"My name's not Lupa." She coughed it out and slid down the table until her feet were able to reach the ground comfortably.

She had told him that wasn't her kind of fun, but he just had to push it didn't he? Noel flicked his hand off of her shoulder. Healing was nice and all, but she didn't exactly want him to touch her.

The fear was draining away now that he had stopped. Her shoulder ached, but in a dull way and she'd coughed most everything up by now. Who stopped when doing that kind of thing? Maybe he wasn't a bad guy after all...

Noel pushed away from the table so that she could stand on her own two feet. She felt even better being on her feet, more and more in control all the time.

"So what did I win?"

She flicked his hand away before he had finished healing the bite he’d given her, protesting the name he had called her. As well she should, it hadn’t been at all polite. Then again, neither was kissing a man then kicking him, or hitting someone on the head with a telephone.

Sebastian slid to the edge of the table and found his own feet, trying not to look too sullen. His head was still throbbing, though the cold was quickly overtaking the pain.

“Your prize…” he pinched his lips together and stroked his goatee as he considered, “is fencing lessons. You enjoy sparring, but without any rules…” he rubbed his own temple, massaging away the last of the soreness.

“You start immediately. Come, where is the closest place to purchase swords?”

Swords? Fencing lessons? Was she... did she sign up for this? She couldn't remember so it could be yes. It could also be no, but... fencing lessons didn't sound horrible so long as she didn't have to touch the man who was giving them out. She decided to just go with it.

"In a dress?"

And where the heck could they get swords? "There might be some swords at a pawn shop and in this part of town, there's a pawn shop on every corner." Of course, at this time of night most of the shops were closed up, locked and behind iron bars.

"Besides, what good is a sword when the other guy has a gun?" Hands on hips demanded to know.

“You can take it off.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if it was the obvious solution.

He took her hand and pulled her towards the door. “Let’s go. Lesson One: If the other man has a gun run away. There is no use in getting yourself shot. Even if you can heal, it is unpleasant.”

Through the sadly abused door, Sebastian looked either way down the street. Neither direction looked more promising than the other, so he simply chose one and started walking. Neon lights indicated that bars were open, but shops and most restaurants were closed, including the pawn shop the next corner over.

Sebastian peered through the window, but he couldn’t really see if these so-called pawn shops really had any kinds of swords at all. From the window display, it looked more like a jewelry store.

“I’m not sure this is the correct type of establishment for what we are looking for.”

He really did not want to have to resort to fighting with sticks. It just wasn’t nearly as elegant as using blades.

“Where else?”

True. She could take off her dress. But she wouldn't. She didn't want him to get the wrong idea. Not now that he was actually doing something interesting.

He grabbed her hand and proceeded with the teaching.

She could easily understand lesson one. "What if he starts shooting when you are running away?" Noel had never been shot before. Not that she could remember, anyway. She wanted to keep it that way.

Noel tried to twist her fingers out of his hand, but even when checking out the merchandise through the plate glass window, he kept serious control of her appendage.

"I don't know where else. Swords are outdated, nobody uses them anymo—Wait." She interrupted herself as a thought started to trickle through to the front of her brain.

She put her fingers in her mouth and whistled so loud it echoed between the buildings.

It was good luck to a cab this late, or maybe a testament to the power of Noel's lungs. A burgundy sedan with a taxi topper almost looked timid as it rounded the corner. Noel held out her hand and the car rolled to a stop.

"Do you know a place that sells swords?"

The guy looked at her rumpled dress and hair, shoulders smudged with red and then at Sebastian's equally mussed appearance. Then at their joined hands.

Noel tried to wriggle her fingers free again.

"He's got one there... on his face."

On his... She looked at Sebastian's horn and blinked. "One for purchase?"

"Not this late, lady."

She put her free hand on the open window to keep the cab from rolling forward any more. "So you don't know of any?"

"Wuh-" He seemed offended that she would question his knowledge of the city. "I do, but..."

"Just take us there."

Maybe Sebastian was making threatening gestures with his face sword behind her, but somehow he agreed and they were off, headed north to a places called Beautiful Blades.

“Don’t run in a straight line, and find cover quickly.”

It wasn’t a terribly long drive, and it was a completely straight path. They would have gotten there by walking eventually, but it would have taken a much longer time. Sebastian paid the cab driver before they got out, and grabbed Noel’s hand again before she could get any strange ideas about leaving before she learned all her lessons.

“Lesson two: never leave home without your sword. It is an even bigger pain to track one down these days than it was in the dark ages.”

Sebastian surveyed the store front. It was dark, but a neon sign still lit the front window enough that they could see the wares. This looked much more promising than the pawn shop. The little sign by the door said that they would be open at 10 the next morning. That was still a long ways away.

“Back in the old days, people used to live over their shops. It was a lot easier to buy things in the middle of the night.” Though, one usually had a lot harder time bartering for a better price. It was only fair, if you had woken someone up.

“Shopkeepers, so inconsiderate these days.”

The unicorn man surveyed the shop once again. No one was guarding it, and there was no one around.

“We’ll have to break in.”

Well, if they had to break in... Noel glanced around for something that would work to smash the window. Nothing immediately presented itself, but there was a tree nearby. And around the base of the tree to fend off animals that might have the wrong idea, there was a metal fence. The metal was no crowbar, but it might just work.

She took half a step in that direction before realizing that she was still tethered to the unicorn by the hand.

Funny. She had forgotten all about wanting to run off in the cray talk about swords. Swords were just that interesting.

Noel tried to wriggle her hand out of his again before motioning to the guard around the tree. "For breaking the window..." Her tone said duh. But the thought of him letting her go made her wonder if she could outrun him. She sized him up.

His arms were skinny, but his hands were strong enough. He didn't look like much and she had beat him u once already. Who said the winner even wanted her prize?

Sebastian narrowed his eyes at her efforts to pull out of his grasp, but she was pulling toward something that would help them acquire the necessary equipment for fencing. If it could break a window, it could possibly also break a skull.

“We're not going there again. I'll get it.”

He stepped towards the little grate around the tree and pulled at it until it came loose, then he escorted Noel down the few steps to the lower level door that was marked with the weapon smith's logo. The actual windows were barred, but the front door was glass, making the bars on the windows completely defunct.

Sebastian took one last look around, lifted the metal fence, and smashed it through the door.

Not going where? He dragged her over to the fence and even kept hold of her as he stabbed the spike through the glass.

Noel reconsidered her assessment of him as he kicked through the loose glass. There was some kind of lock bar on the other side of the door so they had to duck under it, but after a little squat walking they were in.

And there was so much there. Knives in tall glass cases, swords, axes, sai, maces, there were even things that looked like wine corkscrews except they were somehow also knives.

The unicorn quite noticeably gravitated toward the swords.

Noel could tell the difference between an axe and a sword, of course. But between the swords her knowledge was basic at best. "This one is skinny." She liked the skinny one a lot better than the wiggly looking one that said a skull for the skull throne.

It was like being in a history museum for weapons. Here was a long sword from Europe's thirteenth century. Right next to it lay a katana from Japan's sixteenth century. And next to those a sword with edges that looked like flames from who knew where, perhaps someone's imagination. And next to that a sword with a scull pommel that would make it so heavy it would put the whole thing off balance.

“That's a katana,” he commented, on Noel's choice. “That one requires a different technique than does fencing.”

Sabres, cutlasses, wakasashi, tantos, broadswords.

“Don't they have a rapier anywhere?” Sebastian wondered as he picked up one of the broadswords and weighed it for balance. It wasn't bad.

From outside, he thought he heard the telltale wailing of a police siren. Without any closer inspection, the unicorn man grabbed two broadswords and two katanas, so the lady could choose which style she wanted to learn.

“Let's go, I'd rather not get arrested again today.” He had his hands full, and so didn't bother grabbing her hand on the way out. “It sounds like they are coming from the station, just south of here. So we head north.” Or possibly north and west, which would take them to the park.

He grabbed up swords like there was no tomorrow. Noel's hands were free and now was her chance... but there were so many different sharp and pointy things around. She grabbed the four most useful looking swords, two pair of two, just as Sebastian had and ducked her way out of the broken glass front door.

She inspected her grabs as they scurried down (or was it up?) the street. Two of them looked rather a lot like what she would have called pirate swords. The other two were sort of swooshy and were quite a lot shorter that the others in general but they had nice carvings on the handles. One sported a bear's head, the other had a claw swiping torso of a large cat. Maybe a panther?

By the time she looked up, the scenery had gotten quite a lot greener. The park was technically closed after a certain hour. She was pretty sure it was "closed" anyway, but there were always people that lingered. And there were always people who didn't know when the large green space actually closed. Like Noel.

She figured it was no skin off her nose if they got chased out by a rent-a-cop. She happened to be one of those rent-a-cops so she knew how very little power they actually had.

"Far enough?" Noel ran to keep in shape but theirs had been a multi-block hustle carrying an awkward payload. It was starting to wear on her.

They were in a clearing, just a little bit off the beaten path. Unless she screamed again, probably no one would hear them from here. Sirens raced by, then faded into the night.

They were safe, then.

“Far enough,” he confirmed. “Now, let's see what we got.” He laid the weapons out so he could see them all, then listed off their names for Noel. He paused at the Greek swords, something about them tugged at his memories from millenia ago. Standing on a battlefield, blood dripping off his blade.

“It's been a long time since I used this type,” he admitted. “It was the first kind I ever used.” He picked it up, weighed it in his hand for a moment. His hand remembered the feel of it, even after all these years. Heh.

He set that one down and picked up one of the cutlasses.

“These will be the easiest to use for starting. They aren't too heavy, and the the technique is fairly straightforward. The first thing you want to do is grip it like this,” Sebastian demonstrated, then handed the sword to the brunette.

He picked over her choices and seemed to approve. She liked that. What she didn't like were the references to some kind of unnaturally long life. This was the second one, assuming he was from an age where people still used swords as actual weapons. The first was... when he talked about getting a sword in the dark ages.

"How old are you, exactly?" The light was dim here, only a yellow hued street lamp. Her eyes were already adjusting and if his were too, he would see her sizing him up again as he started in on the lesson.

He started basic and then handed it to her.

It felt awkward and unwieldy in her hand. "Wait..." She needed to see him do it again. And she wasn't sure which hand it felt better in, right or left. "Show me again." Noel went to stand next to him so she could get it from his perspective and match his movements instead of mirror them.

“Eighteen years older than the Trojan horse,” give or take a year, he stated. She could believe him or not.

He showed her the grip again, and a third time.

“Now a simple block. Hold the sword at this angle, and when I slash downward, block at the opposite angle. Your sword should always make an X with mine when you block. Try it slowly.”

Sebastian slashed his sword down slowly, so she could position her sword in the correct spot to block it.

“No, make an X.”

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Your grip is off again.”

“No, block.”

“Again.”

He wasn't even moving at speed yet. She was taking forever to learn this. Perhaps he was more impatient in his old age than he was when he was younger, but he could never remember anyone learning one block so slowly.

“Arrh!” He slashed downward at full speed, veering sideways so his blade would miss at the last second. His sword stuck in the ground, wobbling.

“Do you want me to slice you in half? You've got to block it! This is going to take the whole rest of my life if you keep this pace.”

He sighed and walked back to where the swords lay aligned like sticks in a childhood rhyme. The unicorn man picked up one of the broadswords and held it outward, saluting an invisible opponent. Then, slowly, then with increasing speed, he began a practice pattern to cool his head after snapping at his incompetent pupil. Dueling the wind, it almost looked like he was dancing.

Trojan... He really believed that. It... could be true... right? Was that Greek times? Or was that when the Romans were ripping off the Greeks?

She gripped the sword tightly. That was too tight. She turned her wrist. That wasn't right either. Her elbow shouldn't be locked, she shouldn't tip her hand down, she did everything wrong because she'd never had reason to any of it right.

Noel yipped when he took a swing at her. The sword stuck in the ground, stuck in a tree root. It could have stuck in a bone of hers just as easily.

"I don't want to get sliced." Her eyes kept going back to the sword in the ground.

He was going through flows of motions faster than she could really comprehend. She couldn't get the handle on even something as simple just holding the sword.

But she could! She knew she could learn. If she could just see it enough times, she would remember...

Wait. She could...

Noel gripped her sword and tossed it into the ground at Sebastian's feet. It didn't stick at all like Sebastian's had but wobbled loosely in the dirt. All she wanted was for him to stop so she could get a hold of his fingers.

She dropped to her knees in front of him and grabbed his sword hand... and put his fingers in her mouth.