Fisticuffs.
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I wanted to write this so, so much. It shrunk enough from its original premise that I could.
Title: Fisticuffs
FFXII
Vossler-->Ashe, in which the latter is fourteen.
Worksafe, I think, but then, this is Vossler we're talking about, jerking off the irony cudgel. I'd say it's rated PG-13.
850 words.
The title is your summary.
Fisticuffs
Mithrigil Galtirglin
“But Basch won’t do it either!”
“As well he should not,” Vossler tells her as calmly as he can, backing away each time she advances toward him, maintaining distance. “It is one thing for us to school you in weapon arts. It is another entirely-”
“I see no difference,” Ashe spits, swinging a fist violently down at her side and stamping her heel. Godsbedamned, she is not acting fourteen, and Vossler grits his teeth to think that all his lessons in placidity have apparently gone nowhere. “It’s just another way of fighting! And you’ve already let me do more than you said you would!”
He is almost against the wall now, and is definitely not comfortable with that. “Your Highness. This is not the time to bargain with me. Nor is this the way to go about getting what you want. It never is.”
“Your way would not have worked on those idiot boys.” Ashe is no calmer, and no farther away, somewhere between pacing and coiling before him, like a lesser wolf steeling himself for a challenge. The ribbons in her hair are sweat-limp and dangling on her cheeks, her neck. He stares. She does not mark it, he thinks. “I can’t draw a weapon against them-”
“And you should not raise your hands against them either.”
“And you’d rather I just stand there and let them hit me?”
“Never,” Vossler says, so automatic that it takes him away from the wall, despite the obvious danger that is this girl’s eyes, this girl’s logic. “Never,” he repeats, looking away. She nearly had him. “But I will not-”
-She has him.
He catches her fist before it makes it to his belly. His gauntlet smacks cold. She hits him again.
“Your Highness,” he slams down firmly, full of reproach, and he still has her hand-he lets go-he ought not have-she is glaring at him, not at his face, at the places she is aiming for, still swinging, still driving him backward along the perimeter of the armory, her assault wild but with clear intent. He backpedals, edges, will not let himself bat her away, will not let himself strike her,
“Vossler,” she seethes, and she curses, and the slurs pouring out of her mouth should shock him more than they do, more than the sound of her fists on his leathers, her slippers pounding on the cold stone floor, the whipping gold of her hair in the faces of the naked blades that surround them. Her ribbons. Her eyes.
“Your thumbs,” he tells her, taking a blow to his chest, not gasping, not relenting. “Outside your fist,” he pants. “Not in.”
Her forehead is shining. She pauses, looks up at him. Swings.
He takes it. “From your knees.” Again, and she is stronger now, and he winces. “Like you shoot.”
She takes some time to breathe-oh gods, that sound-and too fast, rears back, does it wrong.
It’s instinct for him now, to dodge aside, to round her, and only who she is stays him from readying as well, he could send her flying with a fist to her back. He stops his gauntlet too close to the cloth of her dress, shivers, horrified.
She growls, “Again,” and her voice is as small as she is, as small as her fist is, as the sound of her rings on his mail.
He ceases to protest. Dodge, yes, block, yes, and fate save him if he comes so close to countering again, but she has him, has him responding as he would to any man whose fists and knees were flying so. She is half his size and less than half his age, without form and nearly without skill, driving him over the stone with only curses and threats in the voice of a child.
And when he falls, it is because he is too busy evading her to heed the corners of the room.
She is on him before he guesses why, and he does gasp, does groan under her weight, her knees on his hips, her hands open now, flailing by his cheeks. He tripped her, he thinks-did not intend-did not intend-where are his hands-
-shoving her off, that’s where.
Vossler pulls along the floor, gets to his feet, before she does. She is panting, heavy sobbing breaths that only get louder as she rises, pulls into a stance again.
He is not sure what he calls her, but it loosens her fist, sends a stutter through her legs. “You are right,” he concedes, quiet and low and damn him, damn him, “to fight as you do, as a thing cornered…”
She whimpers, “Vossler,” and her ribbons are atangle, one of them gone, those remaining tinged with pools of sweat.
“But you must give heed, must remember,” he breathes, “who your opponent is.”
There is something soft in the neck of his armor, soft and silken.
She hits him again. It is still incorrect.
.
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