[arcus_gray]

A dull repeated thumping rang out across the Beacon training room as a blade repeatedly sliced into the wood of a training dummy in the relatively empty room in the early morning before classes started. The dull thumping was accompanied by the grunts and frequent grimaces of pain from the boy swinging the swords. The boy in question was Gray who was only wearing his jeans and singlet on this particular morning. A mark was still easy to see on his left shoulder from when he had been shot in the Vytal tournament and the obvious dark circles under his eyes made it quite apparent he hadn't slept at all the night before. At around midnight the night before he had realized the pain was going to prevent him from getting any sleep and so he had walked down to the training area and been beating the hell out of one of the dummies ever since. At this point he was drenched in sweat and may or may not have thrown up once but continued to beat the dummy and was beginning to leave deep marks in it as his anger charged his strikes.

[Kiith]

It had not gone past Xanh when a certain someone had left KABS' dorm while she was just getting ready to head to bed. And hours later, as she turned off her alarm clock about a minute before it should have went off, it also did not go past here that this certain someone had not come back all night. If so, then she would have known. It was not as if the girl herself had gotten all too much sleep this night.

Not quite knowing where to go or what to do - well, other than maybe prepare for the classes she had later, but honestly, she probably would not have done that even if she could contrentrate on that - the girl had gone outside. There, she initially wanted to look for a quiet spot to exercise a little. This had basically become her go-to thing in the mornings and evenings whenever there was nothing else that absolutely needed to be taken care of. She would just find herself a nice, undisturbed place under a tree or something similar, where she could clear her mind a litte, run through the motions and practice for maybe an hour. But today it was still a little too chilly outside, with the sun yet barely peeking over the horizon and the last night being just another harbinger of the approaching winter. So, after quick consideration Xanh deemed it not worth it to run her routine outdoors today. But, driven by a quiet voice in the back of her head, she could not bring herself to just go ahead and skip it completely, and so she soon made her way to the training halls. She did not expect really anyone to be there at this time of day, and if somebody was there they probably would be busy enough with themselves to not care for someone else dropping by and quietly doing their thing.

It was not as if Xanh had been wrong, there barely was anyone else around. But as she entered the training area surprise still got her, bringing the girl to a halt just a few steps into the room. A frown already had settled on her face when she made out a familiar voice grunting and groaning somewhere in the hall. And as she looked up to find herself a spot just about as much as to see who was already at it like there was no tomorrow her heart suddenly grew a lot more heavy. Of course it was Gray. Of course it was him throwing away his night and probably all advise given to him by the doctors. And boy did he really look the part...

For a minute or two the girl just stood at the sideline, watching the faunus hack away at his poor wooden opponent. Despite him clearly hurting almost every time he lifted his arm the wrong way, despite the exhaustion written on his face, and despite her just entering the room he did not seem to care for anything other than the dummy infront of him. He probably had not even noticed her yet. He just kept on fighting this imaginary battle, and kept on taking the pain for which she partially felt responsible.

"Hey, sorry for interrupting, but...you know you look like shit, right?" As Xanh had taken a few steps towards Gray a wry smirk had settled on her face - a feeble effort in trying to look less concerned by what she saw than she really was. With a slight chuckle she added: "At least if we're going by that, the stupid dummy got you by the balls...maybe you should take a little break".

[arcus_gray]

Gray continued hacking into the dummy until he heard a familiar sounding voice behind him that must have been addressing him. In response Gray sent the bowstring from his left sword into the base of the dummy in an attempt to pull it over as a means of finishing his training. However he found that he didn't have enough strength in his left arm and cried out in pain as he tried though he gave up rather quickly. With a yell of anger his right blade crashed into the top of the dummy with enough force to send it toppling and skidding across the room. After that he spun around and met the eyes of his team's leader. With a sigh Gray complied with her request and collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion. "Hey Xanh." Gray continued breathing heavily and leaned forwards slightly Causing most of his hair to hang down into his lap revealing how matted and knotted it had become over the course of the night.

[Kiith]

"Hey",  she reiterated once more as, finally, Gray had taken note of her. It was a little difficult to maintain eye contact for her, so as he just sank to the ground, Xanh looked over to the training dummy. The way it got beaten up like it had personally insulted the boy, quite a few very recent scars and scratch marks scattered all over its wooden body the question basically had already answred itself. Yet, as she half heartedly kicked against the dummy's base as if that revealed some hidden information she had to ask: "Man, how long have you been here?"

[arcus_gray]

Gray frowned as the question of time was asked and he seemed deep in thought for a while as he tried to figure out the time. "I don't know. I don't think it's been more than an hour or two." Gray was well aware this was a lie since he had been here since he had given up on getting to sleep and it was evidently morning now.

[Kiith]

"The whole night", she interjected before Gray had even quite finished his sentence. "Unless you've suddenly become a fan of long walks under the moonlight it's been the whole night". With a sigh escaping from her lips Xanh turned away from the training setup. She walked a few steps into the room until she could just throw herself down next to the clearly e hausted faunus.

"I'm not a doctor or something, but don't you think just sneaking out at night and going at it like this makes everything...you know, worse instead of better? I mean you can't ju-". Biting her own tongue, the girl stopped mid sentence. There were a lot of things she wanted to spew at Gray. All the sterdotypical stuff - What are you thinking; You got seriously hurt and slow down; Don't throw your health away like that and take your recover serious; et cetera et cetera. But she could not bring herself to actually say it out loud. Because she knew this was just a case of I'm not in your spot, so of course I am the wise person who can talk shit. She knew what was probably going on in his mind, and she knew that she would not be able to let it rest either. So where was the point in holding a lecture Xanh could not even live up to herself?

So instead of carrying on she let out another sigh, trying to not stare too blatantly at was was left of the wound on his shoulder. "Why didn"t you just open your mouth instead of ripping yourself apart alone here? You know that you don't have to. You know that I would have figured something out with you...or, you know, would have at least tried to pick you up from the floor after your buddy over there was done with you the first time". With a quiet chuckle she  nodded vaguely towards the dummy, before turning a bit more serious again. "It's just got to come from you".

[Dead_Proxy21]

Avaline woke up just as she heard the door open the second time and saw that Xanth's and Grey's beds were empty. She got up and decided to walk out of the room with a minor portion of her medical supplies, but forgot to put her shoes on. The soft sounds of metal on carpeted wood and a slowly opening door could be heard from the room as Avaline walked out to search for her teammates. It helped that she was able to hear some semblance of a conversation and decided to follow the sound of voices. She was able to find them in the training yards, but it didn't help that her being sneaky was betrayed the moment that she took her first step on the stone pathway into the training yards.

[arcus_gray]

Gray frowned as he heard Xanh's speech "what are you on about? I didn't say anything because it was the middle of the night. What did you want to hear from me? I can't sleep because my injuries hurt and i can't stop thinking about how i got them. That i became pitied by the people we are supposed to be training to protect. Why would I want you to hear that when i could just get up and do something about it?" Gray was so distracted by his rant that he didn't notice the sound of Avaline coming in.

[Kiith]

Xanh shook her head, letting out an annoyed sigh. "No, you idiot. I know it was in the middle of the fucking night because I saw you close the door behind yourself. But as far as I know a day has plenty of hours, and there were a lot of days since you got your shit kicked in". She gave the boy a shrug before continuing. "Eh, you know what, I wouldn't even care if you were right. But you're not. You're not 'just getting up and doing something about it'. You're pissing into the wind and hitting yourself in the face with this. So come on and quit this shittalk".

Slowly, the girl rose from her spot next to Gray again, letting out a stifled groan as she did so. Now towering over the still sitting faunus she reached out with her hand, suggesting him with a vague nod to grab it. "I get you, Gray. But on your own you aren't going to get back to kicking anyone's ass anytime soon. So let me help you". Following a mocking wink, she added: "You think this wooden dummy can get you sweating? Come and have a go at me".

[arcus_gray]

As Gray realised what Xanh was saying a smile appeared on his face. "You're on." With that Gray took her hand .

[Dead_Proxy21]

Avaline walked into the training area and proceeded to walk over to Xanth and Grey. Hearing the majority of the second half of the conversation, she smirked as she got over to them.

"I hope you two weren't planning on overexerting yourselves without having some medical attention for afterwards."

[Kiith]

With a smile Xanh helped Gray get on his feet, and this time it was genuine. The fact that he had accepted a helping hand - figuratively as well as literally - even just this once relieved the girl, and gave her the belief that she could at least make up for some of the mistakes she had made in regards to keeping her team together like she was supposed to and sticking up for the faunus, as a teammate as well as a friend. "Then come on, let's do this. You got your stuff and everything already Í suppose? Then let's just get a bit of distance between us and you show me what you're made of, alright?"

As Xanh took a few steps backwards however, already reaching for her weapons in their respective holsters, another very familiar voice reached her ears. She did not need to turn her head much to confirm whom this voice belonged to. "Oh, look who's dropping by!" With a vague nod she greeted Avaline before continuing. "Great, now we have someone to cheer for our wolf warrior  here and someone who can pick up the pieces after we're done!" An amused chuckle crossed her lips as she turned back around to face Gray. Of course this just had been a joke. Not in the world would she go all out and try to kick him into the dust. That was not what this was supposed to be about, and nobody would gain anything from this in the end. No, this was supposed to be some friendly exercise which should give Gray some much needed assistance in his recovery. And give her some peace of mind on the whole issue. Perhaps, at least.

[arcus_gray]

Gray turned and walked a few paces away from Xanh. Chuckling just loud enough for Xanh and Avaline to hear as Xanh made the comment about picking up pieces. "We'll see about that Xanh. I reckon you'll be surprised at just how hard a time you will have making any pieces to pick up." As he said this he was putting Lamnia back together and stringing it back into it's bow form. When he turned back around he already had an ice arrow in the bow and the bow at full draw. Despite his overconfident words the bow was shaking due to the pressure it was putting on Gray's still injured arm.