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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[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.