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You are you.
Feet plant on your chest. A hand grips your collar. Claws swipe at your eyes.
You are you. The air in your lungs is there of your own accord, drawn in by breaths you have chosen to take. You are you. You are not his.
Claws gouge across your cheek, leaving scorching lines of pain in their wake. They burn deliciously. Your opponent hisses in feral delight. As she cocks her fist back for a well-aimed punch to your sternum, you shove her off, throwing her backwards into the dirt. From somewhere behind you, you hear someone shout, “Rage!”
A barbarian’s rage is their most personal weapon. You are forced into it, again and again.
You are you. You do not rage.
Instead, you shove your enemy backward, two broad hands planted firmly against her chest, before leaning in to whisper, “Is that all you’ve got?” In another attempt to provoke her, you backhand her across the face only to have her catch your wrist mid-strike. Her eye twitches as she looks at you, the two of you frozen in this moment, a pause in your scuffle.
Beauregard dodges the brutal swing of your blade. She says your name among other words that don’t register. They pour over you like water meeting stone. You are not you. You swing the blade again.
A tiny, pleading voice in your head tries to remind you that this enemy is not your enemy. This is a pit fighter. She is not at fault for the acid in your veins or the bile in your mouth.
You shut that voice away, even though it is yours and not his. It doesn’t matter. You want silence. You want-
A sword cuts through air, through flesh, through bone. Your sword in your hands but wielded by another.
You break your opponent’s hold on your wrist. She huffs and leaps into the air, landing behind you, attacking you from behind. This barrage is the worst one yet, and you feel deep cuts in your back from her claws. It stings, and the sensation is wonderful.
Nothing ever stung when he was in your head. Your body was an empty wasteland populated by fog and evil intentions. There was no pain, no hurt, no joy, no escape. There was only forceful submission and the absence of choice.
The cuts on your back sting. Blood wells up from fresh wounds that will scab. Your lips twitch into a smile.
You reach over your shoulder and pull the fighter off your back, swinging her over and into the dust. You kick her in the side. The crowd cheers. No one knows you aren’t even trying.
You run. You don’t even try to save her. You love her- loved her- but fear makes a coward of you, and you leave her to die. You run, and she dies, and you wind up more dead inside than you ever would have been if you’d let the executioner take you both.
Your opponent snarls and reaches for your legs, upending you so you are knocked prone in the dirt. She pounces, more beast than woman, and begins delivering punch after punch to your chest. Foam curls at the edges of her mouth, her barbaric rage fueling an endless assault. You wonder, as you are being beaten into the ground, whether she feels at home in her own mind. When she rages, is she still herself? Are her choices her own?
You could still rage. It isn’t too late. Only you are you. Your body is your own for the first time in too long. And you reclaimed it only to be burdened by the twin weights of guilt and shame. They sink like stones in your gut, threatening to pull you down, down through the dirty floor of this arena deeper than any punches ever could push you. The punches are nothing compared to what’s inside, but they do help a little. The distraction is nice.
That thought is enough to force you into motion. You curl your fists into the fabric of your enemy’s shirt, pulling her close. “You are fucking weak,” you spit.
Too weak to break free. Obann’s voice like chains around your wrists, your chest, your throat, holding you captive. Too weak to stop him from controlling you. He turns you into a puppet, and you are powerless to stop him. He uses your body to hurt your friends, and you are forced to watch. All because you are too weak.
Your words scare the shit out of her, regardless of whether they were truly meant for her or not. She snarls and scurries back from you. She eyes the crowd with wild eyes. As you push yourself up from the dirt, you see them in your periphery: a crowd of onlookers who are not entirely sure what the fuck is going on.
It doesn’t matter to you. No one needs to understand what is happening. No one needs to understand the inner workings of your mind. No one needs to know you, never again.
Mollymauk grins as he hands out circus flyers. “This is Yasha, she’s the charm.” Mollymauk knows you. His friendship absolves you of your most deep-seated sins.
His grave is a funeral pyre for the woman you’ve tried to become. You are simply too weak and too broken to save the ones you love.
You lunge towards your opponent, punching her in the gut. At the last second, you pull the punch and she knows it. No one else notices but her, and you relish the confusion that sparks across her face. Then, before she can react, you backhand her again. “What are you waiting for?”
She snarls and wraps her hands around your throat in an attempt to strangle you. For a few seconds, you can’t breathe. But you are you, and no one controls your body anymore. The air in your lungs is there of your own accord. It will not be taken from you by another. But you will suffer for every breath you take. After all, it’s the least you can do.
You shove her backward against the bars of the arena. “Show me why you’re the fucking champion!” You shout it loud enough for everyone to hear.
The pressure around your throat releases as your opponent delivers a vicious headbutt. Pain blossoms in the center of your forehead. You have no time to react before she does it again. You wince but stay upright. When you recover, you throw her off of your chest. She rattles against the bars of the arena. You approach her and whisper just loud enough for her to hear, “Come on, Champion. You’re so close. Fucking finish it.”
You shove her again. She catches your fists, tosses them to the side, and delivers two uppercuts to your jaw before sinking a final punch into your gut.
Punch after punch crashes against your armor. Beauregard dances on light feet in front of you. Nimble. Graceful. Stunning. She occupies your field of view, pulling you away from the rest of the battle. Obann’s commands ring like cathedral bells in your mind. Attack. Hurt. Kill. Destroy.
Beauregard begins another flurry of blows. Some hit, some don’t, but the ones that make contact are full of intent. She does not pull her punches. Only her eyes show regret.
Air whooshes out of you from the impact of the hits. Your stomach aches. Your jaw rattles and stings. Your vision blurs along the edges. It’s the best you’ve felt in weeks. It’s euphoria, it’s relief, it’s a salve on wounds that permeate far beneath the surface of your skin. You shake your head to dispel the other images dancing in your mind: you are in a bar, you are in a pit fight.
Most importantly, you are you. You are not his.
You react to the punches by thrusting your boot against your opponent’s chest. You press her back against the bars. She snarls and delivers a firm punch to the back of your knee. Your leg buckles but you manage to stay upright. She moves to swing at you again, and you catch her mid-strike. “Finish it, Champion.”
Your opponent delivers. She growls in frustration and rage before throwing a nasty left hook. The punch impacts against your cheekbone and you know, in that instant, it’s finally done. Relief floods through your body, soothing the pain of every cut and bruise, a masochist’s anesthesia. You fall backwards into the dust. You smile as you crash into the floor.
Cheers erupt from around you but they’re muffled by the blood rushing in your veins. Unconsciousness seeps around the edges of your mind; a void that beckons and promises a reprieve from your pain.
Your pain is yours. It is not his.
Your eyes find Beau’s before they roll back completely. She looks at you with a look you almost don’t recognize. You think it might be pity only to realize, at the last second, it’s worry. Worry and compassion. Something akin to understanding. Maybe even the desire to tend to your wounds herself.
That look, more than the punches, the kicks, and the cuts, makes you ache. I ruin people, you think. Oblivion rushes in.
One final memory before blackness surrounds – a sword driven down, slicing flesh, splitting bone. Beauregard lays on a cathedral’s stone floor. She is beautiful. She is bleeding. The sword is in your hands. Beauregard coughs.
Beneath the echo of Obann’s commands, Mollymauk laughs. Zuala cries.
You twist the blade.