"Fuck."
The exalidrake 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 to the ground. Before he could even process what was going on, the little bundle of anger spread itself wide and began to spiral towards Samael.
Samael quickly gets up and dodges 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 prepares 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 the floor exhausted. There are now shallow cuts all over his body from when the thorny bundle of hatred attacked him.
"Nine more *heh* to go."
Samael prepares 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 flies from the ground, Samael swings his spear at the plant, but it doesn't connect; the plant dodges it. Samael tries again and again to hit that terrorizing ball of thorns, but they don't connect. With this, Samael realizes how bad he was with the spear.
Those books he read meant absolutely nothing. He stabs his spear into the ground and just settles on using his fist instead. He eventually harvested all ten, and the day passed. Samael approaches 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 watches the water boil while Samael looks at him as if he were 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 saliva 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's face goes straight, and he fixes his posture.
"No, it wasn't a problem at all. 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 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 experience 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 experienced 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 about why Cain keeps using terms like "old" or "when I was young." Cain has the appearance of someone in their mid-30s 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 follows up with a diagonal swing. Just looking at Cain Samael is learning, he sees 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 also 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 Cain started again, Samael felt it. In his heart, in his chest, his body yearned to swing the spear with Cain. Initially, it wasn't pretty, embarrassing even. The swings were sloppy, slow, and weak. But with every attempt he learns, he fixes his posture when it was too high, fixes his footing when it was too wide. With every swing, every step, Samael learned.
He repeated these movements for hours with Caine up until the sun rose. The result wasn't the most graceful or skillful thing in the world, but it was a lot better than 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 caught on pretty quickly, while you're no genius, I can confidently say you have a talent for martial arts."
Caine then points right at Samael's chest.
"But you're 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, and your heart isn't into it. What you need is a reason, a driving force on why you swing your spear."
Samael looks at Cain, 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."
Cain looks at Samael with annoyance.
"That's ridiculous."