Bitterer than Coffee

Ara Villa didn’t like losing. Not because it bruised her pride—though it certainly did—but because she hated the quiet that came after, when the adrenaline faded and the echoes of spells still rang hollow in her ears.

Two duels down. Two humiliating defeats -- though they were sort of doomed to lose from the start anyway.

She could even handle the sting when it was close, when they fought tooth and nail against older duelists and left the piste knowing they’d wrung every last drop out of themselves.

But twice in a row? Against upper years who seemed to treat them like target practice? That stung. Ara hated being predictable prey. She wasn’t prey. She was supposed to be sharper than this, cleverer. Yet, there she’d been -- standing tall, smirking in the aftermath, pretending she wasn’t cataloguing every mistake in her head, except in the second loss (she passed out in the last round). It was months ago, yet it still stung.

Mahlioz and the rotting prune were both great teammates (though Ara would find it hard to admit that to the latter), though in different ways. She knew it. They knew it. And Ara -- Ara was the one trying to make up the gap against duelists who’d been fighting for years. Losing once was a bruise to the ego. Losing twice? That was a wound. And if there was one thing Ara hated, it was walking around with an open wound.

When she closed her eyes that night, she saw herself missing step after step. Hesitating where she shouldn’t have. Mock confidence wasn’t a shield thick enough to block out reality.

So -- she came back. Always came back.

Which was why she was here, boots clicking against the stone corridor, heading for the Duelling Club room like she owned the place. At this point, that's how she approached anything. The now fourth year was basically one of the older ones on the team. She would describe herself to be a pathetic upperclasswoman. Last year's three 7th years were like the dueling trinity of the Vipers till that point -- this year's can only dream.

The double oak doors gave way with a groan as Ara slipped inside, the iron placard with its rules catching her eye. Yes yes, safety, etiquette, don’t hex your peers into the hospital wing, blah blah. The familiar scent of dust and candlewax swept into her nose, the glow of a thousand floating lights bouncing across the high ceiling. She slowed, letting her eyes adjust to the cavernous chamber.

She walked in without hesitation, boots carrying her across the chamber with an easy arrogance that said she belonged here -- because she did. Ara thrived in this room, even if her win record lately begged to differ. The piste stretched like a stage waiting for its players. To the left, duelling dummies loomed, their iron fists clutched tight around metal wands. Ara gave one of them a smirk. It was too quiet in there. Ara raised a brow at that, then turned her attention back down.

She wasn’t alone.

She stopped a few feet from him, tilting her head as she took him in: the clenched jaw, the restless eyes, the way his body seemed to sag with something heavier than exhaustion.

Leaning half-out a blasted window like a tragic painting was Archer. Long hair whipping in the breeze, clutching his wand like it was the only thing tethering him to earth, face tight with whatever self-destructive storm was going on inside. For a moment, Ara just watched him. A part of her still saw these kids as little second years. Guess things change.

The boy was slouched near the window, wind tearing at his hair, knuckles pale around his wand. He had that haunted look Ara knew too well: frustration baked into his bones, self-pity curling sharp in the back of his throat.

“Well, if it isn’t Mister Broody By-the-Window.” Her tone was bright, cutting, echoing through the empty chamber.

Her boots tapped against the tiles as she approached, posture perfectly unbothered. Ara always moved like she had all the time in the world, even when she didn’t. She hopped up to sit on the edge of the stairs, one leg folded over the other, dark eyes fixed squarely on him. “Y’know,” she said, arms crossing loosely over her chest, “you’ve got the look of someone who wants the world to feel sorry for him. Very tragic. Very poetic. Like one of those portraits in the corridors, sighing forever because their candle burned too fast.” She was sharp, as usual but there was no malice behind it. Just the sting of truth.

Her voice wasn’t cruel, but it wasn’t gentle either -- blunt in that way only Ara could get away with. She tapped her nails against the wood.

RP Word Count: 808/200
OOC: slr ToT hope this somewhat long reply would entertain. im trying to do as many replies i can tonight

From the exhaustion pronounced under Archers eyes to the trembling unrestrained down his spine, every fibre of his existence proved the tedium and betrayal of a sport he was once so eager to delve into. The endless days that bled into nights, impossible hours drowned into a void of training. Until he no longer understood what it meant, the way you repeat a word so many times it starts to lose its meaning. Until his fingers snapped onto the curves of his wand without even understanding the consequences of his strikes. Until the world became a world of tactful spells and explosive lights and nothing more. That was duelling for you, and it wasn’t pretty.

For how much effort Archer had unyieldingly poured into the sport he achieved little satisfactory results. For the whitened knuckles, the messed up hair, for the pain down his back and in his heart, he earned nothing. A crooked win from beginners luck, only for consecutive losses to follow. It was undeniable that his performance had begun to falter post his mother’s passing, yet that had only inspired him to pour more effort into the sport until his body gave out under him. He was ruthless, merciless, and cutthroat — all his anger not directed towards his opponents but himself. Deep down, he knew what he was. A burden to his team. Worthless.

That only fuelled his hatred, a self-loathing so deep it rattled his very bones. Each heavy breath, each doubled-over wheeze, each deep sigh: they were all somehow worth it. Worth the pain. It was the only thing he could amount to, this pathetic excuse of a duellist who only used the sport to feel a little bit alive in a body rendered half-dead. His brows furrowed at his thoughts, hands grasping for any tether to a world he did not know, eventually settling around his hand so tight he felt it might snap entirely. There was something flaming in those hazel eyes, like coffee beans roasting in the fire for too long, blackened and burnt.

This existence he could no longer stomach, and in fact he felt very much as if he would like to throw up as he stared at his upperclassman, raising an unimpressed brow at her words. Commentary. By which she meant a good dose of salty sarcasm and bitter strings of useless words. She made a remark of his laughter. Archer offered no response at first, simply advancing towards her as his fingers tightened around his wand.

“You’re making fun of me,” Archer said finally, scoffing. His steps were precise on the wooden piste, each footfall leaving a heavy, resounding across the hollow floorboards. He curled his lip in distaste as he circled Ara Villa slowly, eyes flicking up and down as he scrutinised her with the typical fashion. Dark hair, dark eyes — everything about her the same tone as her appearance. They were about the same height, the same build, yet Archer still stared her down with the viciousness of a wolf pup who was all bark and no bite. He could yap all he want, and Ara would find a response just as curt, just as wry.

She brought out in him a sort of fight he did not often show. A vulnerable sort of fight, that despite all the teeth he bore, only showed the chinks in his armour. Eyes set, deadly with the force of an erupting storm, something in him imploded, and out with it not only the bloodied deeds and the hateful heart but a tired soul and the remnants of the soft boy of the past. Someone he no longer knew that child, yet he had never looked more like him. He scowled with boyish defensiveness, and thought it made him look like a man.

“It’s like someone took the spine out of this team and told us to walk time and time again.” There was something in Ara’s voice that was so genuine it felt saccharine, as if she was finally admitting a truth she was not sure she had known seconds before. The way she seemed to have brushed it off in a half laugh, half scoff as if it was nothing, the way her gaze flitted up to the ceiling in refusal to meet Archer’s eyes, the way her mouth tilted in all the right angles, yet in all the wrong ways. Wry, unforgiving, yet with an edge of sincerity Archer faltered to describe. He closed his eyes, contemplating, or perhaps just overwhelmed.

The response came to him gradually, yet his speech was sudden, cutting through the hals of the duelling club. “You ought to know I have had my spine ripped from my back enough times. And yet I still walk.” He gritted his teeth hard. There were an endless ocean of horrors he had survived through, an endless ocean of horrors he had conquered. They plagued him every waking hour and every sleeping one, yet he was still here. He was still alive. It was a cruel joke, how he overcame their prowess, yet faltered at a game as frivolous as his athletic endeavours. He threw his wand onto the floor, the rod of wood clattering on the ground and rolling away from him, abandoned and discarded. He stared at it for a long time, plunging both hands into his pockets. Then he spoke once more, voice clearly pained, a bare rasp with the edge of a dying fireplace flame: “We both know I am better than this.”

Little wolf, what is it like to have been through hellfire and back, only to tremble at the sight of mere matchstick flames?

A tear slid down his cheek, and he raised his head as he gave all he could to attempt to blink it back. When it stubbornly refused, he did not move to wipe it away, allowing it to rest on his chin before dripping on his shirt, leaving an ugly, wet mark on his collar. He grimaced, and fluttered his lids shut as he tried to stop the tidal wave that threatened to break through his dams. He had promised himself not to cry — not anymore. After all he had been through, carrying his burdens in silence and suffering through his traumas in private, he would not become this. Weak. Pathetic. He would not cry. That had been a vow. And today, it was a vow he managed to keep.

“So. Moody angst teen. How’s the whole duelling thing going for you?”

“Don’t call me that!” He snapped. Rage rushed up in him at the remark. He took a few swift steps forward, and had to scrunch up the fabric of his pocket in order not to raise a fist and hit. He bit his lip, unresponsive beyond the single, disgusted remark and uncertain gesture. As if it was in Ara’s business to ask with such condescending patronisation. After all this… just to be reduced to a moody, angst, teen. So dehumanising was the comment, so undermining of everything he had given just to even stand at this very hall. Something in him broke, and raising his voice, he thrusted out his hand from his pocket and pointed it at Ara, intensity rising as he shook it with every word he spoke. “I am so, so much more than that.”

Yet her words still resounded in his mind, pulsating their way to his chest and pushing through the defences of his ribs until they finally attacked his very heart. He glanced down, then set fierce eyes on Ara, unrelenting.

Why’re you here at sunrise beating yourself half to death? His eyes drifted towards the window, towards the sun whose warmth had barely graced the land, and towards the distant mountains it rose up from, imposing and dark with the bare licks of light. His gaze crept downwards as he lowered his head pensively, deep in thought, or perhaps just unwilling to admit how right Ara was. Beating himself half to death — she was right, he realised. Was he unleashing destruction against his opponents or against himself? After all this training, all this pain, all this suffering, he only returned to that eternal ache in his chest, forever beating alongside a crooked heart.

You planning to win something? Archer almost scoffed at that, yet he no longer had the energy to convey his disbelief. Of course he wanted to win something, but that had never been prizes or trophies. Even recognition and validation faltered, paled in the face of victory against himself. There was something uncontrollable about Archer, from the way he had no reign over his emotions to how his actions always seemed to slip out of his hands. Perhaps, somehow, torturing his body, torturing his mind, and torturing his heart, would bring to him an odd source of peace through ultimate control. Then he would be victorious, not against any enemy, or perhaps against the greatest enemy, that being self.

Prove something? He wanted to laugh, yet that laugh would only be hollow, a sound like the ringing of rusted bells on a haunted church. Of course he wanted to prove something, but that had never been his worth or his glory. All were useless, medals mere paperweights, titles mere adornments. There was something unripe about Archer, from the tender body of a mere boy to the mind that still belonged to a child. He had witnessed too many horrors at an age too young. Yet despite the hardening lessons life had thrown at him, he was still a boy at heart, a boy who was just sad, just lost. What was he trying to prove? That he was a man? Bah.

Or just trying to outrun whatever’s clawing behind you?

Archer — witty, eloquent, piquant Archer — was at a lost for words.

@Ara Villa | banner by Adeline Spinks