The Park, Friday Afternoon

[uncertain_dume]

The weather was nice enough, and honestly, Kanan probably would have showed up here for his weekly swordwork even if it wasn't. He'd brought a bit of an assortment of swords with him today, including a couple of bamboo training swords and the leaf blade that Amaya had let him borrow, but those were all sitting off to the side waiting for their respective sparring partners while Kanan had his lightsaber out and was going through his usual forms with it, eyes closed, attuned to the world around him through the Force.

It was like training and meditation all wrapped into one, and incredibly calming. He was actually sorry he couldn't do more things like this back home.

Maybe that was part of the reason he'd stuck around Fandom even after it had let him go. It had been entirely too long since Kanan had been able to even safely acknowledge Caleb, never mind run through his forms, wielding his lightsaber, out in the open where nobody cared beyond the novelty of a sword that hummed and glowed when ignited.

Or maybe he just had to come back for Stance, who had tuckered himself out chasing a squirrel around and was now napping in the shade under a nearby tree. Yeah. That was it. This was all the dog's fault.

[OOC: Open park!]

Comments

[1000yearstoolate]

Issa had desperately wanted to go out. Seivarden doubted that the cat new what day it was, but since she insisted, the two of them arrived at the park in the afternoon. As usual, Seivarden kept as far away as possible from Kanan, ignoring him while still being able to keep an eye on Issa.

And she had brought tea, of course, snorting as she poured herself a cup. Should she ever get back to the Radch, she 'hot leaf water' people would make a such a good story. She'd leave out the hot leather jacket part.

[uncertain_dume]

And hey, Kanan knew Seivarden and Issa had arrived without so much as opening his eyes. Which meant that she was part of his range of awareness now, which he could have lived without.

He did an excellent job of ignoring her. Stance, on the other hand, was yawning, and stretching, and trotting gamely over to greet both the cat and her person. Because Stance had terrible taste in people, apparently.

[thatwaslucky]

It was one of those days when Rey felt bad for interrupting, because he looked like he just had this. So she went to sit next to Stance for a bit until Kanan felt done.

[uncertain_dume]

And step, swing, breathe... Kanan wasn't much longer before he straightened up and shut off his lightsaber, no. After all, it was difficult to miss that Rey had arrived, even with his eyes shut. He smiled faintly, turning and opening his eyes to find that Stance had wiggled in close so that he could try to rest his head in Rey's nap.

"Hey," he said, giving her a little nod. "Thanks for being patient with me, there. I was almost finished anyway."

[thatwaslucky]

"Not a problem," she said, scratching Stance behind the ears. "You seemed pretty into it."

[uncertain_dume]

"It's easy to get lost in when you let yourself fall into feeling it out," Kanan admitted, maybe a little sheepishly. "Probably something I should let myself do more often."

[thatwaslucky]

"Probably," she said, and paused. "You've seemed like you've been doing better the last couple weeks."

Or it was a big contrast from the other week, anyway.

[uncertain_dume]

"It's amazing how much actually putting some effort in can help," Kanan admitted. "It's one thing to not stress about something. It's a completely different matter to take steps to move forward, too."

[thatwaslucky]

"What kinds of steps?" she asked, interested.

Meanwhile here was Rey, the reigning queen of not moving forward.

[uncertain_dume]

"Trying to put negative influences out of my mind," Kanan offered, as an example. "Bad habits, hostile people who aren't worth my energy. Opening myself up to the more positive ones. Making new friends. Helping people. I'd blocked myself off from all of that, once. Not long ago, in fact." He smiled wryly. "Hell, even just admitting that much is a big step forward."

[intotheout]

"I have working arms today!" Tip announced as she came trotting up. "Let's spar!"

She wanted to hear the clang-clang of metal swords. It was going to be awesome.

[uncertain_dume]

Hey, Kanan had been looking forward to this one since he'd gotten the sword, himself.

"We can do that," he laughed, putting his lightsaber on his belt almost immediately. "Amaya finally decided to take it easy on you guys this week, did she?"

[intotheout]

"We laid rebar and concrete," Tip said. "Soooo, less 'easy' and more 'didn't have to do as much lifting and swinging this time'. Leaving me plenty left for lifting and swinging here."

[uncertain_dume]

"Well, good. You must've been looking forward to giving your sword a workout for a while," Kanan noted, teasing maybe a little. "I think that's the first time I've ever heard the words, 'Let's spar' come out of your mouth."

[intotheout]

Tip laughed. "Yeah, just a little. I've totally been excited to spar before, though."

Not very often. But it had happened.

[uncertain_dume]

"Excited, sure, but never so forward about it," Kanan noted. He was still grinning as he walked over to pick up the leaf blade he was borrowing. "But it's good to see. I'm glad you've found a blade you're passionate about using."

[intotheout]

"Well, bamboo swords are useful, but they're not really all that exciting. And I'm not likely to get my own lightsaber."

[uncertain_dume]

Yeah, Kanan was just flat-out grinning now.

"You've come a long way from back when we started," he noted. "Remember when you were being protective of that bamboo sword of yours?"

They were worth, like, twenty bucks. But it had been priceless.

[special_rabbit]

Rather unaware that it was none other than her own class that had caused such a delay in the sword training sessions in the park, Amaya moseyed on over to the park at some point, curious how the leaf blade was working out for Kanan.

And maybe to get a look at how he was in action with it, to get some ideas for when she finally got to forge him his own.

Aaaand maybe to see if she could get a look at that fancy-sounding blade he'd said Gratuity had.

So she had a couple of reasons for showing up, hoping to observe, but also figuring it never hurt for her to be more sociable while she was at it, too.

[uncertain_dume]

After a few spars today, he'd kept the blade in hand, running through a few of his forms with it instead of his lightsaber, getting used to how he'd have to angle the blade to account for the fact that it was only sharp on two sides. It was a change of pace, but something interesting to throw his focus into, and he seemed to be enjoying it. He had his eyes open at this point, though, and saw Amaya coming pretty much right away.

He gave her a polite nod and a grin before lowering the weapon and heading over to say hello properly.

"Hey, Amaya. I have to thank you again for letting me borrow this, I think."

He liked it.

[special_rabbit]

Amaya nodded back, folding her arms in front of her as she gave Kanan another inspection and tried to hide a smirk. "Well," she said, "seems you still have all your original limbs in tact, so at least I don't have to regret the decision. Looks like you're handling it pretty well. How's it feel in action?"

[uncertain_dume]

"It's growing on me," Kanan replied. "I've sparred a few people with it now, starting to get the hang of it. It's still balanced a little differently from my usual, but I don't think you'd be able to duplicate the balance of that one if you tried."

[special_rabbit]

Come on, now, you couldn't say something like that and not expect it to be heard as a challenge.

"Two questions, then," she said. "First, have you got your usual weapon with you? And second, are ya weird about people touchin' it?"

She'd had her fair share of patrons who were, though, to be fair, a lot of that had to do with curses and whatnot.

[uncertain_dume]

"I do, and... I am, to a degree. But that's as much because of the personal significance of the weapon as it is about how it can burn limbs off without much effort at all." He put one sword away in order to reach for his lightsaber, holding up the hilt for her to look at. "This little thing, here."

[special_rabbit]

And it was all too clear to Amaya that she wouldn't be able to meet that challenge just by looking at the thing, not in a million years.

"May I still...?" she asked, holding out a hand. "Purely professional, just to get a feel for what you've been working with. Won't take more than a few seconds."