Welcome to Gaia! ::

Kromli smiled, looking relieved. He had no intention of fitting the drill sergeant archetype, but even so it would not do to have to keep up so high a level of formality during a training event, like this.
"Well then, Shan," he began. "We have some weapons that generally seem to come easily to those who learn the fighting style that I'll be teaching you. First we're going to have you pick one of them, and we'll discuss your strategy and fighting styles. We'll also discuss your options for armor, too," he finished.
On the racks of weapons were two pair of gauntlets (one spiked, one not), a dagger, a punching dagger, two maces (one rather heavy looking, the other less so), a sickle, a club, a morningstar, three spears (one the length of Matasoga's, one longer, and the other shorter),a quarterstaff, two crossbows (one made of heavier-looking materials, the other thinner in build), a set of darts, a javelin, and a sling for launching rock.
Opposite those were a smaller crossbow, a shortbow, and a shortsword.
"Please ask me if you have any questions," he said.

"Well," he said. "You might want to really just focus in in one weapon... Or two, if you want to use both hands, like I do."
"Would you like a few suggestions," he asked.

"Well, I see how you walk and I've noticed that you're very light on your feet. On the other hand your limbs seem rather," he struggled for words, hesitating "Fine," he concluded.
"It seems to me," he went on, reddening only slightly at his inability to speak in a more complimentary fashion of the queen's physical weakness "like a weapon that benefits more from finesse than it does from brute force... Which is also how I fight."
He turned to the weapons "So for close range, you should probably work with either the daggers, gauntlets, the lighter mace, the sickle, and the rapier, and train to use your dexterity with those."
He considered for a moment and said, "When it comes to potential for damage under normal conditions, the mace, the sickle, and the rapier are going to be your best bet. Of those, you'll find that the rapier most often strikes your opponent's vital areas, leaving them the most badly wounded."

"That's totally fine. In fact, that's what I can teach you best, and when I'm all done, we'll get you a proper, tipped, and probably magical rapier of your very own. One thing, though: You've gotta name it, or else it won't be completely yours... So be thinking of that, but for now, watch what I do," he said.
"Doing battle with a rapier is really just fencing, in a match where your opponent might have a weapon that works differently, so your defense must be more advanced, but your strikes are the same as they would be in fencing. The key to fencing," he said, looking to her with seriousness, "Is in the footwork. You must stay turned sideways whenever possible, minimizing the target that is your body, from the enemy's line of sight and advance like this."
He demonstrated, keeping the toes of his leading foot pointing in the direction that he was going and the other foot at an intersecting angle. He then slowly brought the back foot to the heel of the leading foot, and no sooner than it met the ground, he advanced the leading foot. He repeated this several times, before returning to his starting point and did it faster.
"And you retreat the exact same way," he said, reversing the motion.
"See that?" he said, continuing to travel back and forth in that manner. "There is no more important building block to fencing than this. This is what we are going to practice today, alright? We're going to build muscle memory and get you used to moving like this until you can do it about as quickly as I can."

"Turn your back foot just a little bit more... There! Perfect," he said.
"Now just keep that up. I'll set pace. Just try and keep up with me. This will be a pretty intense lesson. Are you ready to do this for the next two hours?" he asked, looking back at her as he went.

Kromli smiled at her enthusiasm but wondered if her true stamina was enough to match it. Over the next two hours he gradually increased the pace of the footwork as he worked to cement the muscle-memory.

Kromli tightened the straps on his fencing jacket and made sure the gear that Shanderaa would be using was ready. She had done very well in the time that he had spent training her thus far. They had worked on footwork, lunges, and all of the muscle exercises most conducive to effectively wielding a rapier. It was time to put these into effect, using eppes and fencing armor and test her present abilities.