The warden's had an itch for days, something below the skin, something hot and prickling and insistent. It only grows when he reads the posted bracket, when he sees his name drawn in thick black ink on the yellowed slip. In the shade of the Colosseum that itch becomes a mounting giddiness, which becomes a breathless sort of joy that he has to wrestle down before it swallows him whole.

Andras lifts his head to see the flat sand of the arena baked by the column of desert sun that peeks into the canyon. The festival crowd is impatient and wanting, a din even in the background, through the heavy road door. You're up, says the guard to its right, who waits for Andras to look then abandons her expression of cool disinterest for something closer to.... worry? Quiet laughter? It does not matter to him.

No, all that matters to him is the slice of white light that grows as she cranks the door open one foot of a time and it all spills in on him at once: the hot sun, the white sand, the roar of a crowd that's gone too long without their joyous blood sport.

And it is joyous. And it will hurt. And it makes Andras spark like a firecracker as he steps into the wall of light and sound. 'Our next match,' says the announcer,'is the Warden of Delumine, Andras Demya, versus Zayir, of Solterra.' An old name. An ancient name. Perhaps one of the oldest. The crowd roars for Zayir, roars like their sovereign's lion or their fiery desert sun.

It makes Andras smile. A soldier from Solterra. The soldier from Solterra, just as white and gold as the desert he walks on. Andras chokes back a grin but can't hold it for long--and when it breaks over his face it does so in a crack of thunder. This should be fun.

The warden bows his head, unfolds his wings, and and takes a deep breath.
In-- he holds it-- and out.

The circled crowd holds its breath, as does the arena, as does the whole of Solterra. The soldier watches Andras with a discerning eye, as he bows his dark head and squares his shoulders. Andras is not a soldier. Andras is an animal, a savage one, that likes blood and bruises and bleeding teeth and does not care if it is his.

He is wondering, the warden knows, how Delumine, how Oriens, came to this decision - even if Zayir were not so out of time it might beg the question. Why does their god breathe thunder and fire in the core of him? Why does their god preach peace and give birth to this bottomless rage?

Andras smiles because Andras knows. Oriens did not give this beast to him. Oriens only let it out.

He takes another breath in, then out. Andras tries to stay calm, wrestling all his joy and his rage so that it simmers below the surface. He thinks cold thoughts, he thinks blue thoughts. He thinks of the clean sand of the arena and the man that bows in return before lunging forward, spurring the crowd to cheer for the battle's beginning.

Andras is not far behind the motion, a stride or two at most; he surges ahead with his wings spread for balance, trying to breathe though he is filling with tension and bliss all in one. He manages one more--a quick, running breath--before Zayir is upon him, and Andras follows the way he darts like a dog chasing prey.

Only, Zayir is faster, and his feet touch and then pivot, diving left like a snake in the sand; only because the feint baits him does Andras feel the elbow of his wing between Zayir's teeth instead of the wrist--because they are so close they make contact immediately, and the warden feels it like a bolt of hot light that streaks from the elbow to the shoulder and down through his chest. He makes a sound half between shrieking and laughter as he rolls, folding his wing only by an instinct that screams not to land on it.

The scenery goes white wings, blue sky, gray crowd, yellow sand at a dizzying speed, and Andras is trying to fight through the sharp ache of his appendage to focus as he searches for Zayir's face and neck with both front legs; a spark that flashes like white lightning and cracks like thunder roars out of one just as he braces for it. Andras feels it all the way in his ribs, like the booming of fireworks. He is glad for sand, and not hard ground, though it is a weak blast.

It is bright (so bright), and it is loud (so, so loud), but it is more percussive force and sparks than anything else, like a particularly thick balloon popping against the skin. Andras gives himself over to its momentum, too, rolling away now that the blast has--Oriens willing--distracted Zayir long enough that the Warden can scramble back to his feet.

He is not breathing deep, anymore. He is a cloud of frantic lightning, laughing along with his heart, which starts keening like an unbridled thing. Perhaps it is.

Later Andras will look down and see blood on the white of his ankle--not much, just a spattering like it hadn't happened at all. Later he will recall the loud boom of his magic erupting, the sound like thunder that races down his leg and out toward the stands. He'll remember the air shifting, like he himself warped time and space to make it so.

But this will be later, much later, because after get to your feet there is no thought left in him that is not that singing rage, the war drum of his heart that pounds in the back of his head, and his throbbing wing, and the roar of the crowd overhead. 

He must look like an unholy thing, in rising arcs of lightning that seem to suck the light out of the desert as they fork off his body and buzz like an amp. He is all teeth and lightning as Zayir rolls to his feet just after Andras. There is no room to breathe between them, no room for Andras to see the blood on Zayir's nose or the way that their angers meet each other in a crack just as loud within him as any trick he could pull without. Before Andras can move Zayir lurches back with his head still full of static and Andras ducks in to meet it.

The warden has no fear to spare for a desert soldier. He has only pain, and joy, and that boundless rage, and it has only ever told him to fight, relentlessly, and at any cost.

So he does. Because, though it is small, the possibility that Zayir might not chase him down with teeth and hoof and that spattering blood is somehow so much worse than anything else. And he is blind with it.

The hooves come down first, one that scrapes down his shoulder and stings as it does and the other that flings itself over his neck, then the teeth that close over the nape of his neck. Something between a shriek and a snarl wracks its way out of him along with the blood that seeps out around Zayir's teeth and the deep purple bruise that will follow. Suddenly he is all pain--in his wing, in his shoulder (though already dulling), in his neck, in his throat because he is still screaming, or roaring.

Andras also does not wait. Even as Zayir's teeth are on his neck Andras opens his neck and ducks his head (and there is more pain, so much more pain, as skin drags away from teeth, but all it does is make the song louder, and louder, and louder), and even as Zayir is still draped over  Andras his hind legs bunch and spring in the soldier's direction, hurling the full force of his weight, the bony legs, the feral teeth, aided by a flap of his wings that kicks sand up behind him.

And Andras is still screaming when he twists midair, and is still screaming when he lands, blind with anger, and pain, and the magic that rolls off him in blue, buzzing waves.

For a moment the stands are quiet. They wondered, for a moment, why Delumine's warden would fight like a dog.

They are not wondering, now.

They stand chest to chest, for a moment, all heat and lightning and bottomless prayers to violence. Andras is surprised when he feels cold as Zayir darts away. He is full of radio static that crawls in on all of his edges-- how does anyone see, how does anyone breathe, if they are not like this, beaten and bloody in the hot sun and the sand?

His head is slowly clearing. Where there was that singing, boiling rage he is filling now with exhaustion. Andras ducks his head and spreads his wings in a sort of curtsy, before tucking them over his back with a notable wince.

"Good." he says, grinning the way dogs do, lips curled into something too manic to be a snarl and too savage to be just a grin. He says this next bit with more affection than he means to: "Don't fuck with us, then."

He feels right at this moment. Alive. Whole. It would be worrying if he knew himself less. "You should come by, though. This was fun." He laughs, high and wild. It is the sort of boundless joy most people only hope for.