Ataru Basics - Darkside
The night was unusually quiet, in a way it was simply beckoning for Elie to wander the wildlands. The firepit was pretty quiet as no one was there, she looked to the ruins and saw a glow coming from it. She stood dusting her self off and putting her mask on, pulling her hood up and approaching the ruins from behind and scaling the wall peaking over seeing a group of sith gathered. Her timing was fortunate as she listened to the lesson, they were practicing something called Ataru and from what it seemed like it was some form of saber technique. The explination was surprisingly simple yet clearly one sided, using ones rage to make the force flow through you to increase ones speed and power with their strikes being like a gale force wind in a way. Watching the motions this was certainly a fencing stance, but the use of the force and ones rage made this very well suited for a single target and with enough movement and footwork a practitioner could out duel their opponent.
As the teacher clearly wore herself out with a very intense demonstration of multiple slashes that seemed to blur together making it hard to take in Elie followed the trail of the saber making multiple guesses on the movements and because of this several sequences had filled her head straining her a bit. She’d keep watching as it was the students prepared to make their own attempt at this stance but before they could start one of them seemed distracted by a reflection off of Elie’s mask causing her do duck down and wait for a moment, Elie’s heart skipping a beat as she had a small internal panic that she’d been spotted. However the sounds of foils swinging filled the air causing her to cautiously peek back up missing motions but the movements the students were practicing and the teacher offering advice were making up for her missing the initial motions.
As the lesson concluded she slowly descended from the wall and she snuck off to the wildwoods, with this knowledge in mind she began practicing the only way she knew how…picking on dangerous wildlife. A wandering Kinrath came into view and she whistled at it gaining it’s attention as she took the stance, shield active prepared to use it for defensive maneuvers as the Kinrath rushed her and thrust it’s limb out at her she used her footwork and a small burst of speed to swiftly side step the attack. The animal would flail at her in response causing her weave under the clawed limb and resume her stance and make a quick slash at it’s right side causing it to screech in pain and grow more aggressive. The Kinrath charged right into her her attempt to dodge failed as she was knocked away and the limb came at her again. She swapped her footing to block the Kinraths attack and force it to the side delivering another swift slash then letting the force flow through her with a follow up slash to its eye she felt the speed and power her frustration had given her cause her to aim too high and slash through one of the animals eyes.
She moved back to her original stance and moved away making the Kinrath repare to charge again as it cried out in pain and rage. As it ran at her she focused on the animal, she wanted to kill it possibly because she hated bugs or she hated how she just made it suffer all for the sake of her own practice. She used the anger of whichever it was and bent her knees a bit and at the opportune moment she used the force to launch herself forward in a split second of blurring speed and with a quick slash her foil sliced through the Kinraths flesh decapitating it. As the head hit the ground she felt her heart race as she was unsure if she did well or got lucky, she looked down seeing the claw had grazed her several times and that last charge and sunk deeply into her side, not enough to be dangerous but her adrenaline was keeping her going. These were teachings she definately had to build upon.
The woman would make her way to her home, the cut was clean and luckily none of the Kinraths venom got into her system. She simply rested in her bed with some bandages wrapped around her wounds and her focus on some healing. She seemed to fall asleep as her wounds healed and the adrenaline wearing off causing her nerves to shoot with pain but her life had made her resiliant to this as her pain tolerance was certainly high. Her hilt resting on the pedestal she had set up for it. The mask on her face made her seem like a statue, the yellow eyes fixated on the ceiling.
