When Lina stepped through into the area with a muffled yawn, she paused for the slightest of moments as she took in all the faces that were turned toward her. The frank gazes all turning toward her and focusing loosely on her letting her know that her arrival was anticipated.

Ruth was crouched in the middle of the sparring area. He raised a hand to get her attention and waved her over. A quick flex of his legs propelled him to his feet as he hopped lightly from foot to foot. It wasn’t that he was anxious about getting stabbed or cut, he just didn’t want to lose sight of that feeling he had when he was fighting Jeanne.

The world became clearer. Noises reduced and turned into useful information. Irrelevant people faded into the background. He could feel his heart beating steadily in his chest. Even now while Lina was walking toward him, giving a spare glance to Jeanne who was already being woken, he wished she would hurry.

“Breakthrough?” She asked him as she sidled into the dragon-shaped dirt patch. She was so small looking, her dark eyes burning into him as she gave him a lazy once over. It would be easy to get fooled into thinking she was harmless. “Congratulations.” Her accent was weird. Heavier than the others here at the castle. Ruth suspected she wasn’t originally from here. Merriweather didn’t seem to fit, and neither did Solace. Where they planted here in his path by Tamara?

Ruth narrowed his eyes as she did a thing and two knives appeared in her hands. He wasn’t sure if they came from the arm wraps, her gloves, her belt, or somewhere else. He shrugged, continuing the shoulder movement far longer than necessary as he started to work the tension out of his muscles. He had learned that holding too much tension was bad. He would need to be flexible and relaxed if he wanted to react in time to her strikes.

“Mmm. Okay. Before we start, I just want you to know something,” Lina smiled. “I’m the daughter of the top family in Under Arch, it’s fine for me to cut you and beat you, but I warn you that if you hurt me, even if I am healed from it, my family will not forgive you. They will have to send assassins and men to beat and possibly kill you. It is a matter of reputation.”

Ruth blinked rapidly as he felt his mouth start to drop open. He lost the feeling completely. Everything slipped away as he considered this new information. The way she spoke, with that matter-of-factness, really gave him the impression that he should just stand here and let her stab him. Wouldn’t that be the right thing to do anyway? Wasn’t he testing out his ability to acquire skills?

Lina took the moment and stepped in, he tried to react by punching out but she moved in, propped herself under his shoulder, hurled him to the ground. The next thing he knew she was sitting on his chest and the point of the knife was in the nape of his throat. She moved her free hand to the top of the pommel of the knife and tapped it lightly. “You’re dead.”

“So I am,” Ruth agreed, staring up at her in amazement.

“Why are you dead?” Lina smiled, her words hard for him to parse with their relative positions and her heavy accent.

“Knife?” Ruth guessed. His face started to scowl as the smile on Lina’s face blossomed. “Get off me.”

“Respect the dead,” she agreed. She sat back and then stood up. When she went to step across him her foot paused, and then planted on his chest. She used him as a footstool and moved casually away, hips swaying without a backward glance.

A kind of overwhelming all-encompassing red threatened to steal his vision and judgment. Was this the effect of that strange [Fury]? He pushed it down and slowly stood up, considering his options.

It didn’t matter, really, his plan was just to get stabb--

“My family will likely also make it hard for those who know you. It won’t be enough to just hurt you, we’ll have to go after people you know. Otherwise we might appear weak. You understand?” Lina lifted her knives and began slowly walked toward him.

Her comment made his mind blank once more. Did she know that he was just going to stand here and let her stab him? What was the point of this? The more she talked about her family and how she was protected the more eager he was getting to just beat her into the ground. But… who would they go after really? Rush? The kids at the docks?

Ruth frowned. Rush could take care of himself, but the kids at the warehouse? Did he… care about that?

The world spun around. She had moved in front of him and then swept his non-existent guard out from under him, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him as he fell. His nose pressed into the dirt. When he exhaled in a huff as the air was driven from his lungs the dirt flared up around his face, stinging his eyes and getting into his mouth. He felt a hand gripping his horns and the tip of a knife pressing against the base of his skull.

“Dead. Ass up.” He felt her lean down as she continued whispering in his ear. “It is okay. Not everyone is born into a great family. There is no shame. This is just your misfortune.”

The pressure was gone for a moment as she lifted herself off his body. A small foot on his back planted for a moment before loosely shoving off. He listened to her footsteps as they faded away.

Ruth didn’t immediately get up. He stayed in the undignified position for nearly a minute as he worked through the things that were happening to him. He considered what she had said. It was just his misfortune that she was in a position where he couldn’t truly retaliate. Just his misfortune that he had been minding his own business when Tamara had appeared from nowhere and destroyed his life. His misfortune that no matter how he tried to live peacefully on his mountain there was always a band of humans, an invading ogre clan, some stupidly large creature that wanted his lair. His misfortune at entering the world as a fledgling dragon among other whelps.

It was simple. Ruth stood up slowly, the dirt and dust staining only one half of his face in a comical fashion. He turned around and faced Lina.

“What’s the name of your family?” Ruth asked, trying to wipe some of the spittle and dirt from his jaw.

“Why?” Lina lifted her daggers, but this time she paused, that smile that had blossomed on her face earlier seeming to go even wider.

“I think it is easier to kill you all if I know what the name is,” Ruth felt the top of his mouth with his tongue, tasting blood. He took a second to spit the bloody dirt from his mouth, eyes not moving from Lina.

Lina laughed. “Yes! That is correct.”

“...what?” Ruth blinked. Her delight in his response threw him off.

“If someone comes at you with reputation, they are asking for you to involve their family, yes? This is the way of the strong. Always try to eat the prey even if it is bigger than you.” Lina took a step back keeping a healthy range between them even as Ruth took a step forward.

“So you don’t come from a big family?” Ruth tilted his head questioningly. His eyes narrowed.

“If I did, it wouldn’t matter. I used to listen to stories of the old days, in Kitvalka, the bad place. In Kitvalka, there once existed many great families. Their power spread over the largest cities. Everyone had to pay them respect if they saw them in the streets. Even if the one you saw was weak, he would only speak the name of his family and people would be too afraid to strike back. This method of reputation fighting grew in popularity, as a result. Soon families vied with each other for reputation and competed in more and more ridiculous ways. Feuds were started because lower family members demanded they were given respect in the most ludicrous situations. It was even expected. A member of a high family must never show weakness, must never admit inferiority, must always strike hard…”

Ruth kept taking steps forward and Lina kept stepping back. When she started to reach the edge of the dirt pit she just started circling the edge. “Sounds complex.”

“Not really. You see, more often than not, on many worlds not just Kitvalka, all it took was some younger generation nobody to offend someone they should not have. WIthout fail you know what they would say?” Lina’s smile faded slightly. “If you hurt me, my family will never forgive this offense.”

She shrugged lightly before continuing, “and it happened all the time. The person they had offended was completely capable of handling a whole family. The response of the truly strong is always straightforward and obvious. Like your response. If one comes. Kill one. If two come. Kill two. If you want your whole family involved, they are involved.”

“Is there a point to this?” Ruth scratched his head. It was a very interesting story, he had to admit. The concept that people would bring their loved ones in to conflicts they hadn’t been apart of was mystifying to him. Humans were really the fucking worst.

“Well, it let me beat you up twice in a row?” Lina chuckled. “I just thought it was an interesting story. You are an interesting fellow.”

“Do people still do that?” Ruth questioned, and as he looked around slightly, keeping Lina in his line of sight, he saw a few people(Poppy, Merriweather, and a few others) all nodding in a ‘what can you do’ sort of way.

“They do. These are not the ones you need worry about. If someone says this to you, you should just kill them because it is a show of weakness. All the great families that once did this thing no longer tolerate it, or are dead. If you are a member of a great family you will be given a censure if you try to use your family name for protection. The death toll is just too high and the risk too great. In Kitvalka, while gods and goddesses are few, it is still possible to offend one. Most family heads will tell their younger generation the same thing. If you are in trouble, keep our name to yourself. If you are unimportant and you die, die knowing you have not brought death onto your family and be proud. If you are important to the family, die knowing that we will avenge you if possible.”

“What about here in Under Arch?” Ruth asked.

“There are those who try to hide behind their families, but most established families know that it is folly to risk the extermination of your whole line. Especially now that there are rumors that a god walks Under Arch.” Lina looked him over knowingly.

“That would be bad,” Ruth agreed solemnly. A vision of someone on the street bumping into Tamara and then sneering at her. Yeah. That would be the end of that person’s line if they yelled out their family name.

“Yeah.” Lina came to a stop, no longer stepping backward. She seemed smaller all of a sudden. The change in behavior caused Ruth to hesitate too. “Can I ask you something?”

Ruth raised an eyebrow and raised his arms, half-worried she would try to distract him and attack him again. It just made her smile wryly at him.

“If someone ever tries to use their name against you, call them a moron?”

“Okay, moron.”

“Thanks.”

She was quick as usual as she came in. Her style consisted of getting in very close to him and ducking under his punches and grabs and striking lightning fast with the tip of her blade toward his sides and under his shoulders, sometimes letting the sharpened blade carve across his flesh in the journey toward such spots. There were any number of times in his few brief fights with her where he’d felt the true thrill of danger beneath her blades. The implicit understanding that she had been going easy on him even when she cut into his body.

This time was different.

The feeling of danger was much higher. Without any preamble he began backing up, making his early pursuit of her while she spoke seem funny in retrospect. His tail dipped behind him and kicked up dirt toward her face. His aim with sassy tail and tailkicking dirt up at his opponents was reaching a truly proficient level. Her eyes were locked on him and didn’t flicker for the slightest moment. Her eyes simply closed a little bit, obviously stinging from the few particles that struck.

She flicked her left hand and the knife disappeared from it. It reappeared in his shoulder before he could react, pushing him backward slightly. He raised his other hand to stop the advance of her other knife, which she power-assisted with her newly freed hand.

The feeling of danger increased again as he saw that the blade was set to strike him center mass below the ribcage.

The slow feeling happened again. Every detail in the immediate surroundings sharpened. He could make out the way the veins in her arms stood out as she put pressure on the hilt of the knife. The calm focus of her eyes as she plunged forward with the expression of someone who had done this a thousand times and didn’t expect any sort of different result this time.

The way her eyes didn’t flinch when she acknowledged the way his tail was moving down near her legs in a slow effort to impede her progress. The tail was too slow and he wouldn’t make it.

The split second of clarity continued as his eyes saw every detail and his mind had plenty of time to formulate a plan. She had called it a breakthrough. Maybe that’s what it was? It didn’t feel like a skill as described to him by Merriweather and the others. It was just that his body was suddenly faster and more capable than his opponents.

Lina was more skilled, more experienced, and had a surprising lack of concern on whether he’d live through her blows today. His body was just better now. Speed, reaction, strength, decision-making. What would this be like when he was a demi-god? What was it like to be a god?

Ruth chose the simplest method. No stranger to inflicting pain on himself in order to hurt his foe, he lifted his hand and pushed his palm against the tip of the blade. The length of the blade slid through his hand even as his fingers tried to close around it. His other arm reached up to grab her wrist.

Lina immediately abandoned the knife, she had a lot of knives, after all. The length of his reach and the speed of his grab with his free hand must have surprised her because her eyes finally widened as he snagged her arm. He pulled her toward him and stretched his torso backward in preparation to deliver a headbutt.

Lina immediately dropped, her full weight pulling downward and out of range of the headbutt. She lowered her shoulders and pushed into his waist, twisting her head at just above his waistline.

Cold sweat broke out on his skin as he felt the kiss of razors cutting open his stomach. Lina had razorblades in her mouth or on her collar? Just how in love with blades was she? Where did she keep them all?

Almost as if sensing his disbelief and his unspoken question about knives, she tapped her right foot on the ground and a small blade appeared from the tip of her boot. She twisted her foot and kicked toward his shins.

Ruth’s hand with the knife blade in it went down and he pushed his palm downward, slapping it down on the top of her leg.

A grunt of pain sounded out as the blade sliced into her leg, pushing her foot back down and making her involuntarily straighten her back.

The moment was all he needed to get a better grip on her, fingers painfully stretching around her leg even as his grip on her wrist and forearm tightened.

Can’t headbutt her? Can’t seem to punch her? Can’t grapple her on the ground because she’s like a goddamn snake-eating weasel? Fine!

Ruth lifted her up and abruptly bodyslammed her onto the ground. He didn’t stop when her body froze at the unexpected movement and impact. He lifted her and slammed her down again. He went to his knees so he didn’t have to lift her up as high, separating her from the ground and lifting her only a meter this time before slamming her into the dirt.

His eyes were wide as he hammered her whole body into the ground with all his strength. Even when she went limp he thought it might be a trick so he did it twice more for good measure.

Ruth tore the knifeblade from her leg as he pulled his hand away and released his hold on her arm. He scrambled away on his good hand and knees, only briefly taking his eyes off of her to remove the knife from his hand. The feeling of danger hadn’t decreased in the slightest when he’d been picking Lina up and slamming her down.

When he looked up he saw Lina was being dragged by Merriweather out of the circle. Poppy was shoving Jeanne, who had been resting near her, out of the way as she waited.

From the way Poppy moved in quickly to check and then looked bored, Ruth assumed that Lina was fine. There was a slight feeling of relief. This place was full of people that made Ruth feel danger, but at least Lina always made it feel impersonal.

He shook his head, looking down at the jagged hole in his palm and sucked in a breath. He tried blowing on it but that only made it hurt more. A lot more. He closed his eyes and tried to cover it with his free hand.

Agggh! Don’t blow on it!

Ruth looked around expectantly for the immortal and deadly text. When it didn’t appear he was a little disappointed. Apparently there was no such thing as ‘stab resistance’. Or maybe there was and he couldn’t get it for some reason.

If Lina had known Ruth’s thoughts(and been conscious) she might have made a face. Cutting into Ruth had been a real chore this time around.