The Salle, Friday afternoon

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah had brought her body armor, sticks, helmet, and gaderiffii to practice, and was now practicing alone, waiting for Tahiri. Once, doce, siete, nueve... all the forms, faster and faster.

[waiting for the barefoot Jedi, but open to others]

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[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

She got one of the sticks away from Dinah, but not both. Dinah clutched the one in her left hand with extra force and got back to her feet. "Um, so yes. I don't know if you've met him, but he's really cool. Took me zoomer-driving and got me Beaver Buzz energy drink..." Dinah moved back on the attack, hoping to get a few hits onto Tahiri before she got a good grip on that eskrima stick.

[weetuskenraider]

"I'm afraid," Tahiri said, only half joking, and dodging most of the hits with more apparent ease than was actually the case, deflecting a couple awkwardly with the unfamiliar weapon, and taking the rest with good humor. "Do you really need to be more energetic than you already are?"

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"When I'm around Jak? Yes!" Dinah twirled her way into another hit, letting glee and fuel her movements as she pushed in closer. "He's nice and cute and funny and he likes me the way I am and it's so fun!" And then twirled her stick like a baton before aiming it at Tahiri's again, trying to disarm her, this time.

[weetuskenraider]

"You're babbling more than I do," Tahiri told her. Her borrowed stick hit Dinah's with a teeth-rattling crash, but she was far too stubborn to let go, and twisted her wrist to catch both sticks in a bind.

See who came out of that one . . . could be interesting.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"I have cause," Dinah pointed out, then strained against the bind Tahiri had caught their sticks in, finally using her second hand to push back on the stick with both hands. "How is Ben, anyway?"

[weetuskenraider]

Stressing himself over a lot of things, including how she was doing, but there was no point in mentioning it. "Fine. We went to a movie yesterday." Even in the middle of pulling the stick out of the bind and leaping sideways with annoyingly Jedi speed, Tahiri looked perplexed. That movie had made no sense.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah caught that look and laughed, then did a diving-roll forward, aiming her stick at Tahiri's knees. "Which movie?"

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri yelped and had to throw herself into a backwards roll as soon as she'd landed on the mats -- cumbersome when padded -- to come up with the stick already slashing toward Dinah's shoulder. "When Henry Met Suzanne. It was nothing like we expected."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah snorted, and then had to work to block the next blow, taking a breath to get to her feet while still knocking her eskrima back and forth against Tahiri's, trying to get past it to tag her arm. "That one? With the whole 'guys and girls can't be friends' thing?"

[weetuskenraider]

"Uh huh." Tahiri thought she could probably keep this up for a while, now that she had a good sense of Dinah's rhythm, and settled into a defensive holding pattern of parries and feints. "And the restaurant and . . ."

The lady who looked like Leia. Weird.

"We didn't get it."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah cracked up, backing off a bit to circle Tahiri, then sending a TK shove at her feet again. "It's more for old people. Who date too long in our world. And are way picky, I think." She paused, then checked, "You got the restaurant bit though, right?"

[weetuskenraider]

"Um," Tahiri said, and now it was her turn to go bright red, enough that the TK shove sent her staggering back a few paces, but she countered with a Force-shove of her own. "I wish I hadn't."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah chortled, and had to swerve a bit with that Force-shove to keep her balance, grinning. "Well, that's a start... remember back in February, when everyone was all frustrated?" She snickered a little, and then tugged again on the stick in Tahiri's hand with her TK, hoping to break her grip.

[weetuskenraider]

"Yes. Do I have to?" Tahiri complained. She let go of the stick, but added a hard Force spin to it, sending it boomeranging around the room and toward Dinah from behind.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah snickered. "We probably both get that better now. Here's hoping it doesn't happen again soon."

And agghhh! "OW!" Oh, that smack to the spine would've bruised, if it weren't for the padding. "Gah, sneaky." Dinah levitated the stick, then grinned at Tahiri. "Want to try with more than one weapon? TK vs. Force?"

[weetuskenraider]

"I only brought my gaderffii," Tahiri said sheepishly, but she was grinning a bit at the success of the trick. "But I can grab one of the practice swords, and hope that doesn't happen again or I'm going to die."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Works!" Dinah grinned and fell into rest position, waiting on Tahiri. "I got to use a real sword this week in Fencing for once. Interesting. Made me twice as careful, I have to admit."

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri nodded, grimacing, and made her way over to the rack to pick out a sword. "A friend of mine lost her arm in a lightsaber training accident years ago. It makes you think about those things a lot."

It took her several minutes to find a blade, and she knew she'd be at a disadvantage because the thing actually had weight to it, but she picked one out and came back with its hilt gripped firmly in her left hand. "Any rules?"

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Yikes. Yeah, careful, good." Dinah eyed Tahiri's practice sword, thinking, and said, "Good question, since we both can keep picking up our weapons after we drop 'em... two falls out of three?" she suggested, grinning. "And not just with Force or TK, with actual blows?"