2023-06-28 - Learn to Take a Hit

The thing about working together is that they have to, you know, work together. Which means some level of interaction beyond glaring at each other from across rooms, so. Here they are. Training, one-on-one. Was it managerial dictate that they do so? Probably. Can't imagine these two being willing to practice together.

Benedict's already finished stretching and getting into his gear, which for this is just a padded jacket and helmet. Gloves too, which he's pulling on right now, standing by the sword rack as he does so. Is it possible to angrily put on gloves? Honestly, they're kind of fiddly, so you really have to work at it. And oh boy is Ben ever working at it.

Eli, meanwhile, leads Safir into the arena, and he's whistling. He's got his gear on -- padded jacket, buttpads, gloves, his helmet under one arm and his cowboy hat perched jauntily on his head.

"Mornin' Benny!" he calls out to the Dark Knight. "All right, what's on the docket today? We joustin'? Swordin'? Launchin' spears at each other from afar? 'Cause uh -- I really don't wanna get speared in the face. Gotta date tonight. And Whoooo Doggy ain't she a drink a' water from South of the Mason Dixie, can't imagine anyone more darin' than a Southern Belle makin' their way to the Great Frozen North!"

The helmet protects Benedict's face from showing the various shades of discombobulated that he goes through, listening to Eli. It actually takes him a moment, a few seconds of silence, before he manages to formulate a terse reply of: "We'll start with jousting."

Charon, his dark steed, is waiting nearby, and Benedict approaches, pausing to give a fond rub to the horse in all his favorite spots before he swings up into the saddle. "Put on your helmet and you won't get speared in the face," he calls out, eyeing Eli's cowboy hat.

"Don't aim your spear for my face an' we ain't gonna have a repeat of our introductin'!" Eli launches back good naturedly. Yes it was a double entrende. No he didn't mean it. Or did he?

"After all you're suppos' ta be hittin' the shield." he reminds Benedict as he easily swings back up onto his horse, sitting himself in the old fashioned saddle (they really aren't that comfortable), and then he revs himself up.

The horse he's on dances sideways a little, ears flicking about

"You wanna fall first?"

The glare that Benedict aims at Eli is particularly venemous, but again... the helmet kind of blocks it. So Eli is saved, for now, from the heat of it. He adjusts his gloves some more and then blows out an angry breath.

"Fine," he says, to the question. Beneath him, Charon snorts out a breath, and then with a little kick of Benedict's heel they're off, across the arena.

Eli's horse has a different name every time Benny works with him. Safir was the latest in a long name chain -- last month it was Joshua, which means 'the deliverer' until someone joked about the horse actually being named Susan -- a quote from some British Sci Fi show that Eli had never seen.

Eli gives a gentle movement to his horse, and a sharp 'HA!', lance lowering the faster the two approach at a sharp gallop!

There is a little tingle in the air... something is whispering that it might go awry.

He's taking the fall, so Benedict doesn't urge Charon into as fast a run as Eli does his own horse, trying to temper their speed so that when he tumbles he doesn't slam into the Arena floor. But you gotta sell it, too, so he can't go too slow either.

His own lance lowered, Ben steers them into a gallop as well, Charon's hooves kicking up sand as they rapidly approach their opponent.

At the last moment he juts his lance to the side for a near-hit but inevitable miss, just like they've been practicing.

The drumming of the hooves on the ground, the lowering of the lance, the eyeballing of the practice arena. Eli doesn't want to hurt Benedict, in spite of their animosity towards one another. He wants to make sure the show is good.

THUMP! The tip of the lance strikes Benedict's shield and shatters like it's supposed to, wood splinters flying all over as Eli and his horse race by.

Benedict has taken hits like this before, in practice sessions with other riders. Never with Eli, though, so he's braced for an extra hard hit. Fully expecting Eli to do his worst.

And then the lance hits square on his shield and not only does it splinter into shards, but Benedict is knocked fully from his horse, landing with a heavy crash as Charon races away without a rider. The horse only comes to a stop near the edge of the Arena, moving around aimlessly as Benedict lays, groaning, on the ground.

"Ha! Good hit Benny, you really sold it Old Man when --" Eli was cheering. He was honestly complementing the older (by only a few years) jouster when he noticed that he wasn't getting up.

He could feel something was wrong. His hands were stinging slightly, and not like they used to when he hit someone else in the RennFaire route.

"Benedict?" he asks, with surprising softness before he wheels his horse around and gallops over. Off comes his own helmet, slung to the ground. Off come his gloves as he goes, feeling more energized than when he had started, and he skids along on his knees as he goes to push Benedict's helmet off.

"Hey, HEY! Benny -- MEDIC!" he calls out, "Someone contact medical!"

"I don't need medical," Benedict says, though the way he moans it out like a wounded animal doesn't exactly add credence to what he's saying. He grimaces as he gets up onto one elbow, struggling mightily to do so, and then with a grimace he pulls off his helmet.

His eyes are squeezed shut against what is clearly pain, and he gasps out the next few breaths before he rolls over onto his stomach. "What the hell did you do to me," he asks into the ground.

"I hit you." Eli states, explaining the obvious. "I hit you jus' like what was practiced. I even tried to get nice an' square so you didn't twist an' throw out your back." Eli states, and he grimaces as Benedict talks into the ground.

"Uh... you sure you're not gonna need med..." he pauses mid-statement. He looks at his hands. Black ink-like tendrils tracing their way up his fingertips, and he does what any man who obviously was raised on his father's ranch in the North of Texas and not helping wrangle eight-year-olds at a pony club in Oklahoma would do.

"What the fuuuuuuuuuuu---" he hisses out, turning his hands this way and that.

and then he catches his reflection in a discarded steel glove, and the most unmanly scream erupts from his throat as he scrambles backwards.

"What the Hell did you do to ME?!"

The chattering and then the screaming goes over Benedict's head. In the sense that it literally happens over his head, but also metaphorically, because he's barely paying attention. As it stands, the pain is too distracting.

So mostly he just groans and rolls around in the dirt.

Until Eli accuses him of doing something, and that is enough incentive to drag himself up onto his hands and knees. Where he proceeds to retch a few times, but doesn't actually get sick.

Yet.

"What do you mean what did I do to--" he looks up just then to see the dark veins in Eli's skin, and the darkened eyes, and let's out an undignified shriek. Just before he collapses back to the ground, groaning.

The undignified shriek is met with an additional unmanly and dignified for a cowboy scream from Eli, before Eli joins Benedict on the ground, breathing heavily, his eyes open and staring up at the ceiling. He breathes out, then takes a deep breath in, and then gives another undignified yell until he runs out of breath.

"... I have a date tonight, I can't go looking like this!" he protests.

Nevermind the amount of pain Benedict is in. Not like he can do a whole lot about that at just this minute.

"You... uh... sure you don't want me to yell again for a medic, Benny?"

"You sure you don't need a medic?" Benedict spits out, still into the dirt. "Because you look terrible."

And that... That is something. Despite the pain, Ben can't help but laugh at that, his shoulders shaking as he tries again to push himself up.

Only to gag, again. "I think I might be sick."

"Still look better than you. You missed the horse puck by like, two feet when you came back down, old fella." Eli states, and he gives a groan, and pushes himself up. He gives a whistle, and his horse trots over, sticking his big ol' nose right in Eli's face as Eli reaches up to give a gentle scritch.

"Pretty sure someone accidentallied some curse on those stupid things. I didn't believe this place had real magic, y'know?" he states, and he breathes out, stepping on over to Benedict.

The cowboy looms over him, reaching behind himself to pull out his cowboy hat as he looks down on the injured, dark-haired rider.

"All right, old man. Let's get you up. I'm puttin' reins in your hand. Hold tight to 'em an I'll get your other arm. I'm gonna put you up over my horse an' walk ya to the hospital place."

Benedict is still struggling to get himself even into a seated position, and his progress bar is currently sitting at a big zilch. Only once Eli starts looming over him does Benedict really start to try, and then he's up on trembling arms like a baby bird.

It's gonna take a team effort to get him up. They do the reins trick, using good old fashioned horsepower (and, okay, a bit of Eli's strength) to get Benedict back on his feet.

He absolutely does not get on the horse. Instead he starts to stumble off in the direction of the back area, where his kit is. "I'm going to--I don't know what I'm going to do. But learn to pull your hits, for fuck's sake!"

With a gentle word, the horse draws his head up, helping Benedict to his feet as Eli gets down close, and lifts from the other side. He smells like some Old Spice Sport brand, and it's applied so heavily that Benedict might be able to taste it from this distance. He's smiles, shaking out his hands (he was careful to only touch where Benedict was covered by armor) and was about to say something with levity, but then Benedict begins stumbling off.

Eli pauses, and then his eyebrows furrow (which looks rather sinister for black eyes, though it's beginning to fade).

"Hey, Fuck you! It's not my fault you can't take a square hit Benny. Maybe it's time to take some osteoperosis meds and watch that knee for bad weather while you strut about like the Godfather of the Retirement Home!" he points to himself "My hit was perfect and was safe!"