|
Post by Morgan on Apr 20, 2020 4:52:46 GMT -6
Morgan realized pretty quick that they could just barely reach the drake, so it would be fine. "Alright, so I'll tap around on ye with a stick, and the command will b-be..." They considered for a moment before coming up with a tune on the whistle that they carried around on their neck with them at all times. "That one." Morgan said. Waar barely gave any indication of having paid attention for a moment as he moved around a bit in the briars, them putting small cuts on his hide here and there. Morgan felt more than a little bad about it, but it was the least abusive way of doing this, they figured. After Waar gave his go-ahead, Morgan started.
The human would tap him with the stick a few times in different spots, forcing him to move in the briars and attempt to deal with and get used to the thorns, and then Morgan gave the command.
[5]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 25, 2020 21:21:53 GMT -6
It took a Waar a moment to realize that he had just been given the command to play dead, and though Morgan had talked to him about what generally to do, he wasn't a hundred percent sure how he was going to do it yet. Waar really did not want to have to lay down in the briars, either. It wasn't that it hurt a tun, but it was snaggy and annoying. However, he did understand the gist of why this was needed (something about being able to deal with more damage because of hard skin, and misdirecting foes) and he knew that this was the kind of thing that sarane drakes were usually shown how to do to be better tricksters during battles.
At the command, Waar dropped down into the briars, and 'flopped' playing possum. His breathing was still evident, even though he didn't need to breathe, and he was a little too 'alive like' for Morgan's tastes.
[6]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 25, 2020 21:30:06 GMT -6
"Good job a-at the command Waar. We just need you to uh... Well, you don't e-even have to breathe, do you?" Morgan said, haltingly. The drake raised his head to look at Morgan before hauling himself up and off of the briars. He definitely had skin scratches. "Alright Waar, let's work on this for... Say an h-hour today? T-then we'll come back tomorrow." Morgan decided. It would be good to do this over time, all in one day wasn't going to make his skin grow back thicker, after all. Waar huffed, but Morgan knew that he was acquiescing. It wasn't like they didn't have all the time in the world to work on this.
Commands were no real issue to creatures that were sentient, but the technique was hard to get down even for Waar, who was comfortable in his sentience after all of this time. They worked for the next hour in the briars, until Waar was tired of being cut up. They'd come back in the morning.
[7]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 25, 2020 21:41:28 GMT -6
Come back in the morning, they did! Waar grumbled the entire way, because he knew he wasn't getting breakfast until they were done with their training for that day. His cuts had all healed up over night, and he wasn't super big on getting back into the briar bush. However, he did so, and Morgan got to work, giving him the command for play dead and smacking him (gently) with a stick. He was slowly teaching himself not to breathe so obviously. He'd just never quite gotten out of the habit of 'breathing', even though he didn't need to. They worked for an hour, and made slow progress. Then they left again for the day.
The next day, they were back. Waar grumbled, but got into the briars again. Morgan tapped him with the stick and gave him the whistled command to play dead. He was finally not 'breathing' when being knocked down. "Why dontcha stick your tongue out, Waar?" Morgan asked.
[8]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 25, 2020 21:53:04 GMT -6
Waar looked at Morgan with the most sarane 'incredulous' expression that Morgan could imagine, and then 'flopped down' and stuck his tongue out, in the briars. "Alright, a-a-and now, keep one eye open and..." Waar did so. "PERFECT!" Morgan said! Of course he was helped by his natural 'zombie-likeness' but he did really and truly look dead enough to freak an opponent out at first. Morgan could not be more pleased! However, they still needed to do more work. They spent another hour out there, but left for the day.
Morgan was keeping up with Waar's cuts, and it seemed like he got less and less deep ones as time went on. This continued for a week, with them working on the playing dead thing while he was in the briar patch. So far, so good, Morgan decided! After a week, Waar stopped getting deep scratches at all from the briars.
[9]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 25, 2020 22:07:37 GMT -6
Another week, another hour each day dedicated to getting Waar to have a thicker skin and get him used to playing dead on command. Now for the speed! Morgan wanted to make darn sure that if they gave the command, Waar would play dead as fast as possible. It may save him if they ever have to wind up using it, they knew. Waar wasn't one of those individuals that really wanted to do troublesome things as fast as possible, but Morgan knew that it was going to be tantamount for him to continue to try to be speedy as possible in order to help him along with his poor agility since he was changed.
They continued working, with Morgan giving him the whistled command, and Waar 'playing dead' in the briars until finally, Morgan was sure that he had learned how to play dead both convincingly and incredibly speedily for his condition.
[10] - [End of 'Play Dead']
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 25, 2020 22:18:13 GMT -6
The next morning that they returned after Morgan was sure that he was done learning the play dead behavior, Morgan lead him to the same spot in the park again, with all of the briar bushes. Waar gave Morgan a huff and snort, and then asked, 'Do I have to?'. It was just so childish that Morgan had to laugh in response, and with a sigh, the huge sarane got back into the briar bushes again, stepping with purpose and annoyance. Morgan nodded to him, a little belated, but it didn't matter too much. "Today we're g-going to work on your pouncing skills." Morgan said to him. Waar gave another huff, but it was pretty obvious to Morgan that his skin was already a lot thicker due to the work with the briars they had been working. "I-It should come naturally toya." Morgan decided, nodding.
[11] - [Start of 'Pounce'] - [Still working on Stone Skin]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 25, 2020 22:45:51 GMT -6
Waar seemed a lot more confident over the pouncing idea instead of the playing dead idea. It would seem that pouncing might come in more naturally for a predator than playing dead would for the most part. Today, they'd work on the logistics of the thing. Then, in the future, they would work on pouncing moving targets. That was the idea Morgan had, anyway. They explained this to Waar as he stood nonchalantly in the thorns. He didn't seem too bothered by it, though he was a little more excited. Maybe because he didn't have to do something contrary to his nature too much.
"How b'out this for a command?" Morgan asked him, before blowing a nice brash tune on the whistle. They were getting quite good at whistling, and Waar was getting quite skilled at remembering the whistles! He gave a quick affirmative, and it was off to the races for the pair.
[12]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 25, 2020 23:34:02 GMT -6
Morgan knew that Waar and they should take a break after learning this one. It was about time that he should be getting back to the training gym, after all! They had been doing some thinking, and had come to the conclusion that the drake should be trained in something after the whole reflexes thing was over, too. In Morgan's thoughts, agility was probably the most important thing for a battler to work on. Hopefully Waar would never have to be a battler, though. Still, it would be good to give him ample physical therapy after his zombification had occurred. The human still felt quite bad about that and blamed theirself, so it would be good to keep him going out and training.
"Alright Waar, let's go." Morgan said, giving the command. Morgan had already told him how they expecting him to pounce, and Waar was sure that he could do it properly.
[13]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 25, 2020 23:42:41 GMT -6
Morgan gave the command, and Waar scrunched up, and then leapt. It was almost deceptively dainty, and that would not do. Morgan tried to keep theirself from laughing entirely too hard at it. "No no, not like t-that." Morgan retorted, and Waar snorted at them for their laughter, which he understood to some degree due to them being around each other quite often. "Put more power into it. You're a d-drake, remember?" Morgan chuckled. It seemed to be one of their better days. Honestly, they had been having more 'better' days recently than they had been having 'worse' days.
Waar snorted again, but looked more determined than he had before to do this right. The human gave the command again, and then sarane crouched low this time before pouncing on a nearby butterfly sitting on a thorn. Needless to say, it flew away, but the pounce looked to be in the right form, this time.
[14]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 25, 2020 23:52:32 GMT -6
Practice doesn't make perfect, Morgan knew- perfect practice made perfect. It was very important to let Waar know that he did well now, so that they could continue to work on that correct form pounce instead of trying again and again with him changing different things up. "Alright Waar, that was g-great form. Do exactly that from here on out." Morgan told him. Waar slowly nodded. He didn't seem to be as bothered by the briars that the had been training in for weeks, now. The human couldn't help but beam at him. He learned rather quickly, didn't he? Not exactly like that of the tats, or even the fancy knack like houluh had, but he was really getting there.
Morgan gave him the command a few more times, and each time Waar did the exact same thing. It took them a few more tries after that just to start seeing any minute amount of progress at all.
[15]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 26, 2020 0:01:37 GMT -6
After another hour of work, Morgan began to realize that they were probably going to have to stretch this out over time again. They had other training to do, so they decided to run this training concurrently with the other training they were ready to work on with others (namely, houluh in this instance). Morgan took Waar out before his breakfast in the mornings, and they would call out the command on the whistle for pounce, and have him work in the brier bush more. The more they worked in the bush the better, seeing as already Waar's skin was growing thicker by the day.
Today he made much better progress, reacting to the new command much quicker than he had whenever they were working on the playing dead behavior. Waar was a much better pouncer than he was at playing dead- he was, after all, a born and bred predator. Even pouncing in the thorns didn't hurt him as much anymore.
[16]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 26, 2020 0:08:07 GMT -6
As they continue to work on the behavior, Morgan noticed that day after day, Waar wasn't taking as much damage from the thorns, until finally he wasn't paying them any heed at all. They were sure that he was starting to develop that thick skin that he was going to need in order to properly deflect as much damage from his form as possible. Still, it had really sucked seeing him having such trouble with the thorns at first, even if he didn't feel pain like most creatures nowadays. "You're doing g-good, Waar, keep it up!" The bespectacled human said, in between orders to pounce.
Morgan kept having him pounce around in the briars for the remainder of their hour that day, and then they went home again. When Morgan went back for something else later in between Waar's training, they left some moving targets for them to use the next morning.
[17]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 26, 2020 0:15:35 GMT -6
The next morning, as per the usual, they returned to the briar patch. Morgan had painstakingly set up the moving targets to move in circles around the outside of the patch, so that Waar would have to tromp through the patch to leap on each one from outside of the patch. They were made to take on heavy force, so that Waar could practice the strength behind his pounces. He pretty much had reacting quickly to the command down this time, for now it was mostly the power and the technique Morgan wanted him to continue working on so that he would be as powerful and smooth as possible in the future if he needed to be.
Waar took to the moving targets fairly well after his first few misses. He was missing them only about a third of the time, but that still wasn't quite good enough for Morgan. He had to be perfect and reliable.
[18]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 26, 2020 0:22:13 GMT -6
Morgan hoped that their desire for their creatures and family to be able to do something a hundred percent right all of the time wasn't too much of a troubling concern for them. Morgan was a perfectionist, theirself, and knew how difficult it could be to live with feeling that you had to be perfect all of the time, but also, one wrong move in a battle could ruin everything. It was concern that drove Morgan to push Waar harder to hit more of the moving targets than not. "K-k-keep at it, Waar!" Morgan called out to him, between the commands that they were whistling for him. Waar looked super determined as he rushed through the brier patch, apparently completely able to ignore the little thorns that basically didn't do any damage now that his skin was sufficiently thick. Then he would half leap, half fly and pounce on the nearest moving target.
[19]
|
|