A group of Honest had stopped at the edge of the beach to watch the exchange.
It was Nyssa's turn to lunge. Lex caught her quickness. Again and again, their sticks struck, the clack of the bamboo sounding over the ocean waves. Lex pulsed low and whacked Nyssa’s calf. Nyssa landed flat on her back. The throb of it shuddered through Nyssa’s muscle, and she cursed into the air.
Lex's chest heaved, her green eyes reflecting that same rage back to Nyssa, and she extended her stick down to Nyssa. Nyssa grabbed the end and pulled herself to her feet.
Nyssa crouched low and buried her feet in the sand again as Lex started towards her.
"You could have stayed with Bala," Nyssa said. "Stayed with a King already confident in her duties. Someone brave and fearless as Drae was."
She blocked Lex's next hit, and Lex swung around to the ground. Nyssa jumped and pushed forward. Lex caught her and pressed, her figure towering over Nyssa, the cross of their spears between their faces.
"Tell me you actually want to be here with me and not with she or Dorian," Nyssa seethed.
Lex stared at her, but she didn't respond.
Nyssa shoved her off and took three steps back. "That's what I thought."
The pair began to circle.
"Care to tell me why we are going through this again?" Lex dared.
"Because you just struck me when I came back from that run as though I'd done the worst thing I could possibly do," Nyssa said. "If it had been Drae coming back without telling you where she was going, you would have simply asked her if she was ready for breakfast."
Lex swung at her again. Nyssa blocked it this time, knocking her three times in defense. Lex caught her legs and wiped her out. Nyssa's back landed in the sand, but she sprang to her feet before Lex could come at her again. Nyssa swung towards Lex's stomach, and Lex jumped back. But Nyssa whirled this time, the swell of her adrenaline threaded through her, and she caught Lex's chest in a high kick.
Lex stumbled, and Nyssa started to circle again.
"Aydra was a Queen," Lex spat, dusting off the sand from her shirt. "Aydra had years of training over you, years of throwing herself into the fire and coming out on the other side a stronger woman. You—“
"Are what?" Nyssa interjected. "Incapable?"
"Inexperienced."
The word deadened between them.
Stilled between them for a long enough moment that Nyssa noticed more people stopping to stare.
"There is nothing wrong with being inexperienced, Nyssa," Lex said. "We want to help. We need you to do what you do and let us do what we do."
The words came calmly from Lex's lips, but Nyssa could see the tense bite back of attitude skimming the surface of her features, feel the drip of frustration with every breath.
"Which is what?"
"Protect you."
Nyssa paused in her circle, back firm and chin high, and she held that spear in front of her with such a grasp, she felt it crease beneath her fingers.
"Then tell me you're protecting me because you truly believe in me and not because it is your final duty to my sister."
Silence.
A ringing started in Nyssa's ears, and she scoffed under her breath. "Right," she muttered. She shook her head and whirled the stick in her hands once before stepping forward.
And then she shoved it in Lex’s hands.
“You are relieved as my Second,” Nyssa snapped. “I have no crown and therefore no need of one. We’re finished.”
She pushed past Lex to trudge through the sand back towards the shack.
