There's that grin again, all excitement, almost pure in its joy. He called her a monster. Oh, he might be perfect.
The weapons he holds have almost as long a reach as hers, which is a fun new challenge. Generally, she has to work to wind up to this, get herself a bit battered before the reaver strength kicks in. But a slow start, especially when he's clearly not interested in fucking around, sounds a lot like a death sentence.
(Not really; she knows they're sparring. But the part of her that knows is small and gently hidden behind a wall of bloodlust.)
So her first salvo is to go low, trying to knock him from his current stance. She moves quickly, but the armor doesn't let her duck much. When she's dressed like this, she's used to aiming high, going for dragons and monsters. She'll have to compensate for the disadvantage or get swatted.
But, welll... a good blow to the head would really liven her up.
Her instincts don't fail her: as a rule Gabranth gives no quarter to anyone worth fighting, and now that he is certain her armor will hold, each movement— each press and dive of his blade— is raw conviction driven home. His strikes are made true by determination alone, and he expects his opponent to yield to them accordingly.
That she does not is a credit to her name.
When she drives back against his own advance, it doesn't lead to a retreat, to a tentative circling of one another as most strategies would suggest: he tangles himself across her front with a crushing shove of his shoulder into her plate, intending fully to brute force her footing out of place.
Though of course that only works against an opponent without sufficient strength to withstand it.
She's not getting the blows she wants; he's cautious. A good fighter, perhaps a great one. Respect mingles with admiration, two things she's sure she'll never show him. People of quality, you have to push, or they'll end up yellow-bellied.
This is an old trick, from her younger days, and she's not too proud of it. She bites her tongue, and tastes blood. It's not much, but it's enough, along with the shove to the shoulder, to withstand the next blow. And that just doubles her strength.
Sure-footed, she surges forward, aiming the dull side of her blade for his throat. His armor doesn't have a bevor, so it will hurt if it lands, but it won't be deadly.
He senses it but a split-second before it connects, lifting his shoulder in vain to try and level the blunt edge of her axe across the high rise of his pauldron— but shoving himself into her left him far too open to have any real effect on its momentum— it strikes him squarely on target, knocking him aside in one smooth, clean motion, choked-off noise caught hard against the back of his own teeth.
It’s like boiling blood, like the heady rush of adrenaline in his veins, how quickly fury rises up to meet him in the aftermath. How rather than tumbling to the earth he twists his own center of balance, turning on his heel and thrusting both blades forward into the front of her breastplate— one angled high to prevent her from narrowing her defense with closed arms, as his short sword is instead chased by the brutal slam of his armored fist against the narrower plating covering her collarbone, right across the joint.
Jone is brute force, not quickness, not cleverness. The hit connects with exposed throat, and she makes a sound that could be confused with a choked laugh. Blood dribbles out of her mouth. She is at her worst, ugliest and most wild.
Once, being this creature made her insecure. Maybe it still does. What's important is how she deals with it, pinning her lack of beauty and grace in place with sharp words and hard actions.
"So, spring, then? Always loved a spring wedding, me."
Her next strike is all strength, all the pain in her focused to one point-- thrusting her poleaxe's point straight for the Gabranth's knee, trying to get at the joint, stop him bloody moving.
He should feel guilt at the sight of it, wretch that he is. Penance paid in blood and service, the promise that he would do better for the name lost to him when Archadia crushed his homeland beneath its heel.
But he is exactly who he is. The lesser of two brothers. The crueler of them. When bloodlust finds him, he knows little else, and beneath his helm is nothing but a furious scowl, baring the bitterness of his own frustration.
He snaps the hilts of his blades together the moment her eyeline drops, letting them lock with a secure click beneath his fingers: with no helmet obscuring her face, he can track exactly where her attention rests— swiftly batting aside her poleaxe with what could pass for his own, now.
“Enough—“
The edges of those conjoined blades go white-hot with sudden heat, painting the air around them with a tangle of ashen embers.
The flurry of swings that advance on her in the wake of it are quite literally searing, lightning quick and without so much as a touch of care or concern for the sparring partner he’d so diligently guarded once before.
The heat, and the shock, and the terror. He'd said he was a magister, and she hadn't listened. Those swords connect into a proper fucking staff. He's a mage and he wants to kill her.
It's daft, but she'd always planned to go out for something a bit more glorious than a spar go wrong.
So she charges him. She can feel searing burns, feel her armor heating, the straps underneath beginning to buckle under the heat. She isn't rich enough to afford the fine stuff. A pauldron falls off, and she doesn't notice. The whole of her attention is focused on a fact she noticed before. No bevor. Short gorget. If she angles this right, she's pretty sure she can hit him in the throat.
Screaming with rage, mouth bloody, she surges forward for one final thrust, intending to catch his head between the dull side of her axe and the point at the top of the pole. "C'mon!"
He can see it. He watches it land, her strike as clean and true as any made by skilled hands.
He feels the impact where it catches his throat, the side of his neck quick to warm in the shadow of his helmet where that metal point snared skin as it coursed along its intended path. His own blade, still humming with untempered heat, hovers but an inch from her gorget in turn— but the sight of it cuts through his seething fury quicker than a breath, and though his helmet remains a stony mask, his swords withdraw, their flame dying as he unceremoniously splits them apart.
"If you kill me," she says, voice harsh and throaty, "make it better than that."
She drops her weapon, fight apparently over. Snaps off her other pauldron, taking off her cuirass as well. Underneath is a worn, tired gambeson. There are burns underneath, but the worst seems to have been caught by metal and padding.
"Fuck me, I feel like a kicked ballbag. You want a drink?"
A demand, not a petition. He feels tired in that moment, in ways he is unused to; the Mist must run thin here, for his magic cuts more from him than it did in either Ivalice or the gods’ own battlegrounds. A faint tingling in his fingertips, armor sitting faintly heavier across his shoulders.
But he’ll adapt, in time.
“Yes.”
Said only after he sheathes his blades, already working to collect her fallen armor from where she’d left it settled in the dirt.
There's more than one barrel of beer on the training grounds. It's not good stuff, low proof and more for room-temperature calories than it is getting soused. Still, it's something, and Jone doesn't have to go far to procure two mugs of the stuff.
She takes her armor back, letting it sit next to her on the ground. "You can't let folk know you're a mage like that. They'll have you in fetters, Gab."
That it was unintentional is a pale excuse, and not one Gabranth is willing to lean on in the face of her sincerity. When he reaches out to take the second mug, it’s only to slide it closer towards him, not to take it up or bring it to his own lips.
He’ll drink it later, once he’s returned to his quarters.
“Is it true, then? That magic holds no place in your world?”
"Oh, it has a place," she says with a sneer, "folk love healers. But even them get round up. Took my brother when he was twelve. Things're nicer now, but if you go around with killing magic?"
She looks at him, lukewarm beer at her lips. "Well, let's say I'll never get to see that pretty mug of yours."
Not in regards to the magicite in Ivalice— not with the strength of will afforded to them by the gods themselves.
“Power is always power: those who are too weak to protect themselves will suffer, and those who suffer will surely be lost in time beneath the heels of those bearing down upon them. Why reject something that could save your world, simply because it bears risk?”
There is a bristling exhale beneath the span of his own helmet as he sets one heavy glove across his throat, ensuring the shallow flow of blood has stopped.
There’s something in him gone entirely to ice at the words ‘fuck if I know’, his hand still caught lingering across the edge of his own pauldron, helmet entirely unmoving even as she draws nearer to him.
She may as well be nothing more than air, for how his stare attempts to bore through her, breath sitting heavy in his lungs.
Her face scrunches up, a bit. "I kill folk for money, mate. Who wants to meet up with that after two fucking decades? For all I know he's one of them plant mages, in touch with nature, and I rip the heads off dragons. Fuck."
She takes a long sip of the beer, eyes squeezed closed.
He can feel it still, anger burning hot like bile in the back of his throat, rising with each passing second. Misdirected, barely bottled— he cannot help but think of Basch and all his found freedom, gleaming in his given armor, not a thought spared for the brother he’d left behind.
He cannot help but look at Jone’s expression now and see her no differently. Jaw cinched so tight that he threatens to bleed once more.
“Your armor comes with me.”
A sudden turn in conversation, he presses past her as he rises: pulling damaged plating into his arms, claiming his own drink last, a dismissal as plain as the waning sun at their backs.
"Oi! Paid good money for that, I did. You'll not have it as some trophy." She stands, following him on quick feet. She feels like a nag, and it heats her face, ugliness rising once more to the forefront. "It were a tie, anyroad."
He does not care if she feels foolish for it, he does not care if her face is reddened or her fury becomes a mark against his reputation. He keeps his strides smooth and even, stopping only so that he might turn to face her fully, footing squared off when he adds:
“Unless you wish to truly challenge me for it now.”
"It's like you don't even know me, luv. Hurt, I am."
Her stance is spread out, ready for a fight, with singed hair and dried blood on her face, an open cut on her shoulder, and raw determination in her hard green eyes.
Truthfully, he had expected this. Longed for it, as surely as he’d yearned to goad Basch into striking out against all reason so many countless years ago.
Time has changed him, granted him less malice in his own hardened heart, that much is true— but he is no less petty for it.
Her strike does him the favor of spilling the drink in hand, offering him the opportunity to let it tumble away while keeping her armor held fast in his other arm. Emptied palm raised, air turning drier by the second, congealing into living flame at his back— a fan of swords splayed like cards, spitting embers out onto the floor like drooling hounds.
They cannot last. They will not last more than a few febrile seconds at most, but this is fine: she need not know that, and it stands firm as his warning when he once again turns to leave.
“Fetch your rest, Daughter of Denerim. I shall see you two days hence.”
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no subject
The weapons he holds have almost as long a reach as hers, which is a fun new challenge. Generally, she has to work to wind up to this, get herself a bit battered before the reaver strength kicks in. But a slow start, especially when he's clearly not interested in fucking around, sounds a lot like a death sentence.
(Not really; she knows they're sparring. But the part of her that knows is small and gently hidden behind a wall of bloodlust.)
So her first salvo is to go low, trying to knock him from his current stance. She moves quickly, but the armor doesn't let her duck much. When she's dressed like this, she's used to aiming high, going for dragons and monsters. She'll have to compensate for the disadvantage or get swatted.
But, welll... a good blow to the head would really liven her up.
no subject
That she does not is a credit to her name.
When she drives back against his own advance, it doesn't lead to a retreat, to a tentative circling of one another as most strategies would suggest: he tangles himself across her front with a crushing shove of his shoulder into her plate, intending fully to brute force her footing out of place.
Though of course that only works against an opponent without sufficient strength to withstand it.
no subject
This is an old trick, from her younger days, and she's not too proud of it. She bites her tongue, and tastes blood. It's not much, but it's enough, along with the shove to the shoulder, to withstand the next blow. And that just doubles her strength.
Sure-footed, she surges forward, aiming the dull side of her blade for his throat. His armor doesn't have a bevor, so it will hurt if it lands, but it won't be deadly.
She hopes not, anyway.
no subject
It’s like boiling blood, like the heady rush of adrenaline in his veins, how quickly fury rises up to meet him in the aftermath. How rather than tumbling to the earth he twists his own center of balance, turning on his heel and thrusting both blades forward into the front of her breastplate— one angled high to prevent her from narrowing her defense with closed arms, as his short sword is instead chased by the brutal slam of his armored fist against the narrower plating covering her collarbone, right across the joint.
And another, if she isn’t quick enough.
no subject
Once, being this creature made her insecure. Maybe it still does. What's important is how she deals with it, pinning her lack of beauty and grace in place with sharp words and hard actions.
"So, spring, then? Always loved a spring wedding, me."
Her next strike is all strength, all the pain in her focused to one point-- thrusting her poleaxe's point straight for the Gabranth's knee, trying to get at the joint, stop him bloody moving.
no subject
But he is exactly who he is. The lesser of two brothers. The crueler of them. When bloodlust finds him, he knows little else, and beneath his helm is nothing but a furious scowl, baring the bitterness of his own frustration.
He snaps the hilts of his blades together the moment her eyeline drops, letting them lock with a secure click beneath his fingers: with no helmet obscuring her face, he can track exactly where her attention rests— swiftly batting aside her poleaxe with what could pass for his own, now.
“Enough—“
The edges of those conjoined blades go white-hot with sudden heat, painting the air around them with a tangle of ashen embers.
The flurry of swings that advance on her in the wake of it are quite literally searing, lightning quick and without so much as a touch of care or concern for the sparring partner he’d so diligently guarded once before.
no subject
The heat, and the shock, and the terror. He'd said he was a magister, and she hadn't listened. Those swords connect into a proper fucking staff. He's a mage and he wants to kill her.
It's daft, but she'd always planned to go out for something a bit more glorious than a spar go wrong.
So she charges him. She can feel searing burns, feel her armor heating, the straps underneath beginning to buckle under the heat. She isn't rich enough to afford the fine stuff. A pauldron falls off, and she doesn't notice. The whole of her attention is focused on a fact she noticed before. No bevor. Short gorget. If she angles this right, she's pretty sure she can hit him in the throat.
Screaming with rage, mouth bloody, she surges forward for one final thrust, intending to catch his head between the dull side of her axe and the point at the top of the pole. "C'mon!"
no subject
He feels the impact where it catches his throat, the side of his neck quick to warm in the shadow of his helmet where that metal point snared skin as it coursed along its intended path. His own blade, still humming with untempered heat, hovers but an inch from her gorget in turn— but the sight of it cuts through his seething fury quicker than a breath, and though his helmet remains a stony mask, his swords withdraw, their flame dying as he unceremoniously splits them apart.
As he exhales, his throat tense with pain.
“Forgive me.”
no subject
She drops her weapon, fight apparently over. Snaps off her other pauldron, taking off her cuirass as well. Underneath is a worn, tired gambeson. There are burns underneath, but the worst seems to have been caught by metal and padding.
"Fuck me, I feel like a kicked ballbag. You want a drink?"
no subject
A demand, not a petition. He feels tired in that moment, in ways he is unused to; the Mist must run thin here, for his magic cuts more from him than it did in either Ivalice or the gods’ own battlegrounds. A faint tingling in his fingertips, armor sitting faintly heavier across his shoulders.
But he’ll adapt, in time.
“Yes.”
Said only after he sheathes his blades, already working to collect her fallen armor from where she’d left it settled in the dirt.
no subject
She takes her armor back, letting it sit next to her on the ground. "You can't let folk know you're a mage like that. They'll have you in fetters, Gab."
no subject
He’ll drink it later, once he’s returned to his quarters.
“Is it true, then? That magic holds no place in your world?”
no subject
She looks at him, lukewarm beer at her lips. "Well, let's say I'll never get to see that pretty mug of yours."
no subject
Not in regards to the magicite in Ivalice— not with the strength of will afforded to them by the gods themselves.
“Power is always power: those who are too weak to protect themselves will suffer, and those who suffer will surely be lost in time beneath the heels of those bearing down upon them. Why reject something that could save your world, simply because it bears risk?”
There is a bristling exhale beneath the span of his own helmet as he sets one heavy glove across his throat, ensuring the shallow flow of blood has stopped.
“...what of your brother? Where is he now?”
no subject
Ignoring the smell of burning hair, she continues-- "Why reject something that- mate, you could've killed me if you'd tried a little harder."
Yet she leans closer to him, grinning at him. "That was bloody brilliant, by the way. Very sexy."
no subject
She may as well be nothing more than air, for how his stare attempts to bore through her, breath sitting heavy in his lungs.
“You never searched for him?”
no subject
She takes a long sip of the beer, eyes squeezed closed.
no subject
He cannot help but look at Jone’s expression now and see her no differently. Jaw cinched so tight that he threatens to bleed once more.
“Your armor comes with me.”
A sudden turn in conversation, he presses past her as he rises: pulling damaged plating into his arms, claiming his own drink last, a dismissal as plain as the waning sun at their backs.
no subject
no subject
He does not care if she feels foolish for it, he does not care if her face is reddened or her fury becomes a mark against his reputation. He keeps his strides smooth and even, stopping only so that he might turn to face her fully, footing squared off when he adds:
“Unless you wish to truly challenge me for it now.”
no subject
"It's like you don't even know me, luv. Hurt, I am."
Her stance is spread out, ready for a fight, with singed hair and dried blood on her face, an open cut on her shoulder, and raw determination in her hard green eyes.
no subject
Time has changed him, granted him less malice in his own hardened heart, that much is true— but he is no less petty for it.
Her strike does him the favor of spilling the drink in hand, offering him the opportunity to let it tumble away while keeping her armor held fast in his other arm. Emptied palm raised, air turning drier by the second, congealing into living flame at his back— a fan of swords splayed like cards, spitting embers out onto the floor like drooling hounds.
They cannot last. They will not last more than a few febrile seconds at most, but this is fine: she need not know that, and it stands firm as his warning when he once again turns to leave.
“Fetch your rest, Daughter of Denerim. I shall see you two days hence.”
no subject
She basks in the heat of the flame until it's gone, momentarily at peace.