Regrets in Wardens' Home

Griffinhart paced placidly in the Keep's training hall, hands resting lightly on the hilts of his blades. He had been quiet these past few days, helping where help was needed. His thoughts were, as they had always been since his arrival, inscrutably his own.

It was just as well for his pride. He had spent the days since their sortie into the then-besieged Keep reviewing the fights and the fighting, trying to get a sense of how both the darkspawn and the Wardens fought. Ironically enough, for all they were representations of chaos, decay, and destruction, the darkspawn had some manner of doctrine when it came to battle - doctrine that he had seen time and again throughout the many fights Griffinhart had with them. But the Grey Wardens of Ferelden, perhaps due to their scarcity in numbers, fought like individuals working together - each member had their own approach, and would mesh these approaches together to suit the scenario. It was more disorderly and reactive, letting the foe dictate the response.

But that was not the critical point of his review. Perhaps, if he were ever a tactician or a strategist, there would have been a greater use for his thoughts and theories - but he was merely a soldier. Barely that, even; just a sword. A sharp sword, without a doubt, but a sword didn't think for others. A sword excelled at fighting, not battling, not warring.

And yet, he had been chosen to choose. Griffinhart thought back to the moments before they had set out for the Keep - to when Nygozy had him choose who would be part of the reconnaissance mission. No doubt she had been confident in his experience and that was why she left the decisions to him.

And that was the problem. Griffinhart had experience in killing darkspawn, not in leading battles; not in picking people for others to lead into battle. In fact, he had even less of the latter than he did of the former. Circumstance had forced him into leading on occasion, when the fighting took lives and left him holding the chains of commanding; but he had never had to choose who to go to war with. Considering what had happened in the Keep, Griffinhart felt he had chosen very, very poorly for his first outing. And he wasn't even leading (from a metaphorical point of view, not a literal one - Nygozy had him on point, and he had been more than glad to be the tip of their spear) that time.

Thankfully.

Behind his helmet, the taciturn Warden grimaced slightly to himself as the image of Fremelda, a spear growing from her side, rose to the front of his mind. She was there because he had chosen for her to be there, and she had been wounded because he had not been mindful of her presence - the so-called Queen of Thorns had joyfully rushed into the fight alongside him, and he had not taken care to watch her, to be where that spear would be. Instead, she had been well-wounded.

And then, Griffinhart had failed once again. It was fortuitous that the Storyteller appeared in the midst of the melee and guarded his choice, for Griffinhart was lost in the throes of battle, and had not seen Fremelda fall. Not taht it would have mattered - at the fight's end, he was effectively helpless to help her, and had to seek aid from Sophia. She left the Keep with Fremelda, a whorl of ribbons and Fade-magic.

And, of course, he had also failed to protect his Commander when the first blows were struck, though that failure was minor in comparison to what had happened to the Queen of Thorns. Nonetheless, Griffinhart had not struck down one of the darkspawn swiftly enough, and it had wounded Nygozy - though she recovered quickly and well enough to remain in charge for the rest of the mission. The excursion into the keep was a bitter failure on Griffinhart's part, and an entirely humbling experience.

Griffinhart paced placidly in the Keep's training hall, hands resting lightly on the hilts of his blades. He had been quiet these past few days, keeping his own counsel and not seeking the aid of others. His thoughts were, as they had been since his failure, inscrutably his own.

Fremelda had been some time in recovering. from her injury incurred by the Darkspawn spear. She sighed, pacing around the halls of Vigil's keep, drumming her fingers on the hilt of Thorn. She was taking in the scope of the Keep, the tattered paintings and murals because of the prolonged battle with the Wardens who lived there and the Darkspawn that happened before Nygozy's group got there.

Jezarine had worked hard healing Fremelda and she was grateful to her. Eventually she sat in the training hall, seeing Griffinhart there. Her steel blue eyes watched him for a moment before sighing. She stood up again and walked towards the pacing Warden. "You look mopey. What's the matter with you?" she asked, attempting to mask the stiffness she felt in her side. Something about Griffinhart's cold, brutal efficiency made Fremelda want to keep up a hard face, perhaps seeking approval of some kind, she wasn't quite sure.

His pacing did not cease, even though Griffinhart looked up from the path he trod briefly to regard Dragonis. "Reviewing," Griffinhart replied flatly. He paused for a moment, assembling his next words with care. "The last battle had flaws." The warrior stopped his stepping and looked again at the Queen of Thorns, who had kept pace with him, and nodded. "You have recovered... well," he mumbled from behind his helmet, the words tumbling softly like the preface to an avalanche.

Step. Step. Step. The Warden from the Anderfels continued to trace a trail around the training hall.

The last few days had been difficult on the golden warden. She had trouble keeping her head and not losing out to everything that spilled fom her mind. The young woman was in mourning and trying not to be there.

Why? Why had he gone in there? I cannot feel him and the emptiness of it aches.

Tatsoo was in a corner, hidden within the darkness of the training hall and ignoring all sound that came about. Her eyes shone from the shadows as she looked up to see both Griffinhart and Fremelda within the room. It was a strange feeling to see them again after so long within the fade. It was normal but normal was no longer normal to her. It seemed like an illusion to have everything in such a solid state.

Her eyes were soft with sorrow as she now watched the two start up their conversation. It did not seem right to break into their talk so she sat quietly in the dark.

"Always the workaholic. Not that I blame you." she shrugged while subconsciously keeping up with the quiet Warden. "Every battle's got flaws. It's what makes them thrilling. And I'm fit enough to work, I don't like sitting on my hands waiting." she said with dry determination. She was an impatient person, needing to be doing something or she'd go mad. She peered at the man, watching the only visible part of his face; his eyes. "It's my own fault I got caught off guard. I'm not used to frontline combat, my methods involve trickery and pragmatism."

She was aware of Tatsoo nearby, hard to miss that head of golden hair. She nodded in acknowledgement and offered a small smile to the Chasind Warden.

Griffinhart grunted in acknowledgement of Fremelda's words. "Complacency is not a Warden's way."

As he passed by the lurker in the shadows, he tried to place a name to the face, but drew a blank. Yet Fremelda acknowledged her presence without overt hostility, so the warrior only marked her presence with a nod in her direction and continued his walking.

"You could ask for training. I have seen Caelestis in combat; subterfuge in a melee is one of her ways." It was true enough - Griffinhart had seen her slip from shadow to shadow while a fight raged around them, working with a practiced killer's hand.

He stopped walking and turned fully to the recovering Warden. "Or you could learn a new method of combat."

Tatsoo looked up and nodded at Fremelda then Griffinhart as they do so to her but she only continued to sit in her corner in her semi conscious funk. This was still so until she heard Griffinhart mention a new method of combat and her head lifted.

A new form of combat? That was always interesting to the golden haired were but what did he mean? It sounded ominous which made it even more interesting. Before she knew what she was doing she had stood and was now close to the two.

Why? Why did I come over here?

"Ah ... ah'd be interested in seein' what ye mean, ser." She bowed her head and looked up at him, like a wolf unsure if it were going to be chastised by one of higher authority. Her golden eyes were full of curiosity and the interest of a youth to something new.

Fremelda nodded at Griffinhart's words, still trying to figure out for herself what she would do. She then remembered her lifelong quest of vengeance and her face turned hard and cold, a glint of madness behind her steel blue eyes. "Caterina's methods sound good enough to me. It's basically adapting my assassin skills to combat..." she clenched her fists as she recalled the faces of her parents and older brother.

The time was coming soon. She would have her revenge, and all her years of exile would be over. She would take what was rightfully hers.

And then she realized where she was again and snapped out of her thoughts, nodding to Tatsoo. "Training sessions. Could be fun."

Griffinhart cocked his head at Tatsoo. Unexpected, but not unpleasant. And it would be a way to keep his mind off the past. There would be challenges, of course - but this was a challenge he could overcome. Or obviate, in the least. He nodded at both Fremelda and Tatsoo. "Trickery is not something I have learned. But I know pragmatism well. I have fought with you, Fremelda. And I have seen Caelestis fight. And others. From shadow to shadow, with a dagger in hand."

His hands rose to his helmet, and he removed it with practiced ease. They could see now his face in full, thin-lipped and hard-eyed. Next, his hands went to back and belt, and they could hear, beneath his cloak, the sound of his swords clattering to the floor. He spoke. "Sometimes, you do not have the luxury of a dagger."

The act continued, and his cloak fell to the floor with a hard thump - a sound no cloth should have made. "Sometimes, you do not have the luxury of a shadow."

Gauntlets, armor, all the way down until Griffinhart stood in nothing but his trousers, each item dropping hard to the floor solidly. "Sometimes, you have nothing but yourself."

He stood before them, muscled and scarred, a body that wore war and was worn with it. He spoke once more, with the same strange sort of ease as before - not one born of confidence, but a familiarity with the words, though neither women had ever heard him speak thus. Griffinhart stepped free of his raiment and looked at the items on the floor. "But you came to rely on your dagger, on your shadow, on your armor. You became complacent in your ways." His eyes came back up and bore hard into both women; something in those orbs made them wonder if Griffinhart was speaking to them, or to himself.

"Complacency is not a Warden's way."

Griffinhart walked purposefully over to one of the armored training dummies, used for practicing sword- and hammer-work. "Sometimes, the only thing between yourself and death is the air you breathe." Between words, his body moved fluidly, and as he finished speaking, punctuated his statement by striking a powerful blow into the dummy's chest. The mannequin bowed over backwards nearly fully before rebounding; in the space of that moment, Griffinhart had moved once more so that the shin of his left leg was where his fist once was; as the dummy slammed into it, his arms caught the mannequin's shoulders and arrested its movement entirely.

Not once did Griffinhart quake.

He released his opponent and turned again to Tatsoo and Fremelda, arms neutrally at his side, his body behaving as if the past few seconds had not happened at all. "A dagger on its own does nothing; in an assassin's hand, it can slit throats; in my hands, it can pierce armor." Griffinhart gestured once again at his equipment, laying in a forlorn pile. "But when you have no dagger to stab your foe with, no shadow to hide from him in, no armor to turn his blows with, you have only yourself to rely on. You have only one choice: you fight or you flee. You already know how to run; and I cannot teach you my way of fighting. I do not know how to teach."

He looked once more at his audience of two, and there was something else in his eyes, now. "But I can show you, and I can fight you, and you can learn."

There was a challenge.

Well wasn't that just something. This was more of Griffinhart than she'd ever seen before, and it made her curious. Her eyes watched his hands moving towards the dummy, well placed unarmed strikes. She placed her hands on her hips as she watched and took mental notes. "You use your body as a weapon, so do I, but in a different way." She said, untying the deep blue sash at her waist and unbuttoning her coat, letting it slide off her shoulders, leaving her naked from the waist up. Her body littered with scars and the most recent and vivid being the spear wound in her side. There was also the black tattoo above her breast that depicted a thorn pattern that would be familiar to people versed in Fereldan symbolism. She put her hands up in a boxer's stance, it lacked proper form but it was useable.

She spun a kick towards Griffinhart's side, quickly following up with a jab to the abdomen, her method usually involved winding the enemy for easier dispatch.

A smile twitched on her lips as she nodded back to Fremelda, agreeing silently with the other woman's words. If there was one thing Tatsoo loved it was learning and she stood at attention as soon as she saw that Griffinhart was ready to teach them something she did not know. That was thrilling.

Then the warrior started dropping what he had upon himself and she was confused with the amount of clanking there was. She tilted her head like a pup unsure of what happened. There was a great scent of metal but this was well unexpected.

Griffinhart stood with only his shorts. There was no way she couldn't look at the man as she noticed the scars stripped across his body. He was definitely a man to be wary of as these scars were certainly not from dropping kitchen knives.

As she noticed all of these things she listened to his words, letting them flow over her and analyzing what exactly he was saying. He spoke slowly enough for her to catch everything and understand it.

"Ah would like ye ta show me. Ah can learn what you show an make both ye an' Fremelda proud." She looked to Fremelda with an appreciation of the other woman. She'd heard the tales and was pleased to be able to work beside her.

Then Fremelda did as Griffinhart had and stood there with nothing on her top. Tatsoo followed suit, her leather jerkin falling from her shoulders and undershirt dropped to the ground. Her leather leggings went next leaving her under shorts.

Just as Fremelda had a tatoo so did Tatsoo. Hers was between her breasts and was a paw print in an unknown pattern, golden hued and almost shining. Then she waited her turn to be in the fight, her head to the side as she put he weight equally between both feet, her eyes keeping track of both fighters.

He was surprised, but for all the wrong reasons. The kick came, and Griffinhart adjusted to it naturally - caught it, couched it with his side, bending inwards to absorb the blow - slapped aside her fist, although there was undeniable strength there, inwards so that the same arm would be over her ensnared leg - and hammered down his elbow mightily, gently tapping Fremelda's knee.

It was a two-fold indication: one, that he easily could have demolished the limb, based on his past performance with the dummy; and two, for all his strength, there was an incredible amount of self-control. Griffinhart released her leg and nodded in approval. "Surprising. I did not expect you to match me fairly. But you wasted your surprise by trying to fight me fairly. When your opponent is stronger than you, strike where he is weak." Griffinhart gestured to his eyes, his throat, and his groin. "You are an assassin; your hands are your daggers. Do not try to pierce armor. Slit throats."

Griffinhart turned to Tatsoo. She had stripped down, just as the Queen of Thorns had, just as he had. This was both good and bad - good, in that both women were willing to begin from the basics. Bad, in that this did not grant him the opportunity to show them to begin from the basics. Still, there would be time enough for that, if they were willing. "Fight from your strength." He nodded, signaling his readiness.

She had tried a different method of attack, normally she would use obvious weakspots like the ones Griffinhart pointed out, and mentally reprimanded herself for holding back, but she nodded all the same, conceding to the more experienced Warden that he could have easily crushed her leg if he had cause to.

She found herself admiring the bodies of her sparring partners, old habits dictating that she regard such strong physiques. It was her way, in her mind, of knowing a target by their physique, as well as for carnal pleasures where she could find them. She decided to let Tatsoo have a crack at Griffinhart and stepped aside, watching, but also keeping in mind that either of them could launch an attack on her, so she was wary.

In the mean time, she would enjoy the eye candy.

His body was used as the weapon. He could have crushed Fremelda's leg easily. But that was not a surprise.

Tatsoo's honey gold eyes kept a tab on the two and most of all kept watching Griffinhart. He was much taller and thicker than she was but he also was extremely graceful in his actions. This was going to be difficult to find a way to get at his weak spots.

The young woman walked towards the man, noticeably assessing his stance and his eyes. Watch the eyes, she'd been told. They will tell you their intentions. But letting him watch her eyes would tell him her intentions as well. That was always the risk but one who was Chasind also knew the trick of the gambler's face.

She kept her side to him then acted, rushing towards his side as if she were going to attack the waist but she swirled at the last moment, whipping her right leg around to knock him off his feet. If she was successful she would attempt to hop onto him, trying to pin his arms with her legs and put a knuckle near his eye as if she were going to pop it but not doing so. If it didn't work she'd hop backwards hoping to get out of arm's length before he could grab her.

Better.

Tatsoo had fooled him with the feint at his waist, for he twisted to catch the blow with his hip. When she reversed her attack into a leg sweep, Griffinhart let it carry through - he knew the logical follow-up was to permanently take down the foe. When she came down on him, he was ready for her blows. Though her methods were unorthodox - instead of feigning punches, she had attempted to lock his arms with her legs - it was irrelevant. Griffinhart's torso bowed upwards and his knees clapped around Tatsoo's head gently just as her knuckle came down to rest on his eye.

The position they were in was almost comical.

Griffinhart's legs released Tatsoo's head; as she withdrew her fist and rose, the Chasind woman realized that the Anderfels man had his grasp firmly around her ankles, despite her pin. His grip was like iron, but more than that - the scarred Warden gave her a light squeeze - his grip was not even complete. The two locked eyes for a moment before Griffinhart released her and rose himself. The unspoken message lingered - "be aware of yourself and your opponent no matter the situation."

"Good. Trickery in a fight does not need a shadow. But an unwounded opponent on the ground is one of the most dangerous, because you have so few ways of approaching. Often, the simplest attack is the best. Come down on your opponent like a hammer, swiftly and without finesse, or strike him when he rises."

He returned to a neutral stance - side on, head turned, one leg behind the other, fists at his side - and spoke to both women. "Try again if you wish."

As the two fought their tango of tangled limbs, Fremelda paced around them. She looked for weaknesses and when they parted, she moved in towards Griffinhart as he spoke, from behind, sending an open palm to the back of his neck in an attempt to paralyze him, while her other hand took a punch towards his kidney, while doing the motions, her foot pivoted as she attempted to send a knee up to his tailbone, a three hit combo, one of them had to hit something, she thought to herself.

The great stone building was like nothing she had ever seen, in either of her lives. A part of her understood that there were those who kept to themselves in such structures, massive constructs of rock and mortar that exceeded anything that grew in nature, but she had never seen one for herself; to the other, it was a fascinating impossibility unlike anything she had experienced in the time immemorial of her existence, strange and new and just a little bit frightening. She felt nothing as she padded down the cold tunnels lit by fire lights and hung with pictures woven of thread and yarn - the stone under her feet had been so long removed from its home that it no longer sang of its earthen dwelling places, the subterranean home that it had once shared with the children under the earth. But there were new songs that replaced that natural vibration here, impressions of the men that had carved and cut and built this place, of those who had lived and, yes, died here. Those new feelings crowded together in a wailing chorus that shook even the spirit in her to its core, and she was reminded of her brethren that clawed and beat at the walls of their dream-prison, so eager to join the world of the living that they became twisted into new and evil things just for the chance to spend one moment there.

She felt that here, now, with each step she took. It was powerful, as it sometimes was in the mortal realm. It melded with the songs of those who had lived here, not drowning out the song but rather adding a deep and dark undercurrent, constant and quite but there all the same. Those who weren't sensitive to it might not notice it at all, but to her, it may as well have been blasting in her ear. This place was setheneran, or someplace near here, not yet torn but wearing so thin that even now she felt her more eager brethren snatching glimpses of the mortal world even before they were snatched away again. Luckily, as one of her mortal sisters had already learned, they did not all wish ill on the occupants of the Keep. She hoped, for the sake of her new "clan", that more of them had benevolent intentions.

But such matters could wait - she was not accustomed to turning her thoughts to the future, and dealing with the setheneran could wait until it was brought to the attention of the clan leader (or "Commander" as she had been corrected once). She was not accustomed to thoughts much, in general, but she enjoyed them as much as the other mortals around her seemed to. Thoughts were remarkably large, limitless and unconstrained in a way that was utterly unlike anything she had known as a spirit. They were also quite easily -

- driven off course. She looked up at a sound from an adjacent room, and her head tilted in curiosity, bending her ear to better catch the sound. In all of this large place, there were so few people, and they were all spread out. She had walked for half the afternoon, and this was the first time she had come across any of the clan that she had arrived here with.

Thinking nothing of altering her path, she bounded more than walked towards the large oaken doors behind which the sound could be heard. The wooden doors were more responsive to her presence than the stone. They were long since dead, but there was memory there, of the trees that had been cut down to craft the ornate slab, and they woke, just the barest bit, to welcome her as a sister. Through it, she could feel the people within, could just barely make out the impression of their actions, and she smiled.

A dance. How she wanted to join.

Under any other hand, the door would have groaned as they it was pushed open, but she soothed it as best she could, lightening its burden so that it moved like a thing a third of its size, and she slipped into the room as quite as a shadow.

At the end of the long and echoing hall, three figures twined together, bare-chested and light-footed. On two of them she could see vallaslin, though they were not among her mortal brethren, and the other may as well have had it - his vallaslin was written in the scars that crossed his chest in long and short arcs a hundred times over.

Even as she looked at them, the golden haired one flew at the white-haired one, quick and nimble as a cat. The one called Serethiel recognized who she was, a sister of the humans who had not forgotten her kind so thoroughly as the other humans did. But she was a cat lunging at a panther, and he made her understand that. He made them both understand that, the red-head too.

It was such a lovely dance. She wanted to join, but she hadn't been invited, so she watched, hidden behind a rack of metal-wrought weapons and heavy wooden shields. It crossed her mind to climb her way up one of the woven wall pictures to watch from above, perched on the massive ring of candles that loomed right over where they were dancing, but to do so would ensure they noticed her presence, if they had not done so already. Perhaps she could manage it swiftly enough the next time all three of them clashed, drawing their attention to themselves and away from her movements. She had no desire to be sneaky, only to be as unobtrusive as possible. In her clan, they would have welcomed an uninvited guest, but she did not know if such was the way here.

The goal she had set for herself was to get to his eye and it was accomplished even if she had been caught by legs and hands. When her eyes locked with his she allowed the note of success to get through to him as she nodded about the rest of it. If she were to completely win she had to be much more strategic.

Her feet touched the ground lightly as she moved lightly to his side and watched his eyes as he spoke. Another nod at his words to say she understood as well as a slight glance towards Fremelda.

She backed up as the other woman attacked, watching what she did and responding to the action. Her body was in motion before the second hit and she went in slamming an elbow towards his middrift then rushed to get out from underneath him to try to get in a two handed slam to the back of his neck to put him down.

If this did not work she was ready to back roll away from him and get up into a crouch to see what was happening next. That is if he didn't catch her.

They fought together, but not in unison, which was unfortunate, for Griffinhart would have welcomed the challenge. There was much to learn in every fight.

He had tracked and traced Fremelda's steps when she circled him, and anticipated the attack. Her first blow came true - his body was still used to the idea of weapons, and a strike to the neck was unexpected - but it was far from crippling, for his stance had turned his neck and made it harder to bend, harder to break. The moment he felt her hand on him, he had pitched forward into a roll, not giving the Queen of Thorns a chance to prick him more than once. Tatsoo's elbow came by his head, missing by a hairsbreadth, as he contorted his motion so that he came around facing both opponents. Now he was not between a rock and a hard place.

Now he was in a position to strike.

In the previous bouts, all of Griffinhart's strokes had been reactive. It was time to change that. He strode forward, tall and powerful, his footsteps thundering through the hall, projecting an inexorable force towards Fremelda, who was several paces closer - Tatsoo had the presence of mind to open space between herself and the Anderfels warrior in the case he escaped her attacks - and lashed out with a front snap-kick, following the attack by bringing his foot down in a mighty stomp and lunging forward with a fist, pivoting his body as the motions completed so that he could keep Tatsoo in his field of vision as well.

All the while, his unconscious mind caught an unfamiliarly familiar scent, but his fighting instinct paid it no heed - there were immediate threats and distant mysteries, but only the former was of any concern.

Fremelda's first attack had hit, but the weathered Warden had evaded both her's and Tatsoo's successive attacks, putting space between them, before lashing out again at the assassin. She grit her teeth as his first kick connected to her thigh, sending a shock of pain, though brief. Neither of them knew that her legs were the most damaged part of her body, and thus, she had a bit more pain tolerance down there than her upper body. She did not give him the chance to stomp her foot, swiftly retreating her leg back, she followed it up with a knee to his groin, and ducked his punch to deliver one of her own to the area of his liver. She had learned during her training to be an assassin to aim for vital organs when unarmed, the liver, the kidneys, the heart, the lungs, and she also knew which discs of the spine to sever to paralyze someone with a knife. Lacking that here, she used her cunning to target his softer areas.

Another open palm strike, this time to Griffinhart's sternum, using the heel of her palm. If it didnt break the sternum, it'd wind him for sure. The ground of the training hall lacked the usual sand for her to throw up in his face, so she had to rely on her limited martial arts training here. She also noted Tatsoo, who was setting up her own attack. Her heart pounded in her chest from the exhilaration of the fight, the adrenaline coursing in her veins. Then there were the whispers in her mind, tempting her to let go of her inhibitions and become the beast, the animal, that her whole family were cursed to be. She ignored it.

What was that scent? Tatsoo sniffed the air knowing that someone was there. Who was it and why were they up the wall? Up the wall? Maybe it was someone doing the same as she had been and staying in the dark just watching what was going on. It did not matter yet anyway. She had to keep her attention on what was going on in front of her. Either person could change tactics and go directly after her.

Now Griffinhart was attacking and she watched him move with awe. She shook that out of her mind as he caught Fremelda's thigh in his kick but the woman avoided the foot stomping. That was good and so was the attack to his sternum. Now it was her turn to rush in towards his abdomen but instead of attacking there she went to slam her arm against his leg just above his knee to knock him off balance. If she timed it right and he didn't realize that she was working with Fremelda's attack, trying to make him fall in the same direction then it would work.

Her next action would be to slam her arm down into his abdomen with her elbow to knock more breath out of him. She'd have to get out of his way fast if it did not work though.

[OOC: Let's close up this fight and let Serethiel have a proper entrance. Pardon my puppeteering.]

Fremelda's kick glanced off Griffinhart's shin as he pivoted his body. Her liver-blow connected, but the man reacted as though the blow had not registered at all; instead, rotated his torso back again, catching her open palm to his chest with his opposite hand, pushing her arm out wide-

Just as Tatsoo's slam caught his load bearing leg. Griffinhart let it buckle, but he did not fall over - instead, the Anders man fall onto his back knee, even as his upper body reversed its turn again. The arm he used to punch Fremelda initially wrapped around now like a coiled snake around the assassin's once-striking palm; his other hand swept along with his rotation to backhand the Chasind woman in the neck-

His backhand twisted around the side of Tatsoo's neck-

Her elbow found a home in Griffinhart's iron-hard belly-

He pulled-

"Oof."

Fremelda's arm was locked around her back, her body bent over Griffinhart's back, where she could see more of the history of violence visited on his past; but, at the same time, the Queen of Thorns felt her knee nestled comfortably somewhere warm and altogether... not as hard as the rest of the scarred Warden's body. Similarly, Tatsoo was ensnared in a headlock, though felt the sharp of her elbow buried in flesh. The white-haired Warden had them in pins and locks, but they had dealt solid blows against him regardless. Their heads and eyes turned to Griffinhart as best as possible, waiting. He made no other hostile moves; instead, Griffinhart released his grip on Fremelda's arm and unlocked his arm from around Tatsoo's neck, letting the two women step back before rising from his wide stance - lead leg crooked slightly, back leg on knee, bearing his weight, torso turned - and speaking.

"Good."

The women noted that there was just the barest hint of strain in his normally flat voice.

They also noticed that he had not looked at either of them when he spoke, but instead at one of the tapestries in the training hall. Griffinhart's eyes roved around the area, trying to place... something. There was pain in his body - not the worst pain, but it was pain nonetheless - but the immediate threats were gone and his faculties demanded he investigate this distant mystery. It was a familiarly unfamiliar scent - not one that his nose knew, but a different sense. He had been in this situation before...

...No. He had been in the opposite of this situation before. The Griffin had climbed, cat-like, into a copse's canopy; and in his capering, caught sight of a coryphee in a clearing of moonlight. And so, much like the ghost that night had turned her eyes to him, he turned his eyes to the light above. Despite the meaninglessness of that night, the Griffin had remembered the word a Spirit had spoken.

"Hello."

Quicker than she could have imagined, Griffinhart parried and dodged most of Tatsoo and Fremelda's blows, much to her amazement. Still, the two seemed to have succeeded in causing him some degree of harm, as evidenced by his slightly strained voice. The glint of madness re-entered her blue eyes as she had some measure of victory over the stoic Warden she made it her personal mission/hobby to rattle his unflappable stoicism.

Still, Griffinhart went up to the rafters of the place to talk to a crow it seemed, and the Queen of Thorns, idly picked her frock coat back up and put it on, but didn't really bother to fasten it closed, she merely tied her sash on her waist to keep the coat from falling off. "Well, that was enjoyable, what do you think, Tatsoo?" she asked the honey colored one.

The speed in which Griffinhart had captured her was almost startling but she had half expected the capture. Tatsoo held herself still while the man grabbed her believing that he would not do any further damage having made his point. The woman could smell how his scent changed with his intentions but she was also sure he could change a lot faster than most could believe.

Then he let her go and she stood, stretching and looking up towards the area whoever, whatever it was had gone. The scent was not difficult to pick up and she was sure of the placement then realized Griffinhart was looking to the same area as she was.

Fremelda spoke and Tatsoo looked at the other woman with a bright smile, "Dis is very much de stuff ah'd be likin. It be hard an ah ken learn dat way."

[OOC: I edited in a music link because I derped and didn't have it in originally.

-- Griffinhart]