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It's a bit like dancing, a fist fight.
There's forms to both, of course. Formal dancing; trained fighting styles. They’re art, both of them.
There’s steps to take with the feet, ways to plant them, sturdy, fluid; motions to make with the arms, leading with the hands, a fist or a gentle hold.
There's reading your partner, or your opponent; reading their body and their signals and making the appropriate move or counter.
There's a style to a type of dance and a style to a type of fighting.
This type of fighting was more like freeform. Less rigid, maybe. No predetermined steps, no script to follow.
It was like breaking free.
Jester, all wry smiles and heavy hits and cheap tricks, moved with easy grace, like a dancer, or maybe like someone who hadn't been rigidly taught 'proper fighting form,' but knew how to move as if unburdened.
Beau, propriety beaten into her both literally and figuratively, moved with control - sometimes, as someone who could only present herself through proper structures, who had to move in the lines even as she punched out of them.
Some fighting could be rigid. Sparring, practice - there were forms and motions that were ground into muscle memory with repetition, repetition, repetition.
Sometimes fighting seemed like a puzzle, a game that was won and lost by putting the practiced moves in the right order.
Jester threw a punch, loose and unrefined, and Beau easily brushed it aside with her forearm, a block as easy as instinct, the right reaction triggered instantly by the right circumstances.
And as fast as a thought, Beau pummeled Jester with three punches to the stomach, pushing the air out of her, causing Jester lean over and wheeze. Beau bounced backwards, giving Jester the space to catch her breath, calm and confident that she had this play-fight in the bag.
Sometimes fighting was lying.
Jester was undeterred; She rounded in with one fist, which Beau countered easily with another brush off, and then Jester let the momentum from her countered feint smoothly spin her away from Beau's renewed defensive front. Her other fist, charged with necrotic energy, slammed thick and hard into Beau's shoulder, and sent bruising wounds sinking far deeper into her tissue than a punch normally should be able to deliver.
Beau stumbled back, caught off guard, and glared, but couldn't stop her smile from betraying how impressed she was. Jester giggled, and spun away again, putting distance between them and holding her fists up in a loose impersonation of a defensive stance.
Dancing required synchronicity. It required both partners to work together, to communicate, sometimes for one to surrender control to the other. Fights weren't like that; if one partner outmatched the other, the fight would be over soon. If the partners were well-matched, however, well…
Beau moved lightning quick, precise, mind always racing and calculating and catching subtle clues and cues and returning a retort. She was three swift punches delivered to the weakest points; she was a strike that pulled out truth, a sharp jab that uncovered secrets.
Jester moved as smooth and strong as a current, and as keen and cruel as ice; as light as butterflies in a field of flowers and as blunt and bold as a sweet sucker. She was a heavy haymaker of magic heaving with divine guile; she was a sudden hit heralded only by a hurried feint, a hurricane of chaos that overwhelmed and inspired and could leave anyone breathless.
The traded blows and blocks, counters and dodges; danced as artists in the magical and the martial.
Fighting, dancing: different in some ways, similar in others. Perhaps not all dancing need be so rigid. Some dances are as spontaneous as a feeling, some fights are as structured as a performance.
Beau was unbridled energy channeled into disciplined and tried-and-true traditions of an ancient order, formed under pressure and punishment both.
Jester was brightness and chaos left in a box, power and creativity brimming over, waiting to burst forth, tutored artistry translating into an explosion of exuberance.
When they fight, it's for fun, for friendship, for love. For the simple joy of fighting, of being together, of being around eachother, of reading eachother, like a dance partner, not an opponent.
They fight to win, of course, competitiveness is in their bones, but therein lies the joy of reading eachother, seeing eachother in full, dancing and fighting and releasing their full selves in a punch, in a spin, in a quick reflex, in a block, in a smile, in a stun, in a spell.
So many might see two young women sparring in a bar, might look at either one of them and see someone too rowdy, too loud, too unrefined, too rude, too much. And it was true that they held a lot in excess inside; that they both were so bright and so angry and so sad and so full of love and fear and brilliance, that for them to be their fullest selves at all times would overwhelm everyone, anyone - themselves, even.
But they were a perfect storm together.
No need to be small around eachother. No need to reign themselves in and be more palatable. No need to compress all of their heart and soul into something smaller and more manageable and under such intense pressure, and explosion was guaranteed.
No need to be anything but two women who adore every facet of eachother, throwing their whole selves into everything together, collapsing on the floor in exhaustion and joy and laughter, curling up together and sharing tired kisses.
It's a bit like dancing, a fist fight. Another way to love and be in love with someone.
“That was a good trick,” Beau complimented, warm and admiring, pressing a kiss to Jester’s shoulder and then leaning on her.
“Thank you,” Jester preened, proud she was able to pull one over her brilliant girlfriend, proud to have made her proud. “I think you’ve gotten even faster with your reactions now, I aaaaaalmost wasn’t able to pull it off!”
Beau snickered, too tired to reply, and they just laid down together on the tavern floor, letting the world spin around them.