What is love but short minute beats of the heart, creating flushed cheeks to burn the snow and cold away from one's face. Who dances in a blizzard with a blade in their hands, waiting for creatures to slink out of the white-out. She was the girl who waited for a hero to save her, to pull her out of the cell made from birth. But if a hero doesn't come, can one just make their own hero? If you can't find a strong man to sweep you off your feet, can you just find a skinny guy with a dog and turn him into Gamont piece to move at your leisure?

And can you do all that without losing your soul?

For 200 years, that was all Trini could think of. She made a mistake back then in choosing Arborior. He certainly showed the capacity and mind to kill her father. But on the eleventh hour, the dark elf ran. Now, 200 years later, the same body returned with a mind very much alike to his past, yet ever so different. She picked him again as her champion, her light to move across the board, though she was not entirely sure why.

“My dear daughter.” She turned her head to her father, walking alongside her through The Arena to their next meeting. “Your mind seems in the clouds.”

“I'm sorry, father. I am merely preparing myself for the coming party.”

“Don't worry.” He reached a suited arm around her and drew her close, kissing her temple as a tender father would. His hand rubbed her exposed shoulder tenderly. “You've done this a thousand times. Besides, I raised you for this. You will inherit all of these one day.” Her spine shivered, and not just because the sapphire blue dinner dress she wore was thin.

Sea elves lived for a long time. Knowing her father, he would only pass on control of The Arena to her when he died. Given the gap in their lifespan, she would be pushing 1,000 years by the time he passed. She will never have a hold of his fortune for long within her lifetime. Which meant the line he fed her was simply lies.

They meandered through just one of the dozens of corridors within one of dozens of passageways out of dozens of stairwells within The Arena, traversing through them with hundreds of years of memories - blueprints within the palace of their minds - until they crossed through a set of double oak doors opened by guards and into the glittering ballroom.

“Lords and ladies,” the announcer boomed. “Welcome to our hosts. The owner of The Arena, At-Tro-Pos, and his daughter, Tri-Ni-Ty.”

She drew her eyes and relaxed her lips into a smile, giving a small curtsy alongside her father's bow at the entourage of underworld bosses and corrupt politicians that had gathered. The room shone like the Twin stars, golden walls and marbled pillars surrounded a large ballroom floor of onyx and smoothened amethyst. Buffet tables stretched on the far end of the room, with standing tables littered across the setting where the elites were socialising. On the other end was a large stretch of reinforced glass which telegraphed out to another one of the many underground fighting areas they had.

“There he is,” her father whispered, his head tilting slightly to a large human male looking on from the side of the room on a table with a glass of wine and plate of food. “You know what to do.”

As the introduction wound down, she separated from her father's company and headed for the gentleman, though stopping strategically at different tables to mingle as she did so. At least 3 stops were needed from that distance, else she would look too needy of his services. However, throughout it all, she would have to keep her peripherals on her target.

“An exquisite event,” A delegate from a Devara tribe showered.

Eyes on the prize.

“I have not seen you since you were a child!” Gushed an elven Consolidate politician. Her husband said something to the same effect.

Eyes on the prize.

“Neo Deskett,” the third table of a lone man greeted, with a raspy voice and extended hand.

Eyes on the prize.

Finally, she reached the table with the merchant from Eltar. She parted herself for a wide, gleeing smile and a view of her thigh from the slit of her dress. The man's eyes lowered quickly, stared longingly, and returned hungry. His appearance mattered little to her. Handsome, ugly, beautiful, charming; None of how he looked mattered more than where and when.

“Hello Mister Dewitt.” She raised a glass to him.

“You know me?”

His eyes darted to her gills and his dimple turned up minutely. A sweat reflected on his brow in the dry cold. He shifted slightly around the table, closer to the side with the slit in her skirt.

She raised her mirrored smile, tilting her head down to look up at his eyes and hold back bile. “Of course. A most distinguished trader from the main continent. Your information network is well known.”

The announcer introduced their entertainment for the evening. A fight between four gladiators and a pack of wolves for the viewing pleasure of those attending. It drowned out a slew of compliments from Dewitt about her dress, but also her body, though she heard none of it for the words did not matter.

She looked down at her glass, reflection swirling violent violet in the blood of matte. “That's very kind of you to say. But I am much more interested in your exploit.”

While her eyes faced the merchant, she was staring past him as they fluttered. The man laughed haughtily, and made a faux gesture of humility. A cerulean gleam catches the corner of her eyes and beads of marbles gazed at her from under the cloth of one of the adorning furniture.

Trini gave a coy laugh. “Wonderful,” she replied. Dewitt seemed to lack the quality of the latter half of his name, completely not realising the lack of connected sinew between their conversations. She continued, “We must catch up after this, privately.”

She brushed his arm with hers, and she could see him tingle with excitement. Nothing of what he said following that reached her ears after she turned away, heading for the exit. Her father cut her off.

“Where are you going?” He asked sternly in a low voice, still wearing a smile. “We need Dimwitt's network.” His hand held her softly at the waist, though his fingers ran over familiar lines of scars.

How long would she take outside? What would convince her father to let her out of his sight for a sufficient amount of time?

“Dewitt seems to enjoy a certain scent,” she explained. “I have a perfume of the make, which I thought would make it easier to lead him on should I touch up with.”

Her father paused. The man was sharper than any of the so-called politicians in the room that played with the world. A dragon in a den of drakes.

Finally, he nodded. “Very well. Do you require guards?”

“I'm fine." She nodded and curtsied.

The two guards at the exit opened the way and closed the door behind her, cutting off cheers that erupted from the room as the gladiatorial battle began. She nodded thankfully to the guards outside and headed for the stairwell, swiftly blending with the closing of the stairwell entrance. A diamond rat scurried out of one of the vents in the wall, jumping off into air, metamorphosing into a dwarf mid-flight, before landing on two stubby feet.

“Sorry to bother ya', Tree,” Ratface spoke in his delightful accent.

“It must be an emergency if you're coming to me in the middle of a meet.”

“Nadier's missing. He went off to investigate 'thing but never went back to his cell.”

Her heart beat for a short minute. Had she lost her pair of light? “What were you two last searching for?” She asked, wondering how they could have possibly got into any trouble in just an hour since they last met.

“He um... he asked me to investigate that man, Aramas, from back when. But I've no clue where ya' man went after.”

Nadier was looking into his past. That was all the clue she needed. There were not many links in that 200 years long chain of a relationship of theirs. Just one more of many moves buried by the blizzard of their time.