fandomhighdorms | The salle, early Monday morning

Well, at least she wasn't late. Arthur supposed that meant she wasn't completely hopeless. Supposed. These things could still change.

He strode into the salle as if he owned the place and gave her nothing short of a, "Dinah, where's your weapon," in greeting.

He had his sword at his side, of course. Any opportunity to have it near was gladly indulged in.

Dinah pulled out her eskrima, and gave them a quick twirl. "Weapons. Right here." She gave the sword a bright-eyed look. Hmmmm! Maybe she could talk him into showing her a few stances, at least? He'd probably never let her touch it.

"Let me see that," he instructed. Wasn't about to mince words on this one, and Arthur hadn't seen a staff quite that small before. Like halfway between a proper one and a flail.

"Please," Dinah reminded him, then carefully held out one. "Rattan. These are for practice. I have ironwood ones at home, but they'd do too much damage to a practice dummy or a bag. These have enough weight to still work, I just have to do the routine about twice as often." She gave him a wary look. "They have been used against swords, in the past."

Arthur brazenly ignored any ridiculous suggestions she might have had regarding his way of speaking. She wanted to be treated as a warrior, she'd deal with the attitude that required. He took the stick, and flicked it over in his hand. "It's small," he judged, "Light. I can see how it'd be useful."

And with that, he struck it out towards her face. Not that he was looking to get it any closer than, say, a quarter of an inch from it: she was a woman, after all.

Dinah was startled, but Barbara hadn't been training her for nothing. The other eskrima came up in a block position, managing to keep the blow from her face, if not completely deflect it. She gave him an annoyed look, but then started to grin.

Yay, battle!

"Your reaction time's not bad," Arthur informed her. Why, look: compliments. He pulled the stick away.

"Has to be, or Helena will kick my butt every single time," Dinah informed him, warily watching the stick move away. And hey, her reaction time was faster than it had been when she started. "She's been doing this years longer than I have."

"So you're telling me she does not 'kick your butt' every time? That might be a fib, Dinah."

He flipped the stick again, then tossed it back to her without warning. Let's see how that reaction time worked.

Dinah had half expected that, and had one arm up to catch it, but the stick was whirling too fast for her to catch, and she had to knock it aside with the other one, a little clumsily. She made a face and retrieved it.

"Okay, the times when she's... already gotten bruised, fighting someone else, then I have a shot, and every once in a while she has a really bad day at work and has to throw someone over a bar. But still! It's happened!"

And sometimes they played with their powers, and then it was almost even!

"Of course it has," Arthur replied. God, the girl did know how to babble. "Let's see some drills, then." He paced towards the wall, where he stopped to observe with a critical eye.

A little self-consciously, Dinah turned to the practice dummy, settled into her stance, corrected it for nerves, then started her drill. Side, side, high, low, both on one side, both on the other, speeding up and bouncing a little as she got into a rhythm, correcting when the move from the elbow was too slow, biting her lip in concentration. She left the kicks out for now, since this was a weapons drill, and he'd asked to see these.

Hey, it kind of sucked that she didn't have anyone else here to practice these with. And Arthur could be a prat when he really wanted to, but he might have something useful to say, right?

Arthur was always nothing if not full of useful commentary. "Watch your feet, you keep losing them," Arthur called, and he would've crossed his arms at her had one of them not been rather irritatingly confined. Perhaps he really should follow Worf's advice. "And good god, hold your arm a little higher, you're not trying to imitate a chicken."

The footwork thing was something Barbara was constantly on her about, and would lightly tap her knee if she forgot, but the arm was one Helena mocked her for forgetting. Then punched her. Grrrrr!

Dinah gritted her teeth and corrected her feet, making sure she bent from her knees, and putting more shoulder into the blows, feeling the burn in her biceps. Back-strike, elbow-twirl and cut, and done, stepping back from the bag and blowing her hair out of her eyes.

She might have been glaring. Because he'd been right. God. Grrrr.

He hadn't used these particular weapons before, but he'd fought with similar before. As his mind made whatever corrections to his assumptions about their use it needed, Arthur kept watching.

After a while, he'd had enough. "Stop," he said, and headed towards her on the next second, ready to duck in case she turned out to be more hopeless than he was starting to feel she was.

Dinah caught her breath, and turned to watch him, warily, rotating her shoulders. She really ought to work out with the weights more, to make this a little easier. Next time she was in the gym, more weights.

"I've been doing this a year," she told him, bouncing up on her toes, then down. "There's a kick routine with it too. But you wanted to see the eskrima, right?"

"I did," he said, "Now, repeat a single straight blow more slowly. Push up that shoulder. I am not joking about the chicken thing, it looks ridiculous." Dinah was currently not 'annoying girl' but rather... well, a cross between Morgana (who, arguably, was the standard for annoying women) and any number of aspiring young warriors who generally wound up knocked on their ass.

It was probably a measure of way too much time spent with Helena that Dinah barely paused to roll her eyes, before turning back to the bag, arms where they were supposed to be, yes, thank you, and did the blows more slowly. She liked speed more, but the one time she'd said so had sent Helena off on a charming screed for nearly a quarter hour while she'd had to do the drill ten times.

In her head, she might be trying to get Helena and Arthur to fight each other, and getting very cheerful at both of them slamming into a mat. Wham!

"Better," Arthur observed, pacing a few feet away once more. "You can speed it up once you've the proper form down." He tilted his head. "Are there any other weapons you've any training in?" he asked.

Dinah concentrated on speeding up, but couldn't go as fast as she wanted without losing the form, and he'd so tweak her for that. Gah. She concentrated and said, "Staff, but not as much. Only the last six months. Mostly defense moves, moving into offense now." Another pause while she concentrated, and knew she was doing it right by which muscles were now pulling, oooo, ow. "Some nun-chuks, but Barbara wanted me to master eskrima first, so I wouldn't confuse the moves. Too similar. Just how not to get hit. Or hit myself." A little faster now, and streeeeetch and wham!

And very belatedly, hunh, it occurs to her to question Arthur. Sheesh. Natural pushiness will just get you talking to him, won't it? "What do you work with, besides the sword?"

"I'd be interested to see what barnyard animal you'd call to my mind with your staffwork," he said, and while the words dripped with sarcasm, the intent behind them was genuine.

Again: Arthur just enjoyed the opportunity to feel a little more than simply useless. It gave him the spring back in his step, if you will, or at least kept him from wanting to leap out the nearest window. "I've been trained in just about anything that can kill you," he said, "Pay attention."

The urge to stick out her tongue was so strong, but he'd probably say something cutting about 'is that supposed to be a weapon' or demand that she do push-ups with it, god, so Dinah gritted her teeth again, and finished the drill.

"Paying attention," she grumbled, then unconsciously straightened. "Boomerangs," she added out of nowhere. "Those too. Throwing weapons. I'm getting better."

She really kind of sucked. They were too fun. But she was way better than when she started.

"But not good enough," Arthur said. It wasn't meant harshly, but it was a statement of a fact. "Still, you'd hold your own for a few moments." He looked towards the dummy she was practicing on. Perhaps he should get in some sword work while they were at it. Later. "I was trained since birth," he added, "So you can assume I'm better than you."

Modesty, 0. Arthur, 1.

Which was totally true, of course. Did he have to say it? Helena had been able to leap off buildings practically since she was a toddler, too. What was she supposed to do, get a time machine and change her life?

"Yeah, I figured." Dinah resisted the urge to mention 'I can throw you into a wall without hands!' but someday, buddy, ohhh, someday!

"So. Aside from the stance, what needs work?" She frowned, looking at his arm. "When can you practice again?"

"I can practice fine," Arthur replied, "It'll be a few weeks until the arm finishes healing." Clearly, the fact that Arthur wasn't sparring had nothing to do with his current abilities in the slightest. "You're too slow and you need strength training," he said, "But at least you've got moderately sensible reflexes."

"Oooo, thank you so much," said sarcastically, but Dinah was grinning and bouncing again. She'd already figured out the strength training. "They've got free weights here, as well as the machines. And I'm pretty fast!" she added in protest. "Lois was lots slower on Friday."

"I don't know who Lois is," Arthur said, "But that just means she's a snail." Sword training it was, then. He turned, reached for the blade.

Edited 2009-02-02 16:57 (UTC)

Grrrr.

Oooo!

Dinah may have looked really really hopeful as Arthur reached for his sword. "Can I hold that? Please?"

See? Someone here could have manners!

"There's practice swords in the corner," he said, searching the room for a practice dummy of his own. Ah, there. "Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."

The glancing annoying comeback didn't even register because yay, swords! and she hadn't even had to ask!

Dinah rushed over to the corner, carefully picked out a practice sword that didn't feel too heavy, and then carefully walked back, trying to see how Arthur was doing this.

Sword!

"Oh, terrific," Arthur muttered under his breath. See, that was the problem with women: give them a hand, they take a bloody sword.

He smacked himself internally for going a bit over the line in terms of unkind thoughts, for some reason suddenly struck with a memory of Guinevere, and cast her another look from aside. "It's not a club or a staff," he said, "Treat it kindly, but firmly. Don't hold it like that, it makes you look like a fool."

Edited 2009-02-02 19:23 (UTC)

Dinah scowled, mostly in concentration, then her face smoothed out as she listened, adjusted her grip on the practice sword. "Both hands, right?" She really didn't think she could handle it one-handed.

"Both hands," he agreed, because she was starting out. "Again, no need to hurt yourself."

He took a single swing at the practice dummy, from the left, and high. Arthur's movements were practiced, large-cat-like once again, and he would've certainly slayed the dummy.

Dinah watched for a bit, envious, then tried it from the other side.

Okay, someone might have lost a wrist there. But only if they had no clue whatsoever on how to block.

"Don't just throw it around," Arthur said, sighing rather heavily as he paused his own efforts. "Precision. Slower."

Dinah slowed it down, working at getting it at the exact same angle as Arthur did, and it became much more deadly. And very, very slow. She did it five more times, though, and her arms started to ache; she stopped to crack her neck, frowning. "Do I need a lighter sword?" she frowned at the one in her hand. "Or just a lot more training?"

"No, really," Arthur replied. He was starting to settle in to the idea he wouldn't get any training in this morning at all. Later, perhaps. He shoved his sword back into the scabbard and stalked towards her. "You're still holding it wrong, for one."

"What--" Dinah grimaced, looking down at her hands, then scowling at him. "I'm doing it like you did!" At least, she'd thought she had.

Edited 2009-02-03 03:53 (UTC)

A comment about how if she did anything like he did, she'd be vastly less annoying passed some consideration, but he discarded it as unnecessary, and reached for her wrist with firm professionalism. "Looser," he said.

Dinah bit her lip, and loosened her fingers before she realized he meant her wrist, and the way she was supporting the blade, not her grip. "Oh," said half under her breath with embarrassment. "Got it." It was easier to turn her hand now, as well as aim the blade.

She'd really better not mention the play yet. Not until she got the first part of the sword down.

"And you're not going to manage those drills just yet," he said, letting go, "Keep it simple. And I want to see you doing strength training before you do anything else."

Simple was boring. Simple was... achievable. Yeah.

Dinah concentrated on cutting and thwacking for another quarter hour, then checked her watch. Just time to get in a shower and get ready for class. She put the practice sword back, working the kinks out of her shoulders as she retrieved her bag. Arthur was still practicing, apparently ignoring her.

Well, she still had manners.

"Thanks." Although that had not been what she'd expected to be saying at the end of the hour. "For, um. The critique."

"It was that or watch you lose an arm," he said, dismissively. That, and if he didn't get to do something like this soon, he was going to have to jump out a window. "Next week," Arthur continued, then turned for the door. She'd hate him yet.

"What?" Wait, what? She could have plans next week! Important ones! ... well not likely at 7am, but still!

Then again, she could use the pointers. And there was the sword work, which she still wasn't going to mention about with the play on the way, and--

"Okay. Okay!" Dinah grinned, more of a skip than a bounce on her way to the door. "Yesss."

Helena could have told him that he might be the one regretting this, eventually.

The salle, early Monday morning

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