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Post by Linyü on Dec 31, 2022 22:55:07 GMT -6
Now that she had pointed it out and Seveth tried to imagine an opponent with a sword, he realized that she was right. The knife didn't give him any reach. Anyone with a longer weapon -- which, let's be honest, was most of them -- would be able to stick him a lot faster than he'd be able to stick them.
"What's this thing good for then anyway?" he said, still smiling, though his words this time were less of a joke than he would have liked. There must have been a reason for San to pick the knife as his weapon of choice. Reach wasn't it, so there had to be something else it offered. Right?
"It's easy to hide," said Rei.
"Ah, the good ol' element of surprise." Seveth studied the knife. "Say, you guys weren't like career bank robbers or anything, were you? You'd tell me if you were, right?"
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Post by Linyü on Dec 31, 2022 23:01:56 GMT -6
Rei didn't even grace that one with a response. But she did keep going, to his mild surprise. "Knives are light, so they're fast." And then, after a pause: "You... can throw them. But San said it's too early for you."
"San would say that," Seveth said, sighing dramatically. He let his arms drop with the sigh, both to add to the gesture and so he could stop having to hold them up. It was tiring, maintaining that position for any extended period of time... Though, weirdly, it wasn't as tiring as he was expecting. Nothing ever was, anymore. It was strange, living in a body that did workouts when you weren't around for it; weirder still to reap the benefits even though he hadn't put in any of the effort. "I guess I can't blame him though. I did cut myself pretty badly when I found his knives before."
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Post by Linyü on Dec 31, 2022 23:05:42 GMT -6
"Yes," said Rei, and -- it was a funny thing, that. Her voice was the same quiet, soft pitch it usually was, and Seveth had grown used to the lack of... what, feeling? Affect? Something like that. But in that one word, there was a sudden sense of something that sent a shiver of fear down Seveth's spine. He didn't even know what it was, exactly, but she sounded almost... angry. He didn't think he'd ever seen her actually angry before, not even that time he talked her into entering that one contest with him. San had been livid after, but if anything, he thought Rei was guilty over her part in it, even though realistically it had pretty much entirely been Seveth's fault.
"Ah. Ahaha, um, well... At least I'm learning the proper knife etiquette now! Won't happen again, you know." He laughed, though it sounded nervous even to himself.
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Post by Linyü on Dec 31, 2022 23:13:21 GMT -6
"No," said Rei, which was equally ominous. And, okay, maybe he hadn't thought about what her reaction would have been to his little mishap until now, but it made sense that she would be angry. He had known all along that she and San were close, even though he was hazy on the specifics of it. Or rather, he had thought that he'd known. Now, faced with her displeasure, he realized that there had been a fundamental misconception in the way that he had pictured their dynamic. San was protective of Rei, obviously, but that protectiveness went both ways. The reverse was just a little harder to swallow, since San was so much harder to hurt.
Reminding Rei of the incident turned out to be a bad idea. She went back to instructing him on the basics of wielding a knife, but now that instruction was faster, and more unforgiving.
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Post by Linyü on Dec 31, 2022 23:16:41 GMT -6
The reprimands came faster when he didn't do something to her satisfaction, and most of what he did do amounted to assuming the ready position, then crab-walking around from side to side to practice moving around like that. It was, as with many things, easier to do than Seveth thought it would be upon first picturing it, though that still didn't make it pleasant. After a while, his thighs started to feel tired, and an ache was starting to settle into his shoulders too.
"Don't stop moving," Rei said. Just a little while ago, he had been thinking that he'd never heard her speak sharply before -- or what passed for sharp with Rei, anyway. Now he was having trouble remembering a time when she had spoken to him in any other tone. Seveth took another step to the side, though he didn't have anything like a plan in mind of where he was going.
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