Jack Puts Me Through My Paces [open post]

[summerdude]

"Señor, you really should practice more," Jack says, as Magnus rearranges his mental notes and sighs.

(Anyone else might think Magnus is just lying back on a bench on the grounds, staring at the sky, lost in thought. And technically, he is. But he's working hard!!! He's trying to sort out everyone he's encountered so far!!!)

"You're right," Magnus groans. Being in a weird Mansion with no way out, no established Battle Practice, and no pressing quests to go on is not an excuse to let his limited fighting skills fall by the wayside. He hauls himself upright and shoves his (still largely blank) notebook into his backpack.

Twenty minutes later, he's secured a practice sword from some random closet or another in the Mansion. It's dull steel, not sentient, and heavy in his hands.

"Perfect," Jack decides, so Magnus tramps back out to the spacious lawn, one sword in each hand. Checking to make sure no one is directly in harm's way, he releases Jack and brings the dull training sword up, ready to parry whatever attack Jack decides to throw at him.

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[summerdude]

"Oh, I'd love to," Magnus says. "I need all the practice against different fighting styles I can get."

[timebethine]

"I'm afraid I have no other blades, though," says Laertes. "If Jack would consent ...?"

[summerdude]

"Jack?" Magnus asks. "Will Laertes suffer the usual consequences if he wields you now^*?"

Jack hums. "Probably not," he decides.

"And are you okay with him wielding you?" Quickly, Magnus adds, "I'm not giving you up, to be clear! This is just for a little bout."

"You better not be," Jack says, and floats up to Laertes. "Alright, big guy, let's see what you've got."

*Feeling the exertion of all of Jack's actions as if he were the one wielding him as those actions were taken, all at once.

[timebethine]

Laertes reaches out and grasps Jack by the hilt, feeling out the weight and balance of him, trying to decide whether he wants the power of a two-handed grip or the dexterity of a one-handed grip. At length, though, he brings his left hand up to balance the blade, and he makes a clean swordsman's salute. Assuming a thousand-year flood of violence doesn't immediately assail him, he flashes Magnus a grin and says, "Play, sir."

[summerdude]

It's a little weird to fight Jack when someone else is holding him, as it turns out! But Magnus has to get used to this, too. He won't have Jack come Ragnarok.

He grins back at Laertes and, training sword clutched firmly in just his left hand, makes an opening play.

[timebethine]

Although Magnus is a child, Laertes doesn't go easily on him--he's watched Magnus hold his own, and knows that he can take a real fight. (After all, Ragnarok won't pull its blows, either.) He answers with a flurry of heavy two-handed blows, pouring on strength to answer Magnus's speed.

[summerdude]

Oooh, Laertes is good. Magnus dances back, and then tries for another angle of attack, trying to knock him out of his stance.

[timebethine]

Unfurling easily into a one-handed stance, Laertes angles his body away from Magnus, leaving him to contend with only the blade. It's harder to wield this way--Laertes's wrist is used to the weight of a rapier, and Jack is a stouter blade--but his form remains impeccable. "Tricky," he says appreciatively, making a couple of noncommittal feints just to gauge how Magnus reacts.

[summerdude]

Magnus almost falls for the first feint, but he quickly catches onto how Laertes is holding himself beyond his judicious application of Jack. He tries for a move to draw Laertes in for an attack, instead -- Magnus has been practicing a disarming counterattack privately for weeks.

[timebethine]

And this much, Magnus will quickly learn--Laertes can be baited. He's an aggressive fencer, swift and punishing on the attack. (Magnus may also observe that, now that Laertes is fencing one-handed, he's mostly left off the sidelong hews and slashes of broadsword fencing, and his style tends to favor the thrusting movements needed to score with a rapier.) If Magnus should retreat, Laertes will advance.

[summerdude]

Magnus does retreat. This is an unfamiliar style of swordplay to him -- in Valhalla, the norm is less on swordplay and more on total defeat of enemies. It's a fun way to switch things up, though. Magnus has never been the one, on his floor, to go for the final kill -- usually he lets Jack take that on, while his own M.O. is more about disarming everyone with an accidental use of the Peace of Frey and trying not to die for as long as possible. So it's nice to be fighting with people who are also not going for a final kill -- they're just enjoying the... game, really.

He shifts his grip on his practice sword, and waits for Laertes to charge.

[timebethine]

And charge he does, eating up the ground between them to feint at Magnus's gut and then try to score a touch on the shoulder opposite.

[summerdude]

Magnus engages carefully, blocking Laertes and then immediately twisting his sword, trying to pull Jack out of Laertes's hands and fling him (as much as anyone can fling Jack by physical means alone) to the side.

[timebethine]

If Jack had been a basket-hilted rapier, that move wouldn't have worked--but between the basic crossguard and the extra weight of the weapon, Laertes isn't prepared for a disarming strike. Jack goes flying, and Laertes raises his hands immediately. "I surrender," he says, grinning. "Thou art a fine swordsman."

[summerdude]

"Wow," Magnus says, staring after Jack as Jack flies back to hover next to them both. He has a dumbfounded sort of grin on his face. "I've never managed to do that before."

He gives Laertes a sort of awkward half-bow. "Thanks, dude. That was... so cool. Very fun. You're also very good."

[timebethine]

"Clearly no match for an einherji," Laertes admits readily. "But little pleases me so well as crossing blades with an able foe."

[summerdude]

Magnus is uncomfortable with the compliment -- he's pretty sure it was mostly luck -- but he swallows the discomfort in favor of a smile. "I don't have a lot of practice just fighting other people for fun," he says. At least, not before the Mansion. "Also, usually my opponents are wielding, like, battle-axes or chunks of masonry or really sharp sickles or -- you get the picture. Not swords. So this was great."

[timebethine]

"Fencing is nothing like battle," Laertes agrees. "I would make a poor soldier indeed; I have no training in surviving when my life is at stake."

[summerdude]

Survival isn't the primary interest of most einherjar -- dying gloriously is -- but Magnus appreciates the sentiment nonetheless. "That's good," he says, and means it^*.


*Magnus, who still has not made the connection about where Laertes comes from, has interpreted this to mean that Laertes has never had his life at stake.

[timebethine]

"Wouldst like a sparring partner?" Laertes asks. "I practice often with Sagramore, but soon we'll grow used to each other's cuts and thrusts; I'd welcome another blade to cross with mine."<sup>1

1</sup> That would be a reasonable assumption, given what Laertes has said before about having watched his agemates go off to war--he himself has never been imperiled.

[summerdude]

"That would be awesome," Magnus enthuses. "Literally anytime." Something occurs to him, and he adds, "Actually, I had a bit of a fun little bout with that boyfriend of yours earlier today. If both of you ever wanted to do a three-way, I'd be down for that, too."

He pauses as his words catch up to him. Face flaming, he corrects, "Like, a melee fight. Free-for-all type deal. Not, uh, the other thing. I'm very committed to Alex."

[timebethine]

Laertes makes a face like his stomach just tried to crawl up into his mouth. "Yes, a melee," he manages. "Let me not scold thee about the other thing; I am no fit model to instruct thee."

[summerdude]

"Yeah, sure, great, uh-huh, yep, mhmm, absolutely," Magnus says. His face is absolutely still burning. "Sounds good! It's a date! I mean... gods."

[timebethine]

"Magnus," says Laertes, holding in laughter by a single fraying thread, "stop, ere thy mouth o'errun thy brain."

[summerdude]

Magnus gives in to his most base and primal urge: he groans, loud and long, resting his forehead in his free hand a teensy bit dramatically. What is wrong with me??? he thinks. "I've been training too hard," he says, adapting a self-deprecating tone. "It's making me hemorrhage brain cells."