Rhedara had gotten up earlier than usual, intent on getting some light training in to wake her up before submitting herself to her Drill Instructor's clutches and demands. Not wanting to appear sloppy, she had taken some care with her appearance: her hair was in a clean braid that she had wrapped around her head, resembling a crown. It was a simple style that kept her hair out of her way while she went about her daily tasks and it was one she wore often while on duty.

She was not one of those sociopaths that enjoyed mornings. There was a period early in the day where she'd rather be alone given the choice, and she had intended to do some solo training when she heard a familiar voice call out to her. She turned in the direction it came from and saw Raff leaning against a fence, halberd in hand. Looking at him gave her that delicious, fluttery, tingly feeling that she had started to feel around him since she met him at the tavern: Attraction. He was on the scruffy side, with his long hair that was begging to be braided and his beard, but she thought that added to his charm.

She smiled and approached him, "Hey you," she said, her voice coming out a little more playful than she thought she was capable of producing so early, "I'm usually here later in the day," she didn't explain why she had shown up earlier than usual, "Are you usually here at this ungodly hour, or are you guarding that suspicious-looking fence post?"

"Ugh. Mornings. I've been training by myself the last few mornings to work through the hangover." Raff answered lazily. Then when she smiled at him he found himself automatically smiling back, despite the nasty early morning of it all. 

"I know the fence post is taller than you Red, but I'll keep ya safe from it..." Raff smirked, his long frame still leaning against the fence. "I was going to get back into plain old soldier practice since it's been ten long years since I tried it. But it looks boring." He scratched absently at his beard, unsure of where to even start with that particular problem. He could easily remember what he and Merk had worked on, and the mandatory paired training, but the unpaired soldiers randomly sparring was too vague of a memory to feel comfortable with it really. 

"So what brings you here at this obscene hour then? Why the sudden time change Red?" 

She didn’t comment on his comment on having a hangover. Life was tough if you weren’t a noble and she couldn’t blame anyone for taking solace through alcohol. Instead she furrowed her brow, “Training helps with hangovers? When I have one, all I want to do is lay in bed and wallow.”

His wisecrack about the post being taller than her had her putting her hands on her hips, biting her lip against a scowl. Then she crossed them over her chest, afraid that the sight of her hands on her hips would make her appear too cute, “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’ll get you for that. The bigger they are, the harder than fall.”

Rhedara hadn’t had much of a chance to watch the paired soldiers train, but she supposed it would be boring compared to…doing whatever it was they did. Especially if the training involved transforming the man into a wolf, “Boring? How so?” she waved her hand, "I mean, how does it compare? I've never seen the paired soldiers train," she wasn’t sure if he’d elaborate or not, but she asked anyways, wanting to see if she could get a small glimpse into that part of his life.

“I’m here to wake myself up through some training before I begin my shift as Abbott’s stooge for the day.”

"Yep. Something about the extra moving around makes ya feel good which outweighs the bad. Sweat the booze out I guess." He answered, watching her scowl over being called little. 

"If ya want the chance to get me back for callin ya little, then this is yer lucky morning." Raff smiled at Red and watched her while she spoke and he then gestured to each couple, excepting one. 

"Connection. Real connection between people. The only one smiling is that sadist over there who smiles every time he draws blood. This looks like a tedious chore for everyone here." 

Raff took a single step that brought him extremely close to Rhedara, close enough that they could feel the heat radiating and each other's breaths. 
"They're not even seeing or caring who or what's across from them. Each of them strike out at each other's weapons, but none are truly sparring with the other person directly. They don't see what's directly in front of the them." He put out a single finger and poked Red in the chest to force her back a step, then drew up his finger to tap her under the chin, to make her look up, and quickly tried to tap her nose. 

"BOOP!"

She looked in the direction he indicated and watched the sparring soldiers, particularly the one who drew the blood. It almost seemed like he was trying to hurt his sparring partner. She found training to be a tedious, awful, yet necessary thing, but she’d never try and mix it up by cutting up her sparring partner, “It is a chore,” she agreed with feeling. She looked away from the other soldiers to look at Raff again, “But isn’t that just how training is supposed to be? A chore?” She’d never found it particularly fun, anyways.

“My lucky morning, hm?” She couldn’t help but smile back as if she’d found out a great secret, “Are you insinuating that we train together?”

Then he stepped closer to her. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to be imposing or playful or something between the two, but she was immediately brought back to the night at the tavern and she had to fight to keep her gaze on his eyes and not his mouth. She bit her lip and clenched her hands into fists to keep herself from…she didn’t allow herself to think of what she was trying to keep herself from doing in the middle of the training yard. When he poked her in the chest, she retreated one step, looking down at his hand, his hand nudged her chin and he didn’t fight it as she looked back up at him.

Then he booped her nose.

She hadn’t expected it, so she just stood there with her mouth hanging open. Later, she would think that she should have tried to bite that finger—although he might have liked that—or swatted his hand away before he could poke her nose like she was a cute puppy.

“Did you just boop my nose?” She sounded way more baffled than upset, and she reached out to flick him on the arm because that was the only thing that she could think to do in that moment.

"If it's a chore, you're not learning anything." Oh but Red was just being her cute sassy self this morning, which was thoroughly distracting! Raff merely nodded his shaggy head at her question.

"Very lucky." he smirked. "And if yer gonna flick someone, make it count." Raff said, flicking her forehead smartly, right between her eyes to keep her focused on learning, not attraction. 

"So you have the advantage coz yer smaller, closer to the ground, so I can't reach you as easily. Now it's your lucky morning to torture me. Cross your arms over your chest again and we'll see what you could've done when I stepped in. Stay close, your shortness is deadly Red."

When Rhedara did so, she was nearly nose to chest with him, so close they were almost touching.

"At your height and closeness, you have the clear advantage over any man. Your bony elbows will do more damage than a man's fist. Your elbow to my belly button will force my face downward and I can't fight that from your level. Bring up that fist from the arm you elbowed with, and go for underneath my chin to move me away, or more savage, go for the throat. This shoves my upper half backward again to leave me off balance. Here's your chance to get me back for all the little comments."

Oh this was gonna hurt; and really suck. 

She reflexively flinched away at his flick, one of her hands flying up to cover the spot he had flicked. Oh, she was going to get him for that.

She crossed her arms and faced him as instructed then listened to him explain what he wanted her to do. He was wanting her to elbow him then punch him in the throat? Like actually hit him? She wanted to have her vengeance for the short jokes and for the unacceptable nose booping, but she found herself reluctant to actually hurt him. Then again…full contact sparring was the perfect excuse to touch him.

She held back a smile.

She didn’t let herself hesitate. She drove her elbow where she thought his navel was, hitting a little harder than she meant to. Then she swung her fist in an uppercut toward the underside of his chin, intending to significantly pull her punch.

“So is that what you mean by ‘creative and satisfying ways to touch a man?’ Not what I had in mind, but that was pretty satisfying,” if he showed any pain at all she would grimace and say, “Are you okay?”

The sharp little elbow jabbed at his gut and Raff immediately bent forward, the wind knocked out of him and he almost toppled over onto Red. Thankfully, the woman was nice enough to give him a light love tap on the chin to help him stand up straight again. He wobbled a bit and exhaled hard, managing to stay on his feet and remained very close to her.

"Yea I'm fine, but that definitely wasn't nearly as satisfyinig for me as it was for you. On the upside, at least you're gentler than Merk!" he laughed. Lazily, he stretched out his arms over his head, linked his fingers together and brought his arms down over Red to fully encircle her. His arms were around her, without quite touching her at all. And he smirked, his blue eyes sparking with mischief.

"Now I gotcha! Whatcha gonna do about it?"

Who was Merk? Assuming Merk was a woman, she could have been an old flame of his…maybe she was his old partner? He had told her he used to be one of the paired soldiers, so it made sense. She wanted to ask to be sure, but if he wasn’t a paired solder anymore, it probably meant that Merk was dead, and what she had seen of the paired solders was that the witch and man were thick as thieves.

She would need to broach the subject carefully if she did at all. Maybe she'd ask after they were done training.

But any thought of asking about another girl, former flame or not, vacated her head when he loosely looped his arms around her, asking what she was going to do about it, “Smooth,” she said before she studied his arms not for the first time, thinking about her options. He was holder her loose enough she thought she could just duck under his arms. Or she could try to push him outward by his hips and give him a swift kick of her knee.

She didn’t do either of those things. He didn’t say that she had to escape the hold, after all, and despite his earlier flick to her forehead, she was still feeling quite playful. She reached out as if she were going to push him away by the hips, but instead looked her arms around his waist and pulled him closer, “I’m gonna do that.”

It was probably a trap, but she didn’t care.

He'd clenched his stomach and squared his feet, suspecting something devious and ..well he was surprised. Raff's eyebrows shot up and he looked down at the tiny woman suddenly hugging him. Definitely hadn't seen that one coming. But uh.. Yea no, that wasn't gonna fly. His hair fell over his face, nearly obscuring it as he looked down at her. 

"Definitely a more satisfying way to... but... aight you. That's how ya wanna be, it's on."

Raff exhaled long and low and promptly sat down, rolling backwards to smoothly rise to his feet about five paces away from her.

"You wanna play huggy time little girl, you gotta catch me first then!" He put out both arms widely and stood there with a big smirk. 

Now, Rhedara liked his hair, she really did. She’d wondered about the phrase “hair you could loose a hand in” and she suspected that his hair definitely fit that description, though she hadn’t tested that theory yet. It really was to his detriment that he had let his hair fall in his face, making Rhedara think about touching it…braiding it.

If he had tied his hair back, she would never had been focused enough on his hair that she would reach out with both hands and try to grab a fistful each as he sat. Unfortunately for her, at the last minute, she thought better of grabbing his hair, and started to lean forward with him. She would later thank—or perhaps curse, depending how she wanted to fantasize about it—the goddess herself that she managed to keep her balance and didn’t land on top of him and only landed roughly on her knees, awkwardly leaning forward with her hands still fisted in his hair.

She would try to straighten up her posture, pulling him toward her by the hair, a snort of laugher escaping as she thought of how ridiculous they looked.

"You evil witch!" Raff roared with laughter until he almost cried, nearly forgetting they were supposed to be training. He sat on his backside in the half frozen mud, while she kneeled in front of him with her hands clutching his hair for all she was worth. Raff looked up at her as she snorted and he couldn't stop laughing some more. 

"Man, Merk woulda shaved my damn head again for not tying it back. I'm so outta practice!" That gave him a few choices though, with her hands occupied so firmly in his hair. 

"Since your hands are full and busy, but both of mine are free, there's a lot of fun things left for me to do..." he wiggled his fingers toward her waist beginning to make ticklng motions.

Training wasn’t going how Rhedara thought it would, but she wasn’t complaining. This was the most fun she’d had in ages. She laughed right along with him, not loosening her grip on his hair.

To his threat to tickle her, she nearly dropped her hands and put space between them. The prospect of a tickle fight in the middle of the training yard was…well laughable. She wasn’t against it, not a bit, but she didn’t want to think of the squealing that would leave her mouth if he made good on the threat. So she made a threat of her own.

“Do it, and,” she tightened her grip on the hair, giving a little tug.