succeeded in preventing his own death and he has the scars to prove it. One of his eyes is partially glazed over with a long scar extending over that eye. Some of what would be a vibrant russet colored fur has started to gray out though his form is still fairly young. Though he is showing signs of aging in some aspects he clearly could live at least a few more decades before death claims him again. Somehow, especially in comparison to the scar around his face both of his fairly large, triangular ears are completely intact, though that may be a result of what his normal weapon is. His ordinary weapon is a sort of facial mask with a lot of jagged spikes sticking out. Wearing it would pin his ears back in a defensive position and further protect them by the largest two spikes sticking out from where his ears normally would be.
But at the moment that is not the weapon he's using. Just as I'm currently using a wooden scythe he's using a wooden short sword. And frustratingly so his skill with the sword is far greater than my skill with my own weapon. I shake my head for a moment and with a slight smirk twitch one of my ears and the scythe on the ground raises up on its own accord. I gesture at my mentor with my eyes very slightly and the scythe flies towards him. As skilled as he is, he is able to block the first attack but the scythe manages to strike him a moment later. Grinning, I flick my head upwards in the scythe flies back towards me. My mentor drops the sword and shoots me a rather disappointing look.
"What?" I ask, the grin still on my face in spite of his glare, "you asked me to hit you and I did so. Can I go now?"
"You know very well that that was not the way you were supposed to do it."
"I can't fight that way, though. And if I ever needed to fight for my life I don't see why it'd be a good idea to restrict myself in such a manner."
"Because the more an enemy knows what you're capable of, the easier it is to take into account everything you can do. A careful fighter will figure out what their opponent can do and then act accordingly. If you can get the person trying to kill you to think that you do not possess the ability to move your weapon through will alone they may capture you, bind you up but leave your weapon nearby. But if they do know you can move it through will they'll take all the more precautions against you."
"I know," I state, sighing at being given another lecture, "but the truth of the matter is that my blood already burned. It'll take far longer to be able to fight like a human good enough to protect myself in a serious fight than I have left."
"You're right, you're right. Forgive an old man's desire to want his student to be good enough that he'll see them again once the Pilgrimage is complete," my mentor sighs before flicking his head and both the wooden sword and wooden scythe fly back to the nearby weapon rack. "Come along then, I guess we might as well get your things together so you can set off."