"Yeah, overextending is a thing! If you get me off balance you can hit me where you like! Except, no, you can't. This is foil. You can hit me exactly and only from here -" he touches the hollow of his throat "- to here -" he taps his armpits "- to, well, here -" he pulls up his crotch, snickering a bit. "No more, no less. You're wearing a mask, because no one wants an accident! But to actually touch the mask would be terribly dishonorable, wouldn't it. This is fencing, not a brawl. We're gentlemen."

"Oh. Huh. And that's—specifically foil? Other kinds of swords you can touch other parts?"

"Yeah! That's the great part - sabre it's anything above the belt, épée it's just anywhere - I like sabre better, because you can slash and not just poke. Ed likes épée because instead of 'one person wins per round, if you both hit each other it gets legislated by the referee' you can both take the point, and he's aces at jabbing people just in time to waste their shot. Skulduggerous little bastard."

They are so cute. Peter and Ed. Their, their implied relationship, here.

.......it's making him miss his siblings. His sister, especially.

Well, he'll. Deal.

"What isn't cheating is technique," he recites, grinning. "Why are there different rules like that, about where to hit, per type of sword?"

"Backwards. They're three schools of fencing the blades of which have evolved to suit the needs of the fighters, all ultimately descended from the rapier. I occasionally wonder if there'd be some way to make a proper longsword duel work, with solid enough armor that you can put your weight behind it, but of course there's a problem where if an athlete swings a kilogram-and-a-half length of steel at you with his whole body behind it, there more or less isn't armor that keeps you from rolling the dice on a broken rib at best."

Peter checks his watch. "We should be good for breakfast if we head out now. First ones there, probably, or near enough."

"Oh, I suppose that makes sense," he says, hopping to his feet. "And the rapier would be...?"

"Very much like the foil, or the épée, or the sabre, but instead of a flexible fourteen-ounce metal pointer-stick with a rubber tip, it's a kilo of sharpened steel you use to stab people to death. So, not very much like them at all, really."

He grins. "Fair enough. And why fencing?"

"Why... what?"

"Why do you like fencing? What sparks this fire behind your eyes I see when you talk about it?"

"It's... almost..."

He tries to finish his sentence, and fails, because... there wasn't a rest of that sentence. It's almost.

"I, I picked it up in primary school? I've - put a lot into it? It's important to me. It's something I'm good at."

"And you're not good at, say, swimming? What made you jump out of the couch to mime at me, what made you need to share that with me? What was it that you were sharing?

"...sorry if I'm being too intrusive, we can change the subject."

"I'm good at swimming, but. I -"

He hesitates.

"I'm bad at this part," he admits. "Ed always says so. I never really know what I feel or why I feel it. He says people do, usually."

"...I know you don't mean the object level of literally this here interaction, exactly, but on the object level: you were feeling excited, and engaged, and interested. Embodied, might be another word for it. You were more present right then than you normally are, there was more of you. Now you're—confused, a little bit embarrassed, wondering if..." If there's something wrong with you, he won't say. He shrugs instead. "The why, I could try to help with, probably."

More of you. Yeah. That... sounds right.

He's not really wondering.

"...I wouldn't say no."

"Right, then! Since we've only just met I can't promise to unravel all of the secrets of your psyche but we can just in fact start with the object level. Picture yourself fencing, like you were doing just now when you wanted to demonstrate it to me. Where is your attention? Where does your brain go, what are you thinking, what are your eyes looking at?"

And separately, is the narration going to let Pete get away with not deciding what to eat? ...wait, no, he's meant to act normal around Peter, ughhhhhhh. Fine, fine.

Peter closes his eyes.

"Mm. Attention's on my opponent, obviously. I want to know what they've got. Where's their attention? If I can see any weaknesses just from their stance, I've probably got them outmatched - but it's not likely, not unless I'm fighting one of the underclassmen, and then I'm teaching, not properly fighting, it's a completely different skillset. But allez, I move. Usually I lunge out the gate, I've got the reach for it, and if I get them then, it's downhill from there. Press the attack - don't lock into one pattern, but stay aggressive. I'm bigger than most who go into fencing, and a big man closing in on you with a sword shakes people just enough to give an edge. The tempo's everything. If you press someone hard enough they might go down in three minutes."

Then he opens them. "But I'm not really thinking any of that. I just move."

"No, not thinking. Embodied was a good word. Please interrupt me if I'm talking out of my ass, but...

"Your mind is not in your brain, it's in your legs, in your hands, at the edge and tip of your sword. There isn't space for, hmm. Having a self? Or, no, there is a self there, there isn't space for everything else, it's just the self and the moment, the awareness of what's happening and what's going to happen and what to do about it. No overthinking."

"Sure. I'm kinesthetic."

"But all of that could be said of you when you're swimming, right? Probably. So what feels different?" Pete has a strong guess here but he'll let Peter speak first to see if he confirms it.

"Swimming doesn't have... an enemy. It's nice, my body's moving, but - when there's someone to beat it's all so clear."

He prods a fried egg with his fork. "Like I said. It's... almost."

Ha he was right. "Almost what?"

"Almost real. Almost battle, for glory and God. Almost killing someone so he can't kill me, knowing that if I slip for a second I'll never see my family again, is that what you need to hear? I know you're very clever, but I'm not an idiot either, I know that I'm -"

Peter looks, for a moment, like he might vomit.

"Sorry," he says lamely.

"...Peter, do you want a hug?"