"Fuck."
The exalidrake a slowly approaches Samael visibly getting more aggravated by the second. Samael calms himself down a bit.
"It's just a sentient plant, it looks a bit intimidating but in all reality it can't have much force behind it, after all it's just-"
Samael is quickly cut off by a punch to the nose that sends him flying into the ground. Before he could even process what's going on the little bundle of anger spread itself wide and began to spiral towards Samael.
Samael quickly gets up and dogdes the pursuit. The angry death plant rushes towards Samael while throwing a flurry of kicks and punches. Samael is completely overwhelmed by the assault. No one expects a plant to be sentient, and aggressive at that.
The tantrum pineapple prepares another spiral attack, and this time Samael prepared himself. He blocked most of the attack and once the angry toddler plant was open he threw a punch at it with all of his force sending it flying into a tree. Leaving it motionless.
Samael drops to floor exhausted, there's now shallow cuts all over his body from when they thorny bundle of hatred attacked him.
"Nine more *heh* more to go."
Samael prepared himself for the next Exalidrake, this time he has his spear ready to cut it down once it flies out of the ground.
Or so he thought. Once the exalidrake flew from the ground Samael swung his spear at the plant but it didn't connect , the plant dodged it. Samael tried again and again to hit that terrorizing ball of thorns but they didn't connect. With this Samael realized how bad he was with the spear.
Those books he read meant absolutely nothing. He stabbed his spear into the ground and just settled on using his fist instead. He eventually harvested all ten and the day passed. Samael approached the camp for the night with a wheelbarrow containing ten exalidrakes.
As Cain sensed Samael approaching he greeted the wheelbarrow with a wide smile and snatched up all of the exalidrakes. He briefly greeted Samael and scolded him a little for talking so long. Cain threw the plants on a wooden plank over a fire.
Cain enthusiastically watched the water boil while Samael looked at him as if he was annoyed.
"Hey Cain."
"*hmm hmm hmm* Why yes my boy!"
"You failed to mention that the plants fight back! If you had told me that I would have dealt with them first!"
Cain wipes up the built up salvia from his mouth before confusingly responding to Samael.
"Well, I didn't think it would be an issue for you."
Cain looks at Samael with a smirk on his face.
"Unless you struggled against a plant?"
Samael face goes straight and he fixes his poster.
"No it wasn't a problem at all actually. I just felt bad for them."
Samael will never admit to anyone that he struggled against a plant.
The two sit in silence waiting for the exalidrakes to finish boiling. Cain mentioned that they usually take a while because the exterior is so rough, it's best eaten steamed because it softens the shell and really brings out the juices.
The silence is occupied but the sound of flames, popping wood, and Cain's humming. Now that Samael is left alone with his thoughts, all he can think about is how useless he is with his spear. When he battled the envoys he was able to put up a good fight and he even felt like he did pretty good. But after that embarrassing expirence with the plant he has to reevaluate himself and his skills.
He needs a proper teacher, those pictures in the book aren't any help no matter how good he memorizes them. And then he remembers, he's right next to an expirenced spearman.
"Cain, can you teach me how to properly use a spear?"
Cain is taken aback and confused.
"You want spear instruction from a blind man?"
Cain falls onto his back nearly tearing up from laughter. Bellowing and rolling along the floor. Samael sighs embarrassingly.
"Never mind! Forget it."
Cain finishes laughing and stands up while beginning to stretch.
"Yeah that was funny. But I already said I won't be helping you out and teaching you how to use a spear would count as helping. But these old bones do need a stretch, so you're free to watch as you please."
Samael gets up and follows Cain. Samael is also confused on why Cain keeps using terms like "old" or "when I was young" Cain has the appearance of someone in their mid 30's with just a few gray hairs. Cain finds a semi open area near a stream. Cain grabs his spear from his back and the air completely changes.
Cain begins with simple swings. A vertical swing, a horizontal swing and then quickly followed up by a diagonal swing. Just looking at Cain samael is learning, he see's how wrong he was holding his spear. While Samael held his hands more toward the blade of the spear Caine wielded it more towards the end. This not only allowed better control but capitalized on the range of the spear.
Cain's hand placement, his stance, his swings, Samael engraved every minute detail into his memory drawing a perfect portrait into his head. Every second, every frame, engraved and replayed into Samael's head. And then Caine started over, from the first movement.
As Caine started again Samael felt it. In his heart, in his chest, his body yearned to swing the spear with Caine. Initially it wasn't pretty, embarrassing even. The swings were sloppy, slow, and weak. But with every attempt he learned, he fix his posture when it was too high, fixed his footing when it was too wide. With every swing, every step, Samael learned.
He repated these movements for hours with Caine up until the sun rose. The end result wasn't the most graceful or skillful thing in the world, but it was a lot better from where he started.
.
"Alright that's enough, I got a little carried away *phew* that was a nice stretch, almost made me forget about our exalidrakes. Ah and I'm very impressed kid, you were at it for hours and you look like you could keep going."
Caine's demeanor shifts as he gets deep into thought.
"You actually caught pretty quickly, while you're no genius I can confidently say you have a talent for martial arts."
Caine then points right at Samaels chest.
"But your'e missing something crucial. Something that separates my swing from yours, anyone's in fact, and it's not experience. When you swing your aura doesn't change, your heart isn't into it. What you need is a reason, a driving force on why you swing your spear."
Samael looks at Caine confused.
"But I have one, I swing my spear to get stronger and I want to become stronger get because the strong are free, my goal, my path, my motivation, is to be free."
Caine looks at Samael with annoyance.
"That's ridiculous."