Abrupt though her words were, her face was undisciplined, revealing the joy she took in violence. At least her smile fell away as he went on the offensive, though in the end it did him little good. She dodged - just enough motion to carry her head out of danger and not a centimeter more wasted - and moved with the fluidity of a dancer.
Or a killer.
Such wasted potential, the part of him that appreciated beauty lamented, but he had no time to consider such distractions when she promptly shifted around - not riposting, but then, her black blade had been heavier. A weapon of brutality and slashing strength, not the clean cuts and pinpoint accuracy of his rapier. At least their sticks were more evenly matched, and the lightness of his 'weapon' was not so great a difference as it was for his opponent.
As soon as he realized she had dodged he was already pulling back into guard, and he moved his blade just far enough - and no farther - to deflect from his side, though he grunted with the effort as she nearly pushed his own sword back onto him. It was closer than he wanted to be-- and she gave him no chance to recover, lunging on the attack with the feral expression of a rabid dog.
Her angle of attack - trying to move around him - meant she had farther to go while all he needed was to pivot. Again, aiming for the back... His lips tightened in something between disappointment and anger at her predictability-- and her similarity to a fallen friend. He slammed the 'hilt' of his own stick down towards her hand - as much to disrupt her attack as to injure, though he wouldn't hesitate to actually strike her if he could - noting the changed grip grimly as he ghosted back to open up space again. Their retreats mirrored each other, a dance almost in truth as Jigano maintained an icy glare in an impassive mask at the murderer across from him.
"Or a death sentence, outside the barrier's protection," the bard growled. He didn't necessarily believe that... but he'd seen things in his past that made it possible.
Distance was safety, but it was also no way to win with their chosen weapons. Normally he approached combat with a cooler head, but Ashetta's confident claim to her profession had riled the lorekeeper-- and he didn't know how much longer he could sustain the energy of the fight. Gritting his teeth he gathered himself, advancing at an angle and striking three times in swift succession - a feint to her wrist and a second to her shoulder, repeating his original attack, but this time when he started to pull back it was a ruse designed to lure her after him in a counter--
While he dropped his blade and stop-thrust at her solar plexus hard enough to crack his stick if it connected, trusting in his defensive free arm to knock aside the 'flat' of her stick-blade in its near-inevitable counter.
Ashe was more than used to her training partners looking at her the way Jigano did. No, that wasn't true. He was surprisingly polite about it. Contempt, disdain, outright hatred - all things she was quite used to in her sparring partners and the senior assassins. In the guild, only one of her trainers ever treated her with any kindness. Even when she was in charge of training the lesser assassins, they looked at her with distrust and hatred. She was Master's favorite weapon, after all, and so many of them wanted her place. That thought had her tensing, nearly had her losing her focus.
He's dead, she reminded herself. Master is dead.
Focus, she snarled at herself then, sliding a step back with just enough time to escape the hit to her wrist and block the followup with a clack of wood - a repeat move. He drew away quickly, and Ashe released a breath as she assessed his movements; every feather of muscle and twitch of skin. Ashe stepped after him, feet mirroring his retreat smoothly. A smirk flickered at his aimed blow to her center - predictable. Ashe had faced down thousands of foes and trained with the best of the elite in her world, it would have been sad indeed if she could be touched so easily. A game that had often been played in training with Kalt: the first to bleed loses. She knew how to avoid even a shallow cut (lest there be poison on the blade).
Of course, she wasn't perfect. While the heavy majority of her scars were earned in punishments ordered by Master, there were many scattered over her pale skin that reminded her of near-misses and brushes with death.
As such, even as Ashe knocked away his stick and broke his guard before he could strike her middle, he slapped away her stick with his free hand just as she flipped it to "stab" into his ribs. She smirked and disengaged, dancing back and to the side of him. He was tense and cold, but it didn't deter her as she evened out her breath. "It was like that in Northaven," she said as her head tilted just slightly. She darted forward then and made for rapid blows in quick succession: one, two, three, four - all designed to occupy his blade and remain too fast for retaliation. One for his shoulder, another for his throat, another for the hollow of his hip, and another for his gut.
It was with the strike to his gut that she slipped around to the side of him, not having expected any of her blows to land. "The wall was said to protect us from the jungle beyond," she went on, and as she swung her blade to hit him in the tender side with a determined advance.. She moved to strike her foot down into the back of his knee and knock him off balance. "But we were fish in a barrel, being picked off and tearing ourselves apart for our higher powers."
If he went down or even stumbled, Ashe was all too happy to take the advantage, flipping her "sword" to catch him on his throat. "I'd rather have freedom."
This was no time for anger, now that the battle was joined. There was no place for ego on the battlegrounds he'd trod, and arrogance killed as surely as any sword. Even if they were only using sticks the instincts of years spent fighting for his life didn't silence themselves on command. Nor would he have tried to - a stick could kill, though it took far more effort and accuracy than a sword. In the hands of a master, it was still a weapon worthy of respect. Ashetta was less skilled than Riz had been, more predictable, but the bard was hardly a match for either of them, for all his dancing gave him an edge in footwork.
Neither of their blows struck true, and Jigano felt a trickle of grim realization that he wouldn't last much longer, growing winded even as she continued to dance easily out of reach. Before he could recover she went on the attack, pressing him with a flurry of attacks. Off balance and out of breath he could only focus on parrying each strike as it came, with no chance to counter. He blocked the blow to his shoulder a bit wide and struggled to evade the jab at his throat. If he hadn't already been spinning she would have touched his hip, but he managed to dance back so that her final thrust hit only empty air--
But she was still moving, shifting into his unguarded quarter as she spoke of things he had no knowledge of, places he had heard only the broadest brush strokes about. The information would be interesting - later, when he had time to think. Now, though, there was only time to react, twisting with widened blue eyes as he realized he wouldn't make it in time.
The sting of the stick hitting his ribs could have been far worse - it could have been steel - but Jigano still didn't treat it lightly, nor did he stop moving just because he'd been struck. Instead he melted away from the attack, scowling as her foot grazed the outside of his knee, the off-center hit enough to bruise but not knock him down with his weight already off the leg in his retreat. "An assassin's freedom is bought and paid for with the stolen lives of others," he stated grimly, from several feet back, executing a wary half bow before dropping his stick. "First blood is yours, murderer. May you one day reap the consequences of the violence you seem to crave - though, clearly, I won't be the one to deliver them."
A clumsy disengagement, his silver tongue coated in ice still in shock at having met an assassin in this small, humble world that was already dying. "I think I have interrupted your run long enough however, and I have my own work to return to. Good day, madame." Not holding back his frown he strode away at an angle to her, unwilling to turn his back on her as he faded into the trees and made his way back to the Settlement to brood on the encounter, blood chilled by more than just the autumn winds.
Ashe's aim was true, her movements swift.. but they weren't perfect. She may have struck his ribs, may have grazed his knee, but her lip still feathered in frustration as he slipped away from the attack. Not good enough. Idiot girl. Her life had been a special kind of hell in the Guild, and she would sell them all to the king again in a heartbeat if she could (minus one Silver Wing, of course), but she was sorely suffering in the lack of daily and vigorous training. She didn't let herself consider that it was just as much her own self sabotage in her declined health that dulled her skill.
Jigano dropped his stick as he addressed her, and she pulled to a controlled stop.. and she went very still. Slowly she lowered her arm to her side and straightened her spine, her chin rising as she let her eyes settle on him cooly. There it was - that shift she had sensed when she said what she was, it was there in his words now. Words that dripped with contempt.
Ashe barked a bitter laugh. Her freedom, bought with the lives she took? She didn't explain herself, she felt no need to, and he was treating her as she expected people to when they discovered her profession. But the very idea of her freedom coming from her contracts? Each job she had taken on had pressed the weight of her Master further upon her, freedom further and further...
This young assassin just shook her head as the bitter laugh died, and she left a strange sort of smile on her lips as she considered the male before her. She could have told him the way she suffered, the consequences she reaped, but she didn't bother. She, perhaps more than anyone, knew she deserved worse. Even still, she bent at the waist with one arm across her middle, the other sweeping behind her with a flare and a sharp smirk.
"See you around then, Jig," she said in a low tone, her eyes tracking him with preternatural stillness through the trees, until his white hair flickered out of sight.
[ end ]
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