The Salle, Monday Morning

[bitchprince]

The fight last night had worn away the more passionate edges of anger, and left Arthur in a pensive mood as well as bruised and battered. He didn't mind bruised and battered. Bruised and battered meant that he could now turn his focus inward, make himself a little smaller.

His drills that morning were hence under tight control, slow and focused, like every blow came with a unity of concentration and thought that left little room for anything else. He didn't know if Dinah or Romeo would show up that day, and neither, really, did he care very much.

[[ salle is open, of course, although i might be slow ]]

Comments

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

High it was. Dinah did the high blocks and counters, ready for instructions on the variation.

[bitchprince]

And Arthur kept going on that note for a while, leading her through the drill twice before stopping. "Now I want to see you repeating that," he said, turning away so he could put his own blade aside.

It just wasn't that kind of day.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Okay. That was just off. "Are you hurt?" Dinah asked bluntly. "Or getting sick?"

[bitchprince]

"I'm fine, Dinah, thank you for your concern." He put the blade back, then turned. "Get moving."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

So very off. Not even a jibe about caring too much and throwing herself at him there. Dinah kept her eyes on him as she went through the drill, trying not to frown.

[bitchprince]

Arthur paced around, of course, making the usual comments - her arm was up too high, she was leaning too much weight onto one foot, that sword wasn't a club, Dinah.

For all that he committed himself to it as per usual, he sounded pensive.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

That was better, at least Arthur was paying attention to the details. But not really focusing the way he usually did, either. Dinah started wondering what he'd do if she critiqued his coaching the way he was critiquing her sword work. Everybody got an off day, of course. Maybe she'd finally seen him on one of his?

She started to deliberately step up her footwork, then deviated from the drill, just to see how long it would take him to catch it.

[bitchprince]

His instincts were too ingrained for the deviation to slip by for much more than a few moments. "What," Arthur said, slowly, "Are you doing?"

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah gave him an innocent look. "Just checking." She went back to the regular drill with a raised eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

[bitchprince]

"Making sure that you don't trip over your own feet as per usual," he said, idly. "Stop checking."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Uh hunh," Dinah drawled, then went back to the drill. Just to spite him, she did it as perfectly as possible. No missed moves, no arms swinging out. Difficult, though.

[bitchprince]

"Why, Dinah," he said, watching, "That's almost close to competent."

Look, compliments. "Do that again."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

And the reward for a job well-done is...? Alfred prompted Dinah in her head. Another job.

Pushing that and her consideration of Arthur's weird mood aside, she concentrated, carefully going through the drill, arms set right, footwork right, no flapping about, then gulped as she finished. Whew.

[bitchprince]

"Hm," Arthur told her, when she finished. "I think that'll do for the day. I want to see you practicing that over the week until it takes less effort."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Right, there was the bounce. "Cool!" She bounced over and put her sword back, then rummaged for her eskrima sticks, tucking away the realization she'd had inside her head, and working on distracting Arthur from whatever was bugging him for the rest of her time in the salle.

[bitchprince]

And Arthur dutifully faked being distracted while they worked with the eskrima. He was a good sport like that.