[Viskyia Crow]

Viskyia found herself back in the City Gardens in the little clearing she’d taken to training in. She was a bit worried. After practicing her grip on the dagger and her footwork, she knew it was time to get down to the serious business of learning how to kill things with it. It wasn’t that she really wanted to kill though. There was no sort of desire in her towards that. She just wanted to protect herself.

She scanned the clearing, and thanked the stars that no one was around to witness her clandestine practices. Pacing the clearing, she thought a moment. Drawing her dagger, she studied it, then approached a statue that stood near the bench she regularly used. It was a magnificent carving of a goat-man creature playing a set of pan flutes. “Well," she thought, “stone could tell no tales.” With a laugh, she walked up to the statue and bowed. It was life-sized and easy for her to study. She fingered her dagger, and spent a long long time gazing at the form of the goat-man. Identifying vulnerabilities shouldn’t be to hard. The face? No… thought if the opportunity arose, she would take it. The arms? Definitely. The groin? Naturally. The legs would be vulnerable too. Though this statue’s legs bent the opposite way a man’s really should, the principle was the same. If they couldn’t hold a dagger or walk, they couldn’t fight or run after you. She studied the goat-man’s furred belly and decided that would be good too. She pictured him dressed in armor and decided anywhere the armor was jointed would be a vulnerability, especially the throat. If she had to kill someone, she preferred they wouldn’t scream for help or make noise as she did so.

She took a few practice stabs at the statue. On the second stab, the dagger chinked off the stone and chipped its cheap metal. She swore under her breath and stepped back. The statue didn’t have a mark on it. She glanced back at the chipped dagger and cursed a phrase she’d recently picked up. She ranged backwards, and around the clearing, finding a man-sized bush. Definitely more accommodating, she thought. She closed her eyes. What had Grintil said about stabbing?

“Fingers up, you idiots! Always fingers up. Stab, bring the dagger to a ninty degree upthrust, and always twist to widen the wound. TWIST! Now TWIST!” the dwarf grumbled. The men were at it again. Stabbing practice, evidently, was held during high tea right outside Meg’s sitting room. Viskyia was there, attending her, and having to listen to Meg’s idle comments about the noise level Grintil’s recruits were practicing at.

Viskyia continued to visiously attack the target bush, gutting it repeatedly. In her mind, it was a real person, real flesh her dagger was parting, real bone she was sawing across. Throat, shoulders, arms, thighs, cut and disable… she worked until she was breathless and the time was growing late. Enough for today. She would soon get back to it the next.