biteybaby | Closed: Vitally Forming Defense

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Closed: Vitally Forming Defense

You may have, at times, heard the phrase, "Practice makes perfect". This phrase is often said by misinformed teachers, dance instructors, community recreational league baseball coaches, and overly-talkative Uber drivers. In actuality, practice rarely makes perfect, for several reasons. To start with, perfection is a highly subjective concept. One person may find the addition of a Cheez-It® 16 Times The Size Of The Original Cheez-It® to the Taco Bell menu perfect, whereas their friend may find the addition of a Cheez-It® 16 Times The Size Of The Original Cheez-It® to the Taco Bell menu unnecessary, overly-salty, and a bit of a silly gimmick, to be quite honest.

Another reason practice rarely makes perfect is that practicing something will only make you as good as the methods you are repeatedly doing. If you are practicing something incorrectly, you will never become perfect, you will only get more specific in your incorrectness. If you have an instructor who is teaching you incorrect form, you may get very good at said incorrect form, but it will never be perfect.

Fortunately for Magnus, Lancelot is actually quite proficient at swords. "Proficient" is a word which here means, "perfect".

Today, Sunny is also going to Learn Swords. "Learn Swords" is a phrase which here means, "Sit on the ground and gnaw on a wooden toy sword while the grown ups practice". Magnus said she could come along, and so she has.

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In fact, Magnus is carrying her now, his secret practice sword tucked (as usual) in his backpack along with her juice box, milk bottle, snack (goldfish crackers and carrots), and a blanket to put on the ground to mark a safe zone. Usually he's extremely punctual to fighting practice; today he's running a minute or two late because he had to trick someone into changing her diaper for him before he brought her out here. Lancelot is already in the clearing

"Look," Magnus calls, coming through the treeline. "I told someone!" (Sunny is his trial run. She took it very well.)

Lancelot looks over, and although he's not at all sure who he expected to see, it wasn't Sunny.

"I see," he says, as they come closer.

Sunny did a very good job of holding on to her toy sword while Magnus carried her, even though it was quite a considerable distance from the house where they started. It certainly is not the longest distance she has ever been carried, but it was still very long, and her hands are quite small compared to the toy sword.

She smiles over at Lancelot and waves the toy sword, being careful not to hit Magnus in the face with it. She does not want to stab Magnus with a sword! Only a terrible person would do such a thing! "Erakolake!" She tells Lancelot excitedly, which is her way of telling him, "I am going to learn swords too!" excitedly.

"Yeah," Magnus tells Sunny, laughing. "Start 'em young, right? You're gonna be a wunderkind."

To Lancelot, he says, "I figured this was okay. She was really excited when I told her what we're doing."

"Provided we keep an eye on her, this is fine. Sunny, you only have to stay clear of us as we work."

"Okay!" She says, which here means, "okay!" Sunny looks around for a moment before pointing to a tree and asking Magnus if her spot can be over there.

She thinks if she gets bored enough she might try climbing it with her teeth, similar to how she used them to climb the 66 floors of 667 Dark Avenue's ersatz elevator shaft. The tree isn't nearly as tall, it would take her only a fraction of the time to climb it.

Magnus is onto her. "If you climb it, he might get distracted," he warns, as he spreads out her blanket and sits her down on it. Then he unpacks his backpack, giving her the snacks and drinks and toys he'd packed. The last thing he draws out is his practice sword. His shield, which he's been using off and on since the first practice but which is far too noticeable to secret back and forth all the time, is tucked away in a hard-to-spot, safe-from-the-elements location, and he goes to retrieve it next.

Lancelot shoots Magnus a look. "She can climb?"

Sunny points to her teeth.

"Yeah, she has a lot of stories about it," Magnus says. He starts stretching, limbering up.

Very sincerely, Lancelot says, "Sunny, I believe thou'rt capable, but please do not climb the tree whilst we work."

"...Okay," Sunny says, a little sullen. "Sullen", if you are unfamiliar, is a word which here means, "upset that she cannot climb the tree, even though everyone agrees she is fully capable of doing so".

"After we're done you can show off, okay Sunny?" Magnus asks, pausing in his stretches to come over, open her juice box, and smack a kiss to her forehead. "We can trade showing off."

As he straightens, he raises his eyebrows at Lancelot. "So what are we doing today, di-- teach? I think I have the new blocking thing down."

Lancelot watches Magnus with Sunny, and then moves across the clearing to get into his own stance. He has his (or, rather, Arthur's) shield today, and he takes a moment to fasten the buckle. "I thought we might practice how to manage when your opponent is blocking."

Sunny sits down to watch, and begins gnawing on her toy sword. Not hard enough to break it, shred it, turn it into sawdust, chop it in to pieces, grate it like cheese, or cut it in half like a saw (something she is very familiar with the cutting power of, after all), but there will definitely be little bite marks in the wood now.

"Oooooh." Magnus's eyes, it must be said, light up. One of the most surprising things about these lessons with Lancelot is that, the more he starts to get about being deliberate in a fight instead of just trying not to die right away, the more fun he has with training. Sure, he's had a grim spell recently, what with all the stress of the Shen Yuan situation, but training has (extremely weirdly) become one of the things he looks forward to, instead of dreading and resigning himself to needing to get through it. Sunny being here makes it all seem kind of silly and fun, too.

It's not that he wants to be Fighting Guy again. He started this because he thought he should be able to take up the mantle once more, if push came to shove, but the more he trains, the more he realizes that other people here could totally have it handled without him. Not sneak attacks from mysterious murderesses, but more zombies or whatever. But... he likes knowing how things work. He likes learning, and being active, and spending time with people. Even if 'people' is just his best friend's biodad who he hated as recently as a few months ago. In short, now that it's become less about survival... he's enjoying himself.

Magnus checks Sunny once more to make sure that she's good, and then gets into his standard starting position.

"So then," he raises his shield, a defensive and prepared stance, "You know what it feels like to deflect a blow, or to block it. You have to watch for this in an opponent, as it can create openings for the both of you. Go ahead and come at me, however you like."

Sunny tries to copy what they are doing with their arms.

Magnus circles Lancelot for a moment, and then goes for a direct attack. He's better, now, about not telegraphing all of his moves as he makes them, but he's also gotten better about that under Lancelot's tutelage, so Lancelot does know most of his moves. Right now he's aiming for speed and strength carrying him along and giving him a shot.

Lancelot can read Magnus fairly well, that's true. Since they are not sparring but training, and part of the point is to allow Magnus to land a hit, he steps into the onslaught, leading with the shield. When Magnus' blade is just about to land, he raises the shield to meet it, with the aim of both deflecting Magnus' attack and putting him slightly off-balance when the blow lands and is diverted.

Sunny claps.

Magnus dances on his tiptoes for half a second, regaining his balance, and tries to sweep his practice sword back in a way that lets him get behind Lancelot's shield.

But Lancelot follows in the path of the shield, keeping his guard up on the side where Magnus' sword is, and then quickly turns to swing his own sword in and (carefully) thwap Magnus on the thigh with the flat of his blade.

Sunny crawls over to the tree, and uses it to help stand up, holding on to it and bouncing slightly as she watches them with excitement. She is very glad that there are no giant sawblades nearby while they are having this swordfight.

"Explain," Magnus says, running those steps back over in his mind. "How did you do that? And what kind of openings should I be looking for?"

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