AnnouncementContent Warning: Injury, Panic AttackChapter 10: Dames and Duels

  -Marion-

  Of course the weather didn’t py well with a big event like this. Overnight the temperatures dropped hard. This morning there was a slight drizzle and by the time I grabbed my magic stuff and got on my way, the drizzle turned into a constant shower. You’d think there’d be powerful enough wizards around to made sure the weather would be nice for a special occasion like this. Although maybe that was good news as well in a way.

  The competition would take pce on the Regimental Pza next to the pace. It was my first time going into the city centre and it was even more bustling that I expected. To be fair there were a lot of visitors here because of the competition, but just as many seemed to be locals.

  When I passed through the massive gates of the city centre, I was stunned for a moment. The pace looked rge in the distance but seeing it up close was a whole different thing. The structure was made almost entirely of wood and I felt truly dwarfed in its shadow. It was arranged in round ptes that were stacked on top of each other, each one a little smaller than the one below. There were 16 stories in total and the lowest one must’ve been rge enough to hold an entire vilge.

  The entire structure was surrounded by beautiful flower gardens with the occasional tree to give shade. The gravel paths that wound through the greenery snaked their way around the structure to the one outlier in the greenery. A massive stone pza stretched across the ndscape between the pace and the stone castle overlooking the river. Two of the edges of the pza had been lined with simple bleachers. They were mostly empty at the moment though. The competition wasn’t open to the public just yet, but the competitors were told to arrive early to prepare.

  I’d already sent in my application ahead of time and I had my other papers with me. There were about thirty other mages already gathered on the pza and I recognized two of my former teachers. This was gonna be awkward.

  I quickly pushed any interrupting thoughts away and strode towards the blob to find whoever was keeping the list with all competitors. It didn’t take long to find the small desk everyone seemed to have gathered around. On the chair behind it sat a stunning elven woman. She was wearing a long multi-yered light blue gown. Her silver hair hung all the way down her back and was interwoven with dozens of braids. There was the faintest hint of wrinkles on her face, which meant she was much, much older than she looked.

  Behind her stood a rge orc with pure white wizard robes who was holding an umbrel over the two of them. There were a few papers scattered across her desk and a wooden nametag that read ‘Lady Dama Demyr’. I felt like I heard the name somewhere before. Either way she seemed to have noticed me.

  She just finished talking with the two mages in front of me and waved me closer. Her golden eyes gnced over my body and a slight frown crept over her face.

  “Marion Corey, your paperwork was submitted under a different first name,” she stated. “Would you prefer the announcement under Marion or the other one?” she added calmly.

  What the fuck!? I’d never told anyone my actual name. Besides Sephie that is, but that was a very recent development. But she looked at me once and knew! I tried to remain as calm as I could, but my heart was racing like my life was on the line. Honestly it might just be. I mean I did try to look as androgynous as possible, but I was still obviously a guy to everyone around me. Would it be… okay? To attend as Marion?

  I took a deep breath and asked, “Would Marion be okay?” A compassionate smile crossed over the elven woman’s face.

  “Of course my dear.” With a flourish a magical signature appeared on my papers. “You’ll be in match number ten against Corinna Verdure. Good luck.” She gave me a kind smile and handed back the stack of papers. I took it shakily and muttered a quiet “Thank you”, before disappearing in the crowd. That was truly nerve wracking. I was entirely prepared to hear my deadname a bunch of times today, but somehow Lady Demyr knew. And she was really fucking nice about it.

  I knew elves were commonly a lot more open about gender than us humans. Or at least us humans this far north. But to actually have… support for once felt so… heartwarming. She didn’t even say the other name. She kept dancing around it, simir to how Gerden did by calling me ‘kid’. Though Gerden was basically my adoptive dad and the elf was a total stranger. A noble stranger no less.

  I decided, however today went, I needed to thank her properly ter.

  *****

  The cheering crowd was so loud I felt my ears ringing. The ninth match of the first bracket had just finished. I was standing off to the side with the other competitors. We had a few benches for ourselves, but not nearly enough for everyone to sit. The bleachers were also filled to the brim with spectators and a bunch more stood around the two open ends of the pza. The nobility gathered at the roofed balconies of the pace, overlooking the pza. In one of these balconies sat Lady Dama Demyr who was moderating the duels.

  Her magically enhanced voice thundered over the crowd, “Match number ten: Miss Corinna Verdure of Stag Hall versus Mx Marion Corey of Tumblewood.”

  The crowd’s cheer grew lounder again and I stared over the pza in front of me. The edges of my vision felt hazy. My breath was shaky. I couldn’t move. I was about to move into an arena as Marion. There were thousands of people watching. Thousands of people are about to meet Marion Corey. Corinna began stepping over the fttened cobblestones. I was still frozen in pce.

  A hand pressed against my back. “You okay sweetheart?” a soft voice spoke. “It’s your match, isn’t it? Go on, you can do it.” With that I felt a push and I stumbled a few steps forward. The haze around my vision cleared and I shot a gnce back to the other competitors.

  There was another elven dy standing where I’d just been. She had pure white hair and deep purple eyes. She gave me a kind smile and made a shooing motion.

  I rightened myself up and mouthed a silent thank you to my rescuer, before striding into the centre of the pza with as much confidence as I could muster.

  Corinna was already waiting. The straw blonde sorceress had an impatient look on her face. “Took you long enough twig. Let’s make this quick. I don’t have time for stragglers.” There was a fire growing within her eyes and I could tell she was not happy with me at all.

  Lady Demyr’s voice boomed over the arena again, “The competitors are ready. Match number ten. Begin!”

  Corinna immediately began casting. Two bolts of fire shot over the field. The rain was hard on the small fmes and I quickly reacted with a small wind spell. The bolts lost momentum and were promptly doused by the downpour.

  Before Corinna could cast another spell, I struck a glyph into the air and felt the air around me flicker with excitement. Corinna finished her incantation and a few cobblestones flew loose and shot towards me.

  I smirked. She had obviously not been paying attention to what I was doing. With superhuman speed I blinked over right next to her. I poured as much mana as I could into the raindrops around us. They convalesced into thick vines of water and started wrapping around my opponent’s wrists and ankles.

  Her eyes grew wide and the fme inside flickered. “I’M GONNA FUCKING BREAK YOU TWIG!” She screamed before another vine wrapped around her mouth and shut her up. She wriggled and writhed and I felt her body heat up, but the rain kept reinforcing the vines. After a few seconds Lady Demyr’s voice boomed across the arena again, “The winner is Marion Corey.”

  I breathed out a sigh of relief and dropped my spells. The enhanced speed dropped and the water vines fell apart. I felt a little dizzy from suddenly being back to normal speed and I could barely make out Corinna’s hand shoot forward.

  To my surprise she didn’t hit me. Instead she poked aggressively on my chest. “You got fucking lucky with the weather!” she accused before stomping off. Well yea. The rain helped. But she could have used it just as much as I. She was honestly stupid to use fire spells in the first pce.

  I made my way back to the competitors’ benches and I watched my elven rescuer stride onto the pza. She gave me an affirming nod and softly bumped her fist against my shoulder as we passed each other.

  She was going up against the orc wizard from earlier and I watched in awe as a match of a completely different category unfolded. The orc summoned massive hordes of undead creatures to assault the elf, while she scythed through them with bdes of pure shadow. It was almost impossible to tell who would come out on top until the elf suddenly teleported across the entire arena and the ground below the orc swallowed him whole.

  He was fine though. Although a little bruised.

  My second match was a lot harder than the first one. My opponent was an academy graduate who specialized in physical trauma. Meaning he enchanted his fists and got all up in my face to punch spells directly into my body. I only managed to beat him after I was almost defeated. He was preparing his finishing strike and I conjured a st-minute wall of stone. When he bashed into it, he broke both his hands and could no longer cast.

  I came out of that fight completely battered and bruised as well and a few healers quickly rushed over to me to heal me back up while the next few fights took pce.

  I’d talked a bit with my elven rescuer in between matches and I learned her name was Lorelei and she was from Eletheo. She also admitted she was more of a martial fighter rather than a magical one. That surprised me, given the scale of her spells, but I suppose elves had all the time in the world to learn things. I avoided asking how old she was though.

  Her next match was over much faster than the first one. It was obvious she was holding back with the orc to not hurt him too much. After seeing how the matches became more and more lethal, she probably decided to let loose as well. The moment the match started she fired a dozen nces of shadow at her dwarven opponent. To his credit, he did manage to avoid most of them, but two hits were enough to bring him down.

  While match after match went by and I ran out of safe topics to talk with my new friend, I decided to check on the tournament bracket and made a grim discovery. It was rather obvious, now that I thought about it. My eyes were still resting on mine and Lorelei’s name in the quarterfinal bracket, though my mind was going over the various ways she would fuck me up.

  I couldn’t lose this competition though. It was my ticket to becoming who I was supposed to be all along. I needed to beat her. And people more powerful than her, I gathered.

  Her magic was almost entirely shadow based. The obvious counter would be light magic, which fortunately I wasn’t terrible at. Problem was: It was a rainy, cloudy day. There was very little light around to draw from and a lot of shadows for her. She could also do whatever the hells made the ground colpse under the orc. Earth magic, probably, but I couldn’t be certain. It definitely wasn’t shadow magic though.

  The matches went by much faster than I hoped and about half an hour ter I found myself walking onto the field side by side with Lorelei.

  “Don’t think about it too much Marion. I’m not going to hurt you.” She gave me a quick side hug and we split apart to face each other. Lady Demyr’s voice started booming over the arena again, but it was more like background noise for me right now. My eyes were fixed on my opponent. She was slender. Pale like the snow. A metal diadem with an amethyst set in was resting on her head. She wore a leather top and tight bck pants and she had a long bck cloak strapped over her silver shoulder pauldrons that were glimmering in the sun.

  Wait. The sun? I looked at the horizon and the clouds were fading near the evening sun. Thank Ilu I might still have a chance.

  A sudden darkness shot towards me and I realised the fight had already begun. I dashed aside as quick as I could, but some of the magic struck me in the side. Shadowy tendrils were tched onto me and tried to pull me down.

  I had to react quickly. I reached out towards the light around me and gathered it into me. My body started to radiate and I felt the tendrils retreat. I focussed back on my opponent and she was slinging another shadow tendril at me. I drew even more light into my body and I was starting to shine enough that people had to start shielding their eyes.

  The second tendril impacted and the tug was even stronger than before. Complete darkness enveloped me and my light was pushing back against the shadow. I released a burst of radiance and the darkness flittered away.

  Lorelei was only standing some 15 metres away from me and was looking at me with a little sadness and despair. Yeah. I wasn’t going to go down easy. I felt around for the remaining light within me and struck the wind glyph again. Then I soared across the arena with a bde of pure light in my hand.

  Lorelei took a step back and formed the shadows around her into a spear. Then I was on her. Our bdes cshed. She twirled around to avoid my second strike and stabbed at me. I quickly dashed to the side again, making use of the wind magic surrounding me, but Lorelei was right on top of me again.

  I parried another one of her strikes and used the short break in her assault to gather more light into me. Lorelei was reinforcing her spear and shot towards me again. The light in my bde was starting to fade, but there was enough left to redirect her thrust. She was only a few centimetres away. Exactly where I wanted her. I let go of the brightness within me and a bze of light exploded out from me. Her spear was immediately torn to shreds and she was knocked through the air.

  It didn’t take her long to jump back up, but her expression became even more sorry. She looked almost pleading. But I couldn’t hold back. I needed this win. The sun was shining down on us. The rain had stopped entirely. The air was still humid. And the light inside grew stronger and stronger.

  I called on the winds again and shot towards her. She looked down on the ground in frustration. Then I impacted.

  And the world went dark.

  Muffin_Maeve