And she's very surprised when she hears, "Light!" because she really did just crunch her weight downwards into the sword, but maybe Iomedae was moving or maybe that leg armour is really padded beneath the leather? 

She steps left to give herself room for a low return, her knees bent low and her shield raised above her head to keep her safe from her taller opponent's reprisal, and bounces up into an offside. She learned this from a smaller fighters' class that Nicole taught once; if she has to strike upwards anyway, she may as well use the upwards force of her spring to power her blow rather than worrying about rotation of the hips. 

The offside is blocked and she's already bouncing the sword off the block and looking for the onside. Lucy knows she struggles to get her sword over the top of taller fighters' shields and still have power in her arm, so she's become very precise in how she twists her wrist and aims her sword down into the central line between shield and body.

It's unfortunate that Iomedae is smart enough to realise that this is Lucy's happy range and step away, so that Lucy's sword doesn't connect with quite as much power as it ought to. She smacks the tip of her sword into Iomedae's collarbone and she hears, "Light!" again.

She thought that one had enough power on it, but Iomedae really was stepping away, and it wasn't her finest technique ever. Iomedae isn't wearing shoulder armour, though. Lucy raises her estimation of Iomedae's pain tolerance a notch. 

You can sometimes really take quite severe injuries in a combat situation without being immediately incapacitated! It's why she had to stab Martin five times, and she's been stabbed five times plenty of times herself.

Now they're at range again and Lucy has to figure out how to cross the donut of death between Iomedae's reach and her own.

She went to a class down south on feinting that talked about just using tension and stance, not wasting energy. So she'll "ha!" and do something she thinks of as throwing her spirit out to the left - as though she really has the intention of going left, but only really tensing and aiming and not moving - and then she'll dodge right and smack Iomedae with a flat snap.

She hears, "Light!" from Iomedae and then she is rocked backwards by a smack to her visor that on the one hand she really deserved for leaving her head open (she was far too confident that her own strike would be true) and on the other hand is an amount of power that no newbie has any right to be capable of.

"Good," she says, somewhat weakly, and almost drops her sword.

Lucy casts a sideways glance at Gabriel and Reynhard, watching. 

She would never question Iomedae's honour - questioning anyone's honour is unfathomably rude - but she's kind of questioning Iomedae's calibration and she is wondering if either of them is likely to rescue her from the most awkward conversation. 

Iomedae reaches out to steady her. "First time you being as with baby with me! Can you show me again -" and she imitates the feint, badly.

"....I thought you were new," Lucy says, sort of stunned.

Slowly, she shows Iomedae the motion she'd use for a face thrust. She learned it from rapier initially - she had a few rapier lessons before deciding armoured combat was her true passion - but she's started adding a little wrist twist into the motion to make it stick on a visor and not slide off to either side. "This is the thrust. I was running with it so I didn't have good body mechanics, because I knew I was turning it into-" she shows how she can untwist her wrist and send the sword tip in a wide arc over their heads and to one side. 

"Oh! - when I practiced we did not try hit in face, might die that way even if priest. This, you can try, because -" she pats the foam nub. "God is good. ....sorry you think I was new. I said what Sir Reynault sayed to say but maybe I should say, Sir Reynault says this, Lucia says this? If I fight yourgrace Nicole. So I not - lying, saying I new."

Lucy vaguely remembers reading something about how medieval people in tournaments wouldn't thrust to the face, even with blunted swords, because shoving your sword into someone's brain via their eye socket is pretty lethal regardless of whether you've dulled the edge a bit, and they hadn't invented fencing masks yet, though she's not sure why they never used the SCA solution of having wooden swords that are wider than the gaps in helmets are allowed to be. She has no idea if she's remembering that correctly, but that's really the only thing her brain has to grasp onto and she has no idea what Iomedae is talking about regarding priests.

".... I think Her Grace can handle herself. She's - one of the best fighters that isn't a knight," she says. Nicole has just won several squires' tourneys and Rose tourneys back-to-back and while Lucy can't pretend to know what goes on in the secret knights' meetings, the writing's been on the wall for a while. Also she literally cannot imagine what it would take to ruffle Nicole's feathers; she somehow always seems poised and dignified and unbothered even when someone like Migliorotto is beating the shit out of her while also criticising everything about her technique.

"Sir Reynhard was right, you should tell people it's your first day. You deserve to get the grace period of everyone being all welcoming at the newbie just like everyone else gets, it's not your fault you're good. If Roger underestimates you, then please beat his ass for me."

Lucy still wants rescue from someone else, though, because 'those looked like good hits' sounds so much better if it doesn't carry undertones of 'I think I should have won'. It doesn't seem immediately forthcoming. 

"....again?"

Again! Iomedae doesn't know Lucy wants rescue and isn't planning to offer it!

Lucy wants to try counterpunching. Iomedae is clearly not fazed by aggression and speed, and maybe Lucy can catch her out with tactics. She can wait patiently, feinting a little but not really going anywhere, and see what Iomedae does. 

Iomedae was slow to learn to feint. Paladins don't lie, she told her sword tutor, and he laughed at her and then insisted they practice almost nothing else for several weeks. She knows what her body is saying and she likes it to be what she's doing. But she did learn. She takes a high swing at Lucy which is just a distraction to close with her and shove them both backwards - but Iomedae with sturdier footing -

"...hold!" 

"HOLD!!" 

...eek! "HOLD!!!" 

- she will absolutely and completely freeze when instructed to. ...she's confused though. 

"Alright that one's on me." 

"....yeah. Iomedae, it's fine, nobody told you because we normally don't have to tell newbies because they're normally not as confident as you. We can't do grappling here - no bashing with the shield, no grabbing people and shoving them over, okay?" 

These guys are such dumbasses sometimes but Nicole loves them all so she can't be mad. She's just decided she needs to go adopt this newcomer later. She is in armour by now and was warming up with Erik; when she sees the called hold isn't relevant to her fight she'll go straight back to fighting. 

"Yes, sir," says Iomedae, clearly just as confused but just as clearly intending to follow the rule.

"Alright, great, don't worry about it, that's on us."

Reynhard thinks it's on him but Gabriel already said it was on him so he's alright to share. 

"....so hold over? We fight?" 

"Lay on."

Reynhard has, in fact, been watching Iomedae's calibration. He is pretty sure she's calling 'light' to shots that she ought to be saying 'good' to. But he's going to give them a couple more rounds to be very sure before he intervenes, because Lucy's a tough kid and honourable and won't throw a fit about Iomedae not taking her shots, and he wants to see if he can figure out what's going on and phrase the intervention gently without putting off a newcomer. 

Lucy is filled with DETERMINATION and also MURDEROUS INTENT.

She goes to a high guard that she's comfortable counterpunching from and waits in it, sinking down deep into her focus. It is so embarrassing if she gets her Osprey and then mere weeks later she's being beaten up by someone on their first day! 

Lucy fends off Iomedae's first few attacks by blocking and stepping out to the right, keeping herself on the taller fighter's shield side, looking for the wrap shot that will get around Iomedae's shield and connect with the back of her leg and never write moving fast enough to find it. She's in a rhythm, stepping to the tempo of the song that plays in her head (lately her brain radio's been Megalovania). 

When she thinks she's established a pattern she suddenly moves the other direction on the off-beat, a fraction of a second after she might be moving if she was holding her tempo - slow is fast - and tries to chop her sword into Iomedae's sword elbow.