[Yara]

I am immune to you.
You are immune to me.

            We are both sick 

                     souls with the same                                                disease.

The pillars of earth magic where simple in concept but complex in execution; first was to be grounded with the earth to let the magic of the element flow through the vassal, second was to be firm and in control to harness the raw strength, the third was to be fluid of mind and body, and the final pillar was to be an unrelenting force. She had the concepts committed to memory, she dedicated as many hours as she could to implementing these core fundamentals that she had derived from her master’s relentless instructions. Each fundamental she could perform independently from the rest but when it came to synthesize them into a complete construct even the best practiced routines feel apart into an incoherent mess.

For this gross display she knew there would be hell to pay. What Yara was not fully aware of was her vision of perfection for the technical elements acted as a stumbling block and prevented an organic execution of what she knew. The translation of knowledge to physical execution was lacking.

As her routine unraveled, Yara grew frustrated and with a yell of frustration she sent a stone gloved fist through the earthen wall she had created. Her anger at herself welled up and instead of returning the earth she had raised down with the subtle flow of magic she proceeded to take her frustration out on the dirt wall in an effort to reduce it to dust

Axel Hagane - # # # - notes

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[Axel Hagane]

I'm waiting for the call, the hand on the chest.

I'm ready for the fight, and fate.

Axel had spent the first part of his day out hunting. The winds in the back and at the top of the Yiga hideout blew viciously as he looked down into them, light on his feet as he watched Yara try and fail. His face was written with anger and disappointment as these failures continued.

The hard expression changed back to stoic when she punched a wall and he decided that he had seen enough of that. Gloving his hand with the frozen earth and with a light jump, Axel dropped into the circle of the training grounds below, landing just behind Yara and punching the wall with his own gloved fist. The earth where he punched the wall shattered with force as he focused and manipulated his strength and the element he had near mastery of.

"So. Care to explain everything I just witnessed?" He wanted to hear it from the dog's mouth.

MADE BY MINNIE OF FTS GANGNAM STYLE

[Yara]

I am immune to you.
You are immune to me.

            We are both sick 

                     souls with the same                                                disease.

A sorry excuse for an earth user was the answer that rang through Yara’s mind as the temporary earthen wall shattered under his fist. Her rage still bubbled inside her and it manifest as an onslaught of self-deprecating daggers. She mentally pushed it away this time being confronted by Axel. Leave it to him to pop in just as she was performing poorly and unraveling in her frustration.

“A set back” she stated plainly maintaining his hard gaze. “its…” she shook her head “a problem with execution.” She didn’t know how to put the concept into clear formulation. It was a similar issue she had when he had first given her instruction.

Overthinking and overanalyzing.

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[Axel Hagane]

I'm waiting for the call, the hand on the chest.

I'm ready for the fight, and fate.

Axel's stoic expression stayed as it was as Yara turned to face him more directly. As she began explaining, very poorly at that, what he had witnessed, his face stayed the same. He was like a stone in both emotion and physical posture, unmoving and unchanging for a bit after she finished talking. Finally, he rested his hand by his side, eyes still locked on her like a bear would if it was watching it's prey.

"Why would that be." He didn't really ask, but his low, even tone threatened her indirectly for an answer. All his training had better not have been for nothing. He did not waste his time for anybody but Masanori and even then, he could still find his self irritated if the Master had him running tasks that he knew that the blademaster did not like.

He didn't say anything else as he stood stock still, watching her closely for an answer, reading her for any signs of lying or thinking of running.

MADE BY MINNIE OF FTS GANGNAM STYLE

[Yara]

I am immune to you.
You are immune to me.

            We are both sick 

                     souls with the same                                                disease.

Yara had to strain her stunted hearing; knowing if she missed anything he said there would be consequences in one way or another. Between her masters own radiating disappointment, which was common and not always her fault, and her own frustration she had grown used to being sized up and found lacking. This was no different and it was a constant reminder of the goal she worked for. She didn’t have room for giving herself leeway but she at least made a point to continually work at her failures. What had been a mountain of disappointment and failure was slowly rendering some positive results. It wasn’t fast enough for her though which is why she was becoming so frustrated.

One positive though was she didn’t whither under his reproachful eyes like she once had. Her brow did furrow into a scowl as she broke his eye contact in hard contemplation to his threatening…. question? She didn’t have the leisure of speculative conjecture and he was not one to walk her through her own handicaps to find a solution. If anything, he required her to be quick of mind and direct with her statements, he didn’t like wasted time or words. So, the resounding thoughts that echoed in painfully apparent facts was what she found to be the most accurate.

She hated consenting her own weaknesses; “Too much focus on the technical elements and less on the instinctual fluidity of the action.” She had regained the broken eye contact when she spoke again. It was obvious in hindsight but even knowing the problem didn’t present her with a solution. She was too stuck in her head attempting to perfect it there when she tried to embody it.

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[Axel Hagane]

I'm waiting for the call, the hand on the chest.

I'm ready for the fight, and fate.

Axel's eyes narrowed dangerously and a frown appeared on his face. He leaned down some to look closer at Yara, eyebrows knitting together as his expression grew angrier. She broke eye contact with the predator, knew her weaknesses and had lost her cool in front of him. To him, she was acting out like a child who still had a means to do something but refused to do it despite wanting it done.

"You know the problem. Stop throwing a fit, get back out there and do. It. Right." He growled some as he righted his self back to his full height, head lifting to look at the training grounds. He hated nothing more than wasted time. This training ground held a lot of memories of his own training for him. Of bloodied knuckles, bruised feet and dry mouths. He spents hours here and hours in the wilderness training his body, growing better and better at ignoring pain and controlling his element.

Noticing that he had been staring out at the training area a moment to long, he blinked at looked back at Yara.

MADE BY MINNIE OF FTS GANGNAM STYLE

[Yara]

I am immune to you.
You are immune to me.

            We are both sick 

                     souls with the same                                                disease.

Her lips pursed tersely as her anger threatened to get the better of her as he bent down to look at her. It took every ounce of will power and self-preservation to not make a snappy comeback. Instead she slides her left foot letting the earths magic flow through her and set the terrain to rights. If an untrained eye looked at the ground her foot had spanned they would have thought that no foot had tread there, however, to the eye of an expert they would have seen the faint trails in the frozen earth. Progress was good but a complete result was the prize and only competency was expected. Anything less was unacceptable.

He was right though, as always. She had to suck up her mistakes, get past the frustration and focus. The problem was how the hell did she fix the problem? She didn’t meditate, clear her mind or whatever the fuck it was for. She made her own low growl as she turned to an open part of the grounds to back away from him as he stared out into the expanse. By the time he would look back at his pupil she had already resumed her starting position for the routine she was practicing and raising her targets with the stone walls, stance wide and she stiffly thrusted her arms as she pulled the earth from the ground. Some of the walls had ledges, no use for getting height but that wasn’t their purpose; their purpose was to give Yara a visual of where she needed to dip in her stance. Eventually the goal was to remove the visual she had made for herself.

She was angry but she was resolved to not stop until she could fluidly move through her maze. She moved into her cat stance, placing 90% of her weight on the hind leg while slightly bending her front leg toes poised lightly above the earth. She held this for a moment to gain her focus and then with a sharp kick of her front leg she raised a chunk of earth and brought her hands together to harness the flow of magic to compress it. She shifted her left/front leg, sweeping it behind her while hold the rock and brought her right leg up in a forceful kick sending her projectile to her target on the far rear wall of her maze.

As she pulled out of her first throw she began to advance, being sure to avoid her hole. Yara continued through her routine, it was stiff but she succeeded in avoiding to have her head collide with one of her walls, which had been an issue.

@tag- # # # - notes

MADE BY VEL OF GS

[Axel Hagane]

I'm waiting for the call, the hand on the chest.

I'm ready for the fight, and fate.

Axel's arms crossed and hung heavily over his chest as he watched his apprentice bound around. His nose scrunched every now and then as he watched her and he had to remind his self that she was still just a foot soldier. You could throw mighty bananas in front of her and distract her. Thinking on it, he walked around her little 'maze' in a slow, predatory manner.

His foot falls were light and finally, he came to a stop when he had gone full circle. "You need less of this, more of actually surviving." Axel's movements came from the constant frightened movements of a child afraid of being heard by family, predators and prey alike. He became light on his feet, he could tell you about the dirt beneath his feet, boots or not, thanks to the constant state of his child hood. "You also need to start meditating and take it to heart."

As angry as he was, he was still stoic on the outside when he wanted to be. He knew when to bound his emotions and shove them to the side, how to keep a clear mind when things were falling to shit all around him. She was young, and he had yet to see her truly fight a real threat since the Sheikah they had recruited. The Moblins they hunted with their monster companion were nothing compared to the threat of something that understood how to destroy you.

MADE BY MINNIE OF FTS GANGNAM STYLE

[Yara]

I am immune to you.
You are immune to me.

            We are both sick 

                     souls with the same                                                disease.

At the end of her routine Yara was pulling herself out of her horse stance when we appeared stealthily beside her. She hadn’t been prepared for his appearance and she internally jumped staring at him with a perturbed expression. Usually she was not as jumpy with his prowling and suddenly appearing but when she had been in a different state of mind and then-poof insta-master. Fuckin’ hell.

She looked back at her construct, it was solid and sound. An improvement from her first ones which crumbled miserably. Lots of little advances but still not what she was going for. Her forms were good but her movement was awkward and stiff, sure signs of a young woman who was not attuned to her body or her mental state. And of course, he had to instruct her to meditate, it was as if he knew the practices she would dread. Wanting to argue but having learned that it was a terrible idea she committed his instruction to memory and would make a point to at least try. How successful the endeavors would be was not set in stone—ironically.

The problem with his assessment was creating the simulation of survival. She had been on one mission with him with the Sheikah, she had managed to kill one of the assailants but it came at a large price. Hunting the moblin’s had been disastrous as well as she was not a weapons specialist and trying to maneuver around two moblins was a handful. Just thinking about the pitiful excuse, she had in that was revolting she had come back with a broken rib.

Being pragmatic though she did the only thing a student would do when presented with an unknown, ask a question. “How do I go about simulating survival in combat?”

Yara could survive, had survived before. She could simulate as many scenarios between her mazes, mind, and Jett as she could creatively muster and none of them presented the danger of dealing with a formidable combatant that had the sole purpose of destroying her.

@tag- # # # - notes

MADE BY VEL OF GS

[Axel Hagane]

I'm waiting for the call, the hand on the chest.

I'm ready for the fight, and fate.

Axel's hands found his hips and he kept his eyes locked on the girl below him. He didn't say anything as he obviously startled her a little bit, but he decided not to say anything on that. "With real danger." He stated in a clipped tone. The best way to get the actual feeling was in the actual situation. Simulations never actually gave you the feeling of actual danger.

He thought on it a little while longer before looking to the exit of the hideout. His frown grew impossibly larger, his scars and tattoos moving with the muscles in his face, the corner of his lips deforming his scowl just a bit from the damage they recieved years ago. He was growing angrier with each passing second.

He hated bumps in the road. But this was far from just a bump.

MADE BY MINNIE OF FTS GANGNAM STYLE