Pack it up, pack it in,

[saltwaterlungs]

CHARACTERS: Darcy, and YOU?!
DATE: First half of September prior to the event
LOCATION: Sports deck
SITUATION: A pirate-sponsored fight club for the sake of beating the shit out of each other bettering each other
WARNINGS: It’s a fight club. Violence is to be expected.

I came to win

Fliers go up around the ship, as they so often do. This time put up with a reasonable amount of tape and written in a much less flowery hand than people would expect, the announcement ‘FIGHT CLUB TUESDAY EVENINGS SPORTS DECK: MAKE FRIENDS AND THEN HIT THEM’.
Anyone going to the sport’s deck after 7pm for the Tuesdays before the excursion will find tennis court set up for an impromptu fight club. There’s a notebook with a pen off to one side as a sign-in sheet, and a small list of rules written in the same handwriting as the fliers.
-No killing or dying
-Respect tapping out
-If you’re learning, respect your teacher/s
-If you’re teaching, respect your student/s
-Cause problems, get kicked out

Off to the sidelines, Darcy can be found supervising, keeping an eye out for any issues.

Battle me that's a sin

In one corner is supplies for fencing and swordplay. Three protective jackets, mesh masks, and blunt training sabers in a loose pile, plus whatever weaponry people themselves supply. There’s a circular arena drawn out on the ground, with a narrower fencing piste drawn through the middle of it.

I won't ever slack up

For those more inclined to hand-to-hand combat, a couple of the punching bags from the gym have been dragged out onto the court, along with focus-pads and a couple of long strips of bandages bandages to wrap one’s hands with. An arena has been drawn out, about the right dimensions for a boxing ring.

Punk you better back up

Over on the furthest side- deliberately angled to face off the ship- there’s a makeshift shooting range consisting of a bunch of water bottles and some mannequins from the Tommy Bahama laid out as targets to shoot at. A line has been drawn on the ground, presumably to stand behind when shooting.

Try and play the role and yo the whole crew'll act up

Right in the middle of everything is an arena marked out for no clear purpose, with no equipment nearby. It can probably be presumed that this is somewhere for people to spar, or more likely, show off in front of everyone.

Comments

[crushed_pearls]

"None of us are going anywhere any time soon. I'm new here, youngblood, I don't know how urgent anything is or isn't. Johnny seemed to think the situation needed help sooner rather than later so I'm here to offer; nothin' more, nothin' less."

Erin gets out the first aid kit for the club and starts checking Darcy over with a businesslike confidence. She starts with the cut, first disinfecting it and then applying liquid stitches to be sure. Her breathing is very steady, but this close her Mantle's scent is so much more present, swirling around the two of them in a soft cyclone.

"It wasn't my intention to humiliate you," Erin murmurs. "I deal with a lot of...stubborn people. People who are stubborn for very good reasons. They learned things that helped them survive in an awful context and when they leave that context, the things they learned help them feel safe and powerful. If they can't change the way they play the game, they'll die in agony. I hope it's not too forward to say that I see that in you. Something tells me growing up gay in France is only marginally easier than trying it in New England."

[saltwaterlungs]

There's a couple of things Erin will notice as she's dressing the injury. First is that Darcy's skin is cold. Not 'Winter mantle' cold but the cold of a corpse left in water long enough to acclimate to the temperature. The second is that despite her exertion, Darcy isn't breathing. Not more than what's required to talk. Third is that under the choker on her neck is a substantial, gnarly scar like an urban legend, as if Erin could pull the ribbon off and her head would come off with it. It's not her only scar, there's a couple more poking out from under her hoodie; one notably is long and thick and gnarly, reminiscent of a wound from an axe more than anything else.

"That obvious huh."

"How tall are you?" "What?" "I said, how tall are you bambina?" "I don't know, like, 170cm?" "So why are you slinking around like you wish you were shorter than a ruler?"
Avery had bumped his shoulder into hers. He was wearing that god-awful pink velour tracksuit again, the one that felt like it was itching for someone to take issue with it.
"You want to look how you do forever, right? Not going to give up and do the dresses shit eventually?" "No," she'd spat, gripping at the sleeve of her hoodie, "of course not."
"Word of advice then, e? It's going to be hard. People are going to take issue with it. They're going to take issue with you if you're slinking around or if you're walking like you own the fuckin' place. Stand up straight, bambina. Anyone has a problem, we show them why they should keep their fucking mouths shut."

Darcy dismisses the phantasm with a blink, reminding herself of where she is, that Avery's still dead and buried, and the past remains in the past.

"It's not just growing up gay, ehn? I've got other shit."

[crushed_pearls]

"No offense but it's not exactly the hardest thing to tell, youngblood. You sorta seem dead, aside from the bit where you still bleed red."

Erin comes around to Darcy's front. Gingerly, she touches the place she hit the girl and makes a Face; she hadn't pulled that punch quite enough. God damn it. Gently, she parts what little of Darcy's hair is near it and frowns. "There's some superficial cuts. This is gonna sting more than the neck did."

Without thinking, Erin rests her forehead against Darcy's to keep steady while she applies the disinfectant. "...I suspect we've all got a lot more going on," she murmurs. "And I'm not gonna make demands, youngblood. But I'll cut you a deal, because I'm curious, and because I suspect some things that might help your development as a warrior here. Tell me yours, and I'll tell you mine. However you wanna handle it. Anecdote by anecdote, big picture, whatever totes your goats."

[saltwaterlungs]

The second Erin rests her forehead on Darcy's, Darcy pushes her back with hand on her chest. It's unexpected and there's a flare of a couple of mixed emotions- mostly a strong discomfort, a starvation of touch, a panic.

"Don't," she doesn't ask, "I can handle disinfectant sting, just don't."

Often Darcy hates how transparent this place makes her feel. Most are nice enough to not say anything usually, but it doesn't mean they don't notice. People back home never got close enough physically or otherwise to see there was something wrong with her. One of the benefits of drowning instead of anything else. A subtle death.

Darcy wants to say no. Wants to preserve some semblance of her privacy in the face of this woman who already seems to think she knows everything about her.

Instead she asserts- "not here and not now. I don't talk about my shit in public," she suspects there's iron behind the velvet of 'not going to make demands', and Darcy answers in unmasked force in turn.

[crushed_pearls]

Erin backs off. Her cheeks color slightly, and Darcy catches a look of painful self-awareness; her touches with the disinfectant seem almost apologetic. It stings like an unholy mother, too.

"You just met me, youngblood," Erin murmurs. "You don't need to tell me a damn thing. But what I don't know, I can't help you with. I'm not...a stranger, to being changed in a way I'm not okay with. To having to live a life with those changes as best you can. It fucking sucks, but ducking the issue means ducking the advantages you might gain from it. In peacetime, maybe that's a trade folks like us can make..."

She trails off and takes her hand back, fishing now for bandages.

"...Be nice to know what that's like sometime," she admits, with a bit of a sigh. "Peace has not been on the table for me in a long, long time. And judging by your choice of second weapon, not for you either. Misirecordes are not the weapons of a peacetime duelist."

[saltwaterlungs]

"I have a fucking name."

Darcy grits her teeth through the disinfectant- she's dealt with plenty of injuries before now, and even if she hadn't, the zombies at least had necessitates a fair amount of wound clean-up.

Then there's the offer and... it's unsettling how once again Erin cuts her down to the marrow like she's stripping a carcass of meat. Darcy really wants to snarl and snap in defense, to say she really doesn't know what it's like to have choices made for you and things happen to you without your input. There's a rage there towards her oath that Darcy had assumed she'd grown out of.

"I didn't pick it. The misericorde" Darcy croaks at length, "this place gave it to me. I know what they're made for."

The muscles in her jaw flexes, "I don't need your help. I've been living with my shit a long time before you showed up. I'm not a fucking lost lamb and I'm not a project or whatever else it is you think of me. I gave you my fucking answer. Not here and not now. Later, somewhere else. I'm meant to be supervising."

[crushed_pearls]

"That wasn't meant to be insistence," Erin says, with a soft sigh. "But I'll take the hint. Find me if you want me, Miss Darcy."

She puts the finishing touches on the cuts and nods to herself before standing up. Erin's expression looks...distant.

"I shouldn't've done you that hard," she murmurs. "And I apologize for that. It's...no, there's no excuse. But it won't happen again until or unless you're ready to go that hard. Thank you for the fight, and I suppose I'll see you Tuesdays."

[saltwaterlungs]

"No excuse for insulting my reason for living or most of the people most important to me, either," Darcy huffs. Her sport and her teachers respectively. It's whining and she knows it, but her pride is bruised and she really wants Erin to follow through on leaving her the fuck alone for the moment.

"See you Tuesday. And stop fucking miss-ing me," Darcy raises a hand to feel at the bandages, and then returns to the sidelines to try and keep an eye on everyone else.