a title

[latkje]

Date & Time: After this network post
Location: Training facilities
Characters: Nash (latkje) and Oz (velveteened)
Summary: Sword practice!!
Warnings: N/A

Nash was lying.

No, that wasn't right. Nash wasn't telling the whole truth. After all, the whole truth was an awful pricey thing to give away for free, when half-truths did just as well. Here are some true things about Nash Latkje: he usually woke up early, and he still practiced at swords. Here are some other true things: he didn't like to wake up early, and he had given up his blades, once upon a time. And— mysterious Initiative wizardry take note— he didn't want them back.

If he could get by without them, he would. Privately, Nash thought that he'd gotten pretty good with his creative alternatives to pretty blades, but fencing had always been the lesson that came easiest to him. And that was the truth of why he wanted to practice. He was happy Oz seemed interested. Even if the training turned out to be a disaster, meeting new people was always useful.

But hoped the training didn't turn out to be a disaster.

(ooc: I started w/paragraphs but feel free to tag in whatever form you like)

Comments

[latkje]

"Me neither." He shrugs, as best he can with his swordhand outstretched. "There's a guy where I'm from, famous mercenary, named his sword after his lady love." Nash shuddered inwardly at the thought— his missus was already sharp enough. "I never did."

Having taken the lead in the fight, Nash lunged again, quicker this time. It wasn't a particularly difficult move to dodge or to parry, but his goal was to provoke some sort of counter attack. (You couldn't back away forever, after all.) His fencing is likewise the sort the idle rich practices for sport. That's where his own training began, too, though he was long separated from that world, by time and by scandal.

[velveteened]

"How romantic!" Or at least, rather like something a knight in a novel might do. "Though I wonder how she liked that."

He could see how Alice would enjoy a notion like that, he supposes, all ha! That's right, defeat worthless losers in my name! Sharon's sensibilities tend to be more refined, but she may find such a gesture beautifully touching in some romantic way.

There was a clang as the attack got parried, then Oz lunged in turn, aiming to strike at Nash's side. There was some, but not a lot of power behind it, certainly possible to be turned aside.

[latkje]

"She died," he said, the last letters of the word getting cut off with the lunge.

Nash parried the blow, his face twitching with effort. He made the riposte, quicker this time, better aimed— enough that he can't talk and make the thrust at the same time.

[velveteened]

Oh. That wasn't an answer he was expecting, and it tripped him up - made him pause a moment too long as his thoughts wound around that, reassessed what he'd been told in light of that, made him slow to react to Nash's riposte. There's the suggestion of a parry in how Oz's blade started to move, but it struck nothing but air, while Nash's strike landed.

This would be where a third party would call the touch (and if it were valid or not), but Oz paused in acknowledgment anyway, huffing out a laugh after a bare beat.

"Your point! It seems I'm even rustier than I thought."

Or more easily distracted, anyway, which was a more chronic failing.

[latkje]

He could tell it was the distraction that got him the hit, not the riposte. That wasn't what he was trying to practice, but it was his usual tactic. Nash filed that away, almost unconsciously.

"It's like something from a storybook, huh? The knight with a trusted blade, named for a lost lady-love." He allowed himself this minute of reflection before resuming his fencer's stance.

[velveteened]

"You could say that," he agreed, not without an admission: "though it sounds very sad."

It reminded him, for some reason, of a sunny garden in someone else's memory, Jack asking him if he wanted to become Alice's knight. He'd refused on the basis of being too weak and unable, which is no less true, really; Break had to have been much of able of one, judging by his skill now, but even for him...

Oz took up the pose too, though only for a moment; taking a new strategy now, he lunged after scarcely a beat, feinting a blow to one side before switching the line of his attack.

[latkje]

The lunge caught him off guard— he managed to parry, but weakly. He tried to maintain an air of ease with his conversation, though the first syllables were rough with breath.

"Knight stories are usually sad. You can keep the lady or the sword, not both."

[velveteened]

"That seems kind of unfair, don't you think?"

He drew back a little after the parry, opening up space between them.

[latkje]

"Maybe. But fair's not very romantic." All this talk of knights— he wondered what the Lady Lightfellow was up to right now. He hadn't wanted to vanish, like that, but disappearing was one thing he was good at. She never actually got to see his swordsmanship, just hear his occasional boasts.

After a beat he feinted forward, trying to set up a trickier move.

[velveteened]

"Do you think so?"

A waste of breath of a question, really. Presumably - though there's no guarantee - Nash said it precisely because he did think so.

Oz instinctively moved to parry the (seemingly) coming blow.

[latkje]

Nash isn't the type to say all of what he thinks or to think all of what he says. So he laughs, but the ease of the sound gets cut off by a vicious, risky thrust. It's a powerful strike, harder to parry, but it will leave him vulnerable if he doesn't hit.

"People like their stories full of impossible odds, not quiet strolls in the park. But — ugh — if you ask me, the latter are just as charming."