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She still wasn’t quite up to the level she’d been before her run in with Thraen, but today’s practice had certainly been an improvement over the last. Every day stronger, every day a little less sore around her sides, everyday the bruising faded just a little more. It was almost gone now, just a smear of dark yellow around the new scar that lay boldly between the mounds of her breasts. If it bothered her it certainly didn’t show. Po hadn’t changed her attire to hide it. Not after it’d happened, not now. Scars were a mark of pride. Awful scars were tale of survival.

When practice had wound down the petite fighter had slipped from the ring, oblivious to the handful of people that had gathered to watch her go head to head with one of the trainers that usually worked with the martial artists in the next weight class up, but was the only one on staff that offered a real challenge for the purple haired young woman.

As she hopped down another employee had hurried over to offer a cotton towel, and Porsha took it with smile and a thanks, before wiping off her face and slinging it over her shoulders so she could make a grab for her gym bag where it lay on the ground beneath the closest bench.

He left his craft by the wayside for too long, and Isaiah knew it.

He hadn’t previously found challenge in tracing the curves of motion, but now he found himself utterly dissatisfied with the gesture drawings he churned out while he watched the pair of fighters from the stands. Booted feet shifted and slid across the waxed floor while he changed position slightly. His charcoal pencil worked furiously across the page while he drew over his previous attempt, watched their bodies in motion, and tried with a certain desperation to recapture it to standard.

When at last they called it quits, and the pair took their leave of the ring, Isaiah had started on the beginnings of a sketch he thought legitimately captured the purple-haired fighter. Naturally he continued stealing glances in her direction to confirm features, body balance, waist-to-hips ratio, and other details. The bruise was added as a slight brush of charcoal over otherwise parchment white skin, and the gleam of her eyes added with milk white charcoal. He added a trail to her gaze both to follow the motion and to add drama to the piece. By the time he sketched out the frame of it, the smaller fighter was suspended midair in a spin that read as lashing toward her adversary’s face. The expression chosen was confident, if somewhat sinister in knowing her hit would knock her opponent to the ground.

His sketch told a story, and Isaiah held a particular fondness for stories. As a result, he didn’t move much when the woman drawn sought her bag just beneath his bench. Shadowed eyes peeked up at her to study the way her shoulders stood out from her slender body before adding a few last touches to the framework. Embellishment and cleanup would take place at a different location.

“You must like it,” he ventured. He waved a hand toward the ring - he still held the charcoal holder in his right hand. “Beating the s**t out of people, I mean. You have to like it to be good at it. Looks like the last one got you, though.” He gestured with the tip of his holder toward her chest, right between the swells of delectably ample breasts.

Such a shame she wore sports bras.


He wasn’t the first to bring a drawing pad to the ring, so his presence didn’t immediately tug at her attention when she’d gone for her bag, but what she saw on the page as she glanced at it, and the comment he aimed up at her as she straightened, wa certainly enough to keep her from simply heading to the showers. Pale eyes lingered on the charcoal drawing, brows arched in impressed surprise. No one had ever drawn her before, at least not that she was aware of. It was more than a little flattering.

He had spoken though, so she tore her gaze off the picture and up to meet chartreuse eyes with a smile. “That’s kind of awesome.” More than kind of. “And I do.” Not even so much as a flicker of shame. “There’s a certain satisfaction that comes from being able to beat the s**t out of someone three times your size.”

There was a slight pause as he indicated her chest and the wealth of bruises that still decorated it, and she shrugged, dipping a finger between her breasts to tug the material down enough to show him the scar that was otherwise hidden. “Wasn’t from this. I was in an accident.” Which was an all out lie, but he certainly didn’t need to know that. A convincing lie, given the nature of the wound. The sports bra gave a little snap when she released it. “Finally getting my full range of motion back.”

Licking her lips, she braced a foot on the bench beside him so she could balance her bag on her knee, digging inside for a water bottle. When she found it she pulled the tab with her teeth and took a long drink. “Do you do that often?” she wondered, gesturing at the art with her free hand. “Just pick a random person and draw them?” Porsha wasn’t artistic. She knew next to nothing about this world beyond what little she’d picked up from Jude when he made clothing. And that didn’t really translate to this at all. Completely different mediums.

I expect you’re very gung-ho about playing top in the bedroom, my dear. Isaiah nodded along with her comment more seriously. “I suppose that would be nice.” But bone-thin Isaiah Zähne lacked the proper trained reflexes to handle a fight and couldn’t hold his own even when sober in bar tussles.

“That looks like something out of Final Destination. Piece of piping through the chest? Accidental impalement?” He spoke dryly, making light of the condition, but his curiosity showed nonetheless. “Porsha, right? I heard, ah, your trainer? He slung your name around a few times.” Isaiah wondered if he could take such liberties with her; with her martial arts background, Isaiah supposed she felt far more in control when faced with instances like a stranger knowing her name before she gave it. Beyond that, there was something particularly attractive about utter domination at the hands of such a small girl.

Isaiah snorted gently when she asked after his drawing. He glanced down himself before he responded. “Pretty much - I do it more often than you might think. Most people are more concerned with what they’re doing, so they don’t usually notice. It’s part of how I got through art school - a lot of impromptu models in contact sports like this, or coffee shops, or people waiting for the bus… Pick your venue and I was there at least once. The other half was trading handjobs for deadline extensions.” Isaiah shrugged nonchalantly.

The pencil returned to the figure on the page to flesh out details that he couldn’t see from afar. Two minuscule flecks of charcoal rendered eyes in a deeply recognizable manner - and before he finished with those remote touches, the piece looked undeniably similar to the woman standing over him. “Now I only give handjobs when I want to.”

Isaiah smiled back at her politely. collapsed lung - that's a cheery topic of conversation. How long before she starts regaling me with her stories of near death experiences?

Probably some time - she doesn't seem like the talking type. And Isaiah considered that perfectly acceptable - he knew of a few more interesting ways to get to know her, alongside the rest of her scars.

He considered issuing a false name as he often did, but a fighter proved a useful contact. "Isaiah," he offered in return, and issued a hand to shake. He wouldn't blame her if she declined it; his hand might have been covered in charcoal dust, but by comparison, blood and sweat wasn't any cleaner.

Her quip was well received and returned in kind: "People do, too, once you see their O face." This time his smile extended to his eyes, especially after he caught hers. He stood, then, and gathered the remainder of his art supplies into a small pencil case. The case sported a ridiculous printed motif, tokidoki brand as it said on the tag. The sketchbook, however, looked far less fancy.

"Id say..." He paused to consider the number of times he'd been caught in covert drawing activities. "It's about fifty-fifty. It depends on how paranoid a person is feeling, usually, or how much they like my looks. That's not to say that that's a common thing - I think I've only been asked out a handful of times over my entire career - but the added attention they pay me will get me caught when I have to look at the model. The rest of the time - well, most of the rest, I imagine I was caught because they felt the attention and knew where to look." He laughed lightly. "Makes me sound like the shittiest thief in the world, doesn't it?

"When did you take up fighting?"

"You would think, but being an artist is as monetarily fulfilling as trying to sell a Timex watch to a man who can't afford batteries." He seemed appeased with the state of their handshake. His hand returned to clasp on the bottom of his sketchpad while they talked. "I might have my degree in fine arts, but I learned pretty early on that dreaming of a career as an artist is like dreaming of dragons - it's thrilling, it's exciting, but ultimately impossible." He smiled, at least, but it lacked the mirth of earlier times.

Secondly, he thought of a career in a different trade. That gave him rise to smile more genuinely.

He also wondered if she enjoyed peeling tape from her skin. He thought about other types, and wondered if she was into that, too. An MMA fighter who surrendered all control in the bedroom sounded like a rare and interesting conquest. Was she the type for that? Or was he simply projecting hopes onto her and expecting that they might stick? Perhaps both, really.

"I can't say there's much difference between doing what you love for the sake of doing it and doing what you love professionally - as far as I'm concerned, it's just the price tag. So for sake of argument, assume I mean both." He imagined playground fights, bloody noses, bruises on the arms from defending. he imagined the time outs, the recess cancellations. The worried mother. The angry father. Or perhaps she wasn't raised with both parents, or even no parents at all.

Yes, he liked that interpretation. No parents it is.

No-parents-Porsha, a small child, smaller than the rest, fighting to prove she isn't. It tasted cliche. No, perhaps no-parents-Porsha fought for no reason beyond its excitement. She enjoyed challenging people. Perhaps it was just the adrenaline, after all, and years of counseling went to waste only to discover that it wasn't daddy issues, or lack of attachment, or any number of psychoanalytical bullshit excuses to paint her as a victim.

She just liked how bones felt when they cracked beneath her knuckles, that's all.

"You might make a pretty penny out of teaching. Some people don't get any energy out of teaching, though." He didn't. As a pupil, on the other hand... "Have you tried?"

"It does let me see a lot of people naked." He smiled proudly. Those highly covetous of modesty still turned him down, but there were still many of the general public who found fascination in being drawn. And a fair number of those, still found the courage for allowances in how scantily clothed they became. If Isaiah pushed for it, he imagined that Porsha may be one of these number. Probably so, in the way that she projected a quiet confidence - a confidence that did not need enunciation for validation. "Would you be interested?" It felt an odd segue given the prior bald objectification, but Isaiah was very serious when treating the human body as an object for study rather than sex appeal.

Porsha was an odd sort. Even with his newly scripted background of her, he wondered on her motivations to fight. There were a thousand reasons that existed beyond the scope of transgressive literature that he may not even conceive of. This playground fighter had, however, moved beyond the boundaries of a brawl to more serious, professional fighting.

He hoped she would admit to teaching - and that, if fortune held, he might be able to solicit a class.

Or a trade: portraits for pointers. The war seemed to demand it so.

But her career looked slim if she fought since eighteen, for Porsha did not look old. In fact, she did not look much older than that, but since she mentioned was eighteen and not turned eighteen, she had to be a least a year older than that to qualify the statement as true. So Porsha remained in the nebulous realm of young adult, of nineteen to, he would estimate, 24. Somewhere in there was Porsha, surprisingly unscathed for at least a year on the professional scene.

Ah, yes, there was the answer he hoped for. "What would you say to a trade?" Isaiah adjusted the drawing pad under a bony elbow. "I draw, you give lessons."

"Scars are part of what makes models more interesting," he commented offhandedly while he followed her. Scars and tattoos were often more attractive to him than drawing the human form straightforwardly. And if they did prove a bother, omitting them was an easy task. Luckily, Porsha had scars and tattoos, which meant his interest in drawing her doubled.

Isaiah grinned when she rebutted him about the offers, and the touch of knuckle did not go unappreciated. Perhaps the day would end out better than he thought.

Unfortunately, when they reached the locker rooms, Porsha took off in a rush while declaring her need for a shower. It was true, he could smell as much from her, but the entire fighting ring stank similarly of much more unpleasant body odor than hers. Besides, a shower scene proved excellent for testing his skills at rendering wet skin, and she just shot that idea in the foot without even realizing it. Isaiah stared at the shut door, was sorely tempted to burst in regardless, but kept his sense about him. Carefully he reminded himself that Porsha may not have thought about figure drawing as a need to be naked, and thought it was a simple sit-down portraiture with all clothes still on the body. She may not have modeled before.

Finally Isaiah took a seat on an upside-down bucket nearby, crossed his legs, and folded fingers around one knee. While waiting, he took to polishing up the sketch he executed earlier by darkening lines and editing contours. Some pieces received redrawing to provide a more stylized and slick action to the scene, and when involved in this revision process, Isaiah was at least blissfully unaware of passing time.

Porsha emerged not long afterward, and she looked dressed in a very pleasing manner. Even if she weren't a model, he imagined that whoever took her as lover found her very attractive in how she dressed herself. She knew what to wear that accentuated the more pleasing lines of the human body, and as a last benefit, she smelled significantly better.

But that didn't improve the stench of the rest of the gym.

"I didn't go anywhere," he remarked with a shrug of shoulders. "Do you know of anywhere we could go that smells a little less like an unclean whorehouse?"

For what little time he spent in formal occasions - business nominations, the rare ball to which he found himself invited, the occasional wedding - he fostered a particular fondness for a hand on the crook of his arm. It was an old tradition, certainly, and Isaiah did not often count himself as one who favored convention, but the simple contact involved always raised his spirits. He followed Porsha without qualm, and even raised his elbow somewhat to offer her hand more room (and if she wanted to slip the whole of her arm through the space, he wouldn't object to that either).

Isaiah spared her a glance, considered the offhand remark about old warehouses, and remembered a series of artistic photographs shot of nude women in abandoned industrial plants. The set looked impeccably aesthetic, and both the contrast of subject matter and contrast of light values lent the study critical acclaim. Would he pass up paying homage by drawing Porsha in such a setting? Never - his model proved very attractive, and if they could find a place like that, he wasn't averse (or even ill-experienced) to breaking in. It was simply on her to allow it.

But her next question reined in his thoughts immediately. "Hmm?" 'Hungry for some clam and thirsty for some action' isn't the appropriate answer here, Isaiah. Mentally he forced himself to tally his calories again, to benchmark where he was in the diet plan of the day, and then determine his willingness to fuss with that count. Fingers twitched while lips ghosted a few numbers in mental calculation. Finally he answered in a voice that suggested neither boredom or excitement. "I could eat. Besides, sometimes there's restaurants that use dramatic lighting in their dining areas. It's useful enough for portraiture. Oh, and there are enough tea houses springing up in the area that we could easily attend one of those and spend a handful of hours there without getting asked to leave."

He experienced the latter instance enough times to give him pause against drawing in an eatery.

Opening the door for her, Isaiah stepped outside to follow. Promptly he searched a jacket pocket for a vape, turned it on, and took a drag. Absent flavoring, his current cartridge most closely resembled his favorite brand of cigarette. "That old warehouse suggestion is still an option, you know - and a cheap one."

"Or we can sit down to eat." Isaiah spared her a glance. Some time remained before evening sieged the city with dramatic shadows; until then, they had hours to burn however they pleased. "Mornings and evenings are the best times to draw someone in dramatic lighting. The same principles apply to photography. So, really, you have me until then." Isaiah shrugged nonchalantly. Of course, his artistic skill started to decline once he reached a certain blood alcohol level, but he found no reason to turn down drinking for that alone. He felt no need to produce a veritable work of art in this situation; the goal was more to have fun and learn who Porsha was than trying to pin down a poignant piece.

When they stepped outside, Isaiah pointed toward the right. "It's a few blocks out, but there's a pretty decent Americana place down by the river. I guess it used to primarily serve truckers, so the food is quite fast, but the service is more no-nonsense. Otherwise there's an Italian place a quarter mile in the opposite direction, on Grant Street. I know the owner's son, so they might give us a discount. It might be a longer walk from the heart of the city to anywhere abandoned, but if we have a few hours to burn..." Why not? Neither of the pair would complain about the exercise.

"If you wanted something besides those two options, then as long as it isn't Mexican, I can probably find something." I'd just rather not be shitting my insides into outsides before we sit down for the fun. As they walked, Isaiah tucked his sketchbook under one arm and sifted a pocket for a cigarette. On finding one, he tucked it between lips and used the jet lighter on his necklace to punctuate the end to an orange smolder.

"Do you smoke?" He asked her with the pack gestured toward her. Lucky Strike, it said.

I can't imagine a smoking fighter. The same should apply to me - I need to kick this habit if I expect to keep on with the alias Scholomance. What good is a knight that can't run a few hundred yards without a hacking wheeze?

Isaiah closed the box, tamped it on the heel of his hand a few times, then withdrew a cigarette for himself. Pursing it between his lips, the jet lighter necklace he wore made short work of the end. "There's nothing nice about smoking, anyway." After taking a drag, he blew the smoke to the side and away from his companion. He preferred not to drown his latest interest in cigarette smoke. And, hopefully, the food would eliminate most of the taste.

Maybe an Altoids too.

"To the right it is." Isaiah started to the right where larger signs were visible protruding off of buildings. The prevalence of giant advertising would only continue from there, leading to old, abandoned displays of marvelous old lights and ancient trending graphic design. Isaiah enjoyed any opportunity to visit the riverside for its aesthetics, and he had half a mind to ask Porsha to pose against some of the old buildings for a photo. These buildings were most often pressed together with no space in between, though a few alleyways intersected the large blocks as delivery paths. These looked old, worn, and still laden with cobblestone whereas the rest of the area matured to feature pavement. The concrete promenade extended outward from the great swaths of grass and trees the city kept preserved as a park, and Isaiah reached the iron banister before he turned left along it.

The wind picked up off the river, sweeping his hair and its constituent wefts toward Porsha. One hand remained lightly skirting the top of the banister while they walked. "You're a quiet one." I wonder why that is. Personality, to some extent, sure. But quietude can also suggest indifference. "Something on your mind?"

The remaining walk wasn't terribly long - perhaps another block up the river and they'd find the hole-in-the-wall diner on their left. "The diner we're looking for, by the way, is beneath this giant painted-on sign that says 'TRAMPS'. You can't miss it."