fandomhighdorms | The Salle, Monday Morning

Dinah had had an awesome weekend, thanks. In between playing with small people and feeding them too much sugar, and getting tons of blackmail material, there were trips out to visit her new motorcycle and celebrate the fact that she was 18 now. And she didn't have a sugar hangover or anything to regret this morning.

Ahem. "Leaf."

Arthur spun around and gave her a good look. "What," he said, pointedly, "Are you talking about."

"Did you have a good weekend?" Dinah asked artlessly. Look, there was only so much teasing time left in their acquaintance. Had to get in one or two last shots. "It looks like it."

"We don't talk," and with that, Arthur approached her, waving a finger in her face, "About the weekends."

Edited 2010-04-26 08:59 (UTC)

"Then I shouldn't tell you that you have a leaf in your hair, hunh?" Dinah's grin widened. "My mistaaaake."

Arthur reached up for his hair almost immediately and found...

"Dinah, get to your training!"

Followed by a Ye Olde Curseword that wasn't very nice.

Yes, the was the limit of the pushing to be had this merry morning. Dinah grinned and didn't say a word, just snapped off a salute.

Then lovingly, happily, gloatingly walked over to her gear and took out the kampilan that Kennedy had given her for her birthday. Yesssssss!

Arthur... was going to ignore that.

"And now what have you acquired?"

"Swooooord." Dinah beamed at her prize, and said, "A kampilan. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampilan) It's Filipino. They beat the conquistadors with this."

"Interesting blade," Arthur said, neutrally, and sheathed his own sword. "I'll take a look at it."

Wibbbbble. For just a second Dinah *did* look five, then she shook herself, and carefully handed it over. It'd been sized for her, (because Kennedy knew her weapons) but otherwise, it was pretty typical of its type; rattan wrapped around the hilt, angled guard, serrated-separated tip, and the naga, open-mouthed for the grip. "Same type as where my sticks come from...."

Honestly. She was nothing sort of a girl child.

Arthur took it, and checked its balance quickly. He examined it with a thoughtful frown on hsi face, running over the basics of its design.

And then he gave the air a quick stab, for form. Single-edged, serrated tip. Different from his usual style. "Hm." The examination was not so much 'this is a pretty sword' and more 'I could kill with this', really.

Edited 2010-04-26 16:34 (UTC)

"Better for close fighting than a double-sided blade, for me," Dinah pointed out, looking considering too. Then kind of ... possessive. She stomped on that. "More control that way."

"Depends," Arthur said, vaguely. "If your opponent can manage to parry it, that end won't be much use. And with the single edge, you'll have to learn it very thoroughly. Still..."

He offered the heft back to her. "Not too bad."

"Yesss." Ahem. "Thank you." Dinah took her sword back, and went over to practice her first set of drills with it. Eeee! "Then throwing my new knives."

Yes, someone had a very, very good birthday. "Before I go out on my motorcycle."

Edited 2010-04-26 17:03 (UTC)

"...Oh, god, who gave you one of those?"

"My sister! We had a deal, last year. Keep a job, keep my grades up, keep from getting arrested a whole year..." Yes, there was a reason for that caveat, after all. "I mean, keep out of trouble. And. Motorcycle." GLEE.

Arthur pulled a face. "Do you even know how to drive one of those?" Because you know who actually did? Arthur did.

"Duh. Helena has two. I think she went along with this so I'd quit borrowing hers." Without asking. Dinah grinned at him. "You could go see it with me. When you have time this week. You know, in between everything else."

Arthur shot her a slightly amused, slightly patient smile. "I'm staying here for the week, Dinah, but thank you for the offer."

He was... just... you know. Doing stuff that wasn't... sitting around hoping to god that this being graduation week meant he could get a portal out of here.

Yeah. Stuff. That your usual workaholic did when forced to stay in one place that wasn't a vacation.

"You're welcome. And all that." Dinah grinned and got back to her drill stance. "Not going anywhere either, yet."

"Mhm," Arthur said, watching her with that sword. "Try one of the basic defensive drills. See how different the blade feels in your hand."

"Right." The balance was different, even though the weight was the same, and Dinah slowly ran through the drill a second time, trying to figure out what it was. "I think it's balanced more towards the hilt. For stabbity purposes."

Arthur yanked his own sword out of his sheath, and executed a series of shifting stabbing motions that would've been more in place with... well, a sword like Dinah's. "Try that."

Dinah did that, and her grin got very slightly more feral. "Yes. Ha!"

Yeah, so kindergarten monster-hunting had been fun, but Kennedy had to get right back to her training. Ordinarily she put off the sword work until later in the day, but it seemed like a good time to get an early jump on it, today. This had nothing at all to do with living down the embarrassment of having called Constance yesterday morning and babbling at her.

It might, however, have something to do with getting a call back early this morning and having her Watcher laugh at her. Constance was so not allowed to be anything but stuffy and serious, damn it. The laughing was just wrong.

"Hey," she offered diffidently to Arthur as she walked in, longsword in a light one-handed grip. She didn't go for one of the practice dummies right away, opting instead to run through a few forms drills first.

"Morning," Arthur said, in a sort of slightly-tight, incredibly-composed-because-it's-better-than-looking-an-angry-fool-in-public sort of way. He was between drills at the time he greeted her back, giving his sword an idle twirl and running it through a few stances.

"It's been some time since I saw you train."

"Every day," Kennedy answered casually, enjoying the feel of the blade arcing through the air in front of her. "Just not normally at the same time you do."

Arthur hummed something, non-committal, in clear dismissal of whatever undertone she was going for there.

"I was hoping for a sparring partner," he said instead, equally casual.

"Oh, really?" Kennedy managed, somehow, to keep her tone casual, though with a hint of well, aren't you lucky then. She couldn't help it. "I'd have thought you'd be looking for someone, I don't know, a little less female, but hey, if I'm wrong, awesome."

"Beggars can't be choosers around here," Arthur said, idly, like it wasn't because he'd gotten his arse kicked by Elspeth last August. "And who knows, you might learn something."

Although he was going to be careful until he could gauge her limits anyway, but shhh.

Kennedy's limits were a bit more limited than she liked to admit, but she also liked to think she made up for it with confidence.

"Oh, so we're settling, are we?" Mostly teasing, but she couldn't really let the wording slide. Although really, when it came down to it her ego couldn't outdo her desire to be the best damn Potential Slayer she could be, and how the hell could she pass up the chance to spar with Arthur freaking Pendragon?

"Yeah, sure." She was grinning now, just a bit; yay, youthful enthusiasm. "I could go for picking up a few new things."

"Very well," he said, and rolled his shoulders once in anticipation. He walked towards her, thinking briefly of offering-- well, he could always offer. "I could always use a handicap if you're too worried."

Arthur existed in that weird in-between stage where part of his brain was sure she'd take it and the other part of it laughed at the idea. That was one thing Fandom had managed.

"Nah," Kennedy replied without stopping to consider it. "Nothing's gonna offer me a handicap for real, so why get used to it? Like I'm pretty sure no demon I might run across will agree to go blindfolded for the throwdown."

That... was part cockiness, part pragmatism. It could be a bad combination.

Ah, well, there went a chance to ~~drive the mun mad looking for blindfolded-Arthur icons from the Season 3 set pics~~ see if he was still as good blind as he used to be.

"True enough," he said, and assumed an easy, defensive stance. "Lady gets the first blow."

Ass-whupping or not, chivalry still lived. Or something.

~~Well, damn.~~ "So not dirty." Kennedy could still be kind of twelve sometimes, but she wasn't going to reject that offer. She took the sword in a two-handed grip and stepped in, cutting diagonally upward; odds on her having the height advantage on anyone were low, anyway.

Yeah, not dirty, that Arthur could agree on.

He parried it with a level blade, giving her no room to recover from her reach on that blow, and struck low, down at her hip. He studied her eyes carefully.

She was probably a little more excited about this than she really should be, which showed in her eyes, not to mention a certain excess of energy that went into parrying his strike (it came closer than she'd have preferred, just another reason to work on her reaction time, although for her relative inexperience her reflexes were still pretty good).

Hoping to make up for that, she tried to kick out at his midsection but she'd jammed herself up pretty good and there was no way she'd get full extension on the kick.

Damn.

Arthur danced back quickly and out of range as a result. Swordcraft was often the art of repeating certain core actions until your opponent made a mistake, after all - and she'd just proven she could make a few.

He struck out towards her other leg while she was still underbalanced, although not with such strength that he'd lop her leg off if she didn't parry. That would... kind of go above and beyond.

Kennedy, who was kind of proficient at mistake-making, appreciated the restraint. She did manage to parry the blow, but--

"Shit," she muttered to herself, taking a wobbly hop back to get her balance. So great, now she was completely out of reach and he had plenty of time to react. At least recognizing she'd gone and forced herself to have to defend rather than keep any offensive momentum was something? One more thing to learn to get better about.

Which wasn't a lesson that was going to sink in right at the moment, no. Not when she thought she saw a chance to stab in at his shoulder. Thought she did, anyhow.

"Kennedy!" Dinah beamed at her, and stopped her sword drill. "This sword is so awesome."

"Yeah?" Kennedy tossed off a jaunty salute with her own sword. "I can tell Constance she made a good call then, huh?"

"Yes!" Dinah executed her high block, low block, then middle slash, and rolled her shoulders. "It's got the same weight as my practice sword, so it's working really well! And the one-sided-ness is giving me more confidence to work with it." She beamed at her. "Thank you again for this."

"Don't worry about it." Kennedy waved a hand. "We're sort of in the same line of work, right? Gotta have each other's backs and all."

The Salle, Monday Morning

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