“And you’re sure this is going to work?” Fuse said, nervously adjusting his collar. He was sitting in the back room of the bar, fidgeting on top of a barrel of cider. Enna was pacing the room, her long strides eating up the cramped floor space, forcing her to change direction every two or three steps.
“We practiced this, like, a hundred times already! Don’t even worry about it.” She flashed Fuse a smile. The sight of her many many sharp teeth seemed to reassure Fuse, which was a fun reversal of the usual effect they had. “You and I both know this has to happen. Belgor’s got the bar, I’ve got the equipment, and Harald knows his cue. The worst thing that happens is nobody pays attention.” Enna stopped pacing and faced Fuse, throwing out her arms for emphasis. “And I’m GREAT at attracting attention.”
“That you are, that you are.” Fuse blew air out of his cheeks, making his flaming hair flicker. “Well, better get out there. You’ve got the pendant?” Enna nodded, still grinning, and Fuse smiled back. He pushed open the door and left Enna alone in the room.
The next bit was tricky. They’d worked out the timing, but a lot of it came down to how long Fuse could hold the crowd’s attention. For someone born of elemental fire, he wasn’t exactly one for the spotlight, but with practice he’d get better. Enna lifted a crate full of glasses with one hand and scooted it out of the way, revealing a trapdoor built into the back room. She had about two minutes to hustle through the secret passageways that honeycombed the building. Enna had to move in an awkward crouch-run, since the tunnels hadn’t been built for humanoids, or even things with feet- the floor was curved in the same arch as the ceiling, and if any of the hellbeasts that once used these passages were still around she’d be at a huge disadvantage. Luckily they’d been cleared out weeks ago. Probably.
Enna made it to the hatch just in time to hear Fuse wrapping up his spiel. “-in this corner, Dorgan the Hammer!” She heard the whoops and cheers of the crowd, and was pleased to hear that they sounded louder than usual. They’d had complaints when the animal fights had been removed, but her solution was turning out to be even more popular.
“Absolutely not!!!!!!!!” The pixie stamped one foot on Enna’s windowsill, sending up a spray of adorable fairy dust. Eleri’s face was green with anger and her arms were crossed over her bare chest.
Enna frowned. “But like, if you talked to them and explained that they’d get good food and shelter, and we’d heal all their-“
“It doesn’t work like that!!!!!” She flew up into Enna’s face to give her a front row seat to her tiny indignation. “Wild animals deserve to be wild animals even if they are weird lizard tigers and slimes and giant bats and dire wolves and I can’t just ask them to fight for people’s entertainment because that’s just not right and I won’t be a part of it!!!!!!!!” Enna would never figure out how the pixie fit that much breath into her lungs. “You’re going to have to find something else to do with that nasty pit because no self respecting animal is going to get in a fight for no reason! They aren’t going to be tempted by money or treats like a human would and you had better believe I’m not even going to ask!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Enna held up her hands. “Okay, okay, I just figured I’d ask. Gotta do something with the place though.”
“Well you might as well fight in it yourself if you’re so dead set on bloodsport because if you’re doing it yourself that’s a lot better than making poor defenseless dire wolves do it for you!”
“Yeah, but-“ The gears of Enna’s mind turned slowly, but they did turn. “Hmm.” In the deep dark depths of Enna’s brain, a spark of an idea was kindling. “Hmmmmmmmm.”
Eleri sat down crosslegged on Enna’s desk and mimicked Enna’s position, chin in hand “Hmmmmm?”
Watching an idea dawn on Enna was like watching cheese age. It was slow, the process was inexplicable, and seeing it happen you wouldn’t expect the result to turn out as well as it did. “Eleri, we are fucking geniuses.”
The pouch of coin made a loud clink as it dropped into Mad Dog Ivan’s hand. He grinned with all ten of his teeth. “Never thought I’d be taking in weekly coin from a Thane,” he rasped.
“Well, keep bringing in crowds and you’ll get used to it,” Enna replied. There were still plenty of people hanging around The Pit even after the fight- talking about their favorite fighter, arguing over the new rules, and most importantly, buying drinks from the bar. Business had picked up more than enough to pay the fighters, even the loser. And speaking of!
Enna tossed a much smaller pouch from hand to hand as she walked over to Harald. The fighter was grimacing as he chugged a health potion, the bitter taste almost as bad as the stinging of his bruises healing in triple time. “You holding up okay?”
Harald shook his head, wincing at her. “I’ll mend. Gotta say, love the fight, don’t love the part where I get beat to shit.”
“Yeah, sorry man.” Enna looked over at Ivan, who was pressing a cold bottle to his sore jaw. “Me either.” Human fighters made Eleri happier, and brought in more crowds than mindless beasts, but even without weapons or magic they got pretty badly battered. Even with a rotating group of prizefighters, the bar’s namesake pit was empty more nights than not now that she’d cleared out the animal death matches it’d been known for. Plenty of old regulars griped about that, even the ones who did things other than gripe. “Wish y’all didn’t have to get all fucked up.”
Harald took his payment and toasted her with the empty bottle. “You find a way to solve that, I’ll fight for you any night you want.”
Enna crossed her arms, her gears turning again. “Hmmmm.”
Enna faced the fighters sitting in a semicircle in front of her. “Any questions?” Her hands were on her hips as she surveyed the motley crew.
Jeren raised her hand. “So we can’t tell anyone about this?”
“Absolutely not.” Enna resumed pacing like a general surveying her troops. “You let this get out, it blows it for everyone. Ivan, what’s the number one reason you started prizefighting?”
Ivan squinted at her through his twin black eyes. “Money.” The other fighters chorused agreement. Enna glanced at Emiel for support. The aasimar was sprawled elegantly in a fancy chair that they’d had Enna bring up out of her office. They were incongruously beautiful in the dirty meeting room behind the bar, glowing slightly in the low underground light. They caught her glance and smiled slightly, just a quirk of the lips, and turned to the fighters. When they stood up, all eyes in the room turned to them. They had an otherworldly magnetism that was impossible to ignore, especially in the back of a dive bar.
“But if you just wanted money, there were other things you could have done, weren’t there?” they said, leaning slightly on the desk and tilting their head at just the right angle. They got some nods, mostly shrugs from those assembled. “You could do construction, or be a sailor, or guard a caravan, or hundreds of other things. There’s a reason you chose to fight instead.” More nods. People were starting to follow their thread. “It’s because you know prizefighting isn’t just about punching someone until they can’t get up anymore. It’s about glory.” There were a few appreciative murmurs for Emiel’s delivery.
Enna stepped forward, shoulder to shoulder with Emiel, the two of them otherworldly figures before the mostly human fighters. “Listen. I know getting beat to shit every night ain’t easy. And planning the outcomes and rehearsing it, that isn’t going to be easy either. But you aren’t here for easy work.” The fighters grumbled in agreement. “You get out there every week to show everyone that you’re the best, and you fight so someday everyone in this fucking town will know your name. And if you stick with us, we can promise that you’re going to become the most celebrated goddamn athletes the Trailsend underground has ever seen.”
Athletes. The fighters liked the sound of that.
“And in this corner-“ Through the iron grate in the hatch, Enna could see the lights cut off. There was the collective gasp of a crowd plunged into darkness, and some angry muttering before Fuse’s voice cut through the noise. “Look!”
Enna knew he would be pointing, a lone glowing figure in the darkness, and drawing attention to the hatch overhead. She also knew that behind the bar, Belgor had just recited a brief incantation and crushed a dried firefly husk in his hand. Squeeze the pendant, wait half a heartbeat, and then-
Enna pushed the hatch open just as glowing red magelights burst into existence around her. She vaulted out of the hatch, landing with a bang on a table near the middle of the room. The lowlifes at the table- Jeren, Sondra the Red, Ivan, and two guys Jeren had roped into it- gasped theatrically and staggered back, giving Enna a perfect stage. She thanked every god she knew that they’d remembered not to put any glasses on the table. She straightened up, dusted off her shoulders, and folded her arms, her biceps glistening in the magelight. “Sorry, criminal scum,” she spat, her voice artificially amplified by the pendant she’d gotten from Frelina and Baltic. “But I’m shutting this place down.”
“Come on in!” Enna said, rooting around in her desk. When the Brotherhood had cleared out of the place, they’d left a lot of shit lying around, which meant that even weeks after she’d moved in she was still finding poisoned ceremonial daggers and half-full ink pots everywhere. She popped up from her desk drawer to see Fuse enter. “What’s up, my dude?”
Fuse rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, got good news and bad news, boss.” He was grimacing at her, looking up at her with what was clearly meant to be a casual grin but which had way too much anxiety in it to be convincing.
“So what’s the good news?”
“Well…” Fuse sat down in a chair facing Enna. “The good news is that nobody’s noticed the fights are fake. In fact, it seems like they like it better.” Enna’d heard patrons talking about how much more entertaining the fights were now, and how it was good that they were back to nightly matches. The fighters liked it better too- nobody was getting beat too hard, they got paid more often, and even though they wouldn’t admit it they seemed to enjoy the chance to get their theatrics on. Even Ivan, who wasn’t a talker like Jeren or Harald, had a good time roaring in beastial fury and stomping around the ring of ropes they’d set up in the pit.
“Yeah, so what’s the bad news?” Enna moved some papers around on her desk. God, she wished she could read so this would be useful.
“There’s, ah… there’s some rumors going around about who owns The Pit now that the Brotherhood is out.”
Enna looked at Fuse, chin in hand, black lips curled in a smile. “Yeah?”
Fuse, a little put off by Enna’s casual attitude, continued. “Rumors that one of the Thanes of Trailsend is secretly operating the bar.” He huffed air out of his cheeks. “Criminals don’t like getting grifted, and they sure as hell don’t like that they might be getting grifted by a fucking Thane.” He raised his hands and smiled at her. “No offense.”
“None taken!” Enna waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry, dude. I got a plan.”
“You have a plan?”
Enna steepled her fingers in front of her, like she’d seen Andromeda do when she was being impressive. “I have….. a plan.”
Enna vaulted off the table and strode through the crowd. They parted before her, unknowing players in her carefully-planned drama. It was hard to keep her glower from breaking into a smile as she stomped toward Fuse. To his credit, he was doing a really great job of cowering! This was usually the part in rehearsal when she started laughing at his bugged-out eyes and Emiel threw something at her to make her get back into character. It was actually a lot easier to do when she was really in it. She could feel the fear and confusion roiling off the patrons slinking away from her, their criminal instincts telling them that the best plan of action when confronted with a very angry Thane was to melt into the background as quickly as possible. But they couldn’t take their eyes off the drama unfolding before them. Enna stalked up to Fuse, frozen on the makeshift pedestal he’d been using to announce the upcoming fight. Even standing on that, Fuse was barely eye level with her, and he was quaking in fear as she came level to him. The red magelights whirled to a rest above them, spotlighting the two figures in dramatic relief. The torches had come back, just enough to ensure that everyone had a good view of the spectacle, and Enna made a mental note to give Belgor a couple extra coin. The elf had enough sense of drama and visual effect to rival Emiel.
Enna grabbed Fuse by the collar of his tunic. “So, you’re the pathetic little shit who’s been running this disgusting bar lately?” There were murmured boos and hisses from the crowd. They all liked Fuse, and he’d been a better bartender than the brainwashed cultist the Pit had had previously, so this was a very predictable reaction. Nice.
Fuse’s legs kicked under him as Enna raised him into the air. His flailing arms grabbed her wrist, holding himself up so his shirt didn’t tear. That had happened a lot in rehearsal. “Y-yes!” he stammered, clearly unwilling to betray his criminal comrades and turn snitch even faced with one of the most powerful servants of the Barony. “W-what are you doing here?” He was scared out of his mind yet resolute and keeping his wits about him- the perfect audience identifier, acting the way everyone always thought they would in such a dangerous situation. The crowd was eating it up!
“Your garbage pit of a bar is under new management,” Enna sneered. A gasp rolled through the crowd. She let her giddy internal laughter show on her face as triumph, mockery, delighted condescension. This was going so well. She turned to the crowd, still holding Fuse up as high as she could. “Listen up, imbeciles! I killed the beholder who was running this place! That means I’m in charge now!” She waved her free arm to indicate the entire bar. “And now that I’m in charge, this place is gonna follow the law of the land.”
Shocked silence. Enna waited a beat for a reaction, and in the absence of one, she continued, a little less confident. “That means I’m shutting this shit DOWN! Prizefighting is illegal, by order of the Barony!” She gestured at the crowd. “So you idiots better pack this dumb ring up and call it a night, you stupid-“
Fuse, emboldened by her attention being on the crowd, had raised himself up enough that he could get his head above Enna’s hand. He surged forward and bit down, hard. With a yell of feigned surprise, Enna’s arm convulsed, and she flung him across the room. Fuse hit the wall with a dramatic thump, his arms and legs splayed to absorb as much of the impact as possible. They’d talked about some kind of charm to soften the wall, but Fuse had nixed it, arguing that it wouldn’t look realistic enough and if he was going to get thrown across a room he was at least going to do it convincingly. He slid down the wall to land in a heap. As one, the crowd turned to stare at Enna, still silent.
This wasn’t ideal. There was supposed to be a lot more booing! If she couldn’t gauge crowd reaction from noise, she couldn’t do much visually- the magelights washed the crowd out, turning them into a faceless mass. Enna had no idea if they were pulling this off or not. It was time to do what she did best. Enna rolled her shoulders back, tilted her head, and started flexing.
“You see what happens when you go up against a Thane of Trailsend?” She stepped up on the pedestal Fuse had been using, adding unnecessary height to her already ridiculous frame. “You see what happens when you go up against the LAW?” She threw her head back and laughed, the magically-amplified sound booming through the bar. “In this town, I AM the law! And you lowlifes better learn to respect it!”
“Hey!” The click of a single magelight bursting to life. This one was white, illuminating a single figure standing on a table. Harald, the lovable loser of the prizefighters. He rarely won, and when he did it was usually because he got lucky, but over the past few weeks he’d gotten more than a little respect for his underdog perseverance. He pointed at Enna, his face shining with righteous indignation. “You talk a pretty big game, but I don’t see any reason we should have to respect you!”
Finally, the crowd was murmuring again. Enna couldn’t tell if it was appreciation for Harald’s bravery or worry that the fighter had finally taken one too many hits to the head and lost his mind. She crossed her arms and sneered anyway.
Harald jumped off the table and started walking towards Enna, his magelight following him. “You think you’re better than us? You got a cushy job with the Barony, licking Donlevy’s boots all day!” The sneer got a bit more genuine- Enna really hated the mental image of that line, but it got a laugh out of the crowd, just like Emiel had said it would. “I bet you couldn’t even last ten seconds in the ring!”
Oh shit!!!!! The crowd knew a challenge when they heard one. They were excited now, riled up by Enna’s taunts, egged on by Harald’s confidence. Enna gasped, all exaggerated offense. “You dare speak that way to a Thane of Trailsend?” Her shocked tone was one hundred percent stolen from Emiel, which was not a mimicry they’d appreciated in rehearsal.
“Yeah I do!” That got a nice cheer from the crowd. “And not only do I dare speak that way, your ladyship-“ the crowd hissed at the honorific- “but I dare to challenge you! Right here, right now!” Harald stood before her, all five foot eight of him looking up at her, jaw set in defiance. “Unless you aren’t so tough down here without the city guards to bail you out?”
Enna snarled, rolling it around in her mouth and forcing it out through her bared teeth. She stepped off of the pedestal to face Harald. The air between them crackled with tension. Suddenly she whipped her hand back and slapped him across the face. “Don’t get ideas above your station, you lowborn scum!” she bellowed as the crowd erupted in full-throated boos. “I’ll kick your ass here and now!”
“Then meet me in the pit!” Harald yelled, spitting blood into the floor. Without waiting for her, he vaulted over the ropes and landed in the arena. He raised a hand to beckon mockingly. Roaring with barbaric rage, Enna charged after him.
Enna looked up and grinned as Harald entered the room. He smiled back, eyes a little out of focus, and collapsed in a heap on a chair. Enna couldn’t tell if he was dazed from the fight or all the free beers that patrons had bought him afterwards. “Hell of a match,” she said, counting coin onto her desk.
Harald woo’ed softly, throwing his hands in the air in mock triumph. “A battle for the ages! The perpetual underdog! The hated Thane! No offense,” he added, and she waved it off. “Wish I’d gotten to win, but eh, what can you do.”
“Hey man, don’t get down on yourself. You’ll kick my ass eventually!” Enna squared off a pile of coin and pushed it towards him. “Gotta build it up first, make me a credible threat, get the crowd real fuckin horny to see me lose. And if they’re gonna believe you could beat me-“ Enna pointed at him to indicate his normal human form and then pointed at her own glistening abs- “we’re gonna have to build you up too. I was thinking, maybe if you beat Ivan next week?”
Harald sat up in his chair. “Ivan? Seriously? You want me to beat Mad Dog? Who the hell’s gonna believe that?”
“You’ll just have to make them believe it! I was thinking you guys really get into it, give Ivan some lines about how you’re too dumb to know when to give up-” Enna squinted her eyes and glowered in a credible impression of the surly fighter- “you know, stuff he can manage without memorizing too much.” Harald winced and nodded. “And then wham!” Enna punched her open palm. “A rush of determination surges through you, you get him in a headlock, you yell some about how you’ll never give up, you subdue him, pin him, wham wham wham you’re the big hero!” She cupped her hands around her mouth and mimicked a cheering crowd. “Harald finally wins!! The crowd goes fucking nuts! It’s foolproof, man, you’re gonna be fighting the hotties off with a stick.”
Harald smiled and rolled his eyes. “How come you know this is gonna work, huh?”
“Trust me, man.” Enna tapped her temple knowingly. “I’m a stone cold genius.”
Author's Notes:
Written 5/17/2019. I think this was the longest-form thing I had completed at this point, and definitely one of the fics I was the most proud of. Enna invents professional wrestling from first principles!!! Want to know more about Enna's cool bar? Check THIS out!