noteasytobepink | The problem with dangerous people...

Who: Clarice and other students
When: Off and on through her time in Bill's world.
What: Clarice stays sharp. Sort of. It's complicated.

She didn't do much until she was cleared, medically. Only an idiot pushed an injury when there was the option to rest. She even did physical therapy religiously, but given mutant bodies, well, she tended to heal better than expected. She didn't have a healing factor, no, but she did have the heightened metabolism and that tended to help when she had the option of decent nutrition.

She tried to take the down time as a gift, she did. She only ran at first. A lot, on the ground, along the mountains, through the trees, she just ran, keeping up her wind. But a month stretched into a handful of months and she took up climbing and woodland parkour, trying to simulate vectors and angles she encountered in combat.

Then it happened; it was simple, and stupid and it shouldn't have bothered her because she had a good thing here, but she got winded. Doing something simple, for her, was harder than it should have been. It should have been alright because it was a sign, right? That she didn't need the combat skills any more. Not here, there was nothing to keep her sharp...

...but she couldn't really believe that. Working as a florist, hah, dangerous stuff. Stepping up to deputy? A breeze, and...she couldn't let the skills go. Something small, and terrified, and grim deep inside said she couldn't, and that voice had never led her wrong.

That just meant she had to get creative because no one would approve, especially not Bil.

When trapped and unable to train? Go to the source. Go to the people Mr. Creed had lived with for a while that had given him skills to teach her.

...or go to that area of the world anyway and hope to find someone who spoke with fists and feet properly.

She went to Vietnam. Stepping away for a few hours here and there to comb dripping jungles, watching and waiting until she saw the proper style. Perisai Diri was obvious even to her who'd learned it piece meal and adapted to a young, flexible teleporter. She didn't know the language beyond afew polite phrases given as ritual to teachers; she didn't have to.

She did have to stand up to being tested, women, after all, were not known as fighters even in Vietnam. Not hand to hand fighters anyway. She was in shape enough to pass that at least, though no one would call her a master by any means.

She couldn't even dedicate a few hours every day in training over there, just enough to stay sharp. Just enough to know the people coming at her when they lined up in a class or in a brawl session could be better than her. That edge of 'I'm not enough' that was true training. She always managed to scrape through. She was a lot like those she trained with after all, a child of depredation and war. They trained to keep a tradition of holding their land, she trained against them to stay alive, and they taught each other some interesting tricks as snatched weeks bled into months which hemorrhaged into years.

Bill had his alone time to relax and do his own thing; she had hers. It was more relaxing, at times, than even sex because it was confirmation that she could survive. Even in a world such as this there were people who understood, as the man she was growing to love didn't, and so she allowed silence.

She didn't ask where he spent his free time when they didn't have plans; she didn't offer what she did with hers. It was the best she could do some days, even days like this when she slipped in the back door covered in mud along one side and eyes still glowing from power use and high emotion. There had been an honor awarded tonight; it was a good thing...she just...wasn't sure Bill would understand if she offered to share the honor as she'd been invited to.

She wasn't sure how to ask.

One thing was certain though, she'd need a shower before she decided anything, yes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

Talking was a good distraction, and Bill was happy for it himself.

Laughing, Bill shook his head. "I'm pretty sure my mom would kill me if I did that. Much as she'd love t'see me get married, two wives would be one too many."

Regardless of each wife's location.

From:

steahl_npc

"I don't even want to think what she would say to that," he admitted with a soft, short chuckle. "But maybe your mother would like my mother. They could plot together."

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"You think that would end well for either of us?" he asked, arching an eyebrow. To his mind letting his mom conspire with anyone about him wasn't a very smart idea.

From:

steahl_npc

"I was hoping the language barrier would buy us some time," he admitted with another small smile.

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"They're moms, they'd figure it out soon enough." Smacking your son was kind of a universal language, after all.

From:

steahl_npc

"True, and then we would die. Or wish we had," he shrugged easily. "But they would have a friendship no doubt."

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"Well as long as they'd be happy," he chuckled.

From:

steahl_npc

"They might at that," he admitted. "We may not survive but they would be happy and likely they would be kind enough to allow us some time with our women before we died, so there may even be grandchildren for them..." he mused.

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"You're a sunny kind of fella, y'know that?" Bill chuckled, finishing off his soup. They were doomed, but at least their moms would have a good time!

From:

steahl_npc

"I must be to balance out my wife," he chuckled wryly, finishing his bowl as well. "Just as I imagine you must be kind and relaxed to balance your woman."

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

Bill smiled at that and nodded.

"Yeah, I'm definitely the laid back one."

From:

steahl_npc

"Two fighters in a household will tear it apart more often than not," he quoted someone wryly. "It is good, this way our women have someone waiting instead of someone who left, jealous, when the women were chosen over us."

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"I reckon that makes sense."

It was something to mull over, and Bill would certainly turn it over for a bit.

From:

noteasytobepink

"There have been marriages broken over fighters being picked first or second," he admitted. "Not recently, very few women train, but there are always stories."

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"You'd think they outta be happy for each other," he noted, wondering if he could be in a similar situation.

From:

noteasytobepink

"This level of fighting is very competitive. If they are in the same fighting discipline and one is chosen before the other it can get very bad..." he mused. "Easier for different disciplines to exist in the same house than the same. Admittedly, I dislike pain, so I would not be a fighter regardless."

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"I don't quite get everything she does," he admitted, "So that ain't something we'd have to worry on, either."

From:

noteasytobepink

"As long as we accept it as part of them," he agreed. "And admit they can kick our ass if it ever comes to that," he laughed, more self deprecating than anything else.

"My own wife is proud that I heal though, so that is a salve to my pride."

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

Bill had a little trouble with the 'accepting' part, and he knew it. He did fully acknowledge that Clarice could hand him his ass if she ever wanted too, though.

"That's a good thing t'have."

From:

noteasytobepink

"Salve or acceptance?" he asked, amused despite himself.

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"Both," he replied, chuckling. "If you can manage it."

From:

noteasytobepink

"I try. And you?" This was a gentle question toward 'are you going to drop your woman because of this?'.

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"I'm tryin'." He glanced down the path, frowning to himself.

"I worry, though." And now he wasn't talking about the specific worries of today.

From:

noteasytobepink

"What worries?" he asked, shifting his attention slightly to look at Bill for a moment. "Fighters may still carry to term, she can have sons."

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"Huh? What-- no, that ain't... we aren't... that wasn't what I was worried on," he finished at last, flustered and stammering.

Shaking his head to recompose himself, he explained, "I'm worried all of this will make it so she won't ever find peace. She's always so charged up, thinkin' there's gonna be trouble, trainin' for some invisible threat. Make's settlin' down kinda hard when you can't ever just live an' 'be', y'know?"

Giving a sigh he shrugged a shoulder, uneasy but troubled enough to make the next admission. "I also know I won't ever be able to keep up with her. So what happens when she decides she needs someone who can?"