I stared at Mother, who was standing across from me nonchalantly, her grip on the water blade loose as she met my gaze, those amber eyes still as warm and comforting as ever... which made this even weirder as I too held a blade, not sure of what was to come.
It just felt... odd on my end, sparring a woman whom I had viewed as mature, gentle, kind yet strict, and otherwise as more like a Housewife then anything else, let alone someone who had experience with a sword.
Like I knew that she had experience with it in my mind, but the contrast between what I had seen and what I knew was too stark for me to fully wrap my head around it...
"Begin!"
The Marquess - as always - just did as she pleased when she pleased, not doing a countdown and instead just shouting to get the match started, which I didn't entirely expect either, just like I didn't expect what happened next.
