who we are and all that we're trying to be
A rise of his brows, and then a snort to follow through on the rest of the testimony. “One more round then,” likely best surmised for both of them – he due to return repairing the target he’d decimated, and she to wander off into the distance once more. Practice and skirmishes, snippets of time, and then the persistence in normalcy. That she recognized her own limits was justifiable as well; too many soldiers yearned to angle themselves as unfathomable, ignoring the aches and pains that served as warning signs.
Blade back in his calloused grasp, home, the monolith nodded, resuming his own stance and pace. With the previous designations a test, to gauge her prowess, to analyze her parameters, the next could be a sequence of other measures and potential. This time he rushed forward, far swifter than a man of his size should be, not angling his blade at shoulders, torso, or navel, but towards her legs; to see how she deciphered, responded, and blocked from an awkward inclination.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
