Dunno what that's about! Theodora fits in great in Hilltop. She towers over the local women at the bar, she kisses entirely too many of these tiny maidens when their parents aren't near at hand, she leaves the room when any of them talk to each other... Okay, mostly she just does shit for Drog. About once a year some mercenary who thinks they're slick shows up, hired by Dad or someone who wants Dad dead, and they either never see her before they give up, or they're never seen again.

The sword's fine. Four feet of adamantine spike in a black steel hilt, she sleeps with it so what? Do not worry about the sword unless Theodora tells you otherwise or you're fell nightspawn.

On Drog, while we're at it: Theodora's not really here to apprentice. The gods can fuck off and spells are just kinda dull! But Drog's got her around his little finger, somehow, and he's never asked her to do something that didn't sound like a great idea. Possibly those are the same sentiment? He's cool and he lets her live in the shed out back where she can have some privacy.

The elf is fine. So fine that he's been meditating for a day and a night already with no signs of stopping. He sits in the low forest (for the solitude more than the nature) and hums pinkly, intermittently. Theodora and the rest of the town haven't seen him for weeks, since he roams. Is that flightiness? Yes? Well. A songbird sleeps in one of his hands and the other orbits slowly about a floating crystal.

Clifftop Clifftop? Hilltop is not the only strange outpost with the same strange elf. But here they call him Tinwhistle, and fifty years ago they gave him such an instrument. He was secretly touched.

Drogan has occasionally wondered how he became arguably responsible for Theodora, when she so insistently claims to need none of his aid, and so often proves it true. But she needs a place to be, and he remembers her mother with... well, not fondness, but a certain morbid affection. Thenwessalal, he disclaims responsibility for entirely - but he is a good lad, and Drogan lends him aid with whatever he needs, and so they have become broadly associated.

Masha likes Theodora! She doesn't like her like that - but she does like her, quite a lot. An older girl, one who can show her how to fight properly (because it's not that Drogan doesn't know how to fight, but he's getting on in years, and he's never been one for the front lines and the blades and all that, it's best to let him show her how to control her magic and get her sword training from Theodora and anyway it's fun), that's probably what a friend is! It's nice to have a friend. Probably. Not that she'd say so, because wouldn't it be just her luck if she was wrong. Mystra preserve her from social situations.

Shandra, meanwhile, is quite fond of Tinwhistle. She occasionally follows him, when he goes wandering. Sometimes in her own skin, sometimes through the eyes of beasts. He's the only elf she's ever met, and she thinks she would like to be an elf, if she could, but she can't, so she just watches him, in that way children do. It could be considered disconcerting.

Masha and Theodora are likely to be be wrestling at the moment. They've moved it indoors since the town kids interfere (goat and human children both). Also it does look an awful lot like Theodora is beating up a child. A child with spectacles.

Swordplay is useless without the fundamentals. People love fancy disarming maneuvers but they hate close-quarters combat. At some point in this lesson plan she's drafted an actual physical Grappling Chart, on a hairy piece of parchment that no one liked, to help her dear ward understand the finer points. It is... involved. It resembles a flayed, tattooed dog.

Masha likes close-quarters combat! The dragon blood helps - she runs hotter, faster, she's more intense, she never could've done this before it awakened. She just has to wrap up her claws so she doesn't puncture Theodora by accident. That would be bad. Even if Drogan is right there.

"So, you want me to... oh, wouldn't that hurt?"

"Is that not the point?" Shandra asks, perched atop a bookcase like a gargoyle.

Theodora surges and she's suddenly two feet away from Masha. She's still down on her knees but the lizard girl is on her back.

"It depends, Shandra!" Theodora says, chipper, without taking her eyes off of Masha. "It depends on what you're trying to get." She points at the horrid chart without looking at it. "Masha had me. She could bleed me, pin me, break something, dislocate something... But you have to know what you want."

Theodora stands and offers a lift-up to Masha. "As in, some people don't want to hurt the person trying to do the same to them."

"Hm. I've heard that, but I'm not convinced."

"Well, I want to learn how to disable attackers without hurting them too badly. There's lots of reasons someone might be fighting me, and it'd be awful to kill a person I don't absolutely have to. It's not like fighting a zombie, or - or a bear, or something, they matter."

"...it would be pretty awful to hurt a bear. I guess if you think people are like that too."

There are more reasons to 'absolutely have to' kill someone than Masha is likely to ever acknowledge. Here's hoping, at least!

"I would totally hurt a bear. Honey's not cheap, kid."

"If you hurt them I'll make you regret it. I can talk to wasps and spiders too, you know."

"She was joking, Shandra."

"And as long as she doesn't do it, so was I."

"I wasn't joking! Bears should definitely try to fight me. I'm not gonna pick on them but they gotta learn to share the fruits of the forest."

About a mile away, a bear trundles past Tinwhistle. The fawn took off a while ago.

"And I'll swordfight some wasps, name the time and place!" Theodora has picked up her sword from the side table and menaces with it in Shandra's general direction. It doesn't have a sheath, just a cork plunged onto the tip to keep it from ruining furniture. There have been moments where she's dropped it point-down and the sharp adamantine let the weight of the sword carry itself clear through the floorboards.

(Theodora privately notes that this would pin any problem spiders to the ground for later smashing.)

"In your bed, while you're sleeping, after I put slumberberry syrup in your supper."

"...if you want to wrestle a bear, I'll see what I can do. We'd have to wrap their claws like Masha's, but they do like to play, and you're strong."

(Near Tinwhistle, but not so near as the bear, there's a prolonged rustling sound. Many tiny feet, hustling quietly through the underbrush. Occasional soft hissing. They're heading towards the town.)

Above the meditating elf's head, a ghostly pink spear less than three feet long wavers into and out of existence, occasionally interpolated with visions of a cascade of sling bullets or of a flint knife. An elegant eyebrow wrinkles.

Leaving the subject of tranquilizing her before her big bear match to one side, Theodora busies herself with unwrapping Masha. The girl always wants to use her claws to take the cloth wraps off, a plan which has never worked.

It just seems so intuitive!!! But she's actually very good at wrapping her claws, and so they stop functioning as claws, and so she just looks silly trying to use them that way.

"I should really get in some casting practice too, before bed. Master Drogan says I'll never learn if I don't cast anything more than cantrips all day... Theodora, do you want to watch while I aggrieve the scarecrow?"

"Pass."

"Wasn't asking you."

Theodora's clothes are all homemade, and feature pockets in a profusion at which a rogue would blush. The bandages pocket bulges once again!

The scarecrow wears abortive cast-offs, clothing that Theodora made but didn't see fit to give or sell. Goofy-looking, but with a bigger wardrobe than most of the town's citizens. She's always thrilled to see them constructively ruined for Masha's training.

Masha leads the way!

She does still start with cantrips, though the goal is full spells. She channels them through her sword, mostly, but she makes sure to get in some swipes with her claws. It wouldn't do to be disarmed.

Her style isn't fully formed yet, really; she fights better than a peasant conscript, but she's no hero. She tries for speed and overwhelming aggression, and gets some of it. She is fast, and when she hits she hits hard, but her accuracy really could use work. (That's not to say she misses the dummy. But Theodora's dueled her. Her accuracy could use work.)

Casting spells with an attack seems confusing. How does one effectively measure the angle of a stab, or how hard to BONK someone on their head(s), if half or more of the wounding only happens afterwards? Theodora supposes it might be like wielding poisoned blades, where the point is mostly to break the skin. This isn't an association that improves her opinion, really.

But then, accuracy must be the whole ball game under that paradigm. Swinging a miss for every other hit is exhausting even before you add dragon spellcraft to your plate. The answer to this, after about ten minutes of dummying, is obvious; strapping on her studded leather from the shed, she yells at the baby mage:

"Take me down in the next ten seconds or I'll go commit some crimes!"

Her shout conveniently covers the sound of the kobolds' approach, and the snickering from a nearby bush is close enough to rustling that it doesn't register.