A Katarina Interlude

Katarina did her cooldowns, which ended with the radio exercises she remembered from when she was a little kid. Well, the other time she was a little kid, when she ended up dying a virgin. Since she didn't have a radio, she just sang to herself as she stretched. It had felt a bit weird when she'd started doing it since her training armor was a lot heavier than the shorts and t-shirt, but now she was used to the weight and the grungy feeling of wearing sweaty armor.

Sorry, Anne! This is all your almost-stepdaughter's fault though!

Once she was finished, Katarina packed up her stuff. She'd apologized profusely to boken-chan for throwing her in Maria's face, but Maria had been using the real swords, so she'd needed to use lego-chan! Katarina was really sorry, and she'd give boken-chan a sanding and using the good wax to polish her!

As she left the training courtyard, Katarina was crowded by all the new friends she'd made from abroad.

"Lady Katarina, that was amazing!"

"I can't believe you were able to hold your own like that!"

"How did you manage to parry all of that?"

"Is Lord Keith as skilled as you are?"

"Seriously?"

"Look, my father wants me to marry a swordsman, it's a whole thing, all right?"

Katarina didn't hear everything that they said, even as she tried to greet everyone while still making her way through. As much as she wanted to hang out with everyone and have dinner with them again, Maria had said they needed to talk. She made her apologies to everyone, helped when she found Cousin Mashu at her side. The big shield Mashu was carrying meant people had to step back a little or accidentally get hit by the big shield, which would really hurt!

Eventually, she was able to get through the press, and though a few people walked alongside her for a little bit, eventually they all made their excuses and headed back to their rooms to refresh themselves before dinner, leaving just her and Mashu.

"How are you doing, cousin?" Mashu asked, clanking slightly as her shield swung and tapped the back of her armor as she walked. "We haven't really gotten a chance to talk after what happened last week."

"Ah, I'm fine Mashu-chan. I'm just a bit tired? Sparring with Maria is really hard, since she moves around a lot."

Mashu stared at her for a moment. "That's not what I… oh, right, I need to say things directly. Katarina, how do you feel about your fight with Dame Maria just now?"

"Uh, tired? I already said that."

Mashu's eyebrow rose. Just the one, making her look like that space elf from that American movie with the flying saucer. "Really? Just tired? You just fought Maria, after all. Don't you feel… intimidated? Unsure if you're ever going to be as good as her?"

"Uh, no? It's Maria-chan—I mean, Dame Maria—why would I feel intimidated? And no, I'm sure I'm never going to be as good as her, she's better than me at everything."

Cousin Mashu frowned for some reason. "Did she tell you that?" she said, sounding mad for some reason.

"No, that's just how it is. She had better grades than me at school, and she's better at swording than me. I can't even do that thing she does where she just goes WHOOSH and she's in my face."

"…before her I didn't know it was physically possible for a knight to do that," Mashu said.

"Exactly! I can't do that, so she's better than me," Katarina explained cheerfully. "We all have things we're good at. I'm a better farmer than her, Keith is better than me at Earth Magic…" She shrugged.

"That's… a surprisingly mature attitude to take," Mashu said. "Most squires get frustrated the first time that their knight shows them how much git gud they still need to attain, especially in public like that."

"Oh no, that's not the first time Mar—er, Dame Maria's sparred with me like that. We did it every few days back at her place."

Katarina walked a couple of steps before she realized that she was walking alone. Confused, she stopped and looked back to find her cousin staring at her. "Mashu? What's the matter?"

"She's fought you like that before?"

"I just said that."

"R-right, right, you did." Mashua started walking again, and Katarina waited until they were side by side before walking too. "H-how did you do the first time? Compared to just now, I mean?"

Katarina shrugged. "Eh, it was about the same."

"A-about the same?!-"

"Yeah. Although, there was one time that I didn't do as well…"

"Really? What happened?"

"She said I should try to use a shield to parry." Katarina sighed at the memory. "I got hit a lot that time."