You Gotta Fight For Your Right to...stay alive? (Nel + Doc)

[Murdoch]

Murdoch focused on his opponent, and read something in his hesitation. He'd learned long ago that men who fought with strength tended to barrel into a fight, while those who fought with speed usually took a breath first before they struck. When he counted a heartbeat, then another, he braced himself for some explosive attack - and wasn't disappointed in the least.

Bryson was even faster than he'd expected, and Doc couldn't quite get out of the way in time. He skipped to his right, trying to circle just a bit closer to his opponent, and kicked out with his right foot, trying to bash in the side of Bryson's knee and hopefully get him limping a little slower around the ring. At the same time, he kept his left arm up to block the serrated knife's attempts to dig into his stomach - more than willing to take a few cuts to the forearm. He'd plenty of scars there from just such situations anyway.

[Liminal]

Murdoch's foot connected with Bryson's knee, but not solidly enough to do more than cause his opponent to do a stutter step. Clearly, the man had had more than one person try to damage his legs in a fight before.

Bryson, on the other hand, did a good deal more damage. Doc's forearm did keep the man's blade from damaging any critical areas, but a wicked gash opened up from Murdoch's left elbow halfway to his wrist. It immediately filled with blood.

A murmur rose from the crowd. Gemmy gasped audibly, though by the standards of the cage, nothing particularly exciting had happened yet.

With his free hand, Bryson aimed a jab to Murdoch's stomach. This enabled him to pull the knife back and keep it available for another strike. It was clear that Bryson had spent a long time practicing fighting in these kinds of closed environments, and it showed in the way he kept his balance centered even as he moved to attack.

[Murdoch]

The pain of the slash on his arm made his breath hiss between his teeth, but it wasn't any worse than most of what he'd taken. His forearms were mostly scar tissue at this point, which meant they'd split easier but they'd also stop bleeding faster.

The rest of him was still in grave danger, though. Bryson was in control of the ring.

A breath. A single breath, in and out, and Doc's eyes narrowed into slits. Seeing the truth of things: that was the gift that Tyveth had given him. It had always been what he was good at. Reading people, identifying their tells and their bluffs, watching their strategy play out in their faces. But as the brand upon his neck flared and burned its way down his spine, he knew more than his opponent's mere expression could have told him.

He knew that Bryson had had his arm broken as a child, a twist fracture likely delivered by a parent, from the way his fingers curled around the hilt of his blade. He knew that he'd been a slave for a short while - long enough to teach him the life but not enough to break him completely - from the faint scar on the back of his hand where the manacle had rubbed, too faint to have done so for more than a year or two. He knew that unlike Doc, there was no one in the audience he gave a shyke about, and probably no one outside of it either. And he knew that Bryson was tired, eaten by a bone-deep despair that men like him often succumbed to, fighting to stay alive because it was the only thing they really had to do with their time. Slavery hadn't broken him; it was the long, empty life afterward that had done so.

What punishment would be worse for him, dying or living? Doc had no petching idea, but he knew one thing: he had something to live for, and sometimes that was all the difference in a fight.

One breath, and his determination settled itself like a weight around his soul, holding him down and steadying him. Then Bryson lunged for him again.

A jab at his stomach, and Doc twisted just a hair to the side, enough to avoid getting his flesh cut though the blade slashed through his shirt. Even as it did, though, his off-hand moved without seeming to move, a sleight-of-hand he'd picked up when palming cards and coin at the tables. The barest flicker of movement at his belt, and as Bryson drew back his knife to prepare for another strike, Doc jammed the sharp little lockpick right through the center of his hand, twisting it viciously so the hook at the end would do as much damage as possible, and readied his dagger to go for the other man's throat.

[Liminal]

Bryson's jab didn't connect, and as he brought his free hand back, the lockpick in Murdoch's hand dragged across his hand and forearm, finally digging into his opponent's left triceps. A frown of blood immediately stained the man's shirt, a few drops splashing on the floor of the cage.

Bryson himself didn't so much as flinch. He'd spent too much time in the cages to allow himself to be distracted by pain. This was why, as Murdoch's blade sped toward his throat, he was able to duck under the blow.

From his crouching position, there wasn't a good way for him to get his blade into play, and his free arm was still dripping blood. So Bryson gave a backhanded blow, striking Murdoch's ribcage with the hilt of his knife. There was a sickening crack, and Murdoch would know by the sensation that one of his ribs had produced that particular noise.

Bryson scuttled backward, putting seven or eight feet between him and Murdoch. Both fighters were wounded now, and the crowd acknowledged this face with a renewed roar.

[Murdoch]

Doc grunted as the blow landed against his ribs, swiping at the man's arm to get him to back away. It worked, and a great deal of space blossomed suddenly between them as the crowd filled it with their blood-thirsty roars.

Murdoch backed away as well, leaning his back against the cage and panting heavily. His eyes flickered towards the crowd, at the ghost that sat watching him, at the red-haired girl who had seemed for a few moments to be an ally.

He was bloody, and tired, and despair nipped at his heels as he moved his glance back to his opponent. He'd been too long out of the cages, spent too many years in the safety of Syliras to last much longer here. It wasn't a matter of being out of shape - his hand was as fast as it'd ever been. It was a mindset, a way of thinking that he wasn't in the habit of using anymore. And he felt a trickle of fear of what it might mean to have to do that again. What would it cost him, now that he'd managed to find something he cared for? Would he survive, only to lose Nel again? But then, what point was there to not surviving.

He looked back to Gemmy, and for a moment their eyes locked. Get her out, he mouthed. Then his eyes hardened, and he turned his attention back to his opponent.

"All right," he called across the ring, his voice low and sarcastic. "Enough petching around. Let's get this over with." With that, he began circling around to the other side of the ring, his knife gripped in blood-slicked hands, and a snarl curled his lips back as he launched himself at the other man in an attempt to cut at his hands some more and maybe even disable him.

OOCHey! As a note, I talked to Stine and she said it's fine to have Nel leave since she's not really around anymore. If you had any plot you absolutely wanted to run with her in this scene, you can send her a PM and she should answer.

[Liminal]

A look of despair flashed across Gemmy's face. She glanced at Nel, then at Murdoch, almost as if torn about what to do. Then she gave the fighter a grim nod and stood, her arm around her companion's shoulder, ushering her out of the arena. She'd given Murdoch her word, and she'd keep it.

Bryson didn't respond to Murdoch's words. He was far too tired, far too broken in spirit. He fought and lived because he had nothing else to do. But his reflexes nonetheless were still quick, which explained at least part of what happened next.

As Murdoch moved in for the attack, Bryson raised his left arm to block. However, this arm was already damaged, and so his ability to manipulate it was limited. Murdoch's knife sank into the flesh -- and this time, it hit an artery. Blood spurted from the wound, and Bryson sank backwards to the floor.

However, he had one final trick. As he fell, he threw his knife at Murdoch, aiming for his chest. He generated a surprising amount of force, and Bryson obviously had a practiced hand. The blade came whizzing past Murdoch's arms and buried itself in his ribcage.

It hadn't hit the heart, but Murdoch would find himself collapsing anyway. Breathing suddenly became very difficult, and Murdoch would know that one of his lungs had been punctured. Not a wound that would prove fatal, probably, but one that was by no means minor.

A gasp ran through the crowd. A pair of medical attendants -- scantily clad women, of course -- quickly entered the cage. One of them was wrapping a tourniquet around Bryson's arm, and the other was examining Murdoch, beginning to treat the painful wound.

[Murdoch]

Doc had grown soft.

He forgot what he learned here in the streets of Sunberth, what had kept him alive when his brother had tried to slit his throat. Always make sure of your kill. Always.

He moved forward and slashed and stabbed, and felt the blade of his knife hit home. As he pulled back again, a spray of arterial blood bathed the front of his clothing, the sickly-sweet smell of it assaulting his nose. And instead of leaping forward to finish the job, he stepped back. It was done - he'd won. A stupid, lucky strike, and he'd won. So he stepped back, too used to the rings of Syliras where mercy was the norm. Or maybe he was just tired, and bleeding, and his petching rib was broken, and the woman he loved was even now being smuggled out a back door somewhere and he'd probably never see her again. Something, anyway. Something made him step back and sigh instead of bounding forward and shoving his blade into the other man's face.

He paid for it almost immediately. He didn't even see the blade being thrown, only felt as it thudded into his chest and he stumbled a step back. There was a moment where he just looked dumbly down at the hilt sticking out of his chest. He reached up and touched fingertips to his mouth as he tasted copper, and pulled his hand away to stare at the blood already foaming there. "Aw, petching shyke," he muttered, and then his knees went wobbly and the world tilted as he fell backwards against the mat.

He lay a moment staring up at the ceiling and trying to keep breathing, until he finally saw one of the medical girls hovering over him. He licked away some of the blood and swallowed - he would make himself sick if he did that too often, but this once would work - and stared up at her pretty face. "Please tell me you actually know something about medicine, doll," he said, coughing and wheezing as more blood bubbled against his lips. "If you're just here to be pretty, I'll take whatever ugly old man is actually good at this shyke." Then he groaned, and the world went swirly, and he tried to blink himself away from the edge of unconsciousness. "Did I win?" he mumbled, his mind firing in several unmapped directions as he tried to see if there was someone coming over to slit his throat.

[Liminal]

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing," the woman said in a husky voice. "And yes, technically you won, since you hit the floor last. Not that that's gonna help you if you don't lie still."

She withdrew a small flask from a bag at her side and raised it to Murdoch's lips. A few drops of bitter-tasting liquid fell on his tongue, and an instant later, the world spun into blackness...

*****

When Murdoch finally came back to his senses, he was in a dimly-lit room somewhere in the back of the casino. His chest was bandaged, and he was propped on a cot in a half-sitting position appropriate to the kind of wound he had received. He was still in a high degree of pain, but he would also be able to tell that he'd been given something to at least take the edge off the sensation. The room had no windows, and he would have no way of telling how much time had passed since his battle in the cage.

The only person in the room was probably not who Murdoch would have preferred to see. Tall Johnny stood a few feet away, impeccably dressed as always, and with a smirk of amusement twitching at his lips.

"Ah, glad to see you awake, my old friend. I did so hope that you'd come through this all right. An excellent match in the cages, by the way, I must say. I have to confess that few in the crowd had confidence in your ability to defeat Bryson, and so the house's take on the fight was quite good. I do wish you hadn't damaged Bryson quite so much -- he'll live, but his fighting career is almost certainly over -- but I do trust you didn't do it out of malice." The man chuckled softly.

"However, of course one of my foremost concerns was for your own health and well-being, my old friend. It was much to my consternation that I was informed that the medical staff believe your full recovery will take far too long for you to maintain an effective career as a fighter. However, I'm a man of my word, and so I've allowed your contract to be purchased by another party who has expressed interest."

It was only at this point that Murdoch would be aware that there was a third person in the room, hidden in the shadows. It stepped forward into the lamplight, and Murdoch would be able to see the face of his new owner...

...Ydretha.

The ghostly woman's sorrowful face fell even further at the sight of Murdoch bandaged and in pain. Tall Johnny smirked again as he turned to her. "I do recognize that I'm not delivering him to you in the best condition, but I think you'll understand that the circumstances dictate it." Turning to Murdoch, he added, "I do know you've expressed interest in working together before, and though neither of you are in your primes anymore, perhaps you'll take some comfort in that. Be well."

With that, he turned to leave the room.

[Murdoch]

Murdoch was actually a little surprised to find himself alive. No that he'd wanted to die, exactly, but he'd half expected Lhex's face to be the next one he saw.

Unfortunately, the face he saw was Tall Johnny's. He started to sit up, determined to carve the smile off the man's face, but fell back immediately with a hiss of pain as agony exploded across his chest. The gods alone knew what that girl had done to him, but whatever it was had kept him in the hear and now enough to keep going. And Doc was very, very good at just surviving.

So he listened, hatred boiling in those muddy hazel eyes as Johnny called him an old friend, and he wanted nothing more than to tear the man's throat out with his black teeth. He felt a mild bit of disappointment to find he wouldn't continue in the Casino if for no other reason than it would give him more chances to exact his revenge - not that he was in any shape to do so, but Doc liked to keep his options open.

Only then the ghost of his former love stepped forward, and his breath froze in his shredded lungs. He didn't rightly hear the rest of Johnny's speech, too busy staring at the transparent form of Ydratha and feeling his heart constrict.

"Working together?" he finally murmured once they were alone, his voice harsh and cracking from lack of use. His fists clenched around the blankets of his bed, but he still did not look away from her. "Ydratha," he moaned, shaking his head. "Why are you still here? I... dear gods, if I'd known. I'm sorry," he whispered. More than a decade he'd been in Syliras, and the spirit of the woman he'd loved still wandering the city that'd tortured and killed her. "I would have come back for you."

[Liminal]

"I'm here because I couldn't leave," She ran one hand over his clenched fists, though all that Murdoch could feel was the sensation of a sudden chill.

Then she shrugged. "It would have done you no good to come back for me. Had you come back any sooner than you did, my father would have killed you. Killing me was not enough for him." The look in her eyes was almost horrifying in its sadness.

"And, for a long time, I didn't even know if you were still alive. I avoided the people I had known. I didn't know if they had the power to torture me further. It wasn't until Gemmy told me that I realized you were yet living."

She smiled, but it was a hollow echo of the smile Murdoch had once known and loved. "I didn't think Johnny would sell you to me, but something about the bitterness of our departure coming when you were broken and I was already dead appealed to the darkness in his heart." She held her blurry hands out, palms extended. "I can't even kiss you now. I can't even touch you. I've tried to learn Materialization, but it's hard for me."

A normal person with her expression would have been in tears, but there was a sense that she had long sense passed the point where that was possible for her. "But...here we are? Anyway?" She suddenly seemed uncertain of herself, as if she expected Murdoch to suddenly vanish, despite his being the corporeal one.