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As soon as Detraeus clawed his way back to consciousness, a low, dry groan scratched his way out of his throat. Then, he tensed. There were hands on him. Voices around him. Shapes and shadows. Looming bodies. His pulse jumped, and he snarled, snapping up off of the table he’d been laid out on and jerking, whipping around, and hitting the ground with a thunk despite the immediate protests of the healers who’d been attending to him. Hands reached for him, attempting to steady him or hold him back, but Detraeus threw them off, yanking himself out of their grip and retreating like a wounded animal towards the wall, metaphorical hackles raised.

“Are you mad?”

“At least we cleared the venom from his system—”

“We’re not through yet—”

“Don’t,” Detraeus snarled, “touch me.”

He stumbled as he pushed to a stand, shaking his head to clear the dizziness and lingering hints of magic meant to keep him unconscious. His body felt lethargic, but functional, thankfully, and when he made it to a wall, he braced himself against it, forcing a slow, deep breath into his lungs while he gained his balance. He—

He was shirtless. Detraeus’ muscles bunched, instantly going rigid as a strung bow, and his fingers clenched against the wall.

“Where are my weapons?” he demanded. After barely a second, before any in the room had even a chance to answer, he snarled it again, closer to a boom. “Where are my weapons?” Several of the healers scattered, though one remained, stepping in and opening his mouth as though to try to calm him. “Fetch me my clothes,” Detraeus cut in before he had an opportunity to speak. “Now.”

“Your chest and shoulders are still bleeding. We can heal that for you, but we still need—”

“I said now!” Detraeus barked. “I’m done. Get me dressed. Touch me again, and I’ll break your arm. Do you understand?”

The healer, at the very least, had the sense to quit attempting to reason with him after that. The two others who’d been in there previously with him returned, tossing over his tunic, vest, and armor alongside his various blades. They threw them at his feet, like lodging scraps of meat towards a shark, and they landed with a messy shower of metallic clinks. As he stooped, dressing himself properly and strapping his various knives into place, he did his best not to wince at the re-applied pressure to still-open wounds. At least they were partially healed, though that did nothing to make his clothes look less bloody. When one of the healers came in with his bow, he froze.

“Throw that, and I’ll shoot you with it.”

The healer opened his mouth, then shut it and walked over, holding out both bow and quiver. Detraeus snatched them up, grimacing in spite of himself at the stab of pain through his shoulder at the sudden movement. Ignoring it, he strapped the quiver back to his hip, and shouldered his bow. After a long, silent pause filled only by a staring contest between himself and the others in the room, he snorted.

“Thank you for your aid,” he bit out. “But I’m done now. Work on the next body.” When he made it to the door, though, he paused. “Next time, only touch me if I’m dying, or dead.” With that, he stepped through, and snapped the door shut behind him. At the sight that greeted him in the next room, he blinked and froze. “Casseth.”

Detraeus opened his mouth several times, but shut it each time as Casseth continued talking, giving him a small flood of questions to grapple with. When he finished, though, Detraeus blinked, puzzled.

“A ‘fan’…?” He shrugged his shoulders at the rest of the questions, starting towards the next exit and the way up, assuming Cas would follow without a backwards glance. “M’fine.”

The blood on his clothes looked awful, he was sure, but the truth was that most of it didn’t belong to him, and when he got home, safe, into a private space, he had more than enough suitable items to patch and clean himself up without a hundred grubby, pinching, invasive hands sliding all over him. He shuddered just at the thought and dismissed it. No, no healers. His wounds were minor, and he could handle it. Would handle it.

As they moved on, though, his thoughts flit back to the initial statement that his mind had locked on, and he re-voiced his question. “Who’s my ‘fan’?”

Detraeus blinked, momentarily drawing a completely blank at the commentary and brow pinching in his confusion. ‘Pretty little…?’ Then, it clicked, and Detraeus felt a splash of heat crawl up his neck towards his cheeks as he huffed. Had she been paying attention? He’d noticed her there, and meant to look again after winning, but of course, things had not gone precisely according to plan. Little as he liked to admit it, though, hearing that was concerned…pleased him? Flattered him? Confused him?

“Perhaps you misread her expression in the low light,” he said, but saying it did nothing to dull the warmth in his face.

No matter what he told himself, he still wondered. What had she been doing there? Why had she even bothered to show up? Could it really have been to see him, and if so, why? What in Soudana’s name did she see in him? It was all terribly confusing, and Detraeus wasn’t even sure he wanted to puzzle it out. Perhaps leaving for Soudul sooner rather than later would be better after all. Give himself space to breathe and think. Return when he had his head together.

As they moved out of the last set of doors, breaking from the shadowed tunnels of the stadium to the light of late evening, the first thing Detraeus set eyes on was the very subject of his confusion. Pinned. And screaming. The wind cut around the area in billows with Araceli as the centerpoint, and while under normal circumstance, Detraeus might have recognized the man as the one who he’d seen standing next to Ara sometime in the past at a pit match, here Detraeus registered nothing but a tidal wave of fury as he stalked in.

His gut desire was to bury arrows into the man’s back, but he knew there were too many spectators. Besides, the wind was too fierce. Instead, he yanked at the back of the man’s tunic, hard, jerking him back, off of Ara, and then slamming him forward, face to the bricks of the nearest wall. The man shouted, caught completely unawares, and flame licked across his fingertips as he attempted to spin around.

“Who the fu—?”

Detraeus dipped, letting the man turn and avoiding the singe of his magic and his dagger as he spun, then using the momentum against him flip him around, slip out a leg for him to trip on, and smash him into the earth.

“You—”

Detraeus moved immediately for the man’s weapon-hand, stomping into it hard enough to hear the snap of bones in the man’s fingers. A wail joined the rest of the noise, followed immediately by a stream of screamed curses and a billow of fire.

“Are you out of your mind?” he demanded, voice higher pitched and half-broken through the pain in his hand. Detraeus darted briefly out and away, avoiding the small tunnel of licking flames. “You’ll pay for this — you’ll regret it, you will. Do you think you’re fighting for her, huh? For that—that whore—?”

For a moment, Detraeus saw nothing but black. Blood black, coiling around itself.

“…pitiful little whore. Do you know what that word means, Essireth? It means I own you…”

When Detraeus broke the man’s arm, he barely heard his scream, only the snap of brittle bone, and the following crack of the man’s skull to the rocky earth. Smash. And again. And again. And again until the dirt darkened underneath.

“You think you know of whores?” He swung the man’s — now limp — weight around so that his back was to the earth, his blood-smeared face up and facing Detraeus. “Tell me what you know of whores!” When nothing came from the man’s lips but a bloody garble, Detraeus drew a blade, bashing the hilt against the man’s face and raising it to go again.

Detraeus shook. His pulse hammered against his ribcage like a charging rhamidon struggling to break for freedom, and the rest of him quivered with an upchuck of roiling emotions. Fury. Hatred. Hurt. Shame. Disgust. All of it in every direction. At himself. At the man below him. At things so far in the past, he couldn’t even grasp the concept of them fully anymore, it just burned there in his gut.

Casseth’s words did not, at first, get through to him, and only when he was physically dragged off of the bloody mess below him did it begin to seep in what exactly was going on. The man was unconscious. Likely had been knocked into that state before Detraeus even flipped him over, not that the fact had registered at the time.

Slowly, slowly, Detraeus’ pulse began to beat within more natural levels, his vision clearing, mind registering his friend’s voice, and thoughts beginning to process again. Anger still bubbled beneath his skin like hot metal in Martrae’a’s furnace, though.

“He should die,” he spat out. “He deserves to die. He should die.” He allowed Casseth to pull him away though, shutting his eyes and focusing on his breath, though his grip on the dagger he'd drawn remained iron tight. “He deserves to die…” he murmured, voice petering out with his strength. Like a wave hitting him all at once, the exhaustion and pain of the match he’d just left, and the injuries already on him, caught up with him, and Detraeus grimaced, sagging tiredly. “You should have let me kill him…I could’ve killed him…”

Detraeus blinked at the commentary. After his initial burst of rage and decent into letting himself be consumed within his own anger, he’d almost forgotten about the entire reason he’d been set off in the first place. One glance to Ara, though, and his fury bubbled back up. Should have killed him. Should have killed him. But he made himself move towards her instead, frowning at the wound. Partially cauterized already, from the looks of things, which meant less blood and a cleaner heal, but also drove home the point that the b*****d had heated his blade enough to burn skin on its way through.

He grit his teeth, breathing out. Several times, he opened his lips, almost saying something, but nothing felt right. ‘I should have gotten here quicker.’ ‘Casseth should have let me kill him.’ ‘You’ll need to clean that, and get something to cover it. I’m not sure what to suggest about your horn…can you feel the tear there?’ ‘Don’t cry. He’s not worth it.’

Instead, all that came out of his lips was: “You have terrible taste in men.”

Detraeus winced at the whimper, opening his mouth again but failing to find better words. At the thank you, his brow pinched. He didn’t deserve thanks. He appreciated it, he supposed, but the man needed far worse done to him than what he got. Eventually, that was what he said aloud.

“He deserved worse, for touching you like that.” Watching her, he frowned. “You should see a healer.” Advice often given to, but never taken by him. “Do you…need help…?”

He felt awkward and strange in the aftermath. Casseth seemed to think him capable or appropriate for comforting her, but he couldn’t even comfort himself. He understood the ins and outs of killing things. Fighting people. Getting beat down until he was bloody and then standing up again. He understood his anger, and how to channel it.

He didn’t understand pretty dovaa girls in pristine white dresses with tear stains on their cheeks. He didn’t know what it meant that she had showed up in the first place. That, for some bizarre reason, she had wanted to see him. But he felt that somehow, he had still let her down with his commentary. Been less than what she needed, somehow. And why he felt like he wanted to be what she needed in that moment was completely beyond him but he felt it regardless. Casseth was not back yet, and Detraeus felt like a desert bandit, lost at sea.

His attention flit back to her, fixating on said white dress. Well, formerly white dress. “You look very pretty.”