"I fail to see why I need to know hand to hand combat Patrick. Usually people are shooting at me." Azura was complaining about twice annual training that Patrick was making her do. After the floating Isles, he wanted her to be more prepared for her weapons failing.
Her pleading didn't make him any less convinced she needed to know what to do. "Come on Azzy, I'd rather not have to put you on base duties only. One day and then nothing for the rest of the year. Meet me in the training yard in 10 minutes." He walked out of her lab, making sure not to knock anything over unlike last time.
Fast forward 25 minutes, they were sparring each other. Azura may have been more experienced in air combat and lacking in 'ground skills', but she knew how to stand her ground against her boyfriend. Some people even stood and watched them spar for several minutes.
Eventually Patrick said they'd done enough sparring for the morning, and said to come back in an hour. Azura was glad he'd called a break, her limbs felt like jelly. She never really needed a proper warm up for the Elytra Corps, and hadn't been in ground combat for years.
Some nagging voice at the back of her head was telling her she'd pulled a muscle. But it didn't seem to alarm her, and nothing felt like a pulled muscle. She elected to ignore it for a while.
After the hour's rest was up, the pair were at it again. It got to dusk before either of them noticed what the time was. Azura let her guard drop for hardly a second, and Patrick took the chance to knock her back down onto the mat.
When Azura hit the mat, her ankle was yelling at her to stop. She knew from the way the pain was spreading that something had almost certainly been sprained. If it wasn't sprained then broken for sure. Exhaustion only made it feel more intense, white-hot bursts of pain shooting randomly from her ankle up tp her knee. The sensation made her eyes droop to almost shut. Then someone, she assumed Patrick, rolled her onto her back.
"Come on Az, eyes open." If Patrick was calling her Az he was clearly worried. "I'm good, just a bad sprain." She was almost certain he heard a sigh of relief. "I'm gonna get the first aid kit and I'll be back in a minute alright?" Whatever came out of her mouth next was enough to satisfy him, as she heard footsteps that got quieter.
Why they didn't keep the first aid kit at the training area she decided to look into later on. The sky got dark rather fast in summer this far north, the slim line of light going between her eyelids was a dark blue, sort of black colour. The footsteps had come back by now, and she heard 2 sets this time. "It's a bad sprain Patrick, it isn't actually broken." The other voice sounded a lot like Darryl, and she relaxed.
Azura's p.o.v
"Azzy, please just open your eyes for a few seconds." Patrick sounded like he was begging, and I was just wanting to go to sleep. Still, I managed to get my eyelids to halfway, and he breathed his second sigh of relief in what was probably 10 minutes. "I'm going to bandage it myself alright?"
"OK." The feeling of the bandage helped a bit, and one of the pair lifted me back onto the foot that wasn't yelling at me to go to bed. "No training or lab work until at least the end of the week." Darryl said as I limped back to my bedroom, leaning on his shoulder. Patrick had his hand around my waist, and somehow we made it back.
When we got there, Darryl walked off to do something else. I don't remember much else about that evening. But I do remember Patrick having to haul me into my bed after I managed to get out of my training uniform. And the extra blanket he gave me.
I didn't like the note left the next day saying I snored though.
