[center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/cd6fc343-6dbd-4ce9-9493-e893103813a0.png[/img][/center][right][sub][@Scribe of Thoth] [@poohead189][/sub][/right]
Saint’s taint, when did it get so hard to breathe?!

Seriously, the prospect of dodging attacks didn’t seem that daunting when he first heard it. Sure, Jorah wasn’t known for his monastic dedication to combat training or anything, but his number of physically demanding hobbies kept him in more than good enough shape for a few flips and dodges, and maybe even a bit of style along the way. Easy peasy—or so he thought.

But unlike his painfully boring morning of plinking at stationary targets and gossiping like a handmaiden with the lady to his left, Jorah knew something was off after the first few dodges. In what felt like no time at all, he was panting; by the time he’d usually expect to start getting tired of flipping and rolling, he was desperately gasping for air. What was that about? It would have been embarrassing were many of the other students not stuck in the same shitty boat, but it still didn’t make any sense to him. He’d been climbing trees and balconies since he was a kid, jumping piers and dancing with sailors almost as long, and hells, he’d even volunteered the occasional few hours of labour loading ships at the docks—albeit usually having to withdraw before he got the chance to stow away on one of them. Point being, he was a quick, endurant young man—so why did dodging a few hits feel like cartwheeling up a mountain? He heard one student grumble about “mountain air” in passing, but he didn’t know what that had to do with anything; if anything, he would have thought that an escape from the hot, humid air of Derdriu would have made breathing a little easier. But it must have had something to do with it, because there was no way in the seven hells he was [i]that[/i] out of shape after only two weeks. 

And if he was, he blamed that week-long carriage ride getting here. 

Whatever the reason, by the end of the onslaught Jorah was sore, beat, and seriously wondering why on earth an archer needed to know how to avoid a hit from a lance. Seriously, if enemy soldiers ever got close enough to catch him with a jab, didn’t his army have bigger problems? Seemed like it might be a better use of time to rehearse his shameful begging for his life, but apparently there was no helping it. 

Any other grumblings floating around in his head were put to rest as soon as Kaira recommended a visit to the [i]sauna[/i], which Jorah was both thrilled to learn existed and disappointed to find out they weren’t co-ed. He’d have to figure out a way to get around that sometime—a sneaky midnight visit with Kaira, perhaps, if she was feeling particularly rebellious and knew the schedule for the nighttime guards—but at the moment, even a perfectly innocent soak sounded like manna from heaven for his burning lungs and aching bones. 

It wasn’t until he was peeling off his sweat-and-sand covered uniform in the changing room that Jorah realized just how much dust he’d picked up in the arena, and an exploratory finger-comb revealed a fair amount of sand stuck in his hair as well. Sighing, he took a moment to unwind his many braids, and let his long, straw-coloured hair fall down his back as he wiped his face clean of its usual paint, which was already starting to run. 

Wrapping a towel around his waist was almost an afterthought, and it was quickly discarded when Jorah sank gratefully into the bath, dunking under the water to loosen some of the sand in his hair before settling comfortably on the bench. The steaming water was almost too hot for him, burning his face and pricking at his skin, but he savoured the feeling, letting the heat seep into his muscles and cook out the pain and stiffness in his joints. He didn’t bother noticing his company until he was well and truly settled, and only even opened his eyes when he was quite comfortable leaning his neck on the edge of the tub. Looked like he didn’t miss much; it was just Prince Suicide and some other student in the bath house so far. He briefly wondered whether Auberon make an appearance, or if a communal soak was too risqué for a proper young nobleman of Faerghus. Did Faerghus even have bath houses? Hot springs, maybe? Surely they had some way to escape the cold; otherwise they'd probably all just kill themselves. 

In the meantime, Jorah wasn’t [i]super[/i] enthusiastic about striking up a conversation with Kayden—especially since every damn time he looked at the Prince he could only see the moment he put Clarissa’s life in danger just to show off, something so stupid even he himself had never done it—but the other boy didn’t seem too keen on talking (unless his Crest allowed him to breathe underwater) and judging by the vague yet insistent vibe of nagging embarrassment in the room, letting silence hang was probably just going to make everything more awkward for everybody. It actually took a second for Jorah to realize that, unless Kayden was an exceptional actor (which he wasn’t), or the mostly-submerged boy was entirely emotionless (which Jorah doubted), that niggling insecurity was coming from the red-eyed boy himself. He supposed it matched the weird underwater seating, but it still earned the boy a strange look nonetheless; his tension almost felt like it was coming from another room, and it was weirdly difficult to pinpoint, as if he was throwing his voice. 

Jorah would have to get a handle on this vibe weirdness soon enough. Something kind of similar happened with Kaira, too; maybe the whole monastery had some kind of weird emotion obfuscation spell on it or something. 

Anyway, it ended up being Kayden who broke the silence, indirectly reminding Jorah that the nervous kid was the new Eagle student he kept forgetting and also bringing up a subject that was too juicy to ignore, whatever his distaste for the Prince. 

[color=FFAB66]“Oh, yeah, quite a prize you got there,”[/color] Jorah commented tastelessly, unable to resist a jab. [color=FFAB66]“Pretty to look at, for sure, but she’d do a lot better with her mouth shut, don’t you think?”[/color] He chuckled quietly, trying to wind his wet hair into some semblance of a bun. [color=FFAB66]“Are Adrestian women [i]all[/i] that bitchy, or is it just the highborn ones?”[/color] 

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