- CHAPTER FIVE -
In the yard, behind Vicadum's family home, grows an enormous sky-blocking tree. Its branches reach outward towards the end of the fenced property, its leaves grow to be as big as an adult's head, and its trunk spills out to a full horse's length. It was planted here by the first settlers of Regnus many generations ago,
marking the land that Diagis' Line is promised to protect.
Days have passed since the announcement of the tournament to choose the next worthy line of Guardians, and Vicadum has gone to work in trying to flex his body to match that of his will to use his sword.
The tree trunk's width is reduced to the size of a beheaded horse, chipped away by sword and effort. Vicadum swings away at the tree, aiming to chop it down by the time the tournament comes around, this will be the tell of his readiness to fight.
Matrelus watches on as her son hacks at the tree, she stiffens her lip at the sight of his hurting. Scared knowing each swing puts a little more strain on his hand. Vicadum has become numb to it. The stinging became resonance, and that became a rhythm that Vicadum felt oddly in tune to.
Daily working away at the tree and nightly going over in his head possible battle strategies. He stays up thinking about which of the other Guard Family members he might end up facing. His worst fear he might match up with Filovis accidentally.
Not even fleeting thoughts about her, rest his iron-clad fortitude of reaching his goal. Vicadum is ready to forge his path, willing to put aside his affection to carve his way towards the Hero he wishes to become, and for the first night in a week, Vicadum rests his eyes, content with himself.
Morning shines into his room, a slow sneaking ray of light and a slamming door wake him. At first, not catching that his brother has already left for the sign-in of the tournament, he jerks himself up.
As he rises from sleep, he narrowly avoids knocking the sword against anything, becoming more aware of its presence and further managing to keep it from being bothersome to him.
As he hears a crowd outside cheering away, he begins to realize what's happening today. Vicadum's eyes widen and he lets out a "shit!" and throws on his clothing hastily and runs out the door, unnoticeably putting a chip in the door frame as he's leaving. Matrelus is left to pick up the remnants of the running around.
Matrelus walks over with a pile of neatly folded clothes, her right hand resting on top of them. Reaching the door, she leans over slightly to touch the chip left by Vicadum's sword, wincing as she feels it.
"Like you, he's… reckless."
Down the busy street, louder and louder are the cheers for the arriving entrants, the Guard Family tributes, and normal citizens alike. Down the way, ahead of Vicadum, is a troop of girls crowding around a thin and pretty male.
"Crassy! Crassy! Crassy!"
The young girls cheer the man on as he struts his way towards the tournament Sign-in.
Vicadum squints to get a closer look at the man in the center of the gathering. Within the crowd, the tall and slender boy nods his head to his adoring followers.
Crassitus leads the troop of fawning girls right up to the town center, where the sign-in is. Vicadum bunches his nose up to his eyes as if he picks up on the smell of cow droppings directly in front of him.
Crassitus is courting Filovis currently, and the families tell wishes of their marriage for the strengthening of the bloodlines of the Guards. Vicadum has more than enough reason to dislike him on his personality alone, but his being Filovis' betrothed is a blight on him.
Vicadum avoids walking directly to the sign-in, choosing to wait until Crassitus and his posse leave. Before long, the entire crowd stops, halted by a voice.
"Asshole!"
The town turns to a red-faced Filovis, clenching her fist to her side, almost in a fighting stance.
Crassitus notices her and immediately removes his hand from around one of the cheering girls and pushes her slightly to the side. He looks around at the still crowd and gives a quizzical smile.
"Filovis, my love! What is it you're doing here?"
He reaches for her hand, but she briskly thrusts it away from him.
"Watching my "Crassy" fondle the blouse of another woman, it would seem."
Filovis spits the words at him. The crowd quietly oohs.
Crassitus nervously laughs.
"My betrothed, of course, your eyes must have deceived you! Would I truly do such a thing?" He steps in closer, quieting his tone, implying he wants to keep this matter quiet.
Filovis steps in closer, making him back up, and speaks louder.
"Oh, you would! And you have! Time and again from what I hear. There seems to be no end to your frivolous lust."
Crassitus looks back at the girls and they all shy away from his gaze.
He says nothing, but screams with his look. "You dumb harlots!" Crassitus rages in his head.
"Filovis… darling- "
Cut off by a punch thrust into his abdomen, Crassitus spits up and chokes on his words. Filovis dashed in the blink of an eye and struck her blow. The town saw, watched, and laughed.
Vicadum smiles as he sees his rival in love fall to his feet and gasp for air. Filovis cooly and casually looks down at him while pulling his hair up to make him look at her, speaking so only he can hear.
"You will not run my name through the dirt with your prancing around with little girls. You have disrespected me and much more importantly, you've disrespected my Father's wish. You will not be doing this again."
She throws his head down into the ground, as Crassitus goes to let out an angered bark he ends up with a mouth full of sand and rock.
"You- Gak!"
Coarse dirt passes his lips. Thoroughly defeating his self-righteous image and preserving her state as a foreboding and powerful daughter of the Guard, Filovis struts over to the sign-in table and writes her name in a pleasant flourish.
The town can do nothing but watch her move, fearing she'll strike at anyone just for having seen Crassitus' behaviour in front of her. Before long, Filovis disappears into the nearby Theatre entrance hall, and a collective sigh breezes through the air. Below them, Crassitus gets up and begins to cackle.
"My dear dear Filly, Yes, I will see you in the games then!" Awkwardly trying to play off the violent scene as nothing more than a cute goodbye. Pulling himself up from the dirt, the girls who flocked to him before awkwardly vanish into the theatre now too. Clapping his hands of dirt and spitting some more up, Crassitus finally points his chin in the direction he struts.
Some time passes and Crassitus has managed to make his way to the table, sign in, and walk away.
Vicadum sees his opportunity to get to the table and make it into the hall unbothered. He jumps from a nearby haybale he got to while finding a good view of Filovis in action.
Passing through the crowd, the people murmur and part away to the sides around Vicadum. Curious, he looks around and wonders why they'd be afraid of him. Self-consciously he tucks away his Sword-hand to his side and walks forward slowly.
Completely clueless about the hulking Goliath lurking behind him,
Vicadum walks on. Feeling a slight nudge to his shoulder, Vicadum ignores it, but in the same second, the man nudging now fully steps forward over him.
From one second being ashamed of the gazes and hiding away his sword, to the next eating dirt, Vicadum has gone fully into a blank state of being furious. Unflinching and unknowingly, Vicadum gets up from the ground and begins running up to the walking statue and jumps to swing his fist at his neck, the highest point his fist can reach on the man.
A sudden whipping gasp erupts from the avoidant crowd.
Vicadum doesn't realize what he's doing yet, all of this reaction is purely primal and red-eyed. Landing his hit on the man successfully, Vicadum comes out of his fugue, just in time to witness his sudden strike had no effect. The man does shrug now, noticing that something hit him in the lightest of sensations, and swings his body around to see what's bugging him.
Vicadum looks up to his horror and sees the face of his toddlerhood, childhood, and budding teenhood bully, Armasitis.
The crowd falls silent. An observer can see that Armasitis' arms look to overshadow Vicadum entirely, thankful he's not that poor kid.
Vicadum can't help but look the giant up then down hoping for some form of trickery at play. Realizing the strike he let loose on a stranger happened to really land on the worst possible person it could have.
Armasitis isn't happy, not only did he get hit, but he was hit by the tiny fist of an enraged Vicadum.
Armasitis shines his teeth, raring for prey.
"Finally decide to fight back, and you choose to tap the back of my neck?"
Armasitis fully grips Vicadum's neck with one hand and lifts him into the air.
"When I've got my back turned, huh!?"
"You think I wasn't gonna hit back!?"
The crowd around them continues on, a river flowing around two stones.
Vicadum chokes on his words, but he manages to squeal.
"I didn't… mean to…!"
Armasitis brings Vicadum closer, listening to his shaggy breaths at his ear.
"Didn't mean to what? Freak."
Vicadum blinks rapidly choking for too long he starts to lose consciousness. In a final flurry, Vicadum loosely swings his sword at Armasitis, lodging it just above his elbow, and making its way to cut into his tattooed skin.
Armasitis is brandished with tribal markings of thick and dark vines wrapping around his muscles. And now a fresh cut bleeds the line of his bodywork.
"Are you passing out?"
Armasitis watches the struggling insect in his fingers, unphased by the slice into his arm.
Vicadum can only process that his sword hand is stuck in something and goes to pull it out to swing again rashly.
Armasitis tires of the fading Vicadum, watching his fire wane.
"Boring."
He ridicules, letting him go like refuse to the street.
Vicadum manages to pull out the blade in this loosening grip and he begins to fall. Armasitis, managing to not be out of contact for a moment, grabs onto the sword violently. Too quick for Vicadum to see. he rips it upwards and holds it higher to pull on the bound hand and blade.
Vicadum thrashes in a fuss, writhing in pain, unable to scream a second earlier, Vicadum's cry now alerts the whole of Regnus to his torture. The flow of people halts.
Unable to put up with the horrific scene any further, a few men step closer to Armasitis to speak up.
"That's enough, boy! You've gone too far, he's less than half your size."
Armasitis doesn't flinch, he looks deeper into the scrunched face of Vicadum and replies to them.
"And what? Should I fight someone… my size?"
The men who stood in look around now at each other and give a determined yet fearful look.
"Ye-"
"Get someone and come on back then."
Armasitis cuts them off, intruding on their heroic act. Armasitis laughs.
"Hahaha! You want to take the kid?"
The men all look to Vicadum and before they can agree, Armasitis spins and hurls Vicadum at them.
They have no time to react and are forced to take the full weight against their chests, knocking them all to the ground.
"Hah… Heroes."
Armasitis spits at them and walks away. the crowd splits around him again.
Vanishing into the mass of people, Armasitis leaves a sour taste in Vicadum's mouth. He can only think to himself, furious.
"Take it back... "
Vicadum is spurned by the comment against heroes, he only laughed at them but it may as well have been a speech of insults to Vicadum's will.
As the crowd calms down and the men who tried to help Vicadum get up, they don't even bother asking if he's okay, deciding maybe it's better if they just left. Vicadum sits with his head on the ground, his fists pounding again and again into the dirt.
"Take it back! Take it back!! Take it back!!!"
Repeating over and over to the sand and stone beneath him.
Nephaeros, away and on some other roof, watches Vicadum and the hulk Armasitis face-off. Fearing Vicadum might get injured; she tried to make her way from the roof to the ground and through the crowd to get to him and help him however she could manage, but by the time she made it to him, Vicadum was already on the ground with a bloodied hand and injured pride.
Nephaeros dives to the ground to be with him, grabbing around his back and waist to give comfort. Vicadum instantaneously reacts violently.
"Don't touch me! Don't you ever touch me!"
Vicadum is stood above her now, throwing his sword in her eyes. Circling and creating a space for him, Vicadum threatens everyone closely.
"Get away from me!"
Nephaeros sits before him, seeing his frenzied response- she knows she hopped in too eagerly. Vicadum only just met her, after all. Nephaeros closes her eyes and tries to apologize, but her small voice gets overtaken- Getting up to explain how she wants to help-
Regrettably, Vicadum slices Nephaeros' chest. Above her clavicle and almost touching her neck, she is open and bleeding. Yet incredibly still.
Vicadum doesn't know this happened, and no one around could tell either. Nephaeros felt the cold separation, but with her eyes left unmoving on Vicadum, she noticed all too much that it was him who was hurting, and if she were to react to this it would only cause him to worry and lose focus on his true goal. So she holds in her cries.