felldenlogs | Wrong Faction for a Harvest Moon Joke [OPEN]

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xenoblade chronics 2: nia

Wrong Faction for a Harvest Moon Joke [OPEN]

WHO: Nia
WHAT: Harvesting, bandit-battling, and training-watching!
WHERE: Farms in Stars territory, and the Court of Stars proper
WHEN: 9/14 - 9/22
WARNINGS: ???
NOTE: I'll match formats for your response.

Stardew Valley

A proper harvest swept up everyone fit to work as a rule, right down to children just old enough to follow behind their parent and scoop up dropped grain or catch a stray sheaf of wheat that the scythe missed. Most of the time, everyone involved worked with a ruthless efficiency born of practice -- grip, swing, slice, bag, backswing, repeat robotically till the field lay bare.

But sometimes that went wrong. An unexpected hole or bump in the ground turned an ankle; a slight misjudgment from exhaustion or hunger made a sweep of the scythe catch skin instead of stem; particularly now, an inexperienced harvested made a simple error with painful consequence. Or someone just worked too hard and too long, pulled a muscle or simple exhausted themselves to the point of serious pain. And then Nia had a role to play.

"Hey! Hey!" came the cry from a nearby field, making Nia's long ears perk slightly. Her Blade form might be impractically attired for a harvest, but it was impractically attired for everything and that didn't really matter -- so dashing across the field to where the cry had come from was a simple jog despite the sweeping sleeves and flowing hair.

At the end of the harvested section, she found a man gripping his ankle and swearing up a storm at a gopher hole. Didn't take a genius to figure out what happened there, did it? She dropped to her knees beside him, and with a soothing word, held out her hands to his leg. Very faint light shone forth, washing over the sprained joint with soothing warmth. It took a while -- way longer than it should have -- but finally the pain left the farmer's face, replaced with sincere appreciation as he waggled his foot and found no soreness or looseness at all. "Thank you, miss," he said, warmly indeed as they both got to his feet. But he didn't have time for more courtesy than that, which Nia understood; she got out of his way as he picked up his scythe, moving back to the path between fields.

"Stronger every time, by the smallest bit," she murmured, looking at her hands as she walked. Interesting.

All right. Time to find the next person she could help.

Bandits!

"Oh, bloody hell."

Six on one was a pretty unfair fight, especially when two of them had bows. Now it was fairer than anyone thought -- Nia had her blade out and stood ready, the weapon back in her right hand as she held her left hand up to the group -- but she was also a hell of a lot weaker than she liked, and it didn't look like some miracle would change that any time soon. Well, crap. Maybe she could stall them --

"Just cut her down," said the wiry one in the middle, the one actually carrying a sword. "We don't have time for this."

Well, double crap.

Nia flung a ball of water at one of the bowmen, just enough to knock him back and send an arrow into the ground instead of her chest, and in the same moment jumped (all anime-style) in a backflip that carried her over the other shot and a dozen feet backwards. Sometimes all you could do was buy time. Teeth gritted, she brought the Catalyst Scimitar forward to guard herself...

Train, Train

So if all this, plus her talks with Strider and Aqua had taught her anything, it was how badly she needed people to trust around here. So with her duties done for the moment and no pressing need for healing or battle on the front lines of farming, Nia mirrored back to the Court of Stars to peer in on people training there.

If that's you -- be it sparring, practicing against a dummy, teaching a class, or whatever you have -- you get a cat-eared girl dropping in on you, curious to see what you're doing and how you're doing it.

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This place isn't so bad. At least that's what Lisa thinks. The people are interesting and come in a whole variety. Some of them are kings in gold who think they rule the world and others are kind ladies who seem to know more than she will ever think she knows in her whole life. But she's done so much running around that she soon began to realize that she hasn't trained much. And she can't have start falling off on that. if she is expected to fight in a war, she needs to be able to fight.

It doesn't take her long to find herself on the training ground, giving some quick swings to the air once she put on her leather gloves. Once she's sure that everything is well, Lisa looks to the dummy that stands in front of her. She gives it a small bow as if it were an actual opponent before she gets into fighting position. She stares at it for a bit before she runs towards it, her fists raised.

Lisa quickly falls into a pattern of quick punches with a kick falling in between the pattern once in a while. Many moves used by Bruce Lee run through her head, some that she has remembered quite well as she has practiced them for as long as she can remember. "Dragon Knuckle!" Lisa shouts before she punches the dummy in the head one last time, sending the plastic head flying. Lisa cringes slightly. "Whoops. Overkill, maybe? S-Sorry!" She calls out to the head.

Still. That isn't enough. She needs to get stronger. Lisa sits down on the ground for a quick breather. And that is when she has an odd feeling settle on the hairs of the back of her neck, causing them to stand. She's being watched. Lisa looks around, ready to deliver a fight if she needs to but that feeling dissipates when she notices the girl from earlier.

"Ah! Cat girl, it's you!" Lisa gives her a bright smile. "What brings you around these parts?"

Oh, it's the girl who was enjoying herself way too much, now... enjoying herself way too much. Nia almost envied her. You get pulled here and told you're in a war, doom stalked the land, and by the way, get started on figuring out how best to hurt the other side... and you get all energetic about it? How was she going to act when she actually had to use those kicks and punches against another person?

"I'm Gormotti," she said, with an edge in her voice that tiredness dulled, because how many times had she said this by now? "And my name's Nia." Folding her arms, she straightened up to make it clear that, despite continuing the conversation, she was mildly annoyed. Communicating this was extremely important. "I'm watching how people fight so I know how we're all gonna do when we actually have to."

Gormotti. Lisa's head tilts to the side at that. She had no idea what in the world that is. But that's probably because it is nothing of her world. Lisa scratches her cheek, a nervous chuckle escaping her. "Ahaha...right," She clears her throat. "Well, my name is Lisa! It's nice to meet you...again!"

Listening to the other girls reason for watching makes Lisa perk up a bit. "Really? Perfect! Smart idea, smart idea..." Having someone else giving her critiques on her fighting style would be perfect. "You seem like someone who's blunt. Give it to be straight! What do you think?"

"Nia." Short and sweet, her attention mostly on the question. She didn't find Lisa's style too weird -- not even the whole 'yell the move out' thing, which was pretty standard back on Alrest. In fact...

"You're quick and you're strong, that's really good." You had to have a baseline to work from. "The whole Dragon Knuckle thing just looked like an ordinary punch though. Strong punch, sure, but was it supposed to do anything more?"

Lisa does her best to not show the excitement of being complimented about her fighting. That is the quickest way into Lisa's good graces, after all. Though the smile on her face that widens ever so slightly along with the slight twinkle in her eyes just may give her away.

"Well, not really no." Lisa tilts her head slightly to the side in thought. "Though I suppose it could if I used my Persona. But if Bruce Lee doesn't use a Persona with his Dragon Knuckle then neither will I."

As if Nia understands any of that. It's still a bit hard to understand that people come from entirely different worlds.

Yeah, Nia didn't get much of that. But she guessed that "Bruce Lee" was some sort of Driver-equivalent on this girl's world, who for some reason did weird stuff with his Arts?

"So... it's just a punch, really." That was the gist of it, right?

"Well, when you put it like that, it makes it sound really lame..." Lisa says with a small pout. She thinks just a punch is as cool as any other punch, thank you very much! A punch is a punch. But jeez does Bruce Lee make it look cool.

"It could be just a punch. It could. But the amount of passion and love you put into could make it something revolutionary entirely!" She says, her eyes burning with determination. "It only takes one punch to be remembered by the masses forever as a martial arts master!"

"Right, and usually those punches have something behind them. You're not gonna impress anyone if the next guy over has fists that seriously burst into flame." Which could happen here, the way other people were doing stuff with ether and calling it magic. And let alone going up against someone directly who could do that.

"Ehh? You think that's possible?" Well, that certainly sucks for her! She only has regular fists that do not have any sort of elemental ability whatsoever. She closes her eyes, quickly going on a ramble on how she could possibly combat this. "Well, maybe I can learn the magic of this place? But I'd have no idea how to do that! And I don't have time to learn things Karate Kid style from a Mage Mr. Miyagi." She sighs.

"What should I do?" She looks at Nia with a sad look. Please help her, oh wise cat girl.

"Uh." Damn it. She was just trying to criticize, not actually help. "I'd offer but you'd have to use a sword, which I'm guessing isn't your style?"

If more arrows follow, they fall harmlessly to the side, no matter how true their aim had been originally. Their air just in front of Nia seems to shimmer with a strange green light, and if one is paying attention, it brightens just a little where the arrows seem to bounce off- and then slowly fades.

He doesn't doubt Nia can hold her own- but this is hardly a fair fight. And if her skills are in any state like his when he arrived, well- maybe it would be more difficult for her to fend these bandits off.

Hoju arrives at Nia's side, large tome open in hand. (With that backward flip, he'd half-wondered if she possessed a dragoon soul stone.) There is a burst of wind that swirls tangibly in the air, before a green winged summon shimmers into tangible shape.

Perhaps the bandits were less sure of their odds, now- and also likely confused at the conflicting auras of the two otherworlders standing against them.

Nia hadn't dared rely on her own shields -- if she couldn't make one up to snuff, the arrow would smash right through it and her as well. Which wouldn't be too much of a problem except she also didn't dare rely on Blade regeneration, not when she was underperforming in every other area as well. So when a shield did manage to deflect those shots, total surprise was putting her reaction mildly.

And then there's Big Guy charging into the fray with something that she was sure wasn't a Blade, so she didn't know bloody how well it worked. All well and good, that, but he had a bloody book? What the hell was he doing showing up unarmed to a fight like this?

"Ugh, this wasn't your fight!" she snapped, because gratitude for the save would take a minute to work out of her. "Here, let's go to town on these bastards!"

Reversing her sword, she held it out to him, enough room on the hilt for even his absurdly-large hand to take it from her.

Hoju is not unused to attitudes such as hers, and even if there were time to deal with it, he would be largely nonplussed. If he did what he did for gratitude- well. Perhaps he would've given up long ago.

His brows raise at the sword. He has little and less true training with a blade such as this, but the midst of a battle- with opponents charging, no less- is hardly the time to argue.

So he accepts it, book snapped shut and fastened in place at his belt with a single motion.

He had intended to meet his chosen opponent with another of his shields, rather than his sword head-on, although he finds deflecting the man rather... easier than he might have expected?

"Do not kill them lest it necessary," he warns Nia.

"Heh, that's up to you for the most part now."

Nia stepped back, lifting both her hands as she did -- and opened the conduit of ether between herself and her weapon. It manifested as a light shimmering around Hoju before settling into him as strength, speed, power, resilience... The Catalyst Scimitar practically hummed with water-aspected ether.

"Quick version, I'm a healing Blade, so if you get hurt, don't worry too much about it."

Hoju has little idea what the phrase 'healing Blade' means between them, though he wagers he understands well enough for current purposes— and he cannot deny that he feels distinctly different.

The effects remind him much of an astrologian's powers, or even a bard's song- though even his own summons could grant such an effect, so it's not too off-putting.

It is the archers he intends to deal with first, and it is with two unaspected blasts that he knocks weapon of one away- although knocks the other clear over. His strength had not been returned fully, and those Ruin II were but a fraction of that... these were but normal people, it seemed. Indeed, already some bandits seem to be rethinking the decision to target this cat-eared girl (or whatever farm she was protecting).

Some were not so easily deterred.

Just landing those attacks drew more energy from the bond, though it went towards accelerating his healing processes more than anything -- a bit wasted given that he wasn't hurt, but it wasn't like this power was at a premium.

The bandits charged. Or rather, a couple of them did -- two others tried, and immediately ran into problems when Nia darted forward and flicked one hand to throw up a shield, which they promptly ran straight into.

Hoju's first instinct is to shield himself- though finds Nia has done so already— though in a slightly different manner than he intended. Her shield reminded him more of Sacred Soil, rather than his own personal galvanize effect. Still, the similarities in some of their magic was interesting indeed.

He fends off one, with the sword he'd been given, though the other bandit manages to inflict a wound just across his hand- which Hoju finds already healing once he notices it. The summon at his side buffets the second one away with a gust of rather strong and direct wind.

Mayhap that would change their mind about what they'd gotten themselves into.

Boy, does it. The bandits still standing turn to take off at top speed, eager to put distance between themselves and the crazy pair they'd run into. What had started out as overwhelming a little girl had gone south really bloody quickly!

Nia watched them go, lowering her hands and dropping the conduit of power once they were far enough away. "You really do have quite the bag of tricks."

Well, at least they'd fled. Hoju turns sword in hand, offering the hilt back to Nia.

"Unfortunately swordplay is not particularly one of them, though I might say it seemed to matter little. You have 'quite the bag of tricks' yourself."

He offers a hand to the wind-aspected summon by his shoulder in wordless gratitude, and dismisses it with a brief gesture, before turning his attention to the remaining splayed out in the grass.

"Now then..."

Rather than bothering to take it back, she simply switched back to her original shape in a flash, which made the sword disappear as well. "Eh, we'll work on that."

No doubt there'll be cause in the future.

"Thanks for the backup."

— Well then. Hoju's brows raise slightly at his now empty hand, but he doesn't seem terribly surprised. Her transformation was curious, reminding him much of Shiva, or Tsukiyomi- he would have to ask her of it, later.

He does give her a warm smile from where he kneels in the grass. "Of course."

The unfortunate bandits Hoju choose to question have little information to offer, but enough to consider. They were hungry, defectors from one side or the other. The information creases the scholar's brow. "You might consider returning to the fold," he tells one, "Your contribution need not be on the front lines.
Or, at least find more honest work than this— a hungry belly is not worth your life."

"I don't blame them for not wanting to work a side, you know," Nia said, looking sidelong at Hoju from her position somewhere back and to one side of him. "It's all kind of shady and doesn't do a lot of good if you're just getting hurt in a way anyway."

"Neither do I blame them for that," he answers easily, "and if they might find their way elsewise, it should be better. Kyst, to my knowledge, is home to those without faction, and it is not the only one. There is a choice regardless, and banditry is a poor one."

He glances over the bandit, who seems unhurt- if a little winded. He straightens, backing away a step to let the man go freely. He looks back to Nia. "You are unhurt?"

Edited 2019-09-23 00:02 (UTC)

"Aside from me being a healing Blade, we Blades heal from any wound instantly." Being a Flesh Eater complicated things, of course, but she'd been in her Blade form the entire time, so that was close enough to truth to count for the moment.

Not quite so trusting, she kept an eye on the bandit -- unnecessarily, as it proved, but nonetheless. "So that was your take on channeling ether, huh?"

"Ah, at least there is that."

It would not do to have her wounded on his account- even if he had been the one coming to her aid, rather than the opposite. He nods once. "Aye- or something to that affect. My strength is still not fully returned, though it has improved."

That was a good attitude to have. Some Drivers, the bad ones, hid behind their Blades because the Blades healed so quickly. They didn't treat them like partners and they definitely didn't recognize the true strength of the bond.

"Yeah, mine either. I could've handled that if I was at my best, and don't get me started about how much better we'd have done together."

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Wrong Faction for a Harvest Moon Joke [OPEN]

train, train

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Bandits! (Probably around a farm closer to Kyst)

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