We got working on the shed around midmorning. Tsu'na seemed remarkably content at sawing boards for the new door panel. Guessing she slept well. We didn't really talk about what compelled her to drive chakrams into wood at velocity, but whatever it was it seemed to be out of her system.

We were done with the riveting by midafternoon. Sam brought out a couple ciders for us, and stayed to check out our work. "Ya know, I think this is sturdier than it ever was before, and it used to be sheet metal."

"More like sheet rust, am I right?"

"Heh, yeah, maybe. Gonna redo the wiring?"

"If I have to. Not really a wiring guy, though...You know anyone in town?"

"I can ask around. But no one else works for beer."

"Not even cider? Well, we shouldn't really need more than lighting. I can give it a try. Here, I'll even pre-jinx it...How hard can it be?"

"You're the one who used wood. Your fault if it burns down. So, no target practice today?"

"Oh, right, I promised you a show, didn't I?" Tsu'na and I set our bottles aside and led Sam around to the battered bay door panel.

Sam hadn't noticed before that we had matching outfits that day, but he did then. "You guys wearin' some kinda...uniform?"

The initial Dancer gear looks rather Aladdin-esque, down to the facial veil. Players tend to wear the weirdest things as Dancers, including bikinis, babydoll dresses, ballroom wear and tuxedos. We'd settled on a glamour consisting of black pants and boots and the white Scion jacket, along with white gloves and a grey fedora. The effect is somewhere between rodeo cowboy and neo-swing, but I for one am not embarrassed to wear it in public. Though it is odd to see the two of us dressed the same way.

"Different training schools have different outfits they favor. Like a karate suit. This is what we wear when we're practicing with the rings. What we wear out in the field is another matter."

"Huh."

We stood side by side in front of what was now the target panel. We brought out our rings. We eyed the wood, gave each other a nod, and started to move.

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM

The rings flew, impacted and flew back. The wood started to show more splinters than before. As we worked into combos, we began to synchronize, not out of intent, but simply returning to the rhythm we'd developed between us.

BAMBAM BAMBAM BAMBAM BAM!

The noise doubled from two sets of rings hitting together. The panel was beginning to shake and bounce from the force. And she'd been right...it felt good to move like this. I had no idea how much I'd missed it, throwing my body into destruction.

CRACK

One of the boards gave way under the rings. The rebound was a little wild; we had to jump for the final catch. I contemplated the damage, then turned to Sam with a grin. "Well. Guess we showed it who's boss."

Sam stared at the broken panel. "So that's how you guys fought...wherever you were?"

"Nah, we hardly ever had a reason to use the rings. Usually we were more up close and personal. But it's good exercise, you know? Great cardio and reflex training."

"Kinda loud, though, huh?"

"Well. They make a lot less noise hitting a body."

"...Right. Uh...can I...?"

"Yeah, sorry, no. It's easy to lose control of these things, and if you got hurt I'd blame myself. Besides, kind of a faux pas where we come from to ask to borrow a weapon."

"Faux pas, huh?"

"Yeah. Ever see those scenes in the movies where the bad guy borrows a gun and shoots the guy he borrowed it from? It's like that. Nothing personal, we've just been trained to not surrender our weapons."

We stowed our rings and retrieved our ciders. Sam joined us on a bench we'd made.

"An' ya can't tell me where that was?"

"Classified."

"Or who you were fightin'? Or why?"

"That too. Sorry."

"Yeah. So...ever fight each other?"

I hesitated. "Once, yeah. Not as enemy combatants...it was supposed to be a practice exercise. But, uh...we hadn't been getting along...this was a while before we were married...and we kinda had communication issues. I mean, I had a thing for her from when I first saw her..."

Tsu'na added, "He was the most interesting man in the world for me."

"...But there was some tension between us that just grew. I thought she was always putting me down..."

"I thought he was trying to control me..."

There's a classic trope about how meeting your gods often doesn't turn out well. And while Tsu'na never thought of the guiding, encouraging nebulous presence in her head as a god, it was still disillusioning for her to find out it was just some dude, and not only that, but some dude who thought he knew everything and thought he knew the best way to do everything.

So she had pushed back. She had distrusted. She had belittled. I admit I have an overly high opinion of myself, but the experience ate away at my self-esteem. Which made me push back as well.

"...So things kinda got outa hand. I told you we trained in a bunch of weapons, right? So we were having a practice fight where we'd switch off weapons depending on what the other person did. I might come at her with brass knuckles, so she pulls knives, so I switch to staff, so she switches to a sword..."

Sam squinted at me. "Sword?"

"Sword. Anyway, it got heavy, it got..." I looked up and met Tsu'na's eyes. "...serious. There was all this tension that had been building for a while, especially since we kept going into situations where we had to rely on each other to come out alive. And we started to let it out in that fight. It got nasty. We both had our training and our practice and it was all just coming out right then."

Sam nodded slowly. "So what happened?"

"Well..."

Tsu'na had switched to Summoner, a subclass of Arcanist and her most kickass class. When I saw the grimoire come out I figured the gloves were coming off. Never mind that Arcanist was her first-ever class, and therefore tended to be her go-to in a lot of situations...such as healing. I wasn't thinking that clearly.

Or, in terms Sam could understand...

"She reached for her medkit for a painkiller. I thought she was going for a gun. So I reacted, grabbed my bow and got a shot off..."

"He has good reflexes," Tsu'na murmured.

"...And got her in the leg. Caught her by surprise, she falls down, I'm looking at her on the ground with an arrow in her and I'm like, 'Omigod, what have I done?' I drop the bow and run over to her to do something, but she's got good reflexes too. She's trying to deal with the arrow, but she sees me coming and whacks me with her book."

"A book? She hit you with a book?"

"Hah. Show him your book, my love."

Tsu'na raised an eyebrow, but obligingly brought out her Summoner book. The Emerald Index is clad heavily in dark green metal with light green detailing and a wavy texture. Shapes were worked into the spine and cover edges, including what look like small blades. She'd only had a mythril-clad book when she hit me, which was plenty hard enough, but I wanted to see Sam's reaction.

Sam was speechless. He stared at the book, touched the cover with a finger, tapped at it with a fingernail, and tried to raise the end of it with one hand. "The hell's this thing made of?"

"The kind of metal used in armor plating. She made it herself. Kind of a hobby of hers."

He looked up at her. "An' you hit Steve with this?"

"It was handy."

"You just...carry this thing around with you."

"It has my notes in it. And I like..." She glanced at me. "...decorating it. It passes the time."

"And it works as a weapon in a pinch," I added. "Knocked me out cold. I don't know how long I was out."

Tsu'na pursed her lips. "I did not know why he was running at me. I thought he was going to attack me since I was on the ground. I...did not think much of him at the time. But after I hit him I saw he did not even have a weapon, and I understood. All I could think was, 'Oh gods, what have I done?'"

I smiled ruefully. "When I came to, my head was in her lap. First thing we both said to each other was..."

Tsu'na and I looked at each other and said in unison, "'Are you all right?'"

I turned to Sam. "That was kind of the turning point in our relationship."

He looked at me, he looked at Tsu'na, he glanced once more at the book, and finally said, "You folks are weird. You know that, right?"

"You have no idea what we called normal where we come from."

"S'pose I don't." He was quiet for a moment, then said, "Y'all might not wanna be too weird round here. Folks might not know what to do 'bout it."

"We've talked about that. We'll try."

He nodded, stood and turned to look at the shed again. "Seriously, damn nice work."

"Thanks. When we're done we'll work on the rest of your tables."

"An' I'll keep the cider in stock."

After he headed back to the bar I scooted over close to my wife. "Did you know we were weird, my love?"

"I had not noticed."