for this bonus round, the theme is competition! pretty open-ended, prompts that are about some sort of competition! this round will end on july 31st!
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for your prompt post title, please use the following format:
PROMPT: TEAM [TEAM NAME]
for your fill post title, please use the following format:
FILL: TEAM [TEAM NAME]
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FILL: Team Anime/Manga
Date: 2024-07-27 10:06 pm (UTC)“Spar with me,” Cinder says, and it seems like a good idea at the time.
Winter hasn’t fought with a sword in about three years, and so she fumbles through her warm-ups with her jaw clenched. Cinder watches her wander through the gym in the bottom of the academy and smirks at her in the mirror when she thinks she isn’t looking. Winter isn’t sure if she’s being smug or admiring her from the back, and she’s too preoccupied with making a sword fit in her hands again to care.
Cinder picks up her own blade and levels it at her in the mirror once they’ve fucked about enough, eyebrows arched. Winter hasn’t seen her this competitive in years, not since the two of them were essentially banned from active duty, and she missed it. She turns and raises her sword in turn, unable to stop herself from smiling.
“Shall we?”
Winter rolls her shoulders, adjusts her grip. “Eager to be beaten?”
“You’re fun when you’re competitive,” Cinder grins, and launches herself forward.
Winter backs up easily, because Cinder has always been a little bit reckless with her sword, and steps into the opening she willfully provides. Her body fits into the spaces Cinder leaves — always has, really, and Winter follows her as she retreats in turn, through to the other side of the gym.
The practice area they’ve cleared out is nowhere near big enough. Cinder springs over a pair of weights as Winter presses her backwards, takes advantage of the space between them to grab her collar and yank her downwards. Winter tumbles, snapping “Dirty trick, that,” as she catches herself against Cinder’s front, and finds herself arching upwards to slam the hilt of her sword into Cinder’s gut without having to think about herself moving.
Cinder smirks at her, even as she doubles over. She backs away, pulling Winter with her, forcing her to jump over the top of the weights to keep her balance. Winter resists the urge to comment on another stupid trick. It’s simpler to focus on blocking Cinder’s free hand than it is to try her hand at snappy banter, which she’s never been particularly good at anyway.
“It’s not a dirty trick if it works,” Cinder grins, gasping for air. Winter kicks her away, forcing her to let go of her collar, and raises her sword again.
“It is if someone notices,” she snaps back. Years of military conditioning dictate that she keep her form until Cinder comes within range, and so she holds herself still, fingers tightening around the pommel of her sword.
Cinder’s grin widens. She really is having the time of her life. “Doesn’t matter if I win, does it?”
“Making an awful lot of assumptions, aren’t we?”
In the years since the ending of the war, her style has become a lot more like that of a fencer. Winter spent fourteen years of her life training to become a fencer before she decided to apply to Atlas Academy, and as such she knows to parry, knows to step into Cinder’s guard where she isn’t expecting her to be. That’s the thing, really; she knows Cinder like the back of her hand.
//
Winter collapses forward onto her knees, sucking in deep breaths. Cinder pats her back cheerfully, even as she dumps her water bottle over her head. Water trickles down her wrist and lands on Winter’s back, freezing where it touches her skin.
“Fuck,” Winter pants, “you.”
Cinder laughs brightly. Bruises purple the underside of her chin from where she’d slammed it into the wall. The exposed column of her throat is slick with sweat; Winter has to pinch her thigh to stop herself from staring. “Well, that’s for later. Did I win?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Another peal of laughter. She pushes her fingers through her hair, brushing sweat and a little bit of blood out of her eyes. “Rematch?”
“In your dreams,” Winter says.
//
i understand how to sword a fight and did not in fact make this up on the spot