Next, by minnow1212, for 38 minutes/Amnesty Challenge
Title: Next
Author: minnow1212
Thanks to cofax7 for the prompt: Sheppard and Teyla and sharp.
Sometime in the third year the fighting gets good. It’s weird, because it’s not an improvement in John’s footwork or his technique with the sticks, which have been pretty good for a while now. Maybe he’s winning a bit more often, but it’s not that either: he’s beaten her before, not always because fatigue on her part or a temporary mutation on his, and it hasn’t felt like this. But there’s still some shift in the way he moves, a difference he can’t pinpoint but he can feel down to his fingertips. Sparring has always been a pleasure: now it’s a fierce joy.
He figures it out in the middle of a sparring session, and it surprises him: it’s because these aren’t lessons anymore. They’re fighting. It surprises him, kind of a lot, the kind of surprise that would have made him falter or pause not too long ago. But his body knows now that you don’t do that, his feet and his fingertips know how to be a worthy opponent even if his brain is just catching up, and he keeps moving, moving, moving.
Later, when they’re toweling off he says, "Hey! Shouldn’t there have been some sort of graduation ceremony or something?" and she probably should raise her eyebrows at that cryptic statement but she’s quick and she knows him well and so her mouth tilts up slyly and she says, "Shall I create a diploma for you to hang on your wall?"
"Yeah, maybe," he says. But when they next meet, she doesn’t hold a paper in her hands but knives.
She presents one of them to him gravely, but it’s not the kind of gravity that won’t bear joking, so he narrows his eyes and says, "You’re just upping the stakes because you like knocking me on my ass."
"I do," she agrees, still gravely. "Shall we begin?"
And his fingers are already curving around the knife and his feet settling into place as he says, "Yeah."
END
Author: minnow1212
Thanks to cofax7 for the prompt: Sheppard and Teyla and sharp.
Sometime in the third year the fighting gets good. It’s weird, because it’s not an improvement in John’s footwork or his technique with the sticks, which have been pretty good for a while now. Maybe he’s winning a bit more often, but it’s not that either: he’s beaten her before, not always because fatigue on her part or a temporary mutation on his, and it hasn’t felt like this. But there’s still some shift in the way he moves, a difference he can’t pinpoint but he can feel down to his fingertips. Sparring has always been a pleasure: now it’s a fierce joy.
He figures it out in the middle of a sparring session, and it surprises him: it’s because these aren’t lessons anymore. They’re fighting. It surprises him, kind of a lot, the kind of surprise that would have made him falter or pause not too long ago. But his body knows now that you don’t do that, his feet and his fingertips know how to be a worthy opponent even if his brain is just catching up, and he keeps moving, moving, moving.
Later, when they’re toweling off he says, "Hey! Shouldn’t there have been some sort of graduation ceremony or something?" and she probably should raise her eyebrows at that cryptic statement but she’s quick and she knows him well and so her mouth tilts up slyly and she says, "Shall I create a diploma for you to hang on your wall?"
"Yeah, maybe," he says. But when they next meet, she doesn’t hold a paper in her hands but knives.
She presents one of them to him gravely, but it’s not the kind of gravity that won’t bear joking, so he narrows his eyes and says, "You’re just upping the stakes because you like knocking me on my ass."
"I do," she agrees, still gravely. "Shall we begin?"
And his fingers are already curving around the knife and his feet settling into place as he says, "Yeah."
END