Mason counted his lucky stars that the Darkest Night disdained the bright sunlight. The sparring was pushed off until early evening, when the light had dimmed and the air began to cool. This allowed Mason the luxury of a nearly full day of rest, and for once he actually took that seriously.

He didn’t trace over his rune, didn’t dig into his soul and talk to Mowry and Geralt, didn’t practice his fighting stances, or do anything that could be considered constructive at all. Instead, he mostly napped. Occasionally he would pace around his shanty of a home and rummage through the cupboards, but he had found a certain peaceful comfort in lying on the couch with even his mind hardly wandering.

This laziness was a relic of his past that he knew he’d need to shrug off entirely before long, but for a brief few hours he felt connected to his human side. He’d gotten plastered with a girl he barely knew, woke up feeling wrecked, and slept away the day. If he had access to cartoons the day would have been complete. He even pondered whether it might be possible to find old re-runs in his branch of the Tree of Memories, but that seemed more likely to cause headaches than improve his rest.

But time moved on and the sun eventually set, and he found himself in a familiar field outside of the town, with a lot more people around than he had expected. Several Marrans he hadn’t met before came up to greet him, and they were polite if curt, seemingly more interested in meeting him to say they knew the human than because they actually wanted to know anything about him.

They were people after all. He felt like he was at a dinner party, rather than a sparring match.

Once he had been spun around the small crowd of two to three dozen people a few times, Torysen came up and took his elbow, pulling him off the field and into the covered shelter he had rested in with Faynel the previous day.

She sized him up quietly, and Mason felt like he was seeing the Torysen who had first agreed to train him, rather than the side of her that resented him.

“You recognize what this is about, correct?” she asked him after looking him over thoroughly.

“Well I’ve come to the conclusion it’s not about practice, at least.”

Torysen sighed and shook her head, “You look unsteady. What’s wrong with you today?”

Mason didn’t want to lie, but the truth seemed like more than he owed her at the moment. “I discovered that not all Marran food agrees with my digestion. I was sick earlier, but I’m alright now. I can fight.”

Her look grew more wary, “Demon. Tales have been spreading about you over the past few days. They say you have incredible powers and are seven feet tall and single-handedly saved my band from a tribe of Corrosi. Of course, the more skeptical in the city say that you’re a cowardly villain whose crimes I won’t repeat to you now.

“I need to prove to people that you are just a Marran,” she caught herself, “A human. That you are not worthless with a sword, but are no threat to our people either.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” Mason was beginning to feel shaky again. Perhaps Faynel hadn’t gotten him drunk the day before on accident. But then why would she have trained him at all? His nerves, mixed with the remnants of his sickness from that morning, left him feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

“It means don’t make a fool of yourself out there. Use none of your spells. Faynel is a good girl, and if you harm her, I will kill you. But she is also a strong fighter, so if you aren’t prepared, she might do that herself. And do not forget that both sides of the audience are looking for an excuse to hate or fear you.”

“So no pressure, right? You’re really great at this pep talk thing.” The hangover was making him cranky.

Torysen scowled but she didn’t chastise him. “Are you ready? I’ll explain the full rules in front of everyone.”

Mason nodded and spoke with forced confidence through his nerves, “I just have to put on a good show. I can do that.”

They walked onto the field and Torysen beckoned for Mason to stand opposite Faynel. Mason was caught by the look in her eyes- she seemed all competitor at this moment. There was a ferocity there he hadn’t seen the day before, much deeper than her naturally unattached demeanor.

“This is a real fight,” she said quietly. Mason simply nodded because Torysen was beginning to speak to the audience.

“The rules are simple,” the captain started loudly as the onlookers quieted down. Mason saw Leornal off to the side, arms crossed. Shayjol and his family were also in the audience, and he wished they had been the ones talking to him before Torysen. “Faynel and Mason Nevels will go three rounds to first contact. I’ve marked out a circle on the ground to indicate their boundary. If either of them step out of that ring, they lose the round. If either receives a direct hit to their body, they lose the round. Head shots are forbidden.”

Her simple speech made, she looked between the two of them. She then addressed them, rather than the audience, “Fight well. Go.”

Tension rippled through Mason as Faynel’s stance lowered slightly and the audience began to murmur. They were positioned closely together and the ring was small. There would be no chasing her about this time, which put them slightly closer in terms of skill. But she was also intensely focused, which meant he was unlikely to catch her off-guard with a trick like yesterday.

They began to circle one another slowly, but neither seemed willing to make the first move. Mason took the delay as a chance to get used to his sparring blade. It was longer than the short sword he had been using, the one he had basically stolen from Treyjol and Shaywise at this point. It also seemed heavier for that length, despite being made of wood. He held it between him and Faynel, and every motion he made seemed to drag through the air. He didn’t relish the delay.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was less time for either of them to make much more than a full circle, Faynel stepped forward with a testing slash. Mason parried it, but barely. Her speed was enough to catch him off guard even in this small arena.

They both found themselves falling naturally into the pattern of the footwork they were trained in. As always, Faynel moved more gracefully through the motions, but Mason’s defenses were still fortified by the familiarity in the step. Faynel struck out again, twice this time, and Mason ducked to the side and knocked her blade away. There was a muttering in the crowd.

Mason didn’t watch Faynel’s face, so he missed the sharp glances she was throwing his way. She hadn’t honestly thought he’d be able to handle her first two attacks at all. To him, this fight was about proving his worthiness, but to her, it was about reasserting her status in New Marra.

There was still too much talk that she was only on the Roving Band because her mother had called in a favor, and that Torysen’s being assigned to such a safe and boring area was an extension of that. This crowd wasn’t large, but if she proved herself here, she knew they would be the ones to talk about her victory.

The next strike was Mason’s, and Faynel batted his sword back casually then stepped forward with a jab. Mason dodged, but suspected he was being toyed with. He moved forward himself, striking twice, and before he knew what had happened, there was a sharp pain in his side.

Torysen called out that the point was to Faynel, and for them to reset.

They began the next bout circling the other way, but wasted much less time getting to the fight of it. As the crowd kept chatting away, they began exchanging blows. Both of them were sloppy, even if Faynel was the more graceful of the two, and Mason picked up on a fairly valuable secret: Faynel may be fast, but she was not exceptionally skilled with her sword.

Still though, he wouldn’t have wanted to face her where she could run and hide. Even face to face, she moved quietly, and with her speed she could likely do some serious harm undetected.

The speed at which they traded blows wore Mason down. He was still shaky from the previous night, but Faynel’s determination to take the match seriously reminded him that he couldn’t rest on any excuse to not give the fight his all. He slashed heavily at her chest and she knocked his blade aside, and when she dived to the side to strike him down low he managed to slip out of her way. Worried that he was nearing the edge of the arena, he doubled down and began to put all his force into his attacks, caring little for accuracy, strategy, or footwork.

The frenzy paid off as he pushed her backwards but as she rushed to keep up her defense, Mason saw a devious grin form on her face. He was already mid-swing when he sensed something was off, and she spun around him and charged into his shoulder, sending him stumbling out of the ring.

The crowd was practically buzzing at this point, and Mason tried to gauge their thoughts as Torysen declared Faynel the winner of the bout.

The fight hadn’t been particularly impressive- neither of them were truly talented swordsmen, and Faynel was clearly faster and more experienced. And although that had sort of been the point of the demonstration, Mason looked back at Faynel and felt like there was more to be said between him and Faynel on the battlefield.

He crossed over to her silently and put out his hand. They shook, and Mason stepped closer so that they couldn’t be overheard, “You bested me fairly, but don’t you think we should put on one more show?”

Faynel looked at him with another new expression- something akin to hunger, or passion. She turned to Torysen and said just loud enough for the captain to hear, “One more round with everyone here. No ring size.”

Torysen looked between the two of them, and her lips traced the faint line of a smile, “As you wish.”

She turned and announced another round, but Mason regarded the crowd which hadn’t moved at all and felt like his decision was merely predictable. Or maybe the audience was just hoping to see blood.

When Faynel and Mason squared off this time, they were double the distance from one another as they had been in their previous fights. The lack of an arena meant that Mason couldn’t hope to bully her out of the ring, and he had to contend with her speed now too, but he had been itching for a real fight since their footwork dance the day before.

He shook himself to try and rub out the fatigue and disorientation he was still experiencing, then found his stance.

Faynel was on him in seconds, having sprinted across the gap almost as quickly as Torysen could move. The familiarity of it had put Mason on edge though. He stepped aside and swatted at Fay, but she planted her feet and pivoted, catching the blow with her own sword and pressing into it to push him back.

Mason’s guard broke momentarily as he tried to find his feet, and he just barely had his sword back up in time to block her next strike. He tried to counter her but their swords met again in midair, and the clacking strike of the wood rang in his ears. He took a deep breath as he dove back and felt dust in his nose, so he forced air out to clear his passage and narrowed his eyes.

A cloud of dust might make for some good ambience. He ran around to her side while she eyed him, and did his best to kick up dust as he went. She was ready with an attack well before he got near her so he jumped to the side to make some distance. She rushed after him and he was forced to block, barely planting his feet in time.

The audience was growing louder, suddenly more impressed by the swift movements of the two. Sure, their strikes were sloppy and neither really had much of a technique, but when they moved around quickly they both looked alive.

And felt it, too. There was a certain strength to Mason’s legs as he planted and lunged. He could feel the mana inside of him spreading to his limbs, and that energy invigorated his muscles. He had barely begun to sweat from the first two rounds, but as they crossed blades, retreated, charged, ducked, dodged and charged again, he felt his body grow warm and his sweat mixing with the dust in the air.

“Watch out!” Faynel shouted as she swept her blade at his legs. The distraction failed though, Mason stepped back from the attack easily, and responded with a thrust.

“Cheap tricks, huh? I guess I’m finally making you sweat!”

“I’m barely getting warmed up!”

Was that a cliche? Mason didn’t have time to consider it. Calling her out on her tricks seemed to only invigorate the very fast fighter. She stabbed in rapid succession, almost using her sword as a rapier. Mason couldn’t turn the attack- he wasn’t even sure where he’d put his sword if he tried. So he just kept trying to move back, but as her attacks kept coming, he lost his footing.

He slipped in the dust, and sprawled back on his butt. Faynel didn’t hesitate- she leapt on top of him and put her sword to his neck, and he gulped as he looked at her. Violet hair stuck to the sweat on her face from where it had come loose from her hair tie, and she gazed into his face with a killer focus that made him wonder if she remembered they were really sparring.

Her knee between his legs and one hand on his chest, he wasn’t certain that the vulnerability he felt was because of her sword, or something… else.