|
Post by Noa on Apr 16, 2020 23:09:51 GMT -6
"First things first." Aster looked at Summer and frowned a little. "I usually do this with a blindfold for whoever's learning, but you... can't do that, for obvious reasons. So you're just going to have to close your eyes, and I'm just going to have to trust you on that."
Summer tipped her wings slightly in a gesture of assent. From some of his other creatures, Aster might not have taken them at their word for that kind of thing, but Summer was of a relatively serious, sober-minded personality. She wasn't without a sense of humor, to be sure, but she wasn't the type to skimp out on work deliberately, or to try playing pranks and getting away with things, as a general rule. If she had agreed to do this, then she would do it, to the best of her ability.
And he really didn't have any alternatives here anyway.
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 16, 2020 23:13:35 GMT -6
"Okay, here goes. I'll give you the signal to start, to make it a little easier," Aster said. Eventually he would trust her to do it on her own, since the point of this was so she could sense something incoming herself, but right now, when she was just starting, he wanted to help her succeed as much as he could. "Ready?" He waited until he could see that she had closed her eyes, then threw the tennis ball. "Dodge."
Summer ducked to the side. Her flying was a bit erratic without any sight to depend upon, but then, Aster was sure his walking would have been a bit questionable too if he was blindfolded. Still, despite that, she did manage to dodge the ball. "Hey, that was pretty good," Aster said. "You can feel it when they go through you, can't you?"
Summer did better than answer, sending him the exact sensation of it through their link.
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 16, 2020 23:13:50 GMT -6
It wasn't a comfortable thing, though it wasn't pain so much as it was just... something so alien that Aster had a hard time coming up with a way to describe it. But yes, evidently, she could feel when she was hit. "Got it," Aster said. "Ready for round two?" He gave her a moment to prepare, then tossed another ball at her. "Dodge."
She dodged this one too. Her dodges weren't quite as efficient as when her eyes were open, but that was to be expected, especially at this stage. The fact that she was managing to avoid them at all was a good sign.
They continued like that for the rest of the session, though Aster stopped staying in one place a little further into it. "I'm moving around now," he warned Summer. "Try to listen for my voice, hear where it's coming from, and dodge based on that. Remember, I'm still always going to be throwing at you."
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 16, 2020 23:14:00 GMT -6
The addition of this new variable did throw her off a little at first, but she figured it out after a little while. By the end of the session, she was dodging it successfully even with Aster moving around. But Aster could also sense that she was getting tired, so he called things to an end there for the day. There would be time aplenty to resume tomorrow, and this wasn't the kind of thing that could be learned so quickly either.
The next day, they began with some of what they had done the previous day as a warm up. And then Aster dropped the bomb on her: I'm going to stop calling out," he said. He could sense her displeasure, but again, she was more resigned to it than anything else. She knew why it was happening, and was just not happy that the time had come, nor was she looking forward to getting smacked around with tennis balls, as it were.
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 16, 2020 23:16:37 GMT -6
"Try and listen for me," Aster said. "You can tell where I am by sound, and even the ball should be a little audible as it moves through the air. It'll be hard at first, but you can do it if you try." Three drakes, a half breed, and even Grunty of all things had figured it out. Summer ought to be able to do it.
Summer made her impatience known to him. Evidently she had taken that principle of 'the sooner we start, the sooner we can get it over with' to heart. Aster smiled a little wry smile, then began moving.
Summer's first attempts to dodge the tennis balls under these new rules were met with failure. The first one hit her almost squarely, dead in the center. But even then, there were signs of progress; the second only glanced her, though she'd started moving too slowly to dodge it entirely.
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 17, 2020 16:23:24 GMT -6
It was good to see that she was paying attention, even if, judging by when she had moved, Aster suspected that she had noticed the ball more when it began making contact with her than before that. But even that was a sign that she was trying.
All the same, it was slow going. Aster lost count of how many times he had thrown the ball by the session's end, and for the most part, Summer hadn't been able to dodge them. On occasion she managed to avoid one, but those happened rarely enough that Aster was more inclined to call them lucky flukes than a sign of real progress.
"That's it for today," Aster said. He felt a bit wrung out, even though he hadn't been the one working. Not that he'd stood idly by and watched, but even so, the more mentally trying task had certainly been Summer's this time.
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 17, 2020 16:26:37 GMT -6
And thus the lion's share of frustration was hers too, for not having been able to do this. It wasn't that she was so eager to please him, but she didn't much like the sensation of constant failure, over and over, with no sign of improvement that she could note.
Aster had no words to hearten her either. It had been a bitter session for both of them. "Maybe the change over was too abrupt," he mused, but she didn't seem as though she were interested in listening to him make excuses for her.
... Nevertheless, that got him thinking. "I have an idea," he said slowly, though he would have to make sure he had something on hand that would work for it. "Let's try this again tomorrow, and change things up a bit."
Summer was already flying back to the house, so Aster followed in her wake, but his thoughts were still turning as he walked.
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 17, 2020 16:29:06 GMT -6
When they returned the next day, Aster wasn't armed with tennis balls, but a sort of... oblong throwing toy. "I thought we would try with these," Aster said. "They make a noise when you throw them, so that should get you used to the idea of listening for an attack when you've got your eyes closed. How about it?"
Summer studied them dubiously. Aster demonstrated a toss with one, and sure enough, it made a distinctive whistling noise as it passed. Summer blinked, surprised by the sound, and Aster grinned. "See? That's pretty easy to hear, isn't it?" When Summer still seemed uncertain, Aster shrugged. "Just give it a go. If it doesn't work out, we'll try something else. There's more than one way to learn anything, I'm sure we'll get there eventually."
Summer didn't seem so sure; her confidence must have been shaken considerably by what had happened the previous day.
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 17, 2020 16:31:56 GMT -6
But she didn't refuse him either, so after giving her a moment to prepare and making sure her eyes were closed, Aster lobbed the first toy.
It was a hit, though not a square one. And when he threw the second, he could see her moving before it struck. They weren't good dodged, and especially at the start, she wasn't always successful with them either. But she was dodging them now, and as the session went on, Aster could see signs of real progress being made. Her success rate improved, and as she got used to listening and moving around like this, he could feel her settling in too, becoming more confident, more comfortable. And once that happened, her rate of success improved much faster.
"Not bad, not bad," Aster said at the end of the session. "I guess your mentality really makes a difference for things like this, doesn't it?"
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 17, 2020 16:35:23 GMT -6
He took stock of how Summer was feeling, and found that she was tired, but not aggravated the way she had been before. "How was it? Better this time, right?"
She didn't dignify it with an answer, since Aster ought to know that better than anyone.
The next session involved more of the same, still practicing with the whistling toys, since Summer hadn't been dodging all of them the last session. Over a couple of practice periods, however, they got there, at which point Summer's movements in the air had become a little more refined again, the way they did when she was dodging normally. And then Aster moved back to the tennis balls, though on this occasion he didn't tell Summer that he was making the switch. He was sure she would realize it as soon as he tossed the first one, but he felt that if he told her before he threw it, she might psych herself out.
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 17, 2020 16:38:32 GMT -6
She didn't have anything so deep that he would have called it a 'trauma' with them, but her last experience with them had been an unpleasant one, and she had enough in the way of brains that her own head could get in the way for things like this. So without telling her that he had changed projectiles, he tossed the tennis ball to see what would happen.
He could sense her surprise when she registered that something was approaching, but critically, this was happening in the moment before impact now. And--- yes--- she managed to dodge this one too, though her incredulity, and then her anger immediately following, stifled any praise Aster might have said on his tongue. Her eyes were open now, staring accusingly at him, to which Aster could only shrug. "Well," he said, "I thought you might have gotten nervous if I told you, so I didn't. Sorry."
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 17, 2020 16:42:45 GMT -6
The spark of anger that accompanied his apology suggested she didn't think he was sorry enough, though if that was what she was thinking, then she wasn't far off the mark. "But hey, look, you did it!" he said. "Come on, let's try again while you're high off the success." That definitely wasn't what she was feeling, but there was something to be said for momentum, and if she felt capable now, surely her performance would reflect it.
When Summer didn't comply, still glaring at him, he responded by chucking another tennis ball at her. She wasn't impressed, but seeing that he wasn't going to cooperate, she resigned herself to further practice for the moment.
Not all her attempts were successes like that last one was, but there were distinctly more of them, and even when she didn't manage to dodge in time, Aster could see that she could sense the incoming 'attack'.
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 17, 2020 16:46:13 GMT -6
She had gotten the idea of it, so now it was just a matter of practice... and practice... and more practice.
It was a difficult skill, so it took them the better part of a week before she was able to dodge all the projectiles all the time with an ease that Aster was satisfied with, but it was as he had said--- they did get there eventually. And by that point, the two of them were both pretty sick of seeing tennis balls.
"That's that," Aster said. "What next... Ah, you know, it's been a while since you went out with me to the drake stables, hasn't it?"
Summer inclined her head at him, as if to ask why he was bringing that up all of a sudden. "Well, I was just thinking, the last time you saw any of the third tiers, they were still hatchlings. Aren't you curious how that lot turned out?"
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 21, 2020 19:32:00 GMT -6
Summer shot him a look. The answer to that question was honestly no, and he knew it too. Summer wasn't fond at all of Sarane, and it had taken her considerable time to even warm to Avander, who was the first, the smallest, and the best behaved of all of Aster's Sarane to date. When he had been a hatchling, she had been relatively indifferent, but the breaking process had come as a complete shock to her, and she hadn't been able to abide them after that, even though once broken, they posed no more real danger to Aster himself.
Their opinions on this differed, of course--- Aster could not be swayed on the usefulness of a creature that could not be easily turned by strangers, while Summer failed to see the appeal of a thing that had to try to kill him first before it would listen to anything he said.
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 21, 2020 19:35:14 GMT -6
Aster wondered what Summer thought of Avander now that Avander was no longer a Sarane but a Wiurn... But that wasn't what he needed today. In truth, his first choice for desensitizing Summer would have been Azalea or Grunty, but those two were both recuperating in preparation for contests of different stripes. There was also always that half breed of Rabbit's, but without her there to manage him, he was completely out of the question. So a drake it was.
"Come on, just this once," Aster said. "We need you to get used to being around them. I mean, I work with so many of them, right?"
Summer was still cross, in a way that suggested that she thought the simpler and better solution would be for him to stop working with them, but at length she submitted to riding on his shoulder as he made his way to the Sarane pens.
|
|