In Kuroinu

"Draw your sword."

Leonora was standing in the clearing we'd camped in with her own blade out and her feet set. She'd taken off her outer armor and was in her undershirt and trousers and boots and she was looking at me the way she'd been looking at me for the past two days, which was the way you look at a math equation that gives a different answer every time you solve it.

"Now?" I said. I was holding a piece of bread Mila had made for breakfast.

"Now."

"It's morning."

"Combat doesn't wait for your schedule."

Filia sat down on a root. She had a strip of dried meat in one hand and she bit off a piece and chewed and settled in like she was watching theater.

Llusse was already climbing a tree. She got to a branch about fifteen feet up and straddled it and leaned forward with her elbows on the bark and her chin on her hands.

"This should be good," she said.

Tianne looked between me and Leonora. "Should I prepare healing supplies?"

"Won't be necessary," Leonora said.

"She means it'll be over fast," Llusse said from the tree.

"I meant the sparring will be controlled."

"Sure." Llusse's ears were forward.

I put the bread down. Drew my sword.

Leonora watched how I drew. How I held it. Where my weight was.

"Your stance is better than it was at the capital," she said. "You're holding it like a trained swordswoman."

"I've been practicing."

"With Filia?"

"Among others."

She didn't believe me. The timeline didn't work. Weeks of casual practice don't produce this stance and she knew it.

She came at me.

Fast. Leonora was fast in a way that made Filia look like she was thinking about her movements. Leonora didn't think. Her body moved and the sword followed and the first strike was a diagonal slash that I barely got my blade up for and the impact rang up my arms and into my shoulders.

I parried. Stepped back. She followed. Another slash, lower, and I turned it aside and the opening was there and I took it, a thrust at her midsection that she deflected without looking like she'd noticed.

My reflexes were sharp. Filia's instincts firing through the Blessing, the muscle memory of a woman who'd trained since childhood. Llusse's speed giving my arms a quickness they hadn't earned. I was good. Three weeks ago I couldn't hold a sword properly.

But Leonora was better.

Every technique I had, she had a counter for. Every opening I created, she'd left on purpose. I lunged and she wasn't there. I swept low and she was already high. I tried Filia's favorite combination and Leonora stepped inside it and disarmed me.

My sword hit the ground. Her foot kicked it away. She swept my legs and I was face-down in the dirt with her knee on my back and my right arm twisted behind me and I couldn't move.

Filia took another bite of dried meat.

From the tree Llusse said "That was fast" in a voice that was equal parts impressed and entertained.

Leonora's knee was on my spine. Heavy. She was breathing hard, which was the only concession to the effort I'd given her. My face was in the dirt and the leaves and the forest floor smelled like wet earth and fungi and her weight was on my back and her grip on my arm was steel.

She leaned down.

"How are you growing this fast?"

Her breath on my ear. Her knee shifted. Her grip on my wrist tightened. Salt and leather and the metal of her blade guard, close.

"Natural talent?" I said. Into the dirt.

She pressed harder. My shoulder joint protested.

"Lie to me again."

I twisted my head to look at her. She was right there. Dark eyes close to mine. Jaw set. Hair falling forward past her ear. Sweat on her temple. Her weight on my back and her hand on my wrist and she was holding me down and her face was six inches from mine and neither of us moved.

One second. Two. Three.

"GET A ROOM."

Llusse. From the tree.

Leonora released me like I was on fire. She was on her feet and three steps away before I'd rolled onto my back. She brushed her trousers. Straightened her undershirt. Her back was to me and her shoulders were set and the tips of her ears were red.

"Adequate," she said. She picked up her sword and walked to the perimeter and began checking the camp boundary markers with the focus of someone who desperately needed to be doing something with her hands.

I lay on the ground. The sky was canopy and fungi and two pairs of amused elven eyes peering down before they disappeared.

Filia was still eating.

"Forty seconds," she said. "Not bad."

"She kicked my ass."

"She kicked your ass in forty seconds. A month ago she'd have done it in five."

Llusse dropped from her branch and landed beside me and crouched and her green eyes were bright.

"She was on top of you," she said.

"She was pinning me. It's a combat technique."

"She was ON TOP of you. And she leaned down. And her mouth was right by your ear."

"It's an interrogation position."

"It's a position." Llusse stood up and brushed off her knees. "I'm just saying."

"You're not saying anything."

"I'm saying she could have asked you from standing. She chose to lean down." She walked away. Stopped. Turned back. "Also your face is in the dirt and you have a leaf in your hair."

She walked to the fire and sat down and started cleaning her bow.

Tianne appeared with a wet cloth and knelt beside me and started wiping the dirt off my face. Her touch was efficient and gentle and the cloth was warm from the fire.

"You lasted longer than I expected," she said.

"Thanks."

"She's very good."

"I noticed."

"Your stance was impressive though. The first three exchanges were clean."

"Before she corrected me."

Tianne wrung out the cloth. "There's a difference between destroying someone and correcting them."

Mila brought me the bread I'd put down. She'd wrapped it in a cloth to keep it warm and her tail was wagging and she watched me eat.

"She's washing her hands," Mila said. Looking toward the stream. "She's been washing them for a while."

Leonora was crouched by the stream at the edge of camp. Sleeves rolled up. Washing her hands and forearms with focused deliberation. The hands that had been gripping my wrist. The arms that had pinned me.

She washed them for another minute before she stood and dried them on her trousers and walked back to camp and didn't look at me.

Her ears were still red.

We packed up and moved. The forest stranger. The fungi larger. The humming louder. The watchers more numerous. Llusse's ears forward for so long I'd stopped expecting them to relax.

Leonora rode point. Same posture. Same silence. But she'd moved her horse further ahead than usual and the gap between her and the rest of us was the widest it had been since we'd left the capital.

Filia fell into step beside me.

"So," she said.

"So."

"She's fast."

"Very."

"Strong."

"Incredibly."

"And she had you pinned face-down with her knee on your back and her mouth on your ear for three seconds and you're pretending that was a combat exercise."

"It was a combat exercise."

Filia gave me a look. Long and specific.

"Your bread is getting cold," she said, and walked ahead.

Mila appeared at my side. "Was that a fight?"

"The spar?"

"No, what you and Filia just did."

"That wasn't a fight."

"She did the face."

"What face?"

"The face she does when she's annoyed and wants you to know she's annoyed but won't say she's annoyed because saying it would mean she's admitting she has a reason to be annoyed."

I looked at Mila. Her brown eyes were earnest. Her tail was wagging at background frequency.

"That was very specific," I said.

"I pay attention."

The forest hummed. Leonora rode ahead. The gap between us was deliberate.

I ate my bread. It was cold.