Brandwyn's photo contest 2012 entry - Tournament Day!

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Brandwyn
Wanderer
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Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2011 2:25 am
Location: Rohan (or central Florida)
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Brandwyn's photo contest 2012 entry - Tournament Day!

Post by Brandwyn »

(Whew! Finished just under the wire and in spite of a five min power outage...)

(OOC: I just learned of this contest on the last day we can enter it - mostly because I am just very unobservant - and since there was no time to get out to take some ranger type pictures of myself, I went with what I already have; a lot of horse pictures! These are, for the most part, pictures I have taken at SCA events. There are several of me on different horses and that is my artwork and calligraphy at the end. Ringulf and others took some of the photos of me at my request. I know this isn't exactly what you had in mind, but I hope you enjoy it.)

(My photo contest 2012 Entry)

Tournament Day in Rohan


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Brandwyn had woken early on that beautiful sunny morning and rushed to prepare for the long awaited Tournament of Helm’s Deep. Hundreds had gathered on the plains and a tent city had sprung up literally overnight. In a few days time, it would disappear just as quickly leaving only tracks in the trampled grass and fond memories to attest to its existence.

She noticed that others were already making their way to the end of the list field to line up for the procession.


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She mounted her young horse, Asfala and tried to quell her excitement. Asfala was skittish enough already without picking up on her mistress’s mood. It was difficult for Brandwyn, however, for she had been looking forward to the games here on the edge of the forest not far from Helm’s Deep for two years now.

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Asfala, though still only three years old, was finally old enough for her to ride, but she was still very green and Brandy knew she wouldn’t be among the winners of this day’s tournament. It was the excitement of the fair and the flash of colors on the horses and riders that she found exhilarating, most especially the feeling of friendly competition, innocent rivalry and camaraderie among the horse owners and trainers.

Knowing that Asfala was not going to be safe in a crowd of people or unknown horses, Brandwyn decided to skip the procession that preceded the day’s events and moved to the sidelines of the list field to watch it instead.


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She saw that the King and Queen were also mounted and led the procession, then they turned and waited for the competitors to approach and be recognized. Brandwyn thought the Queen was so beautiful and though she feared him just a little, she felt the King was not only handsome, but a very good ruler as well. He was probably the best fighter in Rohan as well as fair and just.


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Their knights were competing in a division all their own, but what was so special about this tournament, aside from the fact it was a diversion from the constant worry of war with Sauron’s forces or invasion by Orcs or Goblins from the west, was that there were also games for the unbelted riders of the Rohirrim including those for the shield maidens, such as Brandwyn. She was very glad she wouldn’t be competing against those Riders who spent every waking moment preparing for battle. No Brandwyn would be competing in the tamer games like the reeds and Quintain. That is if she could get Asfala to cooperate. Brandwyn eyed the knights enviously, wishing for the thousandth time at least that she had been born a man. She longed to wear the white belt and silver spurs and be counted among their numbers, but that would never be, for she was a woman and the best she could hope for was to become a renowned rider and scout for the Sheildmaiden’s of Rohan.

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She was surprised to see that there were even some men from the East here to compete, and although they were accepted, she noticed that most kept their distance from them. Brandwyn wondered if they were friends of the King or perhaps ambassadors from their lands.


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People were milling around and Brandwyn decided she had better go see that her page had brought her weapons and all was in order so she would be ready when the horns sounded. Shortly thereafter the trumpets sounded the start of the tournament and Brandwyn watched the Herald ride the field and call out the rules of the list. A hush fell over the assembled crowd as everyone listened to the mounted Herald.


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The herald moved to the end of the field and the first contest began. Brandwyn was among the first competitors participating in the games the knights played to sharpen their skills with lance tip control, agility and speed. These games were the reed chop drill, beheading the enemy, ring jousting and the Quintain.

Asfala had never seen anything like these contraptions with their swinging parts, and fluttering ribbons and at first she was a bit hesitant to approach them. Brandwyn coaxed her gently yet with a firm pressure with her legs and heels until Asfala finally decided that the game props were not going to eat her.

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Her first pass down the ring jousting was a dismal failure. Asfala reared up and shied away from the fluttering ribbons on the rings and she scored a zero. Brandwyn wasn’t surprised, but she was determined to make Asfala stay on the course so she rode her back down to the end of the line and waited for her turn at another pass. This time Asfala stayed on track, though she sped past the poles so quickly that Brandwyn only managed to spear two of the larger rings scoring only 10 points. She knew, however, that the rings were probably going to be her worst event.

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Her next event was the reed chop drill and this one she felt was going to be a lot better. She lined Asfala up between the rows of poles and at the signal, spurred her into a canter, swinging left and right away from Asfala’s head in a figure 8 pattern in the air as she passed by each pole. She pulled her horse up at the end and turned back to look, not quite believing what she saw. She had only missed one 4 inch reed on the left and that gave her a score of 198 for the game. A very respectable showing!

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The Quintain was another one she was almost dreading. This contraption not only made a lot of noise when your lance tip slammed into the shield, but the shield rotated around and the counterweight could swing out and his a rider square in the back, knocking him or her off their horse if they weren’t moving fast enough. If Asfala balked, Brandwyn was sure to feel the pain of the bag of rocks counter balancing the shield.


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It appeared that some of the men from the East were not familiar with this game.


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Brandwyn didn’t want to make a fool of herself in front of the other Shieldmaidens. Some of them were much more accomplished riders than her, but she was a little less intimidated when she saw that a few of them looked like they had never been on a horse before in their lives.

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Brandwyn glanced over at her lieutenant, the woman who oversaw the training of the shieldmaidens and received an encouraging salute from the lieutenant with her spear.

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Finally her turn came up and she waited at the end of the field for them to signal her to run the Quintain. The flag fell and Brandwyn squeezed her knees together and nudged Asfala with her left heel. Asfala jumped out on her left lead, tilting her head away from the shield hanging on the Quintain as they thundered toward it. She waited until the last possible second to lower her lance and line up on the sweet spot on the Quintain. Smack! The leather covered lance tip slammed into the shield with a tremendous force and Brandwyn felt herself being lifted out of the saddle. Asfala leapt forward, startled by the sound inches from her face and Brandwyn found herself sliding off the back of her horse.

She tossed the lance to the side, hoping it didn’t hit one of the marshals or field attendants and grabbed the cantle of the saddle just as her legs drooped down toward the ground. She held on and got her feet under her, running along side Asfala who refused to stop. It took what seemed like hours, but was really only seconds for Brandwyn to work her hands back up to the saddle horn. She jumped up, swung her feet forward and hit the ground, using Asfala’s momentum to catapult off the ground and swing her legs back up and over Asfala’s back, barely getting her butt planted back in the saddle before they ran out of room at the end of the field. She pulled hard on the reins and leaned back and Asfala reared up on her hind legs, did a quarter turn to the left and then lowered her forelegs to the ground, snorting and tossing her head.

Brandwyn was mortified. She had never been so embarrassed in all her life. She had just managed to unseat herself with her own lance right in front of the Lieutenant, all the shieldmaidens and worse, the knights. She rode back to the attendant all red faced at the cheering and clapping, misunderstanding that they were congratulating on her recovery and not making fun of her error. She hung her head as she rode back to the lists to await her final event, beheading the enemy. She was surprised when the herald called out her score of 12 on the Quintain.

“I thought I was disqualified?” She asked the herald who shook her head.

“No, you never lost contact with your horse and you finished the line mounted without your horse breaking her stride. That was very impressive, all things considered.”

Brandwyn was very surprised and looked around at the other shieldmaidens in wonder as they clustered around her at the end of the lists, asking her how she’d managed to remount like that. She felt better and sailed through the beheading the enemy, really one of the easiest drills, by knocking all four leather heads off the poles and getting the third fastest time. Overall that put her score at 256 points. It was not enough to place because she had done so dismally at the rings, but she was very happy with her score and with how well Asfala had adapted to the games. Next year she was going to be a force to be reckoned with, she vowed.

Knowing she was out of the rest of the competition, Brandwyn sat back to watch the skill of the others and cheer on her favorites. One of those was Lady Isabella who was always in the top five in every tournament, even against the knights. Were she a man, she surely would have been dubbed a knight by this time.

Brandwyn watched Isabella effortlessly knock the heads off their burlap bodies and snag all the small rings on her two passes. She scored a 16 on the Quintain, and the only thing she didn’t do as well as Brandwyn was the reed chop drill. She missed a 2 inch reed and that made her score two points lower than Brandwyn’s.

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Unfortunately for Isabella there were two other riders who knocked all the reeds down and also scored perfectly on the rings. Thus Lady Isabella finished this tournament in third place.

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Isabella wasn’t out of things yet though. Her best event was jousting. Brandwyn watched her technique as Isabella won match after match against the knights. Her spotted mare added to her victory by laying her ears back and baring her teeth as the opposing horses thundered toward her on the other side of the tilt rail. Often this caused the knight’s stallions to shy away from the mare, trying to stay out of range of her teeth. Isabella laughed as she sent another knight clattering to the ground.

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Finally they were at the last match and a crowd had gathered. It was between Isabella and one of the southern knights of the Rohirrim who was riding a blind gelding. The team had been invincible in the past because the horse couldn’t see and so he trusted his rider implicitly to keep him out of trouble.

The two riders stared at each other down the length of the list field and Brandwyn thought she heard the knight say something to his squire about not being beaten by a girl. Brandwyn sent a silent prayer to the Horse God that Isabella would win, for the knight needed a lesson in humility.


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They charged down the tilt rail and both dropped their lances at the last moment, making it difficult to dodge the tip and with a mighty crash they split the lances, both of them shattering on their opponents shield. They circled around and got new lances, shaking off the pain from their first encounter.

Again they charged and once more they broke their lances, each receiving a point, and neither one with the advantage. Brandwyn cheered for Isabella, screaming wildly in a very unladylike fashion.

Crash! The third charge had the same results as the first two and both riders reeled in their saddles. The knight rode back to Isabella and they held a private conference on the field while everyone strained to hear what they were saying. They grasped elbows and bowed to each other and beckoned the herald over.

As they rode back to the end of the list field, the herald announced that the match was a draw and they two opponents had agreed to share the title of victor for this year and promised a special joust for next year’s competition. The crowd cheered and Brandwyn turned Asfala to go find Lady Isabella and congratulate her.

Later that day she managed to enter the archery competition and once again, though she did quite well, she did not win. Still, she was in the top 10 in the archery and that was saying something.

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Just before the feast she was summoned before the Baronesses of the court of Rohan and she approached them with awe. Many of them had been Shieldmaidens in their younger days and were legends. Brandwyn had studied their history and was honored by their summons, especially since she was in the company of the other shieldmaidens who had won or made some sort of impression that day on the list field. Brandwyn didn’t really see why she had been included, however.

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As each of them was called forth they were handed a beautifully written document, a memento and testament to their skill that day. Brandwyn waited, wondering why she was there until they finally called her forth.

The Baroness’s herald read the summons and Brandwyn knelt before them, feeling rather foolish and very self-conscious. “Unto Brandwyn, daughter of David do we recognized unparalleled mounted skill on this day and grace under adverse conditions. For her unmatched recovery of her seat and poise in one so new to the games, we do bestow upon her the Token of Grace and charge her to continue to train and improve so that she may defend the people of Rohan from their enemies when the need arises.”

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Brandwyn was speechless and bowed to the Baronesses and made her way back with the others honored that day. Later, after supper and the sun had set, she was invited to share the campfire of the lieutenant by the winners and the most honored of the Shieldmaidens. She sat a the fire, passing around a bottle of mead she’d made last year and listened to the tales of battle they spun well into the night.

All-in-all, it had been a great day, in spite of the fact they were now all calling her Sticktight* in honor of her near unseating by her own hand. She grinned at them and joined in on the joking good naturedly. She had a feeling however, that she was never going to live this one down and her new name was going to stick tight to her for the rest of her days. She just smiled and took a long sip of mead…

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(*A sticktight is the seedpod of a tall grass that grows all over the prarie in Rohan. When one walks or rides through the grass the pods stick tight to clothing, hair and anything else their tiny barbed hooks can sink into.)
Last edited by Brandwyn on Sun Jul 01, 2012 4:12 am, edited 8 times in total.
Brandwyn
"They are dangerous at both ends, and - crafty - in the middle." Sherlock Holmes, A Game of Shadows (Robert Downey Jr. in character on the subject of Horses)
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Peter Remling
Athel Dunedain
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Re: Brandwyn's photo contest 2012 entry - Tournament Day!

Post by Peter Remling »

I don't see the pics. A simple quick way, would be to have them on a host site like Photobucket and then link them here. They won't appear as pics, but as links. It's quick and very easy to do.
kaelln

Re: Brandwyn's photo contest 2012 entry - Tournament Day!

Post by kaelln »

That was very well written, my lady! Methinks there will be some serious competition for the next all-text story contest!
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Brandwyn
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Posts: 47
Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2011 2:25 am
Location: Rohan (or central Florida)
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Re: Brandwyn's photo contest 2012 entry - Tournament Day!

Post by Brandwyn »

Aw, thank you My Lord Kaellin. I love to write and I am cooking up a little story for Brandwyn out doing her scouting job . I look on her as a mounted ranger of sorts, though she is Rohirrim and not Dunedain. I plan to post up more about her background and this was a good exercise to introduce her at the beginning of her training.

I finally got my photos on tinypics and so they should be showing up now. Thanks for the tip Peter. Between you and Ringulf I figured it out. The hard part was finding all the photos on my computer again.

I finished it just before the midnight deadline, thought I was sweating it since the power flickered on and off for a good ten minutes in there.
Brandwyn
"They are dangerous at both ends, and - crafty - in the middle." Sherlock Holmes, A Game of Shadows (Robert Downey Jr. in character on the subject of Horses)
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Mirimaran
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Re: Brandwyn's photo contest 2012 entry - Tournament Day!

Post by Mirimaran »

Wonderful story and pics, good Lady! :) I enjoyed both!

Ken
"Well, what are you waiting for? I am an old man, and have no time for your falter! Come at me, if you will, for I do not sing songs of dastards!"
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