The king's composure left him at last.
Everything changed. His shoulders broadened, his height increased, the fine clothes became irrelevant against the shape that was pushing through them and tearing the fabric.
But his face, inhuman as it had become, still held the expression of a tired and reluctant calmness.
And then that went too.
What replaced it was less considered. Something that had been underneath the king the whole time, waiting, and now it had been given permission to take everything that was offered.
The queen followed her husband.
Her transformation was fast and less reluctant. Perhaps she had simply made her decision earlier and was further along by the time the king finished.
She was leaner, slightly shorter, but not enough so that an outsider could differentiate them easily.
They looked at each other briefly. It was a look that let each other know that they stood before something difficult and irritating.
They approached slowly, and then they came at her.
The king first, straight and direct, with no pretense about it.
He hit like a wall moving, and Sonder blocked it with her sword crosswise.
The impact drove her back before she found the dock beneath her feet again and pushed back.
The wood cracked where it had skidded.
They held sword to claws, neither willing to move an inch.
The queen came in from the left while she was still holding the king:
Sonder spun to turn the king away and dodge the queen, slashing both in that moment.
It didn't deter them. A slash or ten would have little effect.
But from this alone Sonder could tell that they were stronger than their son. Considerably.
The queen came again, faster this time, a sequence rather than a single attack, and Sonder blocked the first and the third and let the second graze her because stopping it would have cost her position, and the cost of the graze was worth what she gained from it, which was her footing and a clear angle on the queen's extended arm.
She took the angle.
The queen pulled back with a sound that was more anger than pain.
He got both hands on her, and the force of it was enormous, not a strike but a throw, and the dock ended abruptly, and she was over the water for a long moment before she caught herself, the staff dragging the air to slow her, and she hung there briefly above the dark harbor before she landed on the dock again at a different section further along.
She looked back at them.
The son stood exactly where he had been.
He wasn't going to help them.
She had already known that, but it was useful to confirm.