you know the first rule of combat?

The laughter was a good sign, one that proved the two of them could see eye-to-eye on a subtler sort of humor. That was always something Faye had seen as necessary in order to keep up any sort of rapport with another person; without the ability to laugh, without the ability to understand one another, the rest of the connection was just that much harder to make. It colored her smile with something a little brighter, more genuine, a glimmer of hope that Faye herself wasn't even aware of.

"Ribbon twirling wasn't a loss," she agreed with a soft puff of a laugh. "It's just relying on a prop to do all the fancy footwork for you. A flimsy one, at that."