fandomhighdorms | The Salle, Tuesday Morning

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The Salle, Tuesday Morning

Kate had probably never needed a hug this bad in her entire life. So of course she was in the salle bright and early, stabbing and slashing at practice dummies. That made perfect sense, didn't it?

Last night after the portal in the park, Kate had come back to the dorms, turned off her phone despite it telling her she had a couple of voicemails, taken a quick shower, and then just fallen into her bed, completely wiped out. Sleep had come quickly, but she was still exhausted when she woke up. It was all emotional, though, and that was why she'd come down here, and was also fully intending to stay here all the way until lunchtime. Combating emotional exhaustion with its physical counterpart was totally healthy, really. So was tiring herself out so she wouldn't even notice who was in class with her after lunch.

She'd stuck a note (Down in the salle, K) on her own door on the off chance anyone would want to find her. Not that she didn't expect anyone who knew anything about how she dealt with stress these days to know the salle was an excellent guess. She also trusted people she didn't want to see right now to not come looking for her.

Yesterday was not how her supremely non-romantic Valentine's Day was supposed to go. So die, dummies. Die.

[ooc: The post is open for all your salle/Kate-bothering needs! ~~I'll be AFK for a class in my afternoon, but other than that~~ I should be aroooound all day.]

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Percy wasn't anywhere near the levels of upset Kate was but he still thought a few long hours in the salle might help him out after this weekend. It had been stressful, he could agree with that, and he knew he didn't wanna be a dad for a loooong while but the kids hadn't killed him so he was good.

He was a little surprised to see Kate there because he remembered Luke mentioning that she was training. He kept Riptide in pen form for the moment, watching her quietly try and kill dummies. She was certainly motivated.

Highly motivated, yes. Focused, too. She often was, but today there was an almost angry sort of precision to her movements. She wasn't half bad for someone who'd been doing this for only a month and a half: she looked comfortable with her knife, and trying to clear her head by being as good at this as she could possibly be was working for her.

She was pretty sure there was someone else here now, too, but they could wait.

"If you gut all the dummies, does that mean I can have you stand in for me if I promise to heal you after?" Percy called, standing there with his arms crossed and a look of bemusement on his face.

... This may have been the only day in history where Kate actually found herself preferring Percy turning up over a bunch of other possibilities. Weird.

She yanked her knife off the dummy before turning around and raising her eyebrows. "What, you don't have some fancy blade that acts like I'm a ghost?"

"Yeah," he said and held up the ballpoint pen that hadn't been morphed into a sword yet. "But that doesn't mean I can't use a practice sword if I wanted. My talent does extend past my preferred sword."

"Didn't say it didn't," she replied with an eyeroll, after a cursory glance at -- was that a pen? Whatever. "Just trying to imply that no, you can't gut me."

"Darn," he said and snapped his fingers. "My day's just ruined now."

Well, not really. Percy shook his head and tightened his grip on Riptide. The pen changed quickly and smoothly, morphing into a deadly looking bronze sword that Percy carried easily.

"Cool, huh?" he asked, grinning. "It's still pretty wicked to see that happen."

Well, that was a good way of getting Kate to raise her eyebrows with a slight widening of her eyes, at least. Maybe one day she would get used to stuff like that happening, Or maybe not.

"That is pretty spectacular," she admitted. "Handy, too, I'm sure."

"Really handy," he said, taking a few step towards her and offering the hilt her way. "This thing's freaking heavy. It was made for me, apparently, so it doesn't bother me too much but imagine carrying it on your back or something and not in pen form."

And he passed it to her carefully.

And she took it about as carefully, having put her knife away for the moment. Swords were heavy, she'd come to expect that ever since she'd had to pose with one for Lynda a thousand years ago. That was also why she'd insisted on the toy plastic one for the video.

And this was no plastic sword. "Why do demigods get all the cool toys?"

Edited 2011-02-15 16:41 (UTC)

"I'd go into a lecture about how swords aren't toys blah blah blah but that's my mom talking and I think it's a pretty cool toy too," he said, showing some rare agreement with her.

"Besides, we kinda need them," Percy said, shrugging. "Monsters being able to smell our blood and all means we gotta be prepared."

"Yeah, so I've figured," Kate replied, weighing the sword in her hands, eyes on the blade almost as if to hide from the fact that they were having a civil conversation. "Great power, great responsibility, great big bad things lurking just around the corner."

"You watch too many movies because I know Luke wouldn't say that," Percy said, rolling his eyes. "Or, God, I hope he wouldn't say that. If he is, he's getting old and needs a vacation or something."

"No, he wouldn't say that," Kate agreed with a wry smirk sent his way. "Some of us are just a bit pop culture savvy."

"Kind of a relief," he said snickered. "How's he as a trainer? Bet he doesn't knee you in the junk to get an advantage."

Kate snorted. "No, and I'm not allowed to do that either," she shared. "I don't know, he's good. Probably helps that I'm motivated, but I think he's actually kinda good at teaching stuff."

"He's kinda good," Percy agreed reluctantly. "He helped train me when I first got to camp and I was completely new to everything. So, he's good."

He was just...a psychopathic traitor. Yeah, that.

Well, no one was perfect, right?

"See, I lucked out," Kate said, shrugging a shoulder. "Something to be said for this weirdo island, after all."

"I'm in a good mood this morning so if you wanna take a few swings with Riptide, I won't freak out," he offered, thinking that very polite of him or something.

Kate wrinkled her nose. "Nah, I think I'll stick to my little knife," she said, already moving to hand his sword back to him. It wasn't even entirely because she didn't want to make an ass out of herself in front of him. "Thanks for the offer, though. Even if being in a good mood this morning should get you a place on my hitlist or something."

"Why?" Percy asked, taking Riptide back and leaning on it. "The weekend was weird but not scarring. I'd rather not think about how some of those kids came about but yeah, not that bad."

"Then you got lucky, and I'm happy for you," Kate replied, almost sincerely. She picked up her knife again, examining the blade. "Not everyone else's weekend was scar free."

"...and I asked why," Percy reminded her, shrugging. "You gonna sit there and mope and be cryptic or spit it out?"

"I'm not moping," Kate replied, because somehow being defensive was better than moping? She didn't know. "Anyway, I was trying to be courteous and not dump my trauma on you so you can make fun of me."

Yes, she went from claiming to be courteous to apparently he'd just use her stuff against her, but she didn't care. Looong weekend.

"It was nothing, it doesn't matter."

"Whatever," Percy said, not about to try and press some girl into telling him about her woe. He picked up Riptide and found himself a non gutted practice dummy to start taking a few practice swings on.

"And you know, if this weekend scarred you, I think it does matter," he called out, showing some rare insight there.

Kate wasn't too impressed with the quality of his insight. Of course it mattered, everyone knew it mattered. She just didn't want it to.

"Yeah well," she said, eyeing the dummy she'd been practically destroying when he'd arrived, "we can just pretend it doesn't."

Percy snickered and shook his head. "You're not that good at brooding, you know. I think there'd be less talking so people feel sorry for you and more sullen glaring and dummy fuzz."

"As if I'd ever brood." She sulked far more, really. "I leave that to people taller, more hipsterlike and far more Irish than me."

Mitchell.

"So, what's this you're doing right now?" Percy wondered, giving her a look over his shoulder. "Whining? Self pity? Pouting?"

Kate reached to touch the tip of her knife to the mostly dummy's throat before answering.

"Dealing."

She'd be saying that a few times today.

Percy watched that little move with a raised eyebrow. "That's a little scary, Kate," he pointed out, nodding to that whole throat thing.

Some random part of Kate's brain actually thought being scary, even if just a little, was a good thing.

But mostly she was just raising an eyebrow right back at him, without moving her hand. "Says the guy with the big fucking sword."

"I don't have it pointed at anyone's throat, dummy or not," Percy retorted, shrugging. "Didn't know you were a fan of the throat shot."

"Well, you don't know me at all, anyway," Kate pointed out flippantly, lowering her knife by dragging the tip along the dummy's chest. "So that's really no surprise."

"That's some impressive defensiveness there," Percy remarked, going back to his dummy and focusing his attacks on the legs and hips of the dummy. "Just what I'd expect from you considering I remarked on one thing, not you in general."

"That one thing is a part of the whole, though," she replied, watching him. Or what he was doing, to be more precise. Talking was secondary but came easily. "And that's a whole you don't know a whole lot about. How was that defensive?"

"It was defensive because I didn't mean anything bad by it," he said, stepping closer to the dummy and shoving the sword through it's gut before moving back and slashing down at the chest.

"I wasn't trying to know more about you, I was just making an observation based on appearances," he continued, keeping the sword aloft. "Not an observation about the deeper meanings of you."

"And I didn't take it as one," she replied lightly, her head slightly tilted. "I only said it wasn't surprising you didn't know something. Wasn't defensive because there was nothing to defend."

"If you say so," he said skeptically because he so did not believe her. Percy rammed the hilt of the sword into the dummy's face and followed that with a knee to the groin before he backed off and swung the sword lightly, getting his breath back.

"Don't worry Kate, I don't want to know anything about you," he said, shrugging. "Keep it to yourself. I've got enough already."

"I know," Kate replied. For a dude she didn't even consider a friend, she knew kind of a lot about random shit in his life.

Still, the rest came out in a drier drawl. "Wouldn't want to burden you further."

"Yeah, I appreciate that," he said, letting the sword rest against his shoulder before turning around. "Got enough on my plate without your things that don't matter but clearly scar you."

"Nothing clear about it," she replied, putting some force into sticking her knife in the near-destroyed dummy's gut, just so she could have both hands free to fix her ponytail. "You wouldn't know if I hadn't said."

"And I think you want someone to dump it all on so you can cry and they can make it better," Percy retorted, shifting the sword back to pen form and tucking it in his pocket.

"I'll come back when you're not brooding in here," he added, heading for the door. "Don't get too many tears on the mat."

Smartass.

Kate considered that far too lame to even get answered in words. She just waved a dismissive hand, then went back to what she'd been doing.

Lots more dummies to shread. Far more satisfying than crying.

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The Salle, Tuesday Morning

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