The Salle, Monday Morning

[bitchprince]

Arthur had moved beyond restless into tense, and when he was tense, he took to the sword with twice his usual amount of dedication. That's why he was in the salle even earlier than usual today, practice sword in hand despite the few edges of strain he still felt in that arm, swinging at the dummy.

His blows were so utterly controlled they probably said a few things about his state of mind. No matter. He'd hopefully have his students soon, and use them gladly to keep his mind off of things.

After the reserve tomorrow: that's when he was going to try and use the causeway again. That idea alone would have to be enough.

[[ open as a salle generally is! ]]

Comments

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah was actually happy for the routine of practice by now; the upheaval of so many people leaving soon was less of a novelty and more of a depressing approaching reality. "Morning," she greeted Arthur, trying not to yawn, and headed for the practice swords.

[bitchprince]

"Dinah." Arthur actually ceased his activity when she entered; they had some business to take care of before he started the morning's drill. He'd finally gotten his hands on more of his own money ('adjusted for inflation', they'd said, and peered at him nervously, and muttered something about not having that much on hand and increments and whatnot) and he did have to give her the offered restitution. "I believe I owe you something."

He was fiddling with the strange papers in his pocket in a way he hoped really wasn't obvious.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Mmm?" Dinah willed herself into wakefulness, and tried to think what he was talking about. The money he owed her for the boots sank in after a moment. "Oh! Oh, right." She bit her lip, half-worried now that she wasn't outraged at her shoes being eaten, and Triela had replaced them with even nicer ones. She had no idea how much money he and Merlin had with them, but those boots had been ridiculously expensive in the first place; she'd never have been able to afford them on her own. "It isn't a problem, you know, you can take your time on that..."

[bitchprince]

Arthur did not roll his eyes, but fought with the urge to, taking some bills out of his pocket and fiddling with them until some of them made some sense. "I pay my debts," he said, simply, and maybe even a little impatiently, and offered her the money, stuffing the rest of it back in his pocket. Gracefully. "For your footwear," he elaborated, and nodded.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Thanks," Dinah said, nonplussed, and blinked at the roll he'd given her, then carefully folded them before going to stick them in her gym bag. "How did you get that?" she asked out of pure curiosity, over her shoulder. "I mean. I know they don't have American dollar bills in Camelot."

[bitchprince]

"I went to the bank," was Arthur's only reply; the word 'bank' rang a little oddly out of his mouth, like it was a foreign word he was testing out. "It takes them a while; something about 'inflation'. Are you ready?"

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Oh." Try very oddly. "Yeah, money... changes. I don't get it either." Dinah shook her head. Well, hopefully that meant he had enough to last out the year, then. If it was a thousand years' inflation. Yikes.

"Yes, hang on, one second." She took a breath, cleared her mind and got into her ready stance.

[bitchprince]

"I 'get it' enough," Arthur assured her, "What, did you think I've been leeching off the kindness of strangers?" He cracked his neck once, then came up close enough to take stock of her stance again. "Begin."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"I thought your tuition and board and whatever was paid when you got here," Dinah said, and beyond that, she hadn't really thought about it much. She'd assumed that the shops in town took coins, maybe, but she hadn't considered how many he would've had with him. Or Merlin, either. Hunh.

She re-focused, trying not to be distracted by questions of finance, and started the drill, high, left, low, across, corrected her feet, and switched sides, careful of her arms again, too many thoughts in her head.

[bitchprince]

"Whatever you're thinking about, channel it," Arthur informed her. He'd learned the whole 'finding a flaw in every thing' thing from the best. "You walk eyes-open into trouble enough as it is." Not that Arthur ever did that. "Once more, and then we'll stage a mock-fight, see if you've actually gotten anywhere."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"I do not! It's been ages since I got in trouble." Dinah tried to figure out a way to stabbinate the money that was distracting her, then just settled for slashing at the mental Arthur again. While she was at it, she included Jen's enemies, Reno's world, Chad's anorexic fellow models, Cal's churches, and a few other people's reasons why they were leaving. Ha! That got her through the drill with enough focus to be cheerfully homicidal.

[bitchprince]

Had Arthur known about all of this, he'd been offended that his training skills had fallen so far that simply thinking of him wasn't enough to send her into a homicidal rage. "Not good enough," he judged, "But that'll become clear soon enough."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Well, there was that bloodlust he was hoping to inspire. Gah! Slash. "Right. Because Alice has more experience." Everyone did. Dinah tried to be resigned to that, really. Some days were worse than others. "I know, I know."

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

Jamie walked into the salle, a wistful look on his face.

"Ah. The salle. I spent so little time here and yet you had so many pointy things to play with. I shall miss you," he said. Wistfully.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah grinned at her Big Sib, then blinked. "Jamie? What happened to--" She gestured to her face, never had the nerve to ask before. "And you're leaving soon?"

[bitchprince]

"Actually, you'll be fighting me," he said, matter-of-factly. "Alice may have more experience, but she has little knowledge of the anatomy of a fight. Don't worry, I'll take it easy on you."

[bitchprince]

Arthur did not blink. He was past that stage by now. "You're a graduating senior, I take it," he said, because words did demand some kind of response (unless he couldn't be arsed to, but today he'd take any distraction).

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Meep. "Oooof course you will," Dinah responded, fingers tightening on her practice sword. This was going to be fun. For very small values of 'fun'. Why hadn't she taken longer with the practice drill? Totally unnerved, she got into ready stance, trying to swallow with a suddenly very dry throat.

[bitchprince]

Arthur gave his practice sword the trademark twirl before he settled into his own ready stance. "Staffwork at the end of the week," he decided, idly. Then: "Well, come on, then."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Even though she'd been using that twirl in swordfights onstage to show off for the last month, she still found it intimidating. "Right." A breath. Another breath. Remembering where the drill started, and put the feet correct to support you, and keep your arm in, and don't leave yourself open--

A cut starting low and going high, just like in the drill, as fast as Dinah could make it.

[bitchprince]

It was met halfway in with Arthur's sword, of course. He mimed a blow with his elbow at her head, showing how easy it'd be to take her down like that - and if she hadn't been a girl, he'd have followed through on it.

He pushed her sword down instead.

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

"No," Jamie said moving toward Arthur. "Actually I'm the guy who ran around the gym naked during graduation. It was an intrinsic portion of the ceremony but you don't get a degree for it. But I am leaving but how about a hug before I go? English Peter isn't here so I might as well hug someone British."

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

"I'm leaving today," Jamie said with a nod. "My last day here. At School. And then I'm off to ninja-world where I shall sell squishies to a desert tribe. Of ninjas. I'll be the squishy ninja."

[bitchprince]

There was a pause. If we wanted to be visual with it, it would have included ellipses.

"What," Arthur said, eying him. "I don't think so."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah didn't fight that, feeling stupid for not having seen the elbow-blow-potential, and tried again, sideways this time, with a cut to disembowel him. Ha!