"Are you?"

She snorts. "I'm too scruffily handsome to be Sauron. He'd be shinier."

She laughs.

Cute.

"The best defense is being the most dangerous one in the area, which is about more than power or fighting. But a weapon's a good place to start."

"So, miss most lovely, if I attacked you right now, how would you defend yourself?"

"Right now, as in from this position?"

"Sure."

"Spring over the basket which I will kick at you while grabbing my bow and retreating further into the trees. Sing a song of confusion and deception while I ready my shot."

"Good instincts," she says. "That'd have a good chance of getting anyone untrained - recent conscripts, street toughs who're new to threatening people."

"I would like to do some formal spars, but it'd also be fun to do some more informal stuff - like if we were actual opponents. Tracking, ambushing, using the terrain."

"All that today?"

"Spending multiple days on it would give us a chance to run the full gamut..."

"You aren't looking to run off sooner?"

"I was planning a bit of a vacation, anyways. Sparring with you seems like an excellent one."

Smile.

"I would like that."

"First spar should probably just be hand to hand, but you can borrow some of my weapons for later ones."

"All right." She stands, brushing off her legs.

She does as well, stretching a bit and stepping to a mostly flat area covered in clover. "Fight until surrender?"

"Yes," she says, bending in half in nearly every direction as she stretches.

(Gosh she's pretty.)

Beren only stretches lightly and subtly, taking a ready position and letting Luthien start the match.

She launches in with a tight flurry of jab-jab-kick.

Beren is quite possibly the best fighter Luthien's ever faced. She doesn't go easy on her at all, flowing around Luthien's strikes, tanking a few hits, feinting, hitting back hard and fast - she adapts quickly to Luthien's style, trying to leverage any weaknesses in Luthien's fighting to her own benefit.

Luthien is graceful, flowing into a quicker dance at Beren's prodding, take her hits without complaint. She makes alterations to her style quickly based on what Beren exposes.

She's grinning rather widely and testing out different approaches - increased aggression, faster and lighter touches... Feinting around Luthien, trying to trip her up...

Luthien seems to be having the most trouble with the higher aggression.

She flows into their dance, avoiding blows, trying to dance around Luthien...

And then surges into a full-on attack, swinging herself into Luthien's space, blows hard and fast, uncaring entirely of retaliation.

She holds up for a bit-

then falls back and calls "Enough!"