Chương 93: [Was She Just Flirting With Me?]

] The field was already lively when they arrived, the usual groups forming as people waited for training to begin. Leo fell in beside Luka for a moment, both of them looking across at the row of posts that hadn't been there yesterday, each one wrapped in thick padding and bound tight with rope.

"Those look more like what I was expecting. You know, compared to the stone ones we use for magic?" Luka said.

"Yeah," Leo said.

"You starting on them today as well?"

"Aye. Torren told me yesterday."

"Same. I think it's just us two to start." Luka looked at them for a moment.

"I bet Phil goes extra hard today then. He won't want us getting ahead."

"Oh, one hundred percent," Leo said.

"It'll be easy to wind him up later if he doesn't catch us." The two grinned at each other before Luka headed toward Torren, who was already waiting at the far end of the field. Leo turned toward the racks. Shai was there, pulling practice blades from the wooden slats. She looked up as he got close, and smiled. Leo spotted Nessa and Mars before he'd even reached the rack. Both of them looked like they'd lost a fight with a hedge.

"Any idea why those two look like we did yesterday morning?" he asked as he got close. Shai glanced over. Nessa was moving through her warm up but lacked her usual grace. Mars was staring off into the distance, trying to stay awake.

"No idea," Shai said.

"But whatever it was, Mars probably started it and Nessa got dragged in. That's usually how it goes." Her tail swayed once behind her, slow and easy.

"Give it an hour, she'll be pretending it never happened." Leo leaned against the rack.

"Poor woman."

"She does it to herself," Shai said, with a smile.

"They're both as bad as each other." He watched her check the practice blades for a moment, turning each one over before setting it aside. The field was still filling up around them, people finding their trainers, the morning conversations carrying across the grass.

"So," Leo said.

"Last night." Shai's hands didn't stop moving.

"What about it?" she asked.

"I wasn't going to bring it up if you didn't want me to. I just didn't want it sitting there being weird." She set the blade down and turned to face him properly.

"It's not weird." Her tail was still moving, that same slow sway.

"I was surprised when you touched my tail, I won't pretend I wasn't. But it felt nice, Leo. Comfortable." She held his gaze.

"I'd have said something if I hadn't liked it. You should know me well enough by now to know I'll speak up when I need to."

"Yeah," Leo said.

"I do know that." He smiled.

"It was relaxing for me as well, to be honest." She looked at him for a moment, then picked up the next blade.

"Good. Then stop overthinking it."

"That obvious?"

"Yeah," she said.

"I could tell on the walk in. If I didn't know Rika would make a big thing out of it, I'd have mentioned it already." He laughed, and she smiled at the sound of it, her tail giving a slightly wider sway before settling back.

"Right," he said.

"Different subject. Favourite part of the film last night." She didn't have to think about it.

"From when Aragorn and Théoden decide to ride out until the end of the battle. All of it."

"Good shout," Leo said.

"That whole sequence is incredible."

"I noticed you mouthing the words," she said, giving him a look.

"You did?" He grinned sheepishly.

"Oh God. I must have looked like an idiot."

"It was interesting to watch." She tilted her head slightly.

"How many times have you seen it?"

"Honestly? I've probably watched all three about fifty times. I saw the first one in the cinema three times when it first came out. Had to wait a year for the next one and then another year for the last. The wait was not fun." He shook his head.

"Me and Luka do a funny impression of the bit with the Balrog. Luka does Frodo at the bridge, shouting in a high pitched voice. I do Gandalf." Shai stared at him.

"Okay, I have to see that."

"It's embarrassing," he said.

"You're just making me want to see it more," she said, smirking.

"You'd think I'd have learned to stop talking before I end up having to show you guys something that makes me look like a tit. Apparently not." They both laughed again, and for a moment the training field felt a long way away. When it settled she was looking at him with an expression he couldn't quite read.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Why do you look away when you catch my eye? You do it every time." Leo opened his mouth to reply but closed it and thought about his answer.

"I've always been like that," he said eventually.

"With anyone I—" he stopped, rerouted slightly.

"Just in general. Eye contact makes me feel like the other person can see everything I'm thinking. And then I start wondering what they're thinking about what I'm thinking, and it just." He shrugged.

"Spirals." The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Shai looked at him steadily.

"Well," she said.

"You don't need to spiral about last night. I've just told you how I felt about it." The corner of her mouth lifted.

"And for what it's worth, when I catch you looking, I'm not thinking anything that should worry you." Leo held her gaze for a full two seconds before looking away. Shai's tail swayed wide, just once, and she turned back to the rack.

"Go," she said.

"Kai is looking for you." Leo walked off. Was she just flirting with me? It seemed like it. I know I'm kinda dense but come on that was obvious right? Or am I just thinking that cos it would be amazing if she was? Jesus, she just told me to stop overthinking. For fuck sake, I need to stop or Kai's going to eat me alive this morning. Kai was already at the dummies when Leo got there, running a hand along the padding on the nearest post, checking the rope binding.

"High guard, strike where the neck would be. Follow up with another strike afterwards," Kai said, stepping back.

"Let's see what you've got." Leo settled into his stance. The motion was smooth now, constant drilling having made it automatic. He stepped in, drove from his hip, and let the practice sword follow. The impact stopped him in his tracks. The vibration came up through the blade and into his wrists, his elbow, his shoulder. His next step died before it started, the flow he'd managed to make natural completely gone. He stood there for a second, surprised.

"That," Kai said, "is normal." Leo lowered the blade.

"Felt like hitting a wall."

"Because you tried to stop after the strike. You've been drilling on air. Air doesn't push back." Kai tapped the padding.

"This does. When the blade hits, that energy has to go somewhere. Right now it's going into your arms and stopping you. What you need to do is let it keep moving." He put a hand on his own hip.

"Same place the power comes from. Let the impact roll down through your shoulders, into your core, and use it to push your hips into the next position. The dummy does half the work for you if you stop fighting it." Leo looked at the post.

"So use the bounce."

"Use the bounce," Kai confirmed.

"Try again." Leo reset. He swung, felt the impact coming, and instead of bracing tried to let it pass through him. His hips shifted a fraction earlier than before. The next step was still clunky but it was there.

"Better," Kai said.

"Again." Four more attempts. Each one slightly cleaner than the last. By the sixth the stutter was mostly gone, the motion finding its way back, the dummy becoming part of the sequence rather than the end of it. Kai watched him run it twice more without interrupting.

"When you're sparring," he said, "sometimes the strike lands and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, there's no impact to use. You'll need to learn how to deal with that as well. That'll come from sparring. Learning the difference between the two and when to react to which is going to be the next big step for you." He paused, something shifting slightly in his expression, not much, just enough.

"You'll get there faster than you think." Leo ran the sequence again. The practice sword hit the padding and the motion rolled through clean. Kai said nothing. He just watched, and for the first time Leo had the feeling he wasn't being assessed. He was just being watched by someone who wanted to see what he'd do next. Across the field, Luka's first swing at the dummy nearly took him off his feet.

The practice maul connected with a crack that turned a few heads, the padding compressing under the head before snapping back. The rebound came up through the haft and kept going, pulling him off centre. He caught himself, but only just. Torren was beside him before he'd fully recovered.

"Plant your back foot before the swing lands," he said.

"Not after. The weight of the head and the resistance is going to pull you every time if you let it. You need to be already rooted when it hits." Luka reset, drove his back foot into the dirt, and swung again. The rebound still came, but this time he had somewhere to put it.

"Better," Torren said.

"You aren't trying to flow out of it the same way Leo is." He looked over as Leo continued to strike and move.

"Your job after that hit is to be standing, shield up. You either make a gap in their defences or you don't. Either way you need to be ready to protect yourself or swing again if given the chance." Luka looked at his hands on the haft, then at the dummy.

"So it's less about what comes after the swing and more about making sure I'm still there to do it."

"Exactly," Torren said. He watched Luka reset again, adjusting his stance slightly with one large hand on his shoulder.

"Again." At the far end of the field, Parmo had moved back from the targets again. Rika had her group doing a drill that involved firing at the target then moving back five paces and firing again, until they missed. He was now further back than the others and the only one still taking shots. Rika watched on, arms folded, her face set in an expression she thought was very teacher like. She said nothing. She kept her wings flat and her face composed. Parmo loosed another arrow. It landed. She tried not to grin.

He moved and fired again. Another hit. Rika's wings twitched once before she got them back under control. Closer to the centre of the field, Sam trained with his daggers.

"You two look fucking terrible," Sam said, not breaking from his footwork pattern. Nessa's head came up. Across from her, Mars was leaning against a post trying not to look unprofessional and failing.

"Were you two up late?" Sam asked, his eyebrows wiggling up and down.

"With him?" Nessa said, her face going red.

"Don't be stupid. Never." Mars raised his voice a little from across the grass without looking over.

"She wouldn't let me sleep, Sam. Sounds calm, looks calm, but she's wild once she gets going. Aren't you, Nes?"

"You're a fucking idiot," Nessa said, turning on him.

"It's your fault we're tired. If you hadn't spent three hours trying to woo Victoria none of this would have happened." Sam's grin spread slowly.

"That sounds an awful lot like you decided to take her place. Were you the emotional rebound, Nessa?" Her face continued to change colour, fury in her eyes.

"She'll deny it," Mars said, finally pushing off the post.

"But she loved it. She broke a door, Sam. I've never seen anything like it." Sam looked at Nessa.

"It's always the quiet ones."

"Focus," she snapped, looking over at the grinning students from Mars's group.

"All of you. Now." Mars caught Sam's eye and winked. Toward the end of the session, Shai stopped in front of Phil and watched him run the combination twice without interrupting. Then she nodded.

"You're ready for the dummies," she said.

"Next session." Phil looked across the field to where Leo and Luka had been working for the better part of two hours, then back at her.

"Next session," he repeated, annoyance clear in his tone.

"Don't give me that look," Shai said.

"You've done well. You got there the same day, but we're finishing in five." Phil rolled his eyes.

"Doesn't count then does it?" Shai shook her head.

"For a group of men almost forty, you lot can be surprisingly childish at times. You more than the others." Phil flipped her the finger. Shai called the end of the session. The field began to empty, people peeling off toward the gate in loose groups, the tiredness of a hard morning settling into everyone's shoulders. Leo rolled his neck, feeling the ache in his forearms that hadn't been there before the dummy. A good ache. Luka fell into step beside him.

"How'd it go?"

"Weird at first," Leo said.

"You?"

"Nearly fell over on the first one."

"Same." They walked in comfortable silence for a moment, the others gathering around them naturally as they reached the gate. Rika appeared at Parmo's shoulder, the usual hectic energy back in force.

"Tell me about DnD," she said.

"I heard Mars and Nessa talking about it this morning. I need to know everything." Parmo looked at her.

"Can I at least have a shower first?"

"Obviously," Rika said.

"I'm not an animal."

"Could have fooled me," Parmo muttered.

"BRANDON."