lateslow

"What's your favorite shape?"

The plain is quiet, save the tittering of birds that has somehow been attributed, linked, to the shimmering sight of dawdling butterflies crowded around a patch of shrubbery despite all slightly less intuitive cues to every sort of contrary.

Contrary. As people go, Tyrea could certainly be called one who tends more towards that end than the spectral checkpoint of conciliatory, which is what Lora, when she's got her wits about her, is best described as.

The High Entia woman is considerably more ill at ease than the human, from their perch atop a ledge that overlooks the expanse of the grass. She knows it, too; is quite painfully conscious of the contrast in the way her knees bend together and her hands clamp at the angles in the rock.

Halfway across their given map, practically at the center, sleeps a Feris. From the looks of its mane, it had just gotten through a cleaning, a taming of its many unruly growths of leonine fur. Of course it'll be quite dangerous, when it wakes up.

But it's sleeping now. Something wary is laid at ease.

Focus, Tyrea, focus. You've no need to be on guard now.

(At least, that's what you think. And it's never good to think like that for too long.)

But anyway. The question. Shapes? Is this primary school? Not even that.

"I suppose I like...trapezoids. They're very balanced." A strong fighting stance is just so balanced, legs spread wide but not too wide in comparison to the width of the shoulders and the repose of the arms. If one hand is held forward, the other lingers back, keeping weight fairly centered where it belongs at the core of the body.

"Balanced, huh?" Lora smiles, looks up from the bits of grass she's been idly (or not so) weaving together and apart in her palms. Then she hesitates for a moment, dips her nose back down to inspect the remnants, and rips them up. Dusts off her fingers. Done.

"Well, I like circles. They're so...well, round!"

"Round?" Sweeping her eyes over the space just in front of and on either side of her knees, Tyrea considers what she might make of this. It's almost admirable, the boldness with which Lora says something so redundant. Because it's not stupid, really. It's just true. Why shouldn't the more intrinsic aspects of things be so appreciated? Why should we take them for granted?

"Alright, Lora. Tell me about how they're round."

Lora shifts closer. Tyrea doesn't stop her. Her own deliberation is clear: take the request, or have her partner give her own impression first, just so they know what they're working with?

But she acquiesces anyway. Doesn't take her own thoughts for granted, even if it takes a little bit of separate thinking to get to that point anyway.

"Our joints are round. You swing your arm in any direction, and you're carving out a circle. Then there's the sun, and sitting around campfires, and dancing, and a person's face, basically."

This is ludicrous conversation, Tyrea thinks, but again doesn't stop her. People's faces aren't round, they're pointed and they've got wings and ears and eyes and noses growing out of them, not to mention hair, which hangs straight - you've got to curl it if you want it to stay in any sort of regular and recognizable spiral shapes, and that takes much more effort than a simple wistful wrap around your finger.

Wistful. Lora's watching her, gauging and even jonesing for a reaction, and she looks quite wistful, indeed. It's a sweet word - neither trapezoidal nor circular in shape, more...half and half.

Tyrea lets her own smile creep in. "If you insist, I suppose I can appreciate semi-circles." Which are very close to trapezoids, but we needn't dwell on that for long. There are better and larger points to be made, after all.

Lora's answering look invites elaboration: it's the shape of the moon, most of the time, and crowds drawn to order, and ears, and it's the part you stick onto a circle to make the shape of a person's face.

It's the careful swing of a weapon like Tyrea's, one held in each hand, eyes always watching for peripheral information that might be cause for turning...around.

"Show me circles, Lora."

The other girl's face lights up, and they jump together down to the main portion of the plateau. Out comes the whips, and there Lora spins. Her stance is simple, very balanced, very strong. One foot holds back, one foot holds forward. Fists are loose, held below the face but close to each other for maximum advantage.

And of course Lora's expression is very round, bunched in concentration. Tyrea moves opposite her, head cocked to one side and braid swinging, and finds herself thinking about what might go on in the corners of her favorite box - are they even corners at all?

Maybe they're not so pointed. Maybe they're more inviting than that.

She moves back. Lora catches her, unsnaring only after a brief moment of suspense. She moves forward. Lora adjusts the other way and keeps perfect snap in her own braid regardless.

Amazing. Astounding. Automatic. "You're more refined than I expected!"

Is it an insult? Should Lora take it as one, regardless of what Tyrea may or may not have given it as?

"Circles, Tyrea, circles!" No, no. Lora knows how to case those sorts of people at these sorts of times. You can't dent a circle. It'll always snap back.

They go back and forth, dodging and weaving, but more than that they go around and around. Grass gets on skirts and leggings, Fliers snag in long hair growing unruly, shoes slip and rogues roll. This sort of organic entropy isn't strictly alien to Tyrea, and it isn't always strictly ultimate to Lora, but it's made special by the two present, one moving at a radius to the other, two making a diameter of their own meeting.

After enough time, Tyrea can accurately gauge that Lora's weakness, with an opponent matched to her size and stature, will be attacks moving in too close for comfort, but one-on-one, she can't be so easily traversed in that way. Turning on heel is so natural; the arcs are so beautiful and strong.

Eventually, of course, Tyrea slips in, cuts blade to back and flicks dangerously at the hem of Lora's frock. It doesn't matter who won, and never did, because it wasn't really about proving anything so grand. Any trained eye paying enough attention would have immediately picked up on the way Lora's hands adjusted, feeling out more exacting resting places within the airspace. They were merely...exchanging information, across the center line.

"What made you ask that" - she doesn't say silly, she doesn't say foolish, she doesn't let their dynamic fall to tropes - "odd question?"

Lora shrugs, nodding gratefully at the flick of Tyrea's fingers at some dirt lingering on her now-off-white shoulder. "I like patterns, is all. I like learning things about people. And...I like knowing how close to keep them."

"And if our circle should happen to shrink?"

(Maybe it does just that, to a particularly sweet effect, just then.)

"I suppose I'll consider it a special exception to the pattern."