Birds of Prey. [Florian]

[Eitan Angevin]

74th Searing, 121 Steel

The previous day's adventure was shoved into the back of his mind for now. He had a great deal to think about, but he couldn't afford to spend time just thinking about it. He had to keep moving, keep training, keep doing his job for the glory of Zaichaer. His own glory and worth were relative to its renown and safety, and so those were his goals. As such, he hadn't trained with Albrecht the day previous, citing Order business and the Lysanrin had asked no questions, which was wise.

But here they were again in the same training salle between the barracks at Fort Cathevelle and Onneifer Airfield. Their sabers were crossed as he forced Albrecht to go through the detailed choreographed pattern of martial arts movements made to be practiced alone. But Angevin was responding to the attacks and attacking such that the blocks and parries in the sequence made sense. He wanted Albrecht to be able to visualize an opponent when he practiced so it wasn't just some abstract dance with a sword in hand.

"Good," he said tersely. "Mind your feet."

Angevin could stand to practice, as well. He had never fallen behind in anything, but once the Order got a hold of him and etched Negation into his being, there had been other skills to practice and things to learn and so he didn't excel with the blade or the firearm as much as he might have otherwise. And that was why he continued to train with a passion, and that was why he pulled Albrecht into it. That, and he enjoyed the Lysanrin's company. Perhaps it was because Albrecht had no pull in high society, the Corps, or the Order, the places where Eitan Angevin could be targetted. It might not have been the best foundation for a friendship, but if they were friends, it had to grow out of the soil of their shared missions.

"One more time," he said when it looked like Albrecht was going to take a break. "This time, keep your eyes trained on mine. You know where your feet should be. You know where your hands should be. You know where your sword should be. Now you need to get used to keeping your eyes on your opponent's eyes because that will tell you what they are going to do next. This will help get the motions into your muscles so they remember, but in a fight, you'll be dancing with someone and you are going to have to anticipate their next move."

[Florian]

Florian was not a man used to swords. He had, perhaps, picked up a sword once or twice, and he could swing it in a direction, but this routine that Angevin had inflicted upon him was more akin to a dance. He was not a dancer, either, and he stumbled over his own feet for half the morning. To keep such awareness of one's body was something that the Lysanrin had some concept of, but to do so with a saber was out of his wheelhouse. He didn't say anything in response to Angevin's instruction, as distracted by his own two feet as he was.

He wrenched his eyes away from the floor and watched Angevin, a man who made the moves look easy to his untrained eye. For some reason, the fact filled him with just enough determination to avoid tripping over himself during the routine. Florian repeated the motions he had been taught, but he was in desperate need of a break. He didn't remove his shirt despite the overwhelming desire to, but he was still tired and hot and he faltered in one of the final moves, even as stared into Eitan's eyes.

He wasn't sure if it were him or if all sword fights - rehearsed and practiced or not - were oddly intimate. The thought distracted him, and he faltered again. Frustrated, he stood, one hand holding the saber and the other on his thighs, his breathing hard and his face flushed. Maybe the man shouldn't have had such distracting eyes. Florian had brought water this time, and he stretched up and meandered towards the small table where he'd left it. He downed half the container in one go, and turned back to look at Angevin.

"I'm not sure if I know those things yet," he said between breaths. "It's a lot of thinking." But Florian was perfectly capable of thinking, and perfectly capable of knowing where his body went and how to control it. It was the sword, the damnable sword that threw him off. It was not yet an extension of his body, and as determined as he was to make it, it was still a conscious thought in his hand. Still, a slight smile played at his lips.

"But I'll get used to it." Florian walked back to Angevin and assumed the first stance that Angevin was attempting to ingrain in him. This time, at least, he was able to get his feet in the right spot without staring at them. He wasn't entirely committed, though.

"Shall we try again, or do you want me to teach you how to make a fist?" There was a teasing tone to Florian's voice. At least he knew he was better than Angevin at one thing, and that was taking - and giving - a punch.

[Eitan Angevin]

Eitan took a gulp of his own water. He was warmed up, but not perspiring or exhausted as Albrecht. It wasn't so much that he was in better shape. He was in decent shape, but these were also movements that were second nature to him now, whereas they confounded the Lysanrin's muscles still.

"You will," he agreed, encouraging in his way. He would one way or another because Angevin was damned if he was going to fight back to back with someone who couldn't fight properly when the time came. It didn't bother him that Albrecht didn't know proper swordplay; he would rather the lesser races not take arms, after all. But if he was on the officer track, he was going to have to know how to use the saber that would be a part of his uniform. It was ornamental until it wasn't. He smiled. "I know."

While Albrecht assumed the position, Angevin walked around him with a critical eye. The flat of his saber tapped an ankle. "A little wider stance. Relax your shoulders. Good. Now crouch. It's good to have your center of gravity lower... I want you to maintain that stance while you watch me go through the forms once in slow motion and then once at speed. If your thighs start burning, you're doing it correctly."

He smirked. "Then you can beat on me."

That said, he stepped away and began to go through the forms. Even slowed down, when he thrust his saber, he was prepared for the air to give resistance. One could almost imagine the invisible opponents. He wasn't just sweeping his sword around; he was fighting a duel in his mind. When he finished, he paused, and then went through the same motions one more time. He grunted with the effort of his thrusts and parries, but it was all over rather quickly. It was like the battle—time moved differently.

Then, as he stepped back to Albrecht, there was a sheen of perspiration on him. There were no dress rehearsals in battle, and so he gave his all even in practice.

"How are your thighs?"

[Florian]

Florian stood and moved as Angevin instructed. It took a moment, but his thighs did start to burn. He managed to hold it, but damn if it didn't hurt him. Had it always been so difficult to stand still? Contrary to how Eitan had described battle before, it felt as if every swing and thrust that he made took an excruciatingly long time. But there was more than this to just watching, he knew, and he tried to absorb the movements that Angevin made. There was a purpose to each. To his untrained eye, it was difficult to pick out the pieces, the why and the how. He watched and attempted to decipher the purpose between his movements. The thrust. The parry. The swing. The way he moved his feet, to keep himself mobile, to keep himself balanced. The world felt slow, and Florian stood there, in the position that had been dictated to him. His thighs burned.

Soon enough, Angevin was done with his movements, and he stood near him. Florian remained in the position, though, even as he answered. "I must be doing something right," he muttered through grit teeth. He stood and straightened himself out, before he hit the point of being too tired to throw hands. He didn't want to be exhausted before he even had a chance to show off his area of expertise. He loosened himself up a bit and stretched the soreness of his wobbly thighs. He was no weakling, but the unfamiliar exercise was enough to painfully remind his muscles that there were other ways to move them.

"Is it my turn to be the teacher?" Florian asked, words punctuated by breaths as the oxygen caught back up to his body. He still held the saber, but he looked at Eitan, expectation on his face. Unless the man had been lying about his lack of skill with his fists, Florian would have the upper hand. Being able to fight without a weapon was a virtue that he would always extol. Sometimes, weapons were hard to come by. Sometimes, weapons made you a target. Sometimes, weapons were lost or broken or thrown to the side.

Now, with sabers pur away, Florian assumed a different stance. It had the same purpose, he realized, as the way he had to stand with the saber. To be mobile, to provide force, to protect himself. He angled his feet and bent his knees as he faced Eitan. His fists were held in front of him, thumb over his curled fingers and resting on his middle knuckle.

"Copy this." He instructed as he stood. "It takes your whole body to throw a punch."

After Eitan had begun to approximate the stance, Florian straightened himself out and started doing the same as he had done for him earlier. He used his hands to adjust Eitan's position, down to his fist. With Eitan in a satisfactory place, he returned to where he was standing in front of him and assumed the same position he had before. "Now hit me." Florian was no expert in unarmed combat, but he could already tell — for sure, now — that he was more experienced than Eitan.

[Eitan Angevin]

The Commander smiled at Albrecht's jest, not mocking, but not relenting for all his empathy. He remembered those aches accompanied by growing pains in his youth. Now he just tried to train regularly to the point of exhaustion, always pushing that point farther away.

"Very well," he said. "You've suffered enough for now. My turn."

He sheathed his saber and set it carefully aside; one ought to respect one's tools lest they prove unhelpful in a pinch. Eitan took another swig of water and observed his charge. It wasn't as though he had never been in a fistfight himself; he had been forced to defend himself on numerous occasions from the boys will be boys, dog eat dog camaraderie of the military school. But he had never taken a lesson. He had just let fists fly and shameful Dratori rage make things instinctual until word got around that he could be vicious as a rat when cornered.

The blade felt more elegant, more refined, markedly less like the bestial elven nature of his mother's bloody bequest.

Angevin dropped into a fighting stance that was what he had held before, sans saber. Keen eyes raked Albrecht as he took notes and made adjustments. One of the instructors he had most admired had once said something along the lines of 'learn everything you can from someone without complaint or backtalk; when you've mastered it, if it doesn't serve you, let it go.' He was certain he would have to learn to fight in his own body, which was different from the Lysanrin's, but he would take his lessons from Albrecht until he had a better idea of what did and did not work for his body.

Prepared for a sneak attack—teachers always liked to do that with new students—he watched warily.

"Hit you where?"

[Florian]

"You could always aim for the face, that's the classic." Florian started, watching Eitan's hesitation. Is that what he meant by watching someone in the eyes for their next move? If Florian knew anything, his mother had taught him how to properly throw a punch after the first time he came home with broken fingers. He never questioned how she knew what she knew or why. The first time he came home with a broken nose, she taught him how to not only avoid the punch, but to redirect it. His mother was nothing if not compassionate, kind, and absolutely no-nonsense.

Eitan aimed for the face just as he was told. Florian was quick — not the quickest, not yet, but with enough experience protecting his face that the punch did not connect. Instead, he grabbed his wrist and redirected the punch down and to his side. He pushed the hand Eitan had punched with back towards him. His arm bent inwards and he continued the momentum, twisting it around until the XO was on the floor and Florian straddled his waist, one hand on the wrist he had punched with. It was one trick his mother had taught him that managed to surprise people enough for him to get an upper hand. It did not usually end with him on top of them like this, but maybe he wouldn't think about that part too much.

"It's just as much an exercise for me as for you. You're bigger and stronger than me. Many people are. I just wanted to see what you'd do. I mean, surely you've fought before, but have you thought about it?" Florian smirked down at him. "I've always been skinny and small, so what I have to do to get out of fights is not going to be the same as what you'll be able to get away with." Florian didn't get up. He fully expected Eitan to attempt to regain control, as was his nature. Just because he'd managed to get him on the floor didn't mean he was able to keep him there, and that was something that he needed practice on. He leaned closer to Eitan's face, still smiling. "I don't expect you'll let me get away with that again."

Florian didn't know what he was doing. He liked the brief moment of control, but his original movement surpassed what he had expected. This wasn't a normal part of the move, and he wondered if Eitan could tell. His face reddened, and his eyes inexplicably blinked violet, but he tried his best to keep up his confidence.

[Eitan Angevin]

Keen to learn, Eitan did as he was told. His eyes widened at the quickness of Albrecht's reaction, but all his instincts, which were tuned to act with a blade in hand, suddenly felt counterproductive, and then the Lysanrin was using his own weight against him and he was tucking and rolling so the fall didn't do more damage than it ought to. Once he was on his back, at least a little of the breath knocked out of him, he was still able to assess the situation. Florian had him straddled and pinned, and his arm was in a joint lock. He didn't freeze; he relaxed.

Perhaps he was waiting for an opening.

"Impressive," he said. "I had thought that you were an alleyway scrapper, but that is training. I'll endeavor not to fall for the same trick twice, but you'll have to tell me what I did wrong, how I can fix it."

But Albrecht brought his face closer, smiling, possibly gloating. He was also flushed and Angevin had to wonder...

"What does it mean when your eyes turn violet?" he asked.

Of course, he knew that was a trait peculiar to Lysanrin, but he didn't know if it was something he could use to read his charge's mood, whether it was something he had any control over. He had devoured plenty of facts about Albrecht, Lysanrin, and aether siphoning, but now he wanted to know him, his people, and his abilities. They had to if they were going to be thrust into situations where they were meant to keep each other alive.

He reached up with his free hand to touch Albrecht's face, but whether he was cognizant that this mirrored a previous engagement of theirs, he gave no indication.

[Florian]

"It's my only trick." It truly was. But most people aimed for the face, and he didn't have to leave them on the ground to be able to get a running start if the fight was getting out of hand. He didn't mention that part, though. He wasn't a half-bad runner, all things considered.

Still.

"You avoid it by not getting caught." His face, still close. "I knew you were going to punch me in the face. Most people go for the face. You feint, or punch somewhere else. Or kick, elbow, whatever you've got free." He paused just long enough for Eitan to ask his second question.

Which promptly startled the Lysanrin, and he pulled his face back, but not quite out of his hand. "Usually if I'm particularly hungry or thirsty my eyes might turn some shade of violet..." Many people considered the Lysanrin's inborn ability to siphon aether as their curse, but in this very moment, he could think there was nothing worse than their fucking mood eyes. If someone paid enough attention there was no hiding. He would have to learn to control them better if he didn't want to be so observed, but the only way to control that was to have some sort of control over your emotions. He expressed his emotions a bit too freely, clearly. Clearly.

"As far as I know, at least." He laughed. He wasn't lying, but he wasn't telling the whole truth. Florian had some level of knowledge over his eyes and what they meant. "Why do you ask? You haven't before." Perhaps it was easy to tie his moods to his eyes, and this time was different. Or maybe Eitan could tell what he was feeling and wanted to know if he'd lie, to which he desperately hoped was not the case.

He was suddenly aware of the fingers on his face. Eitan's hands were bigger than his, even more calloused than his. He pushed that out of his mind, and grabbed Eitan's wrist in his own free hand and tried to put it by his head to mirror the other. "Are you just going to stick to the ground forever?" He laughed again, his embarrassment pertinent enough to snap him into his white-eyed anxiety. It was foolish to want to kiss someone for being kind to him, and he had to stop being so obvious about it.

[Eitan Angevin]

Angevin nodded. If he wasn't a skilled pugilist yet, he did understand feints and dodges and misdirection from fencing and other swordplay. He even understood it from the tactical standpoint of the deployment of troops and airships. It would just be a matter of learning the context of his fists and such.

He nodded thoughtfully again as Albrecht filled in the blanks in the color-coding of Lysanrin eye language. It seemed as though the question made him nervous, though, and perhaps he was holding back something. Angevin could understand that. It would make Lysanrin bad at cards, to be sure. But even a weakness could be turned into a strength by a canny strategist. Perhaps he could help his charge make that change, though it would always be better if he could read his moods, the better to keep him from blowing his top, especially as his power increased.

"I want to know you better," he said, his own eyes their same, unchanging dark. "Is that terrible?"

The prone commander let Albrecht manipulate his other hand, for whatever reason not worried that he was pinned under someone the State and the population at large considered dangerous. With the same curiosity, he probed further.

"And what about now?" he asked. "What does it mean when your eyes go pure white all of a sudden?"

When the Lysanrin's hand lingered on his own, rather unnecessarily, he turned his face so that his cheeks rested against Albrecht's battered knuckles. He didn't nuzzle. He might just have been scratching an itch, so to speak, but when he turned his face back up, the question remained. Or perhaps it was a challenge. Or perhaps they were still fighting, only Angevin wasn't using his fists or a sword or magic.

[Florian]

Eitan made no move to push Florian off of him, an unexpected scenario that he did not know how to react to, even as he goaded him. No, he continued to ask questions. Was it so terrible to be known? Florian was conflicted. Some level of him wanted to be known. Some other part desperately wished to avoid it, to fade into anonymity now that he was being painfully observed.

Painfully observed. "Nervous." He was being honest now. It didn't make the color (or lack thereof) fade away, however. It was a fitting color for anxiety. His eyes looked wider like this, even if he hadn't widened them at all. "When I'm… unsure what to expect. Nervous." He repeated. Was Eitan playing a game with him? Florian was unable to puzzle out his goals. They were supposed to be practicing. Instead, they were on the ground. He showed no fear at being pinned by him. He had no desire to hurt him, of course, but it was not as if Eitan could know that.

He had already realized he was not as good at hiding things as he had assumed. The heat in his face was enough to remind him he needed to learn to control his emotions better. Angevin's eyes remained dark, unchanging, and Florian felt a pang of jealousy. How he too wished to be so difficult to read.

He turned his head to the side, faced with his reflection in the mirrored wall, eyes bright with the anxiety of being perceived. What was he doing? Perhaps he was hoping that this would give Eitan enough of an opening to escape his grasp, so that he did not have to admit defeat in this layered battle. Perhaps Eitan knew he hadn't told the whole truth and was trying to bait it out of him. It wasn't that he didn't trust the man - he did, for better or worse, and he had little choice otherwise - but no good could come of sharing what he'd otherwise withheld. It was clear that Angevin was better at reading him than he was. Damned mood eyes.

"Why aren't you moving?" The question escaped him, a thought he had held that he had not intended to share. He still watched their reflection and waited for whatever method Angevin would use to escape. If he hadn't just planned on lying there.