Post by wordy on May 4, 2013 15:29:15 GMT 10
Title: Spar
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 928
Pairing: Buri/Raoul
Round/Fight: 1D
Summary: It takes two to tango.
Buri takes to the Shang style of fighting quickly, with razor-sharp reflexes that even she finds surprising. There’s a sleekness to the motions; when she practises the exercises in her room, pulling punches and striking air, the muscles in her hips and legs protesting as she drops and sweeps, it all feels strangely natural, as though she could have been born to it in another life.
The difficulty is in finding sparring partners.
The Dragon is dead. She hadn’t known him well, and feels selfish for wanting him back now. So she puts those thoughts away and tries elsewhere: Thayet, and Alanna. The first is too busy, and was never one for hand-to-hand in any case. Buri talks herself out of approaching Alanna. Though the Lioness knows some Shang herself, and is the logical partner if there ever was one, self-consciousness holds Buri back. When she is better at it, perhaps. There’s no need to risk embarrassment in the presence of a hero.
She has heard whispered things about Baron Cooper. He seemed friendly enough on the few occasions that they had met, but everything about his presence sets her skin to prickling. She files him away, after Alanna, the wavering promise of someday.
In a roundabout way, that leaves her Raoul of Goldenlake.
“Are you sure about this,” he asks, hovering beside the practise floor. She had, impossibly, forgotten how large he is. But she had offered, and he had accepted.
“I’m sure,” she says.
Though there are some things he was taught as a page, and then a squire, both of them are certain that he is no match for anything Shang. His size relieves him of speed, and Buri is sure that any move he attempts to make will be obvious the moment he starts to make it.
But she needs some kind of practise, and she is small, and must learn to use an opponent’s size against him.
“Come on,” she says, bouncing on the balls of her feet, ready to spring. She watches his shoulders, his chest, his hands, waiting for the beginning of motion, a clue.
And she’s on the floor before her next breath, knee aching, breath driven from her lungs with the sudden impact.
Raoul leans over her, offering a hand up. When she’s on her feet again her head only swims a little. She bends to rub the side of her leg, where his foot had connected with it, not bothering to hide her scowl.
“Oh, I see,” says Raoul, grinning a little. “You thought I’d be a pushover, is that it?”
“Don’t be smug. It doesn’t suit you.”
“I did try to warn you. I may not be small and lithe and fast, but there are still one or two tricks up my sleeve.”
Buri can’t help but think that he’s taking it remarkably well; whenever someone underestimates her, it always puts her in the worst mood. She’s puzzled enough by his cheerful demeanour that she lets the lithe comment slip by without retort.
She exhales and raises her hands. “Again.”
It’s harder to breathe now, but she manages to focus through the burning in her chest, the sweat-slick coating on her skin. She darts a fist towards his chest, feinting, and catches the other against the more vulnerable space at his side. Steps out of range as he makes a pained noise, dancing away from his answering attack. Her throat feels torn apart from the inside out; there’s a pain between her eyes, through her forehead, a headache threatening her already-faltering concentration.
He doesn’t use his size or weight like she expects him to. That gives her the upper hand in a few rounds, perhaps because he’s reluctant to really try, but it’s good practise anyway. She tries all of the moves that she wants to, and a few more that she improvises. Even in the rounds that he wins she manages to put up quite a fight.
It’s inevitable, though. He’s holding back with his fists, but not when they make body-contact. Her legs always go out from under her and with his weight pressing her down, it’s difficult to find a way out. Not without really hurting him, resorting to the kind of thing that a real fight would call for.
She finds herself on her back, one arm trapped underneath her, the other pinned to her side. It’s what being under a mountain would feel like, she thinks, or being slowly suffocated. Her brain doesn’t resort to panic, but it’s unsettling all the same.
Her body feels hot with sweat and having a whole person above her feels even warmer. With the two of them pressed so close, she can’t ignore the details of his chest moving up and down against hers, or the hot sweep of his breath across her cheek.
After a lingering moment where she opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out, he releases her arm and begins to get up, and then her arm is suddenly free, if a little sore, and she grabs the front of his sweat-soaked shirt and pulls him down into a kiss.
His body presses down against hers again as they kiss, and something flutters low in her stomach, warm and wanting.
Perhaps it’s a result of feeling unwanted for so long, second-best, but the question sneaks out before she can stop it, and the resulting silence makes her hesitant and trembling for a different reason entirely, until Raoul draws back so he can look down at her:
“I’m sure,” he says.
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 928
Pairing: Buri/Raoul
Round/Fight: 1D
Summary: It takes two to tango.
Buri takes to the Shang style of fighting quickly, with razor-sharp reflexes that even she finds surprising. There’s a sleekness to the motions; when she practises the exercises in her room, pulling punches and striking air, the muscles in her hips and legs protesting as she drops and sweeps, it all feels strangely natural, as though she could have been born to it in another life.
The difficulty is in finding sparring partners.
The Dragon is dead. She hadn’t known him well, and feels selfish for wanting him back now. So she puts those thoughts away and tries elsewhere: Thayet, and Alanna. The first is too busy, and was never one for hand-to-hand in any case. Buri talks herself out of approaching Alanna. Though the Lioness knows some Shang herself, and is the logical partner if there ever was one, self-consciousness holds Buri back. When she is better at it, perhaps. There’s no need to risk embarrassment in the presence of a hero.
She has heard whispered things about Baron Cooper. He seemed friendly enough on the few occasions that they had met, but everything about his presence sets her skin to prickling. She files him away, after Alanna, the wavering promise of someday.
In a roundabout way, that leaves her Raoul of Goldenlake.
“Are you sure about this,” he asks, hovering beside the practise floor. She had, impossibly, forgotten how large he is. But she had offered, and he had accepted.
“I’m sure,” she says.
Though there are some things he was taught as a page, and then a squire, both of them are certain that he is no match for anything Shang. His size relieves him of speed, and Buri is sure that any move he attempts to make will be obvious the moment he starts to make it.
But she needs some kind of practise, and she is small, and must learn to use an opponent’s size against him.
“Come on,” she says, bouncing on the balls of her feet, ready to spring. She watches his shoulders, his chest, his hands, waiting for the beginning of motion, a clue.
And she’s on the floor before her next breath, knee aching, breath driven from her lungs with the sudden impact.
Raoul leans over her, offering a hand up. When she’s on her feet again her head only swims a little. She bends to rub the side of her leg, where his foot had connected with it, not bothering to hide her scowl.
“Oh, I see,” says Raoul, grinning a little. “You thought I’d be a pushover, is that it?”
“Don’t be smug. It doesn’t suit you.”
“I did try to warn you. I may not be small and lithe and fast, but there are still one or two tricks up my sleeve.”
Buri can’t help but think that he’s taking it remarkably well; whenever someone underestimates her, it always puts her in the worst mood. She’s puzzled enough by his cheerful demeanour that she lets the lithe comment slip by without retort.
She exhales and raises her hands. “Again.”
***
It’s harder to breathe now, but she manages to focus through the burning in her chest, the sweat-slick coating on her skin. She darts a fist towards his chest, feinting, and catches the other against the more vulnerable space at his side. Steps out of range as he makes a pained noise, dancing away from his answering attack. Her throat feels torn apart from the inside out; there’s a pain between her eyes, through her forehead, a headache threatening her already-faltering concentration.
He doesn’t use his size or weight like she expects him to. That gives her the upper hand in a few rounds, perhaps because he’s reluctant to really try, but it’s good practise anyway. She tries all of the moves that she wants to, and a few more that she improvises. Even in the rounds that he wins she manages to put up quite a fight.
It’s inevitable, though. He’s holding back with his fists, but not when they make body-contact. Her legs always go out from under her and with his weight pressing her down, it’s difficult to find a way out. Not without really hurting him, resorting to the kind of thing that a real fight would call for.
She finds herself on her back, one arm trapped underneath her, the other pinned to her side. It’s what being under a mountain would feel like, she thinks, or being slowly suffocated. Her brain doesn’t resort to panic, but it’s unsettling all the same.
Her body feels hot with sweat and having a whole person above her feels even warmer. With the two of them pressed so close, she can’t ignore the details of his chest moving up and down against hers, or the hot sweep of his breath across her cheek.
After a lingering moment where she opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out, he releases her arm and begins to get up, and then her arm is suddenly free, if a little sore, and she grabs the front of his sweat-soaked shirt and pulls him down into a kiss.
His body presses down against hers again as they kiss, and something flutters low in her stomach, warm and wanting.
Perhaps it’s a result of feeling unwanted for so long, second-best, but the question sneaks out before she can stop it, and the resulting silence makes her hesitant and trembling for a different reason entirely, until Raoul draws back so he can look down at her:
“I’m sure,” he says.