Her foot steps had carried her near the barracks in recent days, a curiosity that bit at the interior of her cheeks. She had more than an inclination that if she was caught here, she would be under strict scrutiny at all hours of the day and night once again. However, in the same breath, she held less and less cares about those consequences. The more she remembered, the more she felt the disparity between she and the visage they sought for her to portray. Hardly any knew of the Beleveron daughter, why should she carefully craft this dainty painting when a very rare number of people knew what the artist's signature truly looked like?
With each passing day, she wore shoes left, her skirts were more often tucked or tied in the fashion of trousers that she was scolded for asking to wear. Her stammer was growing less prominent, but her accent was thickening, finding it far easier to pronounce these foreign words the way she would have back at the city by the pier. No, they were not scalded by her heathen language, but they were cradled in it none the less. Even she and her band of savages were forced to treaty with the non native speakers to make their ends meet.
Her lessons with Babbington, however, had not become easier. She wondered just how frantically the woman was currently combing the corridors of the family home? 'Mother and Father' were currently away on a business excursion of some sort, so she feared little the backlash of her soft leather boots finding the sloping roof of the second story before she would slide down the face of its eaves and and lunge to the height of the garden wall. Foot falls had then carried her closer to the place where those so called warriors were currently gathered. Her hands had worked quickly, gathering the long strands of her pale golden hair and tying them tautly upon one another so that they did not get in her way.
Aethelos's clothes were, in all actuality, a gracious fit for her bodice. The legs of his pants were a bit long on her, but it was nothing that a roll and pin could not solve. Otherwise, they were not overly baggy nor too constrictive to hamper her movements. Not what she had once been accustomed to in skirmishes, but she was not one to be overly complaining either given her more than limited options. Those around her cast her the oddity of prolonged looks, brows furrowed in unvoiced confusion as her fingertips traced over the ragged edges of the blades present upon the training yard.
Finding one agreeable, she would draw it from its resting place upon the armory rack. The cool steel was heavy in her grasp, smooth against the palm that weighed it. There was a shred of frustration in the realization that while muscle memory persisted, the swing she tested was lacking most of the power that it once housed. Sinew having grown soft and weaker with the lack of use in the recent months. Hopefully, with practice, she would not remain so. A slight smile gripped her countenance at the irony. When she had first met that boy in the desert, she had taunted him for having soft hand, unburdened by the callouses that difficult work and blades left possession of. Now, it was she that had tender palms.
"Who will spar with me?" she inquired, her eyes grazing over those present. Most seemed complacent to ignore her, others offering a crude laugh before dismissing her request.