And that’s another event done, and on the one hand my body is screaming to decelerate and rest, but there’s another event this weekend, and another and another and Gulf Wars and another and, basically, my body gets to nut up.
This is where Wistric is grumpy. I’m mostly over it by now, but…
A couple of things happened to throw everybody into a great discombobulation prior to the start of the tournament. For various reasons, no fighting was permitted, not even pickups, for an hour after court (I’ve heard the More than Complete Explanation of this, it is even less satisfactory than “They had to move those two cars”). Then, as the tournament was starting, there was a report of a missing four year old girl (Percy’s daughter). So we all dropped everything and went to find her. It being Sophie, who I would take a jail sentence for, I ran like hell and jumped a stream rather than waiting for the slow pokes filing across the bridge. Eventually somebody did find her, but by then I’d scrambled a hundred feet up a wooded slope and was pretty winded. However, I DID get to slide down the hill with Connor and Caitlain. That was good times (Letia and I did it again Sunday morning). Then we jumped back in line for the tourney.
The tourney was supposed to be an Atlantian Speed Tourney, basically a double elim that runs itself (you win, you go to the winner’s side, you lose, you go to the loser’s side, you lose twice, you’re done). We were filing in by twos from the line, and I realized that Connor would be my first fight. “Eh,” says I, “50/50 I win it, and if not, I’ll own the losers’ bracket”.
He and I set up, and he allowed as how we were both a bit winded. So I took a lunge at him, he voided it, and said “Not that winded!” We fenced for a good minute or two before I parried his shot into my leg. Legged, I held him off for another two or three minutes before he took my off hand, then landed his killing blow. All in all, I made him spend about six minutes of his life on me that he won’t get back, and away I trotted to the loser’s bracket.
As I got up to fight my next fight, the marshals announced “The speed tourney is over,” and then they pulled the top 16 from the winners bracket and had them fight it off.
This made Wistric cranky. If you’re running a speed tourney, run a speed tourney. If you’re running a single elim round first, TELL PEOPLE! Failure to communicate the rules clearly, and changing the rules mid-stream, is one of those things that presses The Big Red Button. This sort of shit led to the mask throwing incident.
But there were bearpits going, so I played a little bit (got a fight in with Rochelle, and confirmed that, yes, she’s got skillz, and a fight with Miguel, and confirmed that the boy is rusty). Then I decided I was done moving, and took a spot on the bearpit field where I decided I would stay. And so I did. Other fighters cycled through three times while I held the field, one-shotting over and over again. My guard was ass, and I was using contratempo, off-line attacks, and disengages to land gun-slinging shots, but I held the field through a good twenty or twenty-five fights. And I am proud to say that my sword surrendered before I did, and broke in my hand (that’s two swords at two Ymirs in a row).
But I’m still cranky about that tournament. I would like to see a tournament run where the last 16 are actually representative of the 16 best fighters on the field that day, and it just doesn’t happen with arbitrary seedings and random match-pairings. It makes the final result less prestigious: “Fencer A fought through 3 provosts to get to the finals, whereas Fencer B fought three scholars who authorized a year ago” is not a sign of a good plan.
Anyway, had my fun, and then it was time for the important part of the day.
My wife’s apprentice sister, Lady Livia Zanna, was elevated to the Order of the Laurel, and sat vigil during the day. I stood guard a bit, ate vigil food (I almost never make it over to see vigils, since they aren’t usually fencers, and never get to snack on vigil food. That, really, would be my best argument for a 4th peerage: I want to get to eat).
The whole thing was awesome, and far more verklemptifying for me than I thought it would be.
And, in court, I got to escort my lady in to get her Kitty Hawk, to reward her for all the service she doesn’t think she does.
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