The Salle, Monday Morning

[bitch_prince]

Between making Merlin move his stuff back into the dorms and picking up Brynmor from the 'pet shop', Arthur still managed to find himself in the salle at his usual time. He'd invited Zack to show up, after all, and if even half of the usual crowd showed up he'd have plenty of distraction for the morning

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[blondecanary]

"Morning, Arthur." Dinah walked in rather than bouncing, last night's bout with Jen taking care of any possibility of that, and headed for the sword rack a little more cautiously than usual. Bruises, yay.

[bitch_prince]

Arthur watched her movements for a few moments, identifying what was what - showing up damaged to a training session, really, only he got to do that. "Dinah. Morning," he started. If she'd been a man, this would've been where he'd yell at her for a bit and then forced her to do the hardest drills he could think of.

This not being the case, he said, "Switch to your eskrima."

[blondecanary]

But but but sword! Dinah gave them a yearning look, hand already on one, then winced again. Damnit. She tried to think of an argument. Well. A good argument. The pull in her side settled it for her, and she reluctantly went over to her bag to pull out her sticks. "I would argue with you about learning to fight while I'm wounded and all, but. Ow, darnit." She muttered under her breath and approached the practice dummy, shaking out her shoulders, and starting the drill at half-speed. Ow.

[bitch_prince]

"You could have tried," Arthur agreed, "But you'd have lost."

Worst. Sword drills. He could have come up with. "You did get those bruises seen to, right?"

[formerbrat]

Elspeth arrived at the salle and after a few warm-ups, set to work attacking a dummy with a practice sword.

[bitch_prince]

"Lady Elspeth," Arthur called, once he'd noticed her. Mostly for the sake of politeness. "Good morning."

[formerbrat]

"Good morning, Prince Arthur," Elspeth said. She paused in her exercises. "Interested in a spar today?"

[bitch_prince]

"I've already made arrangements for the day," he said, which was actually true, and not just a good excuse to get out of fighting a girl (which it wasn't, all right?). "Maybe later this week."

[puppy_fair]

Zack had been invited, and so Zack was going to show up!

Funny how that worked, really, wasn't it?

He kind of bounded in, a little late because he'd had class earlier, with his sword at his back and a grin on his face.

"Hey, Arthur!"

[bitch_prince]

"Zack," Arthur greeted, feeling on slightly more steady ground after speaking to Reno ironies of ironies. "I see you've actually managed to remember we were supposed to spar today."

For Arthur, that was 'hi, how are you, nice to see you!'.

[puppy_fair]

Zack could only ever interpret that as such. Arthur was a pretty neat guy! Of course he was only teasing.

"Of course I did! I had to write it down, of course. Needed a map and everything."

No, he hadn't. He'd been looking forward to this since Arthur had invited him, and he'd hunted down the Salle to make sure he knew where it was that very same day. But the tone in his voice was light, and he was still grinning, so he was pretty sure it was clear that he was joking, anyhow.

"It's a pretty good setup in here, isn't it?"

[bitch_prince]

Arthur was having enormous trouble not grinning back as a matter of fact, which was why the edges of his mouth curled for a split second before he gained some control over them. "It'll do for our purposes," he said, glancing sideways. "I see you brought your blade?"

[flowering_mind]

Ino had been meaning to do this for weeks now, and despite someone else blonde and so not her friend being in the gym (radio was useful for seeing patterns!) she wasn't going to let that stop her from leaning in the door, and studying Arthur's fighting style interestedly.

All information was good information, really.

[bitch_prince]

That much was true. This, however, wasn't information Arthur minded getting out. In fact, he rather enjoyed it, because he knew he was good. No matter what the local standards, no one would take that from him.

He may have stepped it up just one notch because he realised someone was watching, but not enough to be utterly visible. He did have his pride in that.

[flowering_mind]

She settled herself a little more comfortably, totally disinclined to do anything but watch--talking was not learning, not in this case--and took mental notes.

And, alright, grudgingly admired the skill. But whatever.

[blondecanary]

Dinah noticed Ino, but wasn't about to break her routine for her. The eskrima might be getting an extra hard slap to the mannequin, but hey. That's what it was there for.