day 5 ( shimmer )
february dwc 2026
cw: profit-based child harm
@daily-writing-challenge
it's the meatgrinder today -- not even a real arena, just a cleared off area inside a cave in southern tanaris where greasy human men take bets and sometimes they'll pay for more than just a bloodshow. keekoo doesn't fuck with all that other stuff, but she knows people who do. it's tempting. she's hungry, all skin and bones but mostly legs, a forever half-dead thing that doesn't even count as a troll or a living creature at all, really. her specialty is being really good at getting broken, like most of her kind. it helps if no one thinks she's really alive in here.
they'll never treat her like she is anyway. nobody is kind in the circuits. what's the point? they're all here for violence, for money, to flaunt the kind of power you can buy. and the people who make the magic happen, there's no point in being kind there either. you don't wanna make friends with a kid whose arms you're gonna rip off at the sound of the bell. you don't want to know somebody who's got a fifty percent chance of dying tonight.
keekoo gets it, she begs to differ, but she does. to her, heartache is an easy enough pain to bear in lieu of fucking loneliness. but she also gets that she's really good at being broken, practically a professional even though she hasn't even grown into her wobbly feet yet. it's probably not the same for everyone.
her heart doesn't even skip a beat when she sees her opponent. predictably, he's huge. they love this, the grunting masses, pitting an enormous, beastly creature against an emaciated little kid. they know it won't be a real fight, they're not the sorts of men who sit in the box seats in coliseums and comment on technique and athleticism. these are low-brow perverts who fiend for a bloodbath.
it's brutal. keekoo can appreciate art even in the lowest places: how immediately her so-called opponent seizes her by the hair, how he seems so savage, and yet so meticulously dislocates all of her limbs before he tears them from their sockets. it's almost a boon to know when to expect the bursts of pain. it's not over quickly, but keekoo can't blame him for putting on a good show. it takes a lot of food to feed a physique like his, and he's only got so long to fight like this before he burns himself out. might as well make the most of it.
she wishes she still passed out when she was in pain. those sure were easy days, but now she feels it all, hears all her own screams enough to be getting critical of them. they almost sound theatrical anymore. like she's faking it.
thankfully, she can't stand at the end of it. that means a trip back to the pens, where she's dragged on to a bench and left shivering. her arms don't work, her legs REALLY don't work. she can't really do anything but be cold and listen to the sound of her own wheezing, broken breaths.
there's a torch shimmering above her head too. the absolute apex of entertainment. bright spots appear in her eyes if she looks too long, and that's the most fun she's had all day, she can imagine better things into view instead: a bright, green field maybe, like the ones she's read about with gentle flowers and room enough for a picnic, not just endless dunes of sand and cold, stony pens. if she narrows her eyes and crosses them, she can just about see the flowers blooming, and a little creature…
a dog, not the mean ones that patrol the gangways of the arena out in feralas. not the ones they toss into the gurubashi pits to dismember screaming kids. a sweetly rotund dog with big, friendly eyes and merrily dancing paws, with a stumpy, fluffy butt and ears like a baby bat. her little dog waggles his fluffy butt and shimmers and shimmers and shimmers like a falling star.
he is jumping to the ground. it takes keekoo a second. her heart thuds in her shattered chest. all she can do is watch the torch's flame roll across the floor.
she expects it to ignite… something. the flame tippy-taps harmlessly, though, butt still waggling as he considers her-- no, considers how he is going to take a leap.
straight on to her chest. he's heavy, where he steps his weight is excruciatingly pointed. it makes no sense that a flame should feel like anything but burning. but keekoo cannot move -- well, maybe she can move a little now, her rate of regeneration has always been pretty incredible -- and so he tap-taps forth undiscouraged.
"Bark," he says into Keekoo's face. A tongue of lava flows from the corner of his big bright doggie smile.
she smiles back.
"a-grrrrrr," he groans, stretching out his forelimbs, bending his odd-shaped body until his stubby feet are stuck straight back. sort of like a swimming otter.
slowly, keekoo wiggles her fingers. she can squeeze the toes on her left foot. she experiments, slowly lifting a hand in the air. it drops heavily down on the dog's back, but he just rolls over, exposing a fire-fluffed belly. her fingers twitch alive, and begin to work out the motions to scratch.
his head butts under her chin. he's very small, curling up, trusting in her arms. he doesn't burn, but he's very warm, the sort of warm that makes keekoo's eyelids feel heavy. she's not shivering anymore.
before she knows it, the pain subsides to sweet dreams.