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Abolish watched the fight unfold with his heart in his throat.
He watched as the champion of Aeolus was slammed into the opposite side of the arena, as Zeus’ champion knelt at his side and whispered something in his ear.
He watched as the white haired man shot away, landing on his feet, bloodied but standing.
Abolish’s stomach churned with something. His pulse spiked.
Was it fear? Excitement?
Did Abolish truly find this entertaining?
Or was he scared for the two champions down there in that arena.
They were no gladiators. Not even close.
It wasn’t the same.
It wasn’t entertaining. It was—
His nails dug into his palm and he watched steadily on, face easily falling into that passive mask he was so familiar with. So much so he wasn’t sure where it ended and he began.
The windstorm took the audience by surprise, a collective ‘oooh’ issuing through the gathered crowd. Abolish watched as Aelous’ champion shot above the winds and fired an arrow at the warrior, as the other man turned and caught the shaft between his fingers.
He watched as the bolt of lightning rained down from the heavens above and struck the champion of Aeolus, sending him into a freefall to the solid ground.
And then there was this strange back and forth between the two. Aeolus’ champion was not dead—far from it, but it was clear that he had no chance at securing the win. Not clear enough to Zeus’ champion, apparently.
He pulled his opponent up, only for him to fall once more.
Abolish had noticed the stride that Aelous’ champion had taken to put on a good performance. He respected him for that; the only point of battles such as this was for entertainment. But it was dragging on for far too long now.
He, as an entertainer, noticed this quickly.
The champion of Aeolus noticed this much sooner than he. For blood was pooling on the ground and his limp form was falling against the broad chest of Zeus’ champion.
Abolish had impassively watched it happen.
His fingers curled into his palm and the soft flesh began to sting.
Scott disappeared in a second, leaving a bloody Nikos alone in the arena, expression utterly unreadable. Red painted the sandy ground beneath his feet, his chest splattered with scarlet that was not his own.
And then Apo’s voice was ringing through Abolish’s ears.
“Look at that!” she exclaimed loudly to her fellow Featherholders, voice purposefully carrying to the others. “I didn’t know a fight could last that long!”
Abolish sent a glance over to Apo, successfully tearing his eyes from Nikos.
“Yeah,” Owen replied, quiet and hesitant. “It sure took a while.”
“I mean.” Apo scoffed. “With neither having the guts to finish each other off, I don’t know how long that would’ve taken if Scott hadn’t taken the coward’s way out—”
Abolish sharply turned to face Apo, teeth clenched so hard his jaw was in danger of snapping right off.
Apo paused in the middle of her sentence, a thin smile growing on her lips. Her huge, inky eyes focused on Abolish. “Something to say?”
Abolish breathed out through his nose, attempting to reign his anger. What was happening to him? This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not there, not then.
“Not really,” he bit out. “Only the fact that Sausage willingly let Owen kill him in the arena not any more than a couple days ago.”
Apo’s eyes narrowed and her lip curled up in a snarl. Her wings puffed and shuddered behind her as she took a step towards Abolish, the feathery appendages whispering on the ground behind her. “What’d you say?”
“Oh, you heard me. You’re trying to shame those two for being weak, while two of your teammates were in a very similar situation that ended in a very, very similar way.”
“You take that back.”
“Take what back? It’s only the truth. You know what else is the truth, champion of Morpheus? You’ve attempted to steal every single blessing we’ve received so far. Isn’t that strange? Almost like you need an extra buff to hide behind. Almost like you’re weak yourself. You wanna know what that’s called, Apo? Projection.”
Apo lunged for him, the metallic ringing of her sword being drawn echoing throughout the still arena. Abolish summoned his own weapon and swung it in a high arc behind his head, aiming for the killing blow he knew so well.
Well enough to be deadly accurate even with his eyes shut.
His sword embedded itself into her shield as she abandoned the sword and thrusted her shield above her.
For the fraction of a second, they were locked in a standstill. Abolish was just about to let go of his sword and draw a new one to slice her in half at the abdomen, when a flash of movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He jumped diagonal backwards as Pyro slashed at him, barely missing his neck by inches. Instead, a thin line bubbled with blood across his face.
“Get off of her!” he yelled, swinging once more at Abolish.
“My fight’s not with you,” Abolish snapped, sidestepping his attack. Weaponless, but the opposite of defenseless, he twisted behind Pyro, sliding one of the young man’s daggers out from his own sheaths. “Drop the sword or you go down to two lives.”
Pyro briefly stilled, contemplation pulling his muscles taut.
“Do it!” Apo exclaimed, a new desperation clinging to her voice.
Immediately, the sword clattered to the ground, a fine cloud of dust floating upwards at the impact. Abolish roughly shoved Pyro away, dropping the dagger next to the sword as he faced Apo once more.
His sword was still embedded into her shield. That was fine; he could easily take her barehanded.
“What’s going on here?”
Nikos’ voice had him turning away from Apo—something he had never once done while standing before an opponent.
Blood still trickled sluggishly down his chest.
Scott’s blood.
“Apo was talking shit.”
Nikos tilted his head. “So? The bird tends to do that.”
Abolish grit his teeth, willing Nikos to understand his sudden, violent anger. “She called you and Scott cowards.”
“Because you are!” Apo shouted, a manic glint appearing in her large eyes. “You both are the epitome of cowardice! You were too weak to fight each other to the point where Scott had to kill himself because of your spinelessness!”
Nikos turned to face Apo, a dark look clouding his face. No, it was more than that.
Nikos looked like he was about to commit a murder.
“Say that once more, bird.”
Apo’s eyes widened in faux innocence. “I’m sorry, are you hard of hearing?” She leaned in, putting a hand conspiratorially up to the side of her mouth. “I said you’re weak. You and that so-called champion of Aeolus.
“Apo…” Owen warned, walking up to her side. He put a hand on her shoulder, gently attempting to pull her away from Nikos and Abolish. “Tread carefully.”
Apo shrugged the champion of Chronos off, not taking her gaze from Nikos. “Well? What are you gonna do about it?”
The light had faded from Nikos’ eyes.
Abolish wasn’t sure there had even been any after he had gotten out of the arena.
“I’m going to kill you, bird.”
And then Nikos lunged, lightning bolt drawn, and for a moment it looked like he just might succeed. Apo seemed to be frozen in place, eyes fixed on the weapon as it careened for her heart—
Abolish didn’t have time to scream Nikos’ name. Only to act.
He shoved his way into the fray, trusting his feet to instinctively guide him to the best path of victory. A weapon appeared in his hand—he had no clue where it had come from—and he plunged the dagger into the chest of the person whose weapon was millimeters away from Nikos’ skull.
But—no—
That was wrong.
As Abolish came back to himself, as his mind returned from the deep recesses of the arena it had retreated into, he realized his mistake.
He had not stabbed Pyro, who had frozen in his attack upon Abolish’s actions.
No.
Abolish had plunged his dagger up to the hilt in Chronos’ champions’ chest. He watched as red began to flow and sink deep into the fabric of his white toga.
Abolish took a shaky step back.
There was a scream. A sob.
And then Pyro’s spear was exiting through the back of Nikos’ head and the champion of Zeus was gone.
Abolish was alone, his hands speckled with innocent blood. He was being tackled to the floor, huge wings arcing to the sky as Apo raised a clenched, bloody fist. She slammed her knuckles into his face and Abolish did nothing to stop her, disbelief still clouding his brain in an opaque fog.
Apo had misjudged her balance on the stairs and soon they were tumbling towards the arena, huge appendages wreathing the two like an overly restricting blanket, feathers flying this way and that.
Abolish’s head banged against the stone stairs with every twist but he let his skull repeatedly bash into the cement.
What had he done?
They rolled to a stop at the edge of the arena and Apo promptly shot out her foot, connecting it with Abolish’s side, and kicked him right off the side of the edge.
Abolish fell into the arena and for a second he was flying. The blood staining his fingers was suddenly gone and the unnatural guilt in his chest had floated away into the starry heavens above.
He hit the ground with a resolute crack and his ankle gave a sharp stab of agony.
He didn’t care.
What had he done?
He lay there for a moment, eyes half-lidded, breaths laboured in his heaving chest. Blood trickled down the side of his face from the cut across it, he could barely see out of his right eye. His ankle throbbed with a pain so severe that, every so often, white flashed across what remaining vision he had left.
His impaired vision couldn’t make it all the way to the top of the arena walls. He couldn’t see if anyone was looking down at him, couldn’t see if anyone was attempting to reach him.
Nobody came.
He lay there, in his own silence, the moon and stars his only companions in the night, as he realized his mistake.
Not getting too attached meant that nobody would come to his aid. Not becoming too close with anyone meant that when he fell, everybody just looked the other way.
Especially when he had just murdered a man in cold blood.
Heavy footsteps permeated the quiet. A face loomed over him, long, dark hair tumbling down around it.
Nikos must be having quite the episode of deja vu.
“Pretty one,” Nikos greeted. Abolish merely peered up at him, his tongue unable to form words.
And then strong arms were lifting him to his feet. Abolish couldn’t stop the noise that escaped him when his foot made contact with the ground. Nikos’ brows knitted briefly as his eyes roved Abolish, something similar to worry shining on his face.
“Do not worry,” he ended up saying. “You’ll be fine.”
Abolish, again, said nothing.
Nikos slung one of Abolish’s arms across his shoulders, then raised a lightning bolt over his head. “Hold on!”
He threw it, and in an instant Abolish was no longer in that blood soaked arena. No, he was back on those stairs, the ones where he had slain the champion of Chronos.
Blood still lay soaked into the pristine steps where he had died.
Nikos dragged Abolish along, his own legs working in auto-pilot and nothing more. It was as if a particularly thick layer of fog had settled over his surroundings. It intoxicated his brain and slowed it down until it whirred to a sluggish stop, delved deep into his bones and weighed them down like leaden pipes.
This was so uncharacteristically unlike himself in made his stomach unpleasantly churn. Abolish liked to put on the front that he had no interest in what others thought of him but that was all it was—a front. He was an entertainer through and through, of course he cared about his image. He was supposed to be formidable—cold.
Now he was reduced to a bloody, useless blob that was being half carried by Nikos through the winding, dirt paths of the forest.
Nikos didn’t offer much conversation, apparently content to remain in the odd silence that had fallen over the two. Well that was certainly a first.
Eventually they made it to Abolish’s forge. Why Nikos had decided to drag him there and not his own abode Abolish had no clue, but he wasn’t complaining. He at least had a decently organized material system, while he sincerely doubted Nikos had anything to rival his.
Nikos let himself inside and didn’t shut the door behind him. Abolish found himself quite uncaring of this, surprisingly, and allowed himself to be sat down on his bed.
What he wasn’t fine with was the pat on the head Nikos bestowed him before he delved into Abolish’s chests.
“Hey!” he exclaimed, voice more sharp than he initially intended. Oh well.
Nikos didn’t even send him a glance. “Hold still for a moment, fiery one, we need to fix you.”
Abolish scoffed. “Fix me? I’m fine. Get out of my forge.”
Nikos did not get out of his forge. Instead, he triumphantly held up a roll of duct tape and a handle to a weapon that hadn’t been made yet.
Abolish raised his brows at the taller man. “And what are you planning to do with those?”
“Fix you.”
“Yeah… no thank you. I’d rather fix myself.”
He stood up, biting back a cry as it threatened to build in his throat, and walked normally over to the chest. He knelt down, ignoring the hell it imposed onto his ankle, and then froze where he was.
He had never been the one to deal with his injuries. There had been healers, people who would tend to him after matches and then send him on his merry way with instructions to rest his body before resuming his usual training. He had never heeded their warnings, but he always turned out just fine in the end.
He didn’t have any healers this time.
He also didn’t feel like asking anyone else for help.
Resigned, annoyed, frustrated—any synonym, really—he turned his gaze back up to Nikos, who was peering curiously down at him. A self satisfied grin slowly spread across Nikos’ face even before Abolish had the chance to open his mouth.
“Are you starting to like my idea now, pretty one?”
Abolish refused to admit to it, desperately clinging on to any sense of pride he had left. Which—ashamedly—was very scarce that night.
“No, and don’t call me that. I just—don’t have the materials I need.”
He stood up, the world slightly tilting on its axis as he did so, and made to brush past Nikos in an attempt for the door. Nikos apparently didn’t like that idea very much.
He easily—too easily—blocked Abolish’s path with a strong, outstretched arm. Abolish stared at it, then at Nikos, then at the door.
With a sigh, he turned and walked (not limped) back to his bed. He calmly sat down, his ankle throbbing something terrible, and stared expectantly at Nikos. “Well? Fix me.”
Nikos hesitated for a fraction of a second, a dubious look glinting in his dark gaze as he looked down at the items in his hands, but quickly made his way over to Abolish. He sat down next to him, then gestured at his ankle.
“Give me.”
Abolish stared at him, unimpressed. “What are you gonna do with it?”
“Just give me it!”
“Fine.”
He swung his leg up, folding his right beneath him, and let his ankle fall on Nikos’ thigh.
Nikos examined it for a moment, a slight crease appearing between his brows accompanied by a frown tugging on his lips. He took it in his coarse hands, his grip surprisingly gentle for a man his size, and tilted his foot to the side.
Abolish couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped him, and he curled his fingers tightly into the rough material of the haphazardly made bed that he had never had the inclination to use.
Nikos sent him a worried glance at that, which Abolish tried to ignore, and turned his foot the other way. This time, Abolish was ready for it, and swallowed the cry back into his throat.
“It’s swollen,” Nikos commented, poking at his ankle.
Abolish stared at him in the most deadpan look he could muster. “Really?”
Nikos nodded emphatically. “That’s probably not a good sign.”
“Probably not.” Abolish let himself fall back fully onto the bed, his head beginning to pound the second it hit the poorly made mattress. “When does the fixing me part happen?”
“I… don’t know what to do,” Nikos admitted and Abolish groaned into his hands.
“Of course you don’t.”
“I don’t see you fixing yourself!”
A voice interrupted the cutting retort on the tip of Abolish’s tongue.
“I didn’t realize you were busy.”
Abolish craned his neck to see who had spoken, then gave up in that hopeless endeavor and pushed himself back up to a sitting position. He drew his foot away from Nikos and planted it back on the floor, guard immediately rising at a new face.
Cleo stood there, vibrant orange hair sprawling, goat-like ears flapping slightly. Her green eyes held no animosity, but Abolish had learned that what was in a person’s face typically wasn’t what was in their heart.
Despite Cleo being the one other person besides Nikos and Scott of whom he held the slightest amount of companionship in, he still wouldn’t trust her so fast.
What was she doing here, anyway?
“What do you want?” he asked, immediately jumping straight to the point. His ankle was in too bad of shape to waste any time on niceties.
She frowned at the pair, head tilting to the side. “That’s no way to treat somebody who came to help.”
It was Abolish’s turn to frown at her, confusion ebbing away at his mind. “Came to help?” he echoed, squinting. “Why would you do that?”
She huffed out a breath, looking as if she already regretted this decision. “Because you’re one of my strongest allies and it’s not good for me if you’re injured. Is that what you want to hear?”
Abolish couldn’t wrap his head around anything. Including Cleo’s words. There was some sort of secret message there but he was way too preoccupied to figure it out.
“Cleo, come in!” Nikos exclaimed, gesturing for Cleo to walk further into the small room. “We could use the help!”
Abolish wanted to smack Nikos upside the head. “No we don’t.” He gave the satyr his most polite, strained smile. “We’re just fine here.”
Cleo gave him an unconvinced look in return. “Yeah, that cold sweat on your face looks just fine.”
Abolish was not sweating, and it was certainly not cold.
“The pretty one hurt his ankle.”
This time Abolish did hit Nikos. But the damage was done. Cleo knew, and if Cleo knew, everyone would know. And then he would be a target. He would without a doubt be voted into the next duel, and then he would be put at a major disadvantage.
Nikos had just unwittingly killed him.
“I can help with that,” Cleo said, gesturing towards his ankle. How did she know it was his left??
Abolish didn’t want her help. Hell, he didn’t want Nikos’ help, but look where he was. He caved.
Augh, what was happening to him tonight!?
“Fine. Are you gonna ‘fix’ me too?”
Cleo walked closer to him and Nikos, a flute appearing in her hands. She blew into it, her fingers drifting across the holes in the wooden instrument, and suddenly the throbbing decreased to a moderate ache and his head was as clear as it had been before his skirmish with Apo.
He refused to call it a fight.
“What did you do?” Abolish asked, keeping the amazement firmly out of his voice.
“Just a little healing spell. It won’t completely mend your wounds, but it’ll definitely help out.”
“Excellent!” Nikos cried, clapping his hands together so hard it sounded like a roll of thunder.
“Why?” Abolish questioned, this time letting his genuine curiosity show on his face. “Why help? We’re not even friends.”
“I like to think of us as something like that,” Cleo argued, not missing a beat. “Allies, then, or acquaintances, if you’d prefer.”
Abolish would also like to think of them as something like that.
“Will you be sticking around, then?” Nikos asked, voice a little too hopeful for Abolish’s tastes.
Well, Cleo did just heal him.
“No, I don’t think so,” Cleo said with a polite smile to rival Abolish’s attempt from earlier. “Not unless you have any booze.”
“I’m afraid not,” Nikos said sadly, and then glanced at Abolish. “Do you?”
“What do you take me for??”
“We have no booze.”
“I’ll see you around, then.”
Cleo promptly turned around and left, her footsteps retreating into the calm tranquility of night.
Something inside of Abolish stirred.
“Cleo, wait!”
He shot up and ran after her, ignoring the hindrance that was his ankle, and stumbled to a stop at the front of his forge.
He scanned the surrounding grassland that was darkened beneath the dawning morning sky.
He found her, then, staring at him with those beady black eyes. She had turned into a goat. Her fur glistened silver against the setting moon. Her hooves pawing a little nervously against the grass.
“I—”
Why had he chased after her? There was no purpose that she could serve him, none that he could serve her. So, why did he feel it was so important that he catch her before she could disappear once more?
“Thank you.”
She said nothing. She was a goat, they typically didn’t tend to talk. She blinked at him and then turned to leave.
“Can you check on Scott?”
He didn’t know where the words were coming from. He surely didn’t feel himself saying them, much less have the conscious thought to say them.
Cleo turned back to face him, head tilting to the side as it did when she was in her humanoid version.
“I just—I—”
Coherent words were something foreign, something of the past. Abolish didn’t know what he was trying to get at here, and neither did Cleo. This was a mistake. Why was Abolish acting so out of hand this night??
Since when did he care about the champion of Aeol—no. Since when did he care about Scott?
Cleo stared at him for a moment, and then turned and left, the dirt crunching beneath her hooves. Abolish watched her go until she disappeared over the ledge of the mountain, taking a short cut right down the side as an animal like her could easily do.
His gaze lingered at the place where she had vanished.
He didn’t know how to feel about anything but he felt everything about nothing.
It was quite a problem, he decided, as he heard Nikos’ heavy footsteps coming up behind him.
“Why did you ask Cleo to do that?”
Straight to the point, like usual. Good, there was some consistency in at least one of them.
Abolish didn’t answer, unable to tear his eyes from that same spot. In all honesty, he had no idea why he had asked Cleo. If, in any way possible, somehow, he had some… fondness—no. Fondness wasn’t the right word. Abolish didn’t feel fond of people.
Surely not.
Companionship? That was a little overboard even in itself, but he would have to go with that for the foreseeable future.
If he held any sort of companionship with Scott, then why not check on the status of his ally himself? Why send Cleo to do it for him?
“Would you rather go instead?” he found himself asking, genuinely curious.
There was a moment of hesitancy in Nikos’ voice before he responded. It was a great deal larger than Abolish had ever heard before. He was almost unsure of himself. Ha! How odd. Everybody was acting differently tonight. Perhaps something was in the air—that was it.
“No,” he finally answered. “I don’t think I would.”
“Why not?” he pressed, digging not only into Nikos’ reasons, but his own.
Again, Nikos hesitated. “I’m not entirely sure.”
Silence fell over the two champions once more. Abolish couldn’t conjure the words to reply, and Nikos had nothing more to say.
The night passed sluggishly. When dawn broke over the crest of mountains, Abolish saw light.