Two weeks.
Two weeks off was all the praetor of New Rome was granted, and Reyna fully intended to make them count. She was going to stay in her apartment, eat nothing but Ben and Jerry's and takeout, and watch the Food Network until Guy Fieri took h...
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Art by the amazing Colonelbaconbits!
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In the movies whenever the hero is tossed in the air by some impossible explosion or some such nonsense, time slows to a crawl so the audience can see their panicked faces, onlookers clap their hands to their faces in terror, and some opera music plays over the muffled screams. It's all very dramatic, slow, and the hero always lands on their feet looking better than they did before the being tossed like a ragdoll.
Reyna could tell you the movies were complete and utter bullshit.
Because when the momma-boar charged her there was no music, no people screaming, not even a hint of a slow down to allow her to comprehend what was a happening. It was simply she was standing one second, and the next her face was doing its best impression of a tire spinning through mud. Her body didn't even have a chance to process any pain by time she had stopped sliding.
"REYNA! GET UP!" The daughter of the love-bitch shouted from somewhere far away.
Still gripping King Pellinore's rusty sword, she pried herself bog floor and spat out a mixture of mud, peat, blood, and sadly enough, teeth. Yay dentures by eighteen! I'm going to fucking kill that blond- her reflexes kicked in just in time, rolling herself over as the momma boar charged her. One thing at a time though...
Reyna leaped to her feet just as the boar was looping around for another run, her body screaming in protest and threatening to give out if she asked too much of it. Which she kind of had already, but she was frantically working on a compromise with herself. Details including: don't vomit, let us move, and we have to kill the daughter of Aphrodite before we die. That last detail was motivation enough to allow her the strength to grip the rusted sword with both hands. "Bring it, bacon bitch..."
The giant boar stomped one hoof into the soft earth and lowered its head with a snort.
Reyna grinned, and she really didn't want to know what that looked like. "What's wrong, bacon? Scared to attack when your enemy's ready for you? Only go for sucker pun-"
"WRYYYYYYYYYYY!" the boar charged forward with a speed that shouldn't have been possible for something so large.
"Guess not!" the praetor cried, running forward to meet her opponent. Traditionally spears or bows were used in boar hunts as the short reach of a gladius or spatha put the hunter well within reach of the boar's powerful jaws, but she didn't have a spear or bow and like any badass bitch she was making do with what she had. The rusted blade in her hand was a good six inches longer than its Roman equivalents and she really really hoped that was enough to prevent her from meeting her adoptive brother's father.
She planned to sidestep the rushing mammal and slice it from snout to flank, injuring it enough to give her an advantage.
So of course, right before she was about to sidestep it Piper came rushing back with a fallen branch in her hands and screaming bloody murder as she ran. "I GOT THIS!"
