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"By paying attention," he snapped. "And by ******** practicing. I'm down here every goddamned day even if all I'm doing is prodding one of those ******** things--" he indicated the dummies with his elbow. "How long have you been out of the pod that you haven't come down here once? Jesus ******** Christ. What do you do all day," he demanded, and it wasn't even a question, it was a curse and an insult an accusation.

"Focus," he barked again. "You're in Moon. You are ******** front line. How do you expect to protect someone else's a** when you can't even protect your own? Where is your ******** defense? Where is your ******** offense?"

Actually, monologing at Maebe was possibly even better than grinding some kid's nose in the mud.

He snaked in again only to cruelly feint to one side, circumventing the direct stab he'd been employing throughout the fight for something more tricky even though he didn't think he needed to, blade biting into her side as he snapped past.

HP: 37
DMG: 6
CHG: 3/3

"Too-- ********-- bad--" he managed, physically prying himself free of the trident's prongs and stumbling backwards, damn near falling.

I can help, sir, said Fiona, and his answer was a wordless snarl that was as much directed at Maebe as her. ******** that. He could have beaten her with his bare hands and he wanted to.

"We're all front line, Bertrand. Every single one of us. And the next thing you fight won't be me. It'll be something that wants you dead. That wants whoever you're defending dead. You are not here to sleep around and accrue admirers, Bertrand. You are here to work."

He sounded a little like Caelius when he was pissed.

The next blow was aimed low to her gut, and he yanked her close as it landed to keep her from pushing herself away, so that he could twist the blade and inflict as much pain as possible. "You wanted a lesson," he hissed. "Here it is. You feel this? This is your job."

HP: 29
DMG: ... 13...
CHG: 3/3

He yanked the blade free, abruptly horrorstruck. There was nothing else to prove. There had never been anything to prove; she was a green and ignorant and indolent trainee and he'd proven himself somewhat beyond that, and she'd baited him into an actual fight and he'd risen to it with violent pleasure.

He'd wanted so much to hurt her. He would have closed his naked hands around her throat if he'd thought of it, and choked her until her clawing fingers went limp. He would have been euphoric if Fionnghal against her neck had drawn blood to run down with the rain over his hands. He trembled in the aftershocks of adrenaline and disgust.

Every time. Every time. Maybe he wasn't so much unlike Rep after all: maybe he and Rep were the only ones on the entire ******** Island who couldn't let a spar just be a spar. Maybe Rep was better, even: Taym had no reason to want Shiloh or Ian to die, or Kostya, or even Maebe, but there were no friendly terms for him on the training fields, just an instinctive animal need to hurt that which hurt him, and harder. Somehow the knowledge that his fellow hunters could bounce back from whatever he doled out removed any and all restraint from him: stilled whatever instinct it was that kept him from garotting security guards in warehouses and replaced it with a cruel bloodlust.

He retreated a few shaky steps and Fionnghal winked out of existence, and too overwhelmed for shame, he retched without trying to hide it, folding up onto his knees heedless of the pouring water that had already soaked him to the bone and pressing a hand to his mouth to choke back the bile. "No s**t," he said. "We all are."

He didn't answer for a few seconds, pausing to catch his breath and make his stomach stop churning, and he shakily got to his feet.

"They promised me," he said, tired and flat. "I just figured it'd be faster than this. Come down here as much as you can. Fight people instead of the ******** targets, whenever possible. Talk to your weapon. And find a better teacher than me."