(no subject)
Title: Salute and Parry (chapter 6)
Email: tori.siikanen@gmail.com
Fandom: Tanith Lee's Biting the Sun
Rating: PG-13
Content: Fencing.
Disclaimer: This is fanfic. You should read the original books. They're good. This post is a glossary to the slang, and this post is the first chapter.
6.
Salute and Parry
Home. Home is where you tiptoe past your Q-R Guardian.
"Messages for you," it chirped. Well, Home is where you try to tiptoe past your Q-R Guardian.
I sighed and let my Bee unfold, and garments didn't have a chance to hit the floor before robot servants whisked them away to my wardrobe.
I settled back in the embrace of a gel-couch, which took some time to conform to my new male body, and watched message flashes while it breathed beneath me. Junaya, still well annoyed at Fisk, asking if I was all right if I wanted her to bring me anything (Junaya gets makerish around those she wants to marry, and then turns shrewish when people expect her to be makerish. It never ceases to amuse me.)
A male stranger, inviting me to come out to lightsword drills. I replayed that one again until I realized that he was one of Saz's circle who invaded our meal at Blue Sky. Strange; usually circles are so cliqueish. Saz must really have power if they're jumping to please his whims.
And then Saz himself.
"Surprised you don't have call filters," he said, and the swirling silk-of-steel mask on half his face moved over his smile. "I've got you in mine, so you can call back. Somebody might ask you to joust. Don't do it. It's their usual game to invite a new fencer and then trounce him so soundly he goes away. They hate competition."
Ah. And one could ask why he was giving me such advice, but it wouldn't be me. Though it should. The sight of him on flash rippled over my skin in ways it really shouldn't--not until I could change. Not until I could change. Not until--
"Onk," I said, and replayed his message again. I shut my eyes and listened.
"--Me at the History Tower at the simulators again, and you can learn that way. If you like," he added, with the quickness of--embarrassment? "Just code through to me and let me know."
I stabbed down the reply code so fast my finger bruised. I hadn't even the chance to wonder if every plait was in place, and barely enough time to think that it didn't matter before an image of Saz beamed into the room, completely still and listening.
"Er, attlevey," I said, and gave a little wave. "I can meet you at the History Tower. If it's all right to eat first, I'd say we should go for first meal at the Fire Lounge, and I wonder what your opinion of the simulators is at the Adventure Palace? I'm off to fix a nut-steak, I'm zaradann with hunger."
His image moved, and only then did I realize that he had answered. I'd been babbling like it was an avatar.
"You didn't get a chance to eat at Blue Sky," he said.
"No, I did not."
"I can meet you at the Fire Lounge. The simulators at the Adventure Palace aren't a good place to start. They're supposed to be teaching aids, but they teach the wrong things."
"Everyone uses them," I pointed out.
Saz grinned. "They do. And they keep losing. To me."
"Then why give up your secrets to me?" I asked.
"You had the wit to go to the History Tower," he said. "Most Jang don't do that. You'll learn at the knee of the ancient glars on holo--the true sport."
"I could look at the history, too. It's an old sport. Who made it popular now?"
Saz turned his head so slightly, glanced behind him. "Who knows?" he asked, heartily. "But it's fun. I'll see you tomorrow."
He cut the connection and his image popped like a soap bubble, leaving only the memory of his warning frown. What was he warning me against?
The Fire Lounge isn't where one goes for breakfast, which was why I suggested it. Since I'm not a vain person, I didn't mind that the not-burning flames everywhere clashed horribly with the deep jewel blue that made up my fencer's gem-armour, or that the firelight caught and held the flashes of amber and scarlet in my Opal Dawn eyes. It never occurred to me. Besides, the contrast was simply striking.
Saz was already there, half-masked in copper and bronze, fitted in inky black silk-of-steel and garnet gem-armour. I surveyed the platter of breakfast--honeyed grains and glasses of syntho-fruit juice, tall and elegant as lilies. No joyousness, toasted angel-food, or wine of kaf. Saz himself patted a cushion near him.
"It doesn't do to fill up before working," he said. "And that will not do. Turn your back to me."
I obeyed silently, and signalled a Q-R servant for hot bittered wine. It arrived steaming, sweet and laced with cloud-cream. I took a first sip, and nearly spat the liquid all over myself at his fingertips brushing the nape of my neck, gathering all the roped braids.
"Hair flying around like this will get in your way," he explained. I strained to feel his hands again, rewarded in brushing accidents, the sweep of his knuckles as he plaited my hair.
"I could cut it and have it regrown later," I offered.
"No, this will do. A light-sword fencer needs a bit of style--and defending this mass against all comers will make you quick." It was a heavy rope, resting at my neck--wide as my wrist, even with the bracer on. His hands radiated to my skin, insistent as the light of the artificial sun in Four-BEE, warmer than the illusion fires that raged around us. Twenty-seven more units, I murmured inside my mind. Twenty-seven more units, and ten rings, and Saz, insumatt, derisann Saz. We'd marry for mid-vrek and have love and have love and have love--
Throbbing brought me back to myself, and I nearly spilled hot bittered wine on my clothes. Then I realized I should have, so I could escape without him seeing--I hadn't been male in so long, precisely because of this. Kina would laugh and--
"You haven't married yet."
A blush does not show in skin tinted Parvati, but I was doing it anyway. "No."
"The first few units are like that. You didn't change to marry?"
"No, no," I said. "It just...seemed like a good idea at the time. What fit the design."
"You are a good designer," he said. "I'll bet once the release runs out on your variant there will be adopters. How much longer will you be original?"
"Twenty-seven more units," I said. The first few units are like that, he said. Are they? I'd never changed unless there was a reason, and so it never--I mean when it--well, I'd have a use for it, is all. I've got a strong female preference. The Committee said so, but it's fun to be male, and healthy to make the switch...
Saz was talking. I was maundering. "I'm sorry?" I said.
"I said, 'that will give me plenty of time to recognize how you move.' And speaking of moving, eat a handful, and let's go."
"Not bad," he said. "Almost two splits. Switch feet."
I dropped my right foot down and stood on it, lifting my left heel to my buttock. I grasped the foot and stood, but my foot started shifting from big toe to little to keep balanced almost immediately, and he stopped timing.
"Right foot's unacceptably weak. Funny, isn't it? Your body, only three days old, and I'll bet that it's the same habit you had from standing in all the bodies before this, favouring your left leg. Take the ready stance."
This is all we'd done so far. Take the ready stance, and then correcting the tiniest derangements of my position, and then something else stupid, and then take the ready stance. I was feeling pretty tosky with it all--when do we fight? Why all this standing, standing, correction of the tiniest details?
I asked him why, as he was walking around to inspect me, and in reply he gave me a shove and I stumbled one step before correcting.
"If your ready stance is perfect, you would have kept your feet in place. Again. Ready stance."
Relentless, miserable thralldrap. No. He's doing it right, from the basics up. They don't teach you to stand in the Adventure Palace. He is the best fighter in Ilex Park. He knows what he is doing. I settled into the ready stance, my right leg behind me and left leg leading, slightly bent, body suspended perfectly between my feet. Right arm raised so the beam of my lightsword would sight along my eye, my left arm out before me so the beam of that sword would lay perfectly level across my body. If they were on, which they were not.
Saz shoved me again, and I only bent.
"Groshing. Now keep me in sight," he said, and started circling me. As soon as I crossed my left foot over my right to follow him, he shoved me again.
"Never cross," he said. "Ready stance."
I glared pure murder at him but settled again.
"Fighting is about space," he said, moving to my right, and I shuffled along with him. "If you control the space between you and your opponent, you are the winner. If they can never move a hair toward or away from where you want them, you are the winner. But it's not usually that easy."
"But it's important."
"Fighting is about control," he continued. "But control is not a rigid grasp. Control is an understanding that requires the fighter to be thoughtless. Do you understand?"
"No," I said. "You're zaradann. How can I not think?"
"Thinking interferes with being," he went on in his crazy glar lecture. "Thinking takes too much time. There is only time for knowing and acting."
"You are zaradann," I said.
He lunged for me, fingers poised hard as daggers for my throat. I swept backwards, shuffled forward as he danced back, halted as he halted.
"There. How did you do that?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said. "I was following you."
"Did you think about it?"
"There wasn't time," I said, and our laughter rang against the roof of the History Tower.
More? Non Serviam. except when it comes to providing more story.
Email: tori.siikanen@gmail.com
Fandom: Tanith Lee's Biting the Sun
Rating: PG-13
Content: Fencing.
Disclaimer: This is fanfic. You should read the original books. They're good. This post is a glossary to the slang, and this post is the first chapter.
6.
Salute and Parry
Home. Home is where you tiptoe past your Q-R Guardian.
"Messages for you," it chirped. Well, Home is where you try to tiptoe past your Q-R Guardian.
I sighed and let my Bee unfold, and garments didn't have a chance to hit the floor before robot servants whisked them away to my wardrobe.
I settled back in the embrace of a gel-couch, which took some time to conform to my new male body, and watched message flashes while it breathed beneath me. Junaya, still well annoyed at Fisk, asking if I was all right if I wanted her to bring me anything (Junaya gets makerish around those she wants to marry, and then turns shrewish when people expect her to be makerish. It never ceases to amuse me.)
A male stranger, inviting me to come out to lightsword drills. I replayed that one again until I realized that he was one of Saz's circle who invaded our meal at Blue Sky. Strange; usually circles are so cliqueish. Saz must really have power if they're jumping to please his whims.
And then Saz himself.
"Surprised you don't have call filters," he said, and the swirling silk-of-steel mask on half his face moved over his smile. "I've got you in mine, so you can call back. Somebody might ask you to joust. Don't do it. It's their usual game to invite a new fencer and then trounce him so soundly he goes away. They hate competition."
Ah. And one could ask why he was giving me such advice, but it wouldn't be me. Though it should. The sight of him on flash rippled over my skin in ways it really shouldn't--not until I could change. Not until I could change. Not until--
"Onk," I said, and replayed his message again. I shut my eyes and listened.
"--Me at the History Tower at the simulators again, and you can learn that way. If you like," he added, with the quickness of--embarrassment? "Just code through to me and let me know."
I stabbed down the reply code so fast my finger bruised. I hadn't even the chance to wonder if every plait was in place, and barely enough time to think that it didn't matter before an image of Saz beamed into the room, completely still and listening.
"Er, attlevey," I said, and gave a little wave. "I can meet you at the History Tower. If it's all right to eat first, I'd say we should go for first meal at the Fire Lounge, and I wonder what your opinion of the simulators is at the Adventure Palace? I'm off to fix a nut-steak, I'm zaradann with hunger."
His image moved, and only then did I realize that he had answered. I'd been babbling like it was an avatar.
"You didn't get a chance to eat at Blue Sky," he said.
"No, I did not."
"I can meet you at the Fire Lounge. The simulators at the Adventure Palace aren't a good place to start. They're supposed to be teaching aids, but they teach the wrong things."
"Everyone uses them," I pointed out.
Saz grinned. "They do. And they keep losing. To me."
"Then why give up your secrets to me?" I asked.
"You had the wit to go to the History Tower," he said. "Most Jang don't do that. You'll learn at the knee of the ancient glars on holo--the true sport."
"I could look at the history, too. It's an old sport. Who made it popular now?"
Saz turned his head so slightly, glanced behind him. "Who knows?" he asked, heartily. "But it's fun. I'll see you tomorrow."
He cut the connection and his image popped like a soap bubble, leaving only the memory of his warning frown. What was he warning me against?
The Fire Lounge isn't where one goes for breakfast, which was why I suggested it. Since I'm not a vain person, I didn't mind that the not-burning flames everywhere clashed horribly with the deep jewel blue that made up my fencer's gem-armour, or that the firelight caught and held the flashes of amber and scarlet in my Opal Dawn eyes. It never occurred to me. Besides, the contrast was simply striking.
Saz was already there, half-masked in copper and bronze, fitted in inky black silk-of-steel and garnet gem-armour. I surveyed the platter of breakfast--honeyed grains and glasses of syntho-fruit juice, tall and elegant as lilies. No joyousness, toasted angel-food, or wine of kaf. Saz himself patted a cushion near him.
"It doesn't do to fill up before working," he said. "And that will not do. Turn your back to me."
I obeyed silently, and signalled a Q-R servant for hot bittered wine. It arrived steaming, sweet and laced with cloud-cream. I took a first sip, and nearly spat the liquid all over myself at his fingertips brushing the nape of my neck, gathering all the roped braids.
"Hair flying around like this will get in your way," he explained. I strained to feel his hands again, rewarded in brushing accidents, the sweep of his knuckles as he plaited my hair.
"I could cut it and have it regrown later," I offered.
"No, this will do. A light-sword fencer needs a bit of style--and defending this mass against all comers will make you quick." It was a heavy rope, resting at my neck--wide as my wrist, even with the bracer on. His hands radiated to my skin, insistent as the light of the artificial sun in Four-BEE, warmer than the illusion fires that raged around us. Twenty-seven more units, I murmured inside my mind. Twenty-seven more units, and ten rings, and Saz, insumatt, derisann Saz. We'd marry for mid-vrek and have love and have love and have love--
Throbbing brought me back to myself, and I nearly spilled hot bittered wine on my clothes. Then I realized I should have, so I could escape without him seeing--I hadn't been male in so long, precisely because of this. Kina would laugh and--
"You haven't married yet."
A blush does not show in skin tinted Parvati, but I was doing it anyway. "No."
"The first few units are like that. You didn't change to marry?"
"No, no," I said. "It just...seemed like a good idea at the time. What fit the design."
"You are a good designer," he said. "I'll bet once the release runs out on your variant there will be adopters. How much longer will you be original?"
"Twenty-seven more units," I said. The first few units are like that, he said. Are they? I'd never changed unless there was a reason, and so it never--I mean when it--well, I'd have a use for it, is all. I've got a strong female preference. The Committee said so, but it's fun to be male, and healthy to make the switch...
Saz was talking. I was maundering. "I'm sorry?" I said.
"I said, 'that will give me plenty of time to recognize how you move.' And speaking of moving, eat a handful, and let's go."
"Not bad," he said. "Almost two splits. Switch feet."
I dropped my right foot down and stood on it, lifting my left heel to my buttock. I grasped the foot and stood, but my foot started shifting from big toe to little to keep balanced almost immediately, and he stopped timing.
"Right foot's unacceptably weak. Funny, isn't it? Your body, only three days old, and I'll bet that it's the same habit you had from standing in all the bodies before this, favouring your left leg. Take the ready stance."
This is all we'd done so far. Take the ready stance, and then correcting the tiniest derangements of my position, and then something else stupid, and then take the ready stance. I was feeling pretty tosky with it all--when do we fight? Why all this standing, standing, correction of the tiniest details?
I asked him why, as he was walking around to inspect me, and in reply he gave me a shove and I stumbled one step before correcting.
"If your ready stance is perfect, you would have kept your feet in place. Again. Ready stance."
Relentless, miserable thralldrap. No. He's doing it right, from the basics up. They don't teach you to stand in the Adventure Palace. He is the best fighter in Ilex Park. He knows what he is doing. I settled into the ready stance, my right leg behind me and left leg leading, slightly bent, body suspended perfectly between my feet. Right arm raised so the beam of my lightsword would sight along my eye, my left arm out before me so the beam of that sword would lay perfectly level across my body. If they were on, which they were not.
Saz shoved me again, and I only bent.
"Groshing. Now keep me in sight," he said, and started circling me. As soon as I crossed my left foot over my right to follow him, he shoved me again.
"Never cross," he said. "Ready stance."
I glared pure murder at him but settled again.
"Fighting is about space," he said, moving to my right, and I shuffled along with him. "If you control the space between you and your opponent, you are the winner. If they can never move a hair toward or away from where you want them, you are the winner. But it's not usually that easy."
"But it's important."
"Fighting is about control," he continued. "But control is not a rigid grasp. Control is an understanding that requires the fighter to be thoughtless. Do you understand?"
"No," I said. "You're zaradann. How can I not think?"
"Thinking interferes with being," he went on in his crazy glar lecture. "Thinking takes too much time. There is only time for knowing and acting."
"You are zaradann," I said.
He lunged for me, fingers poised hard as daggers for my throat. I swept backwards, shuffled forward as he danced back, halted as he halted.
"There. How did you do that?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said. "I was following you."
"Did you think about it?"
"There wasn't time," I said, and our laughter rang against the roof of the History Tower.
More? Non Serviam. except when it comes to providing more story.