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At the Hallows’ cabin in Tuliyollal, Erenville was prepping shawarma wraps for dinner. Elayne was sleeping off a headache, so he was in charge of dinner tonight, and he was craving something other than tacos. Shawarma wasn’t much different, but anything that didn’t have lettuce and meat arranged in a certain way was different in Elayne’s eyes, and at that moment he was inclined to agree.
Once he was done, he woke Elayne and they ate their wraps quietly, neither in the mood for much talking. That is, until he spotted a letter embossed with neon purple border in Alexandrian script under her plate. He waited until she got up to collect the dirty plates to snatch the letter up and read it.
“Sweetheart?” he called.
“Hm?”
“What’s this?” he asked slowly, holding up the letter.
Elayne froze, head whipping around to see the letter in his hand and the very serious look on his face. Whatever she said, he would not be happy about it. “…I got a letter from Solution Nine,” she started.
“And? What is it about? Who is it from?”
“From a guy named Metem, from Ascension Arcadia…you know, the Arcadion facility we saw.” She set down the plates and rubbed her hands nervously. “They…they saw me fighting the machines in Solution Nine earlier, and they invited me to participate in the championship.”
“Championship? For what?” he interrogated, his ears rigid.
“You know…like the bloodsands in Ul’dah?” He said nothing, just stared at her with the same uncomfortably intense stare she tended to employ herself. “I asked Gulool Ja what it was like, and he told me they used feral souls in Arcadion fights for bigger spectacles —“
“No.”
The word snapped her out of her awkward explanation, and she gaped at him, stunned. “What?”
“No. You’re not doing this,” Erenville informed her, shaking his head.
She could not believe it.
“I will not let you risk your ass for sport in a city that has absolutely no regard for human life or safety,” he continued firmly, thrusting the letter onto the table. “You have already gotten hurt once. I will not let you get hurt again. Besides, I thought you hated this kind of thing?”
“I-I do, but —“
“Then why would you entertain it? Why, for any reason, would you want to go back to that shithole?” he demanded.
“The Arcadion uses feral souls. Who’s not to say they don’t use human ones too?” she implored. “If they do, it’s my job to liberate them. That’s what a Soulstitcher does, whatever they can to keep the cycle in balance. I’d like you to go with me, but I understand if you don’t —“
“I know that, but…Elayne, you saw what they did. They took away my home. They killed my mother. I am not going to let what happened to her happen to you too,” he snarled.
“Erenville, I know you’re protective, and I appreciate it, but you know damn well I can look after myself,” she shot back, slamming her hands on the table. “You do not make decisions about my ability to handle a problem. I handled the gulag, I can handle this too.”
Erenville laughed, a dark, grim laugh. “And how did that turn out?” he noted, hands flat on the table, anger glittering in his eyes. “PTSD, blackouts, and a lifetime of trauma hounding your every step?”
A strange silence, like the seconds where one would hold their breath as they waited for a bomb to go off, engulfed the room. Elayne stared, a terrible expression of mixed shock, hurt, and anger crossing her features, while Erenville instantly wished he could take it back.
“Excuse me?”
“I — I meant — I didn’t mean to —“ he stuttered.
“No, tell me, what exactly did you mean to imply with that?” she asked scathingly.
Erenville backed away, eyes wide, absolutely ashamed of what came out of his mouth, and he bowed his head, properly cowed. “I didn’t mean to say that,” he whispered.
“Damn right you didn’t,” she growled, and she pushed herself away from the table, stalking off to the balcony. Erenville remained in the kitchen, wanting to drown himself in the salt then and there. Cold guilt washed over his body, making him shiver. He could not believe he had just said that. This was the first real argument he could ever remember them getting into, and he absolutely hated himself for it. He could be vicious when he was angry, he knew it.
He just couldn’t believe he would ever inflict it on her.
Erenville leaned against the wall, repeating the apology in his head over and over as he heard Elayne come back in and get ready for bed. Her heavy stomps and forceful slamming of the dresser told him she was still upset, but he didn’t want her to fall asleep angry. She deserved that much, at least. He waited until he was sure she was laying down, then peeked around the corner to check. Sure enough, she was curled up on her side, facing away from his end of the bed.
He tiptoed in and pulled off his shirt as silently as possible, ignoring the fresh scar forming under his rib. He slipped on more comfortable trousers, then quietly shut the dresser and looked around. She still hadn’t acknowledged him.
“I’m happy to sleep in the other bed, if you want me to,” he whispered. “I can even sleep in the deck chair if you want —“
All that came out of him when she wordlessly shook her head was a brief breath of relief. He slipped into bed beside her, and he went to wrap his arm around her like usual, but he hesitated, doubting she wanted him touching her after their argument. As far as he was concerned, it was a fitting punishment. He drew his hand back, but before he could flip over, she reached back and grabbed his arm.
“It’s okay if you don’t want me to touch you,” he assured her.
When she didn’t let go, he sighed and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into him and hugging her tightly. He didn’t want to fall asleep with her in his arms without saying it. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
Nothing for a moment. Then — “Me too,” she whispered back.
“Elayne, I swear I —“
“Save it for the morning. Our heads will be cooler then,” she interrupted, and she went quiet again.
Sighing, he pulled the blanket over them and held her, determined to make it better in the morning.
When Erenville awoke, he lay there silently, replaying the argument from the previous night in his head, the knot in his stomach tightening uncomfortably. He had most definitely crossed a line. He wouldn’t forgive himself if he didn’t make it right.
“Elayne?”
She did not move, still nestled in his arms, still dead asleep. He kissed her hair and held her, slowly rubbing her side until she woke up, sleepily looking around until she felt his hands on her torso, and she turned her head to find him watching her.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he whispered back.
She stared at him for a minute before twisting herself over, clambering on top of him, and tucking her head into the crook of his neck, her arms coming up around his waist. He leaned back into the pillows with his hands on her back, resting his chin on her head. They lay there for a while, listening to each other’s breathing, before Erenville finally spoke up.
“Elayne…I’m sorry for last night,” he started. “I fucked up.”
“...We both fucked up,” she replied, not looking up. “I’m sorry too. I should’ve come to you about it earlier…better yet, just not have considered going at all —”
“Sweetheart, I appreciate you thinking about me, but that is my problem to deal with, not yours,” he told her firmly, hand coming up to stroke her hair. “You said I cannot make decisions for you. That is correct, and it’s the same vice versa. I can also handle my own problems. You don’t always have to keep me in mind for something you want to do.”
“Why did you bring up my PTSD?” she asked, not seeing him wince.
“…I did some asking around about the city the last time we were there, including the Arcadion. The competition is…well, it’s a spectacle, in and out of the ring. It’s just like the bloodsands in Ul’dah, it’s all a big show. But your experience fighting is from war, which is far more serious than sport. And not only do you take a lot of things literally, if something happens outside the ring, you may end up blacking out. I don’t want that to upset or scare you at all. I don’t want you to feel unsafe.”
“…You’re right,” she admitted. “But still. I want to do this. I want to prove to myself that I can deal with a threat without losing my mind. I don’t want to be scared anymore. I want to fight just for the fun of it. And if I get to free some souls in the process? All the better.”
Erenville sighed. “Alright. All I want is for you to be safe. As long as you’re okay, I’m fine with you going up there and fighting. But the moment you feel like you don’t want to do it anymore, listen to your instincts and pull yourself out of there. Got it?”
Elayne nodded. “What about you? What do you plan on doing?”
“If you think you’ll be alright, then I’ll stay here. I’d rather not go back to the shithole if I don’t have to. Don’t worry though, if something happens, I’ll be up there faster than a rat up a drainpipe. I promise.”
The next day, Elayne packed a small bag and left Tuliyollal to participate in the Arcadion, with the deal that she would come back between divisions. Metem, the commentator, was astounded to discover she didn’t have a feral soul and flatly refused to use one, but he readily agreed to not only let her use human souls out of the repository they kept, but also free the ones she used in her matches.
If she won the championship, that is.
It was fun at first — it wasn’t too different to fighting people, they just had extra abilities drawn from the feral souls they employed. Her first match was against a rookie named Yaana, also known as Black Cat. She didn’t quite get the theatrical aspect, like the name-calling or bragging, but she simply shrugged and dealt with her like every other opponent she’d faced. Her mere presence seemed to mystify everyone — calm, quiet, unresponsive to taunts. She was a stone wall. Rumors were flying the moment she stepped out of the ring with her first victory, and she had a very bad feeling she would not like dealing with them. At least she’d walked out of there with an ally — Yaana had come after her and offered herself as a second, an offer she happily accepted, especially with Yaana’s little sister Neyuni jumping up and down for joy when she saw the upstart.
The next two matches were a bit more grating — Honey B. Lovely’s false sweetness irritated her, and she blew a fuse with the Brute Bomber and blasted him to kingdom come early in his match. It was bad enough that Yaana cornered her after and told her she needed to control her temper, something that painfully reminded Elayne of the argument with her partner. He was unfortunately correct — it was hard not to take their infuriating antics seriously.
But the moment Yaana’s sister Eutrope appeared to challenge her for her soul?
There was the real threat she was looking for.
Elayne called Erenville briefly to tell him about the so-called exhibition match with Wicked Thunder, and she had to hang up when Neyuni called her for help. This explanation of why she wasn’t coming home as agreed apparently didn’t satisfy him, for when she walked into the greenroom with Neyuni, she found him there, talking seriously with Yaana.
“Oh good, you’re safe,” he breathed with relief. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. “When you ended the call abruptly, I didn’t know what to think.”
“So you decided to come up here and make sure I was okay yourself?”
Erenville nodded, kissing her temple.
“Your man was just explaining some things to me,” Yaana told her, resting her hands in her pockets. “Sorry for scolding you earlier. I didn’t realize you had some actual trouble.”
“Thanks,” Elayne grumbled into Erenville’s shirt.
“Hey, you’re still doing good,” he assured her. “For one, no blackouts. You just got pissed off, and that’s not too hard to manage. It’s progress.”
“I really wish that wasn’t a bar to be crossed,” she moaned.
“It is what it is. It’s not your fault your brain works the way it does,” he declared, resting his chin on her head. “Yaana, what are Wicked Thunder’s matches like?”
“Wicked Thunder is often dubbed the ‘neoteric witch.’ She’s a former heavyweight fighter who uses a levinsteed’s soul, so she’s quite a high cut above the light-heavyweight division. She also makes a habit of using electrope extensively in battle, allowing her to make weapons and constructs at will. Her ring’s a recreation of an imaginary city designed to allow her the full use of her powers,” Yaana explained.
“And her bouts are so dangerous that there isn’t any seating for spectators! She never let us go to them!” Neyuni whined. “We always had to watch them on screen.”
“Sounds like a piece of work. But if she is actually after Elayne’s soul, she’s going to have quite a job getting it,” Erenville said confidently.
“It’s not just that, actually…”
Everyone looked at Elayne curiously. “What do you mean?” Yaana asked.
“Her soul looked…tattered. And not frayed or worn out, I mean ripped. Like how my soul was after all the damage from the Light. Like one good bout could destroy it completely. Something’s happened to it.”
“Hmm…well, that should mean it won’t be too hard to take her down,” Erenville concluded. “Promise you won’t try anything dangerous?”
“Dangerous to me, no. Dangerous to her?…I can make no such promises,” Elayne replied with a grin.
Figuring that was the best he’d get out of her, Erenville shrugged and kissed her forehead. “Good. Show her who the real witch here is.”
Elayne saluted and left for the ring, gunblade confidently hoisted on her shoulder, ready to show this witch some real magic.