Fate - First Reply A Duellist's Fury

[Xeraphine Yldore]

Spoiler: Music

Dusk was approaching over the open courtyard of Master Terniere's fencing school. Its open, multi-storied arcades flanked her on all sides; shadow and dying sunlight diagonally slicing the courtyard in half.

In its light side, the training dummy remained. Terniere's lesson was over and the fencing master had gone home, at this point. Xeraphine had lingered, wishing to study her new practised guard, thrusts and cuts. She engaged the lone dummy, weaving in and out of shadow and light, even as shadow crept to cover over her opponent.

In its hollow face, she imagined the faces of her enemies. It afforded strength to each jab and swipe. Estrenna Mardos. Thrust, thwack. Tel'vore Phlogis and Petrus Ritus Iskandar. Swivel, rapid upward cut, sideways slice, shwack-shwack. A splinter of wood catapulted off. Beatrice Orabela and Catherine Ulwool. Double-thrust in chest, quick step back, whack on helmet. The dummy swayed back and forth, still reeling from the impacts. A pant escaped her, heaving in her duellist's jerkin. But there was a last phantom face that deserved thorough punishment. Ormvel, wide smirk resplendent on his dusty beard. Dash forward, quick jab, and then a double-handed cleave, diagonal, cutting from shoulder to groin, launched with a mighty grunt of effort.

The blade cut between plates, sinking deep. Xeraphine stared up through tresses of dark hair, watching the blade having sunk about two inches into its wooden chest. She had to pull and wriggle the steel free to release it; and after this, she turned the blade, noting with a click of her tongue the new dent in its edge.

Anger had gotten the better of her.

The door to the training yard rattled open behind her. She brushed back hair from her face and hastily went to place the rapier back in its weapon rack. It seemed Terniere had returned. Likely he had forgotten something.

"Forgive me, Master Terniere. I seem to have chipped your dummy--"

The door closed with a heavy clatter of metal and wood. But no answer was forthcoming.

Intuition told her someone else had entered. She held the rapier in an inverted grip, about to put it back; but thought better of it -- keeping a hold on her weapon -- and turned to face the intruder.

 

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

Indeed it was no Master Ternierr that had entered the sparring grounds. In point of fact it was the bearer of one of the faces that Xeraphine Yldore had so childishly projected onto the training dummy. Lashing out at like a fuming child punching their pillow.

Petrus, for his part, was equally clad in a dueling jacket. Though one of exceptionally finer make than the quaint tripe that Xeraphine garbed herself with. Amber eyes would pierce into the petulant woman beneath a raised brow. Stony, inscrutable features perfectly making thought behind slow, deliberate words.

"You seem to be mistaken, Miss. Though I've mastered the art this is not my school."

His eyes fell to her now deformed blade before sliding up her body like the slowly constricting coils of a dark, ebony serpent so measured that glints of gold glimmered in the depths of its scales. Just as the colors of his house of those same hues gleamed in his dueling jacket. His words falling on her as the point of a blade all its own.

"But given your apparent lack of control even I could teach you a thing or two."

Idly striding across the training yard to retrieve a clothes and dipping it elegantly in blade oil Petrus would slide it along his own unblemished blade, letting the polished steel reflect those amber orbs as he stared at Xeraphine in it's reflection, adding dryly.

"That is, if you would be worth the time to instruct."​

 

[Xeraphine Yldore]

Xeraphine's gaze trained on him like a crossbow.

She couldn't believe who had stepped into the courtyard. Who had gone from a useful fantasy to terrible reality.

Lord Petrus Ritus Iskandar himself.

Her fingers clenched tighter around the grip of her rapier. An inscrutable expression went across her features, but somehow, she turned even paler than she was. Like a passing shadow over ivory skin, her hair fell again to cover her left eye. For all her plans, for all her designs, here he had come by volition, standing bold as brass in her presence.

No one could predict Coincidence. Best laid plans scattered before Her fickle touch.

The dented steel quivered. Would it find purchase today? Would it be able to strike more than humble wood? Would it drink the blood of nobles?

The tip raised an inch, as if about to seek his back; but then pinged tinnily, as she planted it on the floor, resting her hands on the floral pommel of the rapier.

"You consider yourself a superior swordsman to the master of this school, then, my lord?"

Her voice held all the vibrant control of a tuning fork. A resonance that tickled the air with tension.

Petrus Ritus Iskandar

 

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

Petrus felt the weight of the woman's and bore it as placidly as the Elder Tree may weather any common rainfall. How it may even feed him.in it's own way, to feel that subtle burn of jealousy and focus trained upon him, this woman was a fool if she thought she was the only one to ever glare daggers at him, to spray her impotent venom at him. It was poetic, in a way, that Petrus was taking Xeraphine's measure in the reflection of a steel blade, superior to the iron her family prided themselves on, a gleaming reflection of both material and man that had moved beyond her and her House.

Only when Xeraphine's blade was planted in the ground did Petrus turn and discard the cloth from his grip. He would let his gaze meet hers like a riposte of it's own, only to roam down her body to the blade she stabbed so carelessly into the earth, only to sigh a heavy noise through his nose and narrow his eyes at her.

"Did no one ever teach you to respect your blade?"

He shook his head, the question rhetorical, as he would answer her own question.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. I have never fought the man to the death so I do not know. But I am more than knowledgeable enough to correct you."

Slowly, purposefully, moving across from Xeraphine he would emphasize his point with one last motion. A simple thing, done lazily, but purposefully, as he took The Fool's Guard and nodded for Xeraphine to test herself. His blade point lowered, not straight down, but at an angle toward her, waiting to see if she, truly, was a fool. A slow, knowing smirk gracing his features. Giving Xeraphine the briefest glimpse of immaculate, pearl white teeth.

No doubt the result of an immaculate dental plan......

Xeraphine Yldore​

 

[Xeraphine Yldore]

"This is but blunted steel, my lord. Little better than pig iron. It hardly deserves veneration."

And neither do you, she thought, expressed by an absolutely cutting smile.

She noted the guard. The Fool's Guard, indeed. A faux pas to use against an experienced swordsman, to be sure, who could easily see through it. The provocation was clear.

She wondered if he was drunk. But she detected no sway in his assured stride, nor in his planted stance. Indeed, he seemed like a tree that merely lowered its branches, about to weather a storm.

And oh, how she desired to be that storm. Dreamt of it.

Accident in Master Terniere's school. Merchant Councillor brutally stabbed to death, slaughtered like a pig, over fifty gashes . . .

She could hear the town crier even now. What sweet words of comfort it would be to her ears.

No, indeed. This blade was not worthy of veneration. And nor was it suited for poetic justice. Daintily, she picked it up and placed it on the weapon rack. Then carefully chose her armaments, noting the glint of a sharp edge in his hand.

The lord desired to live dangerously. So be it. A rapier and a dagger seemed a fitting choice for a duel. She picked her favourite pair, then turned to face him, her crimson smile near sculpted on her face.

"Oh, how generous of you. I should be honoured that the great Lord Iskandar wishes to impart me with his teachings." She cocked her head a little to the side, studying his fine jerkin. "My apologies to your barber if I happen to grant you a, ah; close shave."

The rapier lifted, splitting her face in twain by a sliver of steel; smile slashed in half.

Petrus Ritus Iskandar

 

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

Petrus would, perhaps surprisingly, agree with Xeraphine at her estimation of the blade in her grasp.

"Indeed. More at home in the low craft of ironmongering than in the grasp of even a novice duelist."

He would give a subtle motion of his jaw toward the weapon rack, his guard relaxing for just a moment, and he watched her with idle interest as she set about choosing her weapons. A rapier and plain dagger. An unorthodox choice but it spoke to the ferocity she had displayed upon his entrance. Seeking to get close, personal, aggressive.

As Xeraphine raised her own guard, the rapier presented alone, in a traditional guard, he decided to coax her just so. To stole the flames of her anger with an unorthodox guard. Petrus would adjust from the Fool's guard. Not placing his blade between himself and Xeraphine at all. Instead the arm that held the blade would extend out to his side, nearly at full extension, elbow slightly bent, but with the point still angled at Xeraphine. With his other hand held behind his body as his form turned near sideways to her to present a slimmer profile, knees slightly bent.

When he spoke his voice was low but commanding. As if he were ordering her like some common servant girl.

"Begin."

The blade out to his side was a false opening, of course, held there to give the opponent a fake impression that he was leaving himself open while positioning his blade outside their guard to take advantage of any reckless attacks with a precise strike. Petrus also made certain to adjust his blade to the same side as Xeraphine's own rapier, not wanting to risk an unlikely block by her dagger in the off hand.

Xeraphine Yldore​

 

[Xeraphine Yldore]

Spoiler: Music

The dagger was held for parrying. The rapier for a thrusting offence. Her smile twisted into a silent snarl, going on the offence.

First rule of Master Terniere's fencing school: whoever engaged first was at a disadvantage. Launching an attack was always more complicated than maintaining a defence. Defence merely needed to wait and present a gate of bristling blades, whether one held the door open to attack or kept it closed. Attacking required feinting, maneuvering.

But there was another rule to his teachings: hesitation killed. And if you allowed your opponent too much time to think, or yourself too much time to doubt, you were as good as finished.

She knew the counter-strike would be there. Enough thwacks from Master Terniere's wooden stick had taught her not to overextend herself. So she feigned an aggressive lunge; only to sidestep and shift her footing for the inevitable counter-attack, and swirl her blade in a sudden swipe, the dagger covering her open side.

Petrus Ritus Iskandar

 

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

Xeraphine's feint was successful in luring out Petrus's blade, drawing it forward in the beginning of a quick stab, only for him to halt the blade motion as she began to move. His own unseen second weapon being put to use with a subtle flick of his unseen hand, a minor exertion of magic causing a small bit of the training ground to crop up in the way of Xeraphine's sidestep. But just as quickly he would render the outcropping back down as if it had never been. Simply causing her to stumble and her swipe to go wide, allowing him to place his blade under her chin, the cold kiss of it's tip at her throat as he shook his head....and lied to her face as easily as he breathed.

"You were so focused on your ploy that you lost your footing. Your feint was well executed, but you were pushing yourself."

He then withdrew his blade, stepped back from her, and assumed the stance Xeraphine had taken previously. His expression unreadable, his lie masterfully told, to sew doubt in her, as he nodded for her to prepare herself again.

"Come. I will demonstrate how to perform such a thing properly."

Deception, doubt, gaslighting and lies hidden in the guise of instruction and assistance. For he knew who Xeraphine was, but would feign otherwise, pretend his ego so inflated she was beneath his knowledge of who and what she was. Even as he began to play his games with her.

Xeraphine Yldore​