Challenge Accepted
This was going better than Phoebe had expected.
It was going better than she had dared to hope.
It was true that Pyrrha had blunted a lot of the force of Phoebe’s accusations and won great plaudits by her dramatic response; Mistralians loved a good piece of theatre, her people were depressingly prone to hero worship, and what was more quintessentially heroic than proving your innocence in single combat, than in pointing your sword at some foe and challenging them to a duel to the death? All of that was true, and under different circumstances, it might have made Phoebe bitter, but in the present circumstances…
Well, it wasn’t just that Pyrrha had blunted Phoebe’s attack line, was it? Yes, she had, although Phoebe yet had hope that she had not done so as completely as she might have liked; the initial buzz was strong for Pyrrha, but that wasn’t to say that there would not remain some lingering doubts about the truth … but let that lie for now.
The reason why Pyrrha had not, could not, dampen Phoebe’s mood — the reason, in fact, why she felt particularly buoyant at the moment — was because of how Pyrrha had chosen to respond.
It was precisely because Pyrrha had pointed a sword at her enemy and challenged her to a duel to the death that Phoebe felt almost like singing.
It was too good! It was delicious! A duel to the death! To the death!
To risk her life, to hazard it in single combat, what a fool she was. What a fearless, foolish idiot was Pyrrha Nikos. If she died … Phoebe so very much hoped that she died. Phoebe would have prayed that Pyrrha would die if she had believed in any gods with sufficient faith or fervour to pray to them.
If Pyrrha died, then a great shadow would be excised from Phoebe’s life. She would be … she would be free. No more dogged by Pyrrha, no more overshadowed by Pyrrha, no more bested by Pyrrha.
No more outshone by Pyrrha in all respects.
And to think that all it had taken were some rumours, and Pyrrha was going to her death voluntarily.
Well, perhaps. Phoebe hoped so anyway. Admittedly, it could not be taken for granted. As Phoebe knew too well, Pyrrha had a very annoying habit of winning battles. It might be that she would triumph over this Cinder Fall and return trailing even more clouds of glory.
That would be … frustrating, to say the least.
If that happened, then Phoebe … Phoebe would deal with it. She would cast doubt upon the outcome of a trial by combat, she would suggest that Cinder Fall was not actually dead, she would continue to spread malicious rumour through the world. What was Pyrrha going to do about that? The problem with such a dramatic gesture was that you could only do it once.
Much like dying.
If all that Phoebe could do for now was sling mud at Pyrrha’s reputation, then she would do so and wait for the moment when she could ram a spear through Pyrrha’s back.
But until then … she hoped, oh how she hoped.
In the meantime, while she hoped, she was on her way to call on Pyrrha herself.
One of the things that Phoebe found rather foolish about her own culture was the insistence on personalizing everything: take this single combat, for instance; you had to challenge your enemy directly. You couldn’t hide your own presence in the shadows, you couldn’t work through catspaws, everything was supposed to be out in the open for the world to see.
Phoebe did not work out in the open, and so, even if Pyrrha had suspicions about her involvement in these accusations against her, she couldn’t prove it, and without proof, she could not act. And with Pyrrha unable to act, unable to prove anything, Phoebe was quite able to go to her and reconcile.
It was … the proper form, in occasions such as this. With Pyrrha about to risk her life in a sacred combat, it was the perfect time, the proper time, the expected time for Phoebe to go to her and clasp her hands and beg her to put aside their enmity.
It didn’t matter one bit that Phoebe had no intention of putting aside her enmity for even one second; the point was that … well, there were two points, the first of which being that Pyrrha, bound by convention as she was, would be unable to refuse and, fool that she was, might even believe it; the other point being that it would make Phoebe look good.
This situation had taken on the attributes of a story; Pyrrha had turned it into one when she challenged Cinder Fall so publicly and in such a ringing tone. She had elevated this out of the world of trashy publications and into something … something closer to myth.
Well, Phoebe could treat this like a storybook as well if she wanted to, and this was the storybook response to a situation like this one: to put aside petty differences in the face of Pyrrha’s hopefully impending death and win great plaudits for her magnanimity.
And so, trailed by her entourage — what was the point of doing something like this if you weren’t going to have witnesses? — Phoebe swept through the corridors towards the Team SAPR dorm room.
“Is there really that much point to this?” asked Fleur. “What if Pyrrha doesn’t accept?”
Phoebe laughed lightly. “Oh, really, Fleur, forgive me, but that’s such an Atlesian thing to say. Of course Pyrrha will accept. She really has no choice at all. The customs will compel it, if nothing else. Besides, I’m sure that a sweet girl like Pyrrha could never hold a grudge.”
They were approaching the SAPR dorm room now, with that ridiculous picture on the front from that terrible plebeian restaurant — Phoebe had been there once and never again; it was disgustingly common — on the door.
Phoebe did her best to ignore it, presenting a benign smile upon her fair face as, with perfect poise, she knocked briskly upon the dorm room door.
There was a moment’s pause before the door was answered by that odious faunus, Sunset Shimmer; she might act a little less high and mighty once Pyrrha died and all the favour and the money that she presently enjoyed from Lady Nikos evaporated like so much snow under sunlight.
You think that you’re so wonderful, don’t you? You are nothing but a sponge that soaks up Lady Nikos’ favours. One day, Lady Nikos will put you in her hands and squeeze you and squeeze you, and then, sponge, you will be dry again and just as small and light and utterly inconsequential as you were before.
But for now, Sunset stood in the doorway, physically barring it and looking at Phoebe with a scowl upon her face. “What do you want?”
Phoebe bit back a retort to the insolence that she was being offered. “I’m here to speak to Pyrrha.”
“Go away,” Sunset said, moving to shut the door.
Phoebe put one hand upon the door to prevent it from being slammed in her face. “I … understand that you may not have the best opinion of me,” she said in her ‘model student’ voice that had fooled so many teachers at Atlas Academy. “I even understand why you might not like me very much; some of my words have been … rather cruel. But that’s why it’s so important that I speak to Pyrrha now, before it’s too late!”
“Phoebe?” Pyrrha asked, appearing in view behind Sunset, visible over her shoulder. Her tone was guarded as she said, “Is there something I can do for you?”
Phoebe let out a sort of gasping sigh, putting one hand upon her heart. “Pyrrha!” she cried. She took a moment to appear to collect herself, her bosom heaving. “No, Pyrrha, there is nothing that you can do for me … except forgive me. I have been a fool, and worse than foolish, I have been very cruel to you and to your friends. I have taken our bouts in the arena far too seriously and allowed myself to become bitter over bouts that you won fair and square in the arena. I have wronged you with my words, wronged you terribly, but now … now, I see the light. What you have done … what are you prepared to risk … there can be no connection between you and that vile criminal Cinder Fall.”
Sunset’s face twitched. “Very prettily said,” she growled. “But if you think that—”
“Sunset,” Pyrrha murmured. “It’s alright. Please, step aside.”
“Pyrrha?”
“Please,” Pyrrha repeated.
Sunset hesitated for a moment before the little beast obeyed Pyrrha’s command and stepped back, clearing the way for Pyrrha to take her place, standing in the doorway facing Phoebe.
Phoebe smiled at her and reached out, taking Pyrrha’s gloved hands in her own. “You are, as you have always been, the better warrior,” she said, “but now, I see you are the better woman too. I am sorry, I am so very sorry that I ever doubted you. Now, before it may be too late, I would be reconciled with you. Forgive me, Pyrrha, I beg of you, and let me kiss you as a dear friend and comrade.”
Pyrrha was silent for a moment, the expression on that milksop face harder to read than Phoebe would have liked. But at last, she said, “Of course. In truth, there is very little to forgive; rivalry is as much a part of the tournament circuit as combat itself, after all. But, in as much as you require forgiveness, I forgive you and welcome the opportunity to know you better as a friend.”
She turned her cheek ever so slightly. Phoebe leaned forward and placed a kiss first upon her left cheek, and then — when Pyrrha turned her head the other way — upon her right.
Someone took a picture; Phoebe could see the flash illuminating Pyrrha’s face. It was a pity they were only going to get a shot of her back, but it was unavoidable in the circumstances.
Phoebe released Pyrrha’s hands and took a step backwards. “You carry the hopes of Mistral on your shoulders,” she said. “And I am certain that you will bring honour to us all.”
Sunset’s hand glowed with the emerald light of her magic as she telekinetically shut the door.
“Do you believe that?” she asked.
Pyrrha half turned towards her. “Do you ask if I believe that it just happened or that I believe Phoebe’s sincerity?”
“Either,” Sunset replied. “But I hope the answer to the second one is ‘no.’”
“Indeed,” Pyrrha murmured. “I might, possibly, have believed her, although even then, I would have found it hard to swallow, if it were not for … the things that you have told me you observed in Cinder’s memories.”
“Exactly,” Sunset muttered. “You know, it occurs to me that that woman is the reason for all our problems.”
“I think Salem might be a little surprised to hear that,” Pyrrha said mildly.
Sunset rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. If she hadn’t treated Cinder the way she did, then there would be no Cinder, not for you to fight, not to have caused the Breach … not for us to fear at all. All our troubles would be … if not over, then at least diminished.”
She paused for a moment. “You know, considering that we only found out about Salem because Cinder had made it urgent that someone be recruited, if Phoebe could have only managed to be a decent loving stepsister, then we’d probably be enjoying a perfectly ordinary school year by now, preparing for the Vytal Festival in bliss.”
“In bliss?” Pyrrha asked. “Or blissful ignorance?”
“How happy has knowledge made you?” Sunset asked.
“A fair point,” Pyrrha acknowledged softly.
“If Phoebe didn’t mean any of that — and I agree, she probably didn’t — then why bother?” Jaune asked. “What was the point of it?”
“The appearance of the thing, I think,” Pyrrha explained. “No doubt, she thinks it will enhance her reputation to be seen to be reconciling with me before I fight for my life. There is precedent for such things, old enemies putting aside their differences before one of them goes to battle. Palamon and Arcite were reconciled to one another before Arcite’s fatal duel with Pyramus, and after Arcite’s death, Palamon took Arcite’s sister into his house and under his protection, providing for her until her marriage.” She paused for a moment. “If I should—”
“Don’t,” Jaune said before she could finish. “Don’t say that. You’re going to win.”
Pyrrha glanced at him and smiled. “Of course,” she said.
“Is that really why she did it?” asked Ruby. “I mean … it still seems … is anyone really going to care?”
“Inasmuch as they already care — about me, about Phoebe, about any of us who fight or have fought in the arena — then yes, I think they probably will,” Pyrrha replied. “The somewhat depressing thing is that this will probably work to enhance her reputation just as she hopes that it will.”
“So she gets to slander you to the point you have to go and fight this duel, then she gets to cry crocodile tears about how sorry she is — not for the slandering you, but for everything else — and apologise for social clout?” Sunset said. “That seems—”
“Wrong?” Jaune suggested.
“At the very least,” Sunset agreed.
“In the scheme of things, it hardly matters,” Pyrrha said. “A little popularity might even sweeten Phoebe’s nature.”
“It wasn’t sweetening that her nature needed,” Sunset muttered. “But I accept that there are more important things.” She frowned, a somewhat unpleasant thought striking. “Hang on, you said that this was a customary thing, right?”
Pyrrha nodded. “It has its roots in myth and tradition, yes.”
“So does that mean that we can expect a host of people and all their flunkies beating a path to our door so that they can be seen to publicly reconcile with you for all the ill thoughts they had and apologise if they ever doubted you or so much as looked at you funny?”
Pyrrha blinked and seemed to pale a little. “I … cannot guarantee that we will not have more visitors, that is correct.”
“Right,” Sunset’s voice was half a sigh and half a mutter. “Well, you will forgive me if I don’t have the stomach to tolerate a parade of insincere sycophancy—”
“You’re not the one who has to endure it all directed your way,” Pyrrha pointed out mildly.
“Yes, yes, that is true,” Sunset acknowledged. “And I feel sorry for you, believe me, but all the same … that doesn’t mean that I want to stand here and watch while you endure it.”
Pyrrha chuckled. “Understandable, in the circumstances.”
“Where are you gonna go?” asked Ruby.
“I … I’m not sure yet,” Sunset admitted. “Somewhere a little quieter than this might turn out to be.”
“Sunset,” Pyrrha said, “I don’t know how Cinder will respond to my challenge, but she may either call you or, more likely, have someone else — Emerald or Lightning Dust — call you. In that case … I trust you to make the arrangements on my behalf. The place, the time, who will be present, all of that sort of thing. I leave the details in your hands.”
“You … you don’t want me to check with you first?”
Pyrrha shook her hand. “I trust you to act in my best interests.”
If I was acting in your best interests, I would call this … no, no, I might not. After all, it isn’t as though you were free from troubles before you decided to do this.
I have to admit, if you win this fight, it will be just the thing to give you your confidence back.
And you will win. You will win. You have to win; I won’t accept anything else.
“I am … honoured,” Sunset murmured. She bowed from the waist at a forty-five degree angle. “And in this office, I will serve you well, I swear it.” She paused. “I suppose, given the circumstances, it might be best if I went somewhere quiet and out of the way where no one can overhear if Cinder decides to call.”
“That would probably be for the best, yes,” Pyrrha agreed.
Sunset nodded. “Right then, I shall take myself off to some secluded spot … and wait for the call which…” …the call which I hope and dread. “I’ll wait for the call.”
With one hand, she checked that her scroll was in her jacket pocket as she walked towards the door, Pyrrha making way for her as she did so.
Sunset opened the door and stepped out into the corridor, closing the door behind her.
As she heard the click as the dorm room door locked behind her, she could not restrain a sigh from passing her lips.
“You’re worried about her, aren’t you?”
It was only then that Sunset noticed Yang, standing just beyond her own dorm room door, her back to the wall facing SAPR’s room, her arms folded.
“You waiting to speak to Ruby?” Sunset asked.
“Actually, I was kind of hoping you might come out here,” Yang replied. “If only so I can ask what that herd was moving down the corridor just now.”
Sunset cringed. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t count on a peaceful day from now on. There might be more of that to follow.”
“Why?”
Sunset let out another sigh — they would bloat her at this rate — and said, “Since Pyrrha is going to be risking her life soon, probably, everyone is coming to performatively apologise, kiss, and make up for any bad blood between them, so that … so that if she … so that if she…” So that if she dies, then they can say that they reconciled before she passed, and everyone will say how generous it was of them, and noble.
She couldn’t say it. The words stuck in her mouth fit to make her choke upon them. It was as if … it was ridiculous, but she felt as though if she spoke the words too often, then she would conjure it into existence, that if she mentioned that Pyrrha might … she didn’t even want to think about it.
Sunset’s chest rose and fell, her breathing coming in gasping breaths. She hated them. At this moment, she hated them, not only Phoebe but all of these Mistralians and their culture that they would treat Pyrrha like this, that they would compel her with their mores to…
Sunset found that there were tears welling up in her eyes.
She felt, rather than saw, Yang’s hand upon her shoulder, drawing her forward, pulling her into an embrace.
“Easy now,” Yang murmured, stroking Sunset’s fiery hair with her other hand. “Easy now. It’s okay. Pyrrha’s okay; she’s on the other side of the door.”
Sunset screwed her eyes tight shut. “I know that I should be supportive and believe in her—”
“You don’t have explain to me,” Yang said. “I get it. You can believe in someone, you can support them every step of the way, you can think — you can know — that they’re totally awesome, but … but that doesn’t make them invulnerable or immortal.”
“Yeah,” Sunset whispered. “Yeah, you’re right; I am worried about her.”
“I can get that too,” Yang said softly, ever so softly. “I gotta say, it’s a heck of a long way to go because someone wrote something mean about you.”
“It isn’t that,” Sunset replied. “It … it’s not just that, anyway.”
“Then what?” Yang asked.
“I don’t know if I ought to say,” Sunset said. “I don’t want to spread Pyrrha’s secrets all over the school.”
“I could get upset and point out that I’m not exactly ‘all over the school,’” Yang remarked. “But … I get what you mean. You don’t have to tell me. If you say that there’s another reason, that there’s a good reason for Pyrrha to do what she’s doing, then I believe you.” Yang stepped back, releasing Sunset from the embrace but keeping both hands upon Sunset’s shoulders. “Just so long as Pyrrha knows that you believe in her too. It’s okay to be worried, just so long as she knows that it isn’t because you don’t think she can win.”
Sunset sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of one hand. “That … that’s good advice,” she said. “I will … definitely take that when I get back, although right now, I need to…”
“Need to what?”
“I … I need to get a call from Cinder to set up the duel,” Sunset said.
Yang was silent for a moment. “I know that you’re big on tradition and stuff, but at some point, even you have to admit that this is kind of absurd, don’t you think?”
“It seems that way,” Sunset admitted. “But … my objective assessment is so clouded by the circumstances as to make objectivity impossible, but … it’s worked out for them for hundreds, thousands of years, even across battle lines. Honestly … if it wasn’t Pyrrha … I’d maybe, probably, think it was kind of cool, you know? Two people meeting to settle a dispute themselves, instead of having a war over it, just two people fighting instead of armies, sparing cities and people the trouble and the worry. Taking on the burden of their causes wholly on themselves.”
“Well, when you put it like that, it does sound heroic,” Yang acknowledged. “Kind of … kind of what huntsmen are meant to do, come to think of it: taking on the burden, doing all the fighting so that there don’t have to be armies. Only trouble is that this fight isn’t going to solve anything, is it? Everything is going to be just the way it was, except…”
“Yeah,” Sunset said. “Except … but like you said, I need to believe in Pyrrha. I do believe in Pyrrha.” It’s just unfortunate that I know Cinder too. “If anyone can do this, she can.”
“Tell her, not me,” Yang told her. “But still, the idea of you getting a call from Cinder is ridiculous.”
Sunset let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah … ridiculous. Totally ridiculous.” She took a deep breath. “Thank you.”
“It’s what I do,” Yang told her, with a slight smile and an equally slight shrug of her shoulders. “I was going to make some coffee; do you want something?”
“No, thanks,” Sunset said. “I have—”
“Places to be, right, got it,” Yang said. “Good … well, you don’t need luck, do you?”
“Not for this part, I hope,” Sunset said as she left Yang behind and started down the corridor in the direction of the stairs.
Thankfully, she managed to make it to the stairs, down the stairs, and out of the dorm room without running into any more Mistralians coming to offer their insincere apologies coming the other way.
She didn’t believe that any of them would be sincere. If they were sincere about wanting to make amends, then they would have done it before now, instead of waiting until…
She still didn’t want to think it. The point was that she didn’t believe in any of these apologies or desires for reconciliation. It was all just … it was all theatre.
Which Sunset might not have been opposed to, admittedly, except that in the circumstances…
Sunset put them from her mind. There were a lot of things that she liked about Mistral, not least the look of the place; it was just that this… the current situation had got her nerves jangled that was all.
Nevertheless, when she got back, she would have to take Yang’s advice and let Pyrrha know that she did believe in her.
Which she did. Pyrrha was the real deal, after all, and if she’d been going up against anyone but Cinder Fall, then Sunset wouldn’t have worried; she might not have liked the fact that it was single combat in any event, but she wouldn’t have been actively worried the way she was now.
That was Cinder’s doing.
It didn’t help that her feelings about Cinder dying were…
I should hate her. I told her that I hated her, and I…
She is responsible for all of this. She is the reason why … except she isn’t, is she?
She gave me a choice, but I was the one who took it. I hate her because I hate myself.
Except I don’t actually hate her.
I feel…
I admire her, a little, fighting against four kingdoms and all the power of Atlas, making a challenge to the entire system of the world, defying … everything. I wouldn’t have that kind of courage, or that kind of resolve. I wouldn’t be able to fight such a fight; I would quail before the strength of opposition.
I ran away in the face of far less trouble.
So yes, though I might not be able to say it openly, I admire her courage, whatever the ends to which she puts her courage.
But most of all … most of all, I feel sorry for her. Not just because she was so cruelly mistreated, although there is that — although there is also the fact that she would not wish to be pitied for it — but more than that. I feel sorry for her because she has nothing in her life but wrath and revenge, and they will burn her to ashes ere they consume the world.
Sunset walked across the courtyard, heading out across the open grounds of Beacon in the direction of the farm; not a place where she often spent time, but at the same time … it was not a place where a great many students spent a lot of time, and so she had reasonable hopes of privacy there, with only the chickens to overhear.
The chickens appeared to be in fine fettle when Sunset arrived; someone had spread a load of feed upon the ground in their enclosure, and they were clucking as they gobbled it down eagerly.
Sunset remembered Pyrrha’s story from before, about the sacred chickens and how there was not allowed to be a fight unless they ate, conveying the favour of the gods upon the battle. She wondered if the Beacon chickens were sacred enough that it might be considered a good omen that they were eating, and though she couldn’t be sure, she found herself rather hoping that it was true.
It occurred to Sunset that the reason not a lot of students came down here was that if you weren’t a big fan of farm animals, then there wasn’t much to do out here, and there wasn’t much for her to do out here while she waited for a call.
I should have taken my journal out here and written to Princess Celestia or Twilight.
Sunset heard and felt her scroll buzz in her pocket, the suddenness of it making her jump. She fumbled a little, taking longer in her haste to get her scroll than she would have done if she hadn’t been in such a rush. Nevertheless, she managed to get her scroll out of her pocket and open it up.
Someone was calling her voice only.
Sunset answered it. “Cinder?”
“No, it’s Emerald,” came the reply out of the scroll. “We do this through intermediaries, apparently.”
“Right, of course we do,” Sunset replied. “Hello, Emerald.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Really?”
“Well, we are talking to arrange a matter of honour,” Sunset pointed out. “It feels like we’re not really being true to the spirit of the thing if we don’t at least try and be civil to one another in the process.”
“Right,” Emerald muttered, sounding very unconvinced. “Well, yeah, so…” There was the sound of a page turning.
“Are you reading?” Sunset asked.
“I’m not reading; I’ve just got a book open on my lap,” Emerald said. “I don’t know all of this stuff off the top of my head; I’m having to check the rules.”
“I’m a little surprised that you care.”
“Cinder will care,” Emerald said. “She’ll want this done properly.”
“Of course,” Sunset said. “We wouldn’t want this done improperly, would we?”
“Was that sarcasm?”
“A little,” Sunset admitted. “But I’m taking this very seriously, I assure you.”
“But do you…?” Emerald hesitated. “Do you think that…? Can I trust you?”
“You probably shouldn’t be able to, considering that we’re enemies,” Sunset pointed out.
“If we’re enemies, then why am I calling you, and why did you say that we should try and be civil to one another?” Emerald asked.
“That … is a good point,” Sunset admitted. “We were enemies, we will be enemies when you end this call, but right now, we are—”
“In the same boat?” Emerald suggested. “Do you think this is a good idea?”
“Of course I do,” Sunset said; she couldn’t say anything else to Emerald Sustrai.
“Liar,” Emerald said.
“You can’t possibly know that—”
“I know that I don’t think this is a good idea,” Emerald said, “and I know that … I don’t like you, but I think that we’re alike in that … we care. You care about Pyrrha, don’t you? You don’t want her to die?”
“Of course I don’t, and of course I care,” Sunset said sharply. “But Pyrrha’s going to win, obviously.”
“Bollocks,” Emerald replied. “Pyrrha has nothing on Cinder, nothing at all.”
Sunset gasped. “First of all: you’re delusional. Secondly, if you think that, why are you so worried?”
There was silence from Emerald on the other end of the line. “I … nothing is certain, is it?”
Sunset was silent for a moment. “No,” she said. “No, it is not.”
“Is Pyrrha really doing this because of what some stupid magazine said about her?”
“Yes,” Sunset replied, because, again, she wasn’t going to admit anything more than that to Emerald. “Why is Cinder accepting?”
“Because she wants to kill Pyrrha,” Emerald replied.
Sunset closed her eyes for a moment. Yeah. Yeah, that’s about what I thought.
“I’ve tried to talk her out of it,” Emerald went on, “but she didn’t listen. Have you tried to talk Pyrrha out of it?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Emerald demanded. “Are you so confident?”
“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” Sunset said. But she went on to explain herself anyway, saying, “Pyrrha has the right to make her own choices; I can’t tell her what to do.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t tell her you think she’s making a bad choice.”
“I’ve been told that my way of telling people that I think they’re making a bad choice can be … overly strident,” Sunset admitted. “As a result … I’m experimenting with letting people do as they wish.”
“How’s that working out?”
“It’s not doing my nerves much good so far,” Sunset admitted.
Emerald snorted. “You know, it’s kind of funny, I guess,” she said, “but we … Cinder and Pyrrha, they’re both warriors. They both risk their lives … all the time, but it’s only now that I’m actually worried about her. Is that stupid, or is there something special about single combat?”
“Ten thousand fates of death surround them,” Sunset murmured.
“That’s from The Mistraliad, isn’t it?” Emerald asked.
“It’s a paraphrase,” Sunset said.
“Right,” Emerald said, in a tone that concealed whether or not she knew what that meant. “I’ve started reading it, but I’m not that far in.”
“I won’t spoil anything for you.”
Emerald chuckled. “Cinder tells me that it’s really good, and that I ought to read it for my … anyway; I also hoped that it would help me understand Cinder a little better.”
“How are you finding it?”
“Hard to understand at times,” Emerald admitted. “And also … I could never tell Cinder this, but they’re all… kind of awful.”
“That’s harsh,” Sunset replied. “Many of the heroes possess at least some admirable qualities. They’re rounded characters, with flaws and virtues in equal measure.”
“The Pyrrha in the story decides to throw a massive sulk and sit out the fighting because somebody took her slave away,” Emerald pointed out.
“Her pride was … in fairness, the poem has an ambivalent attitude towards Pyrrha and her actions; it doesn’t exactly praise every little thing she does,” Sunset said. “I think … the answer to your questions is that yes, there is something … if not special about single combat, then at the very least different about it, because single combat … the difference is they’re all alone, and we can’t help them.”
“Yeah,” Emerald agreed. “Yeah, it sounds obvious, now that you put it like that.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Depends,” Emerald said. “Ask, and I might answer.”
“Why are you doing this?” asked Sunset. “Do you know who you’re working for?”
“I work for Cinder.”
“No, I mean—”
“Yes, I know who Cinder works for,” Emerald said. “Yes, I know about the grimm — how could I not? — so if you’re going to try and play some stupid headgames where you convince me to change sides or betray Cinder, then cut it out; it’s not going to work.”
“I would never encourage you to betray Cinder,” Sunset assured her. “That would be … it would be like stabbing her in the back. I just want to know why. I can understand why Cinder is doing this; I wish that it weren’t so, but I understand. But you … you don’t seem the type to want to take your anger out on the world. Apart from anything else, you don’t seem very angry about anything.”
Emerald was silent for a moment. And then a moment more. “I … I’m a thief. I was a thief. I didn’t have anything but what I could steal, which wasn’t always much. I was … nothing, until Cinder found me. She promised me that I’d … lately, she’s been teaching me how to act like a lady.”
Sunset’s eyebrows rose, for all that Emerald couldn’t see it, the call being voice only. “Really?”
“Uh huh,” Emerald said. “Can’t you tell by my elocution?”
“You still need to work on your vocabulary choices.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” Emerald huffed. “The point is … I’m loyal to Cinder. Whatever road she’s on, though it’s bad for her, though it’s bad for the people around her, I’m loyal to Cinder. I’m not going to turn on her, I’m not going to walk away from her, I’m not going to betray her to help you or even to save my own skin. Yes, it could have been rough on Vale if the Breach had actually broken through, but you know what, so what? Vale never gave a damn about me, Vale never treated me like I was anything more than gutter trash, Vale … Cinder is the first person to treat me like I might actually be worth something; lately, she’s even been treating me like an equal. I’m not going to betray that, I’m going to be loyal to that, and even if it costs me my life, at least I’ll die alongside someone who cares. Here I stand, even if it’s where I fall.”
“And now you sound like a lady,” Sunset said. “Congratulations.” She paused for a moment. “You are a better person than those who scorned you in the street.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that,” Emerald replied. “But … thanks anyway.”
“You know,” Sunset said. “We should probably actually get to work and sort out this duel, shouldn’t we? It almost feels as though we’ve been putting it off.”
“'It almost feels'?”
Now it was Sunset’s turn to snort. “Since Pyrrha challenged, your side gets to choose time and place. Within reason.”
“Yeah,” Emerald said. “I mean,” Sunset could hear the effort speak in a more refined manner in her voice, “Yes, indeed. I see that it is so. Our two … combatants shall meet in the Emerald Forest.”
“'The Emerald Forest'?” Sunset repeated.
“Somewhere Cinder can’t be easily seen or found,” Emerald said. “I don’t want General Ironwood’s troops swooping down on her.”
“You don’t trust Pyrrha’s honour?” Sunset asked.
“Even if I did, I still wouldn’t trust General Ironwood,” Emerald replied. “What reason does he have not to take out Cinder if he gets the chance? Why should he feel bound by Pyrrha’s honour?”
“That is … a fair point,” Sunset conceded. There was no reason for General Ironwood to respect the sanctity of the duel; he wasn’t a Mistralian, and they were at war, to all intents and purposes. It was not impossible that he might seek to turn this situation to his advantage. Just as Emerald might be trying to turn this situation to her advantage, or Cinder’s. “But the Emerald Forest? It’s full of grimm.”
“That’s not something you’ll have to worry about with Cinder around,” Emerald replied. “You don’t trust us?”
“You did lead us into a trap at Mountain Glenn the last time we talked like this.”
“That was Cinder, not me, and if you couldn’t work out ahead of time that it was some kind of trap, then that’s on you, not us,” Emerald said. She hesitated. “Listen, for what it’s worth, Cinder really is taking this seriously. Nobody thinks that she should be doing this, but she is. She wants this. And she wants to do it … right. An ambush … that wouldn’t satisfy her.”
Sunset did not reply immediately. What Emerald said … it made sense. It tracked with what Sunset knew of Cinder. She hated Pyrrha, yes, but she wanted to triumph over her personally, not bury her beneath the grimm.
And the challenged party did have the right to choose the place; Sunset could object if she thought that Emerald was abusing that right, but she did not have a power of veto over the location.
“Where in the forest? It’s a big place,” Sunset pointed out.
There was a pause. “I’m sending you some coordinates; it’s a clearing. Pyrrha will be able to reach it from the cliffs.”
There was a ping on Sunset’s scroll notifying her that she’d got a text.
“For the same reason it’s happening in the forest,” Emerald went on, “the duel will take place at midnight.”
“Tonight?”
“There’s not much point waiting around, is there?” Emerald asked.
“No,” Sunset murmured. “No, I suppose there isn’t.”
“Each combatant will have two marshals to observe the duel and ensure that the rules are followed,” Emerald said.
“Three marshals,” Sunset responded.
“Two,” Emerald insisted. “We don’t have three marshals.”
That was a point that was impossible to argue, and so Sunset said, “Very well, two marshals.”
“And you won’t be either of them,” Emerald added.
“What?” Sunset replied. “You can’t specify that.”
“I just did.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve already broken a truce once when you tried to kill Adam,” Emerald pointed out. “I don’t trust you.”
“And I thought we were becoming friends,” Sunset said, and she wasn’t even being entirely sarcastic about it.
“Maybe in another life,” Emerald said. “But in this life? I don’t trust you to be there and not intervene to save Pyrrha when the fighting turns against her. Like Maenad, you wouldn’t be able to help yourself.”
“You’ve gotten that far in The Mistraliad then,” Sunset observed; the goddess Maenad rescued Pandarus from his death at the hands of Melanippe, whisking him away from the battlefield to his palace in Mistral.
“Do you deny it?”
“No,” Sunset muttered. “No, I cannot say for certain that I would be able to help myself. Very well, two marshals, and I will not be there.” I will fret and wait and look for her coming from the cliffs and envy Jaune and Ruby.
“In the Emerald Forest,” Emerald said, “at midnight.”
“In the Emerald Forest,” Sunset agreed, “at midnight.”