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Dedication (Nina / BlueSlime)


Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

"Do whatever you want. Eat, rest, take a bath, that sort of thing. I'll do all three things, not in that order particularly. We'll carry this on in the evening. Now, enjoy your free time. If you have something to ask, find me and ask. Most likely I'll be in my room." Yura replied at the inquiry, going towards the door that went into her room, letting her robe loose along the way. Once the big door had closed, Nina was left to do what she wanted to spend her few hours with.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

Nina felt herself at a loss with what to do in her spare time. She was tired, dripping with sweat, so the first course of action seemed quite simple. She needed a bath. She remembered where the water pool was and went there after taking a quick detour to her room to fetch a towel and strip off her training clothes, which she deposited in a basket and reminded herself that she would need to wash and dry them after she got back from bathing and eating.

Wrapping the towel about herself, Nina walked lightly to the bathing area. Her feet made small pitter patters upon the temple's stone floor, which was cool to the touch in all areas where the shade had covered it, while mildy warm where the sun's rays had been shining during the midday zenith. Arriving at the pool, Nina let her towel fall away from her body, bending down to fold it neatly by the pool side before she strode into the water up to her knees. The water was cold in the mountain air, and it sent chills up Nina's body, which had been warmed up quite a bit by all the exercise. She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged and rubbed herself for warmth as gooseflesh appeared over her skin. Slowly, she squatted and lowered herself into the water, eventually sitting down and beginning the cleaning process.

At last she was able to properly relax, and she made plans for dinner that night. It would probably end up being more rice and vegetables unless some magical protein had appeared in the cupboard. She would have to ask Yura about the frequency of foodstuffs being delivered to this remote place. Best to plan a proper meal around the availability of the meat after all.

When thoughts of dinner had come and gone, Nina suddenly recalled that she had someone with whom she could share conversation silently.

Karin? You there? Any thoughts or comments about things so far? You're not bored are you?
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

With a plan for her free time in place, Nina set upon her decided tasks. Getting out of the clothes and switching for a towel, she went for a bath in the courtyard pool, which doubled as a washing spot in addition to it's decorative status. Maybe Yura's designs for the place had been on equally practical and decorational, if her mind had indeed been involved in the designing of the small estate.

After some adjusting to the cool water of the courtyard pool, the sweaty student got herself in the proper mindset and immersed properly, cleaning the beads of sweat she had acquired during the training away. After having a brief sit down, she began to wash properly, calling out to the ferrygirl inside her with a mental poke. "Yes... I am here... no... I'm never bored... there's always a soul for me to ferry... your experiences so far have been... eating and practise... along with sleep and this bathing... they provide me with new.... even curious... sensations... so I am not... bored in any sense of the word... I visioned that you will be here for a while... it is of no matter to me... I can wait for the times when there's something else... it is no problem... and even these things... simple as they might be... are enjoyable..." the spirit spoke up, her voice as emotionless as it had been during their previous talks.

As she listened to the ferrygirl speak in her mind, Nina could see tiny plumes of smoke coming from the kitchen window. Looks like Yura had set up shop and started cooking. Or the less likely possibility, that it was Alrik instead, though the knight might not be too handy ib the kitchen in his current condition. "Looks like... you have another food time soon... better eat... the training is heavy for your mortal frame... though you hold up well... you are not a sloppy person when it comes to athletics... I can feel it..." Karin spoke up further as she too saw the sight through Nina's eyes.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

"Hmmm. Some one else is in the kitchen. It'll be nice to see what they're cooking." Nina's belly growled thinking of food. "Okay then I'm going to quickly finish up here."

Dousing herself with several splashes of cleansing water, Nina hurriedly wrapped herself back up with the towel and scampered off back to her room, where she completed her drying, and then slipped into a light, simple dress which she pulled a warm coat over to keep herself warm as she walked back to the kitchen. Knocking on the door as she came in she announced herself with a cheerful hello, expecting to see Yura standing there with some kind of food preparation underway.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

Seeing the activity inside the kitchen, Nina left the pool after a quick wash. Getting herself some clothing from the room, she went to the kitchen to see what was happening over there.

And indeed, Yura was there. The weapon master was working over a pot, stirring the stuff inside. "Hey, decided to make some food. Have some for yourself, I made enough for all three of us." she said, taking a serving of what looked like a thick stew. There was a few different vegetables in the stuff, along with a meat that looked like pork. Yura herself was soon at the table and eating away, leaving Nina to do what she wanted with the food. "That... looks like a fine thing... to eat in a place like this... this separation..." Karin spoke up, sharing her thoughts about the look of the food. "I asked that knight to see if he was hungry, but the guy was taking a nap. He'll have to come in later and eat his portion." the horned woman chimed in further, apparently having taken care of seeing to Alrik.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

Nina sat down and plucked up her spoon, staring hungrily at her stew.

"It smells nice, sensei. I'm sure it'll taste nice too. Is this pork?"

She got stuck in quickly, blowing on the broth before sticking the first bite into her mouth, cautiously gauging the temperature of the liquid before deciding to eat more at a rapid pace. Exercise had left the girl ravenous as well as slightly achy all over. Her backside still hurt the most, but there was precious little she could do about that right now. Her best recourse was to see to the needs of her stomach, which she did now with gusto.

Finishing her first bowl in a little less than two minutes, Nina got up and helped herself to a second serving, ladling in a healthy portion.

"It's good to train like that again. All my maid work may be tiring, but it's not designed to train my muscles. This is the sort of focus that I can't receive at home. It's a shame you couldn't live nearer to the desert, sensei."
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

Yura did not comment on the nature of the meat, letting Nina eat away in peace. The taste and texture of pork was not quite there when she took the first sample of the meat, but it was still an enjoyable thing to be eating. Going through two bowls of the stuff in a relatively quick time, the maid-knight saw her sensei eat one for her own. "Well yeah. I am here and you are there. Sounds like you need to find someone to guide you with these sorts of training sessions, should look around for a person like that. Maybe you have someone in your household? I don't know, so I can't tell." she replied to the remarks about training and the location of her home. "It's always better to exercise with someone."

With Nina still sitting at the table after eating her seconds, Yura picked herself off from the chair and went towards the pot of food. Picking up a severed head of some medium-sized mountain lizard, she showed it off in Ninas direction. "This was what you just ate. The food shipment is coming in tomorrow and we were out of valid meats because I hogged all of them earlier in the week. So, I quickly went out and saw what would be the first thing to get itself caught. Was hoping for a bunny or a bird, but this critter was the unfortunate individual." the horned woman said, opening and closing the mouth of the head in Nina's direction as she explained.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

If Yura was expecting some sort of gag reflex or a spit take, Nina would disappoint her. The green haired girl was adventurous when it came to many things, including food. She'd eaten a lot of things that you wouldn't find on a typical menu, and while she hadn't eaten lizard before, she wasn't phased by the idea. Nor was she afraid of a severed head, though of course, she was a bit unnerved by the way Yura opened and closed the jaw. She stared at it for a few seconds before giving a shrugging response.

"Hmmm, well whatever you put in the soup, it's manage to mask any foul taste it might have had. It was a bit chewy for pork, I suppose, so it makes sense that it was something exotic like a lizard. But hey, we make do with what we've got. Thanks for the grub. Now let me help wash up."

Nina put the dishes into a small basin of water and rubbed them with a wash cloth until they were cleaned.

"Please, don't wave it like that though, sensei. It's a lizard head, not a puppet. It's unclean. Make sure you wash your hands before you drink any more tea."
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

The sensei looked at Nina with a modicum of curiousity at first when she reacted, but seemed to be appriciating her her ability to ignore the unusual source of meat. "Well that's good. Was expecting you to not take it this well, but it is a pleasant surprise to see a person who is not iffy about their food. We don't need to eat anything like this once tomorrow comes with it's shipment though, which is somewhat sad. There is a lot of curious things around here to eat, but we should still stick to the more normal stuff. Wouldn't want you coming down with a stomach ache or something similar." the horned woman spoke up, still puppeting the severed head at Nina until she told her to stop. Setting aside the head next to the intestines and a few areas of scaly skin still left on the cutting board, Yura let the student girl join her in the clean-up process, which the two did with remarkable gusto.

Once they had cleaned up and disposed of the lizard's remains, the horned woman left. "I'll be waiting in the courtyard in an hour or so. Do whatever you need to in the meantime, then we will train more. If there is something you need to ask, I'll be in my room as usual" she said as she went along her way, leaving the student on her own again.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

"I don't really need to do anything special before we begin again. If you want to have a break, would it be all right if I tagged along? We could share stories with one another... I'm sure you'd have a lot of memories of your adventuring days. I'd love to hear about that time you and the Blades took down that huge Tyrant."

Nina didn't know what she'd do with herself for the next hour if Yura wasn't in the mood for talking. Likely she would choose to take a small nap. But if Yura was up for talking, she wouldn't mind learning a bit more about her sensei before they got back into another training session.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

"Hmm, alright. I suppose I could blabber about that for a bit. But I'd rather do it in a comfy place. Let's go to my room again." Yura replied, feeling like satisfying Nina's curiousity somewhat. The two of them headed into the weapon master's room, Yura herself jumping onto the bed of furs and sheets. Taking out the knife that Nina had seen already from it's position under the pillow she was on, the woman began to flip it with one hand as she started to speak.

"Well... after hearing several stories about this particular desert tyrant the people were referring to as Diablo, the six of us endeavored to find and slay it for good after seing a few devastated villages and outposts it had levelled for no apparent reason. It was not too hard to find the beastie, since it did not seem to venture out to the desert too much. A little ways out, we came across a newly-attacked village, and soon after the creature itself some distance away. After the initial meeting and attempting to approach it directly, we soon learned that some maneuvering was necessary. Using the rocky terrain, the melee fighters among us settled into attacking it from higher ground so we could at least have some chances of causing damage if could jump or climb onto it's back while Akina and the old man fired their arrows and spells on it along with evading the mad rushes. Once it began to burrow around, the battle got nasty for us. It's scary to face something as big as that thing and not be able to determine properly where it's going to come from. It did rather scary leaps from the sand, jumping at us from nearly hundred feet away at times, though the longer jumps allowed for easier attacks by the long-range attackers. Then, the weariness began to settle in and we had to rest, eat and patch up the wounds in turns during the battle. After a lucky streak, I managed to get myself on it's head and used these manacles as aid. Binding myself to the creature's one horn, I battled for dear life while smacking it's headplate with that hammer there." Yura took a break to point at the huge hammer with the volcanic veins. "It took a good amount of strikes even with that massive thing to break open the creature's skull. Eventually, both me and Haku managed to stick our weapons to it's brain. But even that was not enough at first, the dulled nerve tracks not sending the signal in properly and the creature managed to spear Rao with a horn and blow Haku away with a tail swipe before dying. The two of them got the most brutal beatings, but I too had dislocated my shoulder after all that striking and jostling on the thing's head. Every one of the group had acquired a few memorable scars from that little war. Took us a good while to recover completely from all the punishment it had dealt, but we were victorious in the end." the woman concluded her brief story about the battle.

"There have been other battles in our history, but that one was particularly momerable because of it's sheer lenght and the effort and teamwork we had to use in order to win."
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

Nina listened with rapt attention to the brief but exciting story of thrilling heroism and teamwork. The description of the beast was enough to make Nina thankful that nothing like that had been seen since. Such a monster sounded more fearsome than any dragon story she'd ever heard before.

"That long to defeat it? Wow!" Nina shook her head in amazement. "And that was with you and Sir Haku and Lord Rao all fighting it, not to mention the others... truly that beast must have been terrible. And what about that hammer? It's not just any weapon, that's quite clear. Where did you get that?"

Nina rested with her chin in her hands and her elbows on the blankets of Yura's bed, gazing at Yura with slight idolism in her eyes.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

"Yeah, it was a long and intense bout of fighting with a single creature. Once you burn enough stamina, better get some grub to recover. That thing was simply so thick and sturdy that it was hard to deal decent damage to it. But in mass, everything can start to account for something. " Yura carried on a bit, soon putting away the knife as the hammer was inquired about. Going over to the weapon, she took it off from the stand, keeping the huge bludgeon in a low position in her hands. "This thing... the creator dubbed it Magma-glass Hammer, it is apparenty something that was forged in the fires of an ancient volcano. I got it from the chieftain of a goliath village, after saving a stray child of theirs from a pack of mountain cats. Goliaths are a race of what might be described half-giants. Taller than any humans but still nowhere near the size of real giants. The average goliath stands somewhere around 11 to 14 feet tall, and are pretty much human in all other aspects. They have become rare though, and seeing one is not a common thing these days. What I hear, they were hunted by an evil cult or some other similar organization of untolerant humans when they pledged alliance with benevolent, all-loving sorceress of great power in the days past. It's really too bad, those people are very likeable, at least to me personally." the weapon master told a brief story about her past experiences, swinging the hammer upwards into a stance where it was next to her head.

"But this hammer, it is not your everyday piece of metal. It supposedly reacts with the wielder's spirit, generating fire and heat when it hits something. It is also partially hollow, so it's not as heavy as one might imagine from such a huge weapon. Wielding this also bestows a level of resistance towards fire or heat, making usually hot places more tolerable. It creates a pretty intense flame when I use it, but my spirit is not as strong as some people have. Heck, I'd love to see how it acted if Haku swung it. That man is so in tune with his spirit that it grants him immense strenght and awareness. His blade, White Wolf, is not something an average soldier can handle even if they are familiar with two-handed swords. It simply refuses to cut anything if your spirit is weak and unworthy, acting more like a pole in those cases." she continued on about the hammer and a bit about Haku as well, lowering the weapon again before setting it back to the stand.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

Yura had Nina's dedicated attention. When she finished with her stories, Nina began to wonder about the strength of her own spirit.

"How can one train their spirit? For that matter, how can one measure it? I see my friend Iris meditating a lot, but is that the only way to developing it? I guess if I'm not very big in stature, I could make up for that if I train my spirit, right?"
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

The question had Yura thinking for a while. It looked like the subject was not her area of expertise. "I suppose you can. If your friend is tiny, it can explain her strenght being higher than one would expect. I'm not one to ask about these thing really, should ask Rao or Haku, they are more knowledgeable on the subject than I. I'm really the "brute" of our team, they were the ones with more finesse and such, even with their bigger physiques. But still, there is no getting over the fact that you need physical conditioning to manage in the heat of battle." she eventually came up with an answer.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

Nina smiled at Yura's honesty.

"Then you're probably the best member of the blades to train me. You can talk in a language I understand. If I ever have the opportunity to speak with Sir Haku again, or to get some private training time with Lord Rao, I'll ask them about training my spirit, but you'll teach me what I need to know about my body."

Nina sat up. "Thank you for your stories and your answers, Sensei Yura. Already after one session with you, I'm indebted to you. I will go now and prepare for our evening training. I place myself completely in your hands, and I know that you don't intend to make a servant out of your pupils, but on a personal note, if there is anything I can do for you while I'm learning from you, don't hesitate to ask it of me. It is an honor to train with you. I hope one day you'll be proud of what I learn and how I apply it."

Nina bowed and even gave a light laugh, as if to signal that despite all the weighty, heart-felt words she spoke, she still said them with a light hearted honesty and a genuine candid joy.

If Yura did not have any immediate requests, Nina would go to her room, dress in training gear, adopting the bandage wrapping underwear stylings of her sensei, before returning to the courtyard for another workout session.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

"Heh, maybe I am. Pretty much for most common soldiery and beginning fighter types really. Developing your spirit is something that not everyone can do, so they need to rely on their own powers to carry on their battles. Thus they turn to people like me for instruction. But yes, it's like I said, I don't wish to produce servants here. People come here to train for battle, and that's what they get. But if one is willing to help like you, I have nothing against their free will." the weapon master replied to Nina's honest words, patting her on the shoulder before letting her go for a while further. "We'll carry on with the training in moment or two, have a little rest and prepare." Yura called after her.

Back in her room, the maid girl prepared for the second training period of the day. Applying the bandage underwear was not easy, the bindings falling away several times as Nina tried to set them up in a proper, working condition that did not immidiately fall apart with the slightest movement. But after a good while spent on trial and error, she managed to get the hang of it and soon wore the style of both Yura and Iris under her training clothing. Iris had little reason to do it, but the green-haired girl noticed that the bandages flattened her chest somewhat, making them a bit less bounce-prone.

Back at the courtyard, Yura was already doing more bodily exercises as Nina got there.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

Nina slipped right into the exercises that Yura was doing, provided they weren't beyond her current capability.

"I'm ready for our next session, Sensei." Nina bowed her head respectfully.

Wearing the bandages underneath her clothing brought her a little closer to the mentality of a serious warrior, she thought. It was a small change, but practical for a girl with her bust size, and she liked that she was adopting the same styles as Iris and Yura. If she could be in just a little more way like either of them, then she was happy. She had so much more of herself to share with the friends and dare she say it, family that she had made in this world, and she wanted to identify with those she trusted and cared about.

"What shall I do?"
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

"Hehe, alright. Jump right in then, exercises like before. You can still do them like you did earlier, according to your own ability of course." Yura told Nina among all the stretching and similar activity.

The training was pretty much the same thing that they had done earlier in the day, only a few new basic things about battle and the situations one might find themselves in. Ultimately, there was not very much new stuff to be done, mostly it was just properly hammering in the points of the earlier training and it's basics. After the situational training, Yura once again ended the training with finishing stretches.

"Alright, that's the basics. Tomorrow we will be looking into your chosen weapon combination and how they work on the fields of battle, along with the most practical and efficient ways of utilising both sword and shield. Now, there is free time until tomorrow" the horned woman said as they finished. The evening was there already, the area outside the compound looking slightly dark already. Despite the mountainous location, the courtyard maintained a nice, warm atmosphere, even in the late evening.
 
Re: Nina (BlueSlime)

"Thank you for the lesson, Sensei," Nina said as the training came to a close. After a while of warming down and dabbing her brow with a towel to wipe away the sweat, she turned back towards Yura.

"What do you normally do around here for entertainment when the occasional visitor comes to stay? Is there something we can do for fun before we go to sleep?"
 
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