Post by Shipfish on Feb 19, 2012 21:56:28 GMT -6
Idly, Kemorabi realized he ought to be grading papers, but he didn't want to at all. Though Russian culture was an incredible foil to Cairan culture, and was an amazing tool to teach the students about the psychological impact cultural norms had on relationships, it so irked him to teach it. He thought the Russian way of life was awful and needlessly cruel, especially as compared to the Cairan way. He really disliked reading the essays of children who admired the Russians. Alternately, it was just as enjoyable to read the essays of those kids who envied the Cairans.
Kemorabi adored Cairo, not in the least bit because he was from there. Everything seemed to flow so easily, unlike in Russia (which he had visited once) where the social code was rigid. As hard as he tried, he could never quite grasp the subtle indicators of rank and status in Russia, and always fumbled through introductions. In Cairo, everyone was a friend, unless they were an enemy. The dealbreaker for Kemorabi though was the main emotion of the two societies: Russia ran on hate. Your ambition was dependent on the hate of your rivals, the distrust of your friends, and any other such negative emotions. Cairo was definitely not like that. If Russia ran on hate, Cairo ran on love. Your ambition was powered by the support of your colleagues, the love of your family, and positive things.
Besides (he glanced at the clock mounted on the wall that had no numbers, only hands), he was supposed to be at the martial arts class being a guest speaker. The Punisher got up, not bothering to put away the grading supplies that were scattered around.
Slipping out of the office, he caught the Retainer walking away, and asked the quickest way to the martial arts classroom. With her usual exuberance, she detailed the way. It was in the west wing, not too far at all. Kemorabi took a shortcut through the open area of the quad, not surprised at all to see an outright brawl going down near the benches. It was, after all, lunchtime; these trolls were filled to the brim with hormones. He briefly felt sorry for the books being dirtied in the process.
Locating the classroom was easy enough. The double doors made it conspicious on the single-door hallway. Cautiously opening the door (half-expecting to be flying-kicked) Kemorabi peered inside. He must be a bit early, it was ever so hard to tell with that clock.
The room had enormous windows. They reached all the way to the ceiling, which was very far away. Kemorabi realized the room must be two-story, which did not quite make sense to him, since one story in these old buildings was almost fourteen feet. The floor was a bit squishy, and very grippy. He felt odd wearing shoes on such a floor (none of the students were wearing shoes so he figured it was ok) and quickly took his off. One walls was mirrored, and the other two had wooden benches against them, under row after row of modern and ancient hand-to-hand combat weapons. The few students who were in the class already were relaxing on the benches.
To his ever so slight dismay, there was no arakh, past or present, hanging from the walls. He wondered where his own weapon was, the Retainer was supposed to have brought it here earlier. The smaller door on the other side of the room was as fair a guess as any. Kemorabi retrieved his shoes and loped to the door marked 'Sensei Bretus No Students Allowed.' He figured he could go in, since he was sort of supposed to. Pushing open the door (and bending over just an ever so slight amount to fit), Kemorabi entered the sensei's office. There were two people in there already, a female student and an older female troll. The student was disgruntled and wet with something that smelled vaguely like weak lemonade.
"Sorryy Sensei," the student was saying. "I meant to get here earlier but I was wayylaid on the quad. Some troll took out their bad dayy on me." Kemorabi recognized her as one of the trolls that was participating in the clash he had seen. Two things occurred to him at the same time: That this troll was an excellent fighter and that she was either a good liar or she had no clue how romantic that fight had been. He also wondered how she got to the class before him, but that was a minor observation.
Though she had definitely heard the Punisher enter the room, she did not turn away from her Sensei even as she got up to greet Kemorabi. They exchanged a few pleasantries (this was indeed Bretus, who spoke very softly, and Kyachril also called the Catalyst, who was not a student but a Teacher's Assistant for this class although she was a student next hour) and Bretus handed Kemorabi his arakh in its heavy canvas-and-wood box. The unique shape of the weapon made a more average scabbard design impossible. The Punisher resisted the urge to draw it and whirl it about. The weapon had taken forever to pass through customs, since apparently the blade was made out of some odd alloy that had to be sent to the labs and whatever. It had come in yesterday, but he hadn't had the chance to wield it since he left his home country.
Exiting the small office once more, Kemorabi saw a few more students than had been there previously, but no where near a full class. Immediately, Kyachril went to set her bag down on a bench, gathering the students so far to brief them on the deal for class today, then promptly disappeared through the double doors. Bretus began to tell Kemorabi precisely what she wanted him to do. Apparently what he was needed for was only a little bit of a guest speaker, and more of a guest punching-bag/ guest weapons-master. The Punisher had no illusions about how hard his title would come back to bite him in a moment.
The good part about this was the fact that he got to use his arakh for the first time in a month. Kemorabi sat against the window-wall to open up the box. Inside sat the arakh, nestled in a fitted bed of raw cotton, along with a whetstone and a bit of oil for cleaning. The curved blade looked stained, especially in the shallow grooves that paralleled the edge, but that was simply the color of the metal. This particular scimitar was much, much older than Kemorabi, and was probably older than his ancestor, whoever that might have been. He gripped the arakh in his right hand to begin with, lifting it out of the cotton, trailing a few pieces.
This was the good part. After discarding those tag-a-longs, Kemorabi stood and wiggled the sword back and forth, getting himself accustomed to the weight again. It always seemed to be heavier than he imagined. He took a form, trying hard to ignore the students looking at him. Slow and steady to begin.
A gaggle of students entered the room, apparently signalling the beginning of class. The class expectantly settled on the benches across from the mirrored wall. Each took off their shoes if they had not done so already, and shoved their bags under the benches, out of the way. The entire class was barely thirty young trolls. Kemorabi ceased his warmup, and tucked the sword-case near the window. Bretus motioned him over to stand near the center of the room.
"this is kemorabi. some of you may know him, he is the professor on loan from cairo university, who is teaching a high-level sociology class. the dean told me that kemorabi has some experience with the martial arts, in particular the art of the curved sword. he will be teaching you a bit about that art today." Bretus seemed rather experienced at projecting her voice without making it too loud. She motioned for him to take the floor.
"Ah. Hello, I am Kemorrabi, as was said." Here he blushed just a bit. "My title is that of the Punisherr." A light breeze of chuckles wafted across the room. His hand gripped and ungripped the hilt of his arakh, and he noticed that a few of the students used the mirrors on the other side of the room to see it. "I am experrienced with the Cairran arrts of warr, but my people have neverr been especially warrlike and mainly use this dance as a forrm of exprression."
A student politely raised her hand. Kemorabi signalled him to speak. "Dance?" The word was a question.
"Everrything is dancing to my people. The Dance is life. Tell me you don't feel it when you navigate a crowd orr look in someone's eyes." This was good. He could talk about the Dance for hours.
Another student piped up. "Stop taalking aand show us!" Bretus chided the student, who was not remorseful in the slightest. Kemorabi only smiled and nodded. This he could do.
He quickly dismissed the longer or more complicated forms. Several of them took many minutes to complete, and needed multiple people all wielding their weapons in unison. So too he dismissed the simplistic modes, these students of course would know how to slice or stab. So that left the middling kind. Perhaps he should give a choice.
"Would you like the Twist of Snake orr the Flight of Crrane?" Kemorabi did so love both forms. "Both!" cried the overzealous one. The two were mutually incompatible, you could not perform one right after another. He started to say as much, but he realized the inclusion of the Birth of Toad would solve the problem. That was an elegant solution.
He set up in the Fifth Beginning Position just as Kyachril reentered the room, this time with a new shirt. She did not try to cross the room, she simply stood. With a mental shrug, Kemorabi was off. Oh Ra, how calming it was to slide from strike to strike, ease from block to block in the familiar forms. He resisted the urge to become nothing more than a flash of grey and steel, keeping the dance a little slow to show the students. He called out the beginning of each form. In a minute or too, he was finished and could not resist ending the Flight of Crane with a little flourish.
The students seemed a little impressed. A few asked questions about style of learning this 'dance,' and the rigor of training. Kemorabi was happy to answer any of the questions, and delighted in showing a few more forms. After half the class had gone by, Bretus stopped the flow of questions and called for partner practice. "remember how kemorabi uses the qualities of his weapon against his opponent. remember also that even though the army of cairo is small, their land has never been successfully invaded. their dance is beautiful, but also deadly," she said.
There was an odd number of people in class today, so partner-less Kyachril simply walked around the sparring pairs and offered comments on their mastery of certain skills. After Bretus thanked him (and told him he was done, though welcome to stay), he followed the Catalyst around and observed the pairs with her. Kemorabi noticed the patterns inherent in this style of dance. In fact, it was not at all dissimilar from the Dance of Hands, though it incorporated a few elements from the Dance of Touch and involved more of the whole body than the Hands style. The sweeps the Punisher had to spend in hand-to-hand combat before specializing into a weapon were coming back to him.
With fifteen minutes left in class, Bretus called for a one-on-one tournament. Two students at a time sparred, the victorious one went into the next round. Kyachril did not participate. Finally, a winner was declared: the yellow-blood. Bretus asked who he want to fight, and mischieviously he ordered Kemorabi to face off against Kyachril. Something about that matchup made the yellow altogether too excited. Kemorabi was unsure how viable it was to pit the teacher's assistant against the guest speaker, but he digressed.
The students and the Sensei sat on the benches. The Punisher and the Catalyst faced each other from across the room. Kyachril was completely at ease, but Kemorabi was a little tense. Though he felt he could have taken her if he was armed, the rules were no weapons. Quietly, as always, Sensei signalled for the fight to begin. Kyachril wandered to her left, as if this was perfectly normal, forcing Kemorabi to circle as well.
Something Kemorabi could not see made her stop. She simply stood, without twitching or blinking or even breathing. The stillness was disconcerting. Unconciously, Kemorabi made himself smaller, lowering his center of gravity. With absolutely no warning, Kyachril had halved the distance between them. Had Kemorabi blinked? How had she moved that fast? The yellow-blood chuckled with maniacal glee.
Again the Catalyst circled, this time to the right. Kemorabi tried to surreptitiously increase the space between them, but she kept it exactly the same. Again, she stopped, becoming much too still for a living thing. A slow step, perfectly in balance, brought them even closer. They were now in striking distance, but still Kyachril did nothing but circle. It was time to act, Kemorabi thought. Lunging suddenly, he hoped to sweep her feet from under her. With an elegantly simple motion, Kyachril stopped his attack and turned it against him, leaving herself completely unharmed and dancing out of his reach. Kemorabi was left on his belly on the ground.
"Again!" She cried, smiling broadly and taking a defensive position. The yellow, and half the class, were laughing too hard to see. Sensei allowed herself a chuckle. The Punisher groaned and pushed himself up. He had an awfully long way to fall, and that one would leave a good bruise.
He did not pause at all, and used his height to his advantage. This time, Kyachril dodged fluidly around his arm and jabbed him in the small of his back. That hadn't hurt, what had that accomplished? He went down, completely unable to move his legs. Immediately, she adjusted one of his legs and jabbed his back again, and instead of numbness it burned like fire. He mumbled a curse in his native tongue.
"YYes, I am rather sorryy about that bit." Kyachril rose from her kneeling position and danced to the nearest wall. She grabbed a staff made of light-colored wood from the rows upon rows of weapons, and prodded him with it. "Again. This time with yyour old arakh." Kemorabi grit his teeth and stood, wincing at the way his legs wouldn't obey him. He staggered to where he had left the sword, grabbing it with the right hand again. He planned to switch midway through this fight to his left hand, perhaps giving her enough of a pause to land a blow.
The Catalyst came at him slowly, this time. She twirled her staff in an impressive manner, one-handed, swapping between both hands as the mood struck her. Kemorabi gave ground, waiting for his toes to be felt again. She made a slow stab, much too slow, incredibly easy to deflect with his sword. To his slight surprise, the metal didn't cut into the wood: Instead it deflected off with a muted squeal. Kyachril backed away, and stabbed again, in exactly the same fashion. What was going on?
Kemorabi responded without thinking, getting closer and pushing the end of her staff up. This was altogether too familiar. Kyachril backed away again, circling to the right. It was there, in his mind. This pattern, this stop-and-start rhythm so unlike what he had expected of her. It must be a form.
The answer was decided with the next attack, a swipe that would never work with a staff, but it didn't matter because Kemorabi had to deflect it anyway. This was the Come-and-Go, the Dance of Life and Death. It was danced with an arakh-wielder and the wielder of a huthvir, a sort of staff with knives at the ends. Though it was the only well-known dance that used the arakh and a staff-like instrument, Kemorabi reflected that it was danced between lovers or good moirails in his home country.
Kyachril grinned as he hit his mark. Her form was imprecise, not quite right, but her handling of the staff was impeccable. She broke off, starting the dance all over again. Kemorabi compensated for any of the moves that were off, speeding up the form as they passed the five-blow mark.
A young troll, the red who had asked the first question, picked up the rhythm and began to stomp her feet in time. Wound up in the dance as he was, Kemorabi did not realize he was singing the arakh's part until Kyachril began to hum a counterpoint. Back and forth they fought, never landing a hit, Kyachril bound by the drumming of the class and Kemorabi by the metrics of the dance. To and fro across the room they went, each ones feet tracing intricate designs around the other's.
The dance matured. They went from the flighty exuberance of the Child to the more weighty and closer style of the Adult. Here the fight was faster, more deadly if a dancer was off their mark. This style was freer, with more room for improvisation. Kyachril proved to be an imaginitive improviser, changing the moves slightly so that (the dance as a whole was unaffected but) her blade-less staff became a more useful tool. Time ceased to flow properly for Kemorabi. He lost whatever attention he had been paying to the rest of the world. This student, this artist, this unexpectedly marvelous dancer captivated him. He was in tune with her every movement. They breathed in unison.
And then the Adult turned to the Master, a complex and extremely fast set of moves that required complete concentration. Kyachril faltered, Kemorabi saw it in her eyes and in her hands, and the small way her feet moved to compensate. The Catalyst was excellent at this, Kemorabi would have wondered where she learned such an intricate form if there was any room left for thinking. Even now, the tiny part of his brain not devoted to this dance was watching the wall in his mind crumble.
And it broke. Suddenly the sun that came through the tall windows tasted like honey, and the ubiquitous mild scent of sweat sharpened into a whole spectrum of touch. The entwined sound of their breathing was spicy, a melodic counterpoint to the clack of the weapons. Kemorabi's focus narrowed, his body dancing but his mind still. Single sensations invaded his conscious: Kyachril's twirling hair juxtaposed against the white walls, with bright spots glancing off their weapons (the scent of night-the feel of velvet-the sound of birdsong). The faint smell of her skin as they came close for a choreographed strike (oil on his fingers and a flute in his ears).
The dance ended. Kemorabi held Kyachril close with the concave side of his blade on her back, having 'killed' her in the final move, even after she dealt him a mortal blow. They were both breathing hard, still in unison. Without thinking, acting only on instinct and his Cairan upbringing, Kemorabi moved a hand to cradle her face and leaned down to kiss her. It wasn't sensual, not really, only an expression of intense emotion.
Even still, the Catalyst jerked back, breaking the move and truly ending the dance. "W-what?" she stammered, backing away.
He felt cold without her. "I'm sorrrry. I didn't mean to. Well, I did, only..." The dance had been so lovely, but he was making a mess of the aftermath. Oh this was going to give him simply an awful headache later. It did so hurt to break that wall without being properly grounded afterward. He tried to reach for her but the movement was ice and rocks in his joints.
There were twice as many students in the class as before. One group, slightly older and all with a certain look to them, the same look that Bretus and Kyachril shared, clustered around the door. All of them had been watching the fight with extremely close interest. With the broken dance, they began murmuring among themselves. The older group's eyes still followed Kemorabi's movements with a startling intensity. Those on the benches tittered and giggled at the kiss.
Kemorabi adored Cairo, not in the least bit because he was from there. Everything seemed to flow so easily, unlike in Russia (which he had visited once) where the social code was rigid. As hard as he tried, he could never quite grasp the subtle indicators of rank and status in Russia, and always fumbled through introductions. In Cairo, everyone was a friend, unless they were an enemy. The dealbreaker for Kemorabi though was the main emotion of the two societies: Russia ran on hate. Your ambition was dependent on the hate of your rivals, the distrust of your friends, and any other such negative emotions. Cairo was definitely not like that. If Russia ran on hate, Cairo ran on love. Your ambition was powered by the support of your colleagues, the love of your family, and positive things.
Besides (he glanced at the clock mounted on the wall that had no numbers, only hands), he was supposed to be at the martial arts class being a guest speaker. The Punisher got up, not bothering to put away the grading supplies that were scattered around.
Slipping out of the office, he caught the Retainer walking away, and asked the quickest way to the martial arts classroom. With her usual exuberance, she detailed the way. It was in the west wing, not too far at all. Kemorabi took a shortcut through the open area of the quad, not surprised at all to see an outright brawl going down near the benches. It was, after all, lunchtime; these trolls were filled to the brim with hormones. He briefly felt sorry for the books being dirtied in the process.
Locating the classroom was easy enough. The double doors made it conspicious on the single-door hallway. Cautiously opening the door (half-expecting to be flying-kicked) Kemorabi peered inside. He must be a bit early, it was ever so hard to tell with that clock.
The room had enormous windows. They reached all the way to the ceiling, which was very far away. Kemorabi realized the room must be two-story, which did not quite make sense to him, since one story in these old buildings was almost fourteen feet. The floor was a bit squishy, and very grippy. He felt odd wearing shoes on such a floor (none of the students were wearing shoes so he figured it was ok) and quickly took his off. One walls was mirrored, and the other two had wooden benches against them, under row after row of modern and ancient hand-to-hand combat weapons. The few students who were in the class already were relaxing on the benches.
To his ever so slight dismay, there was no arakh, past or present, hanging from the walls. He wondered where his own weapon was, the Retainer was supposed to have brought it here earlier. The smaller door on the other side of the room was as fair a guess as any. Kemorabi retrieved his shoes and loped to the door marked 'Sensei Bretus No Students Allowed.' He figured he could go in, since he was sort of supposed to. Pushing open the door (and bending over just an ever so slight amount to fit), Kemorabi entered the sensei's office. There were two people in there already, a female student and an older female troll. The student was disgruntled and wet with something that smelled vaguely like weak lemonade.
"Sorryy Sensei," the student was saying. "I meant to get here earlier but I was wayylaid on the quad. Some troll took out their bad dayy on me." Kemorabi recognized her as one of the trolls that was participating in the clash he had seen. Two things occurred to him at the same time: That this troll was an excellent fighter and that she was either a good liar or she had no clue how romantic that fight had been. He also wondered how she got to the class before him, but that was a minor observation.
Though she had definitely heard the Punisher enter the room, she did not turn away from her Sensei even as she got up to greet Kemorabi. They exchanged a few pleasantries (this was indeed Bretus, who spoke very softly, and Kyachril also called the Catalyst, who was not a student but a Teacher's Assistant for this class although she was a student next hour) and Bretus handed Kemorabi his arakh in its heavy canvas-and-wood box. The unique shape of the weapon made a more average scabbard design impossible. The Punisher resisted the urge to draw it and whirl it about. The weapon had taken forever to pass through customs, since apparently the blade was made out of some odd alloy that had to be sent to the labs and whatever. It had come in yesterday, but he hadn't had the chance to wield it since he left his home country.
Exiting the small office once more, Kemorabi saw a few more students than had been there previously, but no where near a full class. Immediately, Kyachril went to set her bag down on a bench, gathering the students so far to brief them on the deal for class today, then promptly disappeared through the double doors. Bretus began to tell Kemorabi precisely what she wanted him to do. Apparently what he was needed for was only a little bit of a guest speaker, and more of a guest punching-bag/ guest weapons-master. The Punisher had no illusions about how hard his title would come back to bite him in a moment.
The good part about this was the fact that he got to use his arakh for the first time in a month. Kemorabi sat against the window-wall to open up the box. Inside sat the arakh, nestled in a fitted bed of raw cotton, along with a whetstone and a bit of oil for cleaning. The curved blade looked stained, especially in the shallow grooves that paralleled the edge, but that was simply the color of the metal. This particular scimitar was much, much older than Kemorabi, and was probably older than his ancestor, whoever that might have been. He gripped the arakh in his right hand to begin with, lifting it out of the cotton, trailing a few pieces.
This was the good part. After discarding those tag-a-longs, Kemorabi stood and wiggled the sword back and forth, getting himself accustomed to the weight again. It always seemed to be heavier than he imagined. He took a form, trying hard to ignore the students looking at him. Slow and steady to begin.
A gaggle of students entered the room, apparently signalling the beginning of class. The class expectantly settled on the benches across from the mirrored wall. Each took off their shoes if they had not done so already, and shoved their bags under the benches, out of the way. The entire class was barely thirty young trolls. Kemorabi ceased his warmup, and tucked the sword-case near the window. Bretus motioned him over to stand near the center of the room.
"this is kemorabi. some of you may know him, he is the professor on loan from cairo university, who is teaching a high-level sociology class. the dean told me that kemorabi has some experience with the martial arts, in particular the art of the curved sword. he will be teaching you a bit about that art today." Bretus seemed rather experienced at projecting her voice without making it too loud. She motioned for him to take the floor.
"Ah. Hello, I am Kemorrabi, as was said." Here he blushed just a bit. "My title is that of the Punisherr." A light breeze of chuckles wafted across the room. His hand gripped and ungripped the hilt of his arakh, and he noticed that a few of the students used the mirrors on the other side of the room to see it. "I am experrienced with the Cairran arrts of warr, but my people have neverr been especially warrlike and mainly use this dance as a forrm of exprression."
A student politely raised her hand. Kemorabi signalled him to speak. "Dance?" The word was a question.
"Everrything is dancing to my people. The Dance is life. Tell me you don't feel it when you navigate a crowd orr look in someone's eyes." This was good. He could talk about the Dance for hours.
Another student piped up. "Stop taalking aand show us!" Bretus chided the student, who was not remorseful in the slightest. Kemorabi only smiled and nodded. This he could do.
He quickly dismissed the longer or more complicated forms. Several of them took many minutes to complete, and needed multiple people all wielding their weapons in unison. So too he dismissed the simplistic modes, these students of course would know how to slice or stab. So that left the middling kind. Perhaps he should give a choice.
"Would you like the Twist of Snake orr the Flight of Crrane?" Kemorabi did so love both forms. "Both!" cried the overzealous one. The two were mutually incompatible, you could not perform one right after another. He started to say as much, but he realized the inclusion of the Birth of Toad would solve the problem. That was an elegant solution.
He set up in the Fifth Beginning Position just as Kyachril reentered the room, this time with a new shirt. She did not try to cross the room, she simply stood. With a mental shrug, Kemorabi was off. Oh Ra, how calming it was to slide from strike to strike, ease from block to block in the familiar forms. He resisted the urge to become nothing more than a flash of grey and steel, keeping the dance a little slow to show the students. He called out the beginning of each form. In a minute or too, he was finished and could not resist ending the Flight of Crane with a little flourish.
The students seemed a little impressed. A few asked questions about style of learning this 'dance,' and the rigor of training. Kemorabi was happy to answer any of the questions, and delighted in showing a few more forms. After half the class had gone by, Bretus stopped the flow of questions and called for partner practice. "remember how kemorabi uses the qualities of his weapon against his opponent. remember also that even though the army of cairo is small, their land has never been successfully invaded. their dance is beautiful, but also deadly," she said.
There was an odd number of people in class today, so partner-less Kyachril simply walked around the sparring pairs and offered comments on their mastery of certain skills. After Bretus thanked him (and told him he was done, though welcome to stay), he followed the Catalyst around and observed the pairs with her. Kemorabi noticed the patterns inherent in this style of dance. In fact, it was not at all dissimilar from the Dance of Hands, though it incorporated a few elements from the Dance of Touch and involved more of the whole body than the Hands style. The sweeps the Punisher had to spend in hand-to-hand combat before specializing into a weapon were coming back to him.
With fifteen minutes left in class, Bretus called for a one-on-one tournament. Two students at a time sparred, the victorious one went into the next round. Kyachril did not participate. Finally, a winner was declared: the yellow-blood. Bretus asked who he want to fight, and mischieviously he ordered Kemorabi to face off against Kyachril. Something about that matchup made the yellow altogether too excited. Kemorabi was unsure how viable it was to pit the teacher's assistant against the guest speaker, but he digressed.
The students and the Sensei sat on the benches. The Punisher and the Catalyst faced each other from across the room. Kyachril was completely at ease, but Kemorabi was a little tense. Though he felt he could have taken her if he was armed, the rules were no weapons. Quietly, as always, Sensei signalled for the fight to begin. Kyachril wandered to her left, as if this was perfectly normal, forcing Kemorabi to circle as well.
Something Kemorabi could not see made her stop. She simply stood, without twitching or blinking or even breathing. The stillness was disconcerting. Unconciously, Kemorabi made himself smaller, lowering his center of gravity. With absolutely no warning, Kyachril had halved the distance between them. Had Kemorabi blinked? How had she moved that fast? The yellow-blood chuckled with maniacal glee.
Again the Catalyst circled, this time to the right. Kemorabi tried to surreptitiously increase the space between them, but she kept it exactly the same. Again, she stopped, becoming much too still for a living thing. A slow step, perfectly in balance, brought them even closer. They were now in striking distance, but still Kyachril did nothing but circle. It was time to act, Kemorabi thought. Lunging suddenly, he hoped to sweep her feet from under her. With an elegantly simple motion, Kyachril stopped his attack and turned it against him, leaving herself completely unharmed and dancing out of his reach. Kemorabi was left on his belly on the ground.
"Again!" She cried, smiling broadly and taking a defensive position. The yellow, and half the class, were laughing too hard to see. Sensei allowed herself a chuckle. The Punisher groaned and pushed himself up. He had an awfully long way to fall, and that one would leave a good bruise.
He did not pause at all, and used his height to his advantage. This time, Kyachril dodged fluidly around his arm and jabbed him in the small of his back. That hadn't hurt, what had that accomplished? He went down, completely unable to move his legs. Immediately, she adjusted one of his legs and jabbed his back again, and instead of numbness it burned like fire. He mumbled a curse in his native tongue.
"YYes, I am rather sorryy about that bit." Kyachril rose from her kneeling position and danced to the nearest wall. She grabbed a staff made of light-colored wood from the rows upon rows of weapons, and prodded him with it. "Again. This time with yyour old arakh." Kemorabi grit his teeth and stood, wincing at the way his legs wouldn't obey him. He staggered to where he had left the sword, grabbing it with the right hand again. He planned to switch midway through this fight to his left hand, perhaps giving her enough of a pause to land a blow.
The Catalyst came at him slowly, this time. She twirled her staff in an impressive manner, one-handed, swapping between both hands as the mood struck her. Kemorabi gave ground, waiting for his toes to be felt again. She made a slow stab, much too slow, incredibly easy to deflect with his sword. To his slight surprise, the metal didn't cut into the wood: Instead it deflected off with a muted squeal. Kyachril backed away, and stabbed again, in exactly the same fashion. What was going on?
Kemorabi responded without thinking, getting closer and pushing the end of her staff up. This was altogether too familiar. Kyachril backed away again, circling to the right. It was there, in his mind. This pattern, this stop-and-start rhythm so unlike what he had expected of her. It must be a form.
The answer was decided with the next attack, a swipe that would never work with a staff, but it didn't matter because Kemorabi had to deflect it anyway. This was the Come-and-Go, the Dance of Life and Death. It was danced with an arakh-wielder and the wielder of a huthvir, a sort of staff with knives at the ends. Though it was the only well-known dance that used the arakh and a staff-like instrument, Kemorabi reflected that it was danced between lovers or good moirails in his home country.
Kyachril grinned as he hit his mark. Her form was imprecise, not quite right, but her handling of the staff was impeccable. She broke off, starting the dance all over again. Kemorabi compensated for any of the moves that were off, speeding up the form as they passed the five-blow mark.
A young troll, the red who had asked the first question, picked up the rhythm and began to stomp her feet in time. Wound up in the dance as he was, Kemorabi did not realize he was singing the arakh's part until Kyachril began to hum a counterpoint. Back and forth they fought, never landing a hit, Kyachril bound by the drumming of the class and Kemorabi by the metrics of the dance. To and fro across the room they went, each ones feet tracing intricate designs around the other's.
The dance matured. They went from the flighty exuberance of the Child to the more weighty and closer style of the Adult. Here the fight was faster, more deadly if a dancer was off their mark. This style was freer, with more room for improvisation. Kyachril proved to be an imaginitive improviser, changing the moves slightly so that (the dance as a whole was unaffected but) her blade-less staff became a more useful tool. Time ceased to flow properly for Kemorabi. He lost whatever attention he had been paying to the rest of the world. This student, this artist, this unexpectedly marvelous dancer captivated him. He was in tune with her every movement. They breathed in unison.
And then the Adult turned to the Master, a complex and extremely fast set of moves that required complete concentration. Kyachril faltered, Kemorabi saw it in her eyes and in her hands, and the small way her feet moved to compensate. The Catalyst was excellent at this, Kemorabi would have wondered where she learned such an intricate form if there was any room left for thinking. Even now, the tiny part of his brain not devoted to this dance was watching the wall in his mind crumble.
And it broke. Suddenly the sun that came through the tall windows tasted like honey, and the ubiquitous mild scent of sweat sharpened into a whole spectrum of touch. The entwined sound of their breathing was spicy, a melodic counterpoint to the clack of the weapons. Kemorabi's focus narrowed, his body dancing but his mind still. Single sensations invaded his conscious: Kyachril's twirling hair juxtaposed against the white walls, with bright spots glancing off their weapons (the scent of night-the feel of velvet-the sound of birdsong). The faint smell of her skin as they came close for a choreographed strike (oil on his fingers and a flute in his ears).
The dance ended. Kemorabi held Kyachril close with the concave side of his blade on her back, having 'killed' her in the final move, even after she dealt him a mortal blow. They were both breathing hard, still in unison. Without thinking, acting only on instinct and his Cairan upbringing, Kemorabi moved a hand to cradle her face and leaned down to kiss her. It wasn't sensual, not really, only an expression of intense emotion.
Even still, the Catalyst jerked back, breaking the move and truly ending the dance. "W-what?" she stammered, backing away.
He felt cold without her. "I'm sorrrry. I didn't mean to. Well, I did, only..." The dance had been so lovely, but he was making a mess of the aftermath. Oh this was going to give him simply an awful headache later. It did so hurt to break that wall without being properly grounded afterward. He tried to reach for her but the movement was ice and rocks in his joints.
There were twice as many students in the class as before. One group, slightly older and all with a certain look to them, the same look that Bretus and Kyachril shared, clustered around the door. All of them had been watching the fight with extremely close interest. With the broken dance, they began murmuring among themselves. The older group's eyes still followed Kemorabi's movements with a startling intensity. Those on the benches tittered and giggled at the kiss.