fandomhighdorms | The Salle, Monday Morning

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The Salle, Monday Morning

Not that Arthur would admit it, but yesterday had helped to calm him down from the state of introverted confusion he'd been in since Thursday. He was no longer showing signs of such, or at least nothing that was as easily, visibly sedate.

He was, however, very focused on his own swordwork that morning. He'd asked Merlin to ~~stand guard~~ come with him into the salle, but now that what bothered him worst had gotten out, he was free to focus on his movements to ward off the rest of it. Slowly, carefully, and with full concentration, he lapsed into familiar patterns that were as easy as breathing by now.

[[ open salle, but I'll be SP in bursts until the evening ]]

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Zack didn't have his armor on today, but he did have his sword, and some thoroughly paint-soaked clothing. He'd come pretty much straight here after art class, once he'd finished his detour to grab his sword. Was that so wrong?

He kind of looked like modern art gone wrong, but he was totally up for some swordwork and was going to get right into practising his forms.

If Zack didn't mind the interruption, Arthur was just going to laugh now. It felt good, all in all, after the past week.

"Zack," he called, "What in the name of God happened to you? Did you decide to wander off into a pool of dye?" Pause. "Thrice?"

"Paint fight in arts and crafts," Zack reported, lowering his sword and shooting Arthur a grin. "Though you should have seen me yesterday morning, man. Some little pink thing went and drew all over my face."

Actually, considering the mud and the hangover that had gone with that, it was possibly for the best that Arthur hadn't seen him that way, after all.

It was a toss-up; Zack could've caught him in a maudlin mood and the laughter would've been of desperately lower volume down to bottoming out into a brood-off. "I see your ability with the sword has no bearing on your ability to avoid paint, then," he said, graciously, coming up towards him. "Or little pink things."

"In my own defense, the little pink thing cheated and put me to sleep, first." Without his armor, he really didn't have anywhere to sheath his sword, so he brought it up to rest casually on one shoulder, instead. "And the paint fight was fun, but it's toooootally different than working with a sword."

Swords weren't typically liquid, for example.

"Next time," Arthur said, with authority, "You might want to consider ducking."

Yes, he thought he was funny.

"Do you think you can manage a spar at all?"

"Half the fun is in the getting messy, you know." Still, the next time, Zack would consider ducking, then. And then he'd end up with a faceful of paint. And he'd blame Arthur.

"I think I can handle a spar, yeah," Zack laughed, bringing his sword down off of his shoulder again. "Maybe I'll even remember to duck!"

"Doubtful," Arthur informed him, and gave his own blade the general swoop that he felt announced hail, ye who are about to be thoroughly trounced quite admirably. "But you're welcome to try," he continued, giving Zack an overexaggeratedly open look.

Heck, Zack was okay with being thoroughly trounced, so long as he was getting some exercise anyhow!

He was weird like that.

"Well, then I'll try," he announced. "Bring it on!"

And then he was headed for Arthur at a run, bringing his sword downward in a slash aimed for Arthur's chest. He was catching on to that 'keep your distance, you have a long sword' thing that Deadpool kept drilling into his head. It would probably take a small bit of footwork for Arthur to be able to reach Zack back with that sword-of-not-massiveness.

And as it turned out, half of Arthur's entire life had been devoted to telling people off about their footwork. He parried Zack's blow with a few handy steps and a lift of his blade, then kept on moving along Zack's sword with his own as he stepped as close as he could possibly get at top speed--

To knock a shoulder at Zack's. How novel.

Well, it was different, anyhow!

"You're going to get paint on your clothes at this rate," Zack laughed, tripping back a half-step at the blow. "Just admit it, you wanted to spar because you felt left out and wanted to make up for missing the paint fight today."

Arthur chose the moment Zack started babbling to try and deliver a blow at his knees. "The last thing I'd feel left out from," he said, "Is a paint fight."

Arthur was very good at pinpointing the start of the babble, wasn't he?

Then again, Zack was good at babbling. So it was likely that Arthur had gotten plenty of practise listening to the babble by now, right?

"That's just what you want to believe," Zack laughed, bringing his sword down to block. "See, now I'm going to have to spring one on you when you least expect it. Out of the blue, paff! A water-balloon filled with paint."

"I always expect it," Arthur assured him, following it up with a high blow just to keep Zack on his toes and all. He enjoyed keeping people on their toes. Call it a hobby.

Really, he was half-disappointed there was nothing random to fling at Zack while he was babbling, here.

Maybe it was fortunate that there was nothing to fling. Zack had left his umbrella behind, after all.

And he was totally ducking this high blow, maybe just because Arthur himself had so nicely suggested that he do so!

"You always expect to be randomly bombarded with paint? That's what I call prepared, man."

"Camelot does expect its knights to be prepared for any engagement," Arthur informed him, backing up a few steps to get himself some advantage back.

"Any engagement? What if you're attacked by a herd of killer bunny rabbits? Or monkeys? Or Deadpool?"

Zack was thoroughly convinced that nobody could prepare for things like that. Honestly.

He was also stepping backward and raising his sword again.

"Then I will be ready," Arthur assured him, shifting into his own defensive stance.

Arthur wasn't as thoroughly convinced he actually would be, but he had a long track record in faking it in front of his father. Faking it in front of Zack in a bantering fight was a piece of cake in comparison.

"How abouuuut," Zack was now bent on finding something shocking and not-ready-worthy, "a stampede of gremlins? Houses with mouths and arms and sharp teeth? Pancakes?"

He hadn't had breakfast, yet.

Slashing at Arthur's knees, la!

"Yes," and a momentary breathing pause to parry Zack's move before he lost his knees, "I'd be ready."

"It's easy to be ready for pancakes," Zack noted. "The first time I heard about those houses, though, I was pretty shocked. Midgar gets some weird monsters."

At least the monsters were semi-normal. Really. Truly.

"Oooh, there's one! Would you be ready for hitting up a big city like Midgar sometime! All noise and lights and traffic and concrete. I wasn't ready for that, at first."

And, okay, Zack's adjustment time once he'd gotten to Midgar had only been, like, three seconds. But that was still three seconds of Zack having to adapt. Midgar was a big place!

That was rather more of a toss-up, but Arthur had already assured Reno that he could handle Edge, and Midgar couldn't be much worse. "Of course I would be ready," he said, "You've told me all about it."

Swoop went the sword.

And clash went Zack's sword against it.

"I don't talk about it all that much, do I?" Yeah, Zack. You kinda do. You have a big mouth. "Okay, then we need to trade off and even things out! What's your home like?"

"Camelot?" He struck again, of course. "There's the castle at the edge of the city, where the court lives and the knights do practice." Arthur wasn't much of a babbler, really. "Sometimes there's monster attacks or plague, but we do all right."

"Life goes on, huh?" And this time, Zack blocked with his sword and moved back out of the way, just to be on the safe side. "I have this feeling that, for all that our homes are different, they're pretty similar when it boils right down to bare bones. It's just people, either way."

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