milliways_bar | (no subject)

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It's very cold outside. But when you keep moving, it's not so bad, even if you aren't dressed for it.

Saionji's borrowed a broom from the Bar, along with the bamboo shinai he's currently practicing with, and swept a clear area in the snow alongside the wall of the stables. Proper kendo requires that your foot strike the ground at the same moment you make contact with the weapon, and this doesn't work all that well in two feet of snow. The uncovered grass is flat and tired, and currently getting stomped on by a kendoka as he moves through the various strikes and thrusts of his kata.

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He has a rather interested observer, who, on his way to the lake bank, made something of a u turn to come watch.

Jack doesn't interrupt.

People used to watch Saionji all the time; he was the team captain at Ohtori, where fencing and kendo have the status of basketball or football in some American schools.

But things have changed, and while he doesn't exactly cut his kata short, when he finishes the series of motions, he pauses acknowledge the observer with a nod. "Hello."

"Hello."

Jack isn't exactly a fangirl, or anything. He's just interested.

"What are you doing?"

"It's called kendo--the art of the sword. I'm practicing." He lays the bamboo sword back over his shoulder. "I'm Saionji."

"Mercutio was going to teach me to fence. But his sword did not look like that."

He scrutinizes, for half a second.

"It is not very sharp. You would not be able to kill people very easily. I am Jack of the Frost, and would it not be better to have it made of metal?"

"It would also be very expensive," Saionji says with a smirk. "This is a practice sword--a shinai. If I wanted something with a curved edge like a real sword, I could use a wooden bokken. An actual katana would be reserved for a very serious match, or a duel." A ring on his right hand, holding the sword up to his shoulder, gleams.

"What was your friend's sword like?"

"It was thin, and pointed."

He gestures the approximate length of a typical Shakespearean blade.

"Much more slim. And whippy. Like shoots, tree branches."

Saionji nods. "A true fencing foil, then. Fencing is a Western sport; kendo is Japanese, and uses a traditional Japanese sword."

"I've known fencers who were great swordsmen and women," he allows. "It's not my path, though."

[ooc: bloody tag eating lj]

"It was hard to tell about him. He was fighting air like you."

Which seems rather pointless, to him.

Saionji smirks again. "Well, I don't have a proper partner at the moment. There are a limited number of cuts and strokes that are recombined in a real match; practicing each one until it's automatic is an important aspect of the discipline."

"You should fight Mercutio, then."

He amends with a quick "Not really."

Because death is all kinds of bad.

"Why not?" he says. "It's a different style--but I've duelled fencers before."

"Style."

He folds, settling cross legged and picking up a handful of snow.

"Well, search for him, if you will. He was looking for someone and the part of me that can fight, I would not have him face."

Saionji arches an eyebrow at that.

"Perhaps I will. It would be good to practice with someone again."

He doesn't have an answer to that, so he ignores it.

"Why do you fight here? People do not like very much cold, in my experience."

"There isn't space inside," he says dryly. He is cold; he's only wearing a thin denim jacket. But he hasn't had much chance to practice in months.

"That is true."

He tosses the snowball up in the air, catching it again.

"Well, it is a lovely winter."

"It doesn't usually this cold, back home," he says. "But I guess the snow is pretty, in its way."

"Thank you."

He smiles. Rather proud.

Vain, really, but there you go.

Another raised eyebrow at that. "Eh?"

"Jack of the Frost, remember?"

Self explanatory, really.

Saionji looks at him blankly.

Jack Frost is not a folkloric figure in his idiom, and he hasn't met any obviously supernatural beings around here.

"See?"

He holds his hand up, snow still held in it.

And from there, the snow climbs and grows and spreads into a small birch tree, roots going through his hand and trailing out through the skin.

Saionji steps back, holding the shinai up in a vague warding gesture; not aggressive, but startled.

Not, perhaps, as shocked as he ought to be, either.

"You're some kind of... ice spirit?"

"Are you going to stab me?"

He sounds rather concerned. And scrambles backwards.

"That hurts. I have had my throat slit and it was not pleasant. Please do not point swords at me?"

"...this is neither pointed at you, or a sword," Saionji says, rolling his eyes.

"I'm not going to stab you. It's impossible to stab someone with a shinai. The worst I could do is spank you."

"...well it hurt."

There is a very pointed glare, that of a child with a rather spectacularly ruffled dignity.

"I would imagine so," Saionji says, conciliatory. "But that doesn't mean I intend to stab you."

"One is never sure."

His arms fold defensively across his chest.

"You could really really not like the cold? Then you might try."

"No amount of dislike," Saionji says, with growing irritability, "is going to make a bamboo sword sharp."

"Is it bamboo?"

Jack is suddenly quite a bit closer, trying to get a better look.

"You would be surprised what you can stab people with. The strangest things. Would you like some raisins?"

"..." Topic shift whiplash!

Saionji closes his eyes. "No, thank you."

He points to the end of the shinai, holding it out. "It's capped with rubber, too."

"Oh, then I am fine."

Jack's good at that! Yay, no attention span!

"I am nimble anyways."

[ooc: and something big has just come up. Gonna have to beg a slowtime/fade, at your discretion. Deepest apologies.]

[OOC: That's okay, we can fade here.]

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