When her husband set to work, she grabbed a chunk of cheese coated in wax, and cut off a couple chunks. She looked to Serapis when he addressed her again.
	She nodded. “This weekend, perhaps? I’ll get a notice put up and see how many would like to go.”
	Thayva covered the uncut cheese with a thin cloth and stored it in the coolest, driest of their cabinets.

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	“What, you never heard of a basilisk?” Tor braced herself at the first indication of the dwarf’s charge. She pushed against Laura, keeping herself upright, and tried to use the dwarf’s weight against her to force her to the mat.

	 “I’d use a hex to root to its spot!” Kia grumbled at the instructor, and wiped a bead of sweat from her brow.
	Her opponent rushed her, trying to mimic the movements of a hobgoblin. The other girl only succeeded in looking like a glorified penguin. 
	Kia tried to jump out of the way, but the other girl, an older halfling named Jennet, caught her off guard with a well-placed strike, then used Kia’s surprise to tackle her.
	The elf shouted as the halfling brought her down. She groaned when the halfling got back to her feet and offered Kia a hand up.
	“And thus,” Kia began, clutching her chest, her voice sorrowfully dramatic, “the great elf magician was defeated by the mighty queen of the hobgoblins! And all because her instructor refused her the use of magic.” She made a show of writhing in the throes of death, then fell still. 

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	Nick shrugged at Jorn’s comments. “You think working the fields isn’t hard exercise?”

	The human child spun back toward the mute boy, and tried again, implementing a bit more tactic. But the halfling easily ducked and dodged every punch and kick, a couple times managing to bet behind the other child, giving him a few seconds before the human realized where his opponent had gone.
	The halfling backed up and sidestepped, predicting the boy’s movements by his body language a second before he tried to land a blow. He glanced over when another set of boys demanded the instructor’s attention, but still managed to sidestep once more.
	The laughter of one of his usual dwarven tormenters rang behind him. The dwarf from the hall. “What, forget how to use your fists, too, twinkle-toes?”
	The halfling’s hands clenched tightly, the anger on his face making his opponent falter.
	“Or do Brownies dance, instead of fight?”
	That was the last straw. Anger fuming on his face and raging in his eyes, the mute boy spun around and lunged on the dwarf before the stocky boy could blink.
	The dwarf tried to shake him off, to throw punches or pry the halfling’s fingers from around his thick neck as the child swung onto his back, but the halfling easily avoided him.
	A couple of the instructors, drawn by the dwarf’s shouts, ran toward the two.
	The dwarf stumbled, and the halfling wrapped his arm tightly around the dwarf’s throat, ignoring the warnings of the instructors. He still had a couple seconds.
	The halfling, using what strength he had combined with the power of weight, threw himself backwards as hard as he could, his grip around the dwarf's throat holding true. The dwarf made a choking sound, and fell back.
	The halfling released the dwarf and landed on all fours a foot from where the dwarf fell, hard, on his back.