reaks Over.

Well, its been a while, and although I have been fighting fairly consistantly, I haven't really had a whole lot to write about. I guess thats the way it is with all things, where you enter periods where you simply do. As they so eloquently put it in ElfQuest, "The now of wolf thought". Sometimes we all just get that way, and keep doing things without even really thinking about them. On occassions, this state of mind is refreshing, as there are times when I am simply just thinking too much.

On other occasions, the exit from this state is like waking from a dream, and you look around and wonder, "what on earth have I been doing these last four weeks? How could the time have gone by so fast?".

Well, the wakeup call from this last wolf-thought period was rather strange. At coronation, I went down and fought and had a good time. I was truly not wanting to win the list, for although his Majesty Alaric is a good knight and fine king, I had already been to enough events last fall, and being a member of the King's entourage sounds like a lot of responsibility and work. Also, I am starting back to school this semester to work on my master's degree, so I didn't feel up to the additional resposibility of being King's Champion.

Notwithstanding the reservations I spoke of above, I was willing to do the things required of me should I win, so I felt no problem with entering the list, and I did. My first fight was a fun one, and gave some validation to me that I particularly enjoyed. For the last eight months or so, I have worked fairly hard on learning to fight glaive, and had in truth neglected my work with sword and shield. After a rather embarrasing fight @ the Northern Regional Toy Tourney (Hi Thorgrim!!), I decided to work really hard on getting my S&S back up to snuff. Angus and I had put in quite a few hours on working on technique, and I am happy to report that my S&S fight @ the tournament felt really good. It was a hard tough fight, but I felt in control the entire time, and I won after a much effort (pant pant pant).

The second fight was not as enjoyable, but mainly because I let myself switch mindsets. My second opponent was Sir Alexis, and I let him intimidate me a bit. I hate when it happens, and I work hard to make sure it doesn't happen, but every now and then I go "Wow!!! This guys a knight!!!". At these points, I stop attempting to control the fight and usually allow my opponent to control how the fight happens. The interesting thing is that I notice it tends to happen with knights I really like.

Well, after I lost my second fight to Alexis, I resolved to be more assertive in the next fight. Then I heard the pairings, and it was announce that I had drawn Count Bear (Sir William Miesko). Bear's a pretty darned intimidating type of guy, but even so I still worked hard to control the fight. I didn't control it really well, but in the end, I did get the victory. I thanked Sir William for the good fight, and left the field.

The fourth fight I lost really quickly to Romanus (as a matter of fact so quickly that HE was surprised), and packed it up and showered and changed (no fighter smell for court :-) ). I was fairly pleased, I had enjoyed my fights, felt good about the two that I won, and not felt too bad about the ones I had lost. Well, gentle reader, you may remember at the beginning of this I was talking about wake-up calls. Well, the wake-up call happened during court. Daffyd and Octavia had already stepped down and Alaric and Kayleigh had stepped up when my name was called. I was pretty surprised when His Majesty gave me a Sable Falcon. Well I was properly grateful, and was especially pleased when Sir Alrek (Bunny) gave me his own personal Sable Falcon. But I didn't really know what it meant...

The next day, we were fighting, and Asoph and Bunny and His Majesty were like:

"Where's your Sable Falcon?", they asked.

"I don't want it to get torn or dirty", I replied.

"Its a fighting award, its should be worn when fighting", they chastened me. "I don't think you understand the importance of this award," said Asoph.

He was right, I didn't. When I got home after the event, I went out and did some searching on the web, and looked for information about who had been given the award.

WOW....<stunned disbelief> in some cases the Sable falcon is like reading a who's who of who's cool :-) Makes you wonder.

Hilde got his in 84 (urk)
Asoph got his in 88
Bunny and Daffyd, 89
Cat and Gunhilda 91
Talon and Treshen, 92
Octavia 93

Lots of Knights and other notables. People like Mistress Stella.

The Kingdom of Atlantia and the Mountain Confederation.

I'm very honored to be included in the number.

In service to the Kingdom and Mooneschadowe
the newest Sable Falcon of Ansteorra

Jean Paul de Sens
Seconde, Lion Dragon Guard

Fighting Home