sparring.

Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 02:09AM CST
Late night upon late night.
She has swept into the Condo apartment and made succinct, quick changes to such matters as is expected to be seen to by one such as she. Not that she lifts a finger to actual see to the changes; no she oversees. She supervises. Her tastes are immaculate. A lover of simple grace and elegant lines in everything from the dining room table, to the fresh bought linens...
...to the old world swords hung over Brand's family Crest.

The decadent. The martial. All intertwinced into one and for all that her tastes are high and expensive, they also prove to be functional. Practical. Frivolities have little place--

--such duties overseen (she never asked if it needed doing. She expects it of herself and expects him to expect her to do it. Everyone else can go hang)she's turned herself to those which own her attentions far more completely. And those ambitions draw her outside of the Condo quite often. Tonight is just one of those nights, finding her once more in the Museum, though this time on the third floor in the borrowed office she had no trouble wheedling.

...she is not a woman easily denied.

Now there she sits, the flat screen of her computer casting it's blue glow over her strong, nordic features; makng all the more distinctive that lioness nose of hers and the broad sweeps of her cheekbones. She's on the phone speaking rapidly in fluid, fluent French; tounge slipping over lazy vowels as her eyes scan the screen a cup of coffee to her right that has long since ceased to steam.


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 02:19AM CST
The rules of the conventional world do not apply to her.
And they certainly don't apply to him.

So while it is a dire breach of etiquette in some circles, it is not in others to do as he does: click. The line goes dead in her ear. Why? Because he has, in fact, cut it.

Literally.
With a sword.
His.

His father's, as well, and on and back through the generations. A thing not of human design: enormous, angular, the blade a large handsbreadth across and wedge-shaped at the hilt, fully an inch across the top. A single-edged blade runs the full length without tapering, angling sharply up at the end. The back of the blade is sharpened to half its length, then left untouched to the hilt, which is dull, unornate, unornamented.

A blade fit for a warrior-king. One that takes enormous strength to wield easily (as he does), and this is evident in the flex and roll of his biceps as he lifts it from the floor where he had - and so precisely that it hadn't caused a sound - severed the line.

The blade rests on his shoulder now, main edge up. He holds himself fiercely tall and erect. Head bowed, but neck straight; spine straight, shoulders back. Fully and well-dressed from waist down. Completely stripped from waist up, except for the formal black straps of his suspenders.

"Leave that for later," he invites; commands. "Spar with me."

How many dare answer such a call?
How many dare not?


Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 02:37AM CST
A dead line in mid-sentence.
Her lips press together in almost lazy fashion; for such is her annoyance: A passing, heated thing like a simmering mirage. Though it is left behind as soon as you draw near, the asphault or sand you touch sill still scald your fingertips.

Setting the now useless phone down, she reclines back in the smooth leather of her desk seat, just-barely supporting her head with a bent thumb along the underside of her tapered, cleft chin, middle finger relaxed and resting just atop wide, generous lips and index finger laid out alongside the side of her face... her eyes sweep over the half-undressed visage of her mate; sword in hand---

---and annoyance melts away. Not in some lovey-dovey sense of cheery smiles and doeful gazes. No, it melts with that same lazy heat, enriched with whatever drive so charges up her being just below that collected, calm, controlled surface. So pressed lips merely becomes lips crooked into a bemused smile.

"Whatever would you do if I said no, husband?" She asks, one eyebrow rising up languidly, high up in exquisite lines and her middle finger rubs sleekly over her own lips...

...still awaiting a response as she stands up and begins calmly slipping off her silken dressing robe.


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 02:41AM CST
He raises his head, slowly and steadily, turning it in the same motion.

Something about it is ...hawkish.

He is smiling. He is unshaven. He is half savage, half naked, half murderous, half feral. The green flecks in his eyes seem to burn brighter in the dimness, a room lit only by computer and desk lamp. They seem to gleam and glow, almost, to cast back light as light is cast upon it.

Sharply military, he swivels to face her. Fingers are relaxed around the leather-bound grip of the sword, the pommel as dull as the hilt as dull as the crossbar, and all these as dull as the blade is gleaming bright. Lightning scatters off the edge.

"Cut you down."
Surely he jests.


Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 02:50AM CST
"Ah."

It's uncanny how decadently unconcerned she makes the sound. Pausing in the slow removal of the flimsy slip of robing; to look to him with that same expression of caressing amusements.

Then she looks back to the computer, shutting it down as she shrugs one shoulder - sending one arm of the robe slipping free to expose bare arm beneath, smooth, alabaster complextion set off by the barest sprinkling of pale freckles. The monitor glow cuts out. She shrugs the other shoulder and that arm too slips free, the robe puddling to the floor, fabric more liquid than anything else. Reaching over she turns off the desk lamp. Click.

In the dark with a beast.
He with better night vision.
He with the wicked fucking sword in his hand.

Now she moves around the desk towards the door he stands before, clad only in the simple negligee, allowing her body free motion.

"And would you afford me any mercy? A clean cut - swift and painless? Or would you cleave in at quarter?"

Leaning in towards him, the barest of pauses as she moves to pass him by. You can just hear the upcurl of her lips... taste the cool brightness of her gaze. Feel the warmth of her form; her words - moist heating inviting as it is distant.

...and finally moving past to where her own, prized, blades are kept.


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 02:57AM CST
"Mercy?" his tongue moulds the word as though tasting it. And, finding it good to the palate, amusing, "None for you.

"You would be insulted."

swshhCLACK. It's the sound of the sword swung brutally down, the pommel colliding with his watch, the blade's motion stopped dead without a quiver, the hilt flush against his corded, tensed forearm. Held at ready now, directly before him, both hands wrapped tight around the grip, another hands' breadth between them; elbows not locked; pommel at hip level; tip angled ever so slightly up.

In the darkness, the faintest blue glow of the night through the windows and their drapes. The faintest gleam of the swords' edge.

"Come, lover. Let us dance."


Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 03:15AM CST
Tigers Teeth, her blades are called. Wickedly tapered, curving blades of Indian design designed for an artful, intricately balanced, lithe two handed approach even more forgotten in this age than is regular swordmastery.

She is not a creature to heft weights and exude great physical force; her strength lies in her resilience and her speed. Her dexrious manipulations of her own form - a self awareness that slips into the boundryland of being so aware of ones body as to become completely oblivious to it...

...her hands grasp the pommels of her deadly blads, unsheating them from their mounts in one practiced, sensual motion and something inside of her quivers with ready anticipation at such weaponry in her hand.. and the knowledge of the ways in which their forms will soon be moving.

The right hand blade is grasped, likewise loose-elbowed, for the stab while the left is positioned witht he blade flowing flush along her arm, it's cruel point curved in towards her elbow: the slashing arm. Without hesitation she could switch position of either hand...

...transformations. This is no fencing art to stand rigid and primly poised. She slips to a half crouch, and that feral edge that always dwells just below the surface now rises and bubbles overs. There in her smile - there in her gaze that beckons him in, hypnotic. She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth and lifts her chin...
...as dangerously close to a taunt as few would dare with Brand.

"Come on then. No mercy."


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 03:29AM CST
As with all things, there is much of wolf in this.

Slowly, startlingly soft on his feet, he moves. They move. Forward. Circling. Eyeing one another, warily, not as lovers do but as fighters do, reading the lines of body and form, reading the weaknesses like a book.

She is better at bladed weapons than he. You can see this in her self-assurance, the very way she moves, smooth as an adder.

But he is stronger. Much, much stronger.

In an instant they spring together: his force to her finesse. Sparks give light to darkness. The blows rain in from all directions, parried and deflected. He hammers at her, backing her up step by step, pounds at her defenses like a winter blizzard. He's amazingly fast for all his strength; not the fastest who ever lived, no, but fast all the same. And the blows are not clumsy hacks. He seeks weaknesses, aims well - but not quite well enough.

Every blow turned aside. This is a good thing. Any one of them could have killed her.

Fall back. Breathing a little harder now. A savage grin breaks over his face like a wave over a rock. He flexes his hands on the grip, snaps the tip up -- and they come together again like wolves fighting, sudden, no mercy, no holds barred, her on the attack this time, her two short, curving blades to his one massive brute of a sword. Metal scrapes off metal. Blows that leave her arms feeling numb, but not slowed - her blades dart, they fly; nimble, they slash; stiff as wasp-stings, they thrust and weave and seek and find and

CUT.
--twice. in tandem. one-two. no mercy.

Come apart. A ragged line across his right knuckles, stinging, that hand useless until (unless) he heals. A line of red stark across his pale and ridged abdomen. Had he not flinched back at the last instant, his guts could be on the floor. He releases the hilt, holds it one-handed now, left. Bleeding right hand touches the long slash across his skin. He looks at the blood, lifts his fingertips to his nostrils, inhales, scents, licks, wipes it across his chest like primitive war paint and drops his sword with a clattering clang.

Bare-handed, bloodied, he beckons her forward. Ferocious grin. No words.


Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 03:42AM CST
Satisfaction.
It isn't sexual: she's no sadist. But there is satisfaction nonetheless in drawing first blood and it shows on her features; fierce huntress for one moment broken out beyond the bonds and bindings of her kind, her class, her breed, her gender.
Liberated.

Numb and soon-to-be-sore despite that she keeps herself in fine shape: there's no avoiding such damage in a spare with a man (beast) such as Aurich. And it may well be the damage is about to get far worse--
--has she crossed some line?

She does not cower. Does not shy back - but she is visibly wary, the martial mindest having ensared her for he moment. Like the lioness, like the she-wolf she paws to the side.. back.. forward. Light motions, blades - crimson kissed with his blood - still hel, though now lowered. Giving him that much though she does not drop them... yet.

--forward she goes neither smiling nore frowning - beyond that as well. Blonde hair disheveled about her ethereal face, colour flushed and vibrant with the health of battle - oxymoron though it is. Head slightly cast to one side -- in she goes. No gloating smugness, but neither is their quivering submission or apology. The briefest of complete glances was given to be sure he did move quick enough and, seeing no grave danger - especialy not for a Garou - she is feeling no concern for his well being...

...so forward, with the feral caution of a prime and ready predator who knows that, nonetheless, she is not the top of the food chain.
But oooooooo... sometimes she can feel deliciously close.


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 04:00AM CST
And this, his element.

Brawler. Does the image conjure images of hulking inelegance? No, no. Not this. Large as he is, muscular and strong as he is, there's nothing but grace and power here. It's the same fluidity as a tiger's pounce: the same awesome sight of hundreds of pounds of muscle and sheer strength moving (flowing) in perfect synchrony.

She will not get any blows in now.

He does not dodge. He deflects. Not the blades but her arms, reaching right past the gleaming maze of knifework to knock aside a forearm, a wrist, his own hands open and relaxed, his battlecalm like a heightened state of existence. Even before his totem, he was a formidable hand-to-hand foe. With Raptor behind him, those who could match him are few unto nothingness.

She comes at him.
She comes at him.

He wards her off, draws her in, bends her blows to the side as though a shield existed around him - bides his time. Red spreading over his right hand. Red spreading down his flexing abdomen to drench the waistband of his expensive slacks. And then the rift opens. That instant in every fight where it's win or lose, right there, right then -- his hands snapping out, the fingers stiffened, striking the backs of her hands.

Tendons jump. It's not a pressure point; it's the forceful hijacking of her body's machinery. Her hands open and the blades fall. He snatches them out of the air, reverses the reverse grip -- points forward now, blades down -- and thrusts sharply, brutally forward.

Impales her?
Oh, no.

Back into their sheathes on her thighs, clicking home, the handles forward and parallel to the ground for easy access. Entirely too close to her, heated and huge, smelling of sweat and the raw musk of adrenaline, he is still as a storm's eye for a second.

Blade's point balance. Could so easily tip any which way.

Then he laughs -- hard and unfettered -- and then steps back, sweeping a curiously elegant bow to her. "Well met, Lady Breitenbach." A single drop of sweat rolls down his nose and hangs at the tip a second, drops. He turns, padding toward the nearest bathroom for a towel. "Still every bit as good as I remembered with those blades of yours."


Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 04:14AM CST
Hypnotic: That's the danger of it. There is undeniably a mesmerizing quality if one wathces to closely the movements of such people. She with her blades and he with the absolute prowess with which he handles his own form. Fiercely beautiful. Stunning. Inspiring of awe, which is to say Awesome as it was truly intended.

The sheen of her own sweat is a glow along her flesh. It is a triangle between the flimsy fabric just barely overing her breasts and also at a spot at the small of her spine. Left standing there with a blink when his precise blow stuns her muscles - a wince a beat later.. a pressing of her lips (as much a loathing of losing as he next Fang) and then a relaxing as she waits.. waits those crucial moments where the balance might stray and this entertainment go wrong.
Horribly wrong.

Stillness.
Absolute.

And then broken... he laughs and her own lips curve up in a glistening smile as she raises her hands, flexing them.. rubbing her arms, returning feeling to them.

"And you, Doenhoff, still every bit as good at winning."

She plucks the negligee from her damp flesh and, for her part, makes for the balcony where the chill wind will be more than welcome at this moment.


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 04:27AM CST
"One for one," he calls over his slicked shoulder as he pads into the bathroom. A light clicks on, dusts his skin, gleams off his sweat. His footsteps are soft, and yet heavy - the weight is felt rather than heard. "I call it a draw."

The door shuts. Water runs briefly. He emerges with a towel 'round his neck, the ends dangling assymmetric against his chest. His face and hairline is wet, and so are his knuckles, his stomach, the blood spreading diffuse into adjacent water.

A quick jaunt into the kitchen has him returning with bottled water, one for her and one for him. "What were you looking up on the computer?" he asks, stepping out onto the balcony behind her.


Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 04:40AM CST
The resonant sound of her low-keyed chuckle is blown back on the wind.
"Don't humour me." Is her response to the naming of a draw, before she leans back at the railing... and then goes furter. Boosting herself up and swining long legs up and over. One dangling down, the other foot planted atop the rail, knee slightly drawn up. Eyes closing in the wind while her nostrils flare mildly...

Inhale...
(to feel alive)
...exhale.

He comes out, moving behind her and she rests and elbow on that upturned knee her dangling leg swinging. A glance over her shoulder; a gaze in his direction - then back again, out over the sites with a faint shrug.

"Just some photos from a curator."


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 04:51AM CST
He comes right up to her. Right up to her. Inches away, he hands her one bottle and opens the other without ever looking away. Lights of the city glimmer off his eyes; catch in the luminous green amidst the dark.

"I don't ever humor you, love."

And her faint shrug earns her one in return; what does he care for her everyday work? Not so faint - deeper, slower, more felt. Muscles of shoulders and back contracting and relaxing. Rearranging and sliding. He's a work of art sometimes. One hand reaches over her body to plant down on the other side. Other hand sets bottle down beside her. He leans close, eyes shuttered behind lashes and then lids; inhale her scent.

A kiss, not on the mouth but on the throat, over the pulse of her carotid. Then he draws back, and away.

"Turn out the light when you come to bed."