AUDIENCE: LUP

[retellers]

Comments

[evocationary]

[ man i'd love it if dw would give me my notifs ]

Is the word you'd use "lucky?" [ she looks very impressed at the magnet stick to his back. how does that even... work... ]

But - yeah. Okay. Here. [ she assumes he wants to hold her sword so enjoy the weird whispering when you hold onto it. ]

[retellers]

[ dw voice: no. wolf doesn't comment on what the word would've been but grabs the sword and twirls it like a show off before actually demonstrating ] Grip tight, thumb out-- footwork's half the work in sword fighting, so your stance will matter a lot more. This isn't too heavy, so you'll have an easy time of it. [ there's a beat when they hear the whispers and. pause. ] You hear that?

[evocationary]

Oh, what, the spooky whispering? No, but that sure is a thing huh!

[ she seems unconcerned. ] Grip tight, thumb out, go on.

[retellers]

[ ... lup, why... they hand back her cursed sword ] Like I said, most of sword fighting is in the footwork. That means stance. So show me what you think a sword fighting stance looks like.

[evocationary]

[ the aerith icon just made me laugh. lup takes her cursed sword back and pauses.

stance... she stands sort of awkwardly, with her feet apart and shoulders squared. she's a wizard, wolf. she doesn't know shit. ]

[retellers]

[ unfortunately despite being a shy and awkward bastard this is business, so Wolf wastes no time correcting her stance so it makes sense. there is going to be some touching and some feet and leg nudging, it's fine. "what exactly is he doing" do i LOOK like i know A SWORD FIGHTING. imagine the steven universe song "you do it for her" in the bg idk ] More like that. One foot in front of the other, and loosen up a little. You've always got to be ready for movement with a sword. And with one like that, you'll need to dodge unless you can get a shield.

[evocationary]

[ i've never seen this before but it's very good and on point. ]

Okay, okay. [ to her credit, she is really is trying. ] I'm decent at dodging. I doubt I'll get lucky enough to find a shield, unless like, I steal Chad's.

[ she shifts, standing in a stance that is marginally more like he instructs. ] Like this?

[retellers]

Chad? [ who the fuck is chad. he moves lup again to get her. in a better stance. ] Relax your stance more than that. You're stiffer than I am. [ does it help to joke ]

[evocationary]

[ she laughs, relaxing. ]

Ooh, jokes! Look at you go! [ she lets him arrange her, though. ] Uh - Bucky? I think that's his actual name.

[retellers]

Wow. Never thought I'd be glad I had to name myself after a mask. [ once Lup seems to be in a good stance, he steps back and takes his own sword out, wrapping both hands around the handle and raising it in a defensive stance. considering the marks on it, it's obvious he does this often ] Alright. Stance is good, so... Try and strike at me. See how that translates to form so far.

[evocationary]

You don't remember any of your name at all?

[ but - ooh boy. she looks determined, for the second. she shifts, and then moves forward to hit his sword with hers. it's not bad - it's not great, but she's clearly trying to keep in mind what he's been telling her. footwork. she's careful about it. ]

[retellers]

Nope. No memories. [ he watches her go, and it doesn't take much to block that strike, though he's clearly watching her feet more than her blade. ] Not bad. Let's keep at that for a bit. The more you do it, the more natural it'll feel.

[evocationary]

[ she nods!! determination. she - well. she wants to be able to protect herself. ]

But you remember how to fight. [ she gestures absently at the church, too, even as she's working at strikes. ] Nothing about this place? It's pretty.

[retellers]

We've got our skills and general knowledge. Probably would've made it too hard to lead anyone if we couldn't remember the basics. [ and, apparently, the basics is fighting, which pretend wolf is like, giving her tips as they do this, i cannot emphasize that i know nothing about swordfighting ] Mostly makes me wonder if I'm homeless. It feels important, but it's not... right.

[evocationary]

[ i promise you i also don't know shit about swordfighting, it's just window dressing for lup harassing cloud for the backstory he doesn't actually know ]

Maybe you're a mercenary? [ ... ] I wandered around with a lot of them when I was a kid. You kind of remind me of them.

[retellers]

[ he has double amnesia and doesn't even know it. hilarious. ] Could be. [ ... ] What were you doing with mercenaries as a kid?

[evocationary]

Well, lucky you, this is one of the things I do remember!

[ haha... ha. ] Me and Taako got sick of being passed around when we were younger, so we struck out on our own. Had to make money somehow, you know? So we cooked for mercenaries.

[retellers]

Hm. [ he's got. 0% comfort skills on the memory loss bit, but the rest is. uh. also not great. ] Explains why you've both got the skills, I guess. How long did you stay with them? [ honestly, part of this is also that learning to talk and fight is so important to any good jrpg character. how else will you talk shit midbattle ]

[evocationary]

[ she doesn't mind the lack of comfort - she's kind of come to assume that he will be Bad at that. ]

Usually only for a month to a year. We jumped from group to group. It wasn't so bad. [ she had taako. so it was okay. ]

[retellers]

[ i do what i want. Wolf frowns a little ] Meant more how long you were doing that. Not exactly an easy job for a kid. [ or two. ]

[evocationary]

Oh - uh. [ hm... ] A long time? A long time. I think we were maybe ten? Or - it was a long time ago, I'm old as balls, my dude.

[ she doesn't seem too concerned. ] It went until we got into the IPRE program. So when we were mostly adults.

[retellers]

It's not like your age is written anywhere. [ how was he supposed to know!!!! says wolf whos listed age is "third oldest" ] What's IPRE?

[evocationary]

Neither is yours! [ pblhththttt ]

It's the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration. We got picked to be the first people on our planet to get to go explore the other planes of existence.

[ taako and lup are fantasy nasa and this will never not be funny to me ]

[retellers]

21. [ wolf throws her a bone so she gets to know hes baby. "hes 21" baby. and he makes a face at that ] So... space exploration? Just like that, after spending years cooking for mercs? No entry tests? [ it's only a little serious ]

[evocationary]

200 something. [ she offers in return. ] What, you know how old you are but you don't know your own name? What.

[ ... also: ] And hey. I went to wizard college and graduated with top marks in evocation, don't sass me, you tiny baby.