The wooden sword was three feet too long for the girl holding it, its tip dragging furrows in the dirt. Juna watched from the fence rail with her arms crossed, tail flicking, trying hard not to look pleased with herself.
"Wrong grip," she called, "hands apart, you're not strangling a chicken."
The girl glared at her over the hilt, hands still pink and shiny from Vella's night of healing. She shifted her fingers a hair's width apart, then dragged the sword another yard, plowing a long groove.
"Feet wider, knees soft, the ground is your friend until someone tries to take it from you," she said, hopping down from the rail.
The girl swung, a clumsy, furious arc, all shoulders and no hips.
The oversized blade whipped around and cracked straight into Juna's shins, sending pain racing up her legs. Somewhere under her ribs a small proud thing lit up like a lantern, warm and entirely unexpected.
"Good," she said through her teeth, "again."
