Sparring (Freya and Fratley)
"Sparring" by Blayze Brightscale (violence, M/F, FF9, semi-public) 26 March 2004; characters copywrite Squaresoft
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Freya rises from her place and enters the center of the tournament floor, taking the steps up on her side as she enters the ring for the final fight of the annual contest. Taking her place in a circle drawn on the dirt surface in the arena, she waits for her opponent. She gives a smile to some cheering citizens then turns to concentrate on the fight.
Fratley steps out on the oppisite side, taking his place oppisite her, paying less attention to the audience being quiet well at blocking them out. It was clearly expected by all that the couple would end up facing each other in the last round of the tournament because of the way the lots were drawn. In previous years they had faced each other in earlier match ups so they didn't end up in the final together. He looks up slowly, lowering his helment and taking his stance, eyeing her with a look that says 'Don't expect me to go easy on you.'
Freya gives her lance a playful twirl, cracking a smile at her mate, knowing full well from past experience that he will treat her like any other opponent while in the ring, carefully taking her own stance, noticably different from his even though they had trained side by side when they were younger, perhaps highlighting the years they had spent apart being trained by their own different experiences.
Fratley doesn't crack a smile nor show any emotion, a bit concerned with her improvement over the past year and not particularly wanting to submit to future jests if this turns out to be the first year she defeats him. Hearing the starting ring as their young king signals for the start of the fight, he moves forward in a distinctively offensive stance, hoping to thrown her off with his sudden aggressiveness.
Freya smirks as the bell tones, attempting to time things as she watches him lung forward, flexing her bipedal hing legs and taking a short leap as if moving defensively, then suddenly leaping forward, loose fitting uniform flapping in the stiff wind as she brings her spear level with his head hoping that she has thrown him off by feigning the back off.
Fratley's eyes follow her movement with painful lack of emotions, bringing the jagged end of his weopon up to block the strike and taking a hop to the side, motions so fast that only the skilled fighters in the audience can follow the movements without painful concentration. He attempts to wedge the jagged blade of his against the indent below her spear tip in an effort to throw off her balance in the midst of the jump.
Freya's eyes follow his movements, gritting her teeth as her blade catches his instead of his helment, nearly loosing her stance as the weopons lock for a moment, landing a short distance away and holding out her free foreclaw to parry any sudden attacks while she brings herself back into stance and prepares to dart forward again.
Fratley hardly breaths at all from sheer concentration on his opponent, the world more than 10 feet away from him seeming to glide into the realm of nonexistance, perked ears only hearing the clash of weopons and the thump of her feet as she lands. He spins, seeing her about to charge and feigns a loss of balance, intentionally letting his weopon slip from his right hand only to ready his left hand to take it planning to catch her off guard should she fall for it.
Freya catches the apparent mistake and puts all her energy into her attack, thinking to herself how impressive it would be if she were to down him in only a few moments, and how much grief she could give him if she has indeed improved this much. She brings her spear up, mercilessly aiming a strike square in the chest, confident in the abilities of the ringside healers should the strike be successful, reaching out her oppisite claw with the intention of grabbing his weopong just below the bladed section. Such a move nearly cost her the use of her hand in the past, but for this she seems driven to make it look as impressive as possible.
Fratley's expression doesn't change as he watches his opponent take the bait, grabbing his weopon in the oppisite hand and bringing it up towards her face but also finding himself at the mercy of an unexpectantly brutal attempt on the part of Freya, moving only in time to take the spear in the shoulder. He grits his teeth, the pain from the attack slipping into the same realm of obscurity as the audience as he ignores it and brings the bladed end of his weopon up towards her head.
Freya realizes too late the trap as she catches the recovery in the corner of her eye, but only registers to her moments later as she was putting too much concentration into her offensive manuveur. One moment she is quiet satisfied with a strike to his shoulder and reaching for his weopon, the next she has only enough time to brace for impact as the blade strikes her squarely in the jaw and her hand takes a nasty slice, a pop ringing out that causes some of the audience to cring. Her helment takes much of the force of the impact, shards flying nearly 10 feet away as she attempts to recover her demeanor.
Fratley finds himself limping slightly from his injury despite his jaded concentration, attempting to move from the path of her spear, lest she is feigning as well, and takes a spin to effort to bring the oppisite end of his weapon to the square of her back while she is thrown off. The crowd seems to be quiet into the fight, not having expected a couple to fight so brutally.
Freya opens her muzzle and watches one of her teeth fly out of her mouth from the impact, almost like in slow motion. She takes a spin, completely loosing her balance as her broken helment obscures half of her vision. Her body goes around in a circle, barely holding onto her lance and certainly not in control of it, but luckily only taking an inconsequential glancing hit from the end of his weopon, though the frustration welling up inside her is as much a successful hit as any physical attack.
Fratley watches her loose her balance, bringing himself into position to knock her forward, knowing that if he tosses her from the ring he will be declared the victor. Just as he is darting forward for the 'victory blow', he finds himself struck across the side of his face with the blunt end of her lance, which by chance seems to find itself at the perfect angle to glide beneath the protection of his helment and square him across the jaw, throwing him off in his charge but continueing to move forward attempting to ward off the hit as he does all others.
Freya tries to catch her composure, falling flat on the arena dirt on her back, cracking the back of her head on the stone edge of the arena and loosing the grip on her lance, unaware of the successful hit and bringing up her feet in desperation to block his momentum, perhaps to take his force and use it against him to get him out of the ring instead. Even as she does this her head spins and she fears that she might loose consciousness soon.
Fratley, off balance from the unexpected strike, misses her entirely with his weopon, finding the wind knocked out of him instead as her feet come into contact with his stomach. This suddenly puts himself at odds with his own momentum rather than with his opponent, flying over her, his eyes wide as he realizes his mistake and attempts to backtrack himself all too late. In the end he simply braces himself for impact, landing claws first on the floor outside the circle and rolling out of it, dropping his weopon as he rolls to a stop with one foot and one knee on the ground, gritting his teeth in frustration.
Freya feels pressure as he flies over her, then looses track of him as her bottom half thumps back into the dirt, dust settling around her from the spar. She gags a bit as immediately a healer is by her side, looking up at them with a blank stare. 'D-did I win?' She slips into unconsciousness as the sounds of the healer's chants echo in her ears.
Sometime later...
Freya swayed as she knelt before King Puck, still a bit dizzy from the head bashing, his words echoing in her ears as gave his congratulation speech and generally seeming like he was bored and wanted to go since the fighting was over. She nodded and accepted the medal as it was placed over her head, the young king not much taller than her when she was kneeling, a strangeness she had never completely gotten use to.
Standing by her, trying to hide his concern while in public, Fratley knelt to accept his 'second place' medal, weathering a noticable smirk from his King who apparently knew how he felt after his seemingly accidental loss. Nevertheless he took it like a gentleman, and nodded in thanks, then turned to make sure his mate was still standing.
She swayed a bit again, taking a look over at Fratley and smirking simultaneously with the king. She was certain that the dizziness was psychological, they had both been healed after all, but the knowledge somehow didn't seem to help. As she walked off the platform, the crowd's cheer echoed in her head, suddenly feeling herself tip as she begin to take the stairs down into the ready rooms.
Her mate walked closely behind her, watching her closely and seeing her start to tip. He was on her in a moment, catching her and keeping her from falling forward, then slowly lifting her legs off the ground with one arm and picking her up, carrying her down the stairs so she wouldn't fall. He took a moment to admire her medal up close, with no small amount of jealousy though he successfully hid it.
Freya felt herself being caught, and smiled inside, allowing herself to go limp as she felt him take hold of her and letting herself take slight advantage of his chivalry by being a bit weaker than she really needed to be. She moved her head to lay on his shoulder, her busted helment having been removed and discarded by the healers after the fight.
Fratley silently took her back to the changing rooms and went ahead and walked into hers. He didn't worry about the fact that he had to go into the female's room in order to lay her down, since it was mostly empty. Very few female burmecians competed and the ones that had were eliminated early on this year, so it was devoid of anyone at the moment. He slowly lay her down on the bunk and looked as if waiting for her to speak.
She smiled up at him as she was laid on the bunk, raising a claw to brush against his cheek "I didn't hurt you too badly did I dear?" It was difficult to tell if she was being serious or mocking, since it was apparent who received the greater portion of damage.
He removed his helment with a sigh, letting his grayish burmecian hair fall out of it, and placed it aside "I may receive grief for my place from you, but we both know who would have won had it been a real battle; there are no 'ringouts' in war."
Freya smiled up at him only more "You'll be explaining that a lot over the next few days I'd imagine, hm?" She reaches up and flicked his second place medal with a single claw, back and forth. She jested now, though she was certain she'd pay for it in next years tournament.
Fratley smiles "Very well then love, since you are pretending to be weak, let me help you with your armor." He had learned her tendency to do this sort of thing with him around since they had been together, just as she probably knew that he used his bad memory as an excuse to get out of things or get sympathy from her at times.
Freya took a deep breath, noticably taking a look around as if to check if anyone else was around, then looked back up at him with shining eyes and raised her arms up to give him easier access to her things. She was wearing quiet a few layers including armor under her typical outfit.
He tried not to say a word as he began to wrestle with what to get off first and which was over what and so on. He finally cracked a smile "I swear you do this just to frustrate me." He finally managed progress and helped her sit up so that he could take her main cloak and uniform off, taking the time to fold it neatly and set it aside.
Freya just smiled as she shifted around only when she needed to; the only significant motion she made was to keep him from removing the medal, snapping her teeth playfully at him if he attempted to do so. She finally sat up when he needed to, now only in her undergarments, and reached a clawed hand over to him "But you're still fully dressed dear, you must be uncomfy, hm?"
Fratley stood up, shaking his head a bit as if to clear it and taking a glance around as she had previously, before unbuckling his shirt and removing it, being increasingly less careful about being neat with how he placed them, and eventually worked himself down to nothing, which took him less than half the time it would have taken Freya to do the same, leaving the piece around his neck.
Freya didn't pretend not to stare as he did so, removing her top and dropping it on the pile of cloths he was making, then laying her bop half down and raising up her bottom, pulling her panties down at the same time, having become too impatient to have him do things for her.
Fratley finally quirked a significant smile as her act fell through rather quickly upon seeing him undress, crawling up slowly onto the bunk. He says nothing as he moves up beside her, sitting on his knees on the bunk, tail swishing behind him as he looks down at her, becoming visibly excited in doing so.
Without warning, she suddenly reached up to grab one hand around his neck and another on his shoulder, and attempting to spin him around underneath her while he's unaware. She gets a rather devious grin on her face, an expression she never seems to get unless she's alone with him, and normally means he's in for it.
He quickly found his mate reversing herself from passive to aggressive but didn't seem to put up much resistance if any as he found himself with his back down on the bunk and Freya above him with knees on either side of his belly, having rather enjoyed the brief squirming of her fur against his and the smiling slightly up at her, eyes looking into hers, the only thing he's truely helpless against.
She paused to look down at him, tail swishing and thumping back against his, leaning downward until her face was inches from his with a bit smile across her muzzle, "I .. won .. I get to be ... on ... top!" Her tail twirls and intertwines with his, looping around it as she continues to move her mouth closer to his.
Fratley tightens his tail with hers, still swishing against hers and tending to thump up and down together, as his head takes initiative to come up to meet her, his claws moving up to grip her sides and rub up and down them slowly, "I love you Freya... " His words come a split second before his lips melt against hers.
Freya moves her muzzle against his, head turning oppisite and pulling her body closer to his, moving her hips excitedly against him, shivering a bit as her tongue dances with his a few long moments before pulling away. "I love you too Fratley". She found herself unable to keep from smiling as her medal clinked against his on his chest, the only thing that either of them were wearing.
Fratley took a deep breath, moving one hand around to her belly and easing it downward before rubbing it over her warmeth. He wanted to take his time but he knew they didn't have much before those outside began to wonder what was taking them so long, so he took it upon himself to press her gently back down onto his body, bringing himself into line with her and moving his hips upward slowly.
She pulled her muzzle from his slowly, saliva stringing out between their lips and dripping a bit as she started to say something but seemed unable to come up with anything quiet appropriate to say at a time like this. Realizing they didn't have the advantage of time, she pressed herself down, gritting her teeth together as he penetrated her and letting and aiding with her own movements.
He gave a deep jagged breath as he felt himself melt, arching upward and joining in perfect time with her movements, staring up into her eyes as the world around her fades, locked in gaze with hers, feeling his urgency increase with each passing movement, moving his claws up her body and seeming to randomly explore her.
She whimpered as she leaned forward again, hair flopping down over her face as she brought her lips to his again, eyes never closed as she did so, hardly even blinking, feeling as if his eyes were looking into her very soul and didn't want to break their search. Her own movements became more urgent, steadily increasing as the time they were taking begins to seem less and less of importance.
Fratley gripped his arms around her, pulling her close as they locked lips again for a short time; his head then falling back against the bed and eyes locking into a blank stare, the energy seeming to build up inside of him, drawing in the expression on her face above his.
Her eyes go wide and she nearly bit her tongue in an attempt not to make too much excessive noise in their present location. She felt her body tighten up, clamping down and then releasing all at once, whimpering and falling forward somewhat haphazardly, while straining to keep her motions up against him still.
Fratley couldn't help but smile as he watched her facial expression float towards bliss and scream passed it without stopping; smile as much as he could while drooling all over himself that is. He feels himself follow in suit a few minutes later, tensing up and releasing inside her, arching his back and being somewhat less careful than she was about the noise he made, almost forgetting where he was.
Freya smiles down at him as she takes him through it, slowing down afterwards steadying to a halt, fur matted and having expended far more energy doing this than what she used fighting earlier. She relaxes atop him, feeling her heart thumping against his and still looking into his eyes. Without anything creative to say, she just said it again "I love you Fratley, I never want to loose you again..."
He smiled gently up at her, brushing a paw against her cheek and nodding "You will not be loosing me if I can help it, love, this I promise. I love you." He gave her another gentle kiss as he brushed the hair that habitually flopped in front of her eyes.
She pulled apart, reluctantly, knowing they couldn't continue this any longer for now. Moving from atop him and standing once again, slowly, and swaying for just as good a reason as she had been after the fight. She looked around to be sure noone had seen them, though she knew someone had likely heard them, blushing a bit as she returned her cloths to her body.
Fratley slowly arose from his place, sitting up and craddling his head for a moment to recompose, then arose and did the same, piecing together his outfit in half the time as hers even though he started dressing after her, thinking to himself that maybe during their upcoming travels, he should convince her to invest in a less complicated outfit.
Freya placed their tournament armor where they would be picked up later, not really caring that his armor being in the femaele section would make things a bit apparent to whoever was picking things up later, cleared her throat, and recomposed herself, leaning in to give him a kiss before taking his hand into hers and motioning towards the door.
Fratley nodded politely, giving her paw a squeeze and he walked with her out the door, leaving the ready rooms behind to go back out into the somewhat dispersed crowd, where many of their friends waited expectantly.