Tuesday's Tales - Cool

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Welcome to another Tuesday's Tales.  I don't know about where's the week gone, but I'm seriously wondering how this year has whizzed by so fast.  I am taking up where I left off last week, when my hero, in this case Simeon, has been challenged to a dual. I always appreciate your comments, thank you.

He only just managed to catch the foil she threw at him, a feral grin curving her lips and a dark glint of challenge in her eyes.

Italian style, he noted, weighing it in his hand. Light, strong and blunted at the tip and therefore a weapon used for training in most cases. He favoured the electronic foils. But right now he didn’t delude himself this would be no ordinary fight. One look at the smirk on her face told him he could forget any rules he’d ever learned. Thrust, parry and deflect would be the order of the day.

Just to annoy her further, Simeon walked to the far end of the room shucked out of his denim jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves and kicked his shoed under the nearest chair.

A shaft of sunlight caught and flared off the low-carbon steel blade in her hand and shot beams of splintered light across the ceiling.

Oh, yes, he was ready for this.  She may be female, but she’d issued the challenge and he’d waste no time off-loading the shed-load of angst weighing him down.  Yes, he thought with a grim smile, he was more than ready for a fight, and if the stupid woman wanted one, he’d take it right to her.

About to stride forward he looked up and out the window. Inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly deliberately.   He’d fight, but he’d leave than angst elsewhere and refrain from letting it rule him.  One more breath and he swung away from the window, strode to where the woman waited and looked to Paxman to adjudicate fair play. He’d regained his cool and was ready to narrow his focus on the combat ahead.

He needed to concentrate and leave everything else behind.  Would his opponent? Or had she, in her umbrage, forgotten the need for subtlety and agility.  Would she simply lunge at him?  Another glance at the now closed features of the woman in front of him told him she’d forgotten nothing, and intended to win.

He’d see about that.

“On guard.”