Well, THAT was an event...

[guenievre]

So, when last we left our heroine, she was pondering the differences between hobbies and mental illnesses. The jury's still out on that one, but we'll assume hobby and go from there... ::looks nervously over shoulder for men bearing white coats::


Friday was the world's longest day at work, as I didn't have a lot to do at work, and I *did* have a lot to do at home. Bad combo. We finally escaped work, and Nick went to get a haircut while I went to get groceries. I never did manage to make a grocery list while at work (yes, I know I had nothing better to do, but anyway) so grocery shopping also involved an emergency call to kfitzwarin to determine the ideal proportions of STC (~1 lb Brie, 2lb cream cheese, .5 lb butter). While we were there, darklordmoeser called and wanted to go to dinner, and his suggestion of City Beverage sounded MUCH more appealing than throwing together hot pastrami sandwiches (which was the previous plan). And, in fact, the food was fabulous - Matt and I both got the "Lambsicles", which is what Chris the chef calls his version of rack of lamb with ginger-mint jelly, and it was DAMN good. Nick got swordfish, which I just wasn't in the mood for so I didn't try, but he was happy, so ::shrug: it's all good.

We then went home, and the guys watched Bourne Identity while Nick worked on a belt and I cooked. I broke out the meat grinder and made a MASSIVE quantity of meatballs (based VERY very loosely on the "spanish pots from Taillevent, some egg/cheese/bacon tarts, and whipped together the softened STC ingredients. (This worked rather well, btw, as when heat was applied everything melted together evenly and showed no signs of wanting to separate. Not sure it's feasible for feast quantities, but...) I also made a big batch of ginger syrup (thanks bunnyjadwiga, I got the idea from one of your handouts though varied the proporprtions/procedure somewhat). The only catch was that due to the lovely dinner, by the time everything was cooked and things were more-or-less ready to pack to go in the truck, we stumbled into bed around 2. Oops!



So Saturday morning rolled around, entirely too soon of course, but we managed to get on the road to Leesburg at something not really resembling the planned-for time, and got to site around 11, which was unfortunate because I did want to help thalionar out with feast more than I did. Not that she needed it by ANY stretch of the imagination - everything was VERY well organized and the food was tasty. Yay!

I am told there was archery and coursing and equestrian at the event too. I know nothing about those, other than I saw one lady with the most GORGEOUS riding dress - particolored red and black and flowing nicely behind her over a pretty grey horse.

Anyway, so after feast, we set up the spread for the apprenticing - between the few things I brought, and the goodies brought by luciab, zihuatanejo, 3_purple_irises, and harleenquinzell, we managed to put out a spread that tempted a fair number of people to eat in spite of being both stuffed and hot! So yay. The apprenticing itself was lovely. And the food got lots of compliments - the only downside was that I wasn't thinking and put pork in both the tarts and the meatballs, so poor nikulai was stuck with just bread and STC on the savories side. I told him he should report me to my Laurel for hospitality failure ::grin:: and he replied, "No, I'll just report you to your grand-Peer, hun_e_b - she'll understand!". So I'm in a bit of trouble, there... ::grin::

Girard convinced me to start getting into armor around 4, which was very early since they didn't start any armored stuff 'til after the rapier combat (at which the male half of zihuatanejo did quite well!). So I ended up wandering around for a bit in gambeson-over-underarmor, which made me dreadfully self-conscious. At least it wasn't JUST underarmor, I haven't turned into that much of a stick-jock.
And he did make me a lovely new belt as a favor - it's blue and black and has fleurs-de-lis.



Eventually the rapier fighters got done, and they started authorizations. I was the only "new" authorization (Helmut auth'd polearm) so I went first - the question part of the exercise was fairly easy, though they asked the questions a bit oddly:
Calli: "When are you allowed to hit him?" (gestures at Sir Axel, who was my usher)
Me: "Um... when the marshal says 'Lay on'?? (wondering where on earth he was going with this)
Calli: "Oh, um, well, in single combat that's true... not what I meant though..."
Me: "Ok, you're looking for some word right now but I have no idea what you're asking..."
The mystery word was, of course, "engagement", which I was expecting to be asked about but not quite like that. ::shrug:: Apparently my answers were close enough, though, as they let me keep going.

First was the round where they test offense by going slow-ish. Offense I've got - I don't necessarily have enough power when i'm actually sparring (I can generate it against the pell, when the pell is not a Sad Broken Heap on my porch, but I haven't internalized the mechanics enough to remember to do it against an Actual Person Who Hits Back). So that went ok, though the part where they walk away and talk about you is a bit nerve wracking. (I really hate knowing people are talking about me when I can't know what they're saying. Personal peeve, though I understand why they do it in this case). The "test your defense" second half was apparently amusing for all watching, though. You see, my shield arm has approximately the endurance of a 16-year-old boy getting laid for the first time. I know the shield corner is going to drop and I'm going to get clocked. So the only choice I've got is to attempt to kill whoever I'm fighting as quickly as possible. Does this work? Not precisely, as the people I'm fighting tend to have more defense than that. But it's what I've got. Then there was more talking, I was told I have a certain tendency to punch-block more aggressively than I should (it's not that I hit people when doing it, but I came a bit close - yay nerves!) and I still need to ramp up on power, but otherwise I'm doing fine.

Next was the "let's go full speed and see if she freaks out! round".  ::grin:: And THIS part I did well on, apparently - Sir Axel charged me practically out of the ring and I mostly held my ground (though apparently with my eyes shut tight!) and came back to try and hit him again. Of course, like all 3rd rounds of authorizations, I died. And then there was more talking...and... ::drumroll please:: I passed! So... I'm now an authorized fighter!! Go me!! I would scan my temp card, but you just don't want to see that - you'd laugh at me because I was filling it out while still on the adrenaline high of passing. Therefore, it looks like a 3-year-old who just ate a whole bag of M&Ms was guiding my hand while I was writing.


So there were 8 total heavy fighters (including me! I'm a real fighter now!) at the event, and it was decided to have a Bedford Points tourney. The first pairing was (theoretically) random, though I'm not entirely sure I believe James on that one (the MoL was another member of Oldcastle, and was VERY amused when he announced the pairings). Guess who I had to fight, in my very first tourney bout ever? Yep, my beloved consort, Girard.

Girard promptly one-shotted me.

Poor man, he got boo'd for that one. Which wasn't really fair, I dropped my shield, and I would have been mad, as his consort, had he not taken the opening. I lasted a bit longer in the second bout, and in the other fights I was in (thanks more to my opponents generosity than my skill, but I'll take what I can get at this point).  One fighter, Duncan, even said that I was one of the most aggressive new/female fighters he's ever fought and that I had potential (yay! he's not someone I know at ALL well, though I know his knight - Sir Gunther - so that made me happy).

Anyway, I dropped out of the tourney after 4 rounds, as I was getting to the point where I couldn't have thrown a good blow if I had wanted to. (Again with the endurance thing).  There were two more rounds, and Afshin ended up being the overall winner. (That man is scary! in a good way, but damn!)

So Her Highness was there, having decided to come to the event at the last minute, and she awarded the prizes for all of the fighting - as I said, Afshin won the heavy prize, and baronalejandro won the rapier tourney. Then she announced there was another prize for "Most Chivalrous" that was to be awarded to the person that impressed her from amongst both the rapier and armored tourneys.  Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather, as the next name called was me! Apparently I am fierce :-) and I have a dagger to prove it. I'm still completely floored by getting this - it seems somewhat unfair, getting any sort of tourney prize on my first event while my husband hasn't gotten one yet.  But... I'm going to hang it on the wall, and look at it whenever I get frustrated with myself for not being very good at this game. It'll come in handy, I think...

'Course, since my goal was "Authorize before Baronial Champions", I don't know what my new goal should be. While I hope to fight a little at Champs, if things are going well in the kitchen, I'm really only doing that so I can enter the Static A&S championship.  I DO plan on fighting a bunch at Pennsic, though, esp. in the KW Novice Tourney and the Iron Rose Novice Tourney. I suppose my goal for that will be "Get one good blow on SOMEBODY, in one of those tourneys".  We'll see...
 

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