Blood is Thicker Than Water

[Kai]

They had started off strong, but their plan was falling apart. Even with the intense year of training and overcoming their last big challenge, they had not yet attained the level of skill they needed. And this was becoming very clear this far into the fight.

Hamali seemed frustrated as Mahiri just narrowly avoided his assault. He felt her teeth catch his ear. He might be bleeding, but he couldn't tell. His wounds from being dragged out of the water in the previous training session were not fully healed either, and the pain was assisting Mahiri's goal of wearing him down. This compunded with his frustration was quickly diminishing his chances in this fight.

Nyota had finally recovered his senses, but he was not pleased with what he saw. Mahiri's tactics had begun to aggravate Hamali's somewhat short temper. If he got too angry, he would just get tunnel vision and begin striking blindly. Any attempt at strategy would be pretty hopeless. He dashed in to help, but had to take a short detour around Hama.

[Narifia]

Nyota was quickly coming up on her left side. So much for Mahiri's reprieve. Acting quickly, she took advantage of Hamali's frustration and tightened her grip on his ear. She made a hard jerk downwards and attempted to throw Hamali to the ground, sidestepping as she did so in an effort to once again put Hamali directly between her and Nyota.

Mahiri hated avoiding Nyota like this. The strategies that she really wanted to put up against her brothers were much more rough and brutal than what she was doing now. But if she did what she really wanted to do, then Nyota would end up with noticeable injuries that King Hadhi would have her head for. It was a bit unfair to Hamali, but they couldn't afford anything that could put their entire mission in jeopardy.

[Kai]

The pain in his ear elicited a snarl from Hamali. He tried to reach for Mahiri before he was jerked downwards. As Nyo saw him going downwards, he tried to spring over him at Mahiri. Unfortunately, he was caught by Hamali's flailing paw. Hama was in a rage, and he got up to try for another attack on Mahiri. Nyota rose to his paws, but he was running seriously low on energy. He tried to attack Mahiri with his brother, but any hits were beginning to lose power due to exhaustion.

[Narifia]

Mahiri took a hard hit in the face as Hamali's raging claws managed to make contact. She snarled and let her head give way to the blow, allowing her a second to swing away and recover long enough to avoid a second hit. This was no good. Hamali was now in a rage. Acting quickly, Mahiri sought a way to end this fight as quickly as possible. It would do no good to continue with Hamali in a temper rage. Any success he had in this fight now would be purely out of luck, as his judgment was clouded and thus his focus had been lost.

Blood streaming from her face, she whirled around gracefully with the force of the blow she had received from Hamali. Now facing Nyota, a powerful thrust of her back legs sent her in Nyota's direction. Grounding herself as steadily as she could, Mahiri attempted to grab the back of his neck and swing him around, hoping that the force of the swing would send him flailing right into Hamali. Her aim was to knock the both of them to the ground.

[Kai]

The smaller lion was flung bodily into his brother. They landed in a heap, the wind thoroughly knocked out of them. hamali tried to force himself to stand despite it, but failed and stopped to try and recover. Nyota was spent.

[Narifia]

"Pathetic," Mahiri spat, panting from the effort of throwing her elder brother. Smaller or not, he wasn't light. She gained her breath and continued, "That's the worst display I've seen in a while from the two of you. You were out of sync. You did not adapt well to the obvious need for a change in your strategy at all."

Ever militant, Mahiri stood in a rigid manner as she issued a cutting look at her younger brother. She said, "Hamali. You will never succeed as an assassin with a temper like that. That is the exact kind of weakness that our enemy will be able to easily exploit and defeat you with, just as I have defeated you today. It's not just about the Ghost Lion's powers, either. Any experienced warrior can turn that rage of yours into an easy advantage and inevitably defeat you. If you cannot overcome that impulse, then you will stand no chance against father."

That word: Father. Mahiri never used that word to describe the Ghost Lion. She refused to think of that vile spectre as her father. However, here she used it as an insult. If Hamali couldn't be bothered to tame his temper and keep a level head in battle, then how much better could he really call himself than their father? It was a harsh blow, and it would no doubt only serve to make Hamali even angrier. However, that was the point. He needed to learn to tame that temper, no matter what vile insults or hits in battle were thrown at him.

[Kai]

Hamali seemed to be trying to supress his rage, caught on the edge of lashing out at her words. However he could not surpress a snarl at the word 'father,' and there was a flash of hate in his white eyes.

Nyota sat up and looked at Hamali, and then to Mahiri.
"Hey, come on Mahiri. We screwed up in the end, but we had a good start didn't we? How about a little encouragement here? You can't expect us to be perfect right away."
His usual arrogance seemed to desert him in the wake of their failure, as he said 'you can't expect us to be perfect' rather than making a quip about Hamali's shortcomings alone.

[Narifia]

"A good start is worthless if we can't follow through, Nyota, and no. I can't expect us to become perfect overnight. However, it's not as if we have a lot of time to play around with. The two of you have progressed and made incredible improvements lately, yes, but remember that I told you that this was the turning point. We don't have time for gradual improvements anymore. The two of you are strong and skilled enough to start perfecting your skills now. You're not cubs anymore. There are no more excuses to be made."

Mahiri turned her attention to the ocean for a moment. Her eyes caught the movement of the turbulent waves and she watched them solemnly as she continued, "I can see the beginnings of the two of you working together to improve yourselves. Yes, you did start out great tonight. It wasn't perfect, but it was a good start towards truly working together, sloppy though it was. But you allowed your trust in one another to falter for a mere second--just at the moment when you found out that things weren't going to go as planned--and from there it all fell apart. That is what the two of you need to work on to overcome together."

[Kai]

Hamali was still silent except for the sound of a single deep inhale and exhale. He finally seemed to have himself at least partly under control, but he only looked away bitterly as his sister spoke. He just couldn't seem to manage all this anger. Anger at his sister's words, anger at their defeat, anger at his own shortcomings. As he dwelled on these thoughts, being angry at himself for losing his temper only seemed to increase the fury further until it clouded his thoughts entirely. It was a vicious cycle. This is just another obstacle to becoming a good fighter. I will overcome this and be better for it. I will have to train harder to overcome this weakness. He tried to use these thoughts to ground himself.

"If only we had someone else to work with. We're a three-part-team. We need to work with you too." Nyota pointed out, even though he knew it wasn't possible. Nobody else was supposed to know about their training at all, they certainly weren't going to be able to find another training partner here.

[Narifia]

Mahiri turned and looked at Nyota at his comment. Her expression stayed stone-steady, but the tone of her voice was grave as she replied, "It can't be helped. There is no one in which we can put our trust into who has the skills necessary for being our training partner. However, at this point that fact is irrelevant."

She looked them both in the eyes, and her tone of voice began to carry a more encouraging tone as she continued, "You cannot deny that the biggest problem we have as of right now is the lack of communication and cooperation between the two of you. I don't mean to sound haughty, but I am certain that once we get the two of you synced, it will be an easier matter for the three of us to sync with one another. Once we get to that point, we can always set out and find strong opponents outside of Busare on which to practice. It may not seem ethical, but there are plenty of rouge lions and lionesses out there on which we can test our skills."

[Kai]

Hamali and Nyota knew she was right. Neither of them had a problem working with Mahiri, it was eachother. Even after their revelation following the water trial, they still couldn't seem to totally mesh. It was still going to take some work.

Hama seemed adverse to Mahiri's suggestion. "We're not going to go around attacking random rogues?" He asked, licking a wound from their practice battle.

"It doesn't have to be like that." Nyota suggested, "There's bound to be a few of them out there itching for a fight, right?"

[Narifia]

Mahiri nodded at Nyota's reply. "A rouge's nature is to fight. It's how they survive. We won't be upsetting the balance of nature one bit by provoking a fight with a few of them. All we have to do is look for the ones who are looking for trouble. We must remember never to pick a fight with the weak or helpless, true, however there is nothing wrong with provoking healthy, strong adults into a battle. If it turns out that there is a rouge who isn't interested in battle, then we'll leave well enough alone. However, any indication that a rouge will become aggressive makes them fair game."

She paused for a moment for a bit of reflection on her statement. She then added, "We shouldn't kill anyone if we can help it. Of course there will always be occasions where we might have no other choice, but with the rogues we'll aim to keep things from going too far. Does that make you feel any better, Hamali?"

[Kai]

"That sounds fair." He agreed. "Don't see anything wrong with that." As he cleaned the fresher wounds, he noticed something amiss with an older one. The wound caused by Nyota's teeth as he hauled him out of the churning water had previously seemed to be healing well, but Hamali picked up a barely noticable but still unpleasant smell and looked a little yellowish. This was a little worrisome, but Hamali showed no sign of having discovered it. He decided he would take care of it, and saw no reason to alert his siblings.

"Good, we'll still be able to get some training on the move." said Nyota.

[Narifia]

Pleased with this, Mahiri issued a single nod and replied, "Good then; we're all in agreement as to what our future training plans entail. So remember: from now on, as soon as you both set paw to the sands of this beach, you will automatically be ready for combat. Less talk; more action. Then, once we are ready, we will set out to train against rogues."

It was Mahiri's final word on the matter. With a flick of her tail, she dismissed them; "All right, let's split up as usual and head back home. We're done here tonight; get some decent rest, and reflect on everything that transpired here today."