Groveborne

The others had all cleared out of the salle after the lesson, the weaponsmaster included, leaving Lylliana to ponder her bruised thigh, and bruised ego, by herself. She wasn't very good at this weapons training. How was she supposed to know she ought to have trained for it before now? At least with her equitation, Saete was a constant source of encouragement while they practiced, and in that, Lylli was improving.

Swinging a sword, and shooting a bow still largely eluded her however. Straightening her leg out across the floor she rubbed gingerly at the sore spot on the side. A hot soak would likely help it, and she was lucky to have a break in her schedule. Rushing off to another class with a slight limp was the last thing she was interested in today.

With a bit of a grimace she pushed herself up from the floor in the salle and moved towards the rack to put her training sword away again. She figured the only way to have the weaponsmaster take even less pity on her was if she left things lying around. Sliding the sword back into its place she let herself stand there a moment longer, caught in thought.

Was she ever going to get better at this stuff? It was inevitable, right? If she just trained more, and practiced more, she'd have to improve. Was the whole class thinking that she belonged with a much less experienced group of students? She was strong already, Lylli knew that; she'd grown up wrestling farm animals and smaller siblings around. There was just something about swords and bows and weapons that didn't come naturally to her in any way.

Her hand lingered on top of the wooden sword as she tried to figure out a way that she could get better at this faster.

Cyran had made a habit of attending to the after-care of the salle following the day's lessons - mostly as an excuse to get out of any social entanglements; but also because he simply enjoyed the place. The well-worn building had served as the physical testing ground for generations of Valdemar's best and brightest, and the care shown it over the years was particularly evident after a good polish. It never really needed a deep clean, but there was always something to do.

Today Cyran had a mind to see to the big mirrors. The cleaning staff and heraldic trainees on chore rotation typically did a decent job, but there were a few spots that just needed a little more elbow grease. The weaponsmaster had gone surprisingly easy on him earlier in the morning, so he wasn't particularly sore, and Auri was off hunting outside the gates of Haven. That meant he had both time and energy to see this particular project through to the end.

Entering the room with a cheery whistle to fill the silence, the healer trainee sat his bucket of supplies down and started to roll up his sleeves --- up until he realized with a start that the salle wasn't empty.

"M'pard'n, trainee." He said by way of greeting - and announcing himself - once he noticed the young woman. "Were y' practicin'?"

Feeling the pommel of the sword beneath her hand she tapped her fingertips across it gently, barely hearing the click of her fingernails against the hard surface. The gentle sound was soon covered by a whistle. She hadn't expected to linger here so long anyone else would show up, and geez she hoped it wasn't another class to awkwardly catch her standing here, and then would get to awkwardly watch her try to hide a wince as she hurried away.

She turned in time with the voice to see only one person, thankfully. He was a young man, and her mind wanted to say he was familiar, but perhaps that's because she assumed she had seen most people around the collegiums and palace, even if she hadn't spoken to them before. Her eyes slid to the bucket and she found herself surprised that a healer trainee was the one who was here to clean, or fix, or whatever he was here for.

"Ah, no, my apologies." She drew her hand away from the practice sword, letting it sit in the rack amongst all of the other ones. "Just slow leaving from class. I didn't know anyone else would be here so soon." Her hands smoothed down the front of her grays, uncertain about simply making a retreat to leave him to what he was doing here, or trying to at least get his name so she wouldn't look like a rude fool. She settled on saying, "I'm Lylliana."

"Well met, Lylliana! I'm Cyran." Nudging the bucket aside with his booted toe, he wiped his hands on his trousers and offered her his hand in the manner of the common-born down in Haven's poorest district. Forthright and unabashed.

"And apologies'r'mine, fig'red the Weaponsmaster would be done runnin' ev'ryone into the ground by now." He'd reply with the cheerful nonchalance of first hand experience. "She wen' easy on me this mornin', so I thought I'd give the mirrors a good polish." He added by way of explanation, having noticed her glance at the bucket. "Don't think it softens 'er attitude towards my poor sword form, but at least it's'a good arm workout." He continued, grinning. "Y'been in training long?"