"Thank you for doing this" she said over the shoulder as she led the way out onto the cliffs. In the failing light it was still possible to make out the features of the gargantuan man, but Erthë kept her eyes on the ground. It was slippery, the milder weather and many passing hooves had compressed the well traveled path into frozen slush as deceptive as it was uneven. Not even her pale cloves could always finding traction, and as she briefly glanced up to survey the cliff-side meadow Erthë began to wonder if this really was the best place for this kind of lesson. So many people had foraged for grass here recently that the snow was trampled into the ground, a treacherous mixture of powdery snow, sheer ice and piled up drifts that would be difficult indeed to move about on.

But no one else was around, which was a small comfort; she would be spared making a spectacle of herself as she stumbled around, and no one but the King would see her get her ass handed to her.

Making it out to the center of the field with the cliffs a good distance away, she turned to face the blue-eyed mammoth with a shy, tentative smile, placing the distant forest on her left shoulder and the sea on her right. The ghosts of old conversations seemed to hover in the air between them lately, unresolved matters creating a tension and a distance that she loathed more than anything. It was her own fault, of course; most bad things that happened were brought on by Erthë herself, and this was no different. She knew she had hurt the man by trying to conceal her addiction, knew fully well that she had made a fool of herself on the glacier as they retrieved Mauja, acting like a filly half her actual age.

(No doubt she had been wiser at that age, less burdened and a lot happier overall.)
 

That Tembovu agreed to this request of hers was more a testament to his generosity, not something she really had earned lately...

But maybe it might help, somehow, to spar. Maybe if she could show him that she really wasn't trying to die choking on red petals his worry would ease a little, maybe she could be, if not forgiven, then at least understood as she refused to bow to the past or let her scars dictate her future. Maybe, if all else failed, he would at least receive some gratification in kicking her about for a while...

She would be fine with that. She could take it. Erthë knew she didn't look it, but she was a tough girl; she would survive.

"So... How do you fight, where you come from?" she asked, and readied herself. It was a good thing he was so big - even by the dim light from her glowing treasures it would be hard to see him as darkness gathered, and she would need every ounce of warning she could get if she were to get out of this without embarrassing herself.

---

PC: 0/3
WC: 518

Location: World's Edge, twilight, on the meadow between cliffs and forest. Ground is uneven and slippery, daylight is quickly fading. Erthë is wearing her glowing acorn and fang, providing some light.

It isn't what they say about you
It's what they whisper in the dark