Pip's second meeting with the enigma that was Catherine Mauser went at a far more breakneck pace than their first. Pip couldn't even keep up with the girl's detailed training schedule as she went point by point on the chart she had made specially for the occasion. She had gone as far as to break up each of their seventy-two days of training (which she didn't even need to count to know was the remaining time to the tournament) into three hour blocks.

Looking at the eager face of the girl in front of her, however, she couldn't bring herself to reject any of it. Even without the truly insane level of detail, Pip was somehow happy that so much thought had been put into things.

“And that should lead us up to tournament day, where we'll keep to a light run and then a quick spar,” Catherine said as she finished her speech and panted a moment to regain her breath.

“Sounds good,” was all Pip could bring herself to say, stuck within a mix of shock and awe at what was possibly the greatest feat of organizational skill that she had ever seen.

“Great!” She beamed. “when she would get started?” Catherine asked with a smile on her face that was beginning to bare an uncomfortable resemblance to the mad priest that had brought the two of them together.

“How about later today. How does fifth bell sound?” Pip asked, hoping she hadn't picked a bad time for the girl. Despite having been at the orphanage for two days already she was still unsure about the class schedules that she was now obligated to attend to. This meant that she had almost no idea when she would be busy, let alone all of the other orphans in the first hall.

“Sounds good to me, Pip. We can talk more about the schedule then,” she said briefly, before turning to leave Pip's cramped room. “I'm looking forward to being on a team with you!” Catherine shouted before she left, leaving Pip once more at a loss with how to respond.

The cheerful girl was easy to talk to - almost alarmingly so, but Pip still felt a little uncomfortable around her. The beginning of their first meeting had left something of an impression on Pip, and she was still unable to reconcile the difference in Catherine's personality that had happened so quickly. The demure, shy and anxious girl had disappeared in a second and been replaced by the peppy and enthusiastic Cathering that had been talking about organising a training schedule for three entire hours.

The difference had been so startling that Pip hadn't even had the presence of mind to question Catherine about it. She had been so shocked that she had let Catherine lead the conversation any way that she thought necessary, which inevitably ended up leading to what Pip could only call nervous rambling, despite the confidence with which she was able to say it. That particular note coming after a twenty minute discussion on whether tabby wyverns should be eating nerts or not.

In spite of that, however, Pip was excited. This was to be her first long-term interaction with a human, and she was not disappointed in the slightest. Compared to the never-changing life that was her existence in the realm of the Gods, humans provided ample randomness and unexpectedness. If all humans were like Catherine, she was sure to find someone to become her disciple. Maybe even Catherine herself would be interested? It wasn't everyday that a God offered to personally teach one of their chosen, after all.

It just meant the process of giving Catherine her apostle would be... troubling. And painful. Pip sighed as she wistfully thought of Catherine taking up her offer and becoming her first sworn chosen. It was a dream that she had often thought about as she sat lonely in her manor in the Land of the Gods. It was her dream even as she wandered aimless throughout the human kingdoms as well. It would be her dream until the day her existence was put to an end if she could guess. It was all that she wanted in her short, short life.

If she had been given her shadow it would have been a non-issue. Gaining chosen as a Goddess of shadow would have been a breeze. Young and impressionable kids would line up in droves. Dozens of humans each day would pray to her - she may have had whole sects that drew upon her to give their hopefuls a chance at becoming powerful. Even nobles wouldn't scoff at the chance to become a lesser Goddess of shadow's chosen hero.

But without a shadow, there was only one way to become chosen of the Gods, and it was not something that one spoke about in polite company, or, for that matter, the sort of company that polite company would deign not to speak about. It was, truthfully speaking, not an option. Pip would not bring herself to do it even if it killed her. She would let her dream remain a dream if it meant resorting to that.

Thinking that still left a bitter taste in her mouth as she silently stared at the wooden floors of her room. Letting her head rest against the wall Pip wondered at the unfairness of it all. She was given the dominion of shadow, one of the oldest and purest elements of the Gods, and yet she didn't even qualify as one of the lesser Gods. Even the weakest and least of the lesser Gods could make for themselves an army of chosen at their beck and call. They could see their chosen grow to become great and powerful - see them rule towns or cities or even great kingdoms. they would see their chosen ascend the ranks of power that governed their world and become all the better for it. They would see their chosen become great and be along them every step of the way. Pip would not.

Pip would watch the chosen of other Gods, unable to see one of her own out in the world. They would create their own paths and their Gods would guide and see them through the tough times. Pip would never have the chance. The rest of the Gods would know their chosen, their struggles, their aspirations through prayer, and Pip would forever be an outsider, unable to know or understand the lives or struggles of the humans around her. It was torturous to see all of life that was to be seen but not to know any of it.

in the land of the Gods - where the completeness of human nature and presence were as known as the palm of a hand or the features of ones own face, Pip could never know any of it. She had humans and their nature in their entirety, but could never know a single thing about either. It had led her to the human world, and that had led her to Dasgad.

And that had led her to the small and curious human that was Catherine Mauser. She was mousy and anxious one moment, and lively and confident the next. Pip would never see her the way one of the Gods would. She would never know her pain, her aspirations, or her desires. She would never see her grow into a world priest or even a platinum. She would not guide her through the hard times in her life, or see her smile through the happy times. But she would see her now. Pip wanted to know Catherine, and this tournament seemed an excellent chance to start.

Taking her pure white hair into her hands, Pip wrestled it into a bun and put on what currently constituted her training clothes - the second set of her grey orphan's clothes. Catherine may be an enigma for now, but some team training would certainly help to fix that. She may even begin to unravel the mystery.

.......

The orphanages training grounds were, in a word, disappointing. Pip knew the orphanage didn't have its own training ground, being the dour shithole that it was. And That meant that anyone from the orphanage who wanted to find somewhere to practice for the tournament had two options. You could go to the free training ground in the market square if you didn't mind being gawked at while you beat the living daylights out of one another, or you could go to the guild run training hall. It cost a few coppers to get in, but from there you could make your way for free.

Of course, if you wanted extra privacy you could get a private room to train with a partner. Most people however, as far as Pip could tell, decided to use the open squares.

The training hall was nothing like how she had imagined it. She had come in with low expectations after seeing Dasgad and the orphanage, but even she had underestimated just how much of briny shit hole this city was. Comparing anything to the Land of the Gods was unfair, but Pip couldn't help but miss her home just a little after seeing the training ground.

It was an oppressive and stone building that looked back out to Pip as she arrived, all jagged angles and stone walls. There was no personality to the building, only a practical and cold sterility. Scrapes and scars pock-marked the inside of the walls from missed attacks and the singing burn of apostles long since faded away. After going past the toll and into the hall proper there was no improvement. It was simply room on room, identical and without ornamentation. Each room contained only a single stone square wide enough for a mock battle between low level opponents.

In each of the room was a viewing platform above the actual sparring square where onlookers would watch the two combatants fight one another. Pip had seen enough of the design in her travels to know that it was one of the main ways a building like this made money. Only, instead of making the experience pleasant to encourage patronage the owners simply offered discounts to the most bloody trainees. If you could beat your opponent severely enough the odds were good you'd get your entrance fee back and then some.

In the first hall to Pip's left she saw two combatants fighting in a grapple, one with their head in a lock desperately trying to break free from the aggressor's grip. The flailing slowed, and finally stopped altogether as the aggressor used their teeth to rip into the scalp of their opponent until they fell unconscious. The aggressor dropped the unconscious and bleeding man he'd been holding like a rock before stalking away and into the crowd that was watching him. Both of those fighters had been lost.

“PIp!” a voice called from behind her. Pip spun to face the girl who'd called out to her with a smile already on her face. “I didn't think you'd already be here, Catherine. I wanted to get a look at the place before we got started,” Pip said.

“That's alright. I wanted to do the same. I normally can't afford to come in here so I wanted to watch some of the other orphans fight before we got started,” Catherine replied.

“Other orphans? You mean it's not just me and you here? there are others from the orphanage?” Pip asked. She had assumed she and Catherine would be the only orphans that would go into the more expensive training hall. Catherine had initially refused entire until PIp offered to use some of her meagre savings to get them through the door. Three copper wasn't much to most people, even a farmer likely had a few silver lying around, but Pip and Catherine were orphans. They had what they could scrounge from the streets.

“Of course there are others. This tournament is big deal around here, Pip. If you win while some of the hedgeside sects are watching you might even get adopted into one of the sects, or even one of the three houses, but that's pretty rare,” she began. “And even if you don't get adopted the top four get to fight in the Hedgeside tournament.” Catherine went on excitedly.

“And that's better than the dockside tournament?” She asked, genuinely curious at what was getting the girl so worked up. “Yes. It's MUCH better than the dockside tournament. The kind of kids that fight in the Hedgeside tournament don't even compare to losers like us. Just looks at them,” she said, pointing at two chosen fighting in the grey orphans robes that both she and Pip were wearing.

The two wailed at each other with conjured weapons in massive sweeping arcs, each attack meant to cleave the opponent in two. One boy used what looked to be an apostle of a lesser water God, and had fashioned it into a long-sword. The other was using an apostle from a lesser war God by the look of it. It was a black and red hammer, but instead of keeping the pressure on and wearing their enemy down they had taken the defensive, allowing their opponent to chip away at their arms until they were a bloody mess.

“That is what we look like,” Catherine said, and Pip was beginning to see where she was going. “And that is what they look like,” she said as she pointed to a youth dressed in a three-piece suit, slowly but surely cutting a boy into pieces. With each stroke of his hand, a cut appeared on his opponent, until finally, the boy gave in, looking more like a flayed pig than the boy that was in the arena a few seconds before.

Pip was impressed by the display, if only a small amount. The boy had decent technique, and hadn't fallen into the trap of using his apostle by turning it into a weapon. He had properly grasped the power and flexibility of what she assumed to be the apostle of a minor wind God.

“Ok, and why would we ever want to fight someone like that?:” Pip asked Catherine. She was fairly confident she would lose in a straight fight against someone like him. She had seen far, far better than him, but Pip was still the weakest of the lesser Gods. She was skilled, but skill alone couldn't make up for power. That but had been earth ranked, where Pip was probably somewhere in the middle of bone if she were to apply the mortal ranking system to herself. She was about as weak as it went.

“Because of the prizes!” Catherine squealed. “Each round you win, you get actual prizes! Not like the ones you win in the Dockside tournament, but actual, real prizes,” Catherine beamed, smiling down at PIp. Knowing the polite thing to do, but hating having to do it, Pip asked away. “What kind of prizes?” she asked in a dull monotone. She didn't exactly see what a backwater like Dasgad could possibly offer to make up for the risks of fighting earth rankers or stronger.

“Well firstly there's gold, obviously,”she said. “of course,” Pip agreed. “And the rest of the usual stuff. Offers from sects, family connections, that sort of thing. “Mhm,” Pip agreed, growing bored. “But the big one, the one that everyone is really fighting for, is marriage into one of the three families,” she finished, causing Pip to do a double take. She had just said marriage. As in, the kind of thing people do when they want to share a house and fuck. That sort of marriage.

“Wait, like, Marriage marriage?” Pip asked incredulously, assuming she had misunderstood. She had thought she understood humans pretty well by now, but clearly she had gone wrong somewhere down the line.

“Exactly. And when you're married into the family become an actual noble. No more orphan or commoner, but an actual noble. Just like that,” she finished, sighing wistfully as she imagined just that.

“So what, you just... Marry them? just like that? and then what, you just bone some random stranger you've never met?” Pip said, exasperated. Catherine, in turn, looked at Pip with a look of confusion and entertainment in equal measure. The open-jawed stare went on for so long that Pip eventually waved her lavender hand in front of Catherine's face to get her attention.

“Ah!” Catherine jumped at the purple hand in front of her. “Well... um. You're not wrong as such,” she said, slightly embarrassed at being scared by Pip's hand. Recovering, she began again, “That's not really the point of the marriage. Don't get me wrong, you'll do your fair share of 'boning' as well, but there's other stuff, too,” Catherine said.

“Care to elaborate on that?” Pip asked, finally curious at what exactly she had missed about what makes marriage so important.

”Well, you'll be an official noble. That means you can do all sorts of noble stuff, like going to the capital and whipping commoners and stuff,” Catherine said, abashed.

“Whipping commoners?” Pip asked.

“Look, I don't know, alright. But it's a good thing, so we'll just leave it at that. Being a noble is a lot more than wearing a suit or a dress. It's a lot more than a title; it's a door,” Catherine said seriously in yet another new tone from the girl. She had shifted out of her confident excitement and into a reverent awe at the thought of being a noble, and PIp strived to know what it meant. She wanted desperately to know what Catherine saw in being a noble, but as she was about to ask, she looked at the mousey girl's face, and changed her mind.

Catherine didn't just lack her usual chipper attitude, she looked downright miserable, and Pip decided it might be for the best to save the questions for another time.

Noting the heavy silence, Catherine decided to break it with a question. “So, did you want to take a l ook around together,” she suggested.

“Sure, where did you want to look first,” Pip agreed.

“Well,” Catherine said, slipping, slowly but surely back into her veneer of confidence. “How about we check out the sparring ground to the right. That's where all of the tournament goers are training apparently, and it might be good if we can get a read on the competition this year. Apparently it's going to be a bit of a doozy,”

“Well i'll be interested to see if we can see one of these nobles in action, “ Pip nodded in thought.

“Hah! There's no way an actual noble shows up at these training grounds. They have their own up in Hedgeside. The kind that random people can't just show up and watch,” Catherine said, laughing at Pip in barely contained glee at her naivety.

Pip, on the other hand, only thought in wonder that places like that really existed in the worlds asshole that was Dasgad. It seemed that the smog and coal really did trick you into believing there was nothing else to it. Maybe there was something worthwhile in the crappy city after all.