Battle of the Sunset

With a smile on your face you unsheathe your weapon combination and easily twirl them in your hands to bring them to the defensive. You barely have any time to situation yourself before Zoe is already charging into you. She brings her left arm forward slashing at your chest with all her might.

With a back-step you raise your left arm up and use your short sword to easily deflect the attack but she isn't finished as her right arm then immediately flies forward but once more you are able to react quickly enough to mimic her movement with your dagger and block her ****. She doesn't let you retaliate at all as she quickly spins counterclockwise while stepping to her right and gracefully dances toward your side. With her body going in a circle she pushes all her strength into her attacks and tries to slice those Ulaks deep into your arm.

You push off with your left foot to dodge yourself away from the spinning Sunrider before re-situating yourself, planting your foot into the sand below and pushing yourself off hard, springing your body towards Zoe and now bringing the offense onto her.

"Ahhh!" she let's out a yelp as her left hand flies up to block your short sword but your dagger is unguarded. You don't want to stab your dagger into the side of Zoe so instead you redirect your blow and carefully slice across her armor, not cutting it at all but allowing her to feel your blade actually come in contact with her "You missed!" she smiles as she leaps backwards from you.

"No I didn't." you hop on your feet and turn to face her "Didn't want to hurt you. Now come on, attack me." you taunt the energetic Sunrider.

She hops on her feet a few times as she starts to slowly circle you, burning through lots of excess energy especially since you are fighting on soft sand. Eventually after she thinks she's at the perfect angle she goes on the offensive with her Ulaks, rushing her body with **** to stay on the aggression.

With slashes to the left, right, right, right and right again, she's trying to switch it up and on the last right handed attack she actually makes contact with the tip of the fur of your armor before you are able to back away from her. A small patch of the fur drops down to the sand below. Normally, with your training at the Syndicate you are both using wooden weapons so you really try your hardest on each other but since you're both using your actual weapons, you decide to be much more careful.

With another quick four attacks from Zoe, it appears she's still trying her best to go full ****. You don't blame her though as she's actually never beaten you in combat yet so as you're still toying with her for the most part, she is giving it her all. It's not to say you aren't giving it your all, you are trying but you are definitely pulling back on your attacks and trying your best to not harm your High Commander. You still feel bad about slashing her arm extremely deep when you were pissed off about finding out about Hawk and Karisi and even though her forearm isn't hurting her much anymore you still want to be careful about it.

You attack into her after her **** by bringing your short sword towards her chest, slashing downward before jabbing into her with your dagger. She ricochets it to the sky but it allows you to step forward and lunge your side of your hip into Zoe causing her to get pushed backwards from your weight. She rolls backwards before pushing herself up, a gust of dust following her body as she repositions herself on her foot. "How do you always know what to do!?" she chirps "So annoying!"

"Gotta change things up, Zoe! Stop being so telegraphed, same thing I always say." you give her a grin. "You'll learn soon enough."

Zoe continues to softly hop around, doing little jumps side to side to keep her body constantly moving. It's a type of fighting style that you actually prefer to do sometimes but there is no way you would ever do it where you are fighting now. Hopping around constantly like that in this type of sand wears you out way too fast and will tire your calf and thighs too quickly that if the fight ever goes too long you'll burn through too much energy too fast. This is something you learned through out your many years of fighting, especially in the Slums when sometimes you would be fighting in wet mud that would be terrible to move around in. Zoe though, she hasn't quite learned yet and is still doing the same style of fighting because it's what she's always done.

Another lunge happens from Zoe "Take this!" she screams as both her arms go forward, bringing each Ulak to the front of her body. It could normally be a good move but with the sand, she doesn't gain as much forward **** and therefore you can see the attack coming. You quickly just bring your short sword to a vertical position and you are able to easily deflect both her weapons with one of your own. During that time you twirl the dagger in your hand holding the blade in reverse grip before you swing it around and backhand your High Commander in the head. At the last moment you lessen your strength but still softly clock her in the side of her head with the back of your dagger.

"OOoopphhhffff!" she grunts as she falls to her side into the dirt again, her body almost getting lost in the fading light and puff of dust that flew up from the ground "Ouchhhh!" she rubs her head as she turns her body around and immediately gets up.

"We finished yet?" you give her a wink, toying with her some more knowing it'll just get her even more frustrated and try to attack into you. Once again, you read her like a scroll.

She lets loose a low growl and shows her teeth as she bends her knees and launches herself back right at you. You grin at the attacking High Commander as her left arm stays forward while her right hand stays closer to her body. She's telegraphing herself so much that you know when you block her left arm, she'll use all that **** and swing her right hand forward with her Ulak. As predicted, you bring your short sword up and block her forward arm and at the same time, with a grunt from the girl and putting all her might into her right hand she swings forward.

You're able to side step it and keep your foot planted on the ground. As Zoe completely overshoots, you take your left hand and place it behind her back over her shoulder and push her past you, she trips over your planted foot and falls face first into the sand below, basically eating a mouth full of sand. At the same time you move your foot, spin your short sword in your hand and bring it straight to her lower back and press just slightly, showcasing to her that you win and if she were an enemy you would have pierced this sword directly through her back, most likely killing or paralyzing her completely.

"Enjoy the horses tonight." you laugh out loud before pulling your weapons back and bringing them back into your waistband to holster them.

The instant your blade leaves, she rolls and looks up at you, huffing and puffing with a face completely covered in sand "Darn it! Stupid! No, that's not fair!" she pleads as she begins to untie her Ulaks from her wrists. She sits herself up and keeps fidgeting with them until she eventually unties them and sets them on the ground looking up at you.

"Sorry Zoe!" you reach your hand down towards her which she gladly accepts and you pull her up "It was your plan, I didn't want to do this, but you made me. I suppose now you're sleeping outside with the horses."

"Nooooo..." she whines "I don't want to, I was just playing, please please please! I don't want to sleep outside, it'll be cold and bugs and dirt and please!" her lower lip quivers as she tries her best to act sad "Darien..."

"Huh, so what are you saying Zoe?" you play coy.

"I wanna sleep in the carriage, pleeeease?"

"Whoa whoa whoa, but I won fair and square and I get the carriage..." you grin at her "Does that mean you want to...sleep with me, Zoe?"

Her eyes go as wide as you've ever seen them and she begins to go flush in her face "Err, Umm, Uhhh..." she stutters in her words "I..I'm, that's...I, well..."

"Come on Zoe, all you have to do is say it."

"Well, uhh, I do want to...sleep with you, but NOT sleep with you, yup yup! Ya know? Right? Like, Sleep sleep, actually sleep, not...other sleep. Yeah?" she nods her head in quick succession hoping you understand.

"I mean, I suppoooooooose" you draw that word out. "Although you always deny me so maybe I should..."

"NOPE!" she squeals out with joy "Sleeping in the carriage! Sleeping in the carriage you said I suppose which means yes! You can't back out now! You said it, you said it! Yay! Thanks Darien!" she smiles "You're just lucky! I don't want to sleep with the horses so I'm going to sleep with you! But, not sleep sleep remember! For real sleep! Not...fake sleep. Ya know?"

"Okay, fine Zoe. We can sleep together" you give her a wink causing your High Commander to blush again "But first things first, I'm going to go check on Lexie, so how about you gather some wood from the trees over there. We'll make a fire, eat some food and then, after that, I'll let you sleep with me since apparently that's what you want to do."

With her hands on her hips "I don't want to sleep with...well, I mean, I..." she hangs her head with defeat "Fine...I'll go gather some firewood." she shuffles away pretending to mope.