♁.•°°•.•⭒•.•°˙°•.✧{18}✧.•°˙°•.•⭒•.•°°•.♁
3rd POV
Scott finished messing with the fire and glanced around him.
He nodded in a decisive manner and walked up and out of the fireplace; leaving the rescues at Ava's mercy.
"So overall knives are a part of life around here, if you can't use one well"
Her sentence trailed off as she made a gesture to her neck and accompanied it with a slicing sound.
The rescues looked like they had been scarred; eyes round with fear.
"But no worries. We survived out here for a long time without anyone to guide us so you guys are at an advantage"
The rescues didn't calm down one bit, Ava was just a bit too aloof when it came to some things. They weren't sure if she just disregarded danger or if all of the crater dwellers were this chill about living in a forest that had the full capability to eat you.
They had made themselves this completely safe little corner of the world; it wouldn't be out of the question.
"Okay so whether you're done eating or not were moving on"
Ava walked straight between the seated rescues, climbed the stairs and marched into the crater. This left the rescues scrambling over each other; plates in hand.
Ava marched across the grass with the rescues scrambling behind her. She made a beeline to a large tree with a mass of gnarled roots. The roots were so crazy there was a gaping hole underneath half of the tree.
Ava spared no time walking straight into the twisting roots, the rescues followed like ducklings still clutching their forks and plates as though it would protect them in some way.
The group emerged in a large hollow under the tree that was about the size of a baseball field. A quaint little house and a small stable sat at the back.
The sun was making it through the gnarled roots in small patches about the size of ones hand. This along with the glowing flora was enough for the entire area to be lit.
Dormant glow flowers were outlined on the ceiling by glowing moss, and a faint glow was coming from the house's windows.
Ava marched up to the doors and spun on her heels to address the rescues.
"Okay wait h- Uh why did you bring your plates and stuff?"
The rescues glanced down looking shocked as though this was the first time they realized they had in fact brought their empty plates and forks with them.
"You know what its fine give them here."
Ava went around collecting the plates in one hand and the forks in the other.
"Alright now you wait here ill be right back, im gonna go borrow chris's targets."
Swiftly she disappeared into the house leaving the rescues stumped as to what to do. They stood awkwardly at the door twiddling their fingers.
"Okay Im back, follow me"
Ava busted out the door, a large bag hung over her shoulder, the clicking of would rang out as she plopped teh bag on the ground about thirty feet away from the house.
Kneeling down Ava shuffled through the bag as the rescues crowded around her.
"Alright, sit down"
Ava announced.
The rescues quickly sat down in the lush grass, it was slightly cold because of the morning dew but nobody seemed to mind.
Ava pulled her hands out of the bag and plopped down a pile of twelve knives.
All had different kinds of hide or pelt wrapped handles. Most were dappled cream ans white in color. The sharp ends of the knives were covered in leather sheaths to protect the metal from becoming dull and the contents of the bag-the bag itself as well-from being damaged.
Their were three types of knives.
Ava reached over and grabbed a knife: removing it from its sheath she explained.
"This is a dagger, the guys tend to use these because they have bigger hands and these fit better"
Ava handed the knife off to Sebastian and watched as the rescues passed the blade around.
The knife had a straight blade about three inches in length, both sides of the blade were sharper than anything the rescues had ever touched and it was shaped like a mini sword.
Once the rescues had all taken a look at the knife it was very carefully handed back to Ava.
You would've assumed it was a live animal with the way the rescues handled the thing.
Ava stuck the knife back into its sheath before reaching forward and grabbing a different kind of knife.
"This is a needle point, it's pretty much the same thing as a dagger, it's just shorter and smaller. It will stick into your target better but these gotta be sharpened constantly"
Once again Ava pulled off the sheath and passed it to the rescues.
Some very careful hemming and hawing happened about the knife before it was passed back and sheathed.
Ava knelt and grabbed another knife as she spoke.
"I'm not quite sure why Chris has two of these in here. I'm not going to teach you to use these because they're for close combat and we are focused on target practice today"
Ava unsheathed the knife to reveal a claw shaped blade before passing it to the rescues.
"As you can probably imagine it's called a talon, it's held in your fist with the blade sticking out the pinky side of your hand"
Ava scooped up the other knife demonstrating how to properly handle the knife, and then handed it off to be examined by everyone.
The rescues treated the knife like it had committed some heinous crime; holding it with as few fingers as possible for as little time as possible before quickly passing it back to Ava.
"So aside from these two"
Ava sheathed the talon knives and threw them back into the bag as she spoke.
"Pick your favorite"
The rescues all blinked at her from their places on the floor. They weren't allowed to take any initiative whatsoever when they lived in the district so even a choice between two things was like telling them to eat an elephant bones and all.
"Come on guys, I promise this isn't an elaborate ruse by the district or something crazy. You'll die out here if you can't use a knife"
Eventually though Sebastian leaned over and carefully grabbed the handle of a dagger.
Pulling it to himself he placed it down on the grass in front of him horizontally.
Eventually the four girls followed, all choosing the needle point as the dagger handle didn't fit in their hands and Ava gently urged them to go with the needle point.
"Okay so now you have your knife. From this moment forward you will have a holster and a knife on you at all times. If you want to learn to use a different kife in the future feel free to ask, we have no problem teaching you.
But the point of this knife is to teach you how to use a knife for defense and specifically long range defense and hunting.
The animals here are often fast and if anything comes after you or runs from you, you'll need to know a long range weapon"
The rescues listened to Ava staring wide eyed as she dumped information on them like this was everyday for them.
Ava continued explaining things starting to sound exasperated with her own long explanations.
"What else do I have, ah yes. These are sharp; currently. They will not always be this sharp.
For now Amelia has agreed to maintain everyone's knives, meaning sharpening and rewrapping the handles when needed.
Trust me when I say you want her maintaining your knives; if I could give you any advice ide tell you to get on her good side. Compliment her cooking or talk about Dominic. She is amazing at sharpening and wrapping knives.
All of us are constantly doing favors so she'll wrap our knives.
I think that's about it so I'll give each of you a target and we'll get throwing"