Utterly Mad

Her brief experience outside the farmhouse had her thinking about her lessons. Stam had gotten around to teaching her the basics of using the sword he had given her. Telling her again and again that a short sword was not for swinging. Ferret was bound and determined to make it work though, be it from stubborness or the possibility that she was a poor student. Stam believed it to be the prior, but in truth it was a little of both. On one occasion a mere month prior, she had tried a parry on the imposing man. He brought his own short sword in for a quick stab, she allowed the blade to slip past the outside of her sword. As the bards blade came mere inches from her side, Ferret had thrown her sword arm wide, knocking her tutors weapon away, reversed the movement of her hand, and made a brutal angular slash for Stam's waist. He had simply grimaced, snatched her wrist, and struck her on the side of her face with the flat of his sword, hard. When she attempted to recoil, he wrapped his arm around her neck and pulled her close. In such a position, she saw, she could not use her weapon effectively. Moreover, she found it difficult to breath. Her tutor had also tightened his grip on her wrist and pulled that arm high behind her head. "You are reckless. Such a maneuver is promising, but with such a weapon it is unacceptable for regular combat." he released her wrist and continued, "I had a friend once who was just as reckless. There are many differences between the two of you, the most important though was that he had no life to lose and so did not fear death." "I do not fear death!" She had managed to squeek, trying to wipe the blood welling up from the cut on her cheek while also slapping at the arm restricting her throat. Stam simply looked at her and said "Maybe, but you do have a life to lose. Such a thing is not to be thrown away, It doesn't last forever. Ah, but how would I know? I am not yet gone from this world." Releasing the throat lock on his pupil, He had looked like a man realizing a terrible truth that he had already faced many times before. He had the look of haggered despair. The lesson that day had ended early and after Stam had applied salve to the face of his young student, the first he had taught the ways of war in many years (though she did not know this), Stam Dalenson told her of what was happening in the world. "Perhaps," he broke out of the current topic of conversation with, "perhaps, perhaps... We trained duelists in a fighting style similar to the way you seem obsessed with using, perhaps if we weighted your blade..." Later that day, Stam removed the steel swords iron crossguard and wooden handle and replaced them with a slightly longer carved, double handed, bone grip with a heavy brass basket. The lessons of that day had been short, but informative. In the time since, she had adapted, and while she could not ever hope to match him she knew that Stam Dalenson looked on her improvement with satisfaction and not a little surprise.