[Heehee, and the story continues. And by the way, I've made sketches of Gunther with his different hairstyles, if I couldn't describe them well enough. It's viewable at the following address .com/art/Gunther-185205632, which is a drawing on my deviantart account. If you can't access it from here, well, just go to my deviantart account - same username - and it should be the newest upload in my gallery. The first three you should probably be familiar with already. The fourth is a little sneak preview in what comes next in the story. :D Enjoy! R&R Plox.]
[Oh, and by the other way, this chapter's got an exciting bit - there's a fight scene in it! Review and critique it, if it's good, too slow, too detailed, completely impossible, or whatever you think about it, and if you'd like to see more fight scenes, with or without the attempted fluff. Thanks.]
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"Jester!" Jane shouted, at the same time standing up, turning around, and pointing her sword at the jingle-boy, who had been creeping up on her back.
"What?" Jester said, standing up from his crouched position. "I didn't do anything," he said, holding his right arm up, and his other at his back, standing straight as a stake.
Jane scoffed and rolled her eyes. She put her sword in the crook of Jester's left elbow and pulled his left arm sharply away from his body. A pair of scissors fell to the ground.
"How could you do that?" she screamed at him, driving her sword into the dirt ground.
"I didn't really do anything," Jester said, scratching the back of his head, er, hat. "I mean, not yet, but-"
"But you were going to," Jane said, pointing an accusing finger at the scissors. "-cut my hair off. "You're siding with Gunther!"
"I am not siding with Gunther, I'm just trying to help you!" Jester said, flapping his arms out in desperation. "If I get rid of your hair, then you could always tell that coward-boy that it wasn't your fault, then you wouldn't have to continue. It's obvious you're going to lose, er, oops-," he said, quickly covering his mouth.
"I won't lose," Jane said, folding her arms crossly. "I won't dare lose. I can handle this myself, so you can keep your scissors and jingly hat out of this."
She pulled her sword from the ground and turned around sharply. Jester watched the massive head of hair walk briskly away from him. And then realized that it was still in its braid.
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"Oh, still haven't taken out the braid from yesterday, have we, Jane?" Gunther said, bowing to his sparring partner.
"Oh, now we're concerned with how my hair looks, aren't we, Gunther?" Jane said, bowing back.
"Well," Gunther said, tilting his head to look at her. "Well," he said again, "I thought you would've taken it out at once."
"Well what?" Jane said, getting into her fighting stance. "So I left the braid in. I thought you'd be glad to know I appreciated it," she said, not mentioning how she still remembered the feel of every feathery touch on her hair, neck, and back. "I still washed my hair, if you happen to be laughing about that."
"I wasn't laughi-," Gunther began, shrugging his shoulders, but was abruptly cut off by Jane's lunge and thrust at his chest. He quickly brought his sword arm to center, knocking the sword away with the flat of his blade.
"Oh, don't pretend, Gunther," Jane said, stepping back again, swinging her sword around her head like a saber, and swung out at Gunther's temple. "We both know this little dare was your little idea of a joke."
"My idea of a-," Gunther said, easily parrying the slash, then pushing the blade away, and countering with his own swing back. "Well, if it such a farce, why don't you just call it off then?"
"Well-," Jane said, weakly parrying.
"Well what?" Gunther said, with another slash from the opposite side.
"Well well!" Jane said, fiercely blocking this swing. She twisted the blade and pushed Gunther's downward to hit the ground. "Fine then, I'll call it off then."
"Fine," Gunther said calmly, maneuvering his sword arm downwards and twisting his sword free of the sword-lock, and raising it above his head.
"Fine!" Jane shouted as Gunther brought his sword down with two hands. Metal scraped against metal as she blocked it with a two-handed grip on the hilt, her sword horizontal at eye-level. She lowered her body to better block the powerful strike, and eventually knelt on her left knee.
"Fine," Gunther said, with renewed intensity, as he rested all his weight on the contact point.
Then Jane had an idea. She tilted the sword downwards to her left, and almost immediately she sensed Gunther's weight shift abruptly with his sword, falling to her left. She then pushed outwards to her left, sending Gunther completely off-balance. Then, tucking her sword and arms in, she quickly did a forward tumble, ending up kneeling beside Gunther. She rammed her elbow in the back of Gunther's knees and shoved, hard.
Gunther fell forwards on his knees. Jane stood up directly behind him and grabbed his ponytail, pulling it upwards. From the balconies, a sigh, followed by a closing door, went unheard.
"But before we call off this bet," Jane said, new malice in her voice. "I want to make sure you," she said, bringing her sword slowly up to the base of the ponytail, "-lose."
"… Fine," Gunther said, unexpectedly, for Jane truthfully. Gunther let his head hang limp - struggling against Jane's vise-like grip was futile.
"Fine," Jane said, and tried to mean it. But her sword-arm started to shake, and she couldn't get it to slice through the silky black hair that hung between her fingertips. An involuntary shiver ran through her, and she took a deep breath, but all she could manage was to nick Gunther's hair tie.
"Well?" Gunther said, as he noticed his hair fall around his face. "Can't even cheat properly, can you, lionhead?"
Jane fumed. Then she got another idea. She flopped Gunther's hair over his head, then grabbed another tuft from the front, right around his face. And, with no hesitation, she sliced right through it with her blade.
Gunther stood up abruptly as Jane backed away. He spit out tufts of hair and brushed the rest from his face. "I knew it! You cheater!"
"Not really," Jane said, smirking and flicking strands of black hair from her fingers. "That bit isn't part of the bet."
"Ugh, feather-brain," was all Gunther managed as he turned to face her, his hair swooshing around his head. With his new 'haircut,' some strands kept falling just over his eyes, and a few longer strands fell down the sides of his face, to his chin.
A little gasp was all Jane managed, as she watched Gunther turn, then storm off, as manly as he could be, with his hair all down. And she couldn't help but smile after him.
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