“I think it would be worthwhile to do some normal sparring practice with you at first, no magic. Jonas started, as he rummaged around to find a decent stick. “Your size, and the fact you can’t use any normal sort of weapon or shield, puts you at a big disadvantage in any straight-up fight. It’ll be good for you to get used to that, and figure out ways to work around it. Realistically, you’ll never want to fight like this if things get serious, given your magic and all, but you need to be prepared, just in case.” he outlined.

Shadow frowned, tilting her head a bit. Was she really at that big of a disadvantage? She couldn’t dispute the size problem, but…

‘I do have weapons built-in, you know!’ she wrote.

She bared her teeth and pointed at them, and then showed Jonas her claws.

He barked a laugh and shook his head.

“Yes, and they’re plenty dangerous, if you can get close to someone. Natural weapons like yours make you put your body in harm's way every time you attack. You have no reach, or any good way to defend yourself when you move in. You’ll have trouble getting close to a trained combatant without getting yourself stabbed.” Jonas said with a serious look.

A part of her wanted to dispute that, but she knew he was right, after thinking about it for a second. She’d seen how he fought the red-eyes. He managed to hold it at bay, and even attack it back, because he took advantage of the same issues he’d just brought up, despite its massive size and power advantage.

She wouldn’t have any of the advantages the red-eyes had.

She gave him a slow nod of understanding, even if she was kind of disappointed about it.

“Alright, just try to land a hit on me, best you can. Touch me with a paw or your mouth and we’ll count it as a hit. Please don’t actually bite me. I’ll be trying to dodge and fight you back with the stick as you do that, so be prepared.”

She nodded and gave him a smile. She didn't really want to get hit with the stick but she understood the necessity if she wanted real training.

“Ready?” Jonas asked.

She gave one last nod. She couldn’t help but notice Jonas had left his shield on his back. Her eyes narrowed a little at that. He was definitely making things easy on her.

“Begin!” he commanded.

She sunk her claws into the grassy ground for traction, and exploded forward, hoping to take her uncle off guard with the sudden attack.

If the movement surprised him, he didn’t show it, simply slightly repositioning his stick to intercept her.

In the last moment, before she was within his reach, Shadow dug her claws in and launched herself to her right, his left, landing directly in line with where he would normally have his shield. She planted her paws again and lunged, aiming for his thigh.

She heard the stick whistle a second before it smacked her, and Jonas pivoted out of the way.

She hit the ground and stumbled for a moment, before whipping herself around to face Jonas again, her eyes locked on him. Her shoulder stung a bit from where he’d hit her with the stick, but it was clear he’d held back.

She held back a hiss. She really thought that might work. Her heart was already pounding. That had been surprisingly exhilarating.

Jonas stood ready, still facing her.

“Not bad! Good idea coming at my shield arm, but too aggressive. Take some time to feel me out before committing. Bets like that can pay off, but more often than not, you’ll get yourself killed. If this was a sword, you’d be down a leg, and dead shortly after.”

She shook her head and refocused herself. Right. This was training. She gave him a determined nod in answer as she started circling.

She tried to get a better feel for his movements, making short dashes toward him before backing up, and quick dashes left or right, seeing how he would react.

Jonas would just calmly turn himself toward her, quick but not sloppy.

She couldn’t help but feel that, whatever move she made, he’d be able to react with that stick if she went for him.

“Don’t spend too long testing the waters. It’s good to get a feel, but you’ll exhaust yourself moving around like that before long.”

She backed up a bit and stopped, feeling a little frustrated. She gave him a pleading look.

‘I feel like no matter how I come at you, I’ll get hit! You always look ready for me...’ She wrote.

Jonas smiled and gave her a nod.

“Not an unreasonable assessment.”

She slumped, shooting a flat glare at him.

‘Then how do I hit you!?’

He gave her a considering look, and started talking.

“I think you’re looking at this too straightforwardly. You need to think in steps, not single actions. You’re on the right track, trying to get me out of position, but you’re being too safe.”

‘You just said I was too aggressive with my first attack!’ she complained.

“It’s all about balance. You’re dancing around outside of my reach. And if I can’t hit you, I know for sure you can’t hit me. You’re not forcing me to do anything but keep myself pointed at you.”

Shadow furrowed her brows, thinking about that. Multiple steps. She had to do something that forced him to react, and then use that reaction to give her an opening for her real attack.

An obvious way of forcing a reaction was to just try to attack him. He’d have to defend if he didn’t want to get hit. The problem was committing to the attack just enough that he’d need to defend, but breaking it off before he actually hit her, and then following that up somehow.

She clawed at the ground, thinking. Her traction here was good, the grass was very rooty, giving her a lot of grip. That was useful.

Hmm.

She put a plan into motion.

She bolted directly at him, planting her feet right before she got in range, falling to her belly and immediately launching herself at his face.

Jonas leaned back and whipped his stick right along her trajectory.

The grass popped and crackled, some of the roots snapping, but it held.

She slammed herself back down, her leap aborted by the fact that she never let go of the death-grip her claws had on the grass below.

Jonas was out of position, his stick high, and his body leaned back.

She dove at his shins.

The man twisted and forced his spine straight, scooting both of his legs to the right, and putting one out to stabilize himself, out of her reach.

But she was close, and he was still off-balance.

She threw her tail up over her head and to the right, planting her feet on the ground early and swinging her butt out so she was facing him. Her claws dug in and she rushed into a quick pursuit.

He brought his stick around, aiming low—

And this time she really did leap at his face, directly from a run rather than crouching first, giving as little warning as possible.

She slammed into him as his strike whooshed under her. The surprised man was still off balance, and despite their disparity in weight, her momentum was significant. He toppled to the ground.

She wound up sitting on his chest after the tumble.

Shadow sat there for a second, blinking down at Jonas, surprised this had actually worked out.

He was grinning up at her.

Elation filled her, and she grinned back. She gave him a playful hiss as she raised her forelegs and extended her claws in playful threat, before retracting them again to attack her downed prey, huffing her laughter.

Her uncle laughed back as he wrestled with her.

The impromptu play session stopped some seconds later as he wrapped her in a tight hug before getting to his feet, smiling down at her, his eyes shining.

“That’s exactly the kind of thing you need to do. Great job.” He picked up his stick.

“Let’s go again.”

---

Shadow laid sprawled out on the ground, panting deeply. She was sore after having been hit quite a few times with the stick, and using some rarely exercised muscles when trying to pull fancy moves, but overall was feeling rather happy about the whole situation.

Sparring had been amazingly fun. Sure, getting hit with a stick wasn’t the best feeling, but it added just enough danger to make things feel real. She hadn’t realized just how much she would enjoy pushing her limits when she didn’t have to worry about her or her friends dying if she messed up. By the end of the session, she could hardly believe she hadn’t wanted to do this.

They had been training for about an hour, with her throwing every tricky maneuver and plan she could think of at Jonas, short of using her magic. She managed to tag him a couple more times, but never quite as spectacularly as she had at first. She only managed a couple of taps with her paws and one draw where she ran her face into his shin right as he’d knocked her with the stick.

It did feel kind of unfair that she wound up with a hurting face and side from that maneuver. Would have been a different story if she could’ve actually bitten him.

Halfway through, they’d switched to her being the one to play keep away, dodging his strikes while staying confined to the small area he’d indicated. It turned out she was way better at that. Her superior speed and agility made much more of an impact when he was forced to close the distance rather than the other way around.

In fact, she was doing so well at dodging, weaving, and evading his strikes, that it became obvious he’d been taking things even easier on her than she'd thought while she'd been on the offense. The techniques and footwork he had to use to catch her were so quick and efficient, there was no way she’d have touched him if he’d been taking things seriously.

A part of her felt like she should be upset about that, but truthfully, she didn’t really care. He’d pushed her to the edges of her capabilities, and she had noticed a significant improvement in herself just from the one sparring session. And it had been fun!

She flopped her head over to look at her uncle. Jonas sat beside her, leaned back, his arms supporting him, looking much less winded than she was, to her mild annoyance. Even playing keep away, she used more energy than him. There was an efficiency to his movements that she couldn’t match yet, but she supposed this was only her first session.

He looked down at her, and then at her tongue. It was lolled out of her mouth, laying on the ground.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“Put your tongue back in your mouth. You’ve got an excuse when it comes to picking things up, but that doesn’t cover licking the ground. What would Annie think?” He scolded.

She sheepishly returned the offending appendage to her mouth, glancing over at Annie. Her mom had moved herself away from the sparring session and immersed herself in her journal. She'd flinched every time Shadow got hit, and had eventually removed herself after Shadow assured her she was fine for the umpteenth time. The blows seemed to hurt Annie more than they hurt Shadow.

‘Sorry.’ she apologized to her uncle.

“Eh. It’s more for you than me. I’ve seen plenty of drunks do worse. But they aren’t exactly beloved by society either. Best not to have bad habits when you can avoid it.” He explained to her.

‘What’s a drunk? What kind of things do they do?’ she asked.

Jonas stiffened. Shadow squinted at him. She knew that look.

“Uhm… well, maybe you should ask Annie about that.” He evaded.

She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him, which earned her an embarrassed look and a light bop on the head.

Jonas always avoided the “hard” questions. She wasn’t really sure what made a question a “hard” question, but every now and then she’d hit on something that Jonas would direct her to Annie about, and Annie always had to think hard about how she would answer those, and sometimes she wouldn’t get an answer at all.

It was annoying, but she was used to it by now.

She got herself back to her paws, feeling a little better from her rest. She took a moment to brush herself off. She was happy to see that her scales were still doing a pretty good job of looking amazing, despite everything. They had definitely lost some of their sheen, but still looked way prettier than they had unwaxed.

She started trotting over to Annie, who’d noticed they’d finished and was putting her journal away.

It was time to head out.

Shadow was happy to remember she could ask her question as they traveled. She could ask them any time she wanted now. She was still getting used to that. It really was wonderful.

This trip was going to be a lot of fun.