The Fire that Waited

The crowd was thirsty for a spectacle of pain. Its voracious roar battered the stone walls and vaulted ceiling, its shiny-eyed members already drunk on anticipation. Smoke sagged low beneath the rafters, its bitter tang mingling with the stench of ale, sweat and cheap perfume.

Somewhere beyond the noise and the tension, Daphne Dawnshade stood in the shadows. She remained still, rooted in her place with her eyes closed, breathing in and out. Around her, other fighters paced restlessly like caged animals waiting to be released, and yet she seemed calm, cool and collected. It was almost as if she didn’t even belong here.

She had no reason to fret for she knew she was ready.

She opened her eyes and looked at the view. The fighting arena waited just ahead - a sunken circle of stomped dirt, ringed by wooden railings and restless spectators, soaked by blood and sweat and spit. Lanterns hung low overhead, their flames casting soft light over this altar of human brutality.

In all its grotesqueness, this place was not contrived. That was the appeal of it. There were no manners here, no gentility. Just flesh meeting flesh. Pain given and taken. No questions asked. No one knew her full name nor wanted to hear her life story, discover the reasons behind her broken heart. Nobody was interested in finding out why a peace loving monk was actively participating in this culture of organized violence. All they yearned for was to see her either beat up her opponent or fall down, dazed and defeated.

And that suited her just fine.

She was not here for glory. She was here to experience torment she believed she deserved.

The crowd howled her forward. She took a deep breath, stepped out of the darkness and into the circle, still carrying a certain kind of steadiness within her. Across the ring, her adversary was already waiting. Taller. Broader. Clad in nothing but dark brown long johns. Not the largest opponent she’d faced, but still a man to take seriously.

The moment he saw her, he gave her a slow once-over. “Pardon you, sweetheart, are you lost?”

“No,” she answered, spine straight, hands at her sides.

“Are you sure about that?” He lifted his chin, looked at her along the bumpy bridge of his nose. “You see, this here is a fighting ring. All right, puppet? This is where men battle against worthy opponents, usually other men. Do you understand?”

“I do,” she answered. “I also understand that underestimating people is a bad idea.”

“Oh, I don’t underestimate you, darling. I’m sure you’re good at… cooking… cleaning… whatever it is that you females do. Just not fighting. But,” - he almost sang the word -, “if you do want to get physical with me, I’m sure that can be arranged. We can even add slapping into it, if that’s a kink of yours. In fact, I volunteer to give you the licking of a lifetime.”

The spectators enjoyed this exchange. Some of them started howling like wolves.

“I’d rather just fight you, thank you,” Daphne answered, trying to be civil, even if he didn’t deserve it anymore.

He kept going on. “No, no, but seriously, sweetheart.” Though he talked to her, he turned and made sure the audience was hearing the way he continued mocking her. “Don’t know if I should punch you or have my way with you.”

He got the feedback he was so desperately looking for. The audience seemed to love his confidence.

“Like I said, I’d rather take the punch, please,” Daphne answered. “Cocksure men are usually unsure of their cocks. Intimacy wouldn’t be satisfying, only frustrating.”

A high-pitched giggle reached her ears. Someone in the audience was clearly of the same opinion as her.

“Besides, a wound on the body is nothing compared to a wound on the soul,” she continued.

For a beat, complete silence fell over them. Then, laughter exploded around the fighting circle - a gaiety in which her adversary joined in in an effort to conceal his anger. He threw his head back and guffawed towards the ceiling.

“Oh, that mouth of yours!” he finally said, pretending to dry tears of amusement from his eyes. “It certainly would be a wonderful thing to experience.”

“So now it’s begging, is it?” Daphne asked, tilting her head. “That sure happened quickly. Then again, a comment about you being fast is probably something you’re used to hearing, especially from your lovers.”

Yet again, the arena went silent for a split second. Then the crowd erupted. Sharp laughter was accompanied by shouts and titters of delight as well as groans of shared humiliation. Even those, who’d been of the opinion that the pit was no place for a woman, were grinning now. People slapped knees, spilled drinks and stomped feet against the floor.

No longer was her adversary amused. He tried to smile but his previous smugness was now replaced by genuine resentfulness. Her words had evidently hit a sore spot and dented his fragile ego. “Let’s get this over with, puppet,” he said, his voice cold and so low only she could hear him.

Daphne bowed her head.

The announcer entered the pit. Like a proper showman, clad in a green smoking jacket and white trousers, he worked up the crowd by telling gruesome tales of the fighters, some of them true, some of them not. Daphne learned the name of her adversary - Victor - while she was introduced by her moniker, Duskbloom Daphne.

Then the bell rang. The fight started. Victor began approaching her, still going on about his desire to use her for personal pleasure, not even bothering to shield himself as he didn’t consider her a real threat. Daphne raised her fists in the air. The crowd around them was going crazy, but she paid no attention to it. Her full focus was on her opponent. The second he was close enough, she threw a forceful punch. It landed on his cheek with a loud sound, causing a bleeding wound. Victor halted, a brief look of utter confusion passing over his features, the mask of hubris slipping from his face for a few seconds. Him stopping so suddenly, so completely was taken as a surrender, and Daphne won the first round without much effort.

Victor pulled himself together. He touched the cut with the tips of his fingers and smirked at the sight of blood. “Kitty’s got claws, I see,” he said, meeting her gaze again. “That one was for free, Duskbloom. From now on, I won’t be so gentle.”

“I never suspected otherwise.”

The spectators were eating it up. They cheered, some of them even chanted Daphne’s name, and a lady in the audience sent her a flying kiss as she returned to her side of the arena. She grinned in response and scanned the surrounding chaos, her gaze drifting without purpose. The sight was the same as usual; men with greasy hair and beards, women with cracked makeup. Open mouths. Groping hands. Sweat stained clothing. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Until suddenly, when she was about to focus on the fight again, she caught sight of something she hadn’t expected to see.

A set of familiar eyes. A pair she knew all too well.

Daphne immediately halted, her pulse jumping. A chill crept up along her spine, turning her hands numb. The world around seized to exist, the only thing she heard was the sound of her own breathing, the only thing she saw was his gaze. His name escaped from her lips in a silent whisper.

Wyll.

There he was, at the far edge of the crowd. No expression, no sound, no gestures. Just a gaze so intense Daphne felt something inside her shift. Not fear, not relief, but ache. Not the kind of torment she’d been chasing after, but the kind she’d tried to forget. The kind that made her soul bleed.

She shook her head.

No. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t possibly be! Wyll wasn’t in some dodgy old warehouse watching his former fiancée punish herself. He wasn’t even in Baldur’s Gate. He was far away, in Avernus, on a hunt for adventures.

She squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened the lids again and looked back to where Wyll had stood, there was nothing there. It had been nothing but phantom, just as she’d thought. The only problem was that though she reasoned it to be a product of her overworked mind, she couldn’t completely shake it off. Whenever there was a lull in the fight, she looked at the audience, searching for a familiar face in the sea of strangers.

Victor was quick to spot the change in her. He noticed that her concentration had shattered into many little pieces and was eager to use it to his advantage. So when the bell clanged again and the next round started, he came in with a brutal foot sweep. Daphne screamed, her legs buckled beneath her and she fell hard onto her back. Fire surged through her body, terrible pain in her right elbow, at her lower back, in her left knee.

Especially her left knee.

Waiting for the agony to lose its sharp edge, she stayed still, staring up at the ceiling, her gaze lingering on wooden beams and shiny lanterns, hearing her own heartbeat over the voracious roar of the crowd. Victor stepped into her line of sight, hovering over him like a creature out of a nightmare.

“You’d better focus, princess,” he said, smirking, undoubtedly pleased to see her like this, “or this pit’s going to swallow you whole.”

Daphne pressed her lips against each other. A tear rolled down her temple and towards her right ear.

“Yield?” he asked.

She shook her head.

He snorted through his nose. “Are you really that thick?”

Every fiber of her body was screaming in pain. She refused to let it stop her. She directed her awareness inwards to ignore the agony clawing at her and pushed herself up from the floor. Tears streamed down her cheeks when she planted herself firmly on the ground.

Victor looked into her eyes, then glanced down. The corners of his mouth curled up again. “Well, would you just look at that!”

Daphne followed his gaze hesitantly, only to discover the ugly truth of her condition; though her foot was pointing forward, her knee jutted out at an ugly angle. Her system must have been so full of adrenaline she hadn’t realized that at some point, she’d dislocated the kneecap. Her calm was beginning to crack.

“Ooh!” Victor walked really close to her, so close, in fact, that she could feel his breath on her cheeks. “Judging by that ugly, snotty look on your face, it hurts so, so much! Oh, the pain! Oh, the terrible, awful pain!” His mock-wail earned some laughs. “Don’t you think it’s about time to give up, girlie? You can’t fight with a leg like that! Hell, you can’t even straighten it properly!”

Daphne didn’t look up. She bit her lower lip so hard it started to bleed.

“Yield?” Victor asked again.

As much as she hated the idea of it, Daphne saw no other option but to nod. He was right; she was in no condition to continue. The pain in her body was absolutely excruciating and Wyll’s face kept pulling at the edge of her mind, making it impossible to focus.

“I need you to say it out loud, sweetheart.”

She sniffled. “Yield,” she whispered.

He tilted his head and brought his face close to hers. “Not so tough now, huh?”

She responded nothing. She simply turned and decided to walk away from the fight, eager to remove herself from the situation.

She’d taken a couple of steps, when something suddenly hit her head from behind. Though the impact was brutal, she remained standing. She struggled to understand what had happened, why the entire audience seemed to be holding its breath while staring at her. Then voices and sounds turned blurry, and the arena tilted.

She didn’t register it when her body smashed hard against the dirt floor. She could barely understand that her adversary was being celebrated and paraded round the circle. What she did notice was how cold the ground felt against her stomach, the feeling of straws pressing against her right cheek, how the roar of the crowd died down into a silent hum. Her limbs were heavy and distant, as if they belonged to someone else. Her heart continued beating fast though the fight was over. Her gaze moved without focus, the edges of her vision blurry.

Moments passed and nothing happened. She was here, all by herself, left behind. Forgotten.

Until a strange, subtle shift.

A presence.

It stepped forward from the shadows, into the circle, mysteriously dark against the soft light. For a moment Daphne wondered if Death itself had come to claim her. She tried to blink to see better, but her eyelids were too heavy and the world seemed too far away. Yet something in her chest clenched, as if her subconscious recognized some detail her mind did not register.

The figure walked over to her and crouched, the smell of burnt wood and sulfur entering her nose. A comforting hand came to her face, fingers gently brushing loose strands of hair away from her face and tucking them behind her ear.

“Look at you,” the figure said, silently.

The words floated through the fog inside her head, warm and consoling, yet painful at the same time. It was the tenderness of his voice, the softness of his lips when they brushed against her forehead that made her chest ache. Unable to move, drool dripping down to the floor from the side of her mouth, she let her eyes drift shut.

She passed out.