Oh neat! Oh goshies! Oh... wow. That's a lot of people! Oh no! Oh no, oh no, that's so many people! There must be at least, uh... (numbers, numbers) forty people here! Oh no! That's so many, that's too many, that's... that's even more than her village had in it when they did [i]anime night![/i] Meep!

Yue spins in a cirlce three times before she's able to stop herself. H'okay Yue, deep breaths. When you're nervous you take deep brea-- ooh wow this works even better than usual through this big wet silly nose of hers! So many cool smells, that's, oooh goshies is that popcorn? Can she have some? Can she-- wait wait wait, there's a duel here. Her duel! Her very first duel! Her very first duel in front of [i]forty whole entire[/i] deep breaths, Yue. Deeeeeeeep breaths. 

Oh. Um. Okay. She's, um, supposed to salute? Hrm. How is she? Er? Th-they never covered this in practice. Gosh. Well, uh, if she still had hands she'd lift her sword up to the sky, probably? Or... oh, no no no when Hyra was leading the other day she held it out para...ways to the ground and did a bow. So that! That! But it's hard to, hmmmm. Well, actually, with the blade in her mouth like this she's kinda already holding it right, y'know? Easy, then! She dips her head down to the ground in her bestest, most wolfful bow she can manage and holds it for three... two... one... and up! Good girl! She wags her tail and waves with her paw, wiggling like a sillyhead to show Tianic she's friendly. 

Goshies, wow. A big city squire! That means she's got a real actual honest-to-goodness knight teaching her, right? She must be amazing! Even if she does smell like this is her first-ever duel, too. They've got that in common! She really wishes she could say something about it, but even if Hyra had figured out a speech spell in time her mouth's kinda full of sword right now. What a shame. Someone's gotta tell this girl how pretty she is. Especially her skin, which is so rich and smooth and tantalizingly dark that she must have taken, like, at [i]least[/i] three baths at some point to get it so nice and touchable looking. But especially those shining green eyes! Oh, they're like jewels, they are. Glittering emeralds all full of life and fire and battle spirit! And y'know what? She's also got a real cute face. It's all soft and rounded in that way that makes her look super touchable and says she's living a good life with three straight meals and no need to worry about where they're coming from or what it's gonna take to gather 'em. That's nice. It's real nice. Gosh, she wishes she could tell her. 

B-but there's no time for that now! The duel is not about noticing how your opponent is a cute and pretty knight-in-training (with an awesome giant sword)! The duel is about the duel. Which is to say it's about fightin'. Ya don't get to be a master swordswoman slash tea brewer slash herbalist slash magically transformed animal girl if you let yourself go and forget that, and don't make any mistake about that. So plant your feet, Yue! Which is to say your paws! All four of 'em, that's it! And dig in, 'cause this is gonna be tough!

It feels so nice to run. Yue may not be much of one for good swordplay, and she doesn't have her dress to tug her through the forms and whisper suggestions in the middle of a fight the way she'd kinda gotten used to, and she definitely doesn't have the range or height advantage here (that's a thing, right? Somethin' about zones?), but she is [i]good[/i] at run. Her current body's made for it, and it's what she does. She sprints across the arena with joyful bounds that carry her straight at her opponent like a bolt of furry lightning. 

It's not what she learned in all those practice fights. Sorry, Hyra. You can be disappointed at her all you want, later. Call her a bad girl and boop her nose as much as you want, sh-she can take it! It's just, well, um. Y'know, it's that while she was doin' all that bowin' and admirin' got her thinkin', too. And, like, Tianic's a squire, right? A squire! And that's way more than a cool title that makes her much farther along the road to being a knight than Yue is, especially since she's still not sure that's quite what she's aiming for. The more important thing's that she's got a proper Knight lookin' out for her, doesn't she? She's got a Hyra too. Or, well, maybe not quite anything [i]that[/i] nice, but someone takin' care of her. Someone who probably was watching the wolf learn to run around outside the castle, and made Tianic practice fighting fast things that'd move in big zippy circles around her guard. She'd've been practicing too, see?

And that's why she goes straight in. That's why she leaps like she's trying to end this in a single hammer blow. It's all about respect, right? It's all about givin' your very best shot right at the start, while still secretly holding back your Secret Techniques until things get real spicy-like. She's seen the stories, she knows what's what! It's 'cause she has to see what the real version of her opponent is like after all the training [i]she[/i] did to chase her dreams. 

Come on, Squire Tianic of the Sky Castle! It's go time, let's have fun! Come on girl, catch the stick!