Valle

“Hey,” I said to my sword, “it has been some time since we last exchanged words, has it not?”

It had always soothed me to speak to my sword—the one Estella had given me—before a match. Someone like me had to be more than flawless, they had to be blinding in their brilliance. Enough that the whole of Cresna would be able to find hope. Enough that Father would not feel concerned that my shoulders had too much weight on them. Enough that even those who once doubted me would feel charmed by my performance. Enough that I fooled myself into thinking I was invincible, I guess.

“It used to be that your steel was the only thing that could beat witness to my fears.” My whisper was low, as if fearing someone could overhear me, but I was alone with my sword in that room. “No one else could know, but you could. You were my partner and defeated many strong foes alongside me. That was part of it, but…” It was silly to admit this aloud, but it felt necessary. Like I had to do it in order to be myself. “To be entirely frank, my dear blade, part of it was that Estella had gotten you for me as a gift. Felt like my words could reach her, and my reflection on this polished steel was oddly soothing. You provided me a sorely needed comfort in those years. In the battlefield and outside of it—during that forsaken war, when I fought to earn the people of Cresna’s love, when I was lacking purpose in life—you gave me something to hold on to. And that is something I will be thankful for until my last day.”

There was a sound outside the door, a knock and a few familiar, impatient sounds. They were loud, they were annoying, they broke my concentration, and they brought a smile to my face. “But now, I have other people I can talk to before my matches too,” I told it. “So thank you, partner. You no longer need to bear the brunt of my complaints alone.” Father would be happy to know my tongue needs not to lie to him any longer. These shoulders of mine…do truly feel particularly light today.

Here the door swung open, and those three came in. Celle was the first to approach me, with a bother of water on hand, and a small bag of nuts. “Here you go,” she said, “been a while since we have done that, eh?”

“It truly has been a long time.” Celle had been an attendant in Cresna’s colosseum a long time before Carr showed up. We weren’t particularly close at the time, but we saw each other very often and repeating that same old ritual now that we had become rather fond of each other was quite nostalgic. “You were the only attendant there who understood exactly what I needed before my matches.”

“Well—detective,” she replied, pointing at herself. “Got you the ice water you want and even found those god forsaken nuts for you.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it. Sincerely,” I added at the end.

Celle smiled. “I know. Ah, and since I’m not the attendant here—I don’t have to be impartial anymore. So, if you don’t mind...I’m placing a bet on you today. Just a small one, for old time’s sake.”

All of us laughed at this. Whatever nerves I had been feeling about this match to come appeared to be gone now. This felt as good as when I was alone, speaking with myself before a match. No. This is better.

Carr’s hand fell on my shoulder. “Remember what we talked about strategy wise, yeah? He’s going to try to take your blade, so I want you to—”

“—Fence extremely poorly,” I finished his sentence for him. There was more to it than simply fencing poorly, but he knew that if I was joking around I surely remembered more about the plan. We smiled at each other. “You might make quite the fencing master someday, Carr. When the piste is too rough for your old bones, thousands of young fencers will cry out in excitement at the idea you might teach them.”

“Yeah, right. If they cry, it will be in fear,” Carr said, laughing.

When we had first met each other, neither of us had our minds in the right place. Mine was along the lines of what my job as Champion of Cresna was. Wondering whether it was possible to ever really enjoy swordfighting again, when for so long it had been a tool for my goals…and when my limit had been established. His mind was on vengeance, on hatred for this world that he had been forcibly brought to. I like to think that match did us both some good. I stood up and we bumped our fists against each other. “Worry not, friend. This match ends with me winning.”

“Yeah. Can’t fight you for the title of world champion if you lose here, eh?”

“Suppose not.”

At that moment, it hardly felt as though the war existed. Johan, the alliance, kingship—none of those mattered. My rival and our future duel. In my heart of hearts, I know that is what I dream of the most. Not of ruling, but of fencing. There gold I desired, aye, but it was a trophy not a crown. “Watch me carefully today, Carr.”

When I made my way past him, the last one waiting for me was Nevada. We knew each other the least, yet loved each other the most. She had been remarkably understanding about what had transpired in Razil and had not pressed me for details in the slightest.

I gave them all to her anyway.

Nevada had concerns of her own, I knew. I don’t think I really realized it at the time, but we are quite similar, aren’t we? Putting on a show for others, but also for ourselves. You knew you had to be strong to realize your dreams. Stronger than steel, breaking before you bent. But you never had anyone to talk to before you met us. You were always surrounded by enemies. And it wasn’t as though I had given her reason to let down her defenses around me yet. That would change soon, but it was hardly a matter that could be solved with a few words before a duel.

Instead, I wrapped my arms around her back and pulled her close. “My queen,” I muttered.

“My king.” Nevada’s smile was more gentle and relaxed than before. It had been so since I told her everything—including my painful dismissal of the woman I once loved. “You will today.”

“Aye,” I acknowledged. “Most certainly.”

And here I kissed her—quite passionately, too. Enough so that Carr said, “Guys, seriously, get a room—like you know we can see you right?” He suddenly shook his head. “And as your coach I demand you take this seriously. Get your ass to the arena, don’t get distracted by your girlfriend.”

Nevada stomped her foot, though her grin showed she was not serious. “You insolent fool, you speak this way to your royal family?”

“Damn straight I do,” he replied, pushing me down the hallway. “Now go kick his ass, Valle. Don’t you dare come back to us without a win.”

But the three of them smiled at me in a way that left no doubts—even if I were to lose, they would still stand by my side. And that meant more than I realized. “Of course,” I told them, raising my arm in declaration of victory and walking away, “Keep an eye on me.”

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It was quite an interesting view, this arena. Not once before had I ever been booed by a crowd before a match. Be it in Cresna or Arcadia, winning or losing, they respected Valle of Cresna all the same. Not so here. The Razilian crowd was shouting things I did not fully understand at me, but they sounded quite rude from their tones and gestures. So undignified.My opponent, meanwhile, was receiving the home hero treatment—a man with ears slightly pointier than Estella’s, holding an epee.

Here my first obstacle became clear: how do I win over the crowd?

This duel wasn’t merely about winning, it was about impressing them. The Empire was remarkably consistent about this. Regardless of your social standing, damned be your birth, cursed be your father—if you won enough times, in a beautiful enough way, you would be respected. This felt different.

“Vai pro inferno!” someone shouted. I had no idea what that meant, but ‘inferno’ sounded rather hellish in nature. That probably was not good.

“Mata ele!”

“Morre desgraçado!”

It was quite the hostile crowd today. Whatever they were saying.

My challenges are two. Win the match, and do so in a way that makes the crowd love me.Winning would be difficult, but I was confident enough in it. But making a hostile crowd like that fall in love with my fencing? Now, that would be trickier. Especially so when my options were limited. Not just as a swordsman, but as an actor too.

Fencing wise, stats don’t work here. This means my style of Epee 3.0 is not going to be functional. Theatre wise, I don’t speak their language and it is not as though they want to be entertained. What a lovely feeling, this was. Ah, certainly the situation was rough—yet that did not bother me. It was not as though I had a particular plan about how to overcome this harsh situation either. Rather, this feeling merely invigorated me.

Ah, how long has it been since I went into a match as the underdog? How positively thrilling.

This referee was not the Referee, and thus I found myself frowning when he spoke, telling me through a thick accent, “This contest is to 15 points. No punches, no kicks, can’t use your offhand to grab the sword. After every hit, you will be separated. Every three minutes, we will have a one minute break. Get it?”

More points than we usually fenced to, and more rules than what we usually got too. This was probably closer to the ruleset Carr grew up fencing. Oh, so now I’m fencing in the ruleset he had to…good. Suppose one can hardly complain about that. He has been fencing under the ruleset I grew up with this whole time. Let us see now…whether there is a real fencer behind my stats.

“Valle of Cresna vs Mundo of Razil!” the referee declared. “To 15—begin!”

His opponent’s footwork was recognizable enough as to be nostalgic. Mundo picked his heels off the ground and started bouncing like Carr often did, flexing his knees and sweeping his feet off the ground as if ready to explode at any moment. He really is going to try to attack me just like that. Carr and I had theorized that the style Carr’s master taught would lead his pupil to adopt a strong, aggressive style.

Too fast to dodge, and too agile to move around—the man simply had more skill than I did and he would block all my moves without issue. Normally, a man armed with a shorter weapon like that would be too scared of approaching someone with a rapier. But his footwork was better than mine, and he knew it too. Reach still matters more.

Here we began the first step of our plan of bad fencing.

My en garde position relaxed, and my arm extended forward. It was not fully straight, but almost so. Just enough that I could still reach further were my arm to straighten itself, but still covering a massive amount of distance, pointed forward and angled only slightly inward, aimed not at his wrist, but at his chest.

“When you’re fencing against someone who’s going to beat your blade a lot, might not be the best idea to point your tip at the wrist like you usually do,” Carr said. “Might be better to go for a larger target.”

“Why would the size of the target matter?” I asked. “I can hit a wrist just as often as I can hit a shoulder when practicing drills with you. Even during a match.”

Carr nodded. “Yeah. But this isn’t just about that. Think of it this way, if I tell you to tap your left hand with your right finger, how long does it take?”

I experimented with that. “Almost immediate.”

Carr nodded once more. “What about if I asked you to hit your left index finger with your right index finger?”

I tried it again. “Just slightly longer. Once I aim, it hardly even changes the speed of the movement though.”

“Exactly.” Carr held out his finger for emphasis. “But only once you finish aiming. That half-a-second it takes to aim can be brutal. Say he beats your blade, and you have to get it back on target—that half-a-second is going to kill you. Just go for his chest, you have a longer blade anyway, no need to reach for the smallest target.”

There was very little I hated more than admitting that Carr was right—but he knew what he was talking about when it came to fencing. Mundo exploded forward in a quick step and beat at my extended blade, knocking it completely out of the way and allowing him to give chase.

And here I stepped back, retreating at full speed.

Even if you can get my blade out of the way, I thought, raising my sword back in position, you can’t start accelerating toward me at full speed until my blade has moved. And considering how long my blade is—!

Mundo realized what was about to happen, but it was too late.. My sword was pointed straight forward, and came back up to be pointed at him right before he reached me. It wasn’t an elegant strike, but it was an efficient one. Even if he can beat my sword out of the way, it’s just too long for him.

Valle of Cresna — 1

Mundo of Razil — 0

The crowd was not pleased at this early start. I opened my mouth to thunder out a cheer, but it was drowned out by their curses. Heavens, they really hate me. It made sense that scoring a single point wasn’t enough to earn their love, but to think that scoring one would have earned their scorn rather confused me. Privilege of mine, this attitude. Many of my opponents were met with this treatment.

My hands shook still. I wanted to change up my strategy, to do something to make the crowd cheer with excitement. But it was not part of the strategy.

“I will keep letting him attack and retreat,” I muttered, “and see what the score looks after that. If he’s really skilled, then he might be able to score more than me, even with the difference in swords.”

Carr shook his head. “Mikhail is the kind of guy who believes in making his students as good as possible as fast as possible. He probably teaches them to be athletic, and then beat-fleche or bind-fleche. Those have always been his go-to moves. He’s also not going to have a lot of experience fencing rapiers, just epees. It doesn’t matter if he has more experience fencing than you do. It doesn’t matter if you still feel injured from fencing Johan and the others. Just stick your arm out and pray, shitty fencing will earn out the score.”

And it did.

Valle of Cresna — 6

Mundo of Razil — 2

There had been no surprise attack or dramatic movement; the same exchange was repeated eight times, with only slightly different results. Mundo would rush forward, trying to beat or bind Valle’s extended blade, and Valle would use the great reach—further extended due to his unnatural en garde position—to give himself time to bring his blade back in position while stepping backward and attacking his opponent. Twice he failed to do so without suffering a light wound himself, but that was not an issue.

The issue was the crowd’s booing.

Valle the Champion minds not the sound, I thought, he rather relishes it. There is a twisted pleasure in destroying a city’s favorite champion. Yet Valle the King…he worries over this. He needs them to love him, for the sake of his people. This could not stand.

“Merda!” Mundo shouted. Valle did not know what it meant, but it seemed like a curse of some sort. The man was breathing heavily now, his bouncing around having tired him a fair amount. “Juro que vou te matar!”

“Whatever you say, my dear fellow.”

“Okay so that is the plan,” Carr said. “Now, can we talk about what you’re going to do once you get bored of fencing that way?”

“Carr,” I began, “can’t you at least pretend that you believe I will act like a proper king?”

He smiled at me. “God, no. Do you have some insane bullshit in mind or do you want some coaching?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. But I would not mind the additional coaching.”

Just a few seconds before the first ‘break period’ as the rules had outlined it. Perhaps I would have time to change strategies then. But it was imperative that I made my mark on this match before the crowd had a chance to spend the break hating me. Think of this while you wait for the fencing to restart.

And here, despite being the defensive fencer, I fleched at him.