this is your kingdom; this is your crown

Avantika smiled indulgently when the pup declared that he could win any game she had for him, even before he knew what the game was. It was good to be confident, and a little arrogance even could be encouraged in one so young. It was much better than fear. No child should have to fear their own family. Avantika mentally shook off that train of thought, not letting her friendly grin and gently sweeping tail falter.

When Avantika had worked out the idea of the game thinking last night, she'd tried to think about what she had needed to learn most when she was a beginner at fighting. It had been a long time since then, but she decided that guarding one's vulnerable areas was one of the most important parts to learn first. You had to know what to defend to be able to attack properly; plus, defending and attacking at the same time was a more advanced skill, and defending was probably safer to learn first if -- spirits forbid -- Thorn actually had to use anything he'd learned any time soon. Although, attacking was more fun. "Alright, so -- " she walked over to one of the stones, the darkest one, and tapped it lightly with one paw. " -- this game primarily helps you work on defending yourself, but you'll also get to work on attacking strategies. When you're standing at this stone, you can't move more than a pivot in any direction. I can go anywhere inside of the square and will be trying to touch one of the most vulnerable areas on your body, the underside of your throat, with my nose. Your job is to, well, keep me from touching you there. If you are able to touch my throat with your nose, we'll switch spots and I'll have to stand still at the black stone." She'd probably go easy on him to start, just to let him learn. She had purposely not even explained the proper fighting stance yet, with the thought process that it was better to learn by doing things yourself. "We're not going to use any teeth at all during this, for now, to keep it safer and also work on being more creative in our moves. Any week-old pup can bite someone, y'know?"

"And once we play a couple rounds, we can decide if you want to actually spar me!"

"Speech"