<div class="floatright">(http://i.imgur.com/enMOCL4.jpg)</div><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong>Caitriona</strong></span><br/><hr/><br/>The clashing of sword on sword was all around her, as Cait moved through the lines of men and women sparring.  It was her week to oversee the training of the new recruits, and she thoroughly enjoyed this duty.  Not because it was a chance to lord over people that she was Chosen, but because it was a chance to impart some wisdom into these young minds before they'd gotten too stuck and embittered by long experience to change their ways.<br/><br/>She stopped near one pair, and frowned, her brow pulling together as she held up her hand.  The two immediately stopped, and turned to face her, weapons at their sides.  She approached the young woman - barely seventeen, she looked - and pulled her own blade free.  "You're holding it wrong, young one.  The grip you were using, any force behind his strikes would have knocked your blade twenty feet away if it was an inch.  And you're swinging from the shoulder too much.  You telegraph, and your moves are easy to counter when you fight like that."  She glanced around, and spotted the other trainer, another Chosen like herself, and waved him over, urging the other trainees to step back.<br/><br/>"We'll keep our movements slow.  You won't be this fast, possibly for a while, possibly ever, as we are both Chosen.  But I do not wish to spar with one of you and injure you before you've seen any real action."  She nodded, and saluted, the other trainer, and then squared off.  "Watch us.  And remember, never take your eye off your enemy, because that moment you spare to glance aside is a moment he has to stick a blade between your ribs or an arrow in your throat."<br/><br/>They clashed, deliberately keeping themselves slow, sparks flying from their blades as they wrestled for a moment, actually digging gouges in the dirt of the practice field, before spinning back and coming in again, this time with blades flashing and darting, looking for an opening.