06 Tyche in Friendship and Focus
Added 2020-03-07 20:00:02 +0000 UTCWe made another pass, and this time I managed to break off the engagement without losing another touch, but I hadn’t managed to land one, either, and I was getting frustrated. Chao inclined his head to the side, then gestured me to start the next pass.
Have you ever seen one of the old kung fu movies, the ones before they figured out to tell the actors to slow down so the cameras could capture their maneuvers? This flurry was like that. I thought I had him several times, and I poured on the pressure, but Chao was like the river, constantly yielding ground, flowing around and through my attacks. I knew it before I did it, but I was overcommitted and couldn’t break off. My foot twisted under me and refused to hold my weight, a lingering reminder of the abuse it’d taken almost a year ago, and I landed hard. Looking up, Chao’s rigid spear-hand was frozen a millimeter in front of the bridge of my nose.
He withdrew his attack and retreated to a respectful guard while I blinked and centered myself.
“You are still distracted,” he told me.
I gave him a wry chuckle. “Yeah, apparently,” I admitted. He offered me a hand and I clambered back to my feet.
* * * * *
This story has been sitting on my hard drive for more than a year; it was never released, although, properly, it belongs between A First Small Apocalypse Part 01 and A First Small Apocalypse Part 02. I like it because it's a good little slice of life, but it was always too short to stand by itself as a purely textual story, clocking in at only a little over 1300 words, all told.
