Ch 1.12: Terms

Surely Elaina misunderstood, surely Tira was joking, or surely Elaina was dreaming. But all eyes were on her, and Elaina knew none of those were true. She really expected Elaina to duel Waine Ferris. “Wait, Tira, I don’t want to fight anyone! I really did let him take those pictures, I just—”

“Enough, Elaina,” Tira said, crossing her arms. “You both agree to the duel, and I’ll drop it. If either of you don’t participate, I’m reporting you both for unbecoming conduct.”

Waine snarled. “Who are you to decide who I duel? Do you know who I am?”

“I know you’re a brat that’s been allowed to get away with far too much for far too long. Now, do you accept the duel, or are you too scared to fight a commoner?”

“I’m not scared,” Waine said, stomping his foot on the ground. “But there’s no reason for me to accept. What are my terms, what do I get if I win?”

Tira pointed at Elaina. “She’ll sign her rights away to the portraits. You’ll be the legitimate owner of the images, no more trouble possibly brewing, and I drop the issue. Again, unless you’re scared.”

“What in the stars is going on over here.” Madame Calivahn said, making her way through the crowd of students in the middle of the field. “Tira, explain.”

Tira’s anger dissipated, her face painted with a shining smile. “A small argument I had to break up. Elaina here just challenged Waine Ferris to a duel.”

Elaina went to protest, “I—”

“Over what stakes?” Calivahn asked.

“Pride,” Tira said, jumping in before anyone else could. It wasn’t exactly a lie, and not exactly the truth either.

Calivahn eyed Waine, nodding to herself. “Aye, you were the loudmouth during the Awakening the other night, weren’t you? I’d want to teach you a lesson as well. Do you accept the duel, Ferris? And stop making that face, you look like a child.”

Waine looked around, face scrunched up and red as he waved his arms in frustration. “I— Yes, fine, I accept.” He walked up to Elaina, staring down at her. “I’m the one challenged, so I choose the terms, right?”

“That’s the custom, yes,” Calivahn said.

“Swords then, with blades.”

“Not a chance,” Calivahn replied. “I’ll turn my eye away from this with training swords, but I’m not going to let a student get killed over dumb bravado.”

“Fine, whatever, training swords. After class, dud. I’ll enjoy thrashing you.” Waine stormed off, grabbing the wrist of the short girl he’d walked over with and pulling her along. Prisma looked at Elaina for a moment, then ran off after him.

“Alright everyone,” Calivahn said, waving off the crowd. “Back to training.” She turned to Tira. “I didn’t hear any of that, so just make sure no one gets hurt.”

“Aye aye, Commander!” Tira said, saluting the teacher as she walked off.

“Tira!” Elaina said, running up to her. “What are you doing? I said I was fine!”

Tira’s smile dropped, her face falling into anger again. “You didn’t tell me there were pictures,” she said in a hushed voice.

“I said it was fine.” Elaina said, glancing to the ground.

“And that was a lie,” Tira hissed. “You can’t let him get away with this, or the entire school will walk over you the whole time you’re here.”

“And how is this better? He’s going to humiliate me again, this time in front of the whole class, and then the pictures will go out anyway!”

Tira rubbed her temple, groaning. “I saw you practicing after I tested you. You’re better than you let on.”

“I can’t do that on command! I can only do it when—” Only when I’m embarrassed.

“Don’t use the chains then, use the rope. If it were actual blades you’d be in trouble with that, but with dulled swords a rope is just as good as a chain.”

“Tira, do you even know what he can do? He controls people.”

“So?”

“What do you mean so?”

Tira blinked. “Elaina, do you not know about external aspects?”

“I… I mean, they target externally, right? Me, I know he can control me. He did it the other night.”

“Are you fucking—” Tira took in a breath, slowly, then exhaled. “He used his aspect on you, before you were awakened?”

“Ya,” Elaina said, side eyeing Tira. “Why?”

“Well one, that’s just fucked up. And two, you don’t know the weakness of external aspects. They can affect regular people just fine, but their powers are severely diminished when they’re used on other Aspected.”

That actually jogged Elaina’s memory. Waine had said something like that, that if she had been Awakened she might have been able to fight back. “Are you saying I have a chance?”

Tira shook her head. “No, I’m saying you’re favored. The worst matchup for an external aspect is an internal one, but a worldly aspect still wins that matchup more often than not.”

Elaina bit her lip, still struggling not to cry. “I still can’t believe you signed me up for this without asking. If I lose, he’s going to sell all those pictures of of me.”

“He was going to do that anyway. Honestly, Calivahn couldn’t have shown up at a better time. He didn’t have time to realize how shit these terms are for him. This situation is only good for you, either the status quo stays the same, or you get him to delete the portraits.”

“But I still can’t win! I don’t know how to use a sword at all!”

Tira placed her hands on Elaina’s shoulders, gripping them. Elaina breathed a little easier, calmed just slightly. “Elaina, this isn’t fencing class, it’s Practical Aspect Application. You’re not going to win this fight with a blade; you’re going to win it with your aspect.”

Elaina looked down at her hands, conjuring up a small piece of rope. “With this?”

“Stop wasting your mana,” Tira said, placing her hand over Elaina’s. “I know you can do more, I saw you.”

When I was embarrassed, when [Humiliation Factor] was active. “I don’t think I can do it again.”

Tira shrugged. “I really think you can, but even if you can’t, you’re still not any worse off than before. And I’ll tell you what. If you do win, then when I come to grab my jacket from your room later, maybe we can see about actually doing what you thought I was asking to do the other night.”

Elaina’s eyes went as wide as the scared girl’s from before, face glowing red as Tira burst into laughter. “But only if you want; we can talk about it later. Now come on, we have a little less than an hour for me to explain how this is going to go down.”

***

Class ended with the ringing of the great bell, the first time Elaina had heard it ring other than to announce a mealtime or curfew. “Alright,” Calivahn shouted. “Everyone is dismissed for the day.” Despite the dismissal, none of the students went to leave. “Fine,” the teacher said, throwing her hands up in exasperation as she walked off. “The least you all could do is pretend to follow rules, gods.”

As Calivahn walked off the students gathered around the center of the field, leaving a circle in the middle. All were silent as Elaina made her way through, following Tira’s lead to the makeshift arena. She carried one of the school’s metal training swords in her hand, something that was to her nothing more than a heavy metal club, though not as heavy as she would have thought.

The two broke through into the center of the crowd, seeing Waine Ferris and crew: Prisma, Nyla, Daly, Ivis, and the mousey new girl who looked as scared as ever, standing behind him. He took his jacket off and handed it to Prisma before walking forward, training sword resting on his shoulder as he sauntered into the ring. Elaina did the same, giving her jacket to Tira and leaving herself standing in just her white uniform shirt and skirt. “Let’s make this quick, dud. I have an appointment with a printer to get to.”

“Not so fast,” Tira said, holding up her hand. “I have to go over the rules.” The officially unofficial rules, she’d explained to Elaina. Unsanctioned duels like these were common, and not quite technically allowed, but at the very least ignored as long as certain precautions were taken, a student watch referee’s presence chief among them. “You’ll both be using dulled training swords in this duel. As there were no specifications otherwise in the terms, use of your aspects is completely unrestricted. The duel ends when one side yields, or when a blow that I deem would be lethal or debilitating with a real blade is dealt. Waine Ferris, these are the terms you stated, correct?”

Waine rolled his eyes. “Yeah, they are.”

“And Elaina Weaver, you accept these terms after challenging him, correct?”

Elaina nodded, voice quavering. “Yes, I do”

“Alright then. I’ll leave you two to final reconciliation.” Tira walked off, almost to the crowd of students surrounding the three of them.

Final reconciliation, one last chance for the parties to resolve a dispute before fighting. Originally meant to avoid unnecessary duels to the death amongst officers and other members of the gentry, Tira had explained the custom still stood even in nonlethal bouts. Elaina and Waine approached each other, close enough for a whisper.

“Walk away, Weaver,” Waine said through his teeth. “We already had an agreement.”

Elaina struggled to get out words, sword hand shaking. “I didn’t agree to anything with you.”

“If you go through with this, I’m going to kick your ass right here, in front of everyone. Then I’m going to take those pictures and give them to everyone in the school, for free. Every day after today, your life will be miserable. I’ll make sure of it. And there’s only going to be one way out of that.”

Waine leaned in even closer, nearly spitting into her ear as he spoke. “We told you what would happen if you snitched. You’re going to beg me to take those nude portraits of you, cause it’s the only way I’ll make the torment stop. Those are the ones I’m going to sell. They won’t be cheap, but everyone’s going to want to buy them anyway. After that, our debt will be settled. But if you walk away now, I sell what I already have, and that’s that.”

Elaina’s could hear her own pulse pounding as Waine pulled away from her face, the volume of her heartbeat on par with the ringing of the great bell, each pump a blast in her chest that wouldn’t let up. She locked gazes with him, and saw something in them she hadn’t seen before. “You’re scared,” she said, realizing the truth of it only as she spoke the words. “If you weren’t scared, you would just do that. You wouldn’t have to threaten me with anything.”

Waine growled, the rage dancing in his eyes as furious as the mists in the Awakening crystal had the night prior. But his fury was just that, nothing but anger. The mists in the crystal were Elaina’s, her power.

“I’m going to kill you,” he said.

Elaina imagined Tira ruffling her hair, Tira’s hand on her shoulder, the embrace from before. “You can try.”

She turned away, walking back five paces and returning to face Waine. He stood in the same spot, huffing as he stared her down before making the same motions she had.

Tira spoke, “I ask the challenger, has reconciliation been successful?”

“No,” Elaina said, raising her blade.

“Understood. As unfortunate as this is, we must proceed. You two may begin on my mark, the crack of this whip. And the rest of you,” Tira said, turning to the crowd. “Crystal portraits away, or I’ll slice them in half. Calivahn is turning a blind eye to this, but this is still unsanctioned, and I’m not letting you get pictures of me refereeing this.” A couple of the students grumbled, but the crowd obliged.

Tira raised her hand, pausing for a moment as the two duelists readied their stances. Waine took what Elaina presumed was an actual dueling stance, turning his body to side and extending his sword outward toward her. She simply raised her sword, doing her best to cover as much of her body with the length as possible. “This is your funeral, Weaver.”

The whip cracked once, and Waine raised his free hand, Elaina’s muscles betraying her instantly.