(294 words.)
The summer months made the Flooded District even more unpleasant than usual, the air turned hot and muggy and stinking of rats and death. The advantages of this new base outweighed the many flaws, but it was certainly something one had to become accustomed to.
Billie had evidently found a way to deal with the heat, at least, stripped down now to her undershirt with her pants cuffed to the knee to make training in this weather bearable. Daud stopped for a moment on the rooftop opposite their makeshift practice room to watch her.
It was always a pleasure to see her in motion, even at half-speed and with a blunted weapon, feigning killing strikes on straw-stuffed targets. Seeing her so bared was a rare treat, though. Like this, he could better appreciate the clean lines of her stances, the shift of hard muscle under sweat-soaked skin, the practiced ease with which she used the Void's powers to augment her already impressive natural skill.
If he approached her now, she would ask him to spar with her. And he would win still, though these days the gap in their abilities was close enough that any match between them became a long and exhausting affair.
He sometimes imagined what it would be like to lose to her, to let her unbalance him and knock him onto his back and follow him to the ground, her knee on his chest, her blade to his throat, her dark, triumphant grin as she waited for him to yield. It was a strangely tantalizing thought.
He turned sharply away from the edge of the roof and shook his head. That would surely be the beginning of the end, the day she believed she stood a chance of killing him.