Ymir was still seething over Surtur throwing their match, shooting glares at Surtur once they were forced to separate due to the next round. Approaching one of the platforms, Ymir’s anger seemed to vanish in an instant. He still wore a frown, but his expression itself was neutral, his eyes empty of all emotion.
He swallowed and avoided eye contact, disinterested in camaraderie or conversation. He was here because Surtur had asked him to be. Surtur clearly wanted him to make connections, too, but Ymir thought that was expecting too much too soon. It was enough that he was here and that he hadn’t forfeited.
If his opponent looked closely enough, he might notice a guarded tension in Ymir. For his part, Ymir pretended as if he were not nervous, or worried, or afraid in the presence of a stranger. He propped his arm up and silently presented his hand, ready to get this over with.
Perdita hopped up from her seat to approach the designated platform. Her opponent was a young boy, pale and blond with sweet blue eyes and the cutest outfit she’d ever seen. Perdita immediately felt guilty that they’d been matched up—not because she knew for certain that she’d win (she didn’t; perhaps he’d surprise her), but because he reminded her of how young she used to be when she first became a Senshi. She could only wonder what sort of horrors he must have seen already.
So she offered him a friendly smile, wider than her usual small quirk of the lips, hoping to ease any nerves.
“I’m Perdita,” she introduced herself, setting her arm down with her hand up. A hint a bemusement edged her smile. “Well, you probably already knew that since it’s on the bracket. It’s nice to meet you. You’re a Squire of Lysithea, aren’t you? One of my friends showed me what symbols to look out for.”
At last, the time had come. Myrrha had heard about the tournament that was going on and the featured event and she couldn't help but roll her eyes even as she had giggled a little at the same time. How utterly perfect: arm wrestling. It was a fair way to find the most determined senshi or knight out of all that had come to Cybele's world for the Games. It also meant that besides the standing rules associated with this particular form of wrestling it was essentially your own inner strength being pitted against your opponent. Her gaze went to the table that she had found open before awaiting whomever it was that was going to be her competition this round. Her palms opened and closed in a rhythmic pattern before she bent her right forearm a few times. While she was left handed for most things, in tests of strength she preferred to use her right arm. So far it had worked out for her.
As her opponent neared the table Myrrha glanced at him before noting the marks she'd seen on only a few other senshi. Scylla had been one, and back in her mind there was another senshi ... ah, yes ... Maia who had also sported glowing marks like this individual wore. Myrrha had never seen this individual before and she wanted to make the best impression so she straightened up from the crouch she had held over the table before offering a left hand to shake if Encke chose to reciprocate.
"Eternal Myrrha, I'm pleased to meet you Encke."
Now that the introduction was taken care of Myrrha once more got into a comfortable position before offering her right arm again, laying it in the ready position on the stone table. Hopefully lady luck would shine on her today and she'd be able to move on, but if it didn't, well at least she was having fun.
Somehow, she hadn't lost! Somehow she had managed to beat the older Squire and emerge with the victory...at least, the victory for this round, and now, she was ready to face off with someone who seemed to be more her own size...which, was good. There wasn't the fear this time like she had when seeing the other Squire, and she held out her hand for a quick shake before readying herself to kick some butt.
Both Almere and Halle were here, and she had to look at least somewhat competent. "Hi! I'm Mechelen! It's nice to meet you, and I hope we can be friends after this too, no matter what the outcome is!"
Poised and ready to go, Mechelen squared her shoulders and waited.
Irkalla had almost missed the announcement that a new round of arm wrestling was beginning. That would have been on par for how she tended to miss important events by not being on time, but this was one event that she wasn't going to be late for. Giving up on the hunt for the jackalope earlier, the Squire of Cosmos had been busy picking little pieces of shrubbery here and there before gently pocketing some and leaving others back where she had found them. The idea was that she wanted to perhaps press a few of these specimens into wax paper when she returned home but first things first.
Racing up to the location in which the arm wrestling tournament was taking place Irkalla scanned the brackets on the second board before tracing a line to her name and then the name of her opponent. In her mind she sounded out the name before walking up to a nearby table that seemed unoccupied before she waited for Super Sailor Beira to appear from the crowd. She didn't recognize the name, but then again, she probably didn't recognize any of the names of anyone here. Oh, wait, no there was another Cosmos Knight here that she did recognize, Erytheia. Perhaps he was the only one that she knew at this time. Well, his name alone jumped out at her.
For a moment the Squire tried to center herself before giving up on the attempt. She was just too keyed up to focus. Perhaps there was nothing really to do but give it her all in this one attempt at glory. Wiggling her fingers she stood ready for when her opponent came over to join her before they clasped hands in order to begin.
Puck rolled up to the arm wrestling area feeling pretty good about his chances. After all, he'd just gone through the Training Ground with ease, and he was all nice and warmed up and ready to wrestle whoever's arm was available to him. Checking the brackets, he looked for his name. "Right, Tjilaki," he muttered with some level of glee when he found who he was going up against. "I hope they're good..."
He found the stone table he'd been assigned to and sat down on the conveniently-placed stump, planting his arm on the flat surface. "Hallo, luv, ready to have a go at me?" he grinned. "I'm ready for you!"
To be honest, when it came to knights and senshi, Halle was pretty relieved to be the former. While he wasn't in love with the pastel rainbow of Lysithea or his uniform in general (that he would admit to, though it has kinda grown on him) - a lot of the senshi outfits were just...wild. Sometimes even literally wild. God help me, I could be wearing cat ears. Super Meissa pulled it off pretty cutely, though.
Actually...
Giving her a squinty look before grinning, Halle nodded and planted himself at the table, gripping her hand and waiting for the signal.
Suddenly, he asked, "Didn't I see you at that sleep place? The on-fire one?"
But rather than distracting her, Halle got hit with the full force of Meissa's strength instead.
With all the feathers on his uniform, did that make him the bird to her cat? Flexing his fingers in the wake of his loss, he figured he was more like a cat toy instead. Silently he hoped Mechelen hadn't noticed.
Out loud, he offered his hand for a (hopefully more gentle) shake, "Good fight!"
Sleep place, on fire place? Oh ... oh. Meissa's gaze widened at that description before she nodded her head enthusiastically. So Halle had been there too? Obviously the answer was yes if he was asking about whether she had been there. Even as their match began Meissa turned her concentration to using just enough pressure to force Halle's arm down to hit the side of the table before she spoke, "I was there as well. Kinda crazy how everything went down, wasn't it?"
She took his hand after he'd offered his congratulations on her win and gave it a gentle shake. "It was a good fight, thank you for the opportunity."
There was a chance that her next match wouldn't go as luckily as this one had but who knew, perhaps there was some deep inner strength that she hadn't tapped yet, a well of undiscovered power...
and yet ... there was that certain deadline looming over her that had her cast her gaze to the side before she perked back up, "It was nice meeting you Halle."
Zenobia took a seat and looked at her opponent for the arm wrestling match. She wasn't sure about her strength but she was willing to try. Her opponent It was a youngish-looking boy.
Zenobia just stared at the boy.
"You do know I am a girl, right? What boy could ever arm wrestle a little girl?"
She fluttered her eyes.
"Are You OK with this?"
She locked hands with the boy, Reims, as she heard he was named.
Ngome sat at the table for the arm-wrestling match and looked over at her opponent. She looked to be around 6 or 7.
Despite her opponent's young age, Ngome could see the determination in her eyes.
Ngome being an adult didn't feel right arm wrestling a little girl. Ngome took the little girl's hand in her big ones and decided to go easy on the girl. She didn't want to hurt her.
The little girl's small hand felt fragile in Ngome's grasp, and she couldn't bring herself to put too much force into her movements.
He hadn’t actually expected to win the first match, and it was with a cordial nod to his first opponent that he’d moved onto the second. Another odd-looking senshi, this one with bright banana yellow skin. She was much taller than he was, and so Imhotep wondered what his chances were for this match. She had leverage on him, at the very least, right?
Knowing Promethei had lost his match had Imhotep scanning the stands for where his husband was going to sit. He gave Grieve a nod of acknowledgement, making sure to make eye contact so that she wouldn’t think he was ignoring her. He wasn’t ignoring her. He was just… distracted.
He didn’t find Promethei—at least, not right away—but he did find someone else who must have lost their match and who was now also sitting in the stands. That head of blond hair would be recognizable to him anywhere. And, for a moment, Imhotep locked eyes with Emain Ablach. If Grieve said anything to him, he didn’t hear it.
A curious sensation sat simultaneously in the pit of his stomach and in his chest. His jaw clenched and his lips sat in a firm, white line as he turned his attention resolutely back to Grieve in front of him. With a surge of irritation that wasn’t directed at Grieve, he nevertheless funneled it into his efforts.
He was still surprised when it was her hand that hit the table first.
Tjilaki sat down opposite Puck. She looked at Puck with a mischievous glint in her eye. With a sly smile, she replied, "Oh, I'm more than ready for you. Let's see what you're made of."
Tjilaki smiled and blew Puck a kiss as she pinned his arm to the table with surprising strength. Since upgrading and becoming eternal, Tjilaki had been exercising and training tirelessly, honing her skills and strength.
The avoidance of eye contact wasn't entirely unfamiliar to him. He mostly saw it in his nervous students or students who were in some way neurodivergent. Promethei didn't want to make assumptions, but it was something he was willing to tuck away as an explainer as to why it seemed this senshi wanted to look at everything but him himself. Or maybe at everyone else?
That was fine, honestly. Promethei was unbothered by it, though he still offered a friendly, twangy, "Howdy," as he settled in and offered his hand to Ymir for arm wrestling. If he wanted to get straight to business, that was fine with him. Promethei didn't have to find time for pleasantries if the others didn't want them anyway.
Maybe he could show off for Emain Ablach who was no doubt in the crowd somewhere after that loss. Show him what he was missing out on.
... What the ******** was he talking about? The missing out was almost entirely driven by him not just saying ******** it and knocking on a basement door. Almost, in that he was still inexplicably frustrated, and the fact he didn't want to violate Diryas' terms.
Speaking of Diryas, was Imhotep okay? Something about the fact that he was wracking up victories told him no, but--
-- No, he was not okay, and neither was his arm after facing the pale, nervous-looking man in front of him. That didn't quite work. That was what he got for also looking everywhere but his opponent. He would say lesson learned, but if he hadn't learned from the lessons of his Boy Scout days when everyone wanted thumb wars, he wasn't going to learn them now.
"Good match, Ymir!"
For his part, he was going to find a place to sit to admire the wrestling going on.
Watching the initial round of arm wrestling with Helene had been delightful fun for Kaifeng. Really, this whole setup was primed to be delightful fun for Kaifeng, but that didn’t make it terribly different from most things that had to do with his magical life. Of course, he took his duties as a Squire of Saturn very seriously—more so since Helene had come into his life, both because Kaifeng wanted (needed? wanted? both at once?) to look out for him the way that Helene looked out for Kaifeng and because Huan-ge was uniquely talented at wrangling Kaifeng instead of letting him get too far afield on some wild whim or other—but……it was like what Liánlí had told Huan-ge, that morning with the strange blue fog that had made Huan-ge so melancholy.
Every moment that Kaifeng got to spend being his most authentic self was a blessing. Every day that he got to spend living this life he’d made for himself was a miracle. Getting to exist here, in this universe, as himself and getting to share this life with people he loved was something magical, something to be celebrated. So, if Kaifeng was all smiles and eagerness while watching the preliminary rounds, he felt that simply Made Sense.
Being here hand-in-hand with Helene didn’t hurt, either.
Looking around, he noticed some familiar faces.…… Grieve, whom Kaifeng hadn’t seen in-person for quite some time, was up to something with Cybele, the princess jiejie who’d popped out her wings on that night at the bank and who was now hosting these games (Kaifeng couldn’t hear them talking, but Grieve sure seemed to be amusing herself with whatever they were saying to each other). One of the Lysithea squires from the battle at the sleep center (Halle). Kerberos-ge and Encke-ge, the latter of whom pretty soundly trounced the former in their match-up for arm-wrestling (“His magic’s more for healing than combat too, as far as I’ve seen,” Kaifeng whispered to Helene as they watched, “but he’s a really good guy, and he’s fixed me up when I’ve come off the worse in a fight before”).
There were, however, far more faces whom Kaifeng didn’t recognize. For example, the little Lysithea squire in the blue dress (Mechelen), who beat a fellow Saturn Squire, also unknown to Kaifeng (Aaru). Kaifeng winced and squeezed Helene’s hand, watching that match-up. As a spectator, he couldn’t tell if his fellow Saturn Squire had ignored the Lysithea Squire’s request that he not go easy on her or not? She had the right measure of it, Kaifeng thought, asking for that kind of respect, but she also looked no older than fifteen or sixteen, while the Saturn Squire looked closer to Kaifeng’s own age. Had he been in the other Saturn Squire’s position, Kaifeng might have struggled to properly respect her power as a fellow knight, simply because he wouldn’t have wanted to rough up a teenager too badly.
Ah well, whatever had happened, that hadn’t been Kaifeng’s match, and he didn’t know either of the other squires’ hearts, so he couldn’t judge either of them.
(He could sneak his zhiyin a “do your best and remember that I love you” kiss before they separated for their respective matches, though. Didn’t Helene deserve nice things such as that? Kaifeng certainly thought he did.)
Rocking up to his match, Kaifeng briefly startled. He didn’t recognize the Jupiter Squire he’d been paired with……except for having watched his preliminary match with some Cosmos Squire. He’d done well in that match. Very well, actually—but refusing to let any nerves about the Jupiter Squire’s previous performance get to him, Kaifeng gave his opponent a warm smile and a wave.
“Congratulations on your last match,” Kaifeng said earnestly as he got himself settled and prepared for their match, “and here’s to a good one between us as well.”
The Jupiter Squire really had done well, and he deserved to hear it. But Kaifeng was ready to give this match his best efforts.
Sauntering up to the platform, Grieve eyed her opponent up and down and then...continued to eye him, like a particularly nice cut of meat. "Well aren't ******** delicious for Mercury's sort." The sort that were always way too well-covered and constantly surround by various tomes and screen of nauseating text.
This one was made of soft, inviting lines and textures with sweet, if currently distracted, eyes. "Gursaht." The shining dessert, reserved for the end of a noble's banquet table. A confection that was both a treat and an occasion in and of itself. "Are you busy after this?"
Ah but he still wasn't paying attention, and they were about to start. Still feeling playful after riling up Cybele earlier, Grieve moved her thumb from their grip to give his wrist a little swipe, only for him to suddenly switch his focus, and all his strength, on her.
"Cosmos tits!" There was sharp enough pain as her knuckles rapped the the table to elicit a laughing curse out of the tall senshi. Lifting up her knuckles, now a vibrant pink, she gave Imhotep a wry smile. "I'd say a no would've sufficed, but this was even more attractive."
A long, hot pink tongue licked at where the skin had broken. "Be seeing you, Gursaht."
