<div class="floatright">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/f/fa/Trainee.jpg)</div><strong>Character name:</strong>Yfan Bravni<br/><strong>Position:</strong>Trainee<br/><strong>Bondmate:</strong>None<br/><strong>Tag:</strong>Closed<br/><strong>Time:</strong>Dusk, Saven 6th, 990NE<br/><strong>Place:</strong>Training grounds<br/><strong>Warning:</strong>Yfan spends enough time running alps and getting hit that afternoon transitions to dusk<br/><hr/><br/>The sharp tone of authority was one that Yfan responded to quickly and readily. Enough drilling allowed him that, at least. The rule came to Yfan after some thought and after the Master at Arms began to recite it for Yfan. The trainee nodded his head at the Master's command. It gave Yfan a sense of security to hear those words; there was a comfort in being punished. It brought a certain closure to the scenario that did not entirely banish Yfan's shame, but eased his anxiety over his failure to act at all.<br/><br/>The trainee left the area of the sands to run the laps instructed. He still bore the yoke over his shoulders, and he found, in time, five warders. Each of them bore a heron-marked blade at their hips, but Yfan was too consoled in the feeling of being punished to care that each man was so skilled with a blade that dodging would be all but impossible. To each warder the trainee relayed the directive of the Master at Arms, and when pressed recited verbatim the Master's words. The push-ups were easy enough the first time around. It was one hundred over all, but there was time enough between to recuperate to a degree. Yfan was in excellent condition; for all of his shortcomings one could not fault his conditioning. The first warder struck Yfan in the leg, taking the limb out from Yfan. The second struck Yfan in the midsection. The third struck Yfan's left bicep. That made future push-ups more difficult. The fourth struck Yfan's other leg. The trainee's ability to run was inhibited by that, and he forced himself to run at an odd, lop-sided gait. The fifth warder struck Yfan in the groin, to which the trainee released a muted grunt through clenched teeth, unable to keep from crying out at that strike. The warder struck Yfan again in the ribs; a discretionary punishment for crying out at a blow.<br/><br/>Yfan ran many laps and suffered many blows. Some of the warders had other business, so Yfan was obliged to find new ones to strike him - and these men proved too to be masters. The sun was setting and Yfan had not managed to dodge a single blow. Though not for lack of effort, however. The trainee could scarcely run and his blood and sweat watered the sands, and each time he approached a warder he gamely tried to avoid the impact of the training blade, and each time the training implement found his flesh. He had long since stopped feeling the impacts.<br/><br/>"I fear that you are not a man for whom pain is instructive." One of the warders quipped after he struck a blow that sent Yfan to the ground and broke the trainee's nose. Yfan lay face down, face plastered to the sand, sucking air and pushing with trembling, burning, protesting arms to try and right himself. "Have you dodged even a single attack?"<br/><br/>"No, gaidin." Yfan said, swords slurred because of a large bruise on the side of his face. His broken nose did not help. It was bleeding freely, flowing down into the sand. The warder made a sound of acknowledgement.<br/><br/>"Flaming lummox." The gaidin said as Yfan righted himself.<br/><br/>The next gaidin switched the training sword to his other arm as Yfan approached - the other having grown tired from striking Yfan so many times for so long. "Ashes, lad. My arm's tired as a sailor's a year without shore leave. If you don't bloody dodge this it'll be the last time." The gaidin warned, and Yfan tried to gauge where the blade would land and avoid it, but all he saw was a bright light and then he knew only darkness. He did not dodge.<br/><br/>Yfan awoke and unspecified amount of time later, and all five training swords rested before him, their points driven into the ground. His entire body ached, but his head was especially troublesome. His broken nose bothered him a great deal, and when he touched his temple experimentally, he found a large bump that felt like an egg. Despite the pain, he probed gently, trying to see if his skull was cracked. His vision swam and a wave of nausea swept over him. There was nothing to come up, but that did not stop Yfan from dry heaving some anyway.<br/><br/>When he recovered, Yfan looked around the training grounds and found, to his dismay, that there was no one else there.