"I know a good spot. There's an empty construction site a district over, it'll be deserted this early. Race you there!" With that, she bolts out the front of the house, scampering up onto her neighbor's overhang and then onto the adjoining wall, quick-stepping over rooftops. She likes to do this to exercise, though thinking on it now... she doesn't actually know that Syrgei's up to it. She pauses to wait for him to catch up a little.

She's a little displeased to see him keeping up with her. It's those long legs, damn it! She has to work twice as hard! She goes as fast as she can, clambering over a balcony and onto the rooftop of the Delaqua residence -- much to their delight, no doubt -- before leaping into a somersaulting dive and blinking down into the empty yard below. Just ahead of Syrgei.

"I said I wouldn't cheat at fighting," Tsae pouts at him.

"Yeah, I do, it's called exercise. Maybe you should try it sometime." Tsaerri scrunches up her face, taking in the empty lot, and starts to pace.

"All right," she tells him tossing him a phantom sword. "I've never actually fought someone a foot-and-a-half taller than me without invisishanking them, so this might be... interesting. Just try and hit me, I guess. I have them turned down so it won't hurt much." She conjures two for herself and gets her balance set for his approach.

Okay... no blinking, no stealthing, and no distortion. Which means I actually have to block-- ohgodshe'sfast!

Rather than attempt to dodge, Tsae rushes into the attack, hoping to intercept it before it reaches its full momentum. Unfortunately, though, it's a long way to inside his reach, and she ends up catching the blow full-force low on her right-hand sword, and she has to let it go as she drops into a desperate roll to avoid getting trampled by Syrgei as he breaks through her guard.

She just kneels there for a moment, considering what went wrong.

I might as well be trying to parry a freaking ettin. The whole reason I have all this magic is to avoid situations like this. But all right, all right, how did those biomechanics lessons go again...?

She snaps for the sword she dropped, calling it back to her hand, and pushes herself back to her feet, beckoning with it at Syrgei. "Again," she grumbles at him.

Unfortunately, low for Syrgei is about chest-height for Tsae, and she finds herself reacting on pure instinct, side-stepping into a cross parry with both of her blades to keep him from pursuing her with a follow-up, and then freeing the top sword to angle a back-handed thrust at his neck in the same tempo.

Surprised that he would drop his weapon, Tsae wastes no time whacking his striking hand with one of her swords as he sails over her, falling back into a guard as Syrgei rights himself.

"This is useless," she tells him. "Do you even know how to fight? She was way better than you, you're just twice my size."

"Okay, fine, other way around then. Just try and defend."

With that, Tsae rushes forward, leaping at him with a dizzying series of cuts and thrusts and feints, fully done messing around here.

Alright.

Not quite as adept with a sword as the Tsaerri, Sygei has little issue keeping ahead, or just ahead, of her rapid attacks: dodging, rolling, or leaping as necessary with more dexterity than a man of his size deserves to have. He attacks occasionally, as much to try and force the mesmer to keep her distance rather than out of any real attempt at “harm.”

He tries not to let his enjoyment of the exercise show too much.

All of a sudden, Tsaerri just stops, letting both of their weapons dissipate. "This is pointless," she says dejectedly. "You wouldn't have a chance if I wasn't handicapping myself."

She sighs in annoyance and sits down on a nearby workbench, snapping for a convenient illusionary cloth to wipe the dirt off her boots. "I want to get out of the city. Any preference on where to go?"

"Whoa!" Tsaerri jumps out of her seat. "That is way too close, mister! It was just some dumb sparring! That wasn't your cue to move in on me! Gah! If you ever get that close again I'll freaking shoot you! With my real gun!" She storms off, presumably back to her house.

Still annoyed at Syrgei's ineptness for swordfighting -- more so than that pathetic attempt at a nonchalant romantic segue of his, like oh, they'd just had this great bonding moment, which obviously must have awoken this deep latent attraction that had brewing between them in all the torrid adventures they've shared so far. Good joke. He wishes he could get away from that hideous, unlettered swine Petra so easily. Like, he obviously didn't go after her for her looks, so... that sterling personality of hers? That profound intellect honed from years of thankless table-scrubbing? Tsae's not saying, but she's just saying, you can judge a man by the company he screws. Ugh. Eew. Like, dude, you're a freaking secret agent, surely you could do better than some illiterate tavern slut.

...where was she? Right, checking in on Gambooge. Eyes narrowing at the still-gaping doorway as she comes up to it, she finds him stewing in her kitchen, looking all grumpy in her chair.

"Aww," she whines, stepping inside. "I thought you'd have breakfast ready by now."

Tsaerri matches his sigh, muttering, "Use your imagination." She hops up on the table to sit.

She shrugs exaggeratedly. "Presumably? I think he was saying something, but I was too busy, er, gracefully taking my leave of him. Yeah. But whatever, I doubt he was doing anything useful."

Tsae hops down and steps over to Gambooge, painfully batting her eyes at him. "So... was that a 'yes' to breakfast?"

Batting intensifies. "But whatever are you talking about, Gamby? I'm just asking my good pal to fix me some breakfast, what's unusual about that?" She takes a step closer, right into his personal space. "Oh, and did you see I'm wearing your favorite boots today? I bet you've missed them." She taps the leather-wrapped steel tip against his shin.

After confirming Tsaerri has returned to her home, Syrgei keeps walking until he reaches the inn in Salma district, where he finds Petra already up.

“What were you doing all night? You look like you didn’t even bother to sleep. You don’t have purple and crazy with you, do you?”

“Early morning, and heck no! Just back to get cleaned up. Breakfast after?”

Tsae's painfully-adorable posturing vanishes very quickly into a displeased frown and accompanying glare.

"I want you to know, I just consciously stopped myself from kicking you for that." No longer interested in him, she turns abruptly and paces away.

Still annoyed at Gambooge, she adds, "You could try to be more of a gentleman, you know. I'm not really that terrible to you."

All of which, of course, is mostly a cover while she determines what she actually would like for breakfast, having been caught somewhat off-guard by his apparent willingness to actually serve her.

Clearing her throat and turning back to him, she announces, "I would like waffles, if you please. Not too crisp, and with butter, cream, sugar, sprinkles, and strawberry jam." Her glance flicking to her cupboards, she adds, "I, uh, think I have all that on hand."

If he's this easy to manipulate, she really might be able to get used to having him around more. IF his cooking is actually decent. Tsaerri sits herself at the table and plops her head into her hands, watching him collect the ingredients.

"So, know any nice vacation spots? Ideally, far away from here? I'm considering letting you accompany me."

She can't tell if he's messing with her, or not. Has he not seen how she dresses?

"I'm going to assume you're joking, since you wouldn't want me to freeze to death. Also, going to need a citation on Norns being people." She yawns, rolling her shoulders and stretching, then hops up from her seat again.

"I have a better idea, be right back." Darting to her bedroom, she starts rummaging through her cabinets until she digs out a big cloth map of Tyria, returning to the kitchen with it. Paying no mind to Gambooge anymore and with the aid of some pins and nails, she rigs it up on the ceiling beam, effectively dividing them on either side of the room.

"Okay," she tells him excitedly. "I'm going to close my eyes and shoot, you tell me where it hits."

"TSAE! PUT THE GUN DOWN!"

Syrgei is standing in the open doorway, both hands on the door frame, looking more than a little concerned with the situation.

"Lyss! Fuck!" Tsae nearly jumps out of her skin at the sound of his raised voice, whirling around and training her gun on her towering definitely-not-really-friend, and coming very close to pulling the trigger. After a few tense seconds, she lowers the weapon and lets out the breath she'd been holding.

"Could you, please, not sneak up on me in the future?" she asks of him in the calmest voice she can muster. "It's not good for either of our health." Giving him a pointed look, she snaps her weapon-hand out, nearly backwards, and fires blindly in the direction of the map.