Just a short break, she thought to herself.Really short! She was so tired that she could fall down and her arms and shoulders hurt like hell.
“You need to gain more strength and resilience: that’s a toy for you!,” he said some days ago when he introduced her to this “toy”. And so she changed her “headquarters” for a while because of it, giving it a couple of hours daily. How efficient she was during that training time - that was another story and one she’d rather adjust a bit for her pride’s sake! In her pride’s defence: this dummy was not emulating the usual prey of a hunter or guardian of the small paths in the wilderness surrounding Imladris, her old playground.
This modified dummy was a lot more heavy than regular training dummies and the task was to hit hard enough that the force of the hit moved it - since it was too sturdy for an arrow or dagger to pierce the toughened leather. Yeah,and she aimed to hit it as such, losing as few rotations as possible after giving it a good spin. To top this the “toy” had a less predictable trajectory due to some strange dwarf-made mechanism embedded in its base that made things a bit more difficult at first. After enough hours with it hours Turuviel came to know the doll’s next movement at any moment.
She let herself slip down along the cold marble wall that she leaned against and landed on the marble floor, arms resting on her raised knees, each still holding the metal rods that replaced her daggers for this training. She looked down at the beautiful design of the stone -graceful lines and colors painted by nature’s mastery- and allowed the craftsman to show their beauty marked by time with no further carvings and closed her eyes, for just a moment..
The next thing was the sun rays reaching unpleasantly her closed eyelids and the pain of her back, still there. How much did she sleep?
“Good afternoon, Moon Arrow”
She felt how she blushed and cursed the damn sleep. Ruthion was better at sneaking than a goblin, she heard no step, even though she took pride in her ability to wake up at the faintest noise announcing peril. She opened her eyes and rose to her feet as controlled and fluid as she managed, wishing none of the pain and stiffness gained during her uncomfortable nap and the effort before it showed. She wondered how long he stood there amused by her weakness.
“A good day to you as well! Your doll was so boring that I fell asleep fighting it..” she boasted playfully rather than admit defeat.
“Heh, then let’s get you a better challenge!”
She silently cursed her sharp tongue and the pain of her muscles. It looked like it was to be yet an interesting day!
