The Measure of Men.... or Students, in This Case.

[Jaycy Ashleana]

Jaycy groaned and turned her face into the pillow as the first hints of morning’s sun crept over her shut eyelids. “Ugh,” she complained to the crumpled linen before placing hands on the bed and pushing her upper body up into a sitting position. Hands rose to rub at her eyes and she blinked slowly at the window. “What time is it?” She frowned, squinting at the clock on the wall next to the window. The gently ticking timepiece revealed that the gypsy only had fifteen minutes before her new students – her newly acquired squire and a partner for him to train with – were due on her doorstep.

She swore and leaned over her fiancée’s back to brush a light kiss over his cheek. He half-turned as she withdrew and reached across to touch her hand. They shared gentle, tired smiles in the contact. “Is Jonathan awake?” Leo asked, flopping to his other side and propping himself on an elbow to peer at the gypsy. “No,” she answered, shaking her head. Her hands came up, efficiently braiding her long red hair. “My new squire and second of four new students…” she paused, eyes rolling back into her head with a chuckle, “are going to be here in a few minutes. We’re having our first lesson.”

He echoed her chuckle. “Four new students? What did you do last night?” Jaycy offered him a quick grin. “Don’t ask, love. Don’t ask. I’ll be around later. Go back to sleep while you can. Your son won’t stay asleep that much longer.” She leaned forward, allowing herself a soft, lingering kiss. His hand slid up her side in the kiss and she arched her back, a deep purr rumbling in her throat. “Gah,” she murmured as she pulled back. “You’re not helping. Wish me luck, I’ll need it.” He slowly rolled onto his back once more, smiling up at her. “Good luck.”

Jaycy slid backwards off the bed, cheeks flushing slightly as she felt his sleep-tinged gaze on her naked form. She quickly dressed, donning the simple set of black leather pants and sleeved top that clung to her petite frame and protected her when she sparred with others. She leaned against the bed as short black boots were pulled onto her feet. She stood and belted the short sword low around her hip. She smiled one last time to Leo before she made her way from the bedroom.

The gypsy Baroness sighed as she walked down the hall. What had she done last night? She couldn’t help but wonder if she had managed to get herself in over her head. Sal had potential; there was no doubt about that. What Jaycy was concerned about was whether she would be able to contain the tornado in a bottle he seemed he could be. She hoped Skid would provide a balm for Sal’s moments of depravity and that between the two of them, she would not lose her mind … or worse.

Her right hand moved to the hilt of her short sword as she approached the front door of the Manor. There were a few scant moments before the men were due to arrive, and even though it would be allowed she would prefer not to be late. She would demand punctuality of them and it was only fair and respectful to return the gesture. Her left hand grasped the handle and she pulled toward herself, allowing it to open all the way. The woman stepped through the open space she had created and allowed the door to shut slowly behind her, the light wood framing her body in the early morning light.

Her two new students were waiting for her already, she found. One looked from behind his mask, his posture straight, his weight balanced on his talons. He seemed to be fighting not to leap forward into the Baroness’ arms. The other young man leaned against the outer manor wall, his gaze focused on the icy ground a few feet in front of him. His mouth was twisted into an echo of a scowl, as if simply being here did not quite agree with him.

Jaycy nodded politely to them, projecting calm. Inwardly, however, her mind was racing. What could she teach them? The history of the duels? Etiquette? Would they listen? Would they care? Her chin raised, just slightly. She was the Baroness; she had been here. She had warned them and they were still here. They would figure it out together. First, though, she supposed she should find out what they could do.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” she called. “I am glad you are here. Now, try to kill each other.”

[Jaycy Ashleana]

The first words out of her squire's mouth did not consist of a hello nor a ma'am. In fact, the first sound he uttered was a sharp and quick bark of a laugh. Laughter in general did not seem to suit him well, and in this case he was incredulously amused. "Try to kill each other?" Sal drawled, holding in a chuckle as best he could. "Lady, you can't be serious."

"I can, and I am," she replied smoothly. Her right hand shifted on the hilt of the short sword as she turned her body slightly toward Sal to continue her response. "I've seen both of you duel, but I've never seen you fight. I don't know your abilities, or more importantly, your control." She paused, flicking a glance to Skid. "How many weapons have you used now?" Without waiting for the masked man to answer, her attention returned to the sullen squire. "For all my titles, you don't know me. You don't trust me. You'll hold back." The right hand lifted from its perch to wave toward her other new student. "You'll trust him to know your limits and stay just within them. You also know his abilities." She paused and allowed herself a faint smile. "What better way to learn what he can do than through watching you?" She fell quiet, a brow lifting in silent question - was she wrong?

Once again, Sal laughed, but this time it was a lengthier ordeal. A sound that consisted of little more than a glorified chuckle, just under the breath. Outright, boisterous laughter was not his style. "You're right," he agreed. "I don't know you, and I don't trust you." Her squire pushed off of the wall and out of his lean, turning to face her. Eyes the color of metallic rust looked her over thoroughly, from head to toe and back up again to look her in the eyes. "But that's not why I'll hold back." So saying, he looked aside to Skid, as if the half-Daemon might have something to add to that statement.

The only response Skid had been about to deliver was brushed aside in Jaycy's address to the squire only moments after her question, and so stood there like a gargoyle pulled from its perch and dressed to look the part of a circus attraction. Once the sounds of chatter slowed and he could interject, Skid spoke. "You won't see our true 'abilities' or limits unless one of us is indeed about to wind up dead. Ever. That's one thing you should know from the get-go." He tilted his weight from both feet to one, which made the change from day to night, and rigid to relaxed. Clawed fingers unfurled, one by one, until the loose hand of the fold was artfully splayed in his showy fashion of consideration. "There will be further difference in how you want us to fight. Or is that all you want? For us to simply, fight?"

Sal turned a hand palm up acquiescently and then folded his arms together, nodding once, curtly, in agreement. What Skid said was true, and the half-Daemon was so much better at expressing things in words than he was. The Squire of Seaside was most assuredly the strong, silent type, through and through.

The gypsy smothered a groan. She looked from one to the other, slowly, taking several moments to collect her thoughts. They had been at their first lesson five minutes and she was ready to either hit them herself, tell them to shut up and obey, or walk away from this enterprise altogether. She did groan, eyes rolling back into her head. What in the nine hells had she gotten herself into?

“Noted, and thank you for explaining, Skid.” She turned her green gaze to him. When she spoke, her tone was intentionally warm and tinged with just a hint of approval. “I need to see how you both react under pressure. If that parry is simply a mad flailing or whether you meant to do it.” She stopped, flicking a glan ce to her squire. “I want to see you in less than optimal conditions. That is more than … simply … fighting.”

Her squire frowned at her in severe disapproval. He looked, frankly, how she felt; like he wanted to hit someone. Eyes the color of rust narrowed at her and his jaw set stubbornly. "Señora, I only fight one of two ways." He lifted one finger. "To kill." With a punctuated pause, he lifted the other. "Or for practice. What you've seen in the rings has only been practice to me; pulled punches, under control. If you tell me to fight him to try to kill him--" He turned his hand out to point both those lifted fingers at Skid. "--then one of us is going to die. You don't want to see me under pressure."

Skid ponderously reached out to let a hand settle on Salvador's shoulder. "We could simply fight until you've seen enough? It can end when it has to." He seemed, if nothing else, as though he wanted to appease the Baroness. The focus shifted then, between Jaycy and her Squire.

Jaycy grunted. “Fight. Now.” Tension emanated from her small frame as she glared up at the two men. Her right hand clenched the hilt of the short sword at her hip. Green gaze narrowed on the pair. “I don’t care if you die at this particular moment, Squire,” she hissed. “Fight. Practice. Just hit him.”

The hand on his shoulder probably stalled her squire from lashing out at her, but that did not stop Sal from baring his teeth in response. Shrugging out from under Skid's hand, he turned aside and spat on the ground. "Fine," her squire growled, and turned to face the half-Daemon.

[Delahada]

Turning about, Salvador shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it aside. The heavy kevlar like material landed on the stone work of the manor's sparring yard with a clatter, clank and clunk.
What did he keep in all those pockets?

Under the coat he wore only loose fit blue jeans and a short sleeved tee-shirt of no particular design. The shirt was plain and colored hunter green, for all it mattered. From biceps to fingertips, however, his arms were laid bare to the chill October morning, and not a single goose pimple reared its ugly head. Not that one could really tell upon looking, for that tanned flesh of his was scored with erratic, thin black ink that made no certain pattern.

Tugging his shirt up and off over his head, he revealed that the same anti-design was layered across his entire torso, front and back, and something more. From a distance, it may have appeared as if his spine had a thin strip of leather armor protecting it from harm, glued to the skin. Close enough upon a guess, but in truth they were eighteen individual three inch long spikes attached to joints along each vertebrae, save but two. There were two gaps beneath the folded spines in two separate places. Two of twenty were missing, but the eighteen remaining twitched and quivered as he flexed and stretched in preparation for a battle royale.

From the fringes of those spikes, something thin and thready, and of equal color to his brown hair, was crawling across his skin. Unwinding and growing like mold upon an orange, he willed his natural armor to grow. A substance that had the appearance of well cured patchwork pieces of leather, skin tight and form fitting from chin to toes. It only took a matter of minutes for that armor to encase his entire body.

As Salvador readied himself, so did Skid. The half-Daemon walked on tightly wound columns of muscle and bone, smoke-scaled skin wrapped around it to the talons that served for traction and balance's sake. Bent and built like a Dragon's hind legs, his own stretched endlessly up to his body. The build was too tall and too thin to be desirably proportionate, making the wispiest of Elves look broad-shouldered by comparison, with respect to height.

His arms, too, reflected it. They were far too long, and covered similarly (as she could guess his entire body was) with those smoke colored scales. His fingers were almost like spider legs, ending in the solid tips of cruel black claws, identical in make to the talons below. His neck was long, as well. Long enough to be more serpentine than humanoid.

Then there was the head, covered completely by that mask. It was on snugly enough to give away that he didn't have any hair under there, and the left eye was covered by fabric as well. The right was peculiar in its own manner though, with no discernible iris, a reptilian slitted pupil, and gold sclera peppered with sapphire. The features the mask gave away were elegant, but sharp. Like an Elf, or a bird. Or somewhere in between, with those slightly forward curving horns drawing up from the back half of the skull.

Last, but most obtrusively, there was his tail. At least as long as his body, and leading directly off the spine, it was obviously the most thickly-muscled part of him. It moved as a cat's might, with little to no seemingly conscious regard for its master's orientation or position. It gave itself away in his movement, though, counterbalancing him and giving the impression of added agility. The scaling near its tip was curiously thicker, but it was of no consequence.

Skid unslung the sheath he'd had strapped to his back, and withdrew a pair of rods from within it. The same strange material that had made up the mess of weaponry he seemed to use in no particular order, without design.

Once the change was complete and Salvador was covered from chin to toes in carapace, he eased out a staggering breath that he'd been holding the entire time. He reached out with both arms and plucked from the empty air a pair of hook swords. They slid through the invisible Veil and into his grasp with the ease of peeling skin from the breast of a baked chicken. He rotated them in succession, the right and then the left, at the wrists, and then set himself into a semi-crouched stance with the right hook held high and the left one low. Eyes the color of rust were set determinedly on Skid, and he asked, "Ready, Peluche?"

Skid merely lowered and visibly tightened his limbs, one rod at the ready and directed at Salvador, while the other was kept tightly beside him. His head dipped slightly, and then he lunged out with one rod. Either reckless, or testing the waters.

In instant response, her squire leaned back and swept the low handed hook up high. Steel called out its signature metallic song when the two weapons collided. Without pause, but with a suddenly feral grin curling on his lips, Salvador swung the right handed hook in an arc over the crest of sword and rod, aiming a swipe of the curved end for the half-Daemon's face. Let the games begin.

[Delahada]

Skid's motion in response to Sal's was almost too fluid to seem unplanned, but the arm that had been coiled so tightly lashed out and snapped the rod against the incoming forearm, then cut across to rap against his ribs in an effort to drive the defensive hold on his first rod back.

There were two consecutive cracks, sounding like a stone being dropped on a cockroach. Crunch from the first strike which stalled the upper cross-cut before it could connect. Crunch on the second when the rod slapped against his ribs, but not the crack of bones beneath. Beneath those sounds was something faint, like the muted skittering of an insect army marching across Sal's skin. It was the sound of that natural armor moving with his body, sliding and repositioning to compensate for potential injury, a cunningly designed defense.

Salvador did pull back the left hand sword and released the hold he had on the rod, only to reverse grip mid motion and sweep the crescent moon shaped cross guard up along Skid's forearm. The spiked end of the hilt seemed intent on plunging itself into Skid's face along the way. In fluid motion, he pulled the right hand sword back and down to switch his stance on which hook was high and which was low.

Skid's response was a simple exchange. His left arm rod twisted up, and plunged straight up for the underside of Sal's chin while the crescent met the right half of his face in a painful looking impact. It blackened his senses for a few moments, given the stumble and grunt, but he recovered quickly.

Salvador's teeth clicked together hard when the blunt end of that rod clocked him under the chin. An 'nf' noise slipped out his nose, his head snapping back. But only for a fraction of a second was he fully stunned. He never stopped moving.

With the grip he held on the left hand sword, after the swipe of the cross guard, sharp as the rest of the blade, his arm continued up with that angle and the hooked end was curved to meet Skid's neck to snare him. Her squire pivoted, sliding his right foot behind himself and around, on the ball of his left foot, turning his back to the half-Daemon. Reversing grip on the low handed right sword, he reached around to likewise snare an ankle and pull Skid up against his back. Eighteen three inch long spikes snapped erect in unison, ready to impale his opponent viciously.

Skid found his neck and ankle quite literally hooked, and the incoming spines running along Salvador's own were coming in too quickly for him to make too many decisions, so Skid pulled his arms around Sal's body and rammed himself against him with a shrill exclamation of pain. The spines sunk in about two inches before the two stopped, as if a one inch barrier rested between their bodies. He took a raggedy breath and snickered, "Bad move."

Those long, clawed arms hooked around the base of Sal's, so that he could hook them over the squire's shoulders (not to mention hold him against Skid should he attempt to escape, it seemed) and began to pull himself up, wrenching the spines against their natural limits. Not quickly, either. It was far from a pretty sight, as black-silver blood trickled down the half-Daemon's front.

"Son of a--" Caged in the half-Daemon's arms, Salvador made a choked, pained noise through his clenched teeth, but he couldn't hold it in for long. There was a sound like over a dozen tiny shoulders being dislocated all at once. A popping, squelching, sickening crunch of a sound of little arms being ripped out of their sockets. Try as he might to contain it, the howl of agony insisted on ripping free of his mouth. "RrrrghaaAAAAH!"

[Jaycy Ashleana]

It was to Jaycy’s credit that she stood her ground during the battle, for battle it was. This was not two men “simply fighting,” as Skid had believed she wanted to see. She had asked for this and she forced herself to watch. Her stance was wide but rigid and her hand closed tight around the hilt of her sword as the two fought before her.

At the howl, green eyes widened and her upper body tilted forward in anticipation of her moving to intercept them. She grunted, bringing right leg forward to stop her momentum. “Enough,” she shouted, projecting her voice to a point beyond them. Simultaneously with her words, she tugged the short sword free from its scabbard, exposing gleaming steel. She did not completely unmask the blade, however, as she waited to see if they would heed her call or if they were lost to the heat of bloodlust.

Almost in response to the blade's call and not that of the Baroness herself, Skid paused and turned his head around to face her. His voice was almost too level. "Of course." Then, he lowered himself a little, moved his hands around to Sal's shoulder blades and pressed a foot against his lower back, and shoved him off with a squelching sound. As he turned around, the solid line of holes running from his chest to his lower abdomen were revealed to her. "Did we fight to your satisfaction?"

Twin hook swords clattered to the ground at the half-Daemon's feet, her squire having lost his grip on them in that stunning moment of pain. Salvador stumbled forward with a choked down, muted outcry and tumbled to his hands and knees. Only he, between the two of them, seemed deaf to her commands. No sooner was he grounded then did he whirl around with a furious snarl and lunge bodily at Skid. In that moment, despite outward appearances, he did not at all look human.

Skid, miraculously, did nothing. His tail, however, had a mind of its own, and it whipped back to encircle her squire's neck before he could complete his charge. Then tension shot from his feet to his hips, and with a step and turn all the muscles in the half-Daemon's body pulled her squire forward harshly enough to throw him off-balance and to the ground, perfect for Skid to drop down onto his shoulder with a knee, and pry his head up by that long, almost bitch-hair of his. "Salvador, calm down."

First, Salvador said, "Hurgklgh." Which was about as much as anybody would be able to say with a python coiled about his throat. There was a fire in his rusty eyes that was extinguished the moment that Skid emphasized his full first name. Nearly a visual flash of light being snuffed out of the irises, or perhaps just a trick of the imagination. Regardless, it seemed that the half-Daemon was more in control of this situation than Jaycy was herself. Sal listened to Skid, as if that tail were a collar and the length of it a fine, strong leash. Her squire remained grounded, teeth clenched and bared, but put up no further struggle with the intent of perpetuating violence.

She flicked a glance down toward the young man as she slid the blade home into its scabbard once more. Her right foot rejoined its mate and she stood tall, assessing his condition as her gaze traveled over his form. The heaving of her chest was the only betraying sign of any anxiety that she felt over the fight she had just witnessed between the two.

Her scrutiny of her squire ended where Skid’s tail curled around his neck. The Baroness had to fight a smile from crossing her face but the corners of her lips turned just slightly upwards at the sight. She continued to trail her gaze up Skid’s form, noting every point of injury from talon to the bare crown of his mask. “Now you have.”

She turned and strode the few steps to the door. “If you’re coming, hurry. It’s chilly this morning.”

She pushed hard upon the portal and allowed it to open fully, then stepped through without looking back.