Thread: Man Witch [Goody + Prince]

She was...refreshing. Not that she was necessarily the best he'd encountered there was certainly work to be done. But she had an intuition for the fight that he instantly admired. Usually, the way things went, Uther would show up to the training grounds after the first had arrived, then mingling with the group of men that would start to fill the dirt packed space, he'd surreptitiously gather information and glean impressions of the new trainees. People tended to reveal themselves when they thought someone in authority wasn't watching but that they had the comfort and safety of peers around them. To look at him, he gave off a seasoned air, but wearing a simple cotton shirt and mirroring anxious, inexperienced behaviors from the others, often helped to hide him among their ranks. Then, there were a couple of organic ways to start fights by figuring out who the shit stirrer of the group was. There was always one, the guy who came to be trained yet oddly enough had no respect for authority or following a creed. The one who, in the absence of any trainers present, tried to force the others to accept him as the leader of them. Uther found, the shit stirrer often started up challenges on his own, or he could be convinced with a mild cajoling to do so. Or if there was none, and he had a surprisingly well-behaved and dedicated group, Uther himself had seen enough of them in his time to play the role. In the end, everyone ended up fighting him. And they always lost. There had only been a handful of times since the matrons had called him to the position that he'd been bested by a trainee and it had only been because those couple hadn't been green like the others. One had been a black-skinned warrior from the Tetu nation, already 10 years a veteran of their military service. Gavin, he'd come to support his daughter when she discovered her blessing and even after she left to return home, her father had stayed on to become one of Uther's best trainers. The second had brought a dagger out during the fight, giving Uther a nice scar to remember him by along his left side, just above his hip. He'd been apologetic after, citing instinct as a factor, and he'd gone on to graduate, chosen by a sweet witch who returned to her home to become an advisor on the city council. Her bubbly nature and the court intrigue were the perfect environ for the knife-weilding guardian at her side. Needless to say, none of that happened this time around, yet, he hadn't put a stop to the brawling because it afforded him the same information he could have gathered from fighting each of them himself. Just from a different angle. And the one he now knew the most about was the gal at the middle of it. It had been tough to restrain his delight and amusement watching her work and mostly because he was excited to see that despite being a bit out of place here, she didn't hate being a woman. Too many times had he seen female fighters start out thinking they had to be men just to best their opponents, not truly understanding the power they had by virtue of being female. This one had a couple of great advantages he'd already seen, using the other trainees vulnerabilities and biases against them. Facing off against her now, he was thrilled for the opportunity just to get to see what else she had for a man who loved and respected women enough not to take anything she did for granted. Turning quietly with her as she slowly circled him, putting her hair up in a more manageable state, he continued to watch the way she moved. A sense of relaxing calm came over him as he drank it in, taking into account the catlike grace of her, the way her hard-packed, feminine muscles moved under her clothes as she stepped over men she'd felled, always turning with her to keep her within view. He said nothing in regards to her stated admiration, in the first place, fully expecting, despite having watched her fight, that she'd come up against himself for the ultimate show of skill. Another ploy, he suspected, to try to get under his skin. He had to respect her for trying. I do, he gave her a clipped nod, not smiling back but a light filling his green eyes. She was fast. Being smaller and lighter was definitely an advantage for her, as well as the natural cunning she had in regards to reading her opponents and making split second decisions. But she was unpolished, sloppy. And Uther was pretty fast himself, the calm inside giving him an awareness of everything that enabled him to move like a coil of water spinning through the air. Already seeing the fist coming for his gut, Uther swept his arm down to not only block her but using the motion to shove her arm inward and up, close to the other she held at her chin to block him. In those seconds of her arms being pointed almost straight up and crossed together in his hold, Uther got into her space, elegantly placing a booted foot between hers on the ground, his thigh and knee grazing her right as he danced close and pivoted back. A flash in his mind as he caught a whiff of her, the odor of spiced cigarettes lingering around her, even as he was sure he smelled of sweat, earth, and steel, having sparred in this space earlier with already enrolled trainees. Muscles rippling in his back and shoulders as he used the hold on her arms to force her upper body downward, snapping a quick, forceful knee up to her gut.