Welcome to Gaia! ::

The sound of ringing steel and Kromli's regular affirmations of "Good... good!" could be heard throughout the courtyard as Kromli allowed himself to be pushed back by Shanderaa's advances. Again and again his rapier was knocked out of the way. All of the while her hits were precise and her guard was up. He may just have been a little worried about getting home without a few bleeding stabs and cuts, were this actual combat and not a training drill.
"Excellent job!" he said, genuinely impressed. She had indeed surpassed his expectations. He knew that some of it was her getting lucky and having an "on day" but he also knew that she couldn't have done it if she wasn't getting what she was supposed to do.

Kromli grinned and nodded. "Let's keep up, just like that. We've already built up your endurance a lot, but we need to keep going so that the muscle memory takes root."
"Ready to continue?" he asked.

Kromli's smile spread crookedly over his face, as he saw how fun this could be. No longer was she this utterly fragile thing that he needed be careful to not break, but a competent fencer. Of course he'd still need to hold back a great deal, but he was starting to see that this could be enjoyable for him as a sparring partner and not just an instructor.
The rest of that afternoon was spent with him allowing her to sharpen her skills against him and him gradually throwing new tactics into the mix, pausing, and allowing her to see them again, and asking how she might counter moves like that if she were to see them again, and try out various defenses.
When they finished he said "I wanted to wait and bring in things like new attacks about a week from now, after you'd gotten more used to the basics, but I got a little excited and carried away."
He wheezed, his breath coming hard and heavy.
"We're done for today. Tomorrow we'll be back to the idea of dagger-strikes, again. I'll try to not get carried away, and then after you can do this in your sleep we'll move on to other things, like what I was starting to show you, today," he said.

Matasoga stood in the area of the Courtyard that he called "The Graveyard" (while not referring to the ship), though it only had two headstones. One he liked not to look or think of and had allowed to become rather entirely overgrown with weeds and tall grass, but the other was much better kept and visited regularly... Just as he'd promised.
Though he stood there, he appeared to be looking off into the horizon, his thoughts worlds away. His shoulders were hunched, his wings drooped, and his tail was still. His hands were clasped behind his back, wholly obscured by his cape, holding Taika's report.
It's... What she would have wanted, he thought.

At the sound his body snapped immediately into his usual, somewhat rigid and proud posture. He turned his head to look back at her. At seeing that it was her, he relaxed a bit and gave a small smile.
He turned to face her, waiting to see what she would have to say, wondering where her usual entourage of assorted rabbits were.

He smiled broader, and accepted the gift, stowing the report in his back pocket, before presenting his palms.
Sometimes he lamented what an unparallelled liar he was. He just wished that sometimes people would call his bluff, see through his mask, and call him out on the feelings that he was hiding. Sometimes living in this self-made prison of lies was just... incredibly lonely, but a prison it was. No matter how comfortable he was with someone, sometimes it felt that he had spent so much time perfecting the lie that he had forgotten how to tell the truth.
He opened the box and found a very needed ruby within. It, along with others, would be required to finish his wings.
"Thank you dear," he said. He knew that she wouldn't expect a gift. Indeed, it would be counter-productive, as all of the assets not devoted to running the guild would be devoted to obtaining them.
"I'll cherish this until the time comes when it can be used," he said, stowing the gem in his belt-pouch.

His smile was more sincere now, but outwardly it only looked a little broader. While he may have been occasionally inept at telling her all of his problems, it wasn't necessary for her to know them to help him forget about them, at least for a while.
He put his hand on her head, looking down at her and only telepathically (as he had a hard time verbally saying things that he found to be so saccharine)

For a moment he was uncomfortable. Embracing a woman while standing before the grave of one of those who loved him most and loved him long ago, and never left willingly felt very wrong... Especially with what he was now forced to contemplate.
He swept her feet out from under her, scooping her up and walking briskly away, as though perhaps he might run from what happened to her, as though he might run from what would need to happen still. Shanderaa would likely mistake the gesture for a purely romantic one, which was another lie that would isolate him further from everyone. There was only one truth that remained to be spoken now, and so he did.
"I love you too."