Poisonous Fox

Around her, suddenly, all her surroundings popped into place in an explosion of senses she had never previously experienced. She felt it, all of it, so clearly, and she then understood what the old vets had described as a lifting of the veil. It was all just so… there!

But she could not dwell, not in the midst of it.

She sensed her opponent moving against her.

Boke was swinging down with a blunt bastard sword straight for her shoulder.

Kate, short for Katherine, knew–she knew–exactly where that blade was, its trajectory, along with Boke’s footing. She recognized his stance, she remembered the potential follow ups that he could chain from it. His attack was textbook. Solid, but still textbook.

Without conscious thought, she reacted, all in one fluid motion.

She parried and sidestepped, moving past him. As their blades clashed, she let her blade move with his, carrying her into a twirl as she kept her feet light. With his flank now exposed, she finished the spin in a pirouette, bringing her blade slashing down on his kidneys. Her blade bounced off his jerkin.

It had all happened in a matter of seconds, and it was only after she finished her counter that she realized what had happened. That she had won. That she had finally succeeded. A familiar sensation of skin-too-tight and burning radiated through her body, starting from her ribs. Her head felt sore from the new sensation.

Boke took the moment of her distraction to reorient and begin another lunge.

She stepped back and held up her palm.

“Hold!” she called out.

“Had enough?” Boke asked. He grimaced while massaging his back where her counterattack had struck.

“Hardly,” Kate said, feeling her own side, where the burning sensation was fading.

“A break then?” he asked, furrowing his brows.

She shook her head, sending more droplets of sweat flying. A smile threatened to break her lips.

It took a bit, but Boke got it. “No…” he trailed off, dumbfounded. “It worked?!”

“I believe so,” she said. Her smile finally broke through despite her best efforts. She took a second, turning away from the onlookers, to school her expression. When she turned back to Boke, it was with a much sterner expression. “Yes. It worked.”

He held up a hand behind his back. “Then how many fingers?” he asked.

She paused. Everything behind his back was a bit fuzzier, but she could still make it out. When she did, she had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. Instead, she tried for a stern voice, “that’s rude!” she shouted.

“So you did get it then,” he said, awe in his voice. “But was it the one?” he followed up, wanting to know if she had gotten the single most sought after dueling rune that the sweord glyph had to offer. It was a very specific rune. A lot of runes could have come about from the training, and a smaller subset provided useful preternatural awareness, but only a very specific rune could provide innate knowledge of everything in the rune’s vicinity.

And she had got it. She knew she had. Just like she knew every sand making up the training field. But rather than answering, she tossed her blunt sword up in the air with a twirl, before catching and sheathing with flair.

Once her hands were free, she untied the thick cloth wrapped about her head, a cloth which very much covered her eyes, which had forced her glyph to adjust and grow into the newest sense. It had been a gamble, but it paid off, with dividends.

“It is,” she said, her lips again trying to curl upward. But she had been working hard on the habit of not smiling, so she squashed it down, or tried to.

But she had finally got it!

“Well let’s see it then,” he said. “Go on, show it.” He looked at her forearms expectantly, which were covered by her jerkin. But her sweord glyph was elsewhere. Only her body glyph took up space on her left forearm.

She reminded him where her glyph was by tapping the side of her ribs, just below her breasts. “Asking for a show? For you or them?” She asked, then nodded to the crowd that had been gathering just to the otherside of the partition between the training yard and Muster Square.

“Crown no!” Boke laughed, “The captain would kill me. I’m too young to die.”

“Too young?!” Kate joked. “But you’re an old man! silver beard and all.”

He grasped at his heart, feigning a mortal wound. He must have known the comment was in jest. Out of all the on-call knights, she and him had the best rapport. And sure enough, he winked at her as he looked up and met her eyes. Thankfully he never held her height against her, part of why they had a good rapport. Though really, she only topped his height by about a foot; but Boke was by no means short, more like average and stocky.

She playfully punched his shoulder, though it was covered by his black and crimson padded jerkin. Though the colors matched the High Gaurd’s uniforms, they tended to wash out everyone’s tan skin and brown eyes. Personally, she was loath to wear them, because if they washed out the regular person, they would end up leaving her looking like a ghost. She dreaded the comments she would hear, especially from crowds just like the one gathered in Muster Square.

Boke must have noticed the sour look on Kate’s face as she looked towards the other side of the wrought iron fencing where the crowd watched and leered.

He grunted, some disgust coming through his tone. “Think they’re here for us?” he asked.

“They can see only men anywhere,” Kate joked, or tried to, but some bitterness did slip into her voice. “They’re here for me.”

It was so irritating! Sure, she might be tall, she might have pale skin, and she might have blueish blonde hair, but she was in no way a deviant or a mutant and she was still human. Really, only idiots would think that she was some kind of spectacle. And if they were idiots, she wondered if they might be convinced to step into the ring with her, or meet her in some back alley. Somehow, she doubted they would, at least, not after the first few gossips ended up with broken noses and missing digits.

“I’m younger than your mother!” Boke protested, loud enough to draw Kate out of her mood. “Besides, if they are here for you, it’s probably for other reasons, besides your striking beauty.”

Kate scoffed, almost laughed at the attempted flattery. She already knew how she looked. And unlike other idiots, she did have good taste. She looked great.

“It’s just,” Boke continued, “it’s not every day you get to see a blindfolded girl demanding for a knight to strike her over and over… and, well–” he coughed “-a bit viciously as well.”

Kate did have the bruises to show for it. Granted, all but the worst were already fading, but her thighs and forearms would be sore for days.

“Speaking of that…” Boke said, starting in a casual way that usually meant he wanted something. “Since your scheme paid off ‘n all, maybe… maybe your mother won’t make me spend a month scrubbing toilets?” he finished hopefully.

“The punishment does fit the crime,” Kate said, consideringly. “And you were, as you put it, vicious.”

“But–” Boke sputtered, but Kate kept going.

“-But you’re right, it did work.” Kate smiled sweetly. Boke groaned. She finished, “So instead of a month, I’ll talk her down to a couple weeks instead.”

“-But you asked me to do this!” Boke protested, bordering on distraught. “I didn’t even want to! You think I wanted to spend an hour wailing on you?”

Alright, Kate admitted, Boke was genuinely concerned about the thrashing her mother would give him. And he was right about the upcoming thrashing, which was a shame, since he had only helped Kate at Kate’s request. If Kate let him get punished for that, then their rapport would disappear, and he likely would refuse the next time she asked for a favor.

So of course, Kate would intervene.

“Boke relax,” Kate said, before Boke could work up a further head of steam. “I’ll tell her it was all me. And that’s only if someone reports us, which I’m not sure they did. It’s not like she could see from Garrison Tower.”

Which was actually a lie. Kate had been in her mother’s office plenty of times, and Garrison Tower definitely provided a view of Muster Square, along with the Arsenals and the training yard. But knowing that would only increase Boke’s fears, and Kate already decided to intervene. There was no need for him to fret.

“Appreciate it,” Boke said finally, nodding and letting out a breath. Tension released from his shoulders, and he began maintaining his gear. Using an oiled rag, he wiped down his blunt bastard sword before putting it away in its training scabbard.

As he worked, he eyed the onlookers, who were just now beginning to disperse. He must have decided enough was enough. “Alright, enough gawking!” Boke shouted. “Unless you all wanna spend a night in a cell!”

A few in the crowd waved him off and went back to their business. For some, this was returning to their outdoor bistro, and for others it was shopping at the arsenals and artifice shops. Not everyone left, but enough that Boke could ignore the stragglers.

He turned back to Kate. “I take it your sweord glyph is topped?”

Kate thought about not answering, but Boke had gone out on a limb for her, and for those who cared enough to spy in the first place, they would already notice her three runes.

“Yeah,” Kate answered. “The glyph is topped. I need to start looking for another glyph.”

Boke chuckled, “Don’t even think about it, you aren’t ready.”

“And how would you know if I was or not?” Kate asked, a trace of irritation leaking into her voice. She hated it when anyone told her what she could or could not do.

“You’ve got to take time to figure it out,” Boke said, reiterating common advice which was intended for common people, because most people never knew what they wanted out of life, and glyphs were a lifetime commitment; there were only so many major slots available in a person; and a lot of the best glyphs, the glyphs really worthwhile, never came cheap or without commitments.

But again, that advice was for commoners.

“No, I don’t think I will be waiting,” Kate said, deigning to answer the knight. “Because then I’ll be wasting that time that could be spent unlocking more runes.”

“Untrue,” Boke insisted. “You still need to learn and grow your runes. Getting that done first will make it easier to unlock future ones later on whatever glyph you do end up getting.”

Again with the common advice. Kate gritted her teeth and tried to explain without snapping. “I think that you’re underestimating how quickly I can learn.”

To take her attention off the irritating gatekeeping common advice that had hindered her all her life, she started scanning Muster Square, beyond the fencing. Of the stragglers still watching, she recognized one of her friends there, waiting. That was excuse enough to end the irritating conversation.

“I need to go,” she told Boke while tossing her practice blade to him. “Put that away for me, yeah?”

“Sure,” he said, bemused. “But please remember to talk to the captain for me.”

“Course I will,” she said as she jogged to the fence.

She already planned on talking to her mother about getting another glyph anyways, so the timing worked out. But first, she wanted to see what her friend was up to. When she reached the fence, she crouched then jumped vertically, two yards, before clearing the chain link fencing and landing on the other side.

“Hey,” she said as she landed in a crouch and stood up, brushing dust off her shoulder.

Her friend, Gregory Silverborn, shut his mouth with a click, his eyes wide. He shook it off and smiled ruefully, “I’ll never get used to that,” he said.

“You were watching the spar?” she asked, wanting to brag a bit.

“Well yeah, but I meant jumping that fence like it was nothing–I could never do that.”

“You also don’t have a body enhancement,” she shrugged. She actually was unsure if he had one or not, but if he did, it was a terrible one.

“I guess that’s true…” he led off.

A commotion was happening further into the square, a gathering of people. Kate ignored it for the time being. The square was large enough and had enough traffic that there was always something going on. And whatever it was, was unimportant.

“So you were watching my spar?” Kate asked, her lips threatening to curl upwards once again.

“What, with the blindfold?” he asked. So he had been watching her!

“Yep!” she said. “What’d you think?”

“Ahh… yeah…” he was speaking hesitantly while rubbing the back of his scrawny neck and breaking eye contact. “You were kinda getting whacked on pretty good there up till the end. It kinda looked more like a caning than a spar.”

Kate winced, her smile no longer a threat. “Greatness always has a price,” she explained, while hoping that nobody else thought she had been that pathetic. “But what did you think about the end of the spar?”

Kate was hopeful that the end result would stick out more than the painful welting journey.

“Oh, yeah,” Gregory said with more confidence. “That part was absolutely amazing. The way you finally put the guy down. Did you finally get that rune unlocked, what, the proprioception one?”

“Yep,” Kate said smugly.

“Nice, grats!” he said, smiling widely. “I don’t think I could have done any of that. Especially not the getting beat on part. Ouch.”

“Yeah, that part hurt. Not gonna lie,” she said. And then only partially joking, she claimed, “I am pretty amazing, to go through all that.”

Gregory gave a little bit of a chuckle and a little bit of a nod, but the conversation somewhat derailed. That was alright though. The commotion towards the center of the square was still happening, and Kate was getting curious if it was something interesting, like a fight.

“What’s going on over there,” Kate asked, pointing at where people were gathering. It was outside the range of her new sixth sense, but from where she was, she could see that the people focused on something.

“Oh, oh that…” Gregory said.

The way he answered left Kate suspicious. So she prompted, “Oh that what? Gregory? Do I need to go over there myself?”

“Eh… probably not?” he said. “It’s just some Halflights, and I know how you feel about them.”

“Ew, gross!” she said. “What’re they even doing here?”

“They’re doing another one of their ‘Visibility Patrols?” Gregory answered. “I’m not really sure what that means though.”

“Worthless publicity,” Kate said. “They’ve already got enough of that, just thanks to the princess. Don’t know why they aren’t doing what they claim to do. Plenty of crime happening across the divide too. What a waste.”

“My thoughts too,” Gregory said.

But Kate was not done. The Halflight Vigilants were just the worst, basically a sponsored gang that went around stepping on the High Guard’s toes in all the most irritating ways. Rather than being productive, they tended to show up afterwards and claim all the glory. At least that was the word in the garrison.

At some point, Gregory’s face grew slightly flushed and he started stammering.

“Say,” Gregory said. “Instead of hanging around those l-losers, you wanna grab a bite and watch a show?” He finished, looking at her with some unknown expectation.

“Blegh,” Kate said, thinking about the last disaster of a show her mother had forced her to attend. “That’s even worse than being near the princess’s pets.”

“Oh right,” Gregory grimaced, giving a forced chuckle. “I forgot about that. What about swinging by the pits?”

“Ha! That’s more like it,” Kate said, slugging Gregory in the shoulder and ignoring the way he flinched.

“We just have to kill a few hours,” Gregory led off. “So how about getting that bite?” Again, with the hopeful tone.

“Why?” Kate asked.

“Getting food?” Gregory asked. “I thought you would have been ravenous after that training. But I suppose if you’re full that we could do something else too.”

“No,” Kate corrected, “I meant why do we have to wait?”

“...because the fights aren’t scheduled to start until this evening?” Gregory answered, sounding tremulous and unsure.

“Oh!” Kate chuckled. “Oh that explains it. When you said Pits, I was thinking the Western Pits.”

“Across the divide?!” Gregory squeaked, the blood draining from his face. “Those are illegal… won’t your mom kill us?”

“Pfft,” Kate said, waving off his concerns. “That’s how you know it’ll be good. You in?” she asked, raising an eyebrow and waiting to see which way he would go.

“A–” he cleared his throat “-maybe I’ll take a raincheck?” he finally announced. The way he pulled at the collar of his tinkering coat revealed just how far his blush had gone. Kate was not a fool, she knew what was happening, but she was also absolutely not interested in Gregory that way.

“Hm. Have to get back to the shop then?” she asked. “I thought you had the day off.”

“Ahh, well,” he hemmed and hawed, probably thinking of an obvious excuse for being unable to go to the illegal blood sports. Eventually, he must have failed, since he admitted, “I was let out early today.”

That raised a concern; It would be unusual for the boy’s master to let him out, unless something were wrong.

“Why?” she inquired further. “Not enough work?”

“You could say that,” Gregory answered, trailing off. “Business has been a bit bad with the Union coming around. We might have to change locations.” He let out a weary sigh. “You know, again.”

“Coming around… are you guys safe?” Kate demanded, stepping a bit closer into Gregory’s personal space, not that he seemed to mind. “Did they threaten you? If you need help in a scrap, you know you can ask me, yeah?”

“Yeah, I know… it just seems so pointless, you know? They’re so big, and we’re just one shop. I’ve been asking my master to just join them, but he’s refusing to drop his pride.”

“Well, if you need help in a fight, let me know.” Kate left unsaid that she would be less useful in any other sort of boring political engagement. That would be common knowledge to her friends.

“So, wanna hang out?” Gregory asked. “I mean, other than crossing the divide?”

“Yeah, actually I gotta talk with my mom–” Kate began to explain her plan, when the commotion reached them. Apparently, the Halflights had been approaching the training yard for some reason. Which was irritating, since she now had to speak louder and with more effort, almost shouting to be heard over them. “-about getting another glyph!” she finished.

Having heard her shouting volume, a few of the people swamping the Halflights turned to give Kate an appraising glance, before going back to clamoring for a favor from the local heroes.

Kate could not even think the word without mentally sneering.

“That’s amazing!” Gregory shouting as well. “Think she’ll go for it? You still have plenty of slots left, right?”

“Pfft,” she waved him off, “you know I do. And, well I’m not sure about what she’ll say. I guess I could always go see someone like Skingineer,” she mused.

Gregory blanched, for the second time. “How can you even joke about that?!”

“Who said that was a joke?” she asked, though she was grinning, though not smiling. “But truthfully, I’ll probably have to head up to Bath to see the nearest Sacred Artist.”

“Oof. Now that’s a trip,” Gregory said. “I’d be pretty surprised if she said yes.”

“Yeah, that’s why I got a plan,” she said. “Trust.”

At that point, the source of the crowd finally arrived.