Renfaire Fantasy: First Matches (Patreon)

    Christine watched with impassive crimson eyes as Rebecca and Dwelin organized their small gathering atop the hill into a proper practice. This included her. This meant pairing them all up into duels, which unfolded with strange symmetry as Brian squared up against Dwelin and then Brian’s three girls were matched up against Dwelin’s trio of random college guys. Christine’s opponent introduced himself with a name which Christine promptly forgot, they were all prompted to tap swords with one another, and then the four simultaneous swordfight matches commenced.

    After an awkward start with a clumsy whiff where their swords didn’t even hit each other properly, the guy then backpedaled for distance to avoid her follow-up lunge. Christine immediately advanced and attempted to capitalize, and the dusty college guy seemed to see that she was taking this very seriously and realize he would have to match her energy so as not to embarrass himself. The results were unpleasant. Since they were both newcomers to this, neither possessed much in the way of skill or finesse. Combat amounted to them flailing their padded weapons towards one another, and occasionally bashing each other’s swords away in a panicked swat.

    He was stronger than her and had better stamina, and she thought he probably could have won the match at any moment of his choosing if he’d dared to commit to winning. Instead however, he was very carefully moderating how well he was doing to ensure that he didn’t beat her right away. It made for a sour experience rather than a satisfying one. This bland and nondescript college guy probably thought she was attractive, and consciously or subconsciously was going easy on her to spare her feelings. Because women were lesser to men in matters of physicality, and so it was expected that he hamper himself out of a sense of fairness.

    It reminded her of the way Brian used to treat Chloe, and in a way that had her feeling prickly and acidic all of the sudden. She wasn’t Chloe anymore. But what she was right now seemed to be engaging in a meaningless fight, and exhausting herself towards no discernable purpose. If she won here, it wouldn’t be because she achieved anything, so there would be nothing to feel victorious about. If she lost, her opponent here would immediately find some manner with which to sooth or appease or coddle her delicate feelings, so as not to upset her.

    Which was perhaps even worse.

    The whole point of her taking this so seriously and trying so hard was because the thought of Brian noticing and appreciating her effort would be the crack cocaine giddy rush of extreme joy, fulfillment, happiness. Which was a rare treasure in these days now that most everything else for her was the dismal mirror monotones of feeling nothing much of all. Or feeling worse, letting those dark thoughts creep back in. Christine was working hard so that Brian would have reason to be proud of her, but since her opponent here wasn’t cooperating and taking the practice match seriously, any of Brian’s praise for her would likewise feel like the ashes of what she needed, rather than the vital precious words of substance that was her heart’s desire.

    Christine redoubled her efforts, working to plan ahead two strikes every time she attacked. On the assumption that her first swing would almost always be completely blocked or batted aside by reflex, her next one would perhaps be ready and able to reach him. She attacked at a high diagonal, planning to try for a quick sideways slice once he’d swatted her first one out of the way. It didn’t quite work, because she couldn’t recover her positioning fast enough to actually get her sword to where it needed to be. Next she tried planning to swing low for his knee and then use the rebound of his block to turn her padded blade up and at least catch one of his arms.

    But, the guy failed to even block the low strike, yet since she hadn’t expected that one to go through anyways it still whiffed instead of hitting him, a failed, awkward feint—and then by the time she pulled her sword back to try to get his arm as originally planned, he’d stepped back and out of the way. A double whiff, incredibly irritating. She wasn’t good enough at this to pull off what she was trying to do. Christine was just chopping at air, and accomplishing nothing. All the same her arms burned with exertion, the muscles in her back felt strained and were protesting from the unusual twists and reaches, and she was running out of energy for this.

    This whole fight was just so incredibly annoying. She was getting sweaty, and for what? To waste time and energy in a practice conflict, where nobody was gaining anything. Least of all her. It was also an unwelcome reminder of how poor her overall state of fitness was. Christine had not done much of anything remotely athletic since back in high school, and those days were far behind her, now. Her figure was kept in trim shape almost exclusively through managing her diet and not at all through exercise, and attempting actual physical activity revealed a lot of unpleasant shortcomings.

    It’s almost enough to make me want to pull on those leftover little veins of red that linger on there in the back of my mirror, Christine wanted to scowl at the thought.

    Because, obviously that was not an option. Messing around with whatever remnant left over part of that particular magical malady would be foolish to the extreme. That could be life or death. Poking or pulling at it could slide her back towards vampirism. Or worse—she could revert back towards being Chloe again.

    Christine failed to block an unexpected swing of his, and the blade smacked cleanly across her upper bicep. It stung, perhaps moreso her pride than anything else, but she knew Daegonhir rules well enough to tuck that one arm behind her back to show that it was crippled. Or, that the limb was cut off, or whatever that was supposed to even mean—because she couldn’t imagine anyone continuing to fight on in that sort of state. This was a game however, and in all honesty that had been her off hand. Since they were using single-handed weapons anyways, her ability to fight was scarcely affected. Just, losing two limbs meant instant defeat, so the guy now just had to hit her anywhere at all with a lucky blow and the match would be over.

    In her peripheral vision, she realized that all of the other individual matchups except for hers had already concluded, because now all of the different people gathered in the clearing were turned and watching her fight. Which did not make it any easier. Her quick glance over revealed at least two of the other outcomes—Emily appeared smug and insufferable. Because she had two cutlasses and a bit of experience attending practices and events with Rebecca in the past, her winning against some random newbie guy was pretty expected. Kelly wore a smirk, but Christine could tell it was her very annoyed one—she obviously hadn’t fared as well in her fight.

    Brian’s expression couldn’t be read—he had already set aside his win or loss at the hands of that Dwelin guy, and his attention was now focused completely upon Christine’s performance. The expectant gazes of her lovers were heavy but that weight also brought about a last manic rush of energy, and she bombarded the college guy she was fighting with strikes one after another after another. Because they were both newbies, they each had a tendency to step back away from the strikes, until their exchange had a predictable ebb and flow of advance and retreat like the surf on a shoreline.

    Except now Christine pressed, she pushed and pushed and flailed out her sword while keeping her eyes upon her opponent’s feet. His first few steps back were still familiar and stable footwork, but as Christine unexpectedly refused to relent he finally began to stumble. His balance was disrupted as the heel of one shoe caught on a grassy clump of uneven terrain, his posture shifted, and Christine’s sword cut clean through his guard and nailed him in the side. 

    A kill.

    “Whoooo~!” Emily called through cupped hands. “That’s a win for our mammy long legs! Victory! Vict-o-ry!”

    “Cut off his head!” Kelly suggested. “We can do that, right?”

    Christine was panting with exertion, overextending herself with wild constant swings of a sword like that hurt, it was a wretched scorching muscle ache that actually made her drop her weapon the moment she realized she’d won, and she felt disheveled and exhausted. But, Brian was smiling across the clearing at her, thrilled for her, and all of the dour feelings dropped out of her as her mindscape turned into bright molten mirror. She could barely even breathe, but all she could think about in this moment was immediate violent sweaty sex with Brian.

    “Good job Miss Andree, good job Aratar, and good job everyone!” Rebecca called. “Now, we switch—everyone find new partners, tap swords and let’s do it again. Again!”

    ‘Aratar’—the guy she’d been fighting, apparently—gave her a sheepish smile and then swapped over to pair up against Kelly. In turn one of the other college guys in normal clothes ambled over to Christine and introduced himself as Fox. The whole code name or Daegonhir name thing still felt a little lame to her, and although she was the one who insisted on continuing to carry her Misandry moniker under a slightly new spelling as a chafing reminder… well. She was still coming to terms with the whole play pretend role play acting aspect of all of this.

    Ser Briar for some reason didn’t seem lame or childish at all to her. Perhaps it was that faint, ever so slight bit bias of her overwhelming feelings and devotion for him. When he was earnest at this it was clever, endearing, and meaningful. Maybe even aspirational. When these other random college age guys expected to be called Aratar or Space Fox or whatever, she just wanted to sneer at them. Especially since unlike Brian or even the Dwelin guy, they had put in no effort to look the part or act out a character.

    It makes the different names they want to use feel UNEARNED, Christine decided. Because they haven’t proven any sort of investment into their roles.

    Christine tapped weapons with her new opponent, and for a very brief window they went through the dance of hitting at each other—but, in almost no time at all, his sword landed in just between her shoulder and her neck. A strike to her torso, which meant she was dead right away. She gave ‘Fox’ a polite nod to acknowledge her loss, and then turned away from his obnoxious apologetic expression to instead watch the others. Her sword arm had been moving too much more slowly to react this time, because she was too tired now.

    That was that.

    Kelly had her too-long sword resting upon one shoulder but feinted dropping a big swing at Christine’s former opponent whenever he inched in too close. Which put them at an impasse, because the guy didn’t seem to be willing to brave the distance to get inside the weapon’s absurd reach. Emily was very loudly going apeshit upon Dwelin’s large round shield with both cutlasses to what appeared to be no effect—the guy had a wry smile and his sword was poised behind, just waiting for the right moment to put her out of her misery. Brian and the final college newbie were trading fast blows as they laughed and darted and dodged about one another in a tense circling motion that seemed to spiral into rather cinematic conflict.

    Even with his unfinished outfit and somewhat unsure attacks… Brian looked simply heroic. He was a genuine pleasure to watch, and although Rebecca had been roving about keeping an eye on each of the matches it was clear that even she wasn’t impartial with her attention. Ser Briar managed a deft swing that knocked the other guy’s weapon completely free of his hands and tumbling across the clearing. Instead of following up with an easy kill, Ser Briar remained in place, gesturing with his sword for his opponent to pick it up so that they could resume in a fair fight.

    Maybe that’s part of the appeal? Christine thought. He’s not the best at this, but he’s also not all that competitive or just out to win by the best means possible, even. He’s getting in character and having fun with that, genuinely enjoying himself. And in doing that, it really seems to elevate the whole experience as a whole, somehow.

    A large part of Christine’s ‘enthusiasm’ here came about from some idle pillow talk she’d shared late into the night some days back with Brian. With her mentally floundering as to how to act around anyone or what her new identity even was, after erring so thoroughly and putting so much distance down the wrong path. She was a bit lost in the weeds right now as to who she was, and even when Brian suggested she try to be who she wanted to be for the LARP to see what she thought of herself—Christine found herself infuriatingly unclear on who she actually wanted to be.

    Her desires and what she deserved and her role in their group’s relationship all pulled at one another in strange and sometimes convoluted ways. The reflective nature of her charm aspect had a certain way of defining her connection to the others, but it often did so in their darkest and least understood ways. Christine’s metaphysical bond with each of them seemed to meet in to the part of them that was repressed, buried, or otherwise intentionally suffocated. Figuring out what that meant on her end also required untwisting those individual aspects with the others.

    Maybe my dreamscape stuff was only ever meant to work in conjunction with Stephanie being present, Christine thought. It seems probable that us two, we’re meant to play therapy for everyone. But also that neither one of us are intended to handle the whole picture on our own. We’re all supposed to fit together in certain perfect ways, I think.

    Christine did indeed have the credentials to claim she was great at bringing out the worst in people. But, it was also very hard to turn that idea around in her head until it was an aspirational thought. The charm magic softened their edges and smoothed out creases, it opened doors into one another. It didn’t completely erase the bad in each of them, and Christine reasoned that perhaps it was to be her specific role to identify and illuminate those dark areas so that they could finally be resolved. Only, she didn’t quite feel equipped to handle all of that on her own, each of the problem areas to address was by definition its own incredibly complicated, deeply personal, painful, and altogether touchy subject.

    Maybe I’m just suited for seeing the ugliest sides of everyone else and not even being able to judge them for it, Christine thought. Because, I was worse. I AM worse. If they can put themselves elbows deep in the wretched disgusting blackness of my soul to try to pull some semblance of a proper person up out of that mess—I can work at doing the same for them.

( Previous, Practice Begins | Renfaire Fantasy | Next, Corpse Confessions )

/// Sorry this took so long! Was focused on finishing up that RE: TT chapter and getting it off my plate rather than splitting back and forth, because the two different fics are in very different moods right now and I didn't want to muddy anything. My focus will be completely on Renfaire for the next little while!

Sorry to anyone who knew actual Aratars or Foxes, any relation to actual Dag/Bel/Amp fighters is... well not quite coincidental, but rather that I searched up the most common/overused player names. Not that I can really talk, my Dag name was Bjorn. At some larger events you could probably toss a foam rock into any crowd and hit several Bjorns. (ﾉ☉ヮ⚆)ﾉ

Trying to write Christine POV as brusque and a little fatalistic, but also determined. Definitely want her pattern feeling distinct from the others, but also like a somewhat logical extrapolation of who she was as read from the previous book. So with her we're not quite where we left off from, but also I don't want us to feel like we missed huge chunks of her personal development in the gap between books. She's struggling her way forward!