Viktoria climbed down to the river for a brief breather, to where the water slid quietly over smooth stones rounded by the current and the air smelled of wet moss and cool earth. A young elf sat on the bank, fishing rod steady in both hands, his face young, though his true age was utterly unreadable—elves could count centuries and still look barely grown, a fact that still struck Viktoria as faintly unsettling. He barely acknowledged her, his gaze fixed on the water's surface, as if every movement of the rod demanded his full attention. She dipped her hand into the cool water, let it run through her fingers. "Wow." She quickly drank a few sips, felt new strength pulling through her exhausted body, even though her actual ability would still need a while longer to recover. From the side she watched the boy's face, the quiet concentration in it. "What's your name, boy?" No answer. Only when the line drew taut did he react, skillfully pulling a silvery gleaming fish from the water, then two more, before standing up, gathering them, and carrying them to his waiting family, who greeted him with brief, warm words. Together they sat down to eat—it was Mittatra, that hour when the light stood at its zenith and, it seemed, everyone here gathered at the table together.
Katarine used exactly this moment. While Viktoria was distracted, she dissolved her camouflage form and unnoticed snatched the hat of a passing elf—a new hiding place, bought with her pain, which further shortened the remaining duration of her ability. Four crowns and nineteen ticks still showed on the board, a good six minutes. Viktoria glanced briefly upward before turning back to the village, scrutinizing every elf she passed—old and young, small and tall, women and children playing between the huts. It seemed to be a village of half-elves: half-pointed ears, smaller than those of high elves, skin very similar to human skin, a life spent outdoors, protected only by a wooden palisade with five watchtowers, each holding a hunter with a watchful eye for danger, bow ready at the shoulder. It reminded her, strangely familiar, of her own homeland, of evenings that smelled and sounded much the same.
Up in the stands, Nouel listened to the conversations of the spectators around him. "Vitalia… Vitokina, what was her name again?" someone behind him asked. "Aurelis. Viktoria," a woman beside him corrected curtly. "Right, Viktoria. An interesting way to fight—but she shouldn't take too much time." Nouel thought the same, though he hardly showed his tension, arms crossed tightly over his chest. "Better wrap this up soon, Viktoria," he murmured quietly to himself, and for a moment he wasn't quite here anymore, but back in a memory of their shared training, the smell of stirred-up dust and the sound of ragged breathing.
"Viktoria, you made it three minutes. Well done." Exhausted, she had let her body sink into the sand back then, chest rising and falling, skin still damp from training. "Thanks, Nouel, but there's more in me." She'd quickly wiped the sweat from her forehead and was already back on her feet. "Alvios trains until he collapses too. So I can do that as well." Her fighting spirit had known no limits, she hadn't wanted to stop, no matter how much her limbs protested. "All right then," Nouel had finally replied, a hint of amusement in his voice. "Then let's look at something else." She'd tilted her head, puzzled. "Let's take a situation where you can't use your ability." A lesson in reality—for even in a world full of Aether, things didn't always go the way one imagined. "You must always try to understand your opponent." She'd looked even more confused than before. "Understand my opponent?" Nouel had smiled, his voice losing every last trace of sternness, sounding almost more like a comrade than a teacher. "Yes. If you were fighting against yourself—how would you act?"
"Look, Nouel, over there!" Alvios's voice yanked him roughly back from the memory to the stands. Nouel immediately fixed his gaze on Katarine's screen again. "It's getting interesting."
Meanwhile, Viktoria slowly approached the eating spot, where Katarine also sat among the half-elves, using only one arm, the other resting quietly in her lap. Viktoria simply sat down with them, no plate, wanting to eat along—but when she tried to get up again to fetch one, she looked around at the faces of the elves. No one seemed to notice her, not a glance, not a nod, as if she were merely a ghost among them, invisible to this peaceful little world. She stood and found, in a large tent at the edge of the village, a whole stack of plates, carefully piled beside bales of coarse wool. Two women were talking quietly there while sorting fabric. "A truly peaceful day, don't you think?" said one. "You can say that again," the other replied, wiping her hands on her apron. "The hunters brought down plenty of buffalo, more than we'll need this moon-cycle. That buys us a few quiet weeks." "As long as the children don't start brawling by the river again, like last cycle," the first sighed with a tired smile. "My daughter came home with a black eye, and my husband thought it was funny, when really he should be teaching her archery, not scrapping." The other laughed softly. "Your husband was never any different himself. Remember how he fought with Dorven over the last portion of boar?" They both giggled, two friends talking about nothing more than the ordinary, warm rhythm of their everyday life.
Viktoria took a plate, sat back down with the others, and helped herself, without greed, to a piece of meat from the grill. Both contenders ate without once looking each other in the eye, while village life carried on unbothered around them. The board above them showed four crowns and fifty-five ticks—half the time had already passed. Viktoria didn't think long: Katarine had to be hiding among the elves, that was the only logical conclusion, and her senses, still faintly humming with the aftereffects of her form, were sharp enough to confirm it. Once she'd finished eating, she kept watching the scene closely, every movement, every face. Gradually the half-elves rose and walked, one after another, down to the river, passing directly by Viktoria, their steps unhurried, their voices a quiet murmur. She stayed seated. Katarine moved among them inconspicuously, blending in seamlessly—the spectators in the stands fell silent, held their breath, as Katarine, in the shape of a half-elf woman, walked directly past Viktoria, so close that from above it might have looked as though their shoulders brushed.
Alvios ran his hands frantically through his hair. "Viktoria! She's right next to you, attack!" His shout went unheard—too far away, and the ancestors allowed no outside interference into the arena anyway. Katarine gave nothing away and walked calmly on with the half-elves, her pace as unhurried as her neighbors'. Then, without warning, Viktoria drew a sharp breath through her nose—a scent, barely perceptible beneath all the others, and yet unmistakable to her. "Katarine!" She turned around. Surprised, hardly able to believe it, fear washed over Katarine's face. The blow that followed caught her in the face, nowhere near as hard as the first one in the treetop, but strong enough to send her to the ground. "How did you…" she gasped, "I'd thought of every detail." Except one, quite natural one: the scent. For Viktoria's blood, that had been almost child's play.
Time seemed to stand still for a heartbeat. The village dissolved, faded like smoke in the wind, and in its place appeared a snowy landscape, quiet snowfall drifting down, settling on shoulders and hair. Katarine's expression turned serious as she realized what this meant, and she rose wearily, her arm still pressed protectively to her body. Four crowns and ten ticks—Katarine was now the seeker. Viktoria didn't think of fleeing; she had a new goal: to end the fight before the remaining four minutes ran out. "Katarine, come. I'm ready." She took up a defensive stance, feet planted shoulder-width in the snow, while Katarine merged with her surroundings, her skin turning translucent, nearly indistinguishable from the snow. Viktoria stayed calm, letting instinct take the lead, gaze sweeping across the white expanse—and smiled as she spotted, from the corner of her eye, footprints in the snow, a faint line vanishing between the trees. Her advantage, invisible to most, but no one had expected the hunter to become the hunted. She followed the trail with silent steps until she was close enough. "There you are." A frontal hit to the stomach sent Katarine to the ground again, a dull thud in the snow. Three crowns forty-five remained.
Just as Viktoria believed she already had victory in hand, the snowfall thickened, grew faster, until the flakes struck her skin like needles. Katarine's strength was fading, and before Viktoria now stood once more the woman with stone skin threaded with fine cracks, her breath visible in the cold air. "You don't look half bad up close," Viktoria joked, a grin at the corners of her mouth. Katarine smiled faintly, straightening with effort, one hand pressed to her aching stomach. "Thanks… likewise." The pain barely let her speak, and yet she had to keep going, or the fight would be over for her here. She approached slowly, weight carefully distributed on both legs, feinted a punch, followed with a kick—blocked. Viktoria held the leg fast and swept the other out from under her; Katarine fell, throwing a handful of snow straight into Viktoria's face as she went down. Viktoria blocked that too with ease, without so much as flinching, but it had only been a distraction: Katarine broke free of the grip and rolled out of reach, while the falling snow turned to hail, striking the frozen ground hard and loud, until it grew into a full-blown blizzard. Visibility shrank to a few steps.
Viktoria attacked, fast, precise, every step calculated despite the lashing cold. Three strikes in quick succession forced Katarine to the ground; a follow-up kick narrowly missed as Katarine rolled aside at the last moment and gained distance, panting. "Damn, I wanted to end it with that." The weather wore on Viktoria too, her reactions growing sluggish, her joints beginning to stiffen, every movement a touch slower than the last, but Katarine suffered from it most, her stone skin marked by the cold—and used the storm anyway, creeping toward Viktoria silently, step by step. A strike from behind; Viktoria ducked just in time, struck back, but the cold robbed her of the speed to land it. Katarine dodged effortlessly, distance and stance exactly right for her, and landed a clean hit to Viktoria's stomach—not strong enough to decide the fight, but enough to swap roles once more. Viktoria was the seeker again. Two crowns nineteen remained.
The surroundings shifted once more, cold giving way in an instant to sweltering, humid air, jungle calling, rain pouring down, a storm that refused to let up and turned the earth to mud within seconds. Viktoria glanced quickly at the board, then snapped her focus sharply forward again—but Katarine had already used the moment and taken off running, limping, but determined. "Stay right there, Katarine!" With joints still stiff, Viktoria stumbled after her, the rain relentless, her wet hair robbing them both of sight, as she broke through dripping leaves.
Katarine tripped over a root, and there before her, as if summoned, lay a stone that fit perfectly into her hand. If I don't risk it, I lose anyway, she thought, and grabbed it, gaze cast back over her shoulder at Viktoria closing in. "If snow was allowed, then this counts as part of the environment too, doesn't it, Viktoria?" She threw, the rain carrying the stone favorably, and it struck Viktoria in the left eye, a sharp, burning pain. She kept standing anyway, blinking the pain away. Katarine threw everything the ground offered—branches, small stones, some missing, some landing—while Viktoria closed in relentlessly, step by step, her resolve stronger than any single hit. In the distance, the first flashes of lightning flickered, followed by distant thunder. As Katarine wound up for one last throw, Viktoria seized her hand and held it fast in an iron grip. Through strands of wet hair, they looked into each other's eyes for a long moment, and Katarine closed hers, knowing what was coming. With a thunderclap that rolled across the entire arena, Viktoria's final strike landed and sent Katarine to the ground, for good.
There was no anger in this final motion, no satisfaction, only the quiet exhaustion of two fighters who had demanded everything of one another. The rain slowed, seemed to run almost in reverse, until the world transformed back into a sunny place—the half-elf village, the final setting of this fight, warm and peaceful, as if the storm had never happened. Katarine lay motionless in the warm grass, her chest slowly rising and falling. Viktoria looked down at her, then up at the board: less than one crown remained, and officially, Katarine was once again the seeker. Viktoria let out an audible breath and brushed her soaking wet hair from her face, her gaze tired but calm. The fight wasn't formally decided yet—but her true task, she knew in this moment with complete certainty, she had already fulfilled.