Emmeline was worried. Fuck. Everyone was worried. Ever since the atomic bomb level explosion that was Marlene and Scarlett’s breakup, the brunette of the pairing had done an emotional shut down. Lights were on. No one was home. He knew because he’d seen that look before every time he caught his reflection after his parents were murdered.
The girl wasn’t in self destruct mode. Worse. She’d skipped right over that step and into “whatever it takes to feel something again” mode. For now that meant disappearing at night for hours on end, holing up in her room the rest of the time, and showing up covered in bruises when she finally emerged out of absolute necessity. Fighting was bad, but if someone didn’t do something soon it had the potential to get so much worse. Merlin’s beard. It was like looking into a mirror.
Roaring rebounded off of the brick, amplifying the cheering to a deafening decibel. Fists punched the air. The crowd shoved as they shouted, pushing each other in an almost tidal ebb and flow as they tried to catch the ongoings of the match below. Edgar joined the shoving elbows and body checks, clearing a path for himself by force as he fought his way to the front of the assemblage.
How many times had he been here before? Hundreds. So many hundreds. The fighting pits were where he’d spent most of his nights in those years following the murder of the Bones primogenitors. Until Rosy had saved him from himself and filled his nights with hard work instead.
It was sacred space, that fifteen by ten expanse of sand; six feet deep of inescapable symbolism. To Edgar, all those years ago --and even now-- those blood soaked sands had been his spiritual absolvent. The injuries sustained, the blood lost, it’d felt like purging his soul, bleeding a festering wound of the poison trying to kill him from the inside. Most people found that with God, meditation, self reflection. He’d only ever found amnesty at the end of a pair of dirt and blood stained wrapping covered fists.
Teaching Marlene to fight, to hold her own in physical combat, hadn’t been a mistake. She’d needed to learn to hone herself into a weapon, how to take down her opponent without magic in case anything ever happened to her wand. Edgar wouldn’t apologize for that, and he sure as shite wouldn’t apologize for how thoroughly he’d taught her. Marls was a quick study, and her anger needed an outlet. What was healthy for everyone didn’t apply to personalities like theirs. He’d shown her how to deal, and was proud of how good she’d gotten at it.
What he was sorry for, however, was taking her to these underground catacombs where fighting for sport was the main event. He’d dominated the fight scene down here for a long time, had made a name for himself doing it too. Against better judgement --not his own since Edgar couldn’t claim to owning any amount of good judgement-- he’d brought Marlene down here and encouraged her to jump into The Pit.
He was close by, keeping an eye on her, making sure she was safe. It was like sparring back at HQ. More intense, sometimes life threatening sparring. Not a big deal. Nothing to worry about. Except for the fact that she’d started coming down here without him or any intention of winning her fights. The girl was using the fighting ring to punish herself. Had to be. Nothing else explained the behavior that had everyone so fucking worried.
Bodies parted and a path was made as Edgar shoved the rest of the way to the front. He elbowed someone back and out of his way, stepping up on the arena’s edge. Peering over the drop he saw the scene below. A brown haired girl, face covered in blood, pinned to the wall with a man nearly twice her weight walloping at her defences and getting in as many shots as he could while he had her cornered. Recognition made his heart trip clumsily over his ribs.
Edgar’s eyes narrowed. His jaw clenched. Zeroing in on the girl pinned to the metaphorical ropes, he grumbled, “Marls,” before he did what he had to do.
