Other Chronicle: Character Shorts

Other Chronicle: Ravenheart's Calling

The following is from the POV of Estinien Wyrmblood, taking place during the three month timeskip in between Season 3 and Season 4.

"You're still attacking slowly! Don't let the weight of the spear control you. Use its pressure to your advantage, and strike me already!"

Maybe I was going too fast for Eniro.

Regardless, the kid wanted to learn, so I'd teach him. We had only been training for two weeks now, and he was growing more adamant with how serious my regiment was and how heavy the load had been for him. He had even gotten G'raha Tia and Kan-E-Senna in on our sessions to watch over his progress alongside me, putting some extra weight on his back that he was sure he could handle along with the physical detriment it could become.

"I…I know! Just give me a second!"

In battle, you wouldn't be able to afford a second. You'd have to make it, and I wanted to teach him that.

I rushed him down and kept up the pace of my attacks, making sure to get dirty if I had to just to drive home my efforts. Kicking snow into his face, raising my knee to block his strikes–I held nothing back in my offense, and I could tell it was effective from how angry the guy was getting. This was good.

He needed to surge that fire, then learn to control it.

"HRAAAAH!"

Eniro jumped over a swing of mine and headbutted me, grabbing the horns of my helmet and pulling me down into two more headbutts, one after the other, that worked well enough to stun me and force me on the defensive. For somebody who was almost five feet shorter than me, the guy was faster than I could keep up with on offense, and when he got onto the offensive of a fight, he knew damn well how to keep it. Hell, the way he was fighting even made Raha and Kan-E wince just lookin' at it. Catboy's tail even curled up like he felt it.

"Ghk-! Alright, alright! Enough."

It would have been unnecessary to get completely serious with him. He wasn't in the right mindset to go any further with.

He was too busy thinking on how to fight, rather than how to fight as a Dragoon.

"...Still sloppy."

"Wh-but I won!"

"And that's the problem. If you're only focusing on winning rather than improving through a battle, then you'll inevitably stay stagnant and only get worse."

A heavy, annoyed sigh was all he could respond with, but he knew as well as the two people watching this bout that I was right. He needed to think more rather than just saying "fuck it" and letting himself go; it was getting to the point where he was barely registering what he was doing, and pure grit wouldn't last him forever.

"Do not fight to win. Fight to improve."

So, we went again.

I threw his spear straight into Eniro's right shoulder, and he stumbled back before I kicked the end of it deeper into his wound and I pulled it out to keep up the assault. The Lalafell narrowly ducked and sidestepped two strikes only for me to read him into another thrust and force him to jump back to get away from me. He used the momentum he got on his landing though to lunge forward onto my lance, flipping onto it and bringing down his spear with a hard tap to the side of my neck.

This was good, but he was far too close.

Another tap to the same side of my neck came after, this time through him bringing his hand lower on the body of his lance and twisting it forward to catch me with it. The look in his eyes that preceded such a strike made me realize he did that rather automatically. He didn't even think about the attack while doing it.

A good sign.

This kept up with a third tap to my chin before Eniro broke off completely–allowing me to rush him down with a multitude of strikes that he couldn't see coming. Those were enough to put him down quick, and though it wasn't exactly what I wanted, he was making progress. Kan-E-Senna even clapped for his performance.

This wasn't the same insistent, green Lancer that I saw against Nidhogg. This was new. A different Eniro.

But I can still only wonder where such a natural talent came from.