stripped courage . charade . blitz

Mercedes hummed quietly to herself as she fixed up the vases in the infirmary with fresh flowers. It was a joy to be able to help like this when she wasn’t training. While learning how to smite evildoers was an important part of becoming a successful career, there was more to surviving the games than simply a person’s skill with a weapon. There was first aid. Trapping. Firemaking. The survival skills were more important than most careers seemed to realize.

Small wonder their district hadn’t had a victor in over twenty years.

Someone came into the room asking for help, a brunette that she was fairly certain was a black eagle. “Yes, of course!” she beamed, the smile slowly sliding off when she saw the damage. She pursed her lips as she examined the wound. “Petra, right? You're under Edelgard's tutelage? I’m Mercedes.”

She tried to recall the gossip she’d heard about the other girl, some people said she was Edelgard’s daughter. Others said she had been homeless or something, that she hadn’t gotten into the school on her merits. But Mercedes thought she seemed pretty skilled anyway.

“Oh my,” she said as she raised Petra’s arm above heart level and applied pressure to it, a ribbon of crimson snaking down her arm.“Well, It doesn’t look like you’ll need stitches, but we’ll need the bleeding to stop before I patch you up.” She figured it would take a few more minutes.

“Holy mother, guide my hands.” she murmured under her breath as reached for the gauze on the nearby counter. With the nurse on break, this was her chance to really show off what she’d learned from helping out in the infirmary. “They really should be more careful when sparring down there,” she tutted disapprovingly. “Let me guess, this was one of the boys?”

Ah, so she had it right. Edelgard’s special pupil. It would be rude to ask for specifics, but she found that she was curious. Very curious. Petra didn’t have the air around her that most of them did. They were the children of the elite, and they acted accordingly. Petra seemed a little out of her depth. A little out of place.

They can be rough, but it was my own fault.

Mercedes pursed her lips disapprovingly. No. That was what her father had always said when he hurt her. When he hurt her mother. He’d convinced her that it was her fault until her mother took a stand and got them away from him. She’d learned then that humans were more monstrous than any mutt the game-makers could design for the arena.

Unacceptable, for Petra to think that.

She cleaned the wound out and then applied antiseptic. “This will sting a little,” she murmured. Deliver us from the evil one, she thought. Save us from the machinations of Pearlpelt, the Bane of all that is good and holy in this world. Men like her father, like some of the boys’ downstairs were his pawns, whether they knew it or not.

Perhaps she should find out who was going out of their way to injure this sparring partners and knock his dick in the dirt.

This was the third such injury in two days.

She tied the bandages off before responding to Petra. She hadn’t realized she’d said that out loud, but she was not ashamed of her faith.

“Some people pray to Ripred. What many people are unaware of is that in ages past, there was a whole pantheon.” Silksharp. Saint Gregor. Twitchtip. She explained about the latter. “I was asking Twitchtip for guidance. The holy mother that was martyred in the pit. Her spirit is the guardian of women everywhere.” She’d been taught about her by her mother, and she’d tried to follow the tenants of the Chronicles ever since.

She turned around to the counter. Petra had a lot to learn about the way things worked at the academy, and she felt protective of her already.“If you’d like, I could teach you a few moves sometime. I take my training very seriously.”

“I draw strength from the Goddess,” she said in response as she filled out the incident report. “Yes, she is brave.” But now was not the time for a retelling of the fifth chronicle. The head nurse returned from her smoke break a moment later and Mercedes thanked her for the opportunity to help out with a small and respectful bow and turned back to Petra. “Yes, I’m good to go now. Shall we head back to the sparring area?”

As they walked towards their destination, she studied everything around her with the utmost care, eyeing the hallways critically. Ever alert, ever vigilant. It was important never let yourself be caught off-guard. Some students were always on the hunt for weakness. It bothered her to think that Petra might have gotten injured as part of a hazing ritual. Or because someone had felt like being malicious.

There was of course, the possibility that she wasn’t as skilled as the others, but that was no reason to cut someone. The weak needed to be protected, not crushed underfoot. She’d been weak as a child; eager to please her father, even as he reduced her to less than nothing. Never again. Nor would she let another person be harmed when she could make a difference.

The escort mission done, Mercedes turned to Petra, her gaze drifting past her to look at the racks of unused weapons. A thought struck her then as she was wondering about the girl with no past and no family name to boast of. What better time to help her with her training than right now? Most of her daily responsibilities had already been taken care of. Her eyes wandered over to the bows.

She was confident with those, but the laceration on Petra’s arm could get smacked rather painfully by the bowstring depending on which hand Petra was dominant with. She selected a pair of one-handed axes instead, hefting them experimentally in her hands. “I don’t have anywhere to be for an hour or so.” She smacked the flat of the axeheads on her thighs. “Could see about a lesson in guard work right now.”

She smiled kindly.

This was a chance to help someone, as the Chronicles said to do.

It was also a chance to test her skills against someone new, as long as Petra was up for it.

“Your best is what the academy wants!” she beamed. And the district as well. It was their duty as careers to represent their home with the proper amount of respect. They were supposed to be a district that the poor unfortunate souls in the lower regions could look up to as a shining example of excellence. Sadly, districts one and four had been beating them soundly for decades.

Longer than she’d even been alive. Cricket Antoinette was ancient, and it had been drilled into Mercedes head that the district needed to be saved from further embarrassment one of these years. She prayed to the Goddess every reaping that if she was worthy, she would be chosen. Thus far, that prayer had gone unanswered. But that was neither here nor there as she took up a position across from the other girl.

Petra swung like she was trying to chop down a tree. Perplexing. Mercedes blocked it without a second thought, catching the strike with the middle of her handle. Her movements starting to flow like water as she put her game face on. The smile dropped away, the glint in her eyes became calculating. For the next few minutes, Petra was an enemy to be vanquished. She followed the arc of the next swing with her footwork, moving dizzyingly fast as she rolled off of Petra’s back.

She dropped the axe in her hand, catching it deftly as she flipped it around, then she swung her war-axe upwards like a golf club, the ax head hooking Petra’s axe head and pulling it out of her hands, sending to the ground with a light bounce and a soft thump. The smile returned as she picked the weapon up and handed it back to Petra. "I can see you haven’t had much practice with these, don’t worry, you’ll be learning a lot here.” She slipped back into a fighting stance and started moving around Petra carefully.

Like a cat intently stalking a mouse.

“HI-YA!” she shouted, swinging the weapon carefully but dangerously as she closed the distance between them, working her way through a series of combat movements that she’d memorized for this weapon. In another moment or two, she’d be disarming the other girl again.

As long as she pulled the move off correctly.

Petra had some talent, even if she was lacking in skill. That was probably why Edelguard was tutoring her or whatever. It was fun. Perhaps she should invite her to tea after this. One should always make time for the finer things in life. Her mind came back to the present. It was important not to lose focus.

It was a pretty standard move, rolling with the attack, ducking under it. Not something Mercedes would have done personally, in an axe fight. But then Petra grabbed her wrist. Mercedes froze, was something wrong? Did she want the match to be over? She barely had time to think about it as she was yanked forward and then Petra’s leg was behind hers, knocking her over.

She hit the ground with a thump, dropping her axe with a clatter and feeling bewildered.

That move was not in the handbook.

Mercedes stared up at Petra in confusion. That was—well it was unsportsmanlike. Dirty. If a career fought like that at an exhibition tournament they’d get disqualified for conduct unbecoming! That wasn’t sparring that was—

“What—what was that?” she spluttered, pulling on Petra’s arm to get to her feet indignantly. She rested her hands on her hips accusingly. “You could have—you could have really hurt me!” Mercedes rubbed at her wrist, thankful that it hadn’t gotten twisted. She replayed the moment in her head.

Sweeping her feet out from under her? Grabbing the hand, she’d been holding the axe with? It was unethical. Mercedes was used to people trying to go overboard and actually injure their sparring partners, it happened all the time, but this? No proper form, no warning, just the sneakiest and most underhanded thing she’d ever witnessed.

“That was dirty,” she said, pursing her lips. “Street-fighting isn’t on the lesson plan at this academy.”

“I’m confused,” Petra said, and Mercedes mentally agreed that she was as well. She’d never seen a move like that. It incorporated hand to hand! A grappling move in the middle of an axe fight and then tripping. It still frazzled her. Nobody fought like that. She’d watched a hundred fights in dozens of games. It was a simple back and forth. Gash to gash. A broken bone here, a shallow cut there.

A severed limb if you were lucky.

It was rare that anyone changed their weapon of choice mid-fight, and even then, she couldn’t think of a time someone had gone for such a brute force disarm, unless they literally chopping off someone’s sword hand. She was beyond puzzled. Where had Petra learned how to do a move like that? Was she in the habit of getting into brawls? Where was the finesse?

“I—“ What kind of question was that? She fought the way they were taught at the school. The proper way. Mercedes rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. “Well, this isn’t a real fight.” In the arena, anything went, but there lay the problem. For years the careers from two had strayed from their lessons and paid for it with their blood. The academy sought to change that. “Sparring is—“ she sucked at the inside of her cheek.

“It’s elegant. Its—it’s a dance with steps we all learn to take. Nobody’s supposed to get hurt, but some students do get overeager.” In a real fight, she’d—well she’d never been in a real fight, but if she ever did, she knew she’d keep her form, her balance and execute the moves properly. She rubbed one of her temples thoughtfully. “I just don’t—there are rules.” She followed the handbook religiously. Almost as much as she followed the Goddess.

“Maybe we can pick this up again tomorrow? There’s some basics you need to brush up on.” She didn’t mean it as an insult, it was just a fact. Maybe Edelguard had been busy of late.