What wizards didn't understand about Helga, Salazar reflected, was that just because she didn't want to fight, it didn't mean she didn't know how. He fingered the bruise on his shield arm. It was roughly the size of a sheep's head and after ten days, it still wouldn't heal. He lost to Godric after a mere hour of duelling; he just couldn't hold a spell with a bruise that went down to his bones.
He hadn't heard an adjustment in the incantation but there's been something odd in the flick of her wrist. Or, at least, that was the best guess he could come up with. His pride wouldn't permit him to simply ask Helga, of course. Dragon forfend!
So while Godric puttered about with his potions and Rowena collected more dust in her library, Salazar was reduced to peering through the hedges surrounding the training field, watching Helga doing her forms. The fey manner in which she moved from one spell to another made him feel like a bloody blundering ogre. With her size, she had to be more clever and flexible with dueling spells and that was where the wrist flick came in.
"You could just talk to her," Rowena whispered in his ear.
Salazar most certainly did not jump. "I do talk to her," he insisted.
"No, you growl at her and then slink about like a snake scenting a mouse when she's near." Rowena's lips twitched although her expression remained serene. "She likes daisies and cattails. There are a fair number of them growing by the moat if you need them. She is especially fond of tickling her neck with the cattails."
"I just need to learn that damned bone-bruising spell," Salazar grumbled, pointedly averting his eyes from the moat. "'Tis prodigious effective."
"Whatever you say, dear cousin." And with a knowing nod, she floated away in the direction of the walls which were, naturally, surrounded by the cattail-and-daisy infested moat. A dasiy head snapped away form its stalk, twirling to land on his feet.
To his surprise, Salazar picked it up. And looked past the hedges again.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-08-19 07:22 pm (UTC)What wizards didn't understand about Helga, Salazar reflected, was that just because she didn't want to fight, it didn't mean she didn't know how. He fingered the bruise on his shield arm. It was roughly the size of a sheep's head and after ten days, it still wouldn't heal. He lost to Godric after a mere hour of duelling; he just couldn't hold a spell with a bruise that went down to his bones.
He hadn't heard an adjustment in the incantation but there's been something odd in the flick of her wrist. Or, at least, that was the best guess he could come up with. His pride wouldn't permit him to simply ask Helga, of course. Dragon forfend!
So while Godric puttered about with his potions and Rowena collected more dust in her library, Salazar was reduced to peering through the hedges surrounding the training field, watching Helga doing her forms. The fey manner in which she moved from one spell to another made him feel like a bloody blundering ogre. With her size, she had to be more clever and flexible with dueling spells and that was where the wrist flick came in.
"You could just talk to her," Rowena whispered in his ear.
Salazar most certainly did not jump. "I do talk to her," he insisted.
"No, you growl at her and then slink about like a snake scenting a mouse when she's near." Rowena's lips twitched although her expression remained serene. "She likes daisies and cattails. There are a fair number of them growing by the moat if you need them. She is especially fond of tickling her neck with the cattails."
"I just need to learn that damned bone-bruising spell," Salazar grumbled, pointedly averting his eyes from the moat. "'Tis prodigious effective."
"Whatever you say, dear cousin." And with a knowing nod, she floated away in the direction of the walls which were, naturally, surrounded by the cattail-and-daisy infested moat. A dasiy head snapped away form its stalk, twirling to land on his feet.
To his surprise, Salazar picked it up. And looked past the hedges again.