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It knocked the wind out of him, and god he knew from experience and hearsay both that Peyton could hit like a ******** truck but it never ceased to take him by surprise, and this was no different.

"Doing good," he repeated sarcastically, and then, breathless: "Doing well."

The light of Fiona's runes shifted oddly, appealingly (light filtering through a stream; through a wind-tossed canopy; through a fall of snow). Peyton, of course, would know what that meant, but he was still watching her warily anyway.

"Give me a second," he said. "Jesus."

HP: 50 again
HEALED: 19
CHG 0/3 | used 1

"Well," he said after a breath-catching lull, "at least you didn't break your own ******** arm this time."

He slid back into a readied stance, doing it reluctantly, his unwillingness more obvious with every second, and he looked as miserable as he felt but he looked better, too: despite the fresh scar and the shaved head there was the faintest, almost unnoticeable filling-out of the hollows of his cheeks compared to how he'd looked since he'd gotten back from the desert or, hell, how he'd looked before he'd gone. He was offsetting it somewhat by the even darker circles under his eyes, by the fact that some measure of his constant nervous energy had been displaced by an ineffable but definite exhaustion, but physically, at least, he looked like he was veering back towards the way he'd looked just before the power'd gone out: still underfed, still sickly, but not nearly so close to death as he had for months.

Wordlessly, he jerked his arm in a "go ahead" motion.

HP: 50
DEF: 6
CHG 0/3 | used 1

She'd already answered the question for herself, but apparently didn't realize it, so he kept up the painstaking process of infuriating her, moving as nimbly as he ever did on the field. It always stood a sharp contrast to the creaking, arachnid way he moved about in his own room, folding and unfolding.

"Fiona refuses to learn new tricks. Not that I mind. Her one trick is pretty ********' good."

HP: 50
DEF: 4
CHG 1/3 | used 1

He was on top of it, nimbly stepping aside and recovering from the feint, compensating with a neat flick of the knife that tossed her fist aside almost harmlessly, before it had time to do much more than clip him, although even that made him flinch.

"This is easier," he observed roughly, "against someone with the same range, like you." Taym being Taym, he managed to make it sound like an accusation: like it was her fault it wasn't more challenging, like she had failed him personally.

HP: 48
DEF: 3
CHG 2/3 | used 1

He hesitated, and again that subtle, almost imperceptible shift in his stance, the nervous fleeting tension in his face.

"Well I didn't call you out here to pull any ******** punches," he pointed out. Contrary to Peyton's jest, he sounded utterly serious.

HP: 47
DEF: 8
CHG 3/3 | used 1

He'd managed to deflect her, all sudden elbows, as frustratingly difficult to pin down as an eel, but it had taken its toll: he fell back, faintly breathless, ashamed of being breathless. He'd had ample time to recover from his Sahara ideal even without Fiona's assistance, but he was, nonetheless, feeling the effects of months of self-deprivation and willful abuse. He'd started to make amends to his maltreated body--started forcing himself to eat, to sleep when he could--but for now it was still too little, too late, and the exhaustion was bone-deep.

Off the field he could stave it off with raw adrenaline--he could stave it off with raw adrenaline even sparring aggressively, and let it all catch up to him afterwards, leaving him worn and sick and bruised. But on the defensive, with safe, reliable Peyton, there was no safeguard. He buckled, just faintly, and recovered almost instantly. Fionnghal, with a whisper of frustration at the untapped charge, vanished from his hands.

"I should probably," he said, "call it quits." He'd meant to lie to her, to invent some schedule item that demanded attention, and found himself curiously apathetic about his weakness for once. He'd kept off her rain of blows. Surely, he thought dully, she wouldn't think less of him.

"Thanks for your unsolicited assessment," he groused. "I'll be sure and pass the information along to Edith for her consideration.

Edith had already agreed to it; the only bump in the road was Taym's anxiety. Taym's anxiety being the only bump in the road was true of a lot of situations.

He absently rearranged his scarf, caught his breath and tucked up the ends. And then he laughed, suddenly, that breathless, quiet little bark of his. "Do you remember," he said, "when we had the Edith golem at the mall and the H one asked if a bottle of Dr. Pepper made his butt look big?"