Chains and Sky
Jan 30, 2021 8:55:30 GMT -5
Post by Cobalt on Jan 30, 2021 8:55:30 GMT -5
Long periods of inactivity never set well with Cobalt. They never set well with any Warforged, creatures who knew nothing of sleep and only were insensate when incapacitated from damage. Experiments to enforce inactivity had caused insanity as a result. Thus it was safe to say that Warforged were at their schemas endless fidgets, and Cobalt was every inch a true Warforged.
She had a hobby to try and keep her mind settled. She drew, usually with chalk rocks that created white marks (and often scratches) on whatever surface she chose to decorate which more often than not included herself. But she had already done that a fair bit, and it wasn't keeping the restlessness at bay. So, there was just one thing for it.
Despite the snow, which came up over her feet, Cobalt left the empty cave that she'd taken up with for shelter for herself and Syberis and headed to the large clearing she'd scouted out some time after her arrival. She'd often come here and had set it up with large tree trunks she'd found either fallen or had knocked down herself, a few boulders rolled to their places, and a dug-out ditch or two, just for some terrain variety.
In short, she'd turned it into a training ground.
Cobalt tramped through the snow, the cold hardly bothering her though she did feel it, to enter the clearing and take a place roughly in the middle of all of her obstacles and mock-threats. She stood still for a time, eyes dim, then they brightened.
And around her she 'saw' not logs and stone, but soldiers. Enemy soldiers. Thranite and Karrnathi, Aundarians and Cyrans, even Valanar elves and Eldeen druids.
[Objective: eliminate all enemies!]
Cobalt snapped into action, chains falling into her grasp and with a fling of an arm and a flick of her wrist one flying out to crash into a standing log, wood splinters flayed away. With that she turned into a fighting warrior. One arm spun the chain around in a defensive dome of links, the other lashing the chain out at one target and then another. Then at random moments she would reverse what arm was doing what. The next moment she threw herself prone and tumbled in the snow to avoid an incoming 'attack.' She stumbled upon standing from a concealed ditch, rolled again, then lashed one of her chains around a stout wooden trunk and withdrew it into her arm as she leapt towards the ensnared victim, flipping around behind it and using the trunk as a mock-body shield, taking more swipes at three more trunks and a boulder. Another headlong dive and a kick to a boulder, then Cobalt righted herself and retracted both chains to half length, spinning them at her side as fast as she could as she rushed between a staggered line of targets, clipping them as she went.
Every move she made, every snap of chain and kick of adamantine limb, all trained into her from her second day of life and used an uncountable number of times in a war she was literally build to fight in. Though she thought, had free will, spoke in a female voice, she was a weapon, a dangerous creature who knew full well how to shed blood and kill. And anyone watching her would have to see that.
Such as Syberis, the Demonhound, who had followed his Warforged out into the snow. He'd seen how unsettled Cobalt had been becoming, how unhappy though she rarely outwardly displayed emotions. So when she wiped clean the drawings she'd made on herself (including one of him, still faintly visibly in the scratches left behind) and had begun looking outwards from their cavern home, he knew that she would be returning here. Going back to her old habits, to old training patterns that she found comfort in.
It was frustrating, to be honest. Syberis prided himself on being her solid rock, her anchor in life, and yet... and yet there were moments when he felt like he could do nothing. He just couldn't fully wrap his head around what it was like to never sleep, never eat, to know nothing but war and battle. He helped her when he could, but when things got extreme like now all he could do was stand and watch, and wait for the silent storm to pass.
For Cobalt's sake, he hope it passed soon, or that somehow he, or someone, could get through and help guide her away from the perpetual war she never left.
She had a hobby to try and keep her mind settled. She drew, usually with chalk rocks that created white marks (and often scratches) on whatever surface she chose to decorate which more often than not included herself. But she had already done that a fair bit, and it wasn't keeping the restlessness at bay. So, there was just one thing for it.
Despite the snow, which came up over her feet, Cobalt left the empty cave that she'd taken up with for shelter for herself and Syberis and headed to the large clearing she'd scouted out some time after her arrival. She'd often come here and had set it up with large tree trunks she'd found either fallen or had knocked down herself, a few boulders rolled to their places, and a dug-out ditch or two, just for some terrain variety.
In short, she'd turned it into a training ground.
Cobalt tramped through the snow, the cold hardly bothering her though she did feel it, to enter the clearing and take a place roughly in the middle of all of her obstacles and mock-threats. She stood still for a time, eyes dim, then they brightened.
And around her she 'saw' not logs and stone, but soldiers. Enemy soldiers. Thranite and Karrnathi, Aundarians and Cyrans, even Valanar elves and Eldeen druids.
[Objective: eliminate all enemies!]
Cobalt snapped into action, chains falling into her grasp and with a fling of an arm and a flick of her wrist one flying out to crash into a standing log, wood splinters flayed away. With that she turned into a fighting warrior. One arm spun the chain around in a defensive dome of links, the other lashing the chain out at one target and then another. Then at random moments she would reverse what arm was doing what. The next moment she threw herself prone and tumbled in the snow to avoid an incoming 'attack.' She stumbled upon standing from a concealed ditch, rolled again, then lashed one of her chains around a stout wooden trunk and withdrew it into her arm as she leapt towards the ensnared victim, flipping around behind it and using the trunk as a mock-body shield, taking more swipes at three more trunks and a boulder. Another headlong dive and a kick to a boulder, then Cobalt righted herself and retracted both chains to half length, spinning them at her side as fast as she could as she rushed between a staggered line of targets, clipping them as she went.
Every move she made, every snap of chain and kick of adamantine limb, all trained into her from her second day of life and used an uncountable number of times in a war she was literally build to fight in. Though she thought, had free will, spoke in a female voice, she was a weapon, a dangerous creature who knew full well how to shed blood and kill. And anyone watching her would have to see that.
Such as Syberis, the Demonhound, who had followed his Warforged out into the snow. He'd seen how unsettled Cobalt had been becoming, how unhappy though she rarely outwardly displayed emotions. So when she wiped clean the drawings she'd made on herself (including one of him, still faintly visibly in the scratches left behind) and had begun looking outwards from their cavern home, he knew that she would be returning here. Going back to her old habits, to old training patterns that she found comfort in.
It was frustrating, to be honest. Syberis prided himself on being her solid rock, her anchor in life, and yet... and yet there were moments when he felt like he could do nothing. He just couldn't fully wrap his head around what it was like to never sleep, never eat, to know nothing but war and battle. He helped her when he could, but when things got extreme like now all he could do was stand and watch, and wait for the silent storm to pass.
For Cobalt's sake, he hope it passed soon, or that somehow he, or someone, could get through and help guide her away from the perpetual war she never left.