Maria barely managed to make it to the dining hall and finally have a meal before it was time to hurry back to his majesty and protect his person once more. The required focus and professional paranoia needed for her duties allowed her to push away her outrage, allowing her to set aside her emotions, lest they ferment in the vat of her mind into something terrible.

The council of war continued. While Xiarmah wanted them to approach La Sable aggressively, with fire and more fire and still more fire, and depopulating La Sable so thoroughly there would be no one to seek revenge. While no one was explicitly agreeing with them, those from nations that shared a border with La Sable—Etran, Tasmeria, Drang, and Sorcier itself—often looked very wistful at Queen Xiulan's rather graphic descriptions as to what should be done. Maria suspected many have had to deal with their commoners being abducted by slavers that did business in La Sable. Indeed, many seemed to be taking this opportunity to finally deal with the problem once and for all. There was a rather fierce debate of whether it would simply be viable to simply wall up La Sable behind its own borders—an idea that Maria gathered was half running joke and half dangerously serious suggestion, which in this instance seemed to be more the latter than the former—that only lost stamina when the grandiose expense of such a project was proposed. No one really took the suggestion that the La Sablicans be the ones to pay for the wall seriously.

Ethenell, being across the ocean, had no notable history with La Sable beyond interacting with them in trade and during the International Assembly, and thus was a moderating influence. Hallig was the same, as they did not share a border with La Sable, with King Miquella espousing a more measured punitive measure. Namely, razing La Sable's capital to the ground in the fire, more fire, and still more fire that Xiarmah espoused and leaving a power vacuum for the rest of La Sable's nobles to fight over, while the other nations of the assembly nibble at their borders to keep inevitable lack of order from resulting in more abductions.

Tasmeria was advocating for war almost as strongly as Xiarmah was, while at the same time espousing that they should take the time to prepare properly. As Maria understood it, this was more to set a precedent than it was the result of bloodthirst or historical animosity. Given that they had uneasy relations with their neighbor Towair—which happened to be an ally of La Sable—by showing a willingness to go to war on Sorcier's behalf Queen Mylene wanted the other countries to reciprocate. Towair would no doubt declare war on Tasmeria at the slightest cause, and Tasmeria being party to invading La Sable would certainly count.

Maria got the impression that none of the options really satisfied King Artorias. Breaking apart La Sable's government—such as it was—was exactly what had happened during the rule of the previous king, which had contributed greatly to the almost lawless state that had led to La Sable being a thorn on the sides of its neighbors and had given rise to the ascension of the technically-no-longer Lord Presider. Simply plunging La Sable back into that state seemed… ill-advised.

Queen Siegmidala also pointed out that destroying what central authority that the country had would result in the many, many mercenaries and conscripts that La Sable employed would probably turn to banditry and slave-raiding. And while the chapter houses of the various Covenants residing in La Sable would no doubt try to deal with them, it was well known that the knights of the La Sable Covenant houses had a reputation for… well, being La Sablican. But even despite that, the Covenant houses there had far smaller numbers compared other places, and would be stretched quite thin trying to do anything about banditry, even if they weren't somehow dragged into the country's troubles. What was more, they were still La Sablican knights, and would honor bound to defend La Sable from foreign invasion.

Etran had tentatively suggested that they set up a replacement government, but that had been immediately overruled, as none of them wanted to be responsible for another country. While Etran had let the idea, Maria suspected they intended to try seeing it through later on their own.

While nothing was officially, resolved, Maria got the sense that progress had been made. Certainly everyone seemed more satisfied than they had been before the recess this afternoon, although nothing definite had yet been decided. However, the king seemed to have something in mind. He seemed thoughtful as Maria escorted him to his rooms. As the one who had been invaded, Sorcier was the one with cause to go to war with La Sable, and thus it was the king who supposedly led the council of war. Which was not to say that the other nations didn't have good cause as well, given the Lord Presider's stated intentions and the way his men had attacked indiscriminately, but ultimately this was Sorcier's invasion.

Maria didn't envy the king whatever decisions he had to make.

Once the king was safely ensconced in his rooms again, Maria found herself at liberty once. It was actually still fairly early, with some time left before dinner. Resolutely, she set off to find her squire.

After some walking around, getting lost, climbing up and down ladders, walking on the greenhouse roof, and eventually resorting to asking a servant in desperation, Maria found herself in one of the castle's courtyards behind its walls. The courtyard was a training ground for the castle's knights, and so was filled with men and women and even a few wolves carrying weapons in their mouths, all doing some sort of training.

In one corner of the courtyard was her squire, wearing her training armor as she practiced with her wooden sword. Despite that, Katarina's sword was in its sheathe at her belt, the weight not seeming to bother her as she repeated the exact same swinging movements with near-mindless precision.

"Heigh-ho! Heave-ho! Heigh-ho! Heave-ho!"

Maria was almost expecting the spectators watching from nearby windows, balconies, and the edges of the courtyard. From the mix of fashions they wore, they were as much nobles from the delegations as Sorcier nobility—no surprise—and fortunately they were keeping to a respectful distance and not interfering with everyone else's practice.

"Heigh-ho! Heave-ho! Heigh-ho! Heave-ho!"

Huh, that meant her squire had done this before, since those spectators would definitely not have known what a respectful distance was the first time. It warmed Maria's heart to realize that despite not being ordered, her squire had kept at her practice this past week, in between her unknowing attempts to somehow suborn all the other nations of the world around her calloused farmer fingers.

"Heigh-ho! Heave-ho! Heigh-ho! Heave-ho!"

There was a minor stir as Maria walked into the courtyard in Katarina's blind spot—which she had to circumnavigate the courtyard to do—other knights and probably squires glancing towards her as she walked in. Her dark leather, cape and hat were rather distinctive, and was technically light armor, if only because of the thickness of the leather. She nodded at those looking directly at her but continued to make her way towards her squire, moving to stand behind her and to one side, still in Katarina's blind spot. Technically, 'directly in front of her' was considered one of Katarina's blind spots when sufficiently distracted, but Maria had been getting her squire to stop doing that.

"Heigh-ho! Heave-ho! Heigh-ho! Heave-ho!"

For a moment, Maria stood there noting her squire's stance, breathing, and reset speed. That last, technically, could stand to be improved… except Katarina had maintained the same reset speed for as long as Maria had known her. She'd kept time once, counting heartbeats. While she knew Katarina could reset faster if she needed to, it said something that her squire always took the exact length of time to reset her stance, which had not changed since the day she had started teaching the young woman.

Not even she could overcome ten years of consistent muscle memory.

Besides, why would she? Her squire had spent that time gitting gud.

"Squire," she said.

Katarina cut of mid-'heigh-ho', turning her head to try and see Maria even as her body continued the motions of swinging her sword. Maria knew she was visible just at the edge of her squire's sight. "Hmm? Oh, Dame M—Campbell"

"My squire." Maria reached down to her side, and drew the saber half of Consequence Rakuyo. "Defend yourself."

Then she snapped her arm out to the side and lunged.

That was all the warning her squire had, and all that she needed. Despite wasting breath of a shriek of surprise, Katarina threw herself into a backstep and roll that put her Maria's left, where her saber wouldn't reach until the next attack. That gave Katarina time to reset, the little wooden sword snapping up and—

She saw the moment her squire hesitated, staring at her wooden sword.

And then Maria was being hit in the face by a thrown length of wood—really? That was what it took for her squire to initiate an attack?—and she had to ignore the moment of pride at her squire's aggression as Katarina drew and reset, the blunt, edgeless club of a sword between them. Katarina held it in two hands, point up.

There was a brief moment as Maria blinked to make sure her eye was still functioning. It was. She didn't have to do that—she had powered through being shot many times, except that time when that hunter who would not leave a corpse well alone had come at her carrying a cannon in one hand, which she had thought was a strange club because who just carried around a cannon, but she'd managed to kill him that time anyway—but she was curious if her squire would press the attack or revert to type.

The latter, it seemed.

As Maria drew the short sword half of Consequence Rakuyo, she saw her squire adjust her stance, turning slightly to one side and lowered her… blade (it was a club!) so it pointed down. She sighed inside. Really, why did her squire insist on doing it that way? It left her completely open in front! Anyone who saw it wouldn't be able to help themselves and attack her straight on and… and…

… and get parried.

…

Huh.

…

+1 Insight

That was surprisingly sneaky of her squire… if she actually planned it that way.

…

Maria chose to give her the credit for the thought.

She took two steps and resumed the offensive, both of her swords swinging.

The air filled with the sounds of metal on metal as Maria was parried.

The sun hung low as hung low as Maria finally straightened. "Enough, my squire," she said, and if her voice was panting slightly… well, it had been a while. "That will do."

Katarina eyed her suspiciously. This wasn't the first time Maria had pretended the spar was over, after all. She didn't move until Maria had sheathed both of her blades. Only then did Katarina give a very audible sigh of relief and sheathe her own sword, before bending over to pant loudly as she drew in large, greedy lungfuls of air.

For some reason, people around them burst into applause, which was very strange.

Shaking her head—oh, that was Dame Matthew standing over there, Maria gave her a nod that was returned—she turned back to face Katarina. "Cool yourself down and get ready for dinner, squire. If you have dinner plans, cancel them. We have something to discuss. I will be expecting your swift return."

"Yes, Dame Campbell!" Katarina said. How she could be cheery while still panting, Maria had no idea.

Maria nodded, turning away and heading back into the castle. The crowd—why had people stopped their practicing?—parted before her, some still applauding for some reason. She shook her head. Very strange. Had there been some kind of show or something when she'd been sparring with her squire? Ah, well.

In hindsight, she might have gone a bit too hard on her squire during that unannounced spar, especially since she was using her real swords rather than the wooden sparring ones. And yes, perhaps she'd pulled her slashes a little, but she hadn't need to actually pull back to keep from accidentally cutting her squire. Her every strike had been parried, deflected, dodge-rolled, and in one instance Katarina had actually kicked her, which had been so surprising she'd almost fallen over.

Fun and games? Playing around? HAH! Her squire was perfect! Katarina was the best squire, and right now she was too proud to be angry, but later she was going to go back to being really, really angry at the insult to her squire's abilities!

Now, if Maria could just figure out how to get to her room from… where was she? Darn it, what where these big pots for?-!

Stupid mythic architecture!