Solo [The Pit] Wrestling the Inevitable

[Syresshvassydir]

13th of Fall, 517AV Sydir held his hips and shoulders low with arms held wide as he circled his opponent in the sand. There was no roaring crowd today, no superlative announcer calling for bets to be placed. Instead, Sydir stood matched against a human woman, much smaller than he in terms of raw size. But looks could be deceiving, as the Dhani had quickly learned during his season of ownership to this woman and her twin sister. Gritting his teeth, Sydir sprang forward. Kati matched his movements, and the two of them met like a pair of rams, though butting with their forearms rather than their skulls. The human woman was deceptively, impossibly strong for her size, matching the much more massive Dhani male in force, locking them into a stalemate. Each pushed against the other, a contest of wills as much as strength. Sydir allowed the pressure on his right side to lessen, hoping to bait Kati into pushing into his weakness for an advantage that would not be there. When Kati pressed into the false opening, Sydir smirked and shifted his weight to step around in the opposite direction. From there he’d be able to grab Kati from behind, where even the strongest wrestlers were at a disadvantage. But, almost as if she had known his plan all along, Kati abruptly stopped her forward push and flung an elbow backwards to land a precise blow across Sydir’s jaw. The Dhani’s head twisted with the impact, sending a strand of scarlet spiralling onto the sand as his head rang and his vision doubled for just an instant. Kati was a relentless fighter; an instant was all the time she needed to press the attack once more. There was no time to block the incoming rain of blows, so Sydir did the only thing he could: retreat. The Dhani took a few staggering steps backwards to avoid Kati’s flurry, attempting to answer back with hits of his own. His first punch, a wide left hook, was ducked under with ease. The woman moved like water around him, gracefully twisting only her upper body aside to dodge the right cross that followed. As her body twisted back, Kati delivered a strong knee straight into Sydir’s stomach, doubling him over as the wind was forced from his lungs. “Not just strong,” Sydir thought in now-familiar astonishment, “but fast too!” Sydir was used to being slow, but the way Kati danced around his every attack only to flow through his tightest defense made him feel that he may as well be made of stone. As was usual during their bouts, Sydir felt overcome by a mixture of fear and helplessness, both emotions that had been alien to him before he had met the Lionesses of Sylira. But for Sydir, the only way he knew of processing those emotions was by turning them into hatred and rage, though he already knew it wouldn’t be enough. It never was.

[Syresshvassydir]

The training bout between master and slave lulled for a moment, just long enough for Sydir to tamp down his despair. None of that would do him any good. Sorrow wouldn’t free him from the collar around his neck any more than his bare hands. The large man planted his feet, bending slightly at the knees as he readied himself for the next assault. Or tried to. The human woman gave a coy smirk before she sprung, not moving as fast as before, but still faster than the constrictor by a considerable measure. She leapt into the air, giving Sydir just moments to dodge backwards, compromising his rooted stance or have his skull caved in. Almost as soon as her feet touched the ground, Kati lunged forward with a vicious combination of punches. The first one Sydir managed to deflect, using the outer edge of his arm to parry Kati’s downward and away from him as he continued to backpedal. The Dhani next tried to dodge to the side and remove himself from Kati’s direct line of attack, but the woman adjusted with what could only have been divine foresight, raining blows that caught Sydir along the arms and ribs as he was left with little choice but to at least shield his face. “Siku!,” Sydir exclaimed in a rare thought towards the goddess of his kind, “this human fight like three cornered Myrians!” Desperation gnawed at the back of his mind as the constrictor saw what could be his chance. When Kati aimed a roundhouse at the slave’s torso, he lunged and dropped down, hoping to grab the woman’s isolated leg and bring her down. Instead, again moving as if she could see his attacks even before he made them, the human slaver adjusted her kick on the fly, catching him high on the left cheek and sending him spinning back into the dirt. With his arms already flung wide, even as he fell Sydir managed to catch hold of Kati’s leg, his left hand closing around her calf with an instinctive grip while his weight and the awkward balance brought his master down with him.. When Sydir recovered, he quickly moved to grab Kati’s other leg by the ankle, where he could maneuver her into a more vulnerable position. But while his left hand remained locked tight around the woman’s right leg, her left darted away from his grip like a viper. Undeterred, Sydir gathered himself into a hunched position, using his hold on Kati’s other leg to drag her towards him. Rolling over, Kati attempted to catch him with a reverse hook kick from her free leg, but from her awkward position, face-down in the sand, the execution was just off enough that Sydir was able to dodge by leaning back, though his grip loosened, giving Kati the only opening she needed. Twisting to break his grip further, the woman tugged her leg free from Sydir’s hand, then sprung at him, where they once more met like a pair of struggling rams, each pushing and straining against the other. No mere human should be this strong, Sydir concluded. Whether by magic or by the gods, there was clearly far more to his master than met the eye.