[ The coins are incredible to handle. His mind tunes out; he stops thinking about the individual ones, stops consciously using Allomancy and goes to pure instinct. Some deflected, some pushed back, a living constellation of forces and movements. His mind tracks a hundred things at once. He's learned the science behind it now, too, and it makes it more beautiful, to his eyes.
They are graceful. There's never been any Mistborn he's fought who was close to her. Even Kelsier; Zane loved sparring with him, too, but there's just something more here. And she's gotten even better since last time.
Falls into a steep ravine; jumps from tree to tree and meets her midair; lands, more than once, in a rough arc that uproots grass and scars the stone. The sun moves too fast, in this place, and soon it's sliding into sunset. He plays games with the blinding, near-horizontal light, the steep shadows. Tries to blind her.
But in the end he's not playing for keeps. He won't try too hard to win. ]
[They're the same, in a hundred ways; different in a hundred more, but maybe the similarities will start to matter most with time. They are both creatures touched by Ruin, both children who have fought it back tooth and nail, who have bled and cried until they became who they were meant to be. They have been beaten and ripped apart and damaged beyond repair, and they've sewn themselves back together because that was the only way to save the people they loved.]
[After a while, she fights with her eyes closed. She can feel the sun on her eyelids, the spin of coins past her head, can smell grass in the wind and pollen in the air. She can sense herself living, and even though really, it's a lie, for this minute in time it's true enough.]
[She knows he's not trying to beat her. It's - refreshing. As thanks, she doesn't try to humiliate him. Because, in her own way, she's missed him.]
[When she knocks him to the ground in the end and lands lightly next to him in a crouch, she's smiling in a way that she very rarely does, bright as a new sun.]
[ He isn't quite smiling, but it isn't because he doesn't feel the same way. He is the calm of a day after the storm, sweet wet grass and drops scattering sunlight into prisms of color.
He reaches up a hand. He doesn't need her help getting up. He's just asking for it. ]
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They are graceful. There's never been any Mistborn he's fought who was close to her. Even Kelsier; Zane loved sparring with him, too, but there's just something more here. And she's gotten even better since last time.
Falls into a steep ravine; jumps from tree to tree and meets her midair; lands, more than once, in a rough arc that uproots grass and scars the stone. The sun moves too fast, in this place, and soon it's sliding into sunset. He plays games with the blinding, near-horizontal light, the steep shadows. Tries to blind her.
But in the end he's not playing for keeps. He won't try too hard to win. ]
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[After a while, she fights with her eyes closed. She can feel the sun on her eyelids, the spin of coins past her head, can smell grass in the wind and pollen in the air. She can sense herself living, and even though really, it's a lie, for this minute in time it's true enough.]
[She knows he's not trying to beat her. It's - refreshing. As thanks, she doesn't try to humiliate him. Because, in her own way, she's missed him.]
[When she knocks him to the ground in the end and lands lightly next to him in a crouch, she's smiling in a way that she very rarely does, bright as a new sun.]
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He reaches up a hand. He doesn't need her help getting up. He's just asking for it. ]
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[She reaches down and takes his hand, clasps it, and pulls him up.]
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I'd like to do that sometimes.
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[A natural thing, she means. A right thing.]