Perhaps it is Barrow’s heckling. Perhaps it’s a product of Jone’s own handiwork in getting him here, rather than letting him cling dutifully to his own resolve. Whatever it is, there’s no formality this time— no warning. His blades are drawn as quick as a fired pistol, rushing in with a lowered lunge to try and snap aside the head of her poleaxe, his short sword lodged beneath the metal curvature at its front to keep her from effectively recovering without needing to play a variation of tug-of-war in exchange.
She is right about her own style. And this time, he has an idea.
The pommel of his longsword he aims for her wrist— the closest to him, attempting to hook it beneath her hold as he pulls her weapon towards him.
And Gabranth has the advantage. Not because of his armor or his training-- both superior-- but because Jone is distracted in the business of flipping Barrow off.
And then Gabranth has her poleaxe and her hand feels like it was hit by a druffalo. Jone yelps, but doesn't let go. Pain is pain, even if bleeding pain is better. Her grip tightens, strength rising.
A poleaxe is a long weapon, though, and that generally means reach. Occasionally, Jone's thought, it can also mean the shape of the fight changing. Instead of letting go or pulling back, Jone adjusts her grip, hands closer to the axe, closer to Gabranth's blade, entwining them tighter together. If he's going to try to steal her blade, she'll be a lodestone. It's all she can think of, through the pain and the surprise.
Later, she'll be impressed. He really did get her on the back foot.
In height, she holds advantage. In reach, in strength— for it is pain that spurs a rise in her power, and it is anger that fuels his— and he cannot permit himself that, unless he wishes to see Jone suffer.
Which he does not.
So this will be a matter of balance. Between what he grants her and what he withholds from her. And to that end he cedes to her pull— allows his heels to drag forward across slick earth until he’s well within her reach. Until he’s close enough that he can rush for the far more disreputable move of snapping his ankle behind her own in the midst of shifting balance, and slamming his plated hip against hers where she is unguarded.
If closeness is the realm she aims for, he’s going to make it unbearable.
She finds herself grinning, the wideness of it rending her face. It isn't the bloody-minded smile she finds on her face when the world has gone simple, all red with pain and the promise of it. No, if the world smells metallic, it is with steel and sweat; if she sees red, it's her hair and his cape. This is a facsimile of real battle, and that should itch at her, but instead she's left breathless with appreciation.
She's never been this close to him before.
Jone supposes she has a few options. She's not going to get strong enough to free herself at this rate. She could harm herself, bite her tongue and jab her hand into the sharpness of a blade, but this fight doesn't remind her of her battles fought in professional shame. Instead, she's reminded of the brawls of her youth, fought against men taller and stronger than her, frequently outmatched and outnumbered. She survived those with a different kind of strength.
Jone pulls at her poleaxe, tugging at it with all her great strength, maneuvering it so, when she lets it go, it will crash into Gabranth's helm. That is, unless he can stop his own answering strength and cancel the inertial.
Regardless, she leans herself back at the same time, intending to unbalance them in the process, hoping he'll fall forward. If he crashes her into the ground, it will be enough strength to do whatever she fucking wants.
He’s placed the whole of his wager against her balance: there isn’t time to spare for avoiding that blow where it lands— knocking aside his helmet with a resounding clatter as they collapse hard against the earth, his attention (despite the sting of clinging contact) fixed briefly on it while it rolls just out of grasp.
She’s bought him anger— bought him strength, however quick a rush of it— by way of that outcome alone, and it shows in the vicious curl of his lip. The way his nose wrinkles in an untamed scowl, so out of place on a face meant for promises of honor and kept vows. The edges of sharp teeth, the livid twist of his brow.
Only Barrow is here, that miserable assembly of ill-jointed bones, and perhaps because of that, he doesn’t care to waste time or leverage retrieving his helm: the damage has already been done.
His long blades’ pommel wedges itself against her ribs (a duller pressure— one of discomfort, more so than pain), his short blade wrenching against the cross of her axe body braced between like a drawn spring, unwilling to buckle further.
She has one weapon to his two, and if he bears himself into that, the misery of it might force something to give.
"Fuck!" It's not a cry of pain, though she feels something crack or fracture, probably a rib. That doesn't matter; healers can fix that. She wasn't trying to knock his helm off, and now her own anger rises to mix with the pain in her chest and her hand.
It's anger at herself, of course, but what greater motivation is there than that? She's never had any skill hitting the true targets of her rage, deserved or not. Barrow can attest to that.
Still, in that moment of crushing anger and pain, she's forgotten their audience. Pain and anger mix, one giving her power and the other, permission. With strength far greater than she had only a minute ago, she wrenches him off her, pushing him backward. Her poleaxe goes with him; she doesn't care for the finesse required to free it. She'll figure that out later. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
Jone doesn't punch Gabranth in the face; she's too distracted by it. She aims her fist for the few inches of unarmored leather at his side. She gets in close, daring him to cut her, inviting him to take revenge.
Bucked away by overwhelming force, his own footing stumbles, caught just in time for the matter of her own blow against his side that feels near crushing in its fury.
She knows it’s there, he suspects, because he bared it to her— in confidence, in private, that span of unguarded leather where he’s always been too vulnerable to stem the tide of his own cyclical ruin. Her hands set tight across laces in memory, and that, too, is taken as betrayal, and for all his determination to grant her nothing, something does scream then in his blood for retribution. To draw from her more than she has to give.
He wants to bend to it. He wants—
The twin hilts of his swords snap together, ignoring the sharp jolt of protest from his own side— she's drawn herself in, he'll snap closed the lure: laying the midpoint of his newly fashioned haladie (the blunt, unbladed span between its grips) across the back of her neck and pulling through his own dropped momentum, attempting to twist about their posture and pin her throat— to pin her, in fact— against him in a vicious chokehold, suffocating her beneath that leveraged weapon.
With the blood pounding in her ears, she can't hear Barrow's contributions. She only sees Gabranth, clearly furious and focused entirely on her. Anger mingles with pride at having an effect on him. Selfish and stupid, maybe, definitely, but it's deserved. She hurt him. He should get his revenge.
Pulled close to him, she can feel his breath, smell his skin. It feels right, even and equal, and she isn't afraid. Even as her throat aches, she knows what to do.
Hands free, she pushes against him, leveraging a direct battle of opposing strengths. She can't use his momentum against him, can't do anything but arm wrestle in the worst way possible. It's a pure battle of muscle, nearly unadorned.
Of course, that's what she means when she whispers, throaty with choking pain, "is this what you wanted?"
It's like a knife to his throat, those harsh-snared words, whispered between bared teeth. The scent of salt and sweat and bloodied tempers— most of all his own— and for all the unbidden fury it inspires, defiant in animosity, in the span of dilated tension, the only thing that comes to his embittered mind is—
Yes.
And no.
Because where mercy should dwell, or remorse, or all (lost) sentiment he'd held prior in regards to her safekeeping, he finds his kindled thirst unslaked. That he would have more of this futile struggle, as his hold yanks harsh and hateful against the grain of her throat and her grip alike, willing her to cede as she so ought.
It's a neat way to fight. She'd been expecting the way she usually fights these sorts of things-- to cut herself on the enemy's blade and wrench it away from them, or better, their armor, to drag them around while she bled. She fought armored mercenaries before she could afford armor, armed mercs before she had a proper blade. This is normal, she's sure of it. She isn't afraid.
But Gabranth has impressed her again, brought a different game, a puzzle to unlock. Jone puts her back into it, bracing her hands on his chest-- no, his breastplate-- and begins the slow, halting, painful and fantastic process of pushing back with strength that far exceeds what someone her size and shape should be able to accomplish. The throbbing pain resounding through her makes her blood sing, fills her with a power renewed.
"Wouldn't have it-..." she huffs- "any other way."
that looks a little beyond what Barrow would expect to see in a spar.
"All right!" he calls, jogging over as quickly as he can (which isn't very-- he's a juggernaut when he sprints, but it's too short of a distance for that kind of momentum), "I think that's enough for now, you two!"
He keeps his voice light in full recognition of the look in both their eyes: this will likely end with someone seriously injured or dead if no one intervenes, and Riftwatch needs both of them intact.
If Gabranth doesn't react to Barrow's presence, the latter bends to grip him by the shoulders in an effort to heft him off the prone Jone.
Like a dog pulled from prey with locked jaws, Gabranth fights them both initially, his heels digging hard against Jone’s pull and Barrow’s opposing hold: it is ire that claims him fully, screams in his ears an echoing cry of want beyond reason. An intention to hold fast no matter how they insist against it in their own ways, buckling down to the bone.
And then, somewhere within it, he exhales hot— no more than a flicker of sense returned in the midst of senseless hunger. The swords are unlatched with a sharp twist of his wrists, leaving Jone free of his clutches.
He yanks his shoulders from Barrow’s grip, and turns instead to retrieve his helm.
“A point in my favor.” Said bitterly, still bleeding enmity at a slower pace than he’d prefer.
She feels Gabranth's hot breath over her face, and in that moment everything is wrong; being seen in this moment by a third party is intolerable. Her embarrassment spills over just as Gabranth releases her, and she falls backward into the dust.
If Barrow catches Jone's eye in that moment, he will see pure rage in her expression. It passes.
A sigh, and Jone stands. She doesn't let herself favor her injured side. A kicked animal knows better than to show weakness. "You know what? You can have it. That was clever."
She wants to apologize. She doesn't. In Jone's magnanimity, she says, "Barrow, mate, next time, mind your own bloody business."
There's always the possibility that the intercepted dog will lunge for the handler, and Barrow is quick to back away when Gabranth jerks free of his grip; he holds his hands up, his expression uncharacteristically serious when he looks between them.
The look on Jone's face registers, and he's not surprised to see it. But there's minding one's business, and there's... this.
"Not if it's looking like that, mate," he grunts to her, a hardness creeping into his usually genial countenance, "both of you spitting angry, that's no spar, that's a double trip to the infirmary.
You've got something to prove, go kill another dragon."
Barrow is right. This isn’t how feigned combat is meant to be done, and Gabranth can’t confess to treating any of his other sparring matches even faintly the way he does with Jone. There’s something there each time that sparks in him a terrible, long suppressed habit. Competitiveness, or—
He clicks his teeth, fitting his helm back into place and letting that serve as a dampener for his own racing pulse. His swords are sheathed, every action careful, vying for more time. More peace.
There’s no request for forgiveness this time. He finds he cannot bring himself down enough to even offer false sincerity.
Because she cannot admit to Barrow's face that he is right, and she cannot either bring herself to lying in this moment (the pain makes everything true), she just stares off into the distance between them. "What the fuck do I have to do, to get people in this place to believe I'm a professional..."
She turns to get herself to a healer, walking slowly, but otherwise refusing to show weakness. She'll get her poleaxe later. Fuck it.
"Jone--" Barrow begins, but ends it with a scoff as she paces away; he knows full well what will happen if he pushes her, and none of them are interested in it going that way. He'll check in on her later, when she's had time to cool down.
In the meantime, he turns on Gabranth to fix him with a look that's downright stern; he's seen his face now, and, at least to his mind, knows the type.
"Got anything to say?" Barrow demands. For once, he's not fucking around.
“What would you have me say?” He snaps back, echo granting more purchase to a growl that settles low in his throat, as if Barrow were an undesired intrusion— and in some small way, with his hackles raised and his blood yet running hot, he is.
This, right now, is no place for a man without rank. Without strength.
"For one thing, 'sorry I near killed a woman in the middle of the fucking courtyard', maybe," Barrow replies, his voice raising into an authoritative boom as he steps forward, peering into the eyeholes of Gabranth's helmet. "For another-- 'you're right, mate, maybe I'll show some fucking decorum while I'm claiming to spar, and not be a stroppy piece of shit about it when I'm called off', shall I keep going?"
It's a side of Barrow few have seen, and fewer still have experienced themselves: he cuts quite a formidable figure when he's angry, broad and tall enough to loom over Gabranth without a scrap of armor on him.
Who is he to demand apology? To demand decorum? Who is he, but a ghost of a man stretched thin across the canvas of his life? Let him paint himself with authority, let him challenge a Judge Magister—
They both know how poorly it would fare.
“Go lick her wounds if you are so faithful, hound.” He meets that stare through the metal of his own helmet, fierce-wrought lines a picture of unfeeling iron. Unyielding in its defiance.
“I’ve no desire to hear you prattle, nor do I care what you think of me.”
Barrow opens his mouth, then closes it again. He opens it once more, takes a breath, pauses, smiles strangely, and looks off to one side, like he can't quite believe what he just heard.
It's not that no one has ever disrespected him before: that's par for the course. He deals with it every day. His friendship with Jone is nigh built on it.
But such contempt only comes along once in a blue moon(s). Giving an absent nod, Barrow chews the inside of his cheek for a moment before turning his gaze back on Gabranth, shrewd and piercing.
"You might not have chosen to be here, mate," he says in a low, quiet voice, "but you're sure as shit here now. And you'd better find someplace useful to stick that attitude." He rolls his shoulders to step away, going to pick up Jone's poleaxe, which has been lying on the cobblestones since she left.
"Not doing any favors stuck in your mouth, as it is," he adds, his smirk icy as he straightens and scoffs, "Judge Magister."
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no subject
She is right about her own style. And this time, he has an idea.
The pommel of his longsword he aims for her wrist— the closest to him, attempting to hook it beneath her hold as he pulls her weapon towards him.
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And then Gabranth has her poleaxe and her hand feels like it was hit by a druffalo. Jone yelps, but doesn't let go. Pain is pain, even if bleeding pain is better. Her grip tightens, strength rising.
A poleaxe is a long weapon, though, and that generally means reach. Occasionally, Jone's thought, it can also mean the shape of the fight changing. Instead of letting go or pulling back, Jone adjusts her grip, hands closer to the axe, closer to Gabranth's blade, entwining them tighter together. If he's going to try to steal her blade, she'll be a lodestone. It's all she can think of, through the pain and the surprise.
Later, she'll be impressed. He really did get her on the back foot.
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Which he does not.
So this will be a matter of balance. Between what he grants her and what he withholds from her. And to that end he cedes to her pull— allows his heels to drag forward across slick earth until he’s well within her reach. Until he’s close enough that he can rush for the far more disreputable move of snapping his ankle behind her own in the midst of shifting balance, and slamming his plated hip against hers where she is unguarded.
If closeness is the realm she aims for, he’s going to make it unbearable.
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She's never been this close to him before.
Jone supposes she has a few options. She's not going to get strong enough to free herself at this rate. She could harm herself, bite her tongue and jab her hand into the sharpness of a blade, but this fight doesn't remind her of her battles fought in professional shame. Instead, she's reminded of the brawls of her youth, fought against men taller and stronger than her, frequently outmatched and outnumbered. She survived those with a different kind of strength.
Jone pulls at her poleaxe, tugging at it with all her great strength, maneuvering it so, when she lets it go, it will crash into Gabranth's helm. That is, unless he can stop his own answering strength and cancel the inertial.
Regardless, she leans herself back at the same time, intending to unbalance them in the process, hoping he'll fall forward. If he crashes her into the ground, it will be enough strength to do whatever she fucking wants.
no subject
She’s bought him anger— bought him strength, however quick a rush of it— by way of that outcome alone, and it shows in the vicious curl of his lip. The way his nose wrinkles in an untamed scowl, so out of place on a face meant for promises of honor and kept vows. The edges of sharp teeth, the livid twist of his brow.
Only Barrow is here, that miserable assembly of ill-jointed bones, and perhaps because of that, he doesn’t care to waste time or leverage retrieving his helm: the damage has already been done.
His long blades’ pommel wedges itself against her ribs (a duller pressure— one of discomfort, more so than pain), his short blade wrenching against the cross of her axe body braced between like a drawn spring, unwilling to buckle further.
She has one weapon to his two, and if he bears himself into that, the misery of it might force something to give.
Or at the very least to shift.
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It's anger at herself, of course, but what greater motivation is there than that? She's never had any skill hitting the true targets of her rage, deserved or not. Barrow can attest to that.
Still, in that moment of crushing anger and pain, she's forgotten their audience. Pain and anger mix, one giving her power and the other, permission. With strength far greater than she had only a minute ago, she wrenches him off her, pushing him backward. Her poleaxe goes with him; she doesn't care for the finesse required to free it. She'll figure that out later. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
Jone doesn't punch Gabranth in the face; she's too distracted by it. She aims her fist for the few inches of unarmored leather at his side. She gets in close, daring him to cut her, inviting him to take revenge.
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He's impressed, on various levels.
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She knows it’s there, he suspects, because he bared it to her— in confidence, in private, that span of unguarded leather where he’s always been too vulnerable to stem the tide of his own cyclical ruin. Her hands set tight across laces in memory, and that, too, is taken as betrayal, and for all his determination to grant her nothing, something does scream then in his blood for retribution. To draw from her more than she has to give.
He wants to bend to it. He wants—
The twin hilts of his swords snap together, ignoring the sharp jolt of protest from his own side— she's drawn herself in, he'll snap closed the lure: laying the midpoint of his newly fashioned haladie (the blunt, unbladed span between its grips) across the back of her neck and pulling through his own dropped momentum, attempting to twist about their posture and pin her throat— to pin her, in fact— against him in a vicious chokehold, suffocating her beneath that leveraged weapon.
no subject
Pulled close to him, she can feel his breath, smell his skin. It feels right, even and equal, and she isn't afraid. Even as her throat aches, she knows what to do.
Hands free, she pushes against him, leveraging a direct battle of opposing strengths. She can't use his momentum against him, can't do anything but arm wrestle in the worst way possible. It's a pure battle of muscle, nearly unadorned.
Of course, that's what she means when she whispers, throaty with choking pain, "is this what you wanted?"
no subject
Yes.
And no.
Because where mercy should dwell, or remorse, or all (lost) sentiment he'd held prior in regards to her safekeeping, he finds his kindled thirst unslaked. That he would have more of this futile struggle, as his hold yanks harsh and hateful against the grain of her throat and her grip alike, willing her to cede as she so ought.
As she must.
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But Gabranth has impressed her again, brought a different game, a puzzle to unlock. Jone puts her back into it, bracing her hands on his chest-- no, his breastplate-- and begins the slow, halting, painful and fantastic process of pushing back with strength that far exceeds what someone her size and shape should be able to accomplish. The throbbing pain resounding through her makes her blood sing, fills her with a power renewed.
"Wouldn't have it-..." she huffs- "any other way."
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that looks a little beyond what Barrow would expect to see in a spar.
"All right!" he calls, jogging over as quickly as he can (which isn't very-- he's a juggernaut when he sprints, but it's too short of a distance for that kind of momentum), "I think that's enough for now, you two!"
He keeps his voice light in full recognition of the look in both their eyes: this will likely end with someone seriously injured or dead if no one intervenes, and Riftwatch needs both of them intact.
If Gabranth doesn't react to Barrow's presence, the latter bends to grip him by the shoulders in an effort to heft him off the prone Jone.
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And then, somewhere within it, he exhales hot— no more than a flicker of sense returned in the midst of senseless hunger. The swords are unlatched with a sharp twist of his wrists, leaving Jone free of his clutches.
He yanks his shoulders from Barrow’s grip, and turns instead to retrieve his helm.
“A point in my favor.” Said bitterly, still bleeding enmity at a slower pace than he’d prefer.
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If Barrow catches Jone's eye in that moment, he will see pure rage in her expression. It passes.
A sigh, and Jone stands. She doesn't let herself favor her injured side. A kicked animal knows better than to show weakness. "You know what? You can have it. That was clever."
She wants to apologize. She doesn't. In Jone's magnanimity, she says, "Barrow, mate, next time, mind your own bloody business."
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The look on Jone's face registers, and he's not surprised to see it. But there's minding one's business, and there's... this.
"Not if it's looking like that, mate," he grunts to her, a hardness creeping into his usually genial countenance, "both of you spitting angry, that's no spar, that's a double trip to the infirmary.
You've got something to prove, go kill another dragon."
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He clicks his teeth, fitting his helm back into place and letting that serve as a dampener for his own racing pulse. His swords are sheathed, every action careful, vying for more time. More peace.
There’s no request for forgiveness this time. He finds he cannot bring himself down enough to even offer false sincerity.
“See her to a healer.”
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She turns to get herself to a healer, walking slowly, but otherwise refusing to show weakness. She'll get her poleaxe later. Fuck it.
"Goodnight, you two."
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He'll check in on her later, when she's had time to cool down.
In the meantime, he turns on Gabranth to fix him with a look that's downright stern; he's seen his face now, and, at least to his mind, knows the type.
"Got anything to say?" Barrow demands. For once, he's not fucking around.
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This, right now, is no place for a man without rank. Without strength.
That much he aims to make clear.
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"For another-- 'you're right, mate, maybe I'll show some fucking decorum while I'm claiming to spar, and not be a stroppy piece of shit about it when I'm called off', shall I keep going?"
It's a side of Barrow few have seen, and fewer still have experienced themselves: he cuts quite a formidable figure when he's angry, broad and tall enough to loom over Gabranth without a scrap of armor on him.
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They both know how poorly it would fare.
“Go lick her wounds if you are so faithful, hound.” He meets that stare through the metal of his own helmet, fierce-wrought lines a picture of unfeeling iron. Unyielding in its defiance.
“I’ve no desire to hear you prattle, nor do I care what you think of me.”
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It's not that no one has ever disrespected him before: that's par for the course. He deals with it every day. His friendship with Jone is nigh built on it.
But such contempt only comes along once in a blue moon(s). Giving an absent nod, Barrow chews the inside of his cheek for a moment before turning his gaze back on Gabranth, shrewd and piercing.
"You might not have chosen to be here, mate," he says in a low, quiet voice, "but you're sure as shit here now. And you'd better find someplace useful to stick that attitude."
He rolls his shoulders to step away, going to pick up Jone's poleaxe, which has been lying on the cobblestones since she left.
"Not doing any favors stuck in your mouth, as it is," he adds, his smirk icy as he straightens and scoffs, "Judge Magister."