It was late afternoon when Brienne made her way out to the forest, Oathkeeper strapped to her hip, having spent the better part of the last couple of days cleaning everything--it turned out butter and salt were hard to get out of boiled leather. Who knew? (It occurred to Brienne that maybe there was some sort of cleansing spell that would have
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His ears pricked up as he passed the forest: someone was having a combat session. Instinctively he changed his walk, shifting his weight to the flats of his feet to move silently, squinting through the lowering dusk and the underbrush to see who it was.
Her identity brought another grin: it was Prickly. Mathayus watched her for a moment or two, assessing her skill, and it rapidly became clear her skill was considerable. But nobody ever learned anything worth knowing by sparring alone.
He shucked his winter robes, ignoring the air's chill against his skin, making sure the heavy furs went to the forest floor without a sound. He glanced around, scanned overhead, then lifted his considerable bulk into a nearby tree, climbing up and over until he was roughly above the clearing where Prickly was practicing. When her attention was otherwise occupied Mathayus dropped lightly to the ground in front of her, enormous sword at the ready, gleaming in the last rays of the sun. "How about that spar?" he said with a grin.
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Jaw tightening, she nodded. "It seems you're ready to spar," she said, moving to a defensive stance, sword at the ready.
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((We... should maybe work the details out beforehand? :) ))
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Not bad. More instinctive than instructed, and that was good, in Mathayus' experience. He blocked her sword, knocking the blade to one side, leaving an opening which he filled with his enormous fist. He did not strike her, however; he had no intention of actually hurting her. Instead he used his fisted knuckles to push her off-side shoulder, hard.
A lesser warrior would have lost balance and fallen backwards; that Brienne did not earned Mathayus' approval, manifested in a single raised eyebrow. "Gotta keep your guard up, Prickly," was all he said.
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"My name," she said tightly, finding a slip in his own guard and going for it, "is Brienne." She wondered if she was going to have to go through this all the time with every arrogant man she ever met.
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She recovered her balance, and with a speed mostly spurred on by anger--not really anger at Mathayus specificially, but more anger at all the men she had faced, from Ser Ronnet to Jaime, who would throw who and what she was back in her face--she came at him, intending to slip under his own guard and drive him back.
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She staggered back but stayed up. Damn, thought Mathayus. She still had too much self-control.
He never did know when to leave well enough alone. "That the best you've got, Prickly? Maybe you should leave fighting to the real warriors. I'm sure they have knitting or something you can do back at the castle."
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