The Salle, Monday Morning

[bitchprince]

Between making Merlin move his stuff back into the dorms and picking up Brynmor from the 'pet shop', Arthur still managed to find himself in the salle at his usual time. He'd invited Zack to show up, after all, and if even half of the usual crowd showed up he'd have plenty of distraction for the morning.

He was even feeling fairly optimistic about living with Leto again for the next few weeks. It might help him get a few-- things out of his system that he didn't particularly want to have to deal with. Or shouldn't, if a certain someone's reaction was anything to go--

He took a practice sword, got into stance, and practiced off a dummy for a good while.

[[ and open, saving the rest of the spam for later today, guys ]]

Comments

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Morning, Arthur." Dinah walked in rather than bouncing, last night's bout with Jen taking care of any possibility of that, and headed for the sword rack a little more cautiously than usual. Bruises, yay.

[bitchprince]

Arthur watched her movements for a few moments, identifying what was what - showing up damaged to a training session, really, only he got to do that. "Dinah. Morning," he started. If she'd been a man, this would've been where he'd yell at her for a bit and then forced her to do the hardest drills he could think of.

This not being the case, he said, "Switch to your eskrima."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

But but but sword! Dinah gave them a yearning look, hand already on one, then winced again. Damnit. She tried to think of an argument. Well. A good argument. The pull in her side settled it for her, and she reluctantly went over to her bag to pull out her sticks. "I would argue with you about learning to fight while I'm wounded and all, but. Ow, darnit." She muttered under her breath and approached the practice dummy, shaking out her shoulders, and starting the drill at half-speed. Ow.

[bitchprince]

"You could have tried," Arthur agreed, "But you'd have lost."

Worst. Sword drills. He could have come up with. "You did get those bruises seen to, right?"

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah was getting better at splitting her concentration, so she nodded as she kept up the drill, left, right, abierto, cielo, and said, "Yup. Ibuprofen. Ice. Early night. Heat." Thud thud thud on each word. The knees were still a little sore, so she stopped to bounce and stretch them out for a minute. "Jen's sneaky." Thud thud thud, twirl-slap!

And wait, was that concern? ...Naaah.

[bitchprince]

"Jen's not sneaky, she's better than you," Arthur informed her mercifully. "Simply practicing your drills won't solve everything if you can't keep your mind occupied with what really matters."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Which, being totally true, didn't get more than a roll of the eyes, before Dinah gritted her teeth against the urge to ask. It was only going to be another criticism. Did she want to know? Seriously? Uno, diez, ocho, siete... "Which would be?" She probably already knew it. But she had to ask.

[formerbrat.livejournal.com]

Elspeth arrived at the salle and after a few warm-ups, set to work attacking a dummy with a practice sword.

[bitchprince]

"Lady Elspeth," Arthur called, once he'd noticed her. Mostly for the sake of politeness. "Good morning."

[formerbrat.livejournal.com]

"Good morning, Prince Arthur," Elspeth said. She paused in her exercises. "Interested in a spar today?"

[bitchprince]

"I've already made arrangements for the day," he said, which was actually true, and not just a good excuse to get out of fighting a girl (which it wasn't, all right?). "Maybe later this week."

[formerbrat.livejournal.com]

Elspeth nodded. "Any time you like."

[bitchprince]

"I'm sure we'll meet each other in the salle again," Arthur continued (he had no idea why he was continuing, but he'd steamroll along), "And I have no other plans this week."

Which almost made it sound like he was asking her out on a date. Lucky they weren't contemporary?

[formerbrat.livejournal.com]

"How about Wednesday morning, then?" Elspeth suggested.

[puppy_fair]

Zack had been invited, and so Zack was going to show up!

Funny how that worked, really, wasn't it?

He kind of bounded in, a little late because he'd had class earlier, with his sword at his back and a grin on his face.

"Hey, Arthur!"

[bitchprince]

"Zack," Arthur greeted, feeling on slightly more steady ground after speaking to Reno ironies of ironies. "I see you've actually managed to remember we were supposed to spar today."

For Arthur, that was 'hi, how are you, nice to see you!'.

[puppy_fair]

Zack could only ever interpret that as such. Arthur was a pretty neat guy! Of course he was only teasing.

"Of course I did! I had to write it down, of course. Needed a map and everything."

No, he hadn't. He'd been looking forward to this since Arthur had invited him, and he'd hunted down the Salle to make sure he knew where it was that very same day. But the tone in his voice was light, and he was still grinning, so he was pretty sure it was clear that he was joking, anyhow.

"It's a pretty good setup in here, isn't it?"

[bitchprince]

Arthur was having enormous trouble not grinning back as a matter of fact, which was why the edges of his mouth curled for a split second before he gained some control over them. "It'll do for our purposes," he said, glancing sideways. "I see you brought your blade?"

[puppy_fair]

"I did!" Zack nodded and reached backward, taking the sword in hand and giving it a twirl by way of demonstration.

It was a pretty big sword. Not that the boys in SOLDIER were compensating for anything, really. "I got to have it out the other day, too. Deadpool and I were working with them over at Atlas."

[bitchprince]

Arthur's eyes were fixed firmly on the sword. He took playing with those things very seriously. And that was a Very Serious Sword. "...Who made that?" he asked, with more awe than he'd like to admit. "How heavy is it?"

[intraspective]

Ino had been meaning to do this for weeks now, and despite someone else blonde and so not her friend being in the gym (radio was useful for seeing patterns!) she wasn't going to let that stop her from leaning in the door, and studying Arthur's fighting style interestedly.

All information was good information, really.

[bitchprince]

That much was true. This, however, wasn't information Arthur minded getting out. In fact, he rather enjoyed it, because he knew he was good. No matter what the local standards, no one would take that from him.

He may have stepped it up just one notch because he realised someone was watching, but not enough to be utterly visible. He did have his pride in that.

[intraspective]

She settled herself a little more comfortably, totally disinclined to do anything but watch--talking was not learning, not in this case--and took mental notes.

And, alright, grudgingly admired the skill. But whatever.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah noticed Ino, but wasn't about to break her routine for her. The eskrima might be getting an extra hard slap to the mannequin, but hey. That's what it was there for.

[intraspective]

Ino'd be a poor ninja if she missed that, and the style got a vague glance, but she wasn't interested in Dinah.

Which would be why Dinah was being utterly ignored to all evidence, despite the fact that she made mental notes about the skill there to, for all the good it would do. Ugh. Sunshine.