Sjal was lost again, as she often was when she was out travelling on her own. She liked to travel in caravans as they tended to be filled with all sorts of people who could make up for her own shortcomings. She was still a beginner at commanding her horse and the animal had gotten used to travelling in groups over the past few seasons. When she was alone with it, it walked more slowly and she didn't know how to properly care for it. Give it food at water – that was about all she knew.
She'd no clue where she was going but she was confident that she would make sense of everything once she got to the next town or happened upon a caravan. What she hadn't expected, was to see a man lying down outside his tent, looking like he'd just been attacked.
Sjal looked around, trying to figure out if someone had robbed the man but didn't see any attackers. She hesitated as she dismounted, always somewhat worried that her horse would bolt off, but it thankfully didn't give her much hassle as she tied it to the trunk of a nearby tree.
"What seems to be the problem here," she asked as she walked over to him. She hoped he wouldn't be surprised by her presence – she was hardly a sneaky one and even dismounting was a loud affair. She was dressed in a simple black shirt and pants with a katana at her waist. Her armor and most weaponry was too heavy to be carrying around everywhere – another con of travelling outside of a caravan.
Sjal was somewhat relieved to find that this man was merely practicing and not some victim of an attack. Now that she thought about it, she wasn't sure what she would have done if he had been attacked. She had no authority in this land or any other, really.
"Really I'm that far from town?" she asked confusedly. She'd travelled damn near across the whole world recently and all the places and names got jumbled up in her head. "I'm a little lost," she admitted, "I should be heading towards town but I don't do so well when I'm not travelling with others. I'm terrible with directions and I can barely get my horse to do what I want."
She sighed, shaking her head and wondering, not for the first time, whether or not she would be better off without the damned mount. She took another step forward and drew her katana, flourishing it once before holding it with two hands in a neutral stance.
"I think I might stick around a while until some other travelers pass by," she explained, "plus if you want to learn how to use a blade then you ought to get some practical experience." She stepped forward yet again, slashing at one of the tree branches, cleaving it neatly in two such that it fell to the side.
"Care to spar? Or if you'd rather not then perhaps I could give you some pointers." It was always dangerous to spar with sharpened weapons, but she knew enough about a sword to attack without seriously harming someone. She wasn't too worried about a dagger either, if this man was truly unskilled with it.
He declined and asked, "no, but I wouldn't mind a lesson while you're here."
Sjal slid her weapon back into its sheath and inclined her head, "that's fair. It sounds like you're a complete beginner which might explain why you were on the ground."
She walked over to the tree, finally noticing that he had been cutting at it. There was nothing wrong with practicing against trees – one of the main measures of how well one could cut with a katana was to be able to cleanly cut through things such as thick branches. However the man was using a dagger.
"You really ought to pick up a practice weapon. A cheap kitchen knife would do just fine and you wouldn't have to worry about dulling your dagger." She kind of regretted cutting through the branch for that very reason.
"You could alternatively carry around a whetstone and make repairs to your dagger yourself. It's a quick process, though I admittedly never bother with it for fear of messing up my sword. I'd rather trust a smith, personally."
"But to answer your request, yes I can teach you a thing or two," she said, finally turning to face him again. She had little experience with daggers themselves, but some things were universal among blades.
"A dagger is meant for stabbing so… your goal should be to get in close and stab before your target can react. A general rule of thumb is that whoever has the greatest reach has the advantage. You will need to think of ways to overcome the disadvantage of using one of the shortest reach weapons there are."
She dug into a pouch at her side and pulled out a kunai – similar to a dagger but meant for throwing and stabbing, specifically. It had no bladed edge so slashing was out of the question. She spun quickly at the makeshift dummy and mimed how to stab a few times. Her teaching method was going to be to demonstrate and let the student figure out the rest. She was not exactly a good teacher.
"Now you try."
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