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Sigrun is escorting a caravan in off the trod, a line of hob wagons and a patrol of Rivermen heading to market with the last of the fall's goods for sale. It's quite the menagerie, maybe twenty or so hobs in total from various groups. All either neutral or in alliance with the Shack. Sigrun rides along with them astride her white mare, spear in hand and holster, flying the winter banner of Shackamaxon. Her cantering hooves carry to the front of the caravan to assume post at the gates and monitor the passage of the line on through. The tension seems to be melting out of the hobs as they reach the safety of the Shack's hollows.
Teagan brings up the rear, and not just because he likes looking at Sigrun's butt. Baby hangs loosely from their left hand, and they walk behind the caravan. He reaches up to pat the side of the mare's head as he passes in. "That's all of them, Wife." That might get old at some point, that word, but it won't anytime soon.
Sloane is perched on a small hill when the caravan arrives. He mutters a soft "huh" to himself, before getting up and heading over to the commotion, hands in his pockets. He's otherwise dressed in his full regalia, a bright shiny Hedgespun breastplate and a purple Hedgespun sword to complete the set.
"Fuck's going on here?" It's almost weird seeing him talk, his mouth barely looks capable of forming words, how polygonal it is.
"Thank you, husband," she begins. Then she answers Sloane, "Promises are being kept. Bonds strengthened. Commerce increased. Diplomacy assured. We keep the trods open for all friends to Shackamaxon. And I have taken pains to ensure we have many among the Hobs." Sigrun swings a leg over her horse while she has her head dipped to nuzzle at Teagan's belly and hands when he comes to pay the mare some attention. She slides to the ground with a slight bounce and catches her spear out of the air before it falls. She takes the reins of her mare and leads it through the gate after Teagan.
"I don't believe we've met," she asides to Sloane as she walks along. "I am Sigrun. I would offer a hand but." Horse and spear, her expression says, her smile genuine.
Once Teagan has an opportunity to look at Sloane, there's a pause. It's very small, but it's there. If Teagan looked like Sloane, one might think it was just a momentary buffering error. A tiny glitch, one might say. "Hey," they greet, and pat the mare's head once, twice. Nice animal which is not a dog, the thing that Teagan actually understands. They put Baby back in her holster at their left hip and reach their right hand out towards Sloane in greeting, as if standing in for Sigrun also.
Sloane shakes Teagan's hand, his grip a little too firm. "Name's Sloane. Don't have any cool nicknames or titles yet, so just Sloane." He looks over the assembled Hobs, mentally assessing how much loot they might have or how much xp they might be worth. "And they're all cool? Don't know the terms of the deal or nothing."
"Half are pledged to myself or the freehold directly, and the other are pledged to behave for the duration of the trip south. I have friends up in Old Iron that let me know when they've got people they trust moving south, we collect their pledge at the hand off and carry them the rest of the way south. We trust Old Iron, Old Iron trusts them. So by the transitory properties of trust in the hedge we made them pledge all over again." Which is Sigrun's rambling way of saying calm down kid. "I'm the Sentinel of Flame at present for Summer. Tis is my husband, Teagan." Yes, she's introducing him a second time, and there's probably a reason why in her mind.
"The Unseen Sun," explains Teagan, in a way that says that title is somewhat of a foregone conclusion but also something new. He meets Sloane's handshake in exactly the same way that it's rendered, exactly as over-firm. There's something assessing in their expression, but reserved. "Good to meet you, Sloane."
June comes in a short time later, having been out doing some scouting of the surroundings to make sure that trouble hadn't followed them there and then laid in wait outside. June can cover ground in a way that's truly absurd for someone her size -- or any human size for that matter -- and she makes a good scout, as a result.
She pulls her helmet off as she, clad in her plate armor, makes her way over toward where the other Summers are lurking around in conversation. "Hello!" she chimes cheerfully as she approaches and tucks that helmet under her arm.
"Howdy." He nods to June. But he gives her the same look as the Hobs, his trademark 'what are your stats' look. #JustCyclopeanThings. "Damn, the Unseen Sun. Must be a real badass." The way he says that has an undercurrent of 'but I'm badass too'. "Any of you three ever want to spar, I'm down." Translation: 'bet I could take you in a fight'
Sigrun keeps walking along towards the stables, following the general course of the caravan. They're starting to park out front of the long house, circling up to make their camp for the time being. Once she reaches the stables she passes her horse off to one of the court working as hand for the day and fetches a white metal round shield off its saddle bags. It's inlaid with a knotwork yggdrasil on its face. She weighs it in her arm and carries her spear towards the practice yard.
"Okay, let's spar."
"Sure." That's Teagan's response to Sloane's assessment. The Mirrorskin's eyebrow arches up at the undercurrents of Sloane's speech. "Good God, you really are just like him five years ago," Teagan offers mildly, without explaining who 'him' is. "It's like staring back through a ... time machine or something." They shake their head slightly, and the smile that slides across their face is amused, and not displeased. June's arrival has them wandering over to her, wrapping an arm around her waist, and picking her up to smooch her and then set her back down again. "Hey, Juneyjune. That's Sloane." And then they pause, turning around. "Hey, what are your pronouns?" He gestures to Sigrun and June, explaining, "She/her," and then gesturing to himself, "He/They."
June answers the trademark look with a wide and cheerful smile, like it doesn't bother her in the least to be given that sort of appraising look. The arm not holding a helmet tucked under it goes around Teagan once she has been hefted, smooched, and put back down, and she gives him a quick hug before her attention goes back to Sloane. "I'm June," she says in the same cheerful tone as her initial greeting. "I do enjoy a good sparring match some time. I lose more often in sparring than in actual fights, but it also seems like we learn more from the fights we lose than the ones we win, as long as we survive the losing, so I don't really mind that." But so much of her fighting style relies on doing the kind of damage that's not appropriate for practice combat, so... losing.
"He/him. And who the fuck am I like? I'm an original, thank you very much." Sloane says to Teagan. He turns to June and gives a look that says, 'no, winning is all that matters.' He wouldn't verbalize it, but to him it's the absolute truth. And then he tilts his neck, popping it and gives Sigrun his most menacing glance. "Let's do this." For a fraction of a second, there's a spark in his eye (the good one, not the glass one) as his brain starts to turn into combat mode.
Sigrun looks fairly placid as she steps onto the field and slips the capped conical helmet back onto her head and over her coif. It protects her nose and frames her eyes nicely. She hefts her shield up and under her full control, but leaves her spear haft at rest in the moist earth. She keeps her feet at shoulder's width, her back foot behind her shield. She takes in a slow breath, lets it out as a slow exhale through the nose and distributes her weight down into her crouch. Her head ticks in invitation.
"Sure," repeats Teagan, stepping over to one of the chairs sitting outside the Summer Regent's house and settling down in it, tugging June along with him. He pulls the little red panda onto his lap, apparently content to watch for the time being, not interfering in whatever is about to occur.
"You're definitely not exactly like my favorite little former edgelord video game boy, then," they assert, leaning back in the chair and kicking one leg out. "Down to challenging people to fights to prove yourself on first meeting and balancing that giant chip on your shoulder. Not at all."
"I'm pretty sure that with all the billions of people who have lived on this planet, most of us are ultimately not very original," June observes with a dry humor, still smiling. "In some ways, that makes me feel a little bit less like a weirdo. Although I also enjoy being a weirdo, too." She makes her way over with Teagan to where they're both sitting and plops herself down on the lap. In that armor she's probably not the most comfortable snuggle, but she's small enough that even in the armor she's probably also not very heavy.
Sloane visibly twitches at getting called the video game boy. "Shut the fuck up." He says flatly, icy anger in his voice. "I'm original. You don't know what you're talking about." He's the protagonist. The world revolves around him being special.
And then, suddenly and without warning, in one fluid motion he draws his sword and charges Sigrun, trying to break her arm with the hilt of his sword.
Sigrun wasn't expecting to receive an attack from that end of the weapon, and it's clear on her face. Her spear tugs out of the earth and she back pedals a graceful pace to earn herself a moment more of reaction time. Having given that ground up, she quite promptly steps right up and into Sloane's attack. She gets under it, angling her shield up and under the strike so that the pommel strike hits the boss of her shield. She'll have less control of where the blade ultimately ends up doing it this way, but it's the best disarm she has available. And when she's rendered Sloane's hand numb from vibration and torqued the sword off the boss at an odd angle, the shield is jutted forward, then up. Right in the hips, then up towards the shoulders and chin. Done right, the sword should go flying and Sloane should be on the back foot.
To make matters worse, the attack is suddenly foiled by bright lights in the eyes. From Sigrun, from her shield, from both at once. Assaulting the corneas with white and gold. (edited)
"Yeah, sure, kid." That's all that Teagan has to say at the moment, but there's something about this situation that apparently sets them at ill ease, because they kiss June on the temple and then set her on her feet, standing up. He stretches, and his neck cracks; his sleek, opalescent black skin changes in texture, becoming gritty as their edges become undefined and a slow tornado of sand whorls around their feet. Baby drops from her holster into their hand, and their impassive face focuses on Sloane, their dark eyes -- they have eyes right now, not just eyepits covered in broken mirrors -- fixed on him. They know enough to shield those eyes for a second with their right hand.
June is not the type of person to keep poking at people when they're getting defensive like Sloane is, especially when they're strangers, so she lets it drop and leans into the kiss to her temple instead, and then leans her back against the nearest wall once she's set on her feet. She looks relaxed, but she's also ready to spring into action if she has to. "Come on Sigrun! Keep being so fucking hot!" she calls out to the valkyrie. Then, in a smiling mutter that's definitely totally audible to anyone listening, she adds, "as if you could stop."
Sloane's sword slips out of his hands and sticks into the ground like the sword in the stone. "Fuckin' bitch!" Sloane growls stepping back. He tries to blink the light out of his eyes but it keeps on coming. He dashes towards his sword, dizzy and blind. "Gonna make you regret it."
Sigrun wheels with a kick off from the ground on legs made quick by June's seeming's teachings. She is beast quick, and Fairest graceful. She winds through the air, and is behind the shield again and before the sword. Bright, quick, and confounding. Another bang of the shield is given, this one intentionally painful.
"With what, child? Words?"
The Mirrorskin stands stock still. Waiting. If one were video game inclined, one might almost hear the loading screen music and see the idle animation of his sand whirring slowly around his feet and ankles like a lazy cat. Except... there's nothing idle about Teagan. He's just waiting. Watching. Holding his action. Biding his time.
June continues to lean against the wall, but she does roll her eyes just a little. "It seems like it's kind of rude to ask someone to spar with you and then get mad and start insulting them if they start winning. It's not the kind of thing that's likely to get other people to want to spar with you in the future," she observes softly.
After Sigrun's attempt to get through to the FNG ended without much success, she just looked more weary and perhaps slightly more very obviously pessimistic in her demeanor. Proverbial rainclouds follow the fairest around by the end of the combat. "I'm sorry, June. You walked up right as Sloane called out the entire chain of command of the Summer Shake Shack. I sure could use a hug," she says with the quiet desperation of someone trying to hand all of this off to someone else in three months.
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