Pavel yelled and crashed into the sand; a bolt of fire whipped over his head and exploded against the barrier behind him.

Serena grinned as he scrambled to his feet.

She flicked her hand; three orbs of fire screamed from her palm, aimed directly at Pavel. He yelled again.

Pavel dropped and rolled to the side, flail and sword tucked against his chest; he leapt up, splint mail caked in sand. With a bellow and weapons raised, he charged across the pit.

Another flick, and three more orbs of flame shot from Serena’s hand; two made impact, as another soared above Pavel’s head.

He grimaced but refused to relent.

Serena pulled her hand back and planted her staff into the sand with the other; heat poured from her palm as it ignited, flames forming into a thick bolt that radiated up her arm. She flung her hand, sending the bolt careening towards Pavel.

He slashed at it, slicing the bolt in two; one half splashed against his armor, as the other kicked up sand as it impacted at his feet.

Three more steps; the flail whistled.

Serena stepped back and shot her hand above her head; the spiked ball bounced harmlessly off a thin silver barrier, rippling like water.

Pavel adjusted and swung his sword low.

Serena grunted as the dull blade slammed against her stomach, forcing her back.

Sucking in a gulp of air, she focused on the other side of the arena.

In an instant, she was across the sand pit, a puff of silver mist lingering in front of Pavel.

He swore and flipped around, charging back at Serena as she caught her breath.

She gripped her staff tightly and angled the head down, dragging it in a line in through the sand.

A bright wall of flames roared into existence in front of her, towering above Serena’s head, licking the air with orange streaks. She felt no heat from her side, as she directed all towards Pavel.

She grinned and relaxed her shoulders; that would hold Pavel at bay for a time, give her a moment to recover. Though the moment she dropped it, Serena was sure Pavel would be ready to charge her again.

She licked her lips and wiped an arm across her forehead, coating it in sweat.

That much was simple; her magic may be dulled, but a fireball would be enough to –

A bellow broke through the wall of fire.

Serena jumped as Pavel materialized in the flames, rolled through, and leapt to his feet just a few paces in front of her, eyes wide; continuing his momentum, Pavel turned and smashed his shoulder into Serena’s chest.

She flew back and crashed into the sand, silent gasp escaping her lips, staff free of her grip.

In an instant, Pavel stood over her, dull sword pointed at her throat. He grinned as he panted, the flames behind him flickering out of existence.

“Thought some fire would stop me, huh?!” Pavel said triumphantly; the translucent dome around them dropped, filling Serena’s ears with the metallic clashes and loud booms of the other sparring matches around them. As it dropped, she felt as though someone had removed a thin, wet blanket draped over her, restoring the edge to her magic.

She grinned up at Pavel.

“Last guy who thought that got a fireball to the face, remember?” Serena signed.

Pavel laughed.

“Right, right,” he raised his voice over the noises around them. “but I still think I won this one.”

“You think that.”

Serena waited as Pavel sheathed his sword and strapped the flail to his side, enjoying a small moment of rest. He reached down and grasped her arm, pulling Serena to her feet.

As Serena gained her footing, dusted herself off, and accepted her staff from Pavel, a coliseum attendant, dressed in a pair of dusty grey tunic and pants with a circle of seven stars around his neck, approached them. A small band of men, all decked in leather armor with various swords strapped to their bodies, followed close behind.

The attendant tapped the center star around his neck; as he spoke, his voice became audible over the plethora of fights that surrounded them.

“A victor has been decided for this round,” the man said, utterly unimpressed, his balding head shining in the late morning sun. “please step to the side for the others. If you have any injuries…” he waved away his last few words and pointed to a small station of clerics towards far edge of the coliseum center, near where they had entered.

Pavel nodded, and pointed towards a bench behind their small sand ring.

“Here, let’s take a load off for a bit.” He said, leaning in towards Serena’s ear. She nodded and followed behind Pavel as they began to make their way over.

As they stepped out of the sand ring, weaving their way past a few spectators, Serena couldn’t help but look about in muted excitement. Despite having seen the inside of the coliseum yesterday, she still couldn’t wrap her head around how amazing it looked.

Their sandy arena was one of many that filled the middle of the coliseum, situated below the circular platforms that made up the stands above them, all jutting out from the walls; the first floor remained the smallest and closest to the center of the coliseum, situated barely above the sand pits. As the levels went up, the platforms, encompassing the inside perimeter, grew larger and larger, until the fourth and final floor seemed as though it could hold half the city. Serena reckoned that the best, and probably the most expensive, place to watch the fights remained the first level, where one was barely a story above the action.

On the east side of the coliseum, situated at the very top, a large wooden box, half the size of Werond’s house, had been built into the stone; evidently it was used by government officials when they wanted to attend the fights, which Serena had uncovered from one tired attendant, but rarely was it used, so infrequent were the trips.

Yet, perhaps what impressed Serena the most, was the center of the coliseum itself, where she, Pavel, and the rest of the tournament members currently stood. The center spanned far enough that not even Pavel, as fit as he was, could run across it without pausing for breath. Pale wood made up the floor of it, similar to the flooring one could find in almost any tavern; large piles of sand, flattened and formed into arenas two wagons in length, had been dropped in certain places along the paneling, spaced out to create as many practice arenas as possible. Counting around thirty of them, each was run by a similar looking attendant as theirs, directing the large crowds of warriors, adventurers, mercenaries, soldiers, and common folk alike, all of whom had booked practice sessions that day.

The sheer number of people in the center filled the coliseum with the same chatter as the city, alongside the clanging of steel and explosion of magic. Beyond them, standing in the archways under the raised seating, a smaller crowd of similar looking people stood impatiently, waiting for their turn out in the sand arenas, filling the coliseum with their grumblings. An even smaller amount of people stood on the raised platforms above them, watching the various matches that played out below them, their cheering and jeers barely audible over all the fights.

As they approached the bench, the cacophony around them suddenly became muffled, as they stepped through a threshold they couldn’t see; the organizers had demanded zones of silence around the various benches that were scattered about, a choice that Serena couldn’t help but praise.

Pavel grunted as he sat down on the bench; Serena plopped down next to him, and laid her staff in front of her feet, snuffing out the flame burning on the head of it.

“How long you think they’ll be in there for?” Pavel asked in a normal tone, gesturing to group of men that took their place. Two of them stood in the center of the sand, arguing something Serena couldn’t hear, while the other two paced along the edge of the arena, pointing at their feet, mumbling between themselves.

The poor attendant couldn’t get anyone’s attention.

“Dunno. I don’t even think they know what they’re doing.” Serena signed.

“Have to agree with that one.”

“At least we’ll have some time to sit for a bit. Honestly,” Serena rubbed her stomach. “you need to pull some of those punches. Makes me think we aren’t friends.”

Pavel grinned in embarrassment. “Uh, right, yeah, sorry. Got a little too excited, my bad.”

“It’s fine. Though it does make me wish I didn’t offer to come with you today. Just a little.”

Pavel laughed.

“Honestly, I’m surprised you did want to tag along. I appreciate it, absolutely. It’s a lot better than finding someone else to spar with…considering no one really comes alone. But I thought you’d be hounding Werond to show you around Waterdeep some more, or something.”

Serena grimaced and leaned her head to one side. Pavel raised his brows.

“Something happen?”

“Well…yes,” Serena signed uncomfortably. “but that’s not why I’m not with her. Werond had to head into work today. Been putting it off for too long, I guess.”

“But that’s not why?” Pavel echoed; he leaned forward and rested his arms atop his legs.

“No, she…” Serena sighed.

She placed her hands into her lap as the feelings from before resurfaced, causing a tightness to settle in her chest.

Next to her, Pavel shifted slightly.

“If you don’t want to talk about it…” he began.

Serena shook her head.

“No, it’s…we had an argument about her drinking, and it went okay I think…but – I don’t know, I felt like it…” she threw her hands up. “like I gave in! Werond messed up and it felt like I gave in to what she said! We had a whole conversation about it, and it felt like I just…accepted what she said. I…I don’t really know how else to put it.”

“Well, what did she say?”

“She said she was sorry and that it won’t happen again – all that drinking – that next time she’ll come to me if she needs help because she knows she messed up. Werond knows how terrible she looked…”

“What’s the issue with that?”

“Pavel, she didn’t tell me why she got like that.” Serena signed. “She apologized, sure, and promised not to do it again – but it still happened for a reason. And I wanted to know why it happened so I could help, but Werond kept skirting around the issue, and if I didn’t push it, she wasn’t going to tell me. Then when I pushed too much, she said it wasn’t something that I can even help with, no matter how much I wanted to. She just…shut me down. She said after that I can help by being there for her,” Serena rubbed her face with one hand. “but – that – it.”

Pavel straightened up, and turned towards Serena, one leg resting on the bench.

“Really?” He asked, voice in disbelief. Serena nodded.

“It’s got something to do with her job. She can’t talk about it apparently. I don’t know.”

“Her job? But she’s a –”

“She’s not just a teamster,” Serena cut him off, “or whatever she said on the caravan, Pavel. I mean, look at her house and Graham…there’s no way she’s just a teamster. I think it’s something more than that, but she can’t tell me what it is.” She glanced as Pavel’s puzzled face and shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s her business, but I don’t know why she’d lie about it.”

“Huh.” He said. “Well, not much you can do about that then. If she can’t talk about it, she can’t talk about it.”

“Yeah, I know…”

“But?”

Serena sighed again, as frustration began to bubble in her chest; she didn’t think she’d be laying everything out to Pavel like this, and the thought of pushing the discussion further served only to turn that frustration into a wave of anxiety.

“It sounds like” Pavel said, before Serena could raise her hands. “she’s trying to make an effort, right? Werond did say that she wouldn’t do something like that again, and that she’d come to you if she needed help, right?”

Serena slumped her shoulders and nodded; no point in stopping him now.

“Well, if that’s the case, then that’s the best you can hope for. Werond doesn’t have to tell any of us what she does for a living, and from what you said, it doesn’t sound like she’s allowed to. I think you need to move on from that point, and accept that she wants to make things better, despite that.” Pavel shrugged; his armor chinked softly. “I think if you stay stuck on that specific part, you’re going to feel terrible. We’re all allowed to have secrets. And besides, it sounds like she regrets saying that you couldn’t help her if she gave you a way to help her right after she said that. Why not focus on that instead?”

Pavel gave her a small smile. Serena winced and scratched the back of her neck.

She didn’t come to discuss her problems with him, yet what Pavel said did make sense. As much as Serena wanted to know why Werond had chosen to get that drunk in the first place, if she had no intention of explaining that to her, perhaps it was best to focus on the other things. Afterall, despite Serena not knowing its worth, being around Werond apparently was enough for her. Not to mention that Werond didn’t have to wake Serena up with the intention to make sure that she’d be there for dinner tonight, to try to remedy the rift between them. That alone meant something.

And yet, despite that, why did it still feel like Werond had won?

Serena shook her head. Werond hadn’t won anything and thinking along those lines only made Serena feel worse. She knew that wasn’t the case, yet those feelings persisted within her. Was this what a relationship was supposed to feel like? That one person could “win” in something, at the expense of another? Could you even “win” in a relationship? Serena didn’t know. She had nothing to go on, aside from her gut feeling that it wasn’t correct; Mom had never mentioned feeling anything like this with Dad, and Ned and Bron’s relationship had been too alien for Serena to understand.

None of that mattered, or at least, it shouldn’t matter; just the thought of one of them winning over the other sounded unhealthy, and wrong to her. Yet, despite knowing that, Serena still felt as though she’d given into what Werond wanted. But was that a bad thing? Werond hadn’t had the chance to even prove that was willing to make things better between them, what with having to leave so early. Perhaps Serena was overthinking the entire thing.

But what if she wasn’t?

Serena let out a guttural noise – hands clenched – and leaned her head back, as another wave of shoulder tensing frustration rolled over her.

“You still look conflicted.” Pavel said.

“I –” Serena began.

“Just talk to her. Talk to Werond when she gets back and tell her what you’re feeling. I’m sure she’d be willing to hear you out.”

“I…” Serena frowned. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Talking will…probably make it better, I guess.”

“It always does. Don’t you feel better after talking to me?”

Despite the storm of thoughts that raged inside her head, Serena rolled her eyes and grinned. She raised her hands to inform Pavel that, actually, he hadn’t done a thing to make her feel better.

Before she could, a hot pain lanced through Serena’s throat.

She jumped, and coughed silently in surprised; next to her, Pavel blinked and stared.

“What was that?” He asked.

Another lance of pain torn through her, causing Serena to jerk again.

The choker around her neck began to tighten; she tried to gasp, but couldn’t, her throat constricting.

Her eyes went wide as another lance of pain tore through her, causing Serena to double over, still trying to gasp in vain.

Pavel, taken back up, jumped up from the bench.

“Serena?!” He yelled. “Hey, what’s going on, what’re you doing?!”

She tried to sign, only for the pain in her throat to intensify, causing her hands to clench, cutting off her words.

Sweat began to bead on her forehead as terror tore through her, Pavel still stunned next to her; Serena’s hands shot to her throat, only for her fingers to touch what felt like molten metal.

The moon pendant on her choker burned as though it’d be thrown into a fire, searing her throat and fingers. Her eyes began to bugle as another shot of pain tore through her, hotter this time.

“Serena?!” Pavel yelled again. “What’s wrong, what’s going –” His eyes went wide.

He leapt towards Serena; before she could react, Pavel dug his fingers under the strap, scratching her throat, and tugged at the fabric. The choker pulled on her but refused to come off. Pavel swore and yanked harder, almost pulling Serena off the bench, choking her further.

Barely able to think, heart slamming against her chest, Serena reached up and tore at the clasp at the back of her choker, digging her nails into the two buttons that fastened it in place.

It popped off, flying towards Pavel; he jumped back and let the choker fall to the ground.

Immediately, the pain and tightness in her throat vanished. Serena clutched at her throat and hunched over, sucking in gulps of air. Pavel grabbed her shoulder and straightened her up.

“What the hell was that, are you okay?!” He frantically asked. “Can you breathe? Do I need to call one of the –”

Serena shook her head and waved a hand. “I’m – fine.” She said. Despite the words coming from her fingers, Serena’s voice sounded horse.

“O-okay.” Pavel said, releasing her shoulders. “What happened? That moon thing looked like it was glowing, like it warmed up or something.” He glanced down, then squatted over the choker, now laying on the wood floor. “It’s ah, not glowing anymore though.”

Serena sat for a moment, hand clasped around her neck, allowing her breathing to steady; not an ounce of pain was left over from the choker.

She glanced down at it; the moon, and the wheel of arrows behind it, felt as though it’d been dropped in a fire, yet now, the pendant looked no different than it normally did.

Serena reached down and tentatively poked the moon with a black painted nail; it felt cool to the touch.

“See, it’s not hot anymore,” Pavel said, sill staring at it. “it was hot just a second ago. It was glowing a second ago.”

Gingerly, Serena picked up the choker by its strap, as though it could lash out.

“Is it fine?” Pavel asked, standing up.

Serena nodded, still staring at the small, silver moon.

“Okay…then what was that?”

“I…I don’t know.” Serena signed. “Magic, maybe?”

“What?”

“It,” Serena dropped the choker into her lap. “there’s a spell that can heat things like this. I think…I think that’s what it was, I don’t…I don’t know what else it could have been.” She stammered. “Bahamut’s Teeth, I thought I was going to choke to death.”

Pavel frowned. He turned and glanced at the crowds around them, his eyes searching. Serena’s heart jumped into her throat, as she understood what Pavel had left unsaid.

Her gaze followed Pavel’s as Serena examined the crowds around them. Aside from the occasional glances their way, along with an odd-looking purple hat worn by an elf, nothing stood out to Serena. Despite that, her heart continued to hammer in her chest.

“You going to be okay?” Pavel asked, turning back to her.

“I…yeah, just a little spooked.” She signed.

“Right. Well, I think we need to leave then before something else happens.” Pavel glanced around again. “Just in case.”

Serena nodded and jumped up from the bench, needing no other reason.