Quinn's breaths came hard and fast as she moved, backstepping out of the way of Dahlia's punch. She'd had a [i]lot[/i] of catching up to do as far as her physique was concerned. Still did, by quite an extensive amount. Turned out that staying in one room for your entire life did very little to prepare you for fighting.

Who knew?

Those first few days had been...[i]deeply[/i] unpleasant. Both for the aforementioned [i]issues[/i] with fitness, and for the [i]very[/i] strong aversion to actually hitting her frie—her [i]sister[/i]. She was still getting used to the concept, but the more time passed, the more and more right it felt to call her that.

But after a month of long, grueling, and oftentimes somewhat painful practice sessions, she was starting to feel like she could...well, obviously she couldn't actually keep up with Dahlia. But she could at least feel the impact of her hits, and that was a kind of satisfying all its own.

Warding another punch off with her own forearm, she snapped her leg out in a quick roundhouse kick and it slammed into Dahlia's padded hand. The report was like a gunshot in the relatively small gym, and it was a satisfying reminder of the progress she'd made in what felt like an exceptionally short time. The advice she'd just been given (again) in mind, she tried her best to see the whole of Dahlia, engaging proactively in the fight instead of reactively, moving in closer.

Dahlia'd noticed fairly early on that she was favoring kicking rather heavily. But, she'd said, it wasn't always going to be feasible to space yourself to the point that kicking was practical. She was right, of course. And so every training session, Quinn had to throw some punches too. She even managed to hold her own for a bit on a good day.

Today was evidently not one of those days.

She kept her eye focused as best she could. But a momentary lapse let a fist into her blind spot, and telegraphed and eye-catching as the pad may have been, she couldn't stop what she couldn't see, and took a shot right to the side of the helmet. Straining to keep her composure, she closed the distance as fast as she could, trying to take advantage of her slightly smaller size and Dahlia's momentarily extended arm to sneak a punch in. But it was not to be; she just wasn't fast enough, and she struck only air. And though she recovered as quickly as she could, it wasn't quite quickly enough to stop the foam from thwacking into the ribs midway down her left side.

She hopped back a ways and brought her fists up again, then straightened before opening them and holding up her hands in the universal 'time out!' position.

"[color=FFE63D]Gimme a sec,[/color]" she gasped out as her shoulders heaved, "[color=FFE63D]need a drink.[/color]"

Her muscles ached as she jogged over to the—[i]her![/i]—hard plastic water bottle by the wall. But it was a [i]good[/i] ache these days. The kind that let her know she was getting [i]better,[/i] not worse. Shucking off a padded sparring glove and unscrewing the cap, she resisted the urge to lean against the wall as she took a long drink.

It hadn't stopped tasting sweet yet.