Starlight

10

Aoife shuffled slowly and dodged out of the way of the sword which was waved dangerously close to her. "When I said I bet I could beat you with my hands tied behind my back, I was being sarcastic." She paused and jumped out of the way again. "Mainly because you are clearly drunk." Aoife yelped as the sword almost cut into her arm. "And I doubted you could swing straight."

"You're diggin' yourself deeper into a hole here." The pirate who was slurring and wielding the sword stated.

Aoife looked around at the surrounding crew, who were a little too up for this weird fight for her liking. "Fine, I'll just keep kicking you. Then steal your sword, untie my hands, and kick you some more."

"Those be fightin' words."

Aoife bowed. "I've never been in a fight in my life. But there's a first time for everything, right?" Standing back up straight she ran forwards instead of dodging backwards. The pirate naturally was thrown off by her tactics. Despite having her hands literally tied behind her back, she had no problem jumping up and kicking the pirate in the chest. She was at more of a disadvantage because of the height difference.

How she even got into this situation was something which had blurred and disappeared to the back of her mind. She remembers being bored, and she remembered witnessing some awful sword practising happening, Aoife also remembered she had commented something casually and from there one thing led to another. The two things Aoife did have at her advantage though were being fast, swift and nimble enough to dodge duck and jump out of the way. The second thing was the more obvious, she wasn't drunk. Or semi-drunk, or remotely tipsy.

"Woah, woah!" Aoife's back hit against the small wall of pirates which had encircled them. They pushed her forwards and she stumbled and rolled out of the way.

"Where's the oncoming kicks you seemed so adamant on?"

"You want me to kick you?" She looked confused.

"Lady, I am numb right now, you could kick-" the pirate stopped when Aoife kicked his legs from underneath him. He thudded painfully to the deck. To make it worse she kicked at his wrist, the sword went spiralling away across the smooth wood. Kicking him in the side to stop him getting up Aoife ran forward.

Turning and crouching down she awkwardly started to cut at the rope which was around her wrists. The man on the floor was starting to get up. By the time he was stable, Aoife was already standing holding onto the sword. She held it out towards him, raising an eyebrow as he pulled something from his belt she sighed. "Who brings knives to a sword fight?"

"You think I'm at a disadvantage? You're wrong." He pointed a small knife about the length of his hand at her. "You are."

"How so?" She asked genuinely interested.

"It's all about range." He explained and started walking forwards. His eyes narrowed and darkened, yet Aoife stood her ground unmoving, still aiming the sword at him. "While you block one knife, you can't block the other." He charged forwards and went to attack only to flinch and skid to the floor. Everyone else jolted and looked around confused by the sound of a sudden gunshot.

Parting ways, the crew looked towards their Captain. "I don't want to know. By all means, teach the lady how to fight, just don't seem so up for harming her." Hook paused and holstered his pistol. Smiling he tapped a finger to his chin and waved it over to the man who was now standing back up. "Perhaps you don't need to teach her to fight. She seemed to do a fine job of defeating you without a weapon." Moving forwards he eyed Aoife up. "I need your help, mate."

"...Does this involve weapons?"

Smiling, Hook shook his head. "No."

"Oh," Aoife lifted the sword up and rested it on her shoulder. Hearing exclaiming she looked over her shoulder. "Oh my, I am so sorry! I didn't know you were standing so close! I didn't poke anything out did I?" She asked worriedly while turning to the pirate who almost had the sword penetrate his eye. He shot her a look, mumbled with disdain and walked off.