Tri-District Tournament Finals: Scarr vs Fray

The blade struck.

Again.

Again.

Again.

I pulled it out, heard the silence of the gaping hole it left in its wake. Watched in a daze as the medics came, took my glaive, grabbed my arms and shuffled me away from the scene of the crime.

Away.

Away.

Away.

I’m fine, I tried to tell them. Leave me alone. I’m not the one who needs help.

But I won – have to fight again tomorrow, and they’ll take me into the back room and stitch me up like a soft toy that’s losing its stuffing, torn at the seams. They’ll make me good as new and ready for a new day, the cycle of rinse and repeat, fight and win.

I let them guide me away, but it feels all wrong. I let them lay me down in a sterile bed with crisp linen, but it burns my skin. Help him, I tried to tell them. Help the boy with the hole in his heart who’s still back there bleeding all his broken pieces out.

Help him. Not me.

But I can’t form the words. Can’t make a sound.

And I am so, so, so tired.

I’m tired of fighting.

I’m tired of strength, and I’m tired of talking.

So I don’t.

.
.

When I wake up, it’s in my dormitory room with a bandage wrapped tightly around my right arm and a pounding headache at my skull. It’s a constant ringing in my ears I know won’t ease even as I reach for the glass of water on the bedside table.

The room is dark, the air warm. A faint sliver of moonlight is tucked away next to my right arm, having slipped through a notch in the curtain. The batteries of the alarm clock next to my bed have gone dead, stuck on the glowing red numbers of 16:03 for the last two days.

Disorientated, dizzy, exhausted.

The sound of the ocean is gentle and soothing. I can see myself riding the waves, getting lost out at sea, and it’s a bit how I feel right now, in this new land.

The last thing I remember before slipping under once more is the feeling of homesickness, and the taste of bittersweet salt.

.
.

When I wake up, it’s to morning light streaming through my window. 16:03 illuminated. A rush of blood to my head as I sit up, too fast, and everything comes flooding back with it.

The fight, and the ending; the hole in a boy’s chest, and the hole in my own.

I could go find him, see if he’s okay. I should go; I should go find the medical team and demand to know where they took him – listen impatiently as they tell me that they have him, that he’s okay, that they were always going back to him. That they didn’t just leave him there to wilt.

I should do all of these things.

I don’t.

I sit in my room and wait for the knock at my door that comes sometime after noon, signalled by the growing pains in my stomach reminding me I haven’t eaten in 24 hours.

But I know it’s not hunger gnawing at my conscience.

.
.

The stage is set, tripled in size as a grandiose gesture of the grand finale. The novelty of the tournament hasn’t waned – rather, has only grown, and I shouldn’t be surprised at the faces following me as I move forwards, but my heart stutters all the same.

I’m not used to this type of bravado. I’m used to the darkness and fighting in the shadows, settled under the constant veil of anonymity. I haven’t had my training scrutinised for years – there’s no one to impress when your parents are gone.

I am a nobody, and I’m content in that title. I don’t think I’m ready to give that up.

But my stubborn pride won’t let myself back down now.

So I try to ignore the way Syrena Fray stares back at me, golden-haired and golden-eyed, with her straight-back posture and the ghost of a smile on her lips. I see her mind spring to life, but I don’t give her the chance to speak or swing. I don’t let myself focus on anything more than the weapon in my hands and the arc of my arm.

xx attacks syrena with naginata (glaive)

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sc on chest - 4.0

She wastes no time and glares back at me as she swings her sword. She is fierce and determined to prove something here – but aren’t we all? And that’s the image of myself reflected back at me when I look at her and she looks at me. Tired, aching, but not done yet. Going through the motions of hand-to-hand, attack and defence. I wonder if she feels as relieved as me that this is the last fight – that soon enough we’ll be able to go home.

Because I’m exhausted. Drained both physically and mentally, almost emotionally. It’s there again, the nagging little voice at the back of my head reminding me that this is exactly why I’ll never amount to anything spectacular.

Eighteen years old, and still not a fucking idea what you’re doing.

But it helps a little, looking at the Fray girl. I don’t feel as alone, for a second, because I know that under her name of prestige is likely a whole other world hidden away from the glamour of top surface level. We all have our battles.

I don’t pity her; I respect her. I feel comforted in the knowledge that no matter what happens, we’re pretty fucking good. I hope she knows that.

I want to say as much to her, but too often has honest kindness been met with venom and suspicion – as if I’m wielding praise as ploy for an opponent to drop their guard and expose a chink in their armour. It also sounds, I’m realising, suspiciously close to the attitude of someone who’s giving up. Like the consolation prize the runner-up tells themselves to feel better. Two sides of a flipped coin; a glass half-full, half-empty.

Maybe I’ll see her later – or maybe not. I guess it depends on how badly she fucks me up first. She did sever someone’s fucking leg just a few days ago, after all. So I keep my mouth shut tight for the moment, only allowing myself a small smile as I strike again.

xx attacks syrena with naginata (glaive)

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dg on stomach - 9.0

Oh. Okay. She didn’t like that.

I have the sense to almost look ashamed before remembering who I am, who she is, where we are. I hold my ground as I hold her gaze and step back slightly as my blade drops to my side.

I see it coming, tell myself I’m ready for the fire of her next attack and duck low to avoid her sword. But it’s a fraction too late, and she manages to open up the cut on my forehead from days prior, and there’s no escaping that it’s going to leave a scar.

I can feel them piling up, the stale air tapping on my skin gently and leaving tiny pinpricks of pain in their wake. We sigh and grunt into the open space, and the sounds are of familiarity and one Le Roux stalking me in silence before an inevitable ending. It’s the audience fanfare that throws me – not for the first time, and I worry it won’t be for the last either.

Maybe this isn’t the fight they expected of a finale. Maybe they wanted spitfire insults and a grand cat-fight to rule them all.

But I’m not a caged circus animal. I don’t bend to the wills of others. I’m my own god damn lioness, and I just want this to be fucking over so I can take my rest and be back in the pride of my home.

xx attacks syrena with naginata (glaive)

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sc back of head - 4.5

I think I expected more from her. The heresay of presence and “your name precedes you” and all of that bullshit. But she’s barely managed to graze my skin, shallow cuts here and there like I’m moving too fast for her and always two steps ahead.

She barely has any fight left in her now. And I get it – I feel the fatigue in my bones too, can barely bring myself to lift my sword again and again. I surprise myself with every minute passed with the way my body settles into this battle with endurance. It no longer feels like I’m fighting a real, breathing person, but rather my own personal cloud of black fatigue.

She aims for my head again, opening up the wound even bigger as blood trickles down my cheek and warms me from the outside. Repeated strikes, aiming for the eyes but fuck her right back if she thinks I’m going to walk out of here with a fractured eye socket. I keep waiting for the final killing blow that I’m certain she’s capable of – it would be a mistake to soften, to accept the barely there slices as the best she has to offer.

But the intensity never comes.

I don’t want to lose, but it feels so strangely harrowing to see the familiar look of despondence in her eyes, narrowed and watching, on guard more than ever now that she knows the end is near.

“Don’t give up on me okay? Just a little bit longer,” I murmur under my breath, so low and uncertain and shaking I even surprise myself to hear the words come to life.

Maybe this is my downfall. Maybe this is where my world crashes and burns. I don’t really know anymore.

I don’t mean for it to sound condescending – hope it doesn’t come across as so. Encouraging, maybe? Definitely not taunting, but she’s as unpredictable as they come and there’s no telling what she hears in my words.

Whatever. Let her take it how she will. I don’t care enough to wait and see her response. At least, that’s what I tell myself and try so desperately to believe.

xx attacks syrena with naginata (glaive)

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sc on chest - 4.0

I’m getting pretty sick and tired of being hit in the face. The migraine digs its claws in stronger than ever and I struggle to stand as the dizziness tries to fell me. No matter what I throw, I can’t dodge her sword quite right, my legs heavy and my defence lacking.

Guess I know what I’ll be working on when I get back home.

And that’s probably the most sickening part of this entire ordeal, I’m realising. There’s no end to this. People like Syrena Fray get to pick and choose where they go in life. Silver spooned privilege, a fight is just another weekend to them – next weekend a party, the weekend after a meeting in the Capitol, and they’ll take every opportunity thrown at them whilst barely batting an eyelash. It’s not the straight and narrow path that the rest of us are told we need to trudge along if we want to amount to anything. This is all we know. And one day we’ll ask ourselves if it’s enough, or if we’ve just wasted our youth, and we won’t know how to answer those questions. So we turn our backs and push down the rising bile.

I feel sick, so violently ill that I want to puke, but it’s just a fight, just one fight to go. It’s just one more hit, a shot in the dark that’s all shows of lightning and reflections of our hidden ghosts. Only they’re creeping in from the sides of my imagination, becoming more and more real as their voices grow in timbre and it’s the dead of the night again, a house too cold and a wooden plank that leaves me with splinters in every single one of the fingers on my right hand and I just want to be left alone, leave me alone.

xx attacks syrena with naginata (glaive)

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miss - 0