lukeoutbelow | Do not be afraid of light

Do not be afraid of light

They smelled the battlefield long before they saw it. The apprentices and little Sisters who hadn't been on this kind of excursion before covered their noses and exclaimed. Vena didn't. As the child of a camp follower she would know to expect this, but her tread slowed and she looked repeatedly at Sister Lashan, especially as the sound of incredible numbers of crows cawing grew louder.

"Nasty, isn't it? Decay is part of death which is part of life," Lashan said firmly, if not totally without sympathy. How young had she been, the last time she was upset by the aftermath of battle? "There's armies that immediately turn around and sort the living from the dying from the dead and take care of that then and there. Not here, they're leaving it for the locals to handle or not and we're local enough. If you fight, you may well fight for people who'll leave you if you fall and move on. Make sure you at least have friends who'll look for you." They pressed on with their wagon. The donkey put its ears back but did not balk.

It wasn't as bad as it would get over the next few days. The bodies - it was now academic who had belonged to which side of whichever meaningless conflict this was - were not much bloated and decayed yet. Flies were not yet overwhelming. Right now the field of bodies was mostly attended by carrion birds, and various other birds that were willing to take advantage of the bounty before them. Finches among them, tiny beaks dipped red. A few other people could be seen picking their way across what had been a perfectly useable pasture. They kept clear. Lashan tasked girls to keep watch for them anyway, pretended not to see the ones who were being sick, and oversaw as dead men were loaded onto the donkeycart. They'd take them away a distance, say the rites, strip them of useful things, get them buried, and come back.

She paused. Something... like a sound. Not a sound. Lashan was hearing something with her mind, closer than the pickers. A threat? She stood like a sentinel and paid attention.

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“Pull! Pull with everything you’ve got!” he shouts to Galli as soon as he sees a few of them start to trip up in front. Before more appear or they regain their stability!

He clenches his teeth and gives the rope a strong yank as he takes a step back, hoping their opportunity would build upon itself. His whole body had started to burn after the second round of giving and trading. One of them will have to give in soon!

He had mercifully been too focused staring ahead to hear the commentary, or he might have slipped out of sheer embarrassment.

A noisy chorus of shrieks and yells erupts from the other side. They scrabble and kick and slide around! Someone sits down to try and make more drag! Altogether they've lost their collective flow, which was their advantage here. Guts has a lower voice and this is nothing to the noise of the battlefield, he cuts through their shouts easily.

Galli doubles backwards like a bow, yelping hoarsely with the effort. Inexorably, the lead girl is pulled forwards into the vaguely delineated contested zone, despite new girls trying to wriggle in for handholds. There's more yelling. When her feet go over, widely spaced and churning wet earth like plowshares, some of the girls see their loss and let go to take the pressure off their stinging arms and palms.

There's suddenly a lot more slack and Galli, no longer monitoring the other side, loses her footing hard enough to end up flat on her back and skidding into Guts' ankles.

Huo is clear and will keep pulling regardless. He's finally tucked his toy clumsily under one arm so he could grip the knot at the end of the rope with both hands.

That's it! They did it! But despite feeling some of the rope slacken and attempting to correct for it, he doesn't adjust quite in time to avoid being disbalanced by Galli at his ankles.

Guts is the next domino to trip and fall, most of his back landing in the mud with a plop and one arm falling messily on Galli, draped with rope and all around her shoulders. The rope itself is now mostly slack, though one hand of his refuses to let go, looking rather red on the palm. Had he been any less tired, he would have remembered to jerk away from the two of them touching.

As it was, all he could focus on for a few seconds was getting some air into his lungs, not even minding the warmth of another human for the time being.

"Did we win?" he pipes out, finally.

Watchers laugh even even as they start a smattering of applause and cheers. Huo's end of the rope gradually loses its slack as the kid laboriously and inexpertly pulls some back, and lets go so it lies on the ground, and grabs a little further on to pull back. This is an important task he addresses quite seriously.

Galli is seized with some half cousin to terror and struck still. She stares up at the gray sky, forced to blink as water drips in her eyes, and doesn't move beyond to gasp like a fish. It is possible she will die, of that feeling or of the embarrassment that's circling right outside of it like a rat looking for a treat.

"We won!" Huo chirps, finally pulling this link of the line taut and bouncing it as he shakes the knot up and down. Hesri laughs and says, "Yes, yes, the boys and Galli won this one! Wow! You are strong!"

The girls on the other end have abandoned the rope to rub sore hands, lay back, walk around as each to her nature, and several of them groan as Hesri makes it official. They don't actually seem unhappy, though, and there are some enthusiastic hugs and a little bit of jumping up and down.

He eventually lets go of the rope along with Huo, feeling his hands shake and sting from the effort. It was all the exertion of training without so much of the bloodied, life or death danger to it. Planting both hands into the mud, he sits up and manages to choke out a small and genuine laugh.

“That was fun. But I think we got lucky.”

Guts isn’t sure he could pull that off a second time the way he was now. Maybe after more rest. When he turns to look at Galli, he notices her frozen expression.

“Hey, you there? Hit your head on a rock or something?” He waves a muddy hand in front of her face.

Edited 2022-11-28 08:40 (UTC)

Various girls watching Guts laugh in response, sigh, hide their faces, double over against each other, that kind of thing. He's got a short cough of a laugh, like someone who doesn't do it much. It's going to get replayed in a lot of heads. At least four girls present are going to get really into mimicking it.

"Uh huh," Galli says indistinctly, less in actual response and more because she's being addressed and should respond. She's turned a blotchy color under the spattered mud and is radiating heat. "I'm fine. Just leave me here."

Huo really wants to talk to him about the experience of both being boys and other small children are about to crowd in fearless and starry-eyed, largely ignoring Hesri who'd like to keep order.

A simple shrug in response - Guts' wordless expression of 'suit yourself'. Maybe she was enjoying the cool rain. Looking up at the sky, surrounded by the festive laughter, he certainly seemed satisfied letting the refreshing drops coat his muddied skin. It eased the burning inside.

His position in the mud left him vulnerable to being surrounded by the small children swarming him, momentary peace interrupted. He was around eye-level to them, rather than towering above, which left him surrounded by a lot of tiny and curious faces with perfect opportunities to talk.

"Hey," he warns them, "Don't get too handsy."

It wasn't a snobbish gesture - much like Galli, he seems to tense up a bit at any tugs at his clothes or arms. The bombardment of 'Can you pick up a horse?' and 'What about pulling a bunch of logs?' 'No no, hauling a big rock!' type questions were quickly getting overwhelming for someone unused to the energy of excited children. Guts never thought he could feel so claustrophobic from just a bunch of voices and excited faces. Even when he was a child, he tended to be on the quieter side.

"Okay, okay, come on everyone, let's not be rude," the burned girl says as she takes pity and wades in, leaning down and putting her crabbed hands on little shoulders. The less bold of the small children cling to her long skirts or hide behind her. "Who can tell me the rule? No touching, Noooo tooouching... that's right, no touching when someone says no. It makes people feel bad. I saw that!" she adds sharply, because while a number of the littles recalled what manners were and recited the rule as they fell back a bit, a mischievous finger did just poke Guts.

The girls who aren't fascinated by the sight of him are dispersing back to smaller games. Hesri recruits some of those to divert at least some of the littles, who're happy to be called on and played with. When the under four feet crowd is thinner Hesri, still turning her head so her bad side is mostly concealed, asks "Do you want to try again? She's had enough, I think."

Galli has moved, but mainly to smear mud on her face in an attempt to cool it. Being left alone seems to be helping. She's pulled her knees up, which is an important step in the process of getting up. A few of the little kids are circled around her instead.

"Hey."

The perpetrator of the poke doesn't get off without a frown in her direction, to emphasize the point. Once the children were mostly done accosting him with questions, he gives Galli another look from a corner-glance over his shoulder, quite comfortable in her place in the mud.

Now that he'd caught his breath some, Guts goes and gets to his feet - though the action made him sharply aware that the soreness from the previous day hadn't gone anywhere. He seems pensive at Hesri's question. Trying once out of curiosity was fine, but continuing to play silly games just seemed like such a childish thing to do. He wasn't a kid.

"Is there really nothing else to do in this village but goof off?" he asks incredulously. No work for them to get busy with?

The poke girl retreats but giggling, and sticks her tongue out. It's questionable whether she has learned anything.

"Is it so hard to pay attention to anything else when you're training?" Hesri wants to know, her head tilting. There's no rebuke in the question, she just seems puzzled. "There's plenty to do, and there are Sisters in the fields and the loomhouse right now. But we try to get everyone at least an hour or so to have fun every day anyway, except during the harvest or in some kind of disaster. These are the littles and most of the athletic girls - surely you can see how pulling a rope or wrestling isn't a waste of time."

It's probably more obvious to someone who's so embraced the community. ...Behind Hesri and some looky-loos, a small child is running after some slightly older girls, all of them shrieking gleefully as the little one tries to smear mud on them. Very practical, clearly. She has to raise her voice a bit more to be heard. "You have to save up the light before the fire takes you!"

"Oh, no, not the fire metaphors," Galli mutters, just loudly enough that Guts might pick it up. Recovered enough to move she lurches upright, bringing about half the mucky field with her on her back. "I'm going to wash off! This is going to itch when it dries!"

Guts supposes he can see how it works for them. Village life really had its own cadence to it. It was almost sleepy in its routines, even with much of the day occupied by some kind of work. Though maybe that could have been because he spent plenty of time in the infirmary resting. He could observe without being absorbed in the banality of tending to plants or baking bread, or whatever other boring chore they were doing.

Without realizing he was almost begging for another fire metaphor from Hesri, he says:

"I'm feeling pretty warmed up, but I guess... Training never felt this cheery."

It either had the pressure of trying to prove himself, or a trance-like meditation, or something else. It was never jovial or playful, even if there were triumphant moments sometimes. Even if it felt right.

Wrestling with the girls admittedly seemed like a strange concept, even if he was a step closer to admitting he wouldn't mind another game. He just wasn't sure how to approach it.

Galli makes her escape and is only a little bit sorry that Guts doesn't come with her to trade who gets to pour a bucket on who. She will, unfortunately, dwell on that image for much longer than she'd prefer.

"I hope you like training, it feels good to move your body and be strong sometimes. Um, 'you' as in 'anyone'. But..." Hesri considers seriously, idly ruffling the hair of a toddler who hugs her waist. She's not keeping her bad side as sharply turned away, by this point, so her expression seems uglier than her eyes or voice suggest. "Some of it is that it's just good to do things with people who don't want to kill you. I, hah, I know what a difference that makes! And sometimes feelings kindle from one person to the next."

She turns her head to track a scuffle - as someone with an interest in child-minding there are several demands for her attention - and doesn't feel the need to intervene yet, but is half distracted anyway as she muses. "You know, if you put one stick in the fire it burns up all at once. Bundled together they last longer and are brighter. We're all ash in the end, but... mm, I need to work on that one."

If Guts was bothered at all by the scarring, he wasn't showing it.

"I do like it." he says to Hesri. "Easy way to keep the head quiet."

Maybe not the answer she meant exactly, but it was the honest one. Plenty of dark and difficult days were worked through by focusing only on the sword in his hands. He supposes this was something of a middle ground, even if he sacrifices peaceful solitude.

He... thinks he gets the latest metaphor. Somewhat. He's not sure if he believes it entirely. He felt just fine until he got here, smouldering on his own. But as long as he was stuck here, may as well alleviate the boredom with something familiar.

"So do people just jump in, or what?" he asks her, watching the girls scuffle in the mud. Would it even feel fair to join them?

"Don't exactly know all the other sticks around here."

He gets a rare unselfconscious half smile, if just for a moment. Hesri knows about trying to quiet her head, though it's not likely to be the same.

It does seem risky and dubious to actually have Guts wrestle. Frankly, most of the Sisters doing it are inexpert. They haven't had to go body-to-body to survive and are at most trying to pin each other down. He would win and it might hurt and be terrifying, not fun at all.

"You could arm-wrestle me," the young woman suggests after a moment of hesitation. "Obviously you'll win. But if you can do it without hurting me others will want to try it. And that means you'll know them, and if they know you won't scorch them too painfully someone will want to see what they can learn from you."

Hesri is taller than him and her upper arms are more substantial than her hands would suggest, but it is obvious who the victor would be. A small child says "Or me! Me, me!" and she has to tell her, "When you're older. This is a big girls game" and is shown a big pout.

Is this what he wants? For some random village girls to learn from him? Lashan did mention the sorry state of their guard forces, taught too late to properly hone their skills with a sword.

This could be another way to pay back the old bag's hospitality, he supposes. Keep himself busy and leave them a little more ready to fight. Ordinarily, he'd be too impatient. Too haughty and annoyed and ready to move on to real action to bother with babysitting villagers unable to defend themselves proper. Even now, the thought makes his hackles rise a little, especially after the rivalry bubbling in the last week.

But, he finds himself not wanting to leave just yet.

"Um. Sure. But why play the game if you don't think you'll win?"

Maybe he should wait for the rope again. The girls could be quite a force when they coordinated together - be it pulling a rope or trying to kill him.

"The only victory I care about is that the fire hasn't taken me today, and that seems pretty certain. Not that I'm just going to give in! Only don't break my arm. I saw that happen once, before," she says lightly. "A pair of drovers at my, at a tavern got competitive. But you're not drunk and I don't have much feeling in my hands anyway, so I'm sure it will be fine."

Hesri makes some arrangements and has to pause to distract a small child who's started crying for reasons of being very young and full of emotions and a lack of understanding how to regulate them. She's very patient with little kids, her cheerful, encouraging tone never slipping.

Usually the girls only get particularly into arm wrestling in the iciest, most appalling parts of winter, but they know what's required. They bring things out, mainly from the stables, none of it specifically made with this purpose in mind. Not that anything too specific is needed.

"How's this. Bring the back of my hand to the table in exactly ten seconds. If it's less, that doesn't count. If I make you take any longer, that counts as a victory." A controlled effort will probably be harder for him than just slamming her hand down.

Tiny Nerine, who's really no bigger than Vena, watches intently with her brow furrowed, and is promptly appointed to count down. "And be fair about it now!"

"I'm always fair," Nerine says darkly. She's still got some bruising on her face.

Experience has given him the sense to not ask what Hesri's deal with fire was, but some part of him remains inescapably curious.

"Sure. That makes it more interesting." He agrees easily in response to the terms, though Nerine gets a doubtful glance from him on whether or not it'd be fair. None of these were real fighting lessons, he reminds himself. It was just a game.

Although Hesri had some height on him, when they sit at the table and lock hands, he finds his palm and fingers wrapping around hers more extensively than expected at first glance. The ointment underneath her bandages felt slippery, making the grip a bit odd when the prolonged hand-holding was already a little awkward. The calluses roughening the texture of his palms weren't going to help much between the oil and the rain.

When he looks up, the first thing he notes up close is that her eyes seem almost as orange as the flames that had licked her skin. There was something mysterious about her. And then the count begins.

He pays close attention to their hands. The time limit leaves his own hovering easily at the center for a few seconds while waiting for the seconds to tick down. Around four or five is when some proper torque is put in ( a thing he mentions between one of the rounds - if she tilts her wrist a certain way, she could make more use of her leverage ).

And although the test of strength was uneven, Guts' sense of time apparently ran on the short side. Impatient. Hot-blooded, even if he was being careful. The first non-victory aggravated the next, leading to one slipped delay when Hesri got the better wrist position just long enough for the ten seconds to lapse. Was he actually going to lose this one? Stupid! They switch hands and go one more.

"That was ten." he shoots Nerine an aggravated look, feeling like he was being goaded on purpose. "Did you learn to count where you learned to fight?"

Edited 2022-12-01 22:12 (UTC)

Sisters gather, taking the little ones aside. This isn't a time to have small children climbing into laps. The sight of the Boy's biceps in action, and of the mud drying in flakes and scales across his broad back and chest, is not lost on many girls old enough to really notice. Even a lot of the ones who wouldn't have expected themselves to be interested have a bit of aesthetic appreciation, or take notes on their Sisters. There are some whispers and shushed giggles.

Hesri's thumbs are relatively normal if discolored, but under the bandages her palms are small and hard with scar tissue, and she's got bony fingers that don't fully uncurl or clasp strongly. Guts has to do most of the holding, and whether that makes things more or less uncomfortable is up to him. She bears that discomfort, chalking it up to unease about how messed up her body is; lots of people don't like to touch her. Regardless she does give it a good effort, sweat breaking out across her forehead as she strains against his arm. A disbelieving smile plays along the good half of her mouth when she manages to stall past the ten second mark the second time.

She's had to assure watchers that she's fine more than once. Nerine has not been among those asking. The smaller girl gets in close and stares at each contest without blinking until they end, and is all of about a foot and a half away when Guts challenges her judgement. Straightening, she says, "You're going to eat those words. You and me, Mister Boy."

Nerine is about Vena's height but wiry. So, she's almost two feet shorter than Guts is and probably weighs as much as one of his arms. On the plus side her movements are precise and quick, purposeful in a way the ten year old's just aren't. There's a poised, birdlike aspect to her even when she's standing still.

Having sighed in relief and leaned back once she was released from this latest round, Hesri's eyes widen. "Oh dear. Nerine, lovey, are you... you're sure. Okay, we're going to need to set up some ground rules here. Ah..."

"No biting," someone suggests, and then it seems like everyone has an idea and they all say it at once. No knives. Nothing below the belt. No punching. No tit-punches comes up several times, and while a lot of anxious glances travel over Guts, at that one actually Nerine is the recipient of several dirty looks. No throat-grabs. She looks increasingly disgusted as this goes on but doesn't back down.

Galli has returned somewhere in this, wet and with wet clothes clinging to her. She looks appalled but raises her voice. "Deflagging! The winner has to get a sash off the loser."

Mister Boy was a lot less forgivable when it was her saying it.

"Don't think I'll go easy just 'cause you're an ankle biting twerp."

Nerine brings out his antagonistic side easily. Somehow. Whatever gentleness he'd shown with Hesri appears to have evaporated, trading in that cautious awkwardness with the combative menace they'd found buried in the battlefield a week ago. He at least settles when Galli arrives (freshly showered) to help set the ground rules. He is using more bark than bite here, but the barking was pretty emphatic.

Arms crossed and breaking out the Full Frown, he mostly acquiesces to the rules of the latest game he was yanked into. No punching, no punching tits (does this even apply to either of them?) no throat grabs. He only complains when Headbutting is axed off the list, because: 'How'm I supposed to give her rematch a fitting end? This's barely even a fight.'

But fine! Fine. It's a game. Not a lesson in proper combat. So beyond a vocal complaint, it looks like he'll be getting sashed up.

Nerine curls her lip as if imitating Hesri's scar-pulled mouth and stands unmoved, her hands at her sides, fairly vibrating with anticipation. 'No punching tits' does not in fact look like it'll be difficult for him, she does not have enough to speak of, but if she did she's so short that he could've backhanded them without raising his arm.

"Why are you still topless? Never mind," Galli says, determined not to get weird about it even as various onlookers snicker. She holds up something like a long handkerchief, rumpled and damp without being fouled. "Here, let me show you the flag knot. You go like this, and this..." She ties it loosely around her hand and inserts her other hand to show that the knot isn't giving, then tugs on one of the trailing ends. It comes apart immediately.

"Tie it where you like. What is she - what a freak!" That last is muttered, as very abruptly Nerine has turned away and found a puddle of watery mud, stirred it up and splashed some on her arms, and then just flopped into it and started rolling around. When she rises to tie a sash around her waist, she's so coated that she's a monotone dripping gray-brown.

Hesri lets out a breath in not quite a sigh. "Don't call her that. She just burns hotter than most of us in some regards. It makes her care about some things more than others." Addressing Guts directly she says, "You won't hurt her too much, will you? She's more capable than she looks but..."

After Galli's explanation, Guts decides to wrap the 'flag' like a headband, because screw making it easy for this girl in particular. She'll have to jump high if she wants to get her victory. The trailing ends fall over the back of his neck.

"That's why, since you were askin'." He jabs a thumb at Nerine smothering herself in mud, a delayed response to Galli's 'topless' question. That mud that will inevitably end up all over him in short order. He brushes the drying dirt off his shoulders, exposing a bit more skin to the sun, and makes his way over to his tiny opponent.

Hesri catches him before the start of the round, and the earnestness of the question manages to strum some guilt out of him. She was too kind-hearted. In truth, even focusing on the ten-second rule she'd set still didn't leave him feeling right. The weak grip of her hands and the burns of her skin made him feel like he was beating down on a sick or injured person. At least Nerine was feisty enough to make him feel annoyed at her instead.

"It's just a contest." he ends up saying with a shrug. In his head, that draws a line between game and proper duel.

Seeing that Guts has made his flag into a headband, Nerine, dripping, makes eye contact and undoes hers, then reties it around one of her thighs. He was going to have to reach down pretty far either way, so this is mainly a petty gesture.

Hesri looks from one of his eyes to the other and makes a little concerned sound, but steps back and leaves them to it anyway. Her bandages are disarrayed and some of the harsh-smelling ointment under them has gotten squeezed out or soaked through, leaving them darker and smudged. Someone helps her get mitts over them so she won't annoint everything she touches but she's going to get them rewrapped soon.

With the rain cleared up and the sun coming out, the day is becoming humid and sticky. Girls fan themselves and make a circle to watch and talk in whispers and murmurs. Someone's taking bets and another forgets to hush her voice saying "-but have you looked at him? Come on."

Nerine appears not to have heard or cared about any of it now that those ground rules have been laid out. Her eyes, as big and bright and unspeaking as a fox's, flick over Guts and his frown and then, to the side, where horses that had the good sense to stay out of the rain are venturing out of the stable, and she says, "On the roof. I know you climbed that one. Let's go!"

"Hey," Hesri says instantly, but Nerine's already gone, threading through her bigger Sisters and scaling the wall like it's a ladder. Literally none of the girls are into this, though Galli starts to laugh in disbelief.

Edited 2022-12-04 19:09 (UTC)

"You sure she ain't some kinda rat?"

Guts watches her with a slight disbelief - it's like Nerine gained the ability to scurry up walls with her rodent abilities. Well, fine. If she really wants to injure herself up there, he's not gonna stop her. He follows in a straightforward fashion: jumping up and catching the end of the roof, pulling up to the top with a little momentum. The bruises didn't hurt his sides as much as the raw spear wound.

With their new contest location set, he catches the sight of Galli down below, waiting for her to officially announce the start of their contest. His footing was a bit less even, but it was also less slippery without the mud around. He realizes Nerine would have an easier time scrawling around on her short legs. She probably planned that the whole time, he thinks.

She's aggressive, but so is he, and so the two crash into each other in chaotic fashion. Nerine trying to dive between his legs, Guts trying to get a hold on her clothes. She is slippery and nimble and close to the ground, but he has plenty of reach to make up for it. At one point, he manages to seize a fistful of muddy cloth in a grip strong enough to rip a piece out of the fabric when she manages to wriggle free. Escape, but at the cost of a clean hem!

Some of the particulars of the rules become forgotten between the two of them - Nerine lands a good enough elbow into the bruised side of his ribs to make him flinch. There might have been a nip of teeth and a punch somewhere in there. She later manages to scale up his back after landing a good blow to the side. A ribbon within reach! Until he twists around violently enough to accidentally hit something soft with his elbow and lose his balance at the same time. Slipping!

"Fuck-!" is the last thing he yells as he falls with Nerine attached. Luckily, the two land harmlessly in a pile of wet hay as a mismatched tangle of limbs.

"The roofs are mine," Nerine hisses in that brief period before Galli decides there's nothing more to be done and calls out "Start!"

On the ground, there are exchanges such as "Wanna climb up?" "And get kicked in the face?" The Sisters retreat far enough to be able to watch without crimping their necks and mostly seeing overhanging roof. The view is not as good from this distance and with all the movement it's harder to savor details. They commence to mostly cheering Nerine. Difficult as she can be, she is still one of them. And she's putting on a great show of that in-your-face agility that makes her such trouble to spar against. "She was a robber, right?" "No, a burglar, there's a difference. Robbers make threats. She came over the roofs and just broke into things." "If she was sneaking around why's she like that?" and etc. They gasp and protest at appropriate moments.

Galli's attention isn't on the tiny girl. She sighs, "He fought a bear for no reason, I guess there wasn't any way he could be normal," and feels a twinge go right up her spine. This has been a day of discovery for Galli. Hesri is having a worse time, joggling a little kid against her hip and running disaster scenarios in her head. She'll have to send someone to the Healers...

It is a particular quirk of Nerine that in moments of real exertion and upset she cannot say cool things in a cool, held-together voice. She yelps "Waugh! Mom!" as she loses balance and tries catlike to claw her way up Guts. And then they hit the hay. Nerine is... absolutely gonna keep trying to grab his headband. She's not done yet!

There had been some shrieks of horror from the peanut gallery but now they've gone silent. "What do you naliz think you're doing?" asks one of the conjoined Healer-twins. With frigid dignity the other says "Are you trying to break your backs?"

Giving no sign that she hadn't ambled casually over, Lashan says "Oh, no, don't mind me. They've got 'concerned' and 'angry' out of the way and that means I'm free to laugh."

Guts shoots up into a sitting position, spitting out pieces of straw that had gotten into his mouth. The wet strips are stuck to his hair and any other part of him that had gotten slightly wet from rolling around with little Nerine.

The admonishment from the twins goes right over his head, but he's distracted for a moment by Lashan approaching the scene. Distracted long enough for a hand to reach in and tug the headband off him while it was within reach. Success!

"Hey-" he turns to Nerine, scowling. Goes quiet. Then lets out a loud snort that might have been misconstrued for a laugh if the earlier example hadn't been heard. Did they really just do that?

"Fine, rat girl. You earned it."

But at what cost? Never the graceful loser, Guts decides to get his revenge by scooping her into a headlock and messing up the girl's hair as vigorously as he can. Like hell he was going to let her enjoy her victory without a light knuckle grind to the top of the head. Real battles didn't have clean rules!

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