(Well, with enough practice she'll get faster, and maybe more importantly, train her perception for when other people are about to attack and her reflexes to dodge or block in time. This is one of the main things sparring is for! Getting hit a lot certainly doesn't make it worse practice at that.) 

It's part of why Iomedae is trying to just hurt people and not think about it! Some things you train faster if you're just trying to train your instincts and not the part of you that talks. She's not distinguishing much among opponents who aren't Alfirin, except for in whether they are proving difficult to hit.

Aisha is harder to hit than Marian, for sure, but not nearly as impossible as her previous partner - and she's actually shorter than Iomedae, and has to come inside Iomedae's reach in order to land anything. She's too competitive not to try it anyway, of course, even if it means she's going to take some hits too - though even tired, she's fast enough that Iomedae will have to react quickly to take that opportunity before she's out of range again. 

She kicks really hard, at least when she's not holding back, which she clearly isn't right now. She's not quite as fast as the other tiny Asian girl, but it's sort of shocking how much force she can put behind it given that she can't weigh much over a hundred pounds, and of course at this point Iomedae already has plenty of already-tender bruises. 

Taking a few hits from Iomedae does slow her down, though if anything it makes her more aggressive and competitive. If Iomedae is focused enough to react immediately in the middle of being kicked very hard, she might be able to grab her leg on one of the kicks and knock her over without ending up on the floor herself. 

You know what Iomedae wishes she had? Armor. It's harder to punch people when they're in armor. She does manage to knock her opponent over eventually.

It takes Marian over a minute to win her own match, which would be embarrassing if she were any less EXHAUSTED. Today was even more intense than usual. She's delighted about it and her bad mood from earlier has entirely evaporated. 

...She is perhaps not entirely delighted at the prospect of having to bike home. Various body parts are complaining rather more than they usually do after a krav maga session. 

And then the final timer goes, and they're done! 

It's 8:55 pm. The instructor admonishes everyone who immediately flops on the mat again. They should get up and walk around slowly and stretch or they'll regret it tomorrow. 

He makes the rounds of the room, giving people some commentary on what he noticed. Alfirin needs to work on cardio and endurance more than anything else; the priority after that is hitting harder, and learning more of the countering techniques that help with fighting a larger opponent, since that's nearly everyone for her. Iomedae should drill extra on balance and footwork - it'll help with maneuverability, and also with telegraphing her own movements less - and he thinks she'll find the classes on blocking attacks, or redirecting the force so she's taking less of it - pretty useful too. Marian, as usual, needs to keep working on speed. 

Iomedae trots over to find Alfirin, still beaming. "Even without any healing it is good to get to fight."

"It is good to learn how to fight. I think it is less fun for me than it is for you."

"I think if most girls liked to fight as much as me the world would look very different." And then grudgingly (because this is an argument she has had many times), "probably it'd be worse."

"Boys like to fight more" she observes, kind of stupidly, because she is tired and in pain and kind of stupid. "I think it is good to have people who like to fight because there are monsters in the world and if nobody fights them then everybody dies. But probably it is good that not everybody likes very much to fight, because then people would spend all their time fighting each other."

"I think if everyone was like me they wouldn't do that. But - yeah. 

Do you think you will pay for the monthly classes? I like it very much but 50 'dollars' is a lot."

"I do not know. I think the instructor is right that I need more vitality, and this seems like a good way to get more vitality, which I will not get doing other work. But in America a week is seven days and so there are four weeks in a month and Evelyn is only giving me ten dollars each week - so I would be spending money I saved from before, and I can not do that forever. I think I will ask Evelyn if I can do other work for her and get paid, like you get money for watching Lily, and pay for the classes as long as I have enough paid work."

Nod. "I want to ask Evelyn some questions about - are there more things like watching Lily, how likely is Lily to be staying with us for a long time, how likely are we to be kept with Evelyn - and I wish I understood the Lily-watching money better, I'd feel better about spending it if I did. But I do want to do the class, if I can afford it." She does not offer to pay for the difference between Alfirin's monthly Evelyn money and the cost of the classes, even though she's presently earning enough that she could. She'd do it for a real sister but it's in fact silly to think of Alfirin that way on four days' acquaintance.

"Yes. We need to talk to Evelyn and understand why she is giving us money better."

Is Evelyn here yet to pick them up?

Evelyn was told to shoo for the duration of the class, so she waits until 9 pm on the dot before coming in.

She's spent the last almost-two-hours befriending the proprietor of the Chinese restaurant next door. She now knows that he and his wife have been in the US for twenty-eight years and owned a restaurant business for eighteen of them, that this is their second restaurant location - their family also runs one downtown - and that they have four children, one of whom is currently at MIT (and they're very proud.) She's also learned that their middle daughter Xiuying ("but she goes by Aisha to white people"), who recently finished her degree in chemical engineering, has been doing kung fu since she was six, explored every other martial arts school Reno has to offer during high school and college, and has been attending - and quite enjoying - the krav maga studio for the last year. Evelyn has shared stories about Jeremy in turn, and some carefully curated anecdotes about Iomedae and Alfirin. The restaurant proprietor is...okay, somewhat uncomfortably racist against Mexicans, awkward...but seems quickly inclined to approve of Iomedae and Alfirin based on Evelyn's description.

Evelyn has arranged to exchange contact info. And ended up convinced to order Chinese takeout for after class, which is only polite when you've been parking your butt in someone's restaurant for two hours and taking up one of only four tables. She accepted the restaurant owner's recommendation on which menu item his daughter likes the most after an intense workout, and then remembered to request it with no spice, which got her an exasperated-but-amused headshake and mutter about "Americans!" 

...Honestly, the poor man has probably been sick of her for the last half-hour. If Evelyn had known she would be shoo'd for the duration of the class, she would have brought a book or something. 

At 9 pm exactly, she pops her head in the door and looks around for Iomedae and Alfirin. 

Marian is with them! She's showing them some stretches; she isn't sure if they know any, and this particular krav maga instructor isn't really inclined to do stretches at the beginning of class (which, like, makes sense, Marian thinks she remembers reading that stretching before exercise doesn't actually reduce injuries. She's not sure if it actively helps with delayed muscle soreness or anything to do it afterward, but it sure feels nice.) 

Evelyn - takes off her shoes at the door, it was probably rude to walk around on the mats shod last time - and trots over to them, smiling brightly. "Hi! I wasn't expecting to run into you here! - Iomedae, Alfirin, how was it?" 

Iomedae is sweaty and battered and doesn't look horrendously bruised only because the bruises haven't had time to start coloring yet. "I like very much! It feels like being a free person. I do not know if I like it fifty dollars a month."

"It is a thing that make me better, but I don't want it if I am paying for it more money than I am getting. Is there work I can do that a person is paying me for?" She is not going to mention that her subjective experience of it was mostly suffering, because she doesn't yet understand Evelyn's opinions on children facing hardship.

Marian looks mildly stricken. Oh no, is Evelyn's money tight? Probably that's the subtext behind them getting offered a discount at all?

Fifty dollars a month is - not an amount of money she has to blink over now, but she's making travel nursing wages - her equivalent annual salary would be a little over $75k a year once you add in the various stipends, and Reno doesn't have state taxes, and her grotty studio apartment costs $500 a month. She's not trying spectacularly hard to be thrifty about other living expenses - she buys Kindle books on a whim, these days. She's earning more than enough that she could afford all sorts of fun travel and keeps telling herself she'll get around to planning a trip on this set of days off, and then not getting around to because what if instead she takes the endless overtime shifts and spends 60 hours a week in the place where everything is brightest and sharpest and realest and also where all her friends are. Anyway, at this point she barely thinks twice about dropping $75 on a krav maga membership. 

- but when she was in college, $50 was two weeks' of food. How much do foster parents earn? Probably flat-out not enough to send all their foster kids to krav maga classes. Marian's parents did ask her to pay for swim team, when money was tight, but she could at least earn money. 

It would be so incredibly stupid and frustrating if Iomedae, who is spectacularly good at this and the best sparring partner Marian has ever had, can't keep coming to class because her foster family can't afford it for her. It would be tragic. 

"- I'd be happy to pay for you if it meant you could keep coming," she hears herself say, and is instantly mortified and wants to sink into the FLOOR because that is a spectacularly weird offer to make to a pair of teenagers you met yesterday. 

Blink blink. 

"....I think maybe there was a misunderstanding here," Evelyn says levelly, mainly addressing Iomedae and Alfirin. "I'm not asking you to pay for this out of your babysitting money. I'm offering to just pay for it, because that's," what parents do for their kids, but of course Iomedae hates that frame, "- that's what the money the government gives me for taking care of teenagers like you is for." 

She turns to smile very warmly at Marian, though, because that was incredibly sweet. 

Okay now Marian is just really confused. 

Iomedae is also so confused. And they're in public and even as a free person she would not be ungrateful or defiant of a superior in public but also just going along with what Evelyn seemed to want is how she ended up in the bike situation and she doesn't want that to happen again.

"I am grateful, ma'am. I ask you no spend money on this now so I can be not as big confused before money spended."

Alfirin is also confused and nods along.