Thanks to @armoury for the beta!

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“Morrigan, ya need to get me out ah here.” I said, calmly, slowly, and doing my best to look straight at the woman and precisely nothing else in the room. Lest I grab Mr Scott and threw him bodily into the arena below to see how he would do against ‘The Beast’. I could feel the helmet I was gripping bending in my hands slightly, the metal giving way to my hands as I pressed it against my side. I don’t recall when I grabbed my helmet, I may have walked up here with it on autopilot, but at that moment it was something I could exert my strength on that wasn’t alive.

Thankfully Morrigan received the message, as upon meeting my gaze she looped her arm through my own and guided me back towards the steps away from the VIP booth. I turned away from the group as we walked, my eyes briefly meeting Crawford’s before I made my way down the steps. The man’s expression was unreadable, or at least, it was unreadable to my current mind, and with hurried steps, Morrigan led me down the arena until we were once again back outside. The woman kept a death grip around my arm the entire way as if afraid I would rip it away and charge back up the steps.

Unlikely. Fair, but unlikely.

Once we reached the ground level however she freed my arm, and I looked back at the woman’s frowning face for a moment before I made my way towards the tunnel they took Beithir down. My boots crunched against the packed dirt as I moved, and I worked to unbend the faceplate of my helm as I stomped across it. The tunnel itself was as wide and tall as the one I saw back when I first arrived in this pisspot of a town, and I started to make my way down it with Morrigan chasing after me.

“Where precisely are you going Arthur?” Morrigan asked, having run the final way to come to my side once more.

“The one place in this city with people worth dealin’ with. They keep ‘em in cages here.” I replied. The yellow gas lights marked my way as I headed down into the underground section of the arena. Ahead I could see a door and beside it an armed guard. The man looked up as I approached, and whether out of fear from how I was walking, or the fact that I was uniformed, he opened the door for me. I didn’t bother looking at him as I stepped through and into the stables underneath the arena. It wasn’t…

The smell of shit was the first thing that hit me, the second was that of other refuse. All around me, spread out throughout a vast basement, were caged wyverns. Some were barely larger than the whipper-drakes that were within them, others were gargantuan things holding beasts not dissimilar to the one I saw above. Most were in bad shape, bars bent, stains on the floor, and the wyverns themselves, especially the ‘beasts’ were scarred and muzzled, heavy iron jars around their snouts to ensure they’d burn their own faces off before they had any hope of burning anything else. I looked past them all, looking for one in particular, and in the far corner I saw her, Beithir sitting in her cage, head resting on metal. It was the same cage she was in earlier, with the heavy lock holding the bar that blocked the door shut.

I felt a hand try to grab my shoulder as I walked forward, but I ignored it, walking past the wyverns until I reached my own. At my approach Beithir opened her eyes, she looked at me without apparent recognition for several seconds before she lurched back up onto her legs, wings pressing against the ground to hold herself up as she stared at me. I smiled at her, then looked at the lock, it was a simple thing of iron that went through a loop that prevented the bar on the door from being pulled off.

“I can get the ke-” Morrigan started.

But as she was speaking I simply raised my helmet and slammed it down onto the top of the lock just where the loop met the actual frame of the lock. I would be the first to admit I wasn’t very smart, the schooling available to me was adequate for what it was, and I had a knack for arithmetic, but any trades? The world? That was all unknown to me. But a life spent hauling farm equipment, rearing horses, and moving cattle. That gave me one thing if nothing else. Brute strength. With a satisfying metallic ‘ping’ the lock split, the loop popping out and the rest of it just hanging there loosely. I grabbed it, unhooked it, then tossed it aside. Then I wrenched the bar aside and swung the heavy iron door open. Beithir growled as I did so, and I smiled up at her and stepped inside her cage, my hand moved to rub at her snout as I did so.

“Arthur, what’s your plan here?” Morrigan asked.

“Ah’m staying with my wyvern until the race starts. If ah go back out there I’m likely to kill somebody,” My fingers traced the contours of Beithir’s scaled nose, the wyvern leaning into my touch as I answered without looking back. “Then ah’m going to participate in the race, ah’m gonna win, collect my prize money, then ah’m gonna pay off Beithir’s original owner then never return to London.”

“Are you angry, Arthur?” Morrigan asked, her voice was a touch quieter.

I blinked, then slowly turned my head to look back at the woman with as flat of an expression as I could muster.

“Stupid question,” Morrigan admitted. But she doesn’t avert her gaze.

“Aye, it was,” I replied. “Ah’ve had the pleasure of watching all of my friends and neighbors over the years move to London and Edinburgh, and frankly ah haven’t seen a single damn thing that impresses me. In fact, what happened up there would likely get ya chased out of town back where ah came from. And up there? They cheered louder than they ever did at our race.”

Morrigan crossed her arms. “Are you truly that naive Arthur, that you believe only people in the larger cities do this?”

“Ah know they don’t!” I replied, raising my voice and causing Beithir to slink back as I did so. “Don’t treat me like a damned fool Morrigan. There’ll always be dumb kids trying to tame little whipperdrakes they caught in the woods or damn blasted fools getting rid of a wyvern that grew too large. But that? An injured animal that has no way to defend itself against a scaled goliath? That’s not cruel, that’s ah damn affront to God ‘imself.” I then sighed, shook my head and looked back at Beithir. “People up there acting more like beasts than the wyverns down here.”

“Why do you think I’m against the practice Arthur?” Morrigan asked after several seconds of silence. “I don’t condone the practice.”

“Aye? What would you have to gain from tearing it down, ya teach a school for wyvern-riding.” I replied, not looking back at her. At least I wasn’t until she grabbed my shoulder and violently wrenched me around to look at her again.

“Yes. Wyvern-riding, not fighting Arthur. I don’t like it or condone it, and that’s why this is all happening. Beithir wasn’t signed up for racing, she was signed up to fight. I’ve tried to teach my students as best as I could.”

That gave me a moment's pause, the thought had never crossed my mind that Beithir was being used for the fights instead of the races. I met her gaze for several moments more before looking away again towards Beithir, the wyvern watching us both. Her eyes twinkled in the dim gaslights with what I would swear was amusement. Enjoying the show? “What do ya suggest ah do then.”

I felt her hand touch my shoulder again, this time far more gently. Then she leaned in to whisper something into my ear.

I smiled.