faderift | [closed]

The armor is definitely the worst part about all this. It is hot and he has no means of any kind of internal cooling system (yet) to relieve it. He's only in a couple of pieces—the breastplate, namely, a pair of gauntlets, and the helmet will waiting for the last possible second, but still.

"You should probably teach me a killing blow, just in case," he says. "But I'll settle for me not, uh, getting shish kabobed in front of god and everyone. That's a kind of skewered meat," he adds, louder, at Wysteria.

"I know what a shish kabob is, Mister Stark, but thank you."

With a last scratch between the horse's ears, Wysteria smooths its forelock and draws her hand free. She shifts to remove herself from out of the way of Ellis' stirrup.

"Are there any other chivalric particulars we ought to be aware of before we begin?"

We.

In passing, Ellis' hand finds Wysteria's elbow, squeezes slightly before directing her further aside so he can swing up into the saddle.

"Only that you'll want to avoid hitting your opponent's horse at all costs," Ellis says, which is possibly common sense but Wysteria had asked. "I'll tell you exactly what would kill a man and lose you the match in a moment."

Settling himself, Ellis lets the reins settle at the pommel as he fastens the straps of his breastplate.

"Can you hand me up my helmet?" is for Wysteria, unrelated to chivalry or any other jousting business.

"Oh," he says, for correction. "Okay." And yet 'hot dog' was a nonstarter. He sees how it is.

Tony's horse moves restlessly beneath him, ears and tail flicking. He blindly reaches back to skritch the horse on its butt rather than move to get helmeted up or take up the lance.

"Guessin' it's also unsporting to aim for the, uh," a glance to Wysteria, settling on, "shish kabob."

"Why on earth would—" She is halfway to passing the helmet up to Ellis. "Oh really, Mister Stark."

No outright laughter from Ellis, but humor twitches at his expression in spite of his best intentions.

"If you can manage to strike that target without hitting the horse, I think you'll take first place of the entire tourney," Ellis advises, extremely solemn contrast to Wysteria's disapproval.

"Can't wait to introduce the overarm lance technique someday," Tony says, also more of a twitch of a smile than an outright laugh. Self-satisfied, regardless, for italics out of Poppell. "But let's focus on the win for right now, kids. We can change the world later."

He directs his horse over towards where the lances are leaning against the cart they took out, listing a little preciously in his saddle to go grab one, except his horse takes a swaying step aside and bumps his hand into the lance, sending it sliding. "Damnit," muttered.

"You were saying?" louder, to Ellis. Kill a man, lose the match.

You are encouraging him and I am appalled says the hot glare Wysteria shoots in Ellis' direction Unburned by either his helmet or further responsibility, she dusts her hands on her skirts and turns swiftly on the heel of her worn little field boots just in time to play audience to the sideways slide of the lances.

Tsk!, is her official assessment of Tony's hand-eye-horse coordination, though in a moment she is swooping in to rescue both lances from sloughing further and clattering into the dirt. One of them is judiciously separated from the other and stood upright within what ought to be reasonably easy reach for him.

Secure in his seat, armor latched closed, Ellis clucks his tongue to encourage his horse to take a few steps forward while Tony and Wysteria collectively wrangle the lances.

"You want to hit me here," Ellis calls, punctuating the statement with a rap to his right shoulder. "Knock me off the horse, if you can."

Having thus advised him, Ellis lifts the helmet onto his head. Visor left up, so as to keep the pair of them in his sights.

"Oops," and, "got it," and, "there it is," all muttered in the process of collecting up his lance, holding it a little awkwardly until Tony can tuck it around under his arm in the way he's already practiced.

He nudges his horse away from the cart, more muttering along the lines of, "I think these should be heavier, that would be perfect," before fully turning his attention back to Ellis. His eyebrows raise at this instruction, and then he points towards him as he says to Wysteria, "You're the witness. No jury would convict."

And then, to Ellis, calling across the short distance, "So I just—like I go real fast, and then, have at thee," pantomiming this moment of collision with a wobbly thrust of the lance.

The second lance is passed into Ellis' possession when he's ready for it. Afterwards, quite uninterested in being employed in picking up anything else (be it lances or people), Wysteria makes to clamber up the side of the cart so she might perch there on its edge and get a good view of the carnage.

"Sometime in this hour if you please, gentlemen. Otherwise the sun will have shifted and my hat will have stopped doing any good."

She has gotten herself quite enough freckles for one season, thank you.

A brief, genuine smile for Wysteria, without any accompanying commentary on the hat, before Ellis obliges and turns his attention to the task at hand.

Here is the thing: Ellis had already resolved, before anyone got into the saddle, to go easy on Tony for the first few rounds.

It was only fair, to let him acclimate before trying to actually knock him off his horse.

So know that this is Ellis' intention, as he spurs his horse into a gallop towards Tony, bringing his lance to bear.

Welp.

There is only a brief wide eyed look from Tony as Ellis and his horse surge forwards, but just for a split second. Then, he slaps down the visor of his helmet and kicks his own steed into gear, and the overlapping rhythm of heavy horse hooves thumping into the earth takes over the peace and quiet. The lance sways off course for several crucial feet, locking it into place just as—

The end of the lance collides and breaks against Ellis' shoulder, a moment earlier than instinct might have anticipated as Tony bears it forwards at, apparently, the exact right moment to lift Ellis up out of his saddle almost cleanly to let his horse continue without him.

"Ahh!" is Tony's muffled yell of adrenalised-surprise as his horse continues on its gallop for several paces. He drops the lance to grab the reins and haul it around to brake.

Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa go eight horse hooves over the dirt. Wysteria has set to make minor adjustments to the arrangement of her hat and is, truthfully, watching with more or less only one eye in the anticipation that they will—what? Breeze by one another? Miss entirely? Certainly not—

The crack of the lance seems very loud. Or it's Tony's shout that is. Or it's the sound Ellis in all his armor makes when he splats to the ground (it's the season for mud). Or it's her own unintelligible squawk of alarm, remarkably shrill from inside the veritable megaphone cone of her hat.

Whatever Ellis had been preparing for, it was certainly not this particular outcome.

He doesn't flinch from the hit, but there's no way to stop the effects of it as Tony's lance catches him up. The solid force of it bears him up out of the saddle. There's a moment, just a moment, where Ellis is aware of being airborne and then—

Impact.

And then an echoing groan from inside the helmet, which trails into laughter as he rolls towards once side in an attempt to return to his feet.

The horse beneath Tony is a little confused, and paces sideways with an annoyed snort as Tony goes to dismount in a clanky hurry, hopping along until he can shake his boot free of the stirrup. He is standing and steady in time to see Ellis rolling to get to his feet, which is great, because—

"Yeah!"

Arms up, like \o/ so. In the far off distance, there's probably a peasant minding their own business but feeling compelled to turn and squint at an echoed woo from the foothills.

Back to here, where Tony is not all the way done celebrating by the time he makes himself useful, giving Ellis a hand up. "You good??" he says, having shoved back his visor. Hopefully the answer is 'yes', because he laughs as he claps Ellis on the shoulder, all glee.

And in rapidly intensifying volume, the doppler effect in living color as Wysteria slips down from the edge of the cart and comes galloping down to meet them:

"—was outrageously well placed. I can hardly believe it. If I were you, Mister Ellis, I might suspect that I had been cheated by a lying scoundrel perfectly well trained in the subject of knocking people from their saddles. Oh Mister Stark," like an accusation now that she is well within in range. "Do tell us that isn't what you did to earn being the iron man. It would be very unsporting."

It doesn't sound like she capitalized it.

The answer is yes, though it comes in the form of a creaky shake of the head and a tapering laugh before Ellis can get his hands up to lift the helmet off entirely.

"It was a fair hit," Ellis tells Wysteria. "Even if he had more practice than he let on."

It's not that Ellis is saying that jousting might be a factor in iron man duties, only that it wouldn't surprise Ellis if it did.

"You do it that way in the joust. Aim there, and hit just the way you did. No need to worry about all those other angles you were talking about," Ellis advises. There is real pride in his voice over Tony's success. Ellis is pleased by the entire arrangement. Seeing Tony take to something so quickly is worth any bruising he might wake with tomorrow.

"——never done it before!" primarily aimed at Wysteria, where the verbiage just before is an incoherent run of words before it resolves into at least the back end of a coherent sentence, if kicked up an octave. Gesturing inwards, splayed arm outwards.

But that bristle of defensiveness is temporary if not outright performance, a smile still creeping in at the corners. Tony does pay attention to Ellis and his summary, and he curls his hands back into 'yesss' fists. When is this tourney thing again. Is it tomorrow. He's ready. No notes.

Well—

"Okay, but, you weren't trying to hit me back," Tony says. "So this time it's for real. Okay? Everybody, let's reset." Is Ellis actually good to go again? He wheezed a 'yes', so definitely.

Edited 2021-09-09 12:11 (UTC)

"For real," she repeats back, her scoff equal parts delight and mortification. "You have already laid the man out once, Mister Stark; you can't seriously mean to do so a second time."

These protests would probably mean more if she weren't actively brushing the clinging grass and sod off Ellis' plate, and then checking the layering of the armor where he'd been struck to be certain that his arm will still be afforded its mobility. He'll need it in order to properly control both horse and lance for the second run.

For his part, Ellis has submitted to the inspection without complaint, lifts his arm and rotates it as prompted. All is as it should be. If there's bruising, it's not a pressing issue now.

"We'll see if his luck holds, ey?" Ellis tells her, before whistling after his horse. The mare had strayed towards the far end of the field to graze. After ignoring the first two whistles, she finally comes trotting towards them so Ellis can swing back into the saddle and reach down to Wysteria for the lance

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love this thread for the excuse to revisit a knight's tale

this is all i wanted

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puttin' this all into your hands doctor

juggles

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