The Ninth Match

[realitymods]

Characters: Brigitta, Arthur, Spectators
Location: The Coliseum.
Time: Two days after the last fights.
Summary: The ninth of the death matches.
Warnings: Character death warning.

Weber was already waiting, drumming his fingers idly on the arm of his seat. The king swept in late, passing through the barriers as if they did not exist. He glanced over the arena, as cold as before. “Arthur Pendragon, Brigitta. You are both trained in the use of the sword. Now we shall see which of you has been trained best.”

The hourglass began its counting. The king took up his throne again, and Weber took out a small deck of cards.

Comments

[destinedking.livejournal.com]

Arthur had been focused on this match long and hard since he first received his note. Most opponents, when he received a challenge, he would merely train and prepare and know that he would be victorious because there was no other choice but victory. The note he had received laid down a similar claim, but there were too many things left unsaid in that note that said otherwise.

This wasn't a challenge agreed to by both opponents. This was something far more primitive and barbaric and arcane and belonging to a world he had heard of only in stories to remind him of how the world was before the wars and the outlawing of magic and everything else his father fought so hard and long for. This wasn't a challenge between two men, unless in some strange world Brigitta was a name worn by men, although Arthur highly doubted that to be true, and standing in the arena now he knew it to be very untrue.

There was no honour in any of this, and it felt almost cowardly to fight this battle against a girl. There was a small part of him which he could not acknowledge that feared fighting and losing this match as well, for multiple reasons. He had allowed Merlin to arm him and had allowed the illusion of entering this match to fight and win, but now that he was here and there would be no interference, there was no need to continue the charade.

He took his helmet off tossing it to the ground. He pulled his chainmail hood down as well. He dropped to his knees in front of Brigitta, head bowed.

"I see no reason to fight this battle, my lady. I concede to your will."

[oldoldghost.livejournal.com]

Brigitta, however, upon receiving the note has been training very hard – somewhere deep down, in the place where all inconvenient thoughts are shoved, she had known that ‘Arthur’ could hardly be considered a demonic name. Yet she had seen the ‘prince’ before it and had simply forced herself to presume – it would just be another fight against a demon, another chance to wipe the scum off the face of the earth.

It had to be, she didn’t want to die again yet… Killing an innocent human sat badly within her, grating right against that ever so sharp sense of justice. So she had guarded herself against considering the possibility of that – had hidden behind her usual mask of stupidity to get her through the training, through the brief goodbye to Kirilli.

But now she can deny it no longer; he is a man – and a fairly young one at that; looking about her physical age, perhaps a little older… And that troublesome sense of justice? Well, it’s burning deep within her – to the point that, even as he kneels, she’s still staring ever so uncertainly. Even with her hair tied back, even with her hastily gathered armour on, even with her favourite sword in her hand – she’s ready for battle, she’s ready to kill.

Yet she still can’t lift her sword.

…Right, this is ridiculous - and her puzzled frown melts into a scowl as she considers just how ridiculous it is; dammit, she’s not killing a human and she’s not being killed – stubborn as she is she’s convinced that she can find her way out of this.

“There is no reason to fight this battle – it’s stupid anyway. And that means that we shouldn’t fight it.”

To Brigitta this sounds perfectly logical; if she wasn’t holding a rather sharp sword at the moment she’d cross her arms and smirk smugly… It’s just a pity that she can’t escape this quite so easily.

[destinedking.livejournal.com]

Arthur looked up at Brigitta, his expression changing from a look of confusion into a full on scowl.

"Are you stupid? Someone must die here, and there is no need for it to be both of us. Now pick up your sword and have done with this."

Arthur did not want to die, but someone had to die here, and any way this match ended he would lose. This was the only way he could exit it at least with some honour intact, and he wasn't about to let this girl take that away from him.

He grabbed her hand holding the sword and moved it so the sword was pointed against his chest. He could do no more than that, because he wasn't brave enough to actually plunge the sword into his own chest. He would leave that to Brigitta.

[oldoldghost.livejournal.com]

Well, this isn’t going quite as well as it could’ve done – for now Brigitta’s scowl has gone almost demonic (she would protest at the term; but really, she protests at most things) with how dark it is; suddenly she’s rather far from being a happy bunny.

Brigitta has certain rules for other people, beyond the core one of violating justice gets you stabbed, and amongst the core principles are two very important things – you don’t point out her stupidity and you don’t touch her sword, or even her sword hand. She fully expects people to understand these rules; she glares at them enough for them to pick something up.

And yet this man has just broken both of them, this is really rather displeasing.

She yanks the sword away smoothly from his chest, and then arches a very displeased eyebrow – expecting this to convey absolutely everything. “No, I think you’re the stupid one – I’m not dying but I’m not killing you either; and don’t you dare tell me what to do with my sword.”

[destinedking.livejournal.com]

Arthur groaned, rolling his eyes at Brigitta. Why must women constantly be so difficult. He couldn't imagine even Morgana making it more difficult than Brigitta was.

"Clearly, you're being incredibly stupid. You say you do not wish to die. If you want to survive you must kill me or else we both die when that sand runs out. What don't you understand?"

[oldoldghost.livejournal.com]

It's a good thing that Brigitta can't read thoughts; or else she'd smack him with her sword just to teach him some manners... Even if she is prone to being very, very difficult. But that's less to do with her being a woman and more to do with her being Brigitta; stubborn is in her nature.

"But I don't want to kill you," she explains patiently, as if to a very small, very stupid child. "You're quite obviously a innocent - you almost have a halo."

[behindhiswords.livejournal.com]

It wasn't a new or exciting wonder to see Arthur in some sort of tourney. In fact, it seemed to happen every other week, though Merlin knew his mind to be exaggerating. It wasn't new, either, a fight to the death. Unfortunately, Arthur seemed to get into "to death" situations far more than Merlin wanted. He was going to get grey hair at this rate.

The difference here was that Arthur wasn't really going to fight and Merlin was tempted to try to blast down the barrier. He did try, attempting to be discrete as he muttered spells at the barrier. No luck. He wasn't surprised but it didn't change the fact that he wanted to go hit Arthur in his thick head.

Merlin groaned and tried to tell himself that win or lose, Arthur would come back out of this.