The Salle, Monday Morning

[bitchprince]

The lack of classes meant Arthur would be spending more time in the salle than usual (if that was even possible), and he hadn't wasted too much time getting there that morning. His arm was coming along nicely, and so he took a practice blade for his left.

Might as well get some simple drills in while he waited.

[[ and open, but mild sp warning ]]

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[bitchprince]

Ah, Romeo. Arthur lowered his sword before he turned. "Good morning, Romeo," he said, "Returned to us, have you?"

[withoutverona]

"So it would seem -- to graduate, at least, and for a few weeks after that," Romeo said. "After that, I don't know. How have things been here?"

He was already sitting on the mat to stretch out; impolite, he supposed, but he also knew Arthur was perfectly capable of deciding he was talking too much and it was time to fight at any point.

[bitchprince]

He welcomed such faith in his abilities gladly.

Arthur joined him on the mat, but his own stretches were yet idle. "Same as they've been," he said, "No invasions, no strangeness beyond the regular kind." Also, a slow death for Arthur if things were going to remain this calm. "You won't be leaving as soon as you graduate?" Like Reno.

[withoutverona]

"Quiet as we can expect, then." Romeo shook his head from where it was bent over his knee. "And no. There's the shop, Yurika said something about finding a TA position -- and I need to work out where I'm going to go, first."

He wasn't going to think about Reno leaving until it actually happened. Denial was beautiful.

[bitchprince]

"I would think that choice shouldn't be too hard," Arthur said, idly puzzled (he managed that admirably). He stretched out his arm, gave his knuckles a good crack, and shifted into stance.

A shift from speaking to action appeared imminent.

[withoutverona]

"I know what you would decide," Romeo said, rising to his feet and bringing up his arms to block. "You would be home and everything else work itself out without your interference. I might have said the same a year ago."

But this wasn't a year ago, anymore, and Romeo had changed. Home or love: he didn't know why having one always seemed to mean he lost the other.

"The trouble is," -- and this was really only part of the trouble, but it was the easiest to put into words -- "I spent half of this past year convincing Yurika to let me follow her."

[bitchprince]

"It's not about things working themselves out," he said, "It's about where your duty lies. She knows yours, doesn't she?"

And on that, he threw an easy punch at Romeo's shoulder. Start it off light, work with that.

[withoutverona]

Romeo rolled his shoulder back and to the side, dodging the punch, and struck out, quickly but none too accurately, with his opposite arm.

"She knows I have a choice," he answered. "Or I thought I did. It's a long story, but it's not so simple a decision as duty against pleasure."

[bitchprince]

Arthur let it glance off his elbow with ease; half the job had been done for him. "Aim for something," he said, and offered no counter-punch - looking expectantly, instead, at Romeo to try the next blow. "Then what's the problem?"

A councillor, Arthur would never be. (Or a romantic, for that matter. That probably didn't help matters)

[withoutverona]

Romeo raised his eyebrows in slight surprise. "A few things. Even setting aside love, my father only decided he needed me at home when he realized I was serious about going to Tokyo," he said, then hunkered into himself and (all right, all right, aim) punched at Arthur's jaw.

[bitchprince]

Arthur was well-versed in the art of the disappointed father. So, after ducking a bit - "Better," - and throwing another easy one at Romeo's torso, he found some space to say, "Your father shouldn't be the point," in an impressive two breaths. Not being a comic book hero and all.

[withoutverona]

"The greater glory of the Montagues, then?" Romeo asked, impatient (and gasping a little -- the easy one connected because he was talking instead of watching his side.)

Without waiting for an answer, he tried a slightly harder shove at Arthur's chest.

[bitchprince]

Arthur allowed that one to connect so he could turn with the force, slamming his elbow up at Romeo's face. Simplistic, but at least the boy was picking one or two things up.

Very slowly. "The welfare of your people," he corrected. "Pride means little."

Although God knew he had a lot of that.

[withoutverona]

Oh, hey, Romeo liked that chin; he managed, if barely, to get his shoulder up enough to deflect the worst of the blow, then tried to grab at the elbow.

"Verona's different," he said, and that was about as much as he could manage at the moment.

[bitchprince]

"Of course it is," Arthur said, which was about as much as he was willing to toss out, too. He let that elbow go; call it an educational move. Or rather, a let's-see-where-he's-going-with-that move.

[withoutverona]

"I'll explain later." Romeo could have gone on at length, but the plot of Romeo + Juliet his family history was a bit much for him to consider when he was trying to focus on sparring -- specifically, the question of what to do with Arthur's elbow, now that he had it. He settled for jerking on it, hard, trying to get Arthur off-balance.

[bitchprince]

Really, what Arthur wanted to do was just pull his arm away and ask Romeo what he thought he was doing. But since you generally learned best by action rather than words (no matter what Leto claimed - although now he had half an inkling to send Romeo to talk to him about this, and that was just bizarre) he went with the pull, shifting it towards Romeo, throwing his own weight with it, and rather neatly brought up his knee in the process.

... For the gut. Lower would've been cruel.

[withoutverona]

The kindness of only kneeing Romeo's gut was much appreciated, really. The pain sent him stumbling backward several steps as he dropped Arthur's elbow, and he held up his hand to ask for a moment.

"All right, what ought I have done?"

[bitchprince]

"There's more keeping me up than just my upper body," he pointed out, dryly, and steadied himself further. "As long as I can control my fall, I can use it against you."

[withoutverona]

"So what I want to do," Romeo said, following the train of thought, "is get you off balance from more than one direction."

[bitchprince]

"My god," Arthur said, in jest, lifting his eyebrows, "He learns something. Come on again, then."

[withoutverona]

"There are still miracles," Romeo said, mock-solemnly. He bounced, once, mostly to get settled in his balance, and came at Arthur with a more confident combination of a thrust of his right fist and a quick, low kick with his left leg.