Chapter Text
Sapnap was just one of many children to grow with his hands curled around the hilt of a sword. Motherless, fatherless, his life didn’t really matter to the relentless and bloodbathed city he was born into. He spent a hazy childhood playing with -practicing with- a wooden sword so he’d be ready to hold keen steel by the time he turned thirteen.
Sapnap had spent years hearing of the glory older men talked about in fervent, revential voices until he too began to dream of blood-shrouded grandeur. Heavy metal clutched tightly in his fists, swinging through bodies until he was all that remained. So when he was old enough, or old enough that they would turn a blind eye, Sapnap made his way down to the arena.
The arena was a good place to hone your skills, earn some cash and some local fame. The better ones eventually got patrons in the army, paid small fortunes to fight in the wars of far-away kings. Sapnap wanted it all, and he was stubborn enough to learn.
He was good, that much was true. For a boy several years shy of maturity, who’d grown up uncared for and unloved by the city he lived in, he was excellent. His feet tracing worn lines in the sand, his sword held steady, metal glinting in the sunlight, cheers echoing in his ears, Sapnap bested first bested the opponents his age, and then the opponents older than him, with years of experience behind their swings.
For every loss he learned, he learned how to fight those bigger than him, stronger than him, faster than him. He learned to move as lightly as a lizard, plant his feet like an ox. He learned when to swing and when to dodge. He learned to watch the way his opponents walked onto the arena sands to meet him and predict their fighting style before they ever swung their sword.
He learned beyond the fighting he’d been brought up in: he learned to shoot arrows as steadily as he swung his sword, learned to ride the unruly show-horses that would like nothing better than to toss him off and send him tumbling to an early death under their trampling feet, he learned to handle spears and axes and daggers. Sapnap’s hands were made for violence, and he wanted nothing more than to become what he was created for.
He didn’t care for the gold he earned by winning except that it could buy him new weaponry, what he craved was the screams of an audience and climbing the old oak steps of the podium, blood on his hands and triumph in his smile.
He fell easily into the repetition of matches: donning light leather armor, sharpening his sword in the darkness of the cool darkness of the antechamber, stretching and practicing his moves, hearing his name called to a roaring crowd and emerging into the blazing sunlight to meet a new opponent steel to steel. Unwinding his sweat-slick armor when he was done, carefully washing and bandaging new wounds, stretching again to unwind his muscles. The rhythm was familiar and comforting, he spent years where the bloodstained sands of the arena were his kindest home.
Somewhere in those span of years he grew from a gangly, awkward boy to a man, filled out in places he wasn’t before from years of relentless training. Somewhere he went from the kid adults would call a “street rat” to the up-and-coming warrior that they cheered for during matches. Somewhere he went from a boy who had never dared to dream too big to someone who was well on his way to accomplishing things that were thousands’ dreams.
At sixteen, he was practically at the top, and he found that it was a very lonely place to be.
Theirs was a city made for fighting and made for war, so in peacetimes, crowds would gather in droves to watch warriors, young and old, battle it out in the bloody sands of the arena. On the days he was not fighting, Sapnap would watch from the stands with the masses, scoping out the competition.
It was on one of those days, nursing a particularly nasty wound that stretched across his ribs and refused to stop soaking his shirts in blood, that Sapnap saw him. He was small, obviously newer to the arena scene, but Sapnap immediately recognized the potential in his movements. His technique lacked finesse, but the grace with which he moved, as lethal as a tiger, was impossible to ignore.
His sword looked like it belonged better in his hands than it would anywhere else, his feet moved in arcs that looked more like they were designed for dancing than fighting. His sword was smaller than most people's, which meant his fighting style was up close and personal. Engaged with an opponent, it looked like a waltz. He moved so quickly, whirling away from strikes and darting back in to land a blow.
It looked fancy, but really it was practical, his movements were designed to trick his opponents into leaving themselves unguarded so he could slip in and gain a hit. He’d seen this kind of style before, but all other attempts looked like a crude mockery compared to the elegant weave and attacks of this fighter. The flash of his sword in the sunlight was mesmerizing, but more so was his smile every time he won a match.
Sapnap watched as the brown-haired boy was crowned the victor of the day, Sapnap’s hands just itching to reach for a sword and test the other’s mettle against his own right then and there. But all he did was cheer, voice hoarse from the dust, his mind already cataloging the other’s fighting style.
Two weeks later, when the wound on his ribs had become but a scar that ached on occasion, Sapnap met him on the sands of the arena. Their swords met with a crash that was heard throughout the entire arena, and Sapnap could tell this would be a battle he would remember, and indeed it was.
His opponent had speed on his side, Sapnap had strength. He had better equipment, Sapnap had more experience. They were evenly matched, him and his brown-haired enemy. Sapnap knew fighting better than he knew anything, but he couldn’t touch this guy. He was too fast, predicting Sapnap’s movements before he made them. Sapnap wouldn’t let the other land a blow either, blocking each clever move with his deft parry.
Thrust, block, stab, slash. Sapnap had never learned the names of the moves he knew, he was more of a technical learner than an academic, really, but he was pulling out every move he knew, and his enemy met every single attack with equal stubbornness. Their breaths mingled in the stale air, dust clouding around them.
The brown-haired boy aimed a kick to his chest and Sapnap stepped back, returning with a swing that his opponent sidestepped, coming in with his own attack Sapnap only barely managed to meet. His opponent’s sword pressed against his own, his face twisted in a snarl. “Give. Up.” He hissed, his face inches from Sapnap’s.
Sapnap twisted aside, letting the strength of his opponent’s blow move past him, attempting to twist his sword into his side before the brown-haired boy backstepped, Sapnap’s sword slicing through the fabric of his shirt but nothing more. “I don’t give up. I win.” Sapnap growled back.
The crash of steel echoed in his ears, sweat dripped down his face, dust clogged his throat. His opponent was no better. They were locked in stalemate, each trying to gain advantage, slowly tiring, their movements slowing and their swords flagging. The audience seemed divided; they liked cheering for a victor and yet there was no clear winner. Too evenly matched to win, too stubborn to quit, the match was eventually declared a tie. It was the first time in months that Sapnap hadn’t won any match he entered.
Later, Sapnap learned that his brown-haired equal was named George.
Everything began to change subtly after that: Sapnap had spent all of his short years in a blood-tinted haze, each challenger falling way before the might of his persistence and skill. But George wouldn’t. He refused to. Again and again they met on the sands of the arena, and again and again their matches ended in a tie.
They walked to face each other what felt like a thousand times, the ring of steel echoing in their ears, feet sliding through sand, whispered threats exchanged in the spaces between attacks. Their conversations were never more than a few words, their matches never more than a few minutes. But Sapnap lived for that fleeting time, treasuring it beyond anything he’d ever experienced.
Sapnap felt like he’d been locked in stasis, living in the frigid drudgery of winter and only now was the world melting around him into spring. He’d been fighting all his life, chasing the thrill of challenge, and now he was living in it, he was thriving like he never had before. He was driven to win more than he had been in years.
Sapnap trained harder than he had in years, every spare moment was spent on the gym or training, going over the slightest faults he had in his technique: a half-inch change to the grip on his filt, widening his stance, correcting his footing moving from a neutral to defensive position. Several of the older warriors, retirees from war, had taken an interest in Sapnap, and he gladly trained with them. He won more often than not when it came to one-on-one sparring, but the improvements they suggested were very helpful nonetheless.
He spent weeks of weary evenings in the training pavilion, running over every stance, correcting every flaw, practicing every movement. Frustratingly, raw ability in fighting may have come naturally to him but patience and discipline did not; it was only the overwhelming urge to finally best George that kept him coming back day after day.
Despite this, despite how tantalizingly close Sapnap sometimes came to victory, he never quite achieved it. George always knew him, knew what he was planning to do. He fought hard, his brow furrowed in concentration, and never let Sapnap's new moves faze him. He lived moment to moment, his entire being in the match, concentration never wavering. Sapnap's technique may have improved, may have left less flaws for George to exploit, but they were still locked in an infuriating stalemate neither could break out of.
Day after day, they walked out into the intense sunlight and stares of the crowd, day after day their swords met, day after day they stared at each other defiantly, sweat dripping down their faces, hair stuck to their foreheads, swords flagging towards the ground in their exhaustion. Day after day, their matches were declared a tie.
They never talked outside of matches, hell, Sapnap never saw George outside matches. He was elusive, disappearing as soon as a challenge was won, or when it came to Sapnap, declared a tie. He never graced the taverns and bars most of the fighters went too, never stepped inside any of the gyms to practice, never visited the war god’s altar in the central pavilion.
There was a nagging feeling at the back of Sapnap’s mind that he could never win against George unless he understood him, and that he would never understand George unless he knew him. Thus, the conclusion was born that he needed to learn about George in a context other than battle.
Sometimes he wondered, why George? But he knew why. It wasn’t just that George was talented, or that he was ruthless and undeniably cruel and outrageously funny. It was the confident way he strode out onto the arena for his match, the way the sword twirling in his hands seemed like an extension of his body, the burn of his gaze as he studied his opponent, picking apart every weakness that he could exploit.
But it was also the way he smiled when he won, open and vulnerable for once, the way he tossed his slightly too-long hair out of his eyes, the way he fiddled with his sword when he thought no one was looking. It was these details that made him more than an enemy, he was a person. He was Sapnap’s equal in every way.
Sapnap had taken to watching George intently at all times he was present, not just during matches. Maybe the intensity in which he polished his sword, the unconscious way he swept his hair out of his eyes, maybe his pre-match routine would give Sapnap insight into how his infuriatingly mysterious opponent worked.
Eventually, Sapnap concluded that he could never figure out George while he was always on guard in the arena. He needed to learn to understand him in some other context, have some other point of reference with which to understand him. Which led to the rather ignominious situation Sapnap was in now: tailing George home.
He was well aware that what he was doing bordered on obsessive, but at this point he was obsessive, he ached with the need to understand George, the fighter he’d never traded more than a few words with but had somehow revolutionized Sapnap’s entire life.
After matches, George would shed his armor and disappear, and Sapnap had never even noticed this until he was trying to figure him out. Now, Sapnap followed at a distance, watching George exit through one of the rarely-used underground entrances and until the fresh night air.
There was a tension in his movements as he hurried through the crowded streets that Sapnap never had never recognized in matches. His hood was pulled low over his head and his hands were shoved down into his pockets. There was a pronounced slouch that seemed almost practiced, like blending in took effort.
It had been half an hour before George noticed he was being followed. Sapnap could see the moment it occurred to George: there was a subtle shift in his muscles that Sapnap only recognized because he’d so intensely watched the way George moved for months now. George’s hand slipped subtly into his coat, and Sapnap didn’t doubt there was some concealed weapon there.
George kept walking, and this time Sapnap knew that George was leading him somewhere. He wasn’t sure if George had figured out yet that it was him, but he was obviously preparing for a confrontation. It was all the same moves he pulled when preparing for the first attack on the arena: his eyes scanned the area around them, he readjusted his weapon, each step was calculated.
They stopped in an alleyway. It was a meaningless place to have a meeting that would be the tipping point: the stench of urine permeated the air, the only light was a flickering alley-lamp, trash littered the ground. Sapnap prepared himself for a different kind of confrontation than the kind he was used to. A battle of words was far from his forte.
“What.” Hissed George, spinning around on his heel to face him, “Do you want.”
“You wear glasses?” Blurted Sapnap. He didn’t know why the round wireframes of all things were what he noticed, but in all his months of watching George, he’d never seen him wearing glasses, never noticed his struggle to see.
George lifted a delicate eyebrow. “I’m near-sighted. Doesn’t really matter for close combat.” He brushed his hair from his face, a shadow curving over his lips. “Why does it matter?”
“I just never noticed,” Sapnap said, standing his ground, refusing to let George intimidate him or take over the conversation.
“And why,” Asked George, venom lacing his words. “Are you following me?”
How could Sapnap really explain that? His whole life had been centered around the idea of victory, and George had challenged that. More than challenged it, he’d revolutionized it. He’d made Sapnap realize that what he really enjoyed was the fight itself, pushing himself past his limits and into the sweetly aching place beyond, where nothing existed beyond the burn of his muscles, the heave of his lungs, the swing of the sword, the space between one breath and the next.
Sapnap opened his mouth. He closed it. George saw the hesitation on his face and stepped in for the kill. That had always been George, taking no prisoners, giving no mercy. Sapnap had never given him any weaknesses to exploit before, but now, standing weaponless in the alley, he felt like he had. He’d given George some little piece of himself he had meant to keep hidden by that moment of silence, that hesitation, and now there was vulnerability for George to take advantage of.
“You want to know what I think?” Asked George, his words barbed despite their softness. “I think you’re slipping, Sapnap. You’re scared. You needed to follow me today because you thought you could get rid of me, get rid of your only real competition. But you’ll discover that I’m not one to be… easily disposed of.” He grabbed Sapnap’s chin, leaning in so their faces were just inches away, a wicked smile curving on his face. “You’re going to have to try harder than that.”
Before Sapnap could protest, George had slipped past him and disappeared.