But you don't have to obey them because our parents' generation was just wrong, about so much, and you did not choose them and it's always morally justified to rebel against unjust and unearned authority, and I want people like you to grow up to be better and kinder and smarter than the people who raised you and you can't do that if you don't learn to discard the idea that you owe them deference for being born earlier, and

Nope nope nope he needs to walk away from this conversation immediately -

- no, he doesn't get to walk away from this conversation, he's got duties.

Gabriel wrestles a smile onto his face with a Herculean effort. 

"Yep, I'm sure you do a great job listening to your parents! You still need knees if you want to fight."

Reynhard has found spare knees! 

These are actually very shiny steel. There's a flaring piece of boiled leather that covers the thigh, with a couple holes in the top that allow a string to pass through so the weight can be hung from a belt, and riveted onto the leather is a fully articulated steel knee with three small steel segments on either side of the larger central kneecap piece. It clinks at it moves and makes soft shrrrr noises as the pieces scrape against each other.

"Again, thigh protection isn't mandatory but I'd prefer Iomedae wears it because she's young and we don't want to hurt her." 

She is confused and frustrated and ill at ease and - armor, and then she gets to fight, and it will all be all right, because she's really quite promising at fighting, because Aroden chose her and she is worthy and she will prove it once she gets a sword in her hands.

...how are they getting metal to move past other metal like that???? She's going to be too distracted by the knee mechanism to even put it on for a few moments. Open and closed, open and closed. "God is good," she proclaims, and then tries it on.

If Gabriel ever meets God he's going to fight him with a sword. For many reasons but one of them will be making a world where children ever have to obey anyone against their will. 

(God doesn't fight with a sword, God is a wizard. Though even if Iomedae could read Sir Gabriel's forced smile she would not have the vocabulary to correct him on this point.)

Those leg pieces are a little bit too big for Iomedae. He'll pass her a belt for her to attach the thighs to, so they stay up, but the knees still hang a little below where her actual knees are. They don't have anything better and she seems eager to fight, so he supposes it'll do for today. Nobody has a perfect kit on their first day, and Iomedae's getting better day-one gear than average for Kalomeros (because Gabriel had put on Facebook that he needed people to bring loaner kit for a newbie who was in foster care, and people came through because of course they did).

"Alright, that kit looks legal to me. I'm happy for you to practise in it so long as you tell everyone you fight that it's your first day, you're not authorised and they should be gentle. I can lend you my shield."

Reynhard's shield is decorated with a huge winding snake whose curves fill the space inside a thick black border. The edge is bound with a thick curved piece of leather to make sure the shield-corner can't get inside anyone's visor. 

Lucy has just finished a fight and is gulping down the water she forgot to drink while she was busy doing her SACRED DUTY regarding welcoming newbies. Cináed is a little older than her and stronger and faster and probably more talented, but she was raised in the SCA and grew up on boffers, so it's a fairly even match that leaves both fighters exhausted. 

She will nevertheless give Iomedae an enthusiastic wave with her sword.

Iomedae takes the sword and bounds delightedly on over to Lucy. She moves less awkwardly in armor, somehow. It's that she's not curled up defensively into herself. 

"Sir Reynhard says I have to say that it's your first day you're not authorized and they should be gentle."

"....I think he means it's your first day? I'm authorised! But okay!"

Lucy scrambles to put her water away and get her helmet back on, so she can take up a position facing Iomedae on the field. She angles her sword carefully towards Iomedae to show her the pointy end. It has two inches of foam taped to the end of the rattan. "I have a thrusting tip - uh, don't worry about what that means, I just have to tell you because it's the rules. Now you tell me you have one too - I'm pretty sure you have one too." 

"I do not have a tip, this sword is..." what was the word "rattan."

"Uh... can I see that?" 

She disentangles her sword hand from her basket and lanyard, and reaches out to Iomedae's sword. The end of the sword has two foam discs taped securely to the tip, padding it to take some of the force out of thrusts. "No, you do have a tip - look." She presses her thumb an inch into the end of the stick. "It's padded." 

"Ohhh, that is a tip? I thought it was -" she gestures out a pointy tip like a real sword would have. "Then yes I have a thrusting tip."

"They're to stop us from killing each other, not to help us kill each other more."

Lucy manages to get her hand back into her sword basket without tangling her lanyard after a few seconds of struggle.

"Uh, if nobody told you yet also, legal target areas are anywhere except the hands and the shins.... and if someone says hold then you need to stay still and put your weapon down... I think that's everything? Okay. Before we fight we salute!"

She brings her sword up vertical in front of her face with the tip pointed to the sky, gives Iomedae a forty-five-degree bow, and then raises the sword slightly towards her in a saluting motion before swishing it down into a fighting stance position.

That is beautiful and good and correct and Iomedae's heart is soaring and - if she does not stay disciplined and win her fights then no one will let her in their order. They will see that she is incompetent and think that God meant for her to be a preacher. (Iomedae's mother briefly tried to float this theory but when that happened Iomedae's father was on her side. She does not think Robert will be on her side.)

 By the time she swishes her sword down to match Lucy's she no longer looks full of boundless joy and assurance. She looks like she is assessing how to kill Lucy. 

Lucy is caught between her desire to BE NICE TO NEWBIES and her desire to HIT SEXIST PEOPLE UNTIL THEY STOP BEING SEXIST. These are both very important and sacred duties! 

She takes a stance with her sword arm cocked behind her so that her hand sits by her shoulder, ready to smash forwards with explosive power. Her right foot is back, her forward left leg hidden carefully behind her shield, and she watches Iomedae carefully through her right eye - her left is covered by the shield corner. 

She'll start circling Iomedae just barely out of range of what she thinks Iomedae's reach is, just to see how the other fighter moves. 

Iomedae's reach is longer than Lucy's guessing and she's tempted to try to get her right off the bat but if she doesn't take her down on the spot she'll be in trouble and if you fight like that you don't live very long. You have to fight in such a way as to survive a hundred fights, her swordfighting teacher liked to say, and she doesn't actually even think a hundred fights would be enough.

Iomedae does not, realistically, expect to live very long but she wants to. She wants to be immortal, like Aroden was, because there are too many evils to defeat in one life. 

So - cautiously circling, until she gets a better opening than that. When she does move she's very fast and also there is a lot of her.

Lucy circles around people to keep her muscles warm and flexible, or to get newbies out of the mindset that they have to stand rooted and hammer each other like rock-em-sock-em robots, or to get the sun out of her eyes, or to settle into her fighting mindset and get an opportunity to breathe deep. It's not, to her, a way of looking for openings; openings will be made once she starts feinting or engaging, but for now she's just keeping her guard exactly where it is. She knows where she's open: her head is vulnerable to a particularly well-placed flat snap if she doesn't lift her shield and tilt left a little for it, and definitely vulnerable to an offside if she doesn't tilt her shield right in time; her left leg is vulnerable to a wrap if she doesn't kick her shield out to prevent it; her whole right side is protected until she throws a shot but her arm is immediately vulnerable once she does; there might be a slot-shot open at just the wrong part of her footwork but she moves her feet carefully to mostly prevent it. She's aware of all of those places, likes her guard just the way it is, and maintains it in just that same place while she circles. 

Until she realises that Iomedae doesn't actually seem to want to attack her, and she doesn't want to take all day about this. Is she.... scared of being hit? She didn't seem like the kind of person who would be scared to be hit, but it's not unusual at all for newbies to be hesitant! 

Lucy puts her foot down a little differently on the next step so that she's a little squarer to Iomedae, and tilts her sword out to the side as though she's thinking about hitting Iomedae but being very slow and telegraphing about it, and - yep, there it is, she takes the bait - woah, Iomedae takes the bait much faster than she expected. One second Lucy's gently hinting at an opening, and the next she's frantically ducking into her shield to avoid a staggering blow that she just barely caught on her shield corner, and she's dimly aware of suddenly being towered over by an opponent twice her weight.

With Lucy's face behind her shield she has to counterattack blind; she throws an angled blow at the place she's guessing Iomedae's elbow has to be, judging from the impact of her sword. At the same time, she's stepping out to disengage and reassess; she's been drilled in never disengaging without giving the enemy something to worry about while she does it, but it won't be a particularly hard blow even if it lands because she hasn't yet figured out power generation on blows where her hips are going in the wrong direction. 

Iomedae has stepped over to the side, which doesn't work quite as well in this armor as it does in better fitted armor but does work well enough that Lucy's sword barely glances off the edge of her elbow, and now she's to the side of Lucy and can try to swing around her shield.

Lucy was disengaging as the blow came in, but Iomedae is significantly taller than her and Lucy is blindly retreating in the wrong direction, so the paladin outpaces her fairly easily. Now Iomedae's on her shield side and Lucy's shield is up protecting her head - high enough that the wrap comes in and tags her below the shield edge, right in the sweet spot between the leather skirt that protects her butt and the plastic that covers her thighs. Lucy was turning to try and chase Iomedae with a flat snap, but she's too slow; her brain has time to comment that's going to be such a nice bruise in the morning before her mouth produces the word, "Good!" 

That was exactly as satisfying to watch as Gabriel thought it would be. 

This is the best thing that has happened since Iomedae was made a paladin. She beams at Lucy and drops her sword to offer her a hand. "We fight we both stronger!"

It's impossible for Lucy to be annoyed - at herself for underestimating the newbie, or at Iomedae for assuming that Lucy didn't deliberately give that opening (or at Iomedae for hitting like a truck) - when Iomedae is so damn charming. Frankly she appreciates her opponent a very great deal for it; she can't say anything snarky about how she regrets going easy when Iomedae's just said something so nice, and so Iomedae has saved her from saying something that would've definitely fallen below the standard of courtesy she sets for herself. She takes a breath and finds herself wearing a very genuine smile. 

"Yes! We will both get stronger!" she agrees enthusiastically. "You have amazing power, wow." 

"When I the smaller one I fight like you," says Iomedae, though she isn't sure the exact shade of meaning she wants will come through. "Again?"

This time Lucy is not giving Iomedae the benefit of the doubt! "Again!"

She nods, steps back, and waits for Iomedae to pick her sword up. As soon as she seems ready, Lucy springs forwards and feints a thrust to the face. Her feet are still moving, and in the beat after she thinks Iomedae will tell her hands to react to the thrust, Lucy flicks the tip of her sword up and crunches her hips down to lend power as she aims a flat snap at the very bottom edge of Iomedae's shield, hoping she'll move it up when she sees the feint.