|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:21 am
Vienrith Stadium was not a new concept to Ataya.
Quite the opposite, he had heard it spoken of often in the tales passed between his uncle, Casseth, and his father. He knew both had competed there, in their time. He knew that, when he and his sister were younger, the subject was one that his mother always turned them away from and Uncle Lithian similarly disproved of. He knew it was an arena, and that in it, competitors tested their strength against each other for coin or imagined glory or both. But he had never seen it.
Once upon a time, at a younger age when his parents had forbid such things, he had wanted to. It sounded thrilling. Violent. Fascinating. As he had aged, though, his distaste for concentrated masses of idiocy outweighed his curious interest in the workings of death and its various processes, and he gradually turned his studies on that front into personal, private endeavors, not public displays.
Then, his sister brought it up.
He had planned to travel down to the library. Read a book. Make yet another pass at finding something more useful in helping him to waste less energy in his attempts at playing puppet master with bodies whose spirits had left them. But then, he couldn’t allow his sister to travel into a great mass of dangerous and unknown bodies alone.
So it was that he ended up at her side, grimacing as they were shoved to and fro by the crowds, suffocated in the stench of a thousand unwashed city folk, and so smothered beneath them that likely no one would notice if they tripped and happened to be trampled underfoot. When they made it to a railing, apparently designated for viewing the activity below, and there was finally enough workable airspace around them to breathe, Ataya curled his lip back a fraction, dusting his hands over himself.
“This may not have been the most brilliant of ideas you’ve ever had, sister, but I certainly hope the ‘show’ in some way makes up for the atmosphere. Surely it must if the place manages to continue operating a business and attracting comers…”
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 1:18 pm
Akara frowned as she kept close to her brother. The crowd around her bumped into them every which way, not caring that they might knock them over and trample of them. No, a couple of hybrids lost to the crown of the Pit wouldn’t be thought about twice by most Magescians, most likely. At that thought, Kara felt Lyari’s snout nudge at her fingers as he moved closer, into a more protective stance of the two of them. She smiled down at her friend and sent feelings of love and thanks through their bond as she scratched between his horns. “I didn’t expect it to be so crushingly crowded,” she said as she turned her attention back to her brother. “Besides, I was planning on coming alone. You decided you had to come with me.” She gave her brother a playful smile and nudged him with her shoulder. “Thank you for coming with me.” In truth, she had been very happy her brother had decided to come along. Not that she was afraid to go out into the city by herself — she wasn’t — she just enjoyed quality time with her brother and they were stronger together, should something happen. Her gaze flit out and down into the arena. The place, despite the multitude of people crammed into the space, was spectacular as far as design was concerned. ••• Nesrinn laughed as his small group of acquaintances made their way through the crowd. All lower level fighters but well on their way up the tiers — one a hybrid, like himself. His hybrid status, though he kept hidden most of the time, was known of by most, if not all, of those in his fight tier. Certainly those that ran the Pit knew of it and the healers, of course. Though he rarely, if ever, let his wings out when he fought. It was a status he did not wish to advertise. It was not as though he were ashamed, he just did not wish to cause more problems than him and his mother already had. So as he walked through the crowd, he kept his wings in check, and went about life as a dovaa. He wasn’t scheduled to fight that day but the hybrid he was walking with had a match and Rinn was very interested in watching it. In a way, the man was the closest thing that Rinn had to a friend, at the moment, and so they had both settled into a sort of comfortable relationship inside of the Pit’s confines. Outside of it, he never seen the man. Soon they parted ways, Rinn wishing his ‘friend’ luck and then heading back into the mass of people to find a place to stand and watch. It didn’t take long until his gaze fell onto a rather familiar form, even though he’d only had but a few hours to take note of it. The hair and horns were unmistakable, though. His head tilted as he eyed the khehora sitting next to her. His lips twitched up into a smile. It seemed as if Eowyn was a smaller continent than he had anticipated. After leaving Lithian’s house that day, he hadn’t thought he’d ever see Akara again and in a way, it had disappointed her. Something about the girl pulled at him, demanding he get to know her better. It had been something he thought impossible at the time, had even managed to shove her to the back of his mind for the time being. Now, however, the curiousness reemerged and was stronger. He shrugged to himself and moved towards her, eyeing the male next to her, noting that, from the looks of him, he was her brother. He moved forward, hand coming to land on Kara’s shoulder. “Hello there.” Kara jumped and jerked around, heart beating a mile a minute and hand already reaching for a small dagger she kept at her waist, tucked in and hidden by her water bottles. She froze as her gaze took in the familiar horns and scales. “Nesrinn…?” Her eyes widened as it finally clicked with her on who had grabbed her. She forced her hand away from the dagger and ran it shakily over her hair, brushing the stray curls out of her face. “You scared me. What are you doing here?” She flushed at the question. “I mean...not that you can’t be here. I just...I wasn’t expecting…” She pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “I’m sorry. Let me start over, yeah?” Kara looked back up to him and smiled. “Hello, Nesrinn.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tangled Puppet Vice Captain
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 6:45 pm
Ataya hummed idly at his sister’s admittance, his attention already having flit down to the arena below. So massive. It was a wonder such a thing could be built — expertly crafted, grandiose, and inevitably grossly expensive to undertake — while other parts of the city, the parts that many of those coming to watch the display lived in, were in abysmal states of poverty and disrepair.
As commotion from a scuffle nearby drew him briefly out of his thoughts, Ataya held closer to the railing, watching through narrowed eyes as the participants spat language back and forth to each other, rising progressively in volume as they went. When a blade was drawn, guards were soon upon them, dragging the troubles out while they yowled and hissed at each other like wounded animals. He grimaced and turned back to the arena below.
Perhaps it wasn’t much of a wonder after all. Men and beasts would find ways to make violence one way or another, after all. Sometimes it seemed to rank higher in their priorities than food.
When the pureblood who had dropped in on their uncles’ home several days back appeared out of the crowds, Ataya tensed, mentally bristling and watching the dovaa’s interactions with his sister intently. Warily. He oughtn’t be touching her. He oughtn’t even be—
At Akara’s reactions to him, Ataya's eyebrows arched sharply. A moment later, he grimaced, stepping up and standing at her shoulder. “She started appropriately. What are you doing here?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 6:54 pm
Kara blinked as her brother stepped up closer to her and spoke. She looked back at him, eyes narrowing on him slightly. “Be nice, Ataya. He doesn’t have to tell us why he’s here. Anyone can come here if they please.” She turned her attention back to Nesrinn and smiled.
Nesrinn shook his head and returned Kara’s smile as he stepped over to the railing. “I fight here,” he said as he gestured down to the arena. “Not today, though. I’m just here to support a friend in a fight. Hybrid fellow — dovaa and oblivionite.” He turned his attention back to the pair and tilted his head. “Have you been here before?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tangled Puppet Vice Captain
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 4:38 pm
Ataya tensed, eyes narrowing and mouth opening to point out that even if the dovaa technically had a right to be ‘here’ in general, he had no deity-granted right to bother them in particular, and certainly not look at his sister that way, touch her, or startle her. But then, said sister was smiling at the pureblood and turning her attention away from him, and Ataya grimaced, snorting and turning his attention away from both of them. He ignored the dovaa after that. If Akara was so clearly intent on speaking with him, then she could carry on the conversation.
He had no interest in humoring him. Instead, his gaze flit down to the arena, listening as the voice of an announcer boomed — magically enhanced — over the stadium, introducing the next fight.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 9:36 pm
Kara’s gaze flicked to her brother, brows pinching together at the look on his face when he moved over to the railing. She hesitated a moment before shaking her head and deciding to ignore the way Ataya was acting. She couldn’t blame him terribly. They really didn’t know Nesrinn and the few interactions they’d had with purebloods had not been positive ones. Kara’s gaze flitted back to Rinn as he leaned over the rail, attention focusing in on the arena as well. There was something about this one, though, and Kara couldn’t quite place her finger on it. Maybe it was the way his upper lip hadn’t curled up in disgust the first time he’d laid eyes on her? He’d never once pointed out she, or her brother, were hybrids — never asked about it or pointed anything negative out. He had even been accepting of their uncles.
She shook her head, moving over to stand between her brother and Nesrinn. Kara curled her fingers around the metal of the rail and leaned over, standing on her tippy toes, to get a better view. As the voice boomed through the stadium, she glanced at Nesrinn out of the corner her eye. She turned her body, giving her brother her back and leaning her side against the railing and faced Rinn. “You...fight here? Really?” Her gaze flit back out to the arena below and the start of the fight. It was hard to imagine Nesrinn up against something in this place.
“Mmm, yeah.” Nesrinn’s gaze moved from the fight in progress and locked onto Kara.
“Why?”
“Money.” His brows pinched together as he looked away from her. It wasn’t his first choice of work and he’d certainly rather be doing other things. It was, however, easy work to come by and he wasn’t hurting for opportunities to fight. It brought money in and helped put food on his mother’s table. At the moment he couldn’t ask for much more than that.
Kara frowned at the answer and she watched him as his attention went back to the fight and he seemed to get lost in it. She wasn’t about to let the subject drop, though. “Surely there are other ways…”
Nesrinn sighed, shifting his body so that he too was leaning against the railing. “Sure there are.” He shrugged slightly. “None are as easy to come by as this place, though. We need the coin and so I fight. I do what I need to do to help my mother out.”
“I…” Kara opened her mouth but snapped it shut at the look in Nesrinn’s eyes. Something saying that he’d rather not talk about it at the moment. She nodded, “I understand.” With that, she let the subject drop, her gaze jerking back to the arena at the commotion of the crowd.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tangled Puppet Vice Captain
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:14 am
Whatever was said between his sister and Nesrinn, Ataya barely heard it.
It wasn’t that he specifically disliked the boy. But neither did he have any reason to like him, and unless or until Nesrinn did that, Ataya saw no reason to invest his time in him. He was a pureblood, after all, and according to the great bulk of his experiences so far, assuming the worst and bracing for it were the soundest strategies for avoiding wasted effort, damaged feelings, and disappointment on his own part.
Beneath them, the lowest stadium gates opened. A beast match started things off: some wild, massive creature of a sort that couldn’t have been from Eowyn proper faced off against one of the lower ranked fighters in the pit, presumably. It was…messy, Ataya decided. More unsettling though, than the fight itself — which Ataya wasn’t particularly bothered by, violence wise, even when he was all but certain broken limbs were involved — was the crowd. It shouldn’t have surprised him, perhaps, but did anyway when the cheers were for the beast, not the Magescian. A hybrid girl, surrounded by the sweeping earthen walls of the underground stadium and watched by a thousand eyes as her body was battered.
When her spine snapped and her gut was a moment later gored by the charging beast’s horn, the crowd errupted in cheering, and Ataya felt his gut curdle and chill. Not in sympathy for the body draped, broken, and bleeding over the stadium beast’s horn, but in raw, coiling anger. Fury, even, at what this was. For it wasn’t a competition, not in earnest, and when he spoke, his words were brittle and cold, sharp as the element he had chosen to have run in his veins:
“They’re mocking us…”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 2:28 pm
Kara’s body tensed the longer she watched the match, wincing with each blow the poor girl’s body took. Her fingers squeezed the railing under them tighter as she fought the instinct to jump down and run to the girl’s help. She didn’t like this, not one single bit. She bit her lip as she thought about uncle Casseth — and her father — fighting in this place. They had been lucky to come out of it alive. From what she had heard, from stories, Cas had come close a couple of times.
She shook her head, eyes snapping shut as soon as the beast’s horn gored the hybrid’s stomach. Kara found herself taking a step away from Nesrinn and towards her brother and Lyari. Her eyes jerked open at her brother’s comment and instantly went to Nesrinn as he spoke.
“Yes,” he said simply as he pushed away from the rail. He glanced towards Kara and Ata, knowing how they must feel to watch a fellow hybrid being gutted before their very eyes. It had been a shock to him, the first time, as well. He wanted to tell them he knew what they must be feeling but they likely wouldn’t believe him, not without him revealing that he was a hybrid. He wasn’t ready for that — not yet, at least. “If you’ll excuse me...I should really head down below.” He hesitated when he turned to move away from them. As a last thought, he turned to face Akara again, head tilting to the side. “I fight tomorrow. If you’re up for it, come watch?”
With that, he turned and disappeared off into the crowd, leaving Kara to stare after him. Part of her wanted to completely forget this place existed and yet part of her wanted to see Nesrinn again, even if that meant venturing back into this awful place. She bit her lip as she turned her attention back to the arena below, already being cleared for the next fight.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tangled Puppet Vice Captain
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2015 10:49 am
“He fights here,” Ataya murmured beneath his breath, the same chilled, bitter tone laced through the words despite the lowered volume. “He fights here.” Ataya’s voice rose a fraction with every step. “Does this — sets himself against us in an arena where we are either pitted against ourselves or otherwise framed to be entertainment for those who would pay to watch us slaughtered in a display barely more civil than those that seek us out to kill us in our homes and perhaps more disgusting if only because it pretends to be something other than it is…” He turned his gaze on his sister: sharp, accusing, seeking — looking for some, any, answer to what had been put out before them. After a drawn pause, he jerked his stare away again, narrowing it back on the arena below and resting his weight to the railing. “I am staying…and watching again, and again until they run out of blood to spill for the evening’s entertainment.”
‘And after…I am going to speak with our uncle.’
Whatever injustice was done on this day and the days to follow, it was the same that had been done on all those prior, and Ataya felt a sense of owing it to those hybrids foolish — or desperate — enough to drop themselves into this pit that he spend at least one day of his life fully absorbing the magnitude of it. Observing without flinching or looking away. Driving the point home, however poisonous it was, until it was buried so deeply in his skin no one could pull it out. These images he would remember, he promised himself. Those who slaughtered and were slaughtered alike were pawns in the system designed to shame and break them, and Ataya would hold each moment in his memory for as long as it would stay. Those who ‘fought’ deserved that much, perhaps.
Particularly if one happened, as with this girl, to be their last moment spent breathing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
