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The select few people that were on any kind of intimate terms with Taym were for the most part aware of his erratic personal schedule and his scattered sleeping habits. Any of his friends--it was a term difficult to apply to most people, where Taym was concerned--wouldn't have been at all surprised to see him not only awake, but up and about and showing every sign of having been so for quite a while.

He was on his way down to the fields, to be honest, later than he normally would have been, because he'd actually choked down a prepackaged breakfast and taken a turn around the library before resigning himself to the inevitability of a daily run, his daily reminder of how little prolonged strain his frail body could actually handle, the daily disgruntled lecture from Fiona about whose fault that was.

This was a task from which, it appeared, he would be blessedly diverted. He slowed in his steps, hands thrust into his pockets and shoulders hunched, when he saw Ian at work. Ordinarily, especially given what he'd seen at the holiday party, he would have kept going. But what stopped him was Ian's weapon. He ground to a halt about twenty feet away, trying to decide whether he was irritated or relieved, and found himself for reasons he couldn't entirely fathom lifting his voice.

"I feel like I've said this a dozen ********' times, but it makes you feel stupid, doesn't it?" He gestured at the dummy with a twist of his shoulder and a tip of his chin, hands still in his pockets. "All fine and good if you've got a weapon with some range to it, but feels like taking a bat to a toaster otherwise."

"Routine," said Taym drily, trying to ignore Ian's smirk and wandering over. "Early to bed, early to rise, you know the drill. I got the second half down anyway."

He pulled Fionnghal into his hands, the slim dark blade unimpressive, modest; leaf-shaped but a glorified knife more than a short sword. It looked ideally suited to sliding between ribs on the sly. He used it to prod absently, almost irritably, at the dummy. "And don't be so sure at being s**t against a gun. Bashmet's got one, or something like one, and I came out on top of that one." In his perpetual paranoia about, as he would phrase it, people like Ian, he wondered if that had been a wise choice of words, and his face went sour. "Anyway, there is something you can do about it. Practice makes perfect. I am reliably informed, anyway," he added blandly. He didn't have much faith in his own abilities, still, despite a track record that was proving him otherwise.

He hadn't meant to, actually--he'd meant it as a lecture, as a superior snub, and realized what a stupid thing he'd just said as soon as Ian opened his mouth to take him up on the unintended offer.

He prodded the dummy again, more viciously this time, like it had personally offended him. He couldn't very well say no--it pricked his pride--but he could hedge a little.

"I outrank you," he pointed out, holding the laddered trim at the end of his sleeve aloft demonstratively. And then, tiredly: "That may be better, actually." He didn't say why, or clarify. He sounded like he meant exactly the opposite. With resignation he drew away from the dummies, stepped out into an empty space and distractedly prodded the earth with his foot before flexing his fingers around the deer-shaped hilt of his weapon and making an exhausted "all right, do your worst" gesture. Might as well get this over with.

"Well," said Taym, and his retaliatory strike was obviously half-hearted, not even trying. "You've met me at a dry social function, which I ********' hate, and on the sparring grounds, which I also ********' hate."

It wasn't exactly an answer, even though it was true. He bared his teeth. It might charitably have been called a grin, but it was vicious. "I tend to, as you say, give off a hateful ********' vibe, I'm told."

HP: 49
DMG: 0 neutral
CHG: 0/3

Clearly irritated by Ian's insistence on the topic, Taym's willingness to get violent--one of the many sources of his reluctance was a hatred of it, and especially of the pleasure of it--expanded somewhat. He moved like a snake, just as quick, just as sudden, just as unsettling, and the knife's blade sank into Ian's side before he was oiling back out of reach, aware that his lanky arms, a benefit against someone tiny like Peyton, were no match for Ian's reach.

"Are we done analyzing my character? You writing a ******** paper?"

HP: 49
DMG: 7
CHG: 1/3

"Good," he said grimly. "Makes it a more realistic learning exercise."

He'd been dodging to one side or the other in response to Ian's blows, and he took a minute now to warily circle him, bouncing the knife in his fingers, all coiled-up tension and nervous energy. When he lashed back out it was a repeat of before: n** in, blade biting into flesh, n** back out, put space between them. He'd done it instinctively every fight, initially out of a desire to put space between himself himself and someone else's weapon, but eventually because he'd realized it helped him leverage his speed--his one asset, he thought grimly--to his advantage.

Another ugly grin. "Ouch," he suggested. "Don't do what Shiloh did when I ********' fought him. Tell me if your shield's starting to crack before I break it. It'll know," he added, jerking an elbow at Ian's knife. It.

HP: 49
DMG: 6
CHG: 2/3

He didn't, as one might expect, yank himself away from the sudden, startling pain. He hissed through his teeth, but his free hand came up and it caught Ian by the collar, jerking him down to Taym's level as though he'd meet him with a fist instead of a blade, although it was indeed Fionnghal that slipped in underneath Ian's ribs, deep. And then he twisted the knife.

"I do not," he hissed, inches away from his face in a breath that smelled like cigarettes and cheap coffee, "appreciate any comparison to him."

And then he withdrew the knife, let him go, shoving him back with both hands (the hilt of the weapon a bruising sharp spike in one hand) like this was a schoolyard fight or the preliminaries outside of a bar, but he let him go. "Are we ******** clear?"

HP: 42
DMG: 11 holy s**t
CHG: 3/3