'She seems to be having trouble,' Olpi thought as Elero stood herself up for the third time. 'Maybe adjusting is harder than she thought it would be.' As opposed to the Virility rigid routine, refined by years of repetition, Elero adapted her warm-up to the surroundings. She dashed through patches of raised roots, bounced off trunks, and sliced dead twigs from their base branches.
Olpi huffed a breath of warm air into her hands and held them over her ears. For a moment, she imagined zooming through the forest like Elero. Free. Capable. Simple. Elero's scars were deep and jagged.
"Let's do some unarmed round robin while Elero finishes her warm-up," Cerlius suggested.
'Round robin?' Olpi thought. 'What's that?'
"I'll start," Frey said. Without warning, he sent a fist hurtling towards Cerlius, who slapped it out of the way and countered with an elbow to the jaw.
One thing I lost from uploading three chapters in one day was the sense of a start, middle, and end, all in one day. Cliffhangers might be coming back just because there's only so much I can cover per chapter. You'll see the end of this little sparring session on Thursday, then the start of another adventure on Sunday. I'm extra excited because it's going to be spooky.