“I don’t actually care about how we match up,” Nathan said with an air that made it clear he was under no illusion his words would make a difference. “And I can’t actually do any of the stuff that I would do in a real fight, because Saucer is all about, like, eating souls or something in this incarnation. Which I endorse in a real fight, because if things don’t want their souls eaten they don’t have to try to kill me, right? But it’s awkward for a spar.”
“I’m not fighting you to see what you can do,” Tanya rebuffed him. “I’m bored, we’ve both had our two hours to get fully rested, and Honey isn’t ready to get up yet. She’s all blah blah just five more minutes of fluffy blanket blah blah.”
“You want to fight me,” he said blankly, “because you’re bored.” Blinking a few times, he added, “I actually get that, now that I think about it. A lot of people treat violence as entertainment, whether through indulging in it themselves or as a spectator sport.”
“Thank you! So many people fail to get that.”
“Maybe because people don’t want to do violence for entertainment? Like, even people who watched hockey with a voyeuristic love of people hitting each other at least had the excuse of the sport to mask the whole thing.”
For lack of any cultural context, and also because he knew that it would be a waste of his time—but mostly because of the former aspect, since Nathan was ever willing to infodump at people even if it didn’t serve any particular purpose—he forewent the opportunity to detail all of his other objections, and also all of the other, more violent sports which were still passed off as sports rather than fighting. Since this list included wrestling in all of its forms, he felt that it was a point that had value and begrudged to some extent the fact that Tanya had no interest in it.
“Fine,” he said instead, “but it’ll probably be boring for you. I just want to be clear about this.”
“Sure.”
She grinned at him, all tooth and gleam-of-eye, and then her fist was rushing at his face.
“Rude,” he said, having shifted his hands minutely, and the rest of his rejoinder took a form other than words.
“Ow,” she responded eloquently.
Tanya’s not-at-all-surprising surprise attack had run into a blocker, or rather two of them: first, Nathan was wise enough to fully expect and anticipate it, and second, Saucer was in the form of a shield. In this manner, the blockers in question represented a play on words, with one of them being literal and another metaphorical; and Tanya was thus enlightened as to the value of a morphic weapon, since Saucer had shifted into the form of a shield faster than even her eye could follow. Her second strike met with slightly more success, inasmuch as Saucer was not braced and her fist shoved Nathan out of position, and her eyes narrowed.
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“That ratfucker of yours doesn’t half move slow, does it.”
“Saucer is a gentlething and a scholar,” the young man she’d just failed to strike objected in a distracted tone, “and I respect and appreciate it deeply, as is proper.”
“It’s no-selling hits that get it square-on. But… it still needs leverage.”
A toothy grin was all the warning she offered him before she stepped in for another strike. This time, she came in from the side, blurring as the very air heralded her passage—which would have made very little sense, were it not for the fact that the subtle magics that allowed her to move as fast as she did without untoward air friction effects were responsible for the hammer of wind that presaged her fist’s arrival.
Nathan almost got himself turned in time to take her strike square-on. It shouldn’t have mattered, regardless, due to how quickly Saucer could adapt to her angle of attack. Of course, that was only for a punch; when her palms pressed against the light-drinking surface of the shield, and she let her hands spread to quest for angles and to try to apply torque, they discovered that Saucer was unable to cover a sufficiency of frontage.
Almost gently, with motions slow enough that Nathan could follow them, though he could not react, she twisted his shield to enough of an angle that she could step in behind its arc. And then, with a momentary touch of her hand on his upper arm, he went flying towards the central fountain.
He sputtered as he flew towards it, bracing for impact and the shock of cold-and-wet that would follow, but it didn’t happen. Instead, he found himself suspended inches from the surface of the water with Tanya’s arm wrapped around his waist, perfectly balanced as though they were dancing.
“Sorry about that,” she apologized with a sincerity that surprised him. “I didn’t think about how shallow the fountain is. Almost brained you trying to be funny.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, and then realized he didn’t know what to follow it up with. “Thanks,” he offered after a moment.
“Well, back up you go.” She dropped him back onto his feet, then walked three measured steps away. “Now that I know what your basic speed and reactions are like, let’s see what you know with weapons. You know how to use a spear? Two-handed sword? Shield and one-hander? Bows, guns, throwing axes or knives?”
“Wait, you know what guns are? I mean, of course you do, you wouldn’t have the word for them otherwise.”
“Sure? I mean, which kind? Dunno how your home did it, but we sort ‘em by propellant. Compressed gas, powder, liquid explosives, contained impetus, that sorta thing.”
He couldn’t help himself. “Electromagnetism?”
“For a cannon, maybe,” she snorted. “Too unwieldy. Guns are for chumps or enchanters who think it’s fun to fight, anyway, or people with more cryma than power; so, chumps.” She cocked her head at him, smirking. “Well? Show me what you got, you two.”
Smiling faintly, shaking his head less faintly, Nathan sighed. “Alright. Saucer, let’s see if we can make her try, even a little.”