With a grunt, I continued the roll, the momentum enough to bring me back to my feet. The sand stuck to the sweat on my face, and while I had the chance, I tried to wipe the grains cemented to my face. In the same motion, I spit the sand that had entered my mouth during my fall.

“You’ve been slacking Joshua,” my father said, his face showing only the slightest sheen from the sun.

Despite the weather moving into the later part of fall, the sun beat down on us as we practiced, the exercise more than making up for the cold. While I was still using my favorite dual short sword combination for practice, my father used a stick with a weighted and padded end - a training mace. The suggested combination was mace and shield, but my father was making a joke beating me with only the mace. I was enjoying the fact that I forced him to move more than once during our bout. There had been a time in my life where combat practice with my father would mean an hour of useless flailing as he barely stirred.

While I prepared for another rush, I noticed Snowy entering the training field from the corner of my eye. Hoping to take advantage of the distraction, I charged forward, activating [Meditation] when I was in range.

The rush of the blood in my ears faded away, the world coming into sharp focus, each breath feeling like the pumping of slow-moving bellows. I felt like I had all the time in the world to attack. Instead of using one of my well-worn combinations, the movements locked into muscle memory, I tried something different. Being sure to keep my actions to no more than what I had before - wanting to avoid the enhancement to pain that [Meditation] seemed to cause - I jabbed forward with my left sword. There was a combination attack that I thought of as a driving attack, used to push back my opponent or leave them off balance. It was a combination of thrusts followed by cuts of the opposite hand. The movements were a weaving pattern designed to throw weight against the balancing leg on each cut. My attacks started the same as they did before: left stab, right cut, right reverse slash, left thrust. I was as practiced at these movements as I was at walking. The pattern was ingrained and partially supported by my many combinations of Skills that enhanced hand-eye coordination. With deft flicks of the wrist, my father was able to redirect my blade, each time twisting his arm so that the flat of the blade rode along the wooden haft of his pseudo-mace. A less skilled fighter would have been pleased with simply neutralizing the attack. My father worked to save his weapon from the imaginary nicks my blades would cause if they were steel.

During the right-hand reverse slash, I shifted, my left rising into a cut aimed for his face. The sudden change in my pattern forced him to retreat where he had been holding his ground. Jabbing forward with my right, I reversed the pattern. With a left cut, left reverse slash, and back to right-hand stab. The sudden reversal drawing a joyful laugh from my father as he twirled his mace so that my right-hand thrust was outside the line of his body, and my left was out-of-line to cut. His sudden forward movement where I had expected a retreat caused a repeat to my previous sand-eating trip through the air. This time courtesy of a hip toss as he disarmed me of my left-hand sword.

“Alright, I guess not slacking that much. A new combination? How long have you been practicing that?” he asked as he flipped my sword from blade to pommel, as dexterous with his offhand as he was with his right.

Wheezing, I signaled for a moment while Snowy approached. Reaching an armor-clad arm down, Snowy pulled me to my feet in a smooth and almost elegant movement. Once again, I was reminded of how physically capable Snowy was. Her body moved like a lithe jungle cat as she shifted her practice equipment from its rest over her shoulder.

“Do you want some time to continue with your father, or do you want to focus on something else today?” Snowy asked the polite question reminding me that this was her training yard, and I was here at her father’s request.

I smiled at Snowy, somehow knowing that the question had been honest and that she was not implying something with her words. Before I could respond, my father chuckled, then wandered over, holding my erstwhile sword out to me, handle first. Once I took my blade, my father patted me on the back as he passed, stopping only to put away his practice mace.

“Later, dad!” I shouted, my words coming out more childish than I had intended, but I was still happy to see his backward wave as he continued from the training field.

Turning back to Snowy, I gulped when I realized that she was standing closer than I remembered as she looked down into my eyes. The sudden motion of my throat drew Snowy’s attention, and a small smile graced her lips as she passed too close to me to reach the practice weapon rack. Despite the cold air and the drying sweat from the exercise, I could feel my body flushing in warmth. Shaking my head, I reached for my professional demeanor, considering if I wanted to activate [Acting] to handle my discomfort. When Snowy looked over her shoulder at me while arming herself with her replica training sword I decided to leave [Acting] disabled for the moment to better focus on my trainee.

Stepping back to the center of the sandy training area, I tried to center myself. Breathing deep, I imagined a rope running through my head, down my spine, my tail bone, and deep into the ground. The visualization combined with the breathing - almost a mimicry of the one used by Snowy’s [Arcanum of the Blood] - sent most of my tension deep into the ground. Most, but not all of the stress. Some tension remained, a tiny speck of anticipation floated in the back of my mind—the blood in my veins pumping at the thought of the two of us struggling together. Watching Snowy swing her two-handed sword, I was very aware of her body and movements. The wind whistled as her sword moved, the swings filled with a casual power.

Once her blood was flowing and she was ready, she advanced on the balls of her feet, her movements unhurried and ready. Sword held upright, and by her side, she approached. Snowy signaled with her actions that she intended to attack instead of waiting to defend. Snowy slashed forward in a move designed to unroot my defense as much as to attack me with a broad attack. Despite the speed, I could tell that she was holding back, her attack in line with previous sparring matches instead of the all-out assault that she was capable of. Shuffling backward, I reverse course as the blade passed and stepped forward, trying to get inside the arc of her attack as she shifted her sword. Stepping back with her right foot, she shortened the arc of her swing and sliced diagonally with an upper left to lower right cut, the blade blocked by both of my swords. Despite the heavy blow being stopped by my weapons, she continued her movement into a thrust. Her body driving the edge forward and forcing me to push her sword out of line with my body. I managed to drive the thrust away, her sword moving past my body, but she continued forward to press herself against me. Both of my blades were driving against hers as she pushed me backward. One of her hands held the hilt of her sword while her other rested on the flat of the blade. She had the advantage of both height and leverage, her arms pressing down directly on my swords. In contrast, I had to resist using only the strength of my wrists.

Abandoning the clinch, I shoved backward using her own force to gain distance. While my weapons benefited by a close melee, Snowy’s strength and size were a benefit even using the longer weapon. The traditional approach to this move was to gain distance, reset, and return to close combat. Her weapon was simply too great of an advantage with an open arena and her strength and reach. Despite knowing the standard doctrine, something compelled me to return to the attack. My body barely escaping the press before I was moving forward again. My sudden change of direction surprised Snowy. She was charging after shoving me away instead of regaining her distance advantage. With Snowy being slightly off balance and with her sword out of line, I ruthlessly took advantage, my swords flying through a combination of attacks without my attention. Her blade whistled in sudden fury as she deflected my blows. At the same time, she stepped back, desperately trying to gain the distance she suddenly needed.

I pressed my advantage, sensing that if I didn’t let her rest, I might overcome her strength and speed. Blade upright, catching my swords in deft blocks inches above the cross-guard, Snowy suddenly halted her retreat. White teeth flashed below her shining eyes as her blade cut downward while twisting away from a stab. Awkwardly, I used a cross-body block, my right-hand edge barely able to redirect the cut but leaving me out of line to use my left-hand blade in a follow-up stab. Still, I counted myself lucky that I had used my right hand in a cross-body block instead of a left standard block. I was convinced that my left hand would have been too weak to stop the blow even as it would have been caught close to give her little leverage. Again, the flow of combat left us both pressed forward, clinched over our blades as we tried to force the other away. Yet again, I retreated, refusing to meet Snowy’s greater strength and leverage head-on.

Sweating, my body heaving for air, I watched as Snowy lightly moved her wooden practice blade. The tip of the weapon dipped and rose, the blade shifting in a gentle figure-eight pattern as she gently taunted me for my escapes. Even as she let her blade dance in front of me, allowing the movement of her blade to claim her victory, I could see her breaths were shorter than at the start. Her skin glowed with a light sheen of sweat. My skin tingled with the cold air, the sweat dripping from my face, but I felt a rush in my blood as I charged. A brief instant passed where the blade point was past my shoulder and moving away, the flat of my blade slapping the point of her blade further off-center. Bouncing off the wood, my sword continued into a well-practiced pattern, the blade sliding along her sword as I lunged with my dominant hand. Demonstrating how much her strength outclassed me, she turned my redirection aside with only the power from her torso. Her body torqued from right to left and moved my whole body along with her blade.

Her sudden movement, something that should have been impossible even with her size and strength if Skills were ignored, broke my stance and left me off balance. Charging forward, I found myself for the third time pressed against Snowy. My weapons were out of line to attack her, and hers was too close to attack, but her leverage and strength would again see the advantage. While I was pressed close, Snowy looked down into my eyes, my breath mingling with her own, and I was suddenly unable to continue fighting. My weapons fell from my hands, and my defense collapsed.

Somehow, my hands were around her body, as her hands ran down my back. We pressed together, and I lost myself in the touch and taste of her lips.