30th of Frost, Year 4622
So many things had happened just since the beginning of Frost. Too many things to even list in numerical order. One thing that remained a constant in Ford’s life, though, had been Taelian. Taelian was perfection in his own right. The strength he showed when he handled matters of the Covenant and the Kyngdom when it intervened in his life had been something short of miraculous to watch. Ford had to respect Taelian’s time, especially as his duties pertained to a much larger picture than what could include Ford. Perhaps he should have been angry or even jealous, but Ford knew when he had chosen to get ingrained in Taelian’s life that there would be times he had Covenant things to bring in. Which was a case and point both Miranda and Eloise had reminded Ford of, especially after his dictation of when Taelian stopped working on a couple of occasions for neglectful fun.
Today happened to be one of those days. Taelian had been busy, the report to Miranda had been short, and Ford was working towards a goal. It was not exactly a goal he was open about, but the effects could not be denied. The Mutagen serums had changed his body. Ford had been no slouch before, and perhaps he did not have magic or weapon skills that rivaled anyone of worth. What he did have, though, was muscle memory. Before the injection, he had been fit and had decent muscle mass, which he had exercised and worked to keep in shape, but the mutagen had increased his height, size, and overall strength. With his muscle density growing and his bones growing thicker and harder, he was beginning to look at the part. He was beginning to look like he belonged at Taelian’s side. Ford had never questioned where his place was, but he knew, regardless of how they felt, image and power meant something in the world, and that was something he was looking to remedy.
Since the others were busy with their work and handling their businesses, Ford had stripped down from his slacks and collared top and had instead swapped to a pair of simple brown linen trousers, black leathered boots, and a black V-necked tunic that tipped down to show his collar bone as well as the midline halfway down his pecs. The tunic fit snugly around his biceps and barreled chest, and in the right sunlight, the material was sheer enough to show the thickly muscled definition of his abdomen beneath. Slung over his shoulder was a leather satchel with some items and a skein of water. Swiftly, his feet carried him from the Covenant’s headquarters and brought him with what seemed nearly half of an hour’s worth of time away from the building and to a small clearing of Chestnut Oak trees.
The blonde hesitated for a moment as his steps slowed and glanced around, blue-eyed gaze taking in the trees one by one. He was looking for something specific, and it would take the Griscian a few ticks before he had finally settled on one. One tree, a few trees in, had grown to have a wide birth around it. Providing enough shade to have a small celebration under, the tree had been chosen because it looked sturdy enough for what he had wanted to do. The satchel was slid open, and the man dug around for the linen he had brought. Pulling the simple, off-white linen and unfolding it would not be enough to wrap around, but it would be enough to hand from a lower hanging branch and rest it against the tree. Slinging the material up and over the branch, he pulled it until it was snug against the branch's base and the material clung to the bark of the Chestnut Oak.
With another dig of his hand into the satchel, he pulled out two leather gloves, simple in design with a pulled latch at the wrist. Slipping one on, then the other, his larger, thickly fingered fists clenched a couple of times, the leather creaking under the flexing of the flesh beneath to fill the gloves more as his hands balled into fists. With the strap of the satchel in one fist, it was tossed to rest at the grass line around the tree trunk, and Ford took a moment to himself. Azure gaze scanned over the tree, looking from the exposed bark to the linen and, finally, a glance around. Taking in a few deeper breaths, expanding his lungs, Ford’s hands clasped behind his lower back and his fingers interlaced. Slowly, he pulled the clasped hands to the side, moving around to rest just beyond the hip, his right elbow sticking outward, stretching his back and his arm, but also, his head slowly began to tilt at the neck, stretching out his neck muscles as well, allowing gravity to do its work. Repeating the process, his clasped hands moved behind him to the opposite hip, and the head leaned, feeling the stretching along his neck, up into his ear, down his back, and through his shoulder. Repeating this process twice, his hands unclasped, and he began the next set of stretches.
Lifting one gloved hand, he rested it open against the tree's bark and placed his arm against the tree, his forearm running parallel against the tree with his elbow pressed at the lowest point. Applying pressure, keeping a ninety-degree angle, he began to lean out; the shoulder and pectoral began to stretch, pulling at the elasticity of the muscle for a few moments before he took a few steps outward, leaving only his hand against the tree, straight out to his side and turned out again. This time, the stretch pulled at his forearm, biceps, and pecs, and he felt it down in his abdomen. Lastly, he took a half a step back, keeping his fingers only against the tree, and turned outwards, feeling the pull in his fingers, through his forearm, up his bicep, into his shoulder, down through his pec, and into his abdomen. Repeating this with the other arm in each increment would end with his arms waving and crossing across his chest and backward, repeating this a few times to relieve any tension and stretching out the muscles one last time.
Shaking out any remnants of stiffness through his arms and hands, he paused in front of the tree before squaring his stance up where the linen had rested against the bark-covered tree. Sliding his left foot slightly forward, his left arm partially extended, and his right arm was held close to his body as the tighter, gripped, gloved hands sounded off with creaking leather before his left fist jabbed at the covered portion of the tree. A couple of quick, successive strikes with his left were followed up with a fight hook, colliding with the stubborn trunk of the tree.
The training began relatively lightly, just jabs and hooks, with a couple of crosses tossed in. Nothing too major or too excessive. However, as the moderately light training and exercise continued, his blood began to pump, and his thoughts moved from focusing on his breathing to feeling the testosterone filling his blood and turning his thoughts towards focusing on things that brought out some of Ford’s more negative thoughts. The first image that flashed across his mind was Kyng Uldred’s daughter, which had ended with his right fist landing with a resounding thwunk against the tree’s surface. Remembering her words and the emotions he had felt towards that woman that day, his fist pressed harder, digging the leather in against the bark as his eyes narrowed at the tree.
With a grunt, his fist disengaged from the tree, and he pulled away. The strap to his gloves was pulled free, and the gloves practically ripped off his hands and tossed to the grass. Just as quickly, his fingers slid up to the v-lined neck of the black tunic he had been wearing and pulled it up and over his muscular frame, tossing it to match the gloves. His body had filled out considerably, even since the mutagen had taken hold on his body and morphed it into the semblance of what it was in those moments. Each muscle had steeled over and added strength to his frame. Having spent more time outdoors, his skin had taken on a softer tan rather than the paler hue Grisic had afforded him.
Sweat had begun to accumulate on his brow and along his pecs as he squared up once more with the tree. The image of that annoying royal’s face turned up at him, saying her words about his husband. It was… Infuriating. Once more, he led to jabs, but this time it ended in an uppercut, the skin of his knuckles and fingers scraping along the bark, sending pieces of the bark flying this way and that. The image of her bled into Kyng Uldred and how he had tried to manipulate the situation at the Hippodrome. The sheer gall of the man to assume that Ford had not anticipated his position nor what he had truly been intending from the beginning of their interactions was beyond irritating. There were few things Ford would strut about, and social interactions and studying people were part of those few.
As his anger grew, his sweat and perspiration rate increased. Rivulets of sweat had run down the ridgelines of his back as his muscled contorted and the dull thunking sounds against the tree had become harsher and more aggressive. As the skin scraped from his knuckles as the intensity grew, his anger settled on one final face.
Eloise
Ford would respect her position and knew she had impossible decisions to make. He understood that she had to safeguard her people and her power base. But what she did not have to do, was try to debase his relationship with Taelian and attempt to undermine it. The mere remembrance of it caused fury within the Griscian man that his fists began to blur with the ferocity he was having at the defenseless tree. Bark chips flew this way as his fists collided with the tree. Grunts came with each collision, blinded by the emotions he had pent up, that he could not feel the cool trickle running between his flinched fore and middle fingers on his right hand that slid between the crease between fingers and into the closed palm.
Reliving that single sentence that irritated him the most, that Ford was a weakness and that he would be the reason Taelian died, was the final straw. Clenching the crimson-stained fist tighter, his body dodged to the side, and his right arm came up and inward for an uppercut that collided with the tree with a sickening crack. The sheer sound of the crack snapped Ford from his thoughts, and it was only then that he looked at his hand. His fist hurt; he had thought he had broken it with the crack. Drips of blood stained the remaining bark as his punches had long since left the spot where the linen was against the tree.
Looking over his first, he pulled his hand away, flexed, and tightened his fist. It was not a bone that had snapped. So as the man fought to gain his breath, the veins along his neck and along his arms had become raised as his skin reddened from his heightened blood circulation. Studying where his fist had hit the tree, he saw the smallest crack in the tree. Surely that sound had not come from such a small crack in the tree’s solid wood. It was the sound of the tree groaning and softer, superficial cracking that he took steps around the tree to see a much larger crack on the opposite side of the tree. The crack was taller than he was, and his blood-stained fingers touched the crack as he looked at his bloodened knuckles.
Darkness had taken root in Ford, a darkness that Taelian had witnessed and even condoned and was honing for his husband to embrace. Emotions and feelings that he held for people he wanted to harm, or worse, end their lives… And in that clarity, he realized he was okay with it. He knew Taelian’s thoughts on it, and it even had him smirking as his fingers ran along the tree’s crack, the wood groaning as the tree's weight was drawing in for itself.
For a few minutes, Ford planted his backside down at the base of the tree and rested his back against it. His crimson-stained hand rested in his lap, and his chest was still rising and falling quite quickly as he mulled over what had happened. He still had not begun with magic and was still focusing on sociological findings for the Covenant… But his body had been honed. His fighting had been kept to the most extreme shape, and he had become stronger than he had anticipated. If he could continue to hone it a bit more, he could combine it with his social skills and tactical thinking.
Smirking as his sweat soaked into the tree from his back and the sweat from his torso ran down his body to soak into the waistline of his linen trousers. Once he was up, the garment hung low on his muscular hips, showing the predominant v-line that disappeared beyond the fabric. Nothing needed to be said, nothing needed to be done. He had packed up the things he had tossed, gathered up his linen, and stuffed it into the satchel. Once the items were packed, he would head home, at least to wash his hand up before Taelian questioned him about it.
