Ranvir frowned at Grev, his glare going straight over the chessboard between them. For once they weren’t in the common room, nor were they at the rime oak, despite both Ranvir- and Sansir’s suggestions. Instead, they were sitting in a drinking house. One that, apparently, appealed to a more cerebral kind of clientele.

The Nightly Ale was a very different drinking house than the Flying Arrow, the first one Grev had taken them to. Grev said it had a better, cozier atmosphere. Ranvir didn’t exactly know what that meant other than it did a good job of keeping out a lot of noise from the outside, especially from their table on the second floor. But if he was to guess it meant that it was poorly lit and the tables were spaced so widely apart that the room seemed almost empty, though he had noticed that wasn’t true for the ground floor. Not that there were any chess boards down there. It had a currently empty fireplace for which Ranvir was very grateful, the summer was only getting hotter. It was barely noon and the drinking house was almost completely empty, except for their group and a few older people on the first floor.

Sansir sat at a nearby table replaying Ranvir’s and Grev’s game with Esmund, explaining their moves to him. Sansir seemed genuinely interested to Ranvir’s surprise. Grev wasn’t winning, yet. Though Ranvir was thinking it was leaning more and more in that direction. He wasn’t good enough at chess to play with Grev: he was just good enough at playing against him to make it seem like it.

If he’d been playing against a stranger of equal skill to Grev, it would’ve been an easy sweep. But Ranvir was facing Grev and he knew him well enough to give him problems.

It was something that seemed to frustrate Sansir, since Ranvir wasn’t playing the best game of chess he could. He was playing the best counter to Grev he could. Which led to some illogical moves, Ranvir was sure. That wasn’t the part that seemed to drive Sansir wild, it was how Grev capitalized on those moves. Or rather how he fumbled them.

“This is interesting.” Grev mumbled, finally moving his bishop. Ranvir blinked, he’d have thought Grev would be moving his rook.

Shit. The problem Ranvir had found so far, when playing to counter someone, was the winning part. Making moves his opponent didn’t see coming, them being unable to tell what was going to happen and putting them on edge was good. Actually taking those opportunities and closing the game would be better. Currently, he was basically just playing until Grev caught on.

“I have to adjust how I think about the game.” Grev said, more confident now. “Like we’ve been fighting in my blind spot and I finally managed to turn around enough to see you.”

Ranvir made another move but he didn’t know how much Grev saw, making him feel like a cat caught in a tree above a barking dog. Trapped with only one way out. Grev made his next move quicker, with more certainty. I could win this. Ranvir realized. If he could draw the game out, like he’d seen Sansir do on occasion, he could lure Grev to lower his guard.

Five minutes later Grev mated his king and they began resetting the pieces. They did so silently, as another protest moved through the streets outside. Luckily this establishment lacked any large windows, only having a few shuttered ones along the wall to the street. No glass in them either, glass rare even in the capital. As Grev had explained to to them earlier, ‘you couldn’t afford to protect it at night, should you really buy it during the day?’

“So what went wrong for Ranvir?” Esmund asked, once the protesters passed. They hadn’t cleaned up their table, it was still locked into a mimicry of Grev’s last move.

“Grev managed to keep a calm head, even though he was losing and confused.” A little smile played across Sansir’s mouth as he spoke.

“Hey!”

“Meanwhile Ranvir was doing a good job of putting him off balance, but he was unable to make any meaningful plays off it. Too worried about becoming transparent to finish the game.”

Ranvir narrowed his eyes. Was that true? The game had been quite long, Grev spending most of it on the back foot. Yet he’d still won in the end.

“See here when Grev moved the bishop. Ranvir could’ve taken his rook, but instead decided to lock down the queen. He was trying to push Grev back into the previous state of play, which lost him the advantage. After that, it was just a matter of time before Grev cleaned up the rest of his board.”

“But if I didn’t lock down the queen, it would’ve been free to move as it pleased.” Ranvir had joined them. Moving his knight back close to the queen, from where Sansir had placed it as an example. “Besides, taking the rook would’ve been the obvious move.”

“It was an obvious move because it was a good one.” Grev said, joining them on the other side. “See.” He quickly moved the pieces around, mimicking their turns and plays. “Here you take my queen.” He illustrated, sacrificing it to protect his king. “Instead of spending five turns only for me to break it free, costing multiple of your own pieces in the process.”

Ranvir bit his lip to avoid gritting his teeth, as he stared intently at the board. He battled to keep the emotions off his face, as green waves of excitement crashed together, frothing up red angry foam. “Fuck.” He muttered, they were right. He’d played too defensively trying to keep the status quo, instead of realizing that time was done and change his approach.

He aggressively rubbed at his chin, red froth staining the waves and pushing against his tongue, trying to make him say things he would regret.

“You’re right.” He forced the waves to still, both the anger and the excitement, as he spoke.

“That reminds me.” Esmund said, after glancing at Ranvir for a second. “How do you feel when playing chess?” It wasn’t a particularly good attempt at redirecting everyone’s attention, but Ranvir appreciated it. Going back to his own table he grabbed his and Grev’s mugs before returning.

“I like it. Seeing the potential strategies, making the prerequisite moves in my head. Anticipating my enemy’s reaction.” Sansir replied, resetting his board.

Ranvir took a long drink of his beer, it wasn’t cold anymore but still tasted better than anything he’d had at the village.

“So would you describe it as… yellow?” Esmund asked.

Ranvir choked on his beer. The golden fluid wasn’t quite as good coming out of his nose, as it was going down his throat.

“Are you okay?” Sansir asked, half getting up from his chair.

“What kind of question was that?” Grev asked. Ranvir could tell from his tone, that he’d caught something of the exchange. “Is his feelings towards chess yellow? What does that even mean?” His words were directed to Esmund, but his body language was directed to Ranvir.

Ranvir couldn’t find a napkin, so he used his sleeve.

“I think it’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask.” Es replied, grinning widely.

At this point, Sansir had caught on that something was going on too. “I don’t know that I would describe it as… yellow. Emotion and color doesn’t really go together like that.”

“Yeah.” Grev drew out the word, looking expectantly at Ranvir. “That would be really weird, wouldn’t it?”

“No. You wouldn’t even know, unless someone,” He glared at Esmund, “told you. It’s perfectly normal.”

“He’s very weird about it.” Esmund said, like he was a young parent talking about one of their child’s more peculiar habits. “Best to just agree with him.”

“It’s not that fucking weird.” Ranvir growled.

“What do I feel like?” Grev asked.

“You’re ass colored.”

“You hear that? He thinks about my ass! Intriguing.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Sansir, who shook his head. Though Ranvir saw the subdued shake of his shoulders. Narrowing his eyes Ranvir took another drink of his beer, trying to think of a good comeback.

“It is a very fine ass.” Sansir said, then smacked it hard enough that Grev staggered a step forwards. Grev’s wide-eyed look of shock as he almost bumbled into the table was so genuine and foreign that Ranvir let out a snort of laughter, right into the mug he was still drinking.

Beer sprayed in every direction, both onto him and his friends. There was a moment of silence marked by Grev’s red cheeks, before all four of them burst into laughter.

“You better not be leaving beer on those chess pieces.” It was the old barkeep who spoke, throwing a wet rag at Ranvir. “We don’t want no sticky pieces, you hear?”

Ranvir nodded still slightly out of breath. He pulled over a chair and began wiping down the pieces one at a time.

“He wouldn’t have made me do that.” Grev grumbled, though he was clearly still in good humor, as he pulled over a chair of his own. Ranvir just shrugged, he didn’t really mind.

“Is that another one?” Esmund asked, turning to look out the shuttered window.

“Sounds like it.” Grev didn’t sound immediately worried, though Ranvir noticed a tightness around his eyes that wasn’t from smiling.

“That’s the fifth one, right?” Esmund slowly turned away from the window, taking a sip of his mug. Ranvir and he had switched to water some drinks ago. Partially to avoid getting drunk, but also because beer didn’t taste the greatest, even in the capital. Sansir was still on his second mug, despite having sipped on it for nearly two hours.

“Fourth one.” Grev corrected, emptying his mug. Ranvir hadn’t kept count of his drinks, but he wasn’t slurring so he couldn’t have been too deep. Though he’d drunk more than the rest of them. “It’s probably around time that we should be heading back towards the square and the academy.”

Ranvir nodded, keeping his eyes focused on his friends. As the day passed they stopped playing chess and just moved on to talking. The Nightly Ale had also filled up considerably more than before.

“Four protests in a single day.” Esmund shook his head. “I feel like that’s a lot. Maybe it’s just one that’s been passing through our area multiple times?”

Grev shook his head, “No, I don’t think so. Like I said, the movement has been growing in the city. It’s not surprising they would be out in numbers when the academy is.”

Esmund cocked his head. “I hadn’t thought of that.” He examined the room in greater detail. “Think any of them are in here?”

Esmund’s words intensified the creeping black and orange tension that had slowly been setting its hooks into Ranvir. He’d noticed long ago that not all the gazes sent their way were friendly.

“Grev’s right.” Ranvir said, keeping his eyes locked to their group. He wasn’t afraid of making eye contact with strangers, but he felt the tension in the room like a drawn bow. The arrow aimed at his throat and the barest movement could set it off. But he also tended to over read into tension sometimes, maybe it wasn’t anything. If they left now it would be fine. “We should go.”

Sansir shot him a curious look. Ranvir knew he’d noticed the stares too, but he didn’t seem as worried about it. Maybe it was because he was of a size, if not bigger than, any of the men in the room. Maybe he just didn’t think anything would happen from it.

Esmund on the other hand shared one glance with Ranvir and immediately tensed up. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

They all nodded and headed for the bar to pay their tabs. It was expensive, Ranvir thought. Not that he had much experience paying for such establishments, as there weren’t any in the village. Though, occasionally the mayor would hold an event for the grown ups, which he hadn’t yet been to.

As they were paying, Ranvir saw the shoulders and neck of someone go down the stairs. He noticed a table, close to said stairs, still had mugs on it but was currently empty.

He was the last to pay. Since Sansir and Grev were seemingly unworried, they were already headed down. Esmund sent nervous glances towards Ranvir, but he followed them after Ranvir nodded that it was okay. The movement, for some reason, sent a spike of red through the tension, like claws were grazing his flesh but not yet cutting into it.

“Do you have a hammer?” He spoke, before he knew what he was doing.

At some point when noon slipped into evening and the sun fell towards the horizon, the old barkeep had been replaced by a young man. “I think so…” He leaned down behind the bar and Ranvir heard the scraping of wood on wood, as he pulled out a bucket. “Yes, we have a hammer. Why?” He hopped back up in front of the bar. “Did you break something? Pull a nail loose?” He’s eyes narrowed as he spoke.

Ranvir, who still had his money pouch out, put a silver witness on the bar. “I’m wanna buy it.”

“Sold!” The hammer was dropped on the bar and the silver coin was scooped up. Ranvir snatched the hammer and hurried down the stairs. This hammer was closer to what he’d been working with under his mom, than a war hammer. Had a slender head with just enough weight to it, to hammer nails into wood. Hopefully, he wouldn’t need it to do more than that.

He didn’t think it would escalate, or rather, he hoped it wouldn’t escalate. But, something was leaving a bad taste in his mouth, and sending shivers down his spine.

The entrance to the bar was wide open, through it he could see Grev lying on his back dirt and mud sticking to skin, hair, and uniform. A trail of blood ran from his nose and he moved in a slightly dazed way, as he struggled against the much larger man holding him by the collar.

The people in the Nightly Ale hadn’t yet caught on to the struggle going right outside the bar. The entrance to the drinking house, was in the same side as the stairs deposited people from the second floor.

I should’ve said something. Ranvir cursed himself internally, he could barely hear more scuffling, through the noise of the ground floor but couldn’t yet see it from inside the building. He didn’t run out. He’d learned from sparring with Sansir and Grev that it only made him vulnerable. He took long steady strides towards the door, hammer held at the ready.

Under the sudden onset of combat, the tension fled. Ranvir’s blood sang with brilliant shimmering red and white violent energy his fingers seeming to itch with dark spots. He felt like the whole world became clearer, as if it slowed down for him to understand. He stopped at the threshold, taking in the situation. To his right, Sansir was holding off an assailant a big man, not as tall as Sansir but with the bulk of a heavy worker. He clearly outweighed the younger student by quite a bit.

Bulky was also more aggressive than Grev. It was clear Sansir wasn’t used to fighting unarmed. Grev was struggling through the haze of confusion made by his head injury, but had some wrestling training. He’d managed to keep them more or less in the same position, despite his injury.

To Ranvir’s left, however, was a different issue. Esmund was staring down two assailants of his own. These guys were clearly the smallest, though, that just meant they were only slightly larger than their opponent.

Esmund also lacked any sorts of combat training, outside of wrestling his friends as a kid. Ranvir felt a spike of cold blue fear insert itself into his back. They were doubling up on the weakest member in the group. They just didn’t know he was also the deadliest.

Sansir and Grev were trained fighters. Even if this was more real than anything they’d done before, it was still what they’d been working towards. Esmund was not trained and he was a warp tethered. This could go very wrong, very fast.

Approaching the enemy as silently as possible, Ranvir spotted his opportunity when the bandit on the left reached out to stop Esmund. The bandit didn’t even look back to see where his quarry was going. Es immediately peeled away, fear clearly marked in the lines of his face.

Ranvir hammered the bandit with all his strength, technique completely forgotten, right on the shoulder of his outstretched arm. Bone crunched as the hammer slammed home. There was a moment of silence as his arm dropped down to his side. The skin hadn’t broken, but the deformation was clearly visible.

“Stop.” Ranvir called, he’d tried to keep his voice firm. It came out quiet and high-pitched instead. “Leave.” A little better, but still not great.

“Fuck!” Broken shoulder cried. He was pale-faced as he stumbled towards Ranvir and very nearly fell. “You fucking- it’s not- I-“

Ranvir didn’t know what was going on with him, but he looked to be out of the fight. Righty wasn’t and he no longer cared about Esmund one bit. Eyes narrowed the bandit approached Ranvir.

He was slightly taller and had a few pounds of muscle on him, but Ranvir had a few pounds of iron on him. A good strike would take him out of the fight.

“Let us go.” This time Ranvir sounded was outright normal. Righty didn’t reply, instead he just spat at him. Ranvir didn’t react, keeping his eyes on the larger man.

I need to end this fight quickly. Before Esmund tries something. Ranvir didn’t know how much damage Esmund could do, and he wasn’t sure Esmund knew either. But if he was any judge, Esmund would lean on the safer side of too much, rather than too little.

A broken bone took Lefty out of the fight, it could take Righty out, too. Another thought struck him. Lefty isn’t the only one who’s had the fight taken out of them with a broken limb. Or something similar enough.

Ranvir put on his best confident smirk, which came surprisingly easy as his body sang with energy. Then he threw the hammer on the ground between them. “I don’t need this, at least, not if I also want some fun.”

Righty narrowed his eyes at his opponent, but they flickered down to the hammer. They were quickly back on Ranvir again. Soon, though, they once more visited the ground for a longer look. Judging distances, Ranvir thought.

Righty’s body tensed, the fingers of right hand flexed, his eyes shot to the hammer before returning, he jerked toward Ranvir in a lunge.

Ranvir recognized it as a feint. He still very nearly jumped away, which would have lost him the advantage. He managed to stop the instinct, however, and stepped in just as the man dove for the weapon. As his fingers locked around the handle, Ranvir’s fist crunched into his nose with all the force he could produce.

“Shit!” Ranvir hissed, as things cracked. He didn’t think it was his hand but the adrenaline burning through his body made it hard to be certain. The man had fallen on his back blood streaming down his face. His forward momentum meeting Ranvir’s fist, had delivered a well placed impact.

Ranvir shook out his hand as turned to his friends. Sansir was still struggling with his enemy, though he clearly had the better stamina. Someone was clutching Grev’s assailant by the throat and lifting him into the air.

The student, and it was a student, wasn’t quite wearing the uniform of a fifth year, maybe a third or fourth year. The intricate white pattern unstained by the mud or dirt of the street. Even the hem of her pants were untouched. Also despite holding a fully grown man and—judging from his gut—a little extra in a straight arm, she wasn’t struggling.

“Did you know it’s a capital offense to knowingly attack military personnel? Even off-duty military?”

“I-“

“I don’t care what you have to say.” She threw the man off to side, with about as much effort as Ranvir would use to kick a stone down the road. “You see in Elusria we recognize that the military is a necessary part of our society, no matter how little we like that fact. Now why don’t you gather your pale-bellied friends here and run off, consider this your one and only warning.”

She shot one glare at Bulky fighting Sansir. The two men, the only remaining members of their group seemingly capable of coherent thought at the moment shared a long look. Then Bulky went to pick up Righty, with the broken nose. Soon enough Grev’s assailant joined him and picked up Lefty, whose arm dangled at an off putting angle. Together, they darted off into the night.

Once the men were gone the woman spoke up. “Holy shit! You fucked him up! Did you do it with the hammer? Just bonk?!” Ranvir looked at the woman, the student.

“Just crunch.” He replied. Now that the battle was done, the boundless energy disappeared and his knees almost gave way under him.