"Are you certain this is a good idea?"
When the Crowes asked for his assistance, Sergei had definitely not expected to aid in this particular way when he agreed. His eyes wandered over the young woman in front of him, Margaret. She held her wooden sword to the ground just as he did, but her gaze was firm and her jaw set.
"It is," Velvet confirmed from the side. She stood with her arms crossed, peering at the two combatants. "Laphi and I don't make for good sparring partners; he is a powerful seraph and I'm empowered by the same, so she stands no chance at all. You're still out of her league, but far less so."
He decided not to point out the potential slight; she was not wrong. From his frequent visits to the Crowe's Nest whenever he was in town, Sergei long since learned how seraphim empowered a human they bonded with; the amount of physical attributes gained correlated to the seraph's strength, but even a weak one would turn a seasoned warrior into a monstrously powerful opponent.
Still, it was curious. He studied Margaret once more, finding the girl's sword hand twitching ever so slightly. "I was wondering, with so many seraphim present, have you not bonded with one yet?"
She made a face and shook her head despondently. "No one on staff is interested in going on long journeys like I wanna. Well, Zaveid comes by from time to time and I asked him, but he said no, too." Margaret stomped her feet and Sergei was surprised about the venom in her voice when she quoted him: "Says he 'doesn't wanna babysit some kid', the ass."
"Language," Velvet admonished; Margaret did not acknowledge her.
All Sergei could do here was nod, he felt. And play his part. Sighing softly, he regarded his opponent again; Margaret stood taller than most women now, though still only partway toward his or Velvet's prodigious height. Her bright blonde hair, short though it may be, was bound into a tight ponytail so as to not hinder her movements, a golden yellow and shining in the afternoon sun; her stance had become more calm if guarded, blade still pointed at the ground.
From what he heard, the girl just came out of a major growth spurt at the end of Spring. Now that Summer arrived, he figured she would be used enough to her new height; her arms were still shorter than his, but she wore reinforced cloth for armour unlike he with his iron full plate. He had the higher reach and better protection, but she would be the more agile opponent in this matter.
Idly, Sergei took note of how her armour was fashioned onto sturdy everyday clothes, a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of pants, both grey with white trims. He figured that she did not have the money at hand to go for something fancy; it might also be indicative of her chosen style of combat, which he had not seen before. At the same time, he began to feel odd in his polished armour. This would not be a fair fight, he knew; yet few fights were ever fair.
He raised his wooden blade. "Shall we begin then?"
Margaret's sword rose almost in tandem with his own, a fluid motion followed by three quick steps forward and a stab to his gut. Sergei stepped back to avoid it, then made to counter but found the girl leaving his reach. Her determined expression had slackened and she was fully focussed on him now.
She began to circle around Sergei with measured steps, leaving no openings for him to exploit at first; he watched the girl dart into his reach to test his defenses, alternating between slow and fast approaches but always cautious. Sergei began counterattacking after his second parry, yet found his blade thrown off-course by a quick jab of her own each time. It was always the same motion, even. He continued acting slowly to fake the girl out, only barely making his parries and blocks. Once she even managed to get past his guard, her sword scraping over his chestpiece. His vital spots, the weakpoints in his armour, Sergei kept under better protection from her fast approaches.
This slow dance continued for a short minute, Margaret getting close to poking her sword's tip into his elbow joint once in-between. Sergei waited carefully for his chance until, as she took distance from him again, the girl stepped onto a pebble and lost her footing for a moment. He lunged immediately, darting forward at his full speed and lightly slapping the flat side of his sword past her belated guard, into her gut.
Margaret slumped immediately.
"You're dead," Velvet commented from the side.
Sergei mulled over the short fight, his own sword lowered again as he stepped back. "For having but a year of practice however, you were good." The girl perked up at that. "None of the usual beginner's mistakes, a firm stance, it took even a seasoned knight some time to get through your guard. I might have been able to force it earlier, but only because I have a decade and a half over you." He eyed her carefully and considered what else to say. "You're very aware of your own reach and your opponent's, that is good. But what you also need to consider is the ground you fight on. Rarely will it be solid stone, but that is your advantage as well if you can maneuver your opponent into stumbling."
Margaret listened with rapt attention as he offered a few more suggestions, nodding at each one and promising to keep them in mind. Then they returned to their original positions and sparred again.
Watching the two from the sidelines, Velvet and Laphicet both felt oddly nostalgic. They could see the stances, found them to be the same as what they once knew. Margaret flowed from offense to defense and back without any trouble, now merely lacking actual combat experience. Laphicet let out a soft huff. "It's incredible, isn't it? She took to this style so easily and mastered it in a year."
"I wouldn't call it mastered," Velvet told him absently. "She mastered the basics that you're still learning, yes. But what makes Arthur's style shine is how adaptable it is, it doesn't work without actual experience. She won't actually master it for a few years longer, at least."
Later that day, after the sparring session found its end and Sergei took his leave, Laphicet and Margaret were sitting together in one of the back rooms. While Velvet held reign over the tavern itself, the two of them were going over the money that went in and out; Margaret now assisted him with the books. Her handwriting and reading capabilities had progressed far enough to let her work independently.
"I heard he offered to take you into the Platinum Knights," the boy seraph opened idly. He got a glance from his student, who finished a calculation on her small chalk board before answering him.
"He did, but I told him no. Mom wanted me away from the knights and, I don't know, it'd feel dishonest to Velvet either way. And I want to travel a lot first." She groaned and buried her face in her arms. "Not that I can because no one wants to go with me. Why's everyone so skittish?" She received no response and soon cast a glance out from a curtain of blonde hair, watching Laphicet work. "Are you sure I can't bond with you?"
"Maybe if you have some experience," he told her without looking up. "I am too strong for you."
"You still fold whenever Velvet tells you to do something."
"That's because Velvet is too strong for you, too."
He grinned, knowing that she was pouting even without seeing it. Yet Laphicet also knew that this was a bit of a problem; Cynthia would not let her daughter leave the city on her own for anything beyond a short errand, at least until the girl turned seventeen. Having a bonded seraph would bring her around to let Margaret go earlier, they already discussed the matter. He did know two seraphim who might be amenable. Yet he doubted them both in that same moment.
Lailah waited for a shepherd, still waited, and would not accept a fourteen-year-old for the position. Straight up, not a chance. She was a gentle woman and loved children, which would make her even less inclined to push such an important and thus stressful position onto one.
Edna, in turn, seemed to be happy with just living on her mountain with Eizen. He might be able to ask this of her as a favour, but Margaret should have a companion who came along because they wanted to, not because he or Velvet asked them to; this, then, brought him to how he learned that his sister went to visit Edna as well, at least a few times. She probably did it out of a sense of obligation to Eizen, but he appreciated it nonetheless. Edna seemed to enjoy whenever he visited, even if she never said anything of the like.
Either way, Laphicet kept his mouth shut. He did not want to bring Margaret's hopes up.
Both of them went back to the books, but he continued to think of all the things and people. Zaveid who dropped by every three or four weeks, Aifread who was doing well and even came out ahead in several clashes with the knights by now, the two Forton sister working with him, Rodeen who was now holding sermons to half the bandit camp and Enid who rose to be Aifread's right hand. He then thought of Runette Forton, the cardinal; she was doing well for herself and delivered a steady stream of information to them through Morgrim.
Then his gaze was caught by the working Margaret again and he had to smile. Where the girl's mother decided she was better off not knowing what the Bloodwings did exactly, or whom they were dealing with, Margaret herself had no such issues. When Velvet offered to let their partners in on what they were doing, she jumped on the chance.
They still had the problem of Hyland to consider, Laphicet mused then. Outside of Alisha, whom he and Velvet both decided was unsuitable to be a contact, they found no good person to sink their hooks into yet. Great corruption surged through the young king's advisors; they were not actual hellions like some members of Rolance's court, at least not yet, but Laphicet figured both king and emperor were under enemy observation.
So they had to contend with others for now. Find some more allies, strenghten their foundations, build up funds by selling useful information such as market data, and the rest would follow in time. He even managed to subsume some of the earthpulses right under Maotelus' nose. Not that it was much of an achievement just yet, considering how little attention the corrupted Empyrean paid.
All in all, Laphicet figured, everything was going well.
Little did he know, did anyone know, that soon a young man would set out into the world...