[color=#FFD1DC][center][sub][h1][b]Alexander Rhea[/b][/h1][/sub][img]https://i.imgur.com/VJenpLe.png[/img]
Location: Coliseum -> Hill
Mentions: [@Ser Salem][/center][/color][hr]The sand still clung to Alexander Rhea’s forearms in pale streaks, packed into the lines of his palms like the arena had decided to follow him out. Even after the healers had done their work, after the bruises faded from angry purple to a dull ache, his body kept replaying the fight in small, humiliating flashes: the crowd’s roar turning sharp, Cassian’s footwork too clean to read, the moment Alexander committed to a strike that felt right and turned out to be exactly what Cassian wanted. He walked anyway, because walking was better than sitting still with it.

Beyond the training grounds, where the noise thinned into the softer sounds of camp life, Alexander found the open stretch of grass that sloped up toward a low hill. The air was cool enough to feel honest. He rolled his shoulders once, breathed in, and whistled, two short notes and a longer one.

Scathach appeared first, as silent as snowfall. The arctic she-wolf’s coat caught the light in a way that made her look carved out of winter itself, pale and clean and unimpressed by everything. Aife came bounding in a heartbeat later, grey fur rippling, eyes bright with that easy eagerness Alexander pretended he didn’t envy. The two of them circled him in opposite directions, a practiced patrol, sniffing at his wrists and the hem of his shirt as if checking for new wounds the healers had missed.

[color=FFD1DC]“Yeah,”[/color] Alexander muttered, voice rough with amusement he didn’t quite feel. [color=FFD1DC]“I’m fine.”[/color] Scathach’s ears flicked like she didn’t believe a word of it. He stooped, plucked a battered wooden practice baton from the ground, a thing some legionnaire had abandoned, edges chewed and smoothed by time, and weighed it in his hand. It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t a blade. It also didn’t ask him to be anything except present. He drew his arm back and threw.

The baton arced end over end, cutting through the air toward the far side of the field. Aife launched after it immediately, all momentum and joy, while Scathach loped with measured precision, taking the most efficient line rather than the fastest. Alexander watched them go, hands on his hips, chest rising and falling in a steadier rhythm than it had managed since the match ended.

He should’ve won. That thought arrived like it always did, instinctive and bitter, a reflex dressed up as confidence. Then came the correction, quieter but truer: he should’ve fought smarter.

Cassian hadn’t beaten him by being stronger. That was the part Alexander couldn’t stop chewing on. Cassian had beaten him by refusing to take the bait Alexander kept laying for himself: the dramatic exchange, the hard clash in the center, the kind of fight that looked good from the stands. Cassian had let Alexander swing his ambition like a weapon until it turned into a weight.

He remembered the exact second it shifted. He’d felt the crowd leaning in. He’d felt his own blood heat with it. Cassian’s guard had opened, just a fraction, a tempting sliver of opportunity, and Alexander had gone for it like a starving man lunging for the last bite.

No wasted motion. No flourish. Just a clean answer.

The sand in Alexander’s mouth had tasted like copper, and for one stupid moment his mind had screamed not about pain, but about embarrassment. Not about injury, but about what everyone would think, how the loss would look on him. How it would confirm the stupid little whispers that he believed followed his name like gnats.

[i]Pretty-boy demigod.

Venus kid.

All shine, no substance.[/i]

His jaw tightened as Aife returned, skidding to a stop close enough to spray damp grass and dirt. The grey wolf dropped the baton at Alexander’s feet and bounced back a step, tail wagging, eyes locked on him with complete confidence that he’d throw it again. Scathach arrived a second later and sat, regal and still, watching Alexander like she was waiting to see what kind of man he’d choose to be in the next moment. Alexander huffed out a breath that almost became a laugh.[color=FFD1DC] “You two are relentless.”[/color] Aife sneezed, as if offended by the implication.

He tossed the baton again, farther this time. Aife sprinted. Scathach followed at her own pace, gliding rather than running, and Alexander let the motion pull him forward one step at a time. His body liked this—liked the repetition, the simple physics, the clarity of it. Throw. Chase. Return. No crowd. No Cassian. No expectation except the one he set with his own arm. 

Convince someone. Prove something. Outrun the label. Outfight the assumption. Outshine the heritage he didn’t ask for. Alexander wondered, not for the first time, what it would feel like to stop performing strength and simply be strong.

He threw the baton again. Aife chased. Scathach tracked the wind. Alexander watched the line of Scathach’s spine as she moved, the effortless certainty of a creature that didn’t waste energy on self-hatred. Scathach didn’t care what anyone expected of her. She was winter given muscle and breath.

Aife returned with the baton, dropping it with a pleased grunt. Alexander reached down, ruffled the fur along her neck, and she leaned into it hard enough to almost knock him off balance. He steadied himself with one hand on her shoulder, the other on the baton, and that was when he noticed the figure on the hill.

Someone sat cross-legged in the grass a short distance up, where the slope caught more sun and the breeze seemed gentler. She was angled slightly away from him, posture relaxed, head bowed over her hands. A small bundle—yarn, maybe—rested in her lap, and her fingers moved in a steady rhythm that looked like its own kind of training. Knitting.

Alexander squinted, as if focusing harder might turn the scene into something else. A legionnaire knitting on a hill felt… absurdly peaceful. It also felt like the kind of peace he’d never quite understood how to hold. A daughter of Luna, Fourth Cohort, if his memory was right. He’d seen her in formation. He’d heard her name once, maybe twice, in passing, but he hadn’t spoken to her.

She didn’t look up. She didn’t seem to care that the most recently defeated fighter in the Coliseum was using the field like an outlet. Her hands just kept moving, unhurried, loop after loop, building something patient out of a single thread. His first instinct was to sneer at the softness of it, at the stereotype-adjacent domestic calm. The reflex rose fast, sharp, protective. Then he caught himself.

He’d spent years cursing stereotypes while letting them steer him like reins. He’d spent the afternoon losing a fight because he couldn’t stop trying to look like a legend. On the hill, the daughter of Luna didn’t look like she was trying to be anything. She just… was. Quiet. Focused. Present.

Aife nudged Alexander’s thigh with her nose, impatient for the next throw. Scathach stood and walked to his side, brushing against his leg with the briefest touch—contact that felt less like affection and more like grounding. Alexander looked down at the baton in his hand, then back up at the hill.

He didn’t suddenly feel better. The loss still sat in him, heavy and hot. But the sight of someone building something slowly, carefully, without an audience, shifted the shape of the ache. It made room for a different thought. Maybe proving himself didn’t have to mean burning himself alive in the center of the arena. He rolled the baton once between his palms and threw it again, not as hard as he could, not like he was trying to break distance records, but clean and controlled. Aife sprinted. Scathach followed. Alexander watched them go, then let his gaze drift back to the hill.

The daughter of Luna’s hands kept moving, thread slipping through her fingers like moonlight through branches. After a moment, as if she’d felt his attention the way wolves felt weather change, she paused, not fully stopping, just slowing, and tilted her head slightly, acknowledging without turning. [color=FFD1DC]"Hey."[/color] Alex said lamely. [color=FFD1DC]"Sorry if I took invaded your spot."[/color]