Eirawen

Meet Eirawen. (Eye-rah-when) She is a 5'6" Cougar (aka mountain lion or puma) who enjoys many things Japanese, including food, dress, traditions, and weaponry. She is our town's Warrior; kind and gentle with those she considers friends, but fierce and unyielding against those who wish to do harm. A talented artist, she designed and made her own tiara, then commissioned Ëaren to make her Naginata (her favored weapon, an iron core encased in Teak wood. The blade is japanese folded steel.), but is well versed in wielding a Tessen or Katana.
She is quiet and unassuming at first glance. Once you get to know her, she reveals a sharp intellect and a dry sense of humor honed through a rough childhood. She can be twitchy and suspicious because of this, but once you have her trust, you have a friend and defender for life.
She believes that each of us has a royal hidden within somewhere. Her manner and dress is her way of reminding herself and others of this. She treats strangers with dignity and respect until they exhibit behavior requiring a change in bearing.
Morning is used for meditation and teaching Naoki how to use a Tessen. Meals are taken with the rest of the Town, while Tea is held in her Serenity Garden. All are welcome.

“It’s all a dance. There is still rhythm, purpose to your movements-“

“A dance of death, Eirawen. And I’ll have no part in it.”

Eirawen pauses in her display, expertly balancing on one paw with the naginata raised as she slid her gaze over to Naoki. The horse was standing off to one side, attitude seeping out from not only her voice, but from her stance. With a hip out to one side and hooves crossed, she looked stiff and a bit off-put. But then she relaxed with a sigh, and at once seemed to melt effortlessly into another position as she leaned forward with her hooves crossed behind her back. “But it is still lovely. Please, go on.”

Eirawen flicked an ear, then whirled into the next position, her eyes half-closed in concentration as she remarks drily, “My, and with how you drag men into your whirlpool, I’m surprised that I’m the violent one here.”

“I don’t do any dragging! They come to me!”

“Just as my opponents are the ones to challenge me. I do not go about flaunting my skill with a blade, or warmups mind you, to just anyone.”

“Uh huh.” Noaki rolls her eyes, a smirk settling on her face. “And don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered that you finally let me into your little morning session, but you had to expect that I’m gonna talk!”

“Yes, but you interrupted me. There is a difference.”

“If I didn’t interrupt you would’ve just gone on and on! And besides, dance is my thing.”

“A ‘dance of death’ is still a dance. And I’m sure there’s much we could learn from each other, if only you would listen.”

“Mmm,” Naoki brushes aside a lock of hair that was dislodged and was flouncing about her face, straightening up. “It still seems a little too rigid for my liking.”

“It’s because I am warming up. Even you do not start out fluid in your movements until you have loosened and worked your muscles.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s-“

“For safety reasons.”

Naoki’s smirk drops to a tight little pout, and she sniffs, “Well, yeah.”

“Now, calm yourself for a bit longer, and try to enjoy my performance.”

“Hm? I can’t hear you over the whistling sound of someone’s impending demise. Geez, mind you don’t lose your grip on that thing and send it flying!”

“I am in control, don’t worry. If I intend to cause anyone’s demise, it will be entirely willful and no accident.”

Naoki narrows her eyes, replying playfully, “I don’t know if that makes me feel any safer…”

“I have no reason to hurt my friends.” For a fleeting moment, Eirawen flashes a toothy, daring smile at Naoki, “But to protect them, I hope you will find me more than capable.”

---

It’s true—it’s not often Eirawen would have anyone watch her practice her skill with the naginata, but Naoki has been pestering her for a while about it. And she would be lying if she said that she wasn’t flattered at the thought of Naoki’s dance performances and her own trials of the blade may have something in common. It one of the many things she would ponder, but was too shy to bring it up in conversation.

While these sessions serve to keep Eirawen’s weapon skills fresh and up to par, through the years she’s found ways to not only engage her body while doing this, but to keep her mind open. It wasn’t easy—the numerous bumps and nicks she gave herself whenever her mind wandered off her task served to keep her on track, but as muscle memory grew stronger, as well as her confidence and comfort with the weapon, she found that her mind could wander more safely. And so, during the quiet early mornings, before the sun was properly up and birdsong was just beginning, she began to meditate.

Sometimes, it would be over the past day’s events. To bring hurt or anger that she was struggling with, and to confront it in a way that was not destructive; to bring her own misunderstanding and frustration to the practice grounds, and spar with it until she found the answer. She was never one to handle confrontation well, but through this, she grew to be more steadfast and contemplative. It wasn’t enough to simply be angry; to hate, or fear, or settle disputes with who is right and who is wrong, but to come to why each party felt as they did. To look at the problem from all angles, to ask herself questions she never would bother with before, in the heat of the moment. It always felt so good, so freeing, to be something with reasons embedded in blind emotion. But it was dangerous. Emotions were important—they shouldn’t be hidden or ignored, but if handled poorly, can cause more harm than good—something she had learned through experience.

But for this session, as she eased into the flow of the exercise, she found it a bit harder for her mind to roam over the musings she normally held, and it only took her a moment to attribute this to Naoki’s presence. She had mentioned a dance, after all; that perhaps they weren’t so different, if only the intentions behind each didn’t align exactly. To know this for sure, there only seemed to be two options; either she allows herself to be taught by Naoki, or she tries to teach Naoki a thing or two about her performance.

Given the circumstances, she’s sure to impress upon the latter, and she decides this with a final twirl and powerful halt, pausing, then relaxing. Her gaze slides over to Naoki as the horse hums her approval.

“Well, that was nice! Maybe you should try it to music sometime though. It felt a little hollow,” Naoki purses her lips as she searches for the right word, “Mesmerizing, sure, but… there was a lack of, oh… appeal. You know,” Naoki begins to weave around, finding a rhythm, “Even if you just, like—gave a little smirk, a flicker of emotion, something that’s not so serious, have some fun!” And she turns about, her hooves now clacking a tune as she claps.

Eirawen watches her, and when the moment is right, slips into place beside Naoki, matching her poise—Naoki lets out a short laugh, then begins to play off of Eirawen. “Yes, a bit more like this! Oh, but look at you, so stiff here! And I bet… there, mhm!” Naoki raps Eirawen sharply whenever the cat begins to stiffen, trying to make a statement out of a pose that doesn’t need it.

Eirawen follows for a few moments, then hums, “I do not think that a naginata would be appropriate for that style.”

Naoki freezes, thinks on this briefly, then drops her pose, rolling her shoulders, “Oh, yeah, well I guess that’s… mhm.”

Eirawen tilts her head as she observes Naoki, even as she walks over to rest her naginata against a nearby tree. Her ears flick, then she turns to the horse as she begins to move to join her again. “Couldn’t I try to introduce you to some of my practices? Not with this, obviously,” Her tail curls around to lightly flick the naginata, “Maybe just in something—a performance.”

“Maaaybe,” Naoki drawls, slitting her eyes as she smirks, “What do you have in mind?”

In a twirl of her sleeves, Eirawen slips out a tessen—a fan, to Naoki’s eyes—and presents it before her, closed. “You can follow along. You have your own fan, if I recall correctly.”

“Hm, you use a fan too? Guess you’ll have to show me what for.” Naoki plucks her own fan out with a flourish, presenting it with a whir to display its vibrant turquoise hues, standing strikingly against its black lace.

Eirawen’s lip twitches in a slight smile, and then she steps around Naoki to give them both room, standing still and tall, with her fan closed at her side. Naoki watches her closely, and matches her position after some deliberation.

She instinctively begins to enter a waltzing groove, but at every turn Eirawen is there, forcing her dancing to slow. “There’s no one to impress here, so take your time! Work with the Tessen; you direct it. You must take charge!”

Naoki grumbles, repeating, “Take my time? There’s not time to think in a battle with one of these, is there?”

A chuckle from the cougar. “Mirror me for now,” Eirawen instructs, and brings her arms up, still holding the fan closed, to hold it out in front of her, taking a step to the side to more evenly distribute her weight. Naoki has no difficulty in mimicking her, though once Eirawen begins to weave, shifting her weight from side to side and presenting the fan out to a position of purpose, she begins to speak.

“Breathe through this. Take pride in each stroke. There is no part of your body that is neglected; no movement that is not important. Exercise restraint! And do not let yourself get caught up in yourself; feel for the world around you, and feel for your fan. It is an extension of yourself; not an accessory.”

“It’s stiffish” Naoki grumbles, poking her tongue out at Eirawen as she awkwardly moves along to her. Eirawen can see that she’s hard-pressed to keep her movements in line with her own, as her sharp gaze has, more than once, raked the horse for her trying to add in an extra hip sway, another flick of the wrist.

Eirawen leads Naoki into a lunge, then winds her out of it, flitting about as she helps Naoki know where to guide the Tessen and to work with it. “There’s plenty of time, if you know how to think for it. You’d say there’s plenty of time to figure out how to work with your dance partner, even only if you’d just met them, hmm?”

Naoki resists the urge to roll her eyes as Eirawen again forces her to halt her movement and hold a position. “Your counts are so weird.”

“I thought you were supposed to be good at picking up on any rhythm. You watched me; think back to that. You have time.”

She knows she struck a nerve there, as Naoki carelessly tosses back her mane, and her ears stand upright. She’s silent though, as Eirawen encourages her, sometimes with her paws on Naoki’s hooves along the ribs, Eirawen’s breath puffing next to Naoki’s; other times, she’s out in the front, pinpointing moments to throw weight into the movement, and stand firm.

Naoki did begin to settle into the flow, and when Eirawen returned to the starting position to finish, her eyes were warm. Naoki finished a few heartbeats later, then slipped her fan back into her sleeve, a puzzled look on her face.

“Now, I’m not sure how I felt about that, but I did it well, right?”

“You were getting there.” Eirawen purrs, placing her tessen back in its knot. “It was a pleasure to watch you learn.”

“It was something alright. I think I liked it...” Naoki hums, stretching her hooves over her head, “Wasn’t as deadly as what you were doing earlier. More like sleet than hail.”

“Hm. Thank you for trying it, in any case,” Eirawen inclined her head to Naoki, “I’ll consider us even now.”

“Ooh, so all I gotta do is dance with you a bit to be able to witness your secret training sessions? Interesting,” Naoki laughs, then puffs a sigh into the brisk morning air and rolls her shoulders, “That’s a rare old workout. Oooh, I’m going to feel this in my shoulders tomorrow.”

“Then we’ll do it again and work up those muscles.” Eirawen blinks at her with a slight nod, spinning around to return to her home and start with the rest of her day, grinning as she hears Naoki’s call hailing after her.

“Oh, man, you’re just twisting my arm today huh? Tsk, well as I can’t decline, I guess I’ll have to accept!" she laughs. "See you at breakfast?"

“Of course! I’ll go to check in on Asami, then meet you in the Community Café.” Eirawen raises a paw are farewell, and the two part ways.