The Hobbit Imagines

21~ Dwalin

PROMPT: It's Dwalin's job to train the new female warrior, but not everything kicks off to a smooth start...

The wind picked up your hair and made it smack against your face with an annoying and persistent rhythm. That glaring and blinding light that is the sun refused to duck behind clouds and it glinted off of your sword in a way that might have been beautiful if it wasn't so distracting. And, when you were trying your best to beat one of the best dwarves, every distraction was unnecessary and could lead to even more unneeded injuries. With an ever so critical teacher as Dwalin, you were struggling to keep your mistakes to a minimum.

Dwalin had been over analyzing your every move ever since he had started to teach you how to fight. It was partially due to his resentment for your family and partially due to the fact that Thorin had chosen him out of the whole group to be the one to teach you. Both of the reasons put together were just a recipe for fighting lessons laden with tension and mutual frustration. Nothing had been improved upon really (how could it when he was just constantly belittling your efforts): your stance was still atrocious and your blocking skills were sloppy at best.

You lunged forward with an ill thought out attack and he easy diverted it, metal sliding over metal and filling the air with a sharp ring. His block of the attack made you stumble to the side, and he brought his sword to your back with little effort, taping against your spine lightly to show that you had exposed yourself in combat. If it had been the real thing, you would have been dead. So, you had 'died' twenty times just in that session. Dwalin was losing his patience.

"Fuck," you mumbled under your breath, drawing in some deep breaths to calm your racing heart. The constant lifting of the heavy sword was tiring and downright painful when you had been doing it for an hour or two. Dwalin wouldn't let you stop until you made some fraction of progress, though. He was expecting so much out of you even though he had put in so little. However, you were not going to give up, not even if you collapsed from exhaustion. It drove you absolutely crazy to know that Dwalin thought that you couldn't do it-that you couldn't improve-and you would be damned if he turned out to be right.

Dwalin groaned, leaning on his sword as he waited for you to be ready to fight him yet again, "Just give up so that I can leave; it's been weeks and I'm sure that you're a hopeless cause at this point."

You growled under your breath, a strangled sound seeing as you were close to dropping to the ground from the fatigue in your whole body. "I can do it," you insisted, straightening out your back and bending your knees like you had seen him do when he was actually trying during the lessons. Although he hadn't really taught you anything, you had learned that watching what he did was better than nothing. So, you did your best to hold the heavy sword up and began to step to the side. Dwalin, as bored as ever, simply stepped in time with you without bothering to get into the proper stance.

That time, when you went to strike him you managed to recover from his block without stumbling too much. Hoping that you could make up in speed what you lacked in form, you swung as soon as you could. Of course, he countered the attack with little trouble. It continued like that for what felt like forever; his leisurely way of handling your efforts made your blood boil and the anger only worsened with every metallic pang that rang through the air. Eventually, you hit your tipping point.

A loud cry left your lips, a surprisingly animalistic shriek piercing through the silence between the clanking of metal, and you lunge towards him in a sporadic attack. Unlike the last time that you blindly went at him, he had no time to block, and the dull tip of your sword smacked into his chest. He looked down at where your sword was, his eyes wide with disbelief and wonder. You couldn't even believe that you had actually managed to land a hit on him, and a fatal one at that. So, while he stood there and just stared down at the place that you had hit on his chest, incredulous laughter bubbled from your lips until it filled the air much like the 'battle cry' that you had released before landing the blow.