Filling His Boots

I just committed the faux pas of wearing my bosses own boots into his OT. How embarrassing.

*****
I remember her telling me with a wistful look in her eyes how much she missed playing weiqi, because it was the only thing she was good at.

Which was simply untrue, because she could ski from the word go, and she could write fairly well. She was good at many things, and could easily have improved if she wanted to.

For a while she was the girl I had fallen for, again, and I thought perhaps I could learn how to play and give her a little slice of her past to be happy about, again.

*****
So it seems I'm not so much a celebrity-date as a celebrity's date for an atas function tomorrow evening. This should be amusing. laugh.

*****
I've finally caught her cold. Her last present to me.

*****
I didn't notice her at first; I was too busy sparring with the blokes of the varsity team.

After I'd beaten the last one she made her presence known by looking me in the eye and raising her blade in a very pointed challenge.

She was pretty; about my height - tall for a chinese girl -, slim, with porcelein skin, short, boyish hair and a sharp chin. Her eyes were large and dark and smoldered with something that looked like either hate or resentment. She had good posture, with a ramrod straight back, and moved with the grace of a cat. There was something very arrogant about her, and she didn't bother to utter a word to me.

It's pretty much an unspoken rule that female sabreurs are few and far between and they usually look... nothing like her.

I accepted her challenge with an equal measure of trepidation and anticipation.

Female fencers are usually slightly slower and less aggressive than their male counterparts; there's no real reason why this should be, but its a generalization that usually holds true.

There was nothing usual about this girl. She didn't waste any time from our perfunctory salute advancing on me and when she lunged it was frightening, the blind speed with which she closed and the unerring accuracy of her blade. Brute instinct took over and I barely deflected her blade as I retreated, saved not so much by skill as by reflexes that still had the edge of youth on them.

The final scoreline didn't reflect the bitterness of our contest at all; fencing is like that sometimes. Her attack far surpassed my own, but my reflexes -just barely- overcame her attack each time. Four to one in my favour.

She ripped off her mask as she spun away and hurled it to the floor, storming off in obvious disgust.

I had to ask. I turned to one of the blokes I'd fenced earlier.

"...?"

"Mate, that's the #1 female sabreur in australia..."

Yes, I could have sidled up to her to make nice, and perhaps gotten to know her a little better. But I didn't.