supposing i had courage

[thethingsidoforlove]

Who: Jaime Lannister and Irene Adler
What: The Woman and the Knight meet at the Arena.
Where: The Arena
When: Misdi
Warnings: Violence under cut, more TBA probably!

This is starting to become normal, Jaime reflects. This dance, and his partners. This one is rather big, but not impossible, a rocky hide and massive horns that curve inwards like a bull, face conforming to the shapes of one but certainly there's intelligence in its eyes, too. It has a sword as rough as a farmer's tool, and held like an axe, making Jaime's not insubstantial longsword look as delicate as a lady's ornamental dagger, but he does know better. Some of those betting might not.

But there were opponants like this at home, really. Human ones, granted, but big and slow and arrogant, the barely legitimate sons of minor lords, about as noble as a sack of bricks. They moved in vaguely the same way. And they tired easily.

Jaime is getting tired too, which has to do with his armor, the kind he always wears. Medieval steel plating, a skirt of scale mail, shining silver over leather. He's foregone the helmet as a distraction, deciding that if his head was aimed for, there is little that mask can do against this one's blows, and he'll take the ability to see and hear with better clarity to avoid such a thing. He gets called a few things in the Arena; 'the knight' is particularly unoriginal, as is 'Sir Jaime'. 'Tinman' was rather good, usually what he gets when he loses. He is not the only sword wielding, armor wearing human to enter these grounds, but he is one of the more persistent, and embraces the character given.

The fight is a lengthy one, but finally, there's an opening, and his sword comes up beneath the brute's armpit, finding less craggy flesh. There's a river of red blood that streaks along his sword and down the monster's side, and though it snarls in agony, it switches sword hands. But one last clash of steel sends it staggering to a knee, and Jaime squares the end of his sword against the thing's throat, the temptation to dispatch it making his fingers lock around the hilt.

But the fight is ended like that, and rather than he called a murderer, again, Jaime withdraws.

He clears the space for the next fight, and this was certainly his last one today. There is a dent in his breastplate that appears to pain him, considering the line his mouth is making, and off to the side, his sword is set aside, fingers reaching for the buckles of leather and metal.

Comments

[thethingsidoforlove]

Fingers, free of leather gloves, searching after the wound to his arm, but it isn't major enough for expression to flicker across his face. With that, Jaime's attention and care for himself fades from focus, enough to look at this lady and wonder, automatically, what she wants; either from him or the Arena as a whole. High courts of lords and ladies were often attracted by events of blood and death, but this seems less the case for Baedal, but there is a sort of affectedness that translates, to Jaime, as aristocracy.

Not that this ever counts for much to Jaime. He's seen the best and the worst of the high born. Just an observation. Just like;

"Perverse," he replies with, after a moment of thought.

[thedominatrix]

She gives a grin; it looks like the only genuine smile (as opposed to a smirk) she's granted him thus far.

"Perhaps," she agrees; "but look where we're standing."

After all, this is quite literally a temple to violence. If anything, coming here for that- the raw human emotion and spirit, the desire to kill or be killed, the winning and the losing- well, isn't that more pure, technically, than coming to gamble?

If you want to argue purity.

[thethingsidoforlove]

"Oh, I couldn't agree more."

The fighting ground is being prepared for the next. Spatters of blood are found and scattered with sand, bookies are stirring the ground. Jaime himself comes to watch, without gambling, but with the avid focus of someone analysing his own sport as opposed to experiencing the visceral rush it might bring him or the people around him. A glance, to see if there's anything worth watching happening yet.

There isn't, but he does snag a look at the bull-like xenian he'd bested, his on fingers stretching and relaxing again in a reflexive attempt to rid himself of tension, before looking back to her. "A brawl without a worthy audience is a shameful affair." A nod to the grumblers. "They're a part of the spectacle, whether they like it or not."

[thedominatrix]

"Of course," she agrees, smile hanging onto the corners of her mouth. "It's not a performance without someone to watch." If perky were ever a word that could be applied to her, now would be the moment- when she's talking about her theories, things she's noted in her own life, looking delighted with herself all the while, though any modesty or innocence she espouses is tongue in cheek.

"Though- so sorry- you don't look like a performer, exactly." Which is to say that whatever he's doing here, it's more like sport than whatever he got up to at home- as far as Irene can tell from the way he carries himself and (most importantly) the tempted twitch of his sword at his opponent's neck.

[thethingsidoforlove]

Jaime pauses, there, considering the fight he just participated in, brows coming together. He knows he fights more viciously here than he did at home, for all that death was more likely an outcome of such clashes even at the Arena; but that's what happens when you're normal, and everyone else are monsters. "I'm paid to win," he agrees. "And those that come up against me may be part of the show, but they come away lacking. I prefer to have best of both worlds.

"Pray, what do I look like?"