Noticing that they don't take the initiative like he had been expecting, he counts down like an official referee, loud enough for both of them to hear.

She wants to fight, but she feels very sure that if you do things when you're not supposed to yet, bad things happen.

But now she's supposed to!

She is going to try to... jump on the spinarak! And hold him down! And hit him with her legs! And lunge! And bite!

He's approaching this somewhat more analytically and experimentally. How fast can he move? How high can he jump? He has more maneuverability to different sides than her; he uses this to try to avoid her attacks. Tries to see if he can come from another side. Or from behind, if he can jump over her.

Can she - hit him with her tails?!

(Wheee!)

They fight without pain or injury, even as the battle continues.  There is a sense of something diminishing with each hit - whatever ability is protecting them from damage when they're hit or fall is slowly losing charge as it does so.  Presumably it'd shatter into sparks eventually, but the small scrapes and bites deplete it slowly.

The audience watches with varying levels of interest and attention.  Azure watches happily, though does scan around for trouble as well.  Florentho is practically bouncing with excitement/pride/approval.  

It is very fun to fight.  To test one's abilities, and get to see the opponent's strategies and know them better.  It would be even more fun to win.  

Yes! It is fun and she wants to win. LungeRunJumpBite!!

He is gaining a better understanding of both her abilities and his own, and can feel himself already improving at strategy. It is very satisfying! 

He is also enjoying himself! The open air, the arena around them, each quick movement and close call and moment of success.

They're pretty evenly matched, and of course neither is experienced. It's a fun battle for both of them, all sorts of things to learn and experience, but after five minutes neither is going to achieve decisive advantage.

His alarm buzzes, and he calls a halt to the battle and for them to re-rake the arena flattish again then come back over to him.  

(He can't stop being nervous completely, watching, but - they're having a good time, very clearly, and Kente grins at him from the other platform, and he can smile, some.)

He goes back over when called.

It's still kind of weird, but the daemon is having an amazing time, and it reminds him of the stage, movement and audience and the drive to be the best; reminds him of - other things. It's a bit weirder that it's Alessa on the other side (it's not so weird thinking of the spider daemon as Alessa's - Alessa was taking care of someone at any given time more often than not. Definitely still weird to think instead of it as part of Alessa - how they think of it here, if he understands correctly, but he definitely doesn't have it yet.) He can be the competitive sort but his cousin isn't, really, and they've never really done it against each other. 

But the fight is with as much as against, really, and the - his - daemon is delighted, and by the end the weirdness isn't all the way gone but other things are totally more forefronting.

Raking the area seemed to be a human's job. He'll go do that.

(She will stop fighting when told to stop even though fighting is great.)

Also now she wants to go sit on her human, can she do that?

Fighting is great!  Putting the sand back is less fun, but it is at least pretty easy and quick.  They don't have any leaves or such to gather up, only smoothing down some of the rougher spots.  

When the arena is back to how it started, Azure can be the one to call over the next pair signalling their interest in fighting here (a set of middle-aged men with a pair of bird-shaped daemons).  He then steps away from his makeshift referee area to indicate he's not part of the next battle.  

Once they're close enough that the people nearby won't overhear and wonder about it, he says, "A good first fight!  You did well."  

Florentho excitedly goes into more detail along the same vein to the vulpix and spinarak, bringing up especially energetic exchanges and remarking that it'll be even more fun once they have some Moves to play with.  

:DDDD !!

She wants Moves, she wants Moves!

She also tries to jump up onto Kente.

He ducks his head, smiles. It's not about him, but some of the warmth of the praise still carries over. Their guide has been very good to them, and he's clearly enough happy, right now, pleased, and Alessa's glad they're doing better at something, now. Even if it's a game. (He needs to learn how to do better everywhere else...)

(He'll hold the spinarak, who also seems to want to crawl up onto him.)

He catches his daemon, grins at her, her excitement still infectious.

Also the hot close-enough-to-dom is happy and it's about something that at least sort of has to do with him and that's pretty great all around.

(He's not sure if he and Alessa are supposed to say thank you?)

"Thank you." If Florentho does not get to it himself, he will ask for strategy advice.

Oh right, she should say that too! "Thank you!"

"Your welcome," he says automatically.

Florentho can totally start going over strategy suggestions.  With two of the three daemons in their humans' arms, the conversation overlaps the human one in a way that would probably be seen as rude outside of the Fleet. 

Of course the praise is about them.  If someone is a good runner, people don't exclusively praise their legs about it.  At least, that's how it makes sense to a Fleet native.  

Azure is very tempted to stay and watch some more fights.  But, they shouldn't keep Verity-and-Araeneve up longer than they need to.  "Let's start heading to the library.  We'll visit another park once you've visited the TMs."

Ooh strategy. (She is also very happy about the plan to get Moves and then go to another park!)

Well, if it was rude presumably it's not the kind of rude Azure would punish them for since he's the one making it happen, so that's fine.

"Yes, sir." They'll follow.

They head to the library!  This involves going up to the third floor, walking to the center of the Hall, then taking the side-halls that go all the way to the edge of the ship segments to connect them.  Like with the park, the circumference of the cylinder is slightly visible as they steadily go 'up' the hallway.  At the place where the ship segments connect, there are a pair of massive metal doors set into the walls.  The hoop-like road is the most crowded section they've gone to, enough that there's a stricter walk-on-your-right policy and a pair of center lanes for bikes.  

In each Hall, they go over one of the many bridges spanning the gap between balconies.  Most of the Halls passed are laid out almost identically to Sienna Hall, only with different color schemes for the hanging banners and walls.  Two have very different layouts.  One is a massive open area 150 meters across by about 400 long, almost entirely flooded with water up to about the height that the second floor balcony usually is.  The outer rim has a sandy beach around it, people walking around or playing in it.  At the level of the bridge there are some buildings in each corner selling food and renting beach supplies.  The other unusual segment is an extra-long tunnel with glass walls showing an efficient hydroponics bay bathed in pink light.  

Azure turns them off of the path when they get to Opal Hall after passing seven others, heading downwards again.

The library is fairly mundane by comparison.  There's an area with rows of computers, several occupied.  A smaller room in the back has paper books.  Behind a glass wall is a daycare-like area for kids, stacks of thin but highly-durable children's books scattered on the low tables and bright posters on the walls. A longish hallway advertises the use of Move testing rooms at the end with a rating code that the aliens will not understand.  

By far the most important section for them are the TMs.  TMs are cubes about a meter per side, their casings wheeled.  Instead of a normal screen like most things have used so far, they have a holographic display on top.  Three of the four sides on top have sides which rise another half-meter from the base, like the sides and back of an uncomfortable-looking chair.

The front third of the room has rows of couches.  Further back are a number of cubicles with foam walls on either side of the extra-wide aisle.  Outside of the cubicles and in front of the humans on couches are a number of daemons staring into the TMs, which seem to be showing an ever-changing mess of shape and color.  

They will follow walking policies.

Wow. He is very impressed by this spaceship.