Disclaimer: The Seven Kingdom Trilogy and characters belong to Kristin Cashore. cover art drawn by Tumblr user, minuiko.

first Graceling fanfic i've ever done, but after starting and finishing the series last week, i was just compelled...1

Katsa and Po circled each other with wild eyes. Their tired, short breaths filled the chilling emptiness of the open training room. Katsa quieted the string of battle tactics and strategies that came running through her mind like a flowing river of words and blood. Otherwise, he would know when and how she would attack him. Both their Graces made them evenly matched, stretching their sparring match to minutes. Either combatant refused to yield to the other.

Katsa could see the glint of sweat reflecting off Po's forehead in the lantern light, which cast a mysterious, dark shadow upon his handsome features. He was tiring, she noted. His golden and silver irises pierced her with their calculating gaze, even though she knew that Po had no sight, but for his Grace. Because of this handicap, Katsa was at first reluctant to spar with him. But Po had insisted. "I must now practise to fight with my loss of sight," he had said, "and learn to control my Grace to focus when in a real battle." And so she agreed, for she would not allow any harm come to Po while in the vulnerable state of blindness.

At the moment, he was doing an excellent job of defending his ground, if Katsa did say so herself. His control and ease with his Grace of mind-reading had truly developed, with the exception of a few bruises and sores.

The two remained in their solid stances for tense seconds, before Katsa raised her sword and charged at Po's unguarded side. If she were battling against any ordinary guard soldier, he would have been skewered to the hilt of her blade. But the Lienid prince was no ordinary soldier, and so - unsurprisingly - Katsa's strike met with thin air and she momentarily faltered before spinning to meet Po's counter. The two fighters began to exchange blow after blow, strike after strike, parry after parry. As per usual when they sparred, Katsa had to constantly struggle against Po's force and strength behind his attacks, countering with her agility. She darted between his cuts and swings and he easily anticipated every one of her moves. This, however only resulted in his blade once again clashing against hers, and prolonged the exhausting fight. Katsa stubbornly held her ground, quivering as she slid back upon force.

I need to get him off guard, she thought. And before Po could register what she was thinking, she kicked at his knees with a cry, making him stumble back and lower his guard just for a moment...

She took the opportunity to strike, and at the last fraction of a second, he sensed her movement and caught her sword hand with his off hand. He pulled her down with him onto the grubby floor. Then he chuckled.

Katsa simply lay there atop Po, panting down his neck, her breath tickling it. It was then she realised how they were touching, her chest pressed against his toned body, and her Graceling eyes merely inches from his. She watched him laugh, a grin plastered on his face.

"I guess it's a draw, then?" he said, still flashing a grin. His eyes, though sightless, seemed to sparkle with life to her.

She looked down at herself and just realised then how they had sported during the sparring match. She could feel newly formed bruises every time her body brushed against cloth and her tiredness caught up to her as she felt her arms grow heavy and sore. "Yes, I suppose so. That-that was well fought," Katsa stuttered, beginning to flush under the masking gaze of Po's eyes that were locked with her own deep blue and green ones. She couldn't blink; she couldn't disturb the mesmerizing image.

Po's grin faded to be replaced by a smug smile. "My dear, Wildcat. I had thought you knew well my Grace, as I know well yours."

The light-headed, floating feeling in Katsa's head melted to be replaced with slight frustration and humiliation. His Grace is mind-reading, damnit!

The humiliation soon faded, however, and she roughly herself off him whilst fighting back a small smile. "Same time, tomorrow?" She lay next to him, sweating and tired, absent-mindedly linking her fingers with his.

"Of course."

The two were both now simply relaxing after the tiring long spar, and enjoying the feel of each other's presence. Katsa took this blissful moment to really look at Po. He lay on the floor, sweating, dirty, sore, his blind eyes directed towards the low ceiling, though Katsa really knew his Grace was focused on her. Uncaring about the prospect of Po's mind reading, she fully recognised how the lantern lights reflected off his Lienid gold rings and studs. The shadows that curved and outlined every strong muscle in his arms and chest, seen through the opened neck of his shirt. And his dark hair, sprawled across his forehead in an unjustified mess.

When he turned his body to face her and reached out to brush her cheek with a hand, she felt herself fall into a trance. Never before had Katsa felt so at peace, so contained, until Po had walked into her life; until that life changing moment when he had grabbed her from the shadows and held a bloody knife at her exposed throat. This man brought her peace, as she had to him.

"Katsa..." Po whispered, leaning forwards, and forgetting their place in a dingy training room littered with gears of war.

She smiled into their kiss, and once released, only one thought raced through her mind as she stared at Po's face, his eyes...

Katsa decided that they were beautiful.

That he was beautiful.

"You're beautiful too," he breathed down her neck. He wrapped his arms around her, running a hand through her dark cropped hair.

Katsa sucked in a breath as she felt her body being envoloped into his. The musty smell of combined sweat and metal circled them, making her, quite frankly, gag into Po's shirt. "Po...I can't breathe," she said, with a warning tone.

She furrowed her eyebrows when he refused to let go of her, knowing without looking at him that he was grinning. Katsa snarled. "Po." With every ounce of strength she had left, she roughly pushed him off and twisted to pin him to the floor. He, in turn, wriggled out of her gasp and held down her arms with a vice grip.

Po and Katsa laughed as they now wrestled each other, their hoots and whoops bouncing off the training room walls.

How their sparring matches now always seemed to end up with this result, Katsa hadn't the slightest clue.

hey readers, tell me what you think! boring? good? leave a review!