[h2]Candaeln Courtyard[/h2]

"Hm, you nearly had it that time," Florian said, rubbing some imagined speck of dirt off his blade. At least after the first spars that Fleuri had asked for, the man had elected to stop his usual trick of mirroring the younger knight's own approach to combat back at him. Knowing how to defeat yourself was all well and good, but you weren't going to be fighting your doppelganger any time soon. Or at least, not often enough for it to be essential.

It would also make for a pretty poor way to improve on exploiting openings if your opponent insisted on showing you how good you [i]could[/i] be to the point there wasn't much left to exploit.

Instead, he'd been going through the styles of who knew [i]how[/i] many other people, generally leaning more towards naked aggression. While the still level remained higher than Fleuri was perhaps used to, Florian had at least noted he wasn't correcting all the errors that came from not adapting it to his own height or reach, or restraining the aggression to something that would make it easier to cover any gaps. Perhaps annoyingly, it still meant being stabbed a lot.

"Now, if you [i]can[/i] tag me this time, then we'll have the rest of the afternoon for something else. I believe they're setting up for a festival tonight?" Some things, however, he'd probably not stop without asking directly.

[hr]

[h2]Outside Talderia[/h2]

Spear on the other side of Renar, nothing in his hand; while the man was clearly capable of responding in time--he'd done enough course corrections to show that avoiding those seemingly-committed charges weren't perfectly straight and his reflexes were able to keep up--there wasn't seemingly much that he could respond with, even freeing one hand from the spear.

Until another blast shot out of [i]that[/i]. Almost a pleasant experience after everything from the spear--or worse, the waves of energy that Daybreaker kept firing--but nonetheless a magical blast capable of stripping clothing and burning flesh. Also, quite importantly, fully capable of knocking a grown man flying, making the attempt at stabbing Parvan in the neck quite futile.

"Well, if nothing else, you've certainly improved already. But since neither of us has the benefit of restoring to full health every few minutes, we're going to need to stop for a break," Edwin noted. Then paused. "Maybe head back to Candaeln. I didn't think we'd be out here long enough to worry about lunch."