Patience Versus Speed

he air thickened.

Kenneth shoved himself between the human and the elf, glaring up at both of them. “We just crawled out of a blazin' tavern full of goblins an’ hounds! Are you two fools so disappointed to have survived that you’ve decided to finish the job your bloody selves?”

Neil’s voice cut through, steady and commanding as he sat against the cave wall, studying the sword across his knees.

“Kenneth. Step back."

Kenneth turned toward the paladin, stared at him for a moment, then walked away muttering dwarven insults.

Ashley never looked away from Joshua.

For the first time, the ranger seemed to understand that whatever argument they had been having was over. The rogue's fingers slowly wrapped around the hilts of her daggers.

Gregory, seated apart, had been watching with scholarly detachment. Sensing the inevitable, his fingers moved in a subtle gesture beneath the fold of his indigo robes, lips forming a silent rune. A faint shimmer—unnoticed by the others—settled over every blade and edge in the cave. The enchantment blunted edge and point until lethal steel carried no more bite than wood.

Neil saw it.

Gregory met his eyes and gave the smallest nod.

Joshua lowered his voice. "Stay your blades, elf."

Ashley scoffed, "Quite the warning from a slow human."

“Slow,” Joshua echoed, pulling his cloak aside and stepping to her face. “Remind me again: Which one of us is still bleeding?”

The dwarf turned. “Neil—!”

“Let it happen,” the paladin said. “They need this. Better here than when it matters.”

Ashley’s lips curved in a cold smile.

“As you wish... Holy One.”

Her daggers flashed free in a blur as she dropped into a low crouch. Joshua moved smoothly, longsword sliding free in his right hand, shorter blade in his left. The two circled in the cleared space near the fire, boots scuffing old leaves.

The fight began without warning.

Ashley exploded forward, a shadow given speed. Her daggers flashed in twin arcs—one high for the throat, one low for the gut. Joshua parried the high strike with his longsword, the shorter blade sweeping down to deflect the second. Steel rang, but the enchanted edges produced only dull thuds. Ashley spun inside his guard, a dagger whipping toward his ribs; he twisted, the blade glancing off his cloak, and countered with a sweeping cut that forced her to leap back.

He adapted quickly—faster than Ashley had expected. Once the surprise of her first rush passed, Joshua answered with a ranger’s patience, feinting left then driving forward with both blades in a controlled storm. His longer reach kept her at bay for three heartbeats, the cave echoing with the rapid clack-clack-clack of steel on steel. He pressed her toward the wall, boots scraping stone, but Ashley ducked under a high cut, rolled between his legs, and came up behind him.

One strike.

Two.

Three.

Joshua caught them all.

The fourth glanced off his shoulder.

The fifth nearly found his ribs.

The sixth hit clean.

Ashley smiled.

Joshua turned.

She was already gone.

Kenneth gave a low chuckle from beside the fire. “Fast little thing, ain’t she?”

Josh’s hand dipped from his cloak and a wire snapped out, cinching Ashley’s wrists together before her daggers could answer. Her brow lifted - a small acknowledgment that a human had done something worth noticing.

The ranger caught that heartbeat and drove through it, twisting his shoulder hard and throwing his weight forward. She rode the arc instead, turning the fall into a silent leap, sailing over him and landing, as her dagger whispered through the wire.

The severed strands kissed the dirt.

Only then did Ashley look up at him, her sneer almost admiring the audacity.

“Toys.”

The rogue came in again.

Worn ranger steel met the polished flash of elven daggers in a rapid, irregular rhythm. Ashley changed direction constantly, never remaining where Joshua expected her to be for more than a heartbeat, but he stopped trying to match her speed and began making her come through him instead.

She feinted left.

He didn’t bite.

She turned the motion into a low sweep instead, catching his leg just enough to break his footing—but he recovered quickly, driving forward with his shoulder and closing the distance entirely.

In that heartbeat, the fight changed. Ashley realized the mistake a fraction too late.

His hand clamped around her wrist.

Ashley twisted immediately, trying to cut free with the opposite dagger, but Joshua crashed his forearm into hers and smothered the strike before it began. His shoulder drove into her chest. His other arm locked around her middle.

For the first time, the rogue had nowhere to go.

Joshua lifted her body from the ground.

Airborne, her eyes widened. “Keth’rala—”

He hammered her fully into the stone floor.

The impact cracked through the cave.

Lindsey flinched beside the fire. Gregory grimaced at a danger his enchantment could do absolutely nothing to prevent. Neil did not move.

Kenneth winced. “There it is.”

Ashley hit the ground—but did not stay there.

She twisted as she fell, rolling through the impact, her body already moving before Joshua could follow. A dagger flashed upward as she came out of it, forcing him back a step he hadn’t intended to take.

She was up again.

Too fast.

That had been the moment. He knew it. And it had passed.

Ashley pressed again, tighter this time, driving him toward the cave wall where the space narrowed further. His longer blade became harder to use, each swing shortened, each movement restricted.

Here—this was hers.

She slipped inside his reach again and again, forcing him to defend close, her daggers working in quick, precise strikes that demanded constant attention. He blocked, turned, absorbed what he could, but the space gave her the advantage now.

There was pain in the way she moved now. A hitch in one shoulder. A stiffness through her ribs.

She ignored all of it.

Ashley crashed into his guard again. Her daggers struck faster than before, but the rhythm had changed. Less play. Less flourish. She wasn't testing him anymore.

She was angry.

Joshua tried to break away, to widen the distance, but the cave did not allow it. Stone pressed at his back. There was nowhere to move.

Ashley slammed one dagger into his longsword, trapped it for half a heartbeat with the curve of her blade, and struck around it with the other. The edge rapped his side.

He shoved her away.

She returned.

Joshua blocked the next, caught her wrist and tried to turn her into the wall.

Ashley spun with the grip instead of against it.

Joshua shoved himself away from the wall, but Ashley drove him straight back into it.

He brought the shorter blade across.

She knocked it wide, then used the opening to crowd closer, both daggers working inside the space his larger weapon needed. One struck his side. Another clipped his forearm. Joshua caught her wrist, turned her hard toward the stone—

Ashley planted one foot against the wall.

Then the other.

And ran up the wall.

Joshua looked up. The rogue became a blur, and for one impossible instant his eyes simply could not follow her. Upside down above him, Ashley planted one boot against the low ceiling and kicked away. For the briefest instant she was above him—hair falling toward the floor, both daggers drawn tight against her body.

And dropped.

She twisted in the air, slipping behind him in a low crouch, and emerged from shadow.

Joshua began to turn.

A dagger was already against his throat.

Silence.

The cave froze.

"...Shit," Kenneth quietly marveled.

They held there a moment, calculating, both marked with bruises already forming. Ashley stood behind him, one arm drawn across his shoulder, the dulled edge resting beneath his jaw. Her breathing came hard now, pain beginning to show despite everything she was doing to hide it.

“Yield,” she hissed.

Joshua did not answer at once.

Then he let out a quiet breath, lowered both blades, and let them fall. They struck the stone with a sharp clatter that echoed through the cave.

“Well fought,” he said.

Ashley tilted her head, still holding the dagger high under his chin.

Joshua wiped his brow, studying her more carefully now. “You’re faster. Not by much—but enough."

His gaze shifted briefly to the walls. "…in a small place like this, anyway.”

He ducked under the rogue's blade and walked. "But not every fight will be in a cave. And you’re bound to those little daggers.”

Ashley’s expression tightened slightly, but she did not interrupt.

“I, however, am not,” Joshua said, collecting his weapons. “Sword. Bow. Wires. Powders. Open ground or forest, I can adapt.”

A pause.

Ashley gave a small nod, sheathing her weapons. “Perhaps."

The elf lifted one delicate hand toward the cave walls around them. “But here,” she added, “this... is mine.”

The ranger nodded once in return. “Aye,” he said. “It is.”

For a moment, neither moved. Then Joshua turned and walked back toward the fire, slipping a hand into his cloak for his pipe.

Ashley stood still and watched him leave.

Only when he had passed beyond the edge of her voice did she shift. She rolled her shoulder once, wincing faintly now that the fight had ended, and turned her head to the figure sitting behind her.

“Priestess.”

The woman looked up.

Ashley glanced once toward Joshua’s back, then lowered her voice.

“...I’ll take some of that healing now."