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Write-up by: Luckers
The Contestants
Mat Cauthon
Age: 20
Race: human
Weapon: ashendarei
Special: memories and experience of many lives.
Selucia
Age: mid forties
Race: human
Weapon: hands and feet
Special: extensive martial arts training as a bodyguard
The Breakdown
Advantages
Mat: Has the experience of a great many adventurers, soldiers, and other skilled individuals.
Selucia: Her skills as a martial artist are a closely held secret.
Disadvantages
Mat: Doesn't like to kill women.
Selucia: Suicidal sense of duty.
How we think the fight will go:
Mat grimaced when he saw Selucia standing in front of the door to the suite Tuon had claimed as her own. By the look on her face you might think that he was some dockyard ruffian come drunk to morning brunch, and worse, the buxom woman held herself as if she were some sort of bodyguard, intent to block his way. Well Mat was having none of that—the Light knew Selucia had been bad enough as Tuon’s maid, and no doubt she’d have a mind to be ten times worse now that she was so’jhin and soe’feia, but Mat Cauthon was Tuon’s husband, and if he was going to pay the price of that, then he’d at least get the respect of it.
Still, it was worth trying for a little peaceful negotiation. He was a reasonable man, after all. Summoning his most charming grin, he made the smoothest leg he could with the ashendarei in his hand. He should have left the damn thing back at the Band’s camp, but with Darkfriends after him every other day, he wouldn’t risk it. Well, no matter, it was here, for all that he’d have no use for it. “Evening Selucia,” he said, “is Tuon awake?”
Immediately he could tell the woman was angry, though she had no reason to be with him being as courteous as a Talmouri maiden. Mouth thinning to a line, she said, “The Empress, may she live forever, is not accepting visitations to the Presence. Return later.”
“Now listen here,” he began, his own temper beginning to rise, what with the way she was staring down her nose at him, “Tuon is my—”
“Tuon is dead, Highness.” Selucia cut him off. “The name will be remembered as honoured in the eyes of the Empire, whilst the Empress moves forward in glory. It is not, however, for me to speak that name to you.”
Tuon is dead? The Dark One’s left foot she was—Tuon was the talk of Ebou Dar, Tuon and holes in the air and an attack on the White Tower. That was why he came. He opened his mouth, then paused, frowning, remembering that nonsense with Leilwin. Light, but Seanchan were odd.
“Very well,” he said holding on to impatience with an iron fist, “but Tuon, the Empress, or the bloody Amyrlin Seat, I want to see my wife.”
Again he could tell that he’d said the wrong thing, almost immediately, and this once he could see the sense of it—why under the Light had he mentioned the Amyrlin Seat? Not that he had anything like the Seanchan sensibilities when it came to channelers, but about the only thing he could think of that was worse than being married to a noblewoman was being married to an Aes Sedai. Only, in Tuon he had found something very near to both, a thought which strangely no longer seemed to bother him.
“Selucia,” he began again—her left foot had begun to tap a steady beat, and she appeared to be thinking through the various things she intended to say to him. Unpleasant things, by that look. “I understand you’re just trying to do what you think Tu—what you think that the Empress would want, but I really need to speak to her. And I am going to.” He hesitated, and then forged ahead despite the sour taste in his mouth. “I am the Prince of the Ravens,” unless he had attained a new title with Tuon’s ascension to the Crystal Throne. Light! “And I need to speak with the Empress, so I shall do so whether you let me in, or whether I have to go through you.”
Her mouth thinned even further, and she did not move, as if she thought that she could actually stop him should he decide to force his way in—not that he’d hurt her. He’d killed a woman in the past and had no intention of doing so again, and certainly not a lady’s maid who’d no doubt never handled a knife in her life.
“Very well,” he said, stepping forward—and then staggering back, head ringing, staring at her in shock. Not only had he not even seen her move, her blow had had the weight of a tavern brawler behind it, not a soft as silk ladies maid.
“Are you insane?” he breathed, staring at her. Selucia? Hitting him!
“What the Empress sets in motion this day must not be stopped,” Selucia said calmly. “And you, though you are her husband, have shown the clarity of your loyalties when it comes to… certain matters. Therefore I shall do the ultimate duty, even though I shall die for having stuck you, Highness. I will keep you here, even if I must kill you to do so.”
“You are insane.” All Seanchan were, they had to be.
“I serve the Empress, and the Empire. In life, to death.”
He shook his head. Well didn’t that just kick the goat? But before he could think of anything more to say that would make the woman see reason, she moved, fast as a striking snake and with a grace to make a Myrddraal feel clumsy. She seemed to have sprouted new hands, so quickly did she attack, and she’d moved so close that the ashendarei was next to useless, and then it was useless in fact, as one of her blurring, knife-like hands chopped it out of his even as another struck at his temple in a way that would have left him insensate for hours had he not managed to slap the blow away. The whole time he was thinking, Selucia? Really? But then there was no more room for thought as he blocked blow after blow, each falling with the precision of long training.
Suddenly a knife was in her hands, and a sharp line of fire drew across his face under the eye that was no longer there, and he leapt back, cursing. She followed after, that blade stabbing holes in the air—and sometimes his coat, and once he himself—as he used every ounce of skill, either his or borrowed from memories stuffed in his head by the flaming foxes, to keep from ending up dead. I will do the ultimate duty, she had said. Light have mercy, she was going to skewer him! Grimacing, he went on the offensive—the damn woman left him no choice.
He caught her knife arm by the wrist, and with a twist, broke it, hating the sound and hating himself by equal measure. The blasted woman didn’t even flinch, and only a slight irritation shone through her calm, as if having her wrist broken were just a minor inconvenience. Nor did she hesitate, her right hand letting go of the knife as her left hand darted in to catch it—Thom said that he thought Mat had the fastest hands he had ever seen, but Mat thought this blasted maid would leave him in the water any day of the week—she struck in the same move, and the knife went deep, even though he saw what she was doing, and twisted aside.
Grunting, his face twisting in pain, he did the only thing he could. He punched her square in the face. She fell hard, her head slamming against the wall with a sickening crack, and did not move as he stood, swaying over her, one hand grasping the hilt of the knife that was still in him. Not a fatal wound that, but a bad one. Almost, he could wish it had been. Oh Light, she wasn’t moving. She was not moving.
Kneeling—half falling, in truth, and grunting at the red hot fire the knife sent through him—he felt for a pulse and found nothing.
“The Light damn you, Selucia.” He muttered. The Light damn me.
Soon, he would have to get up to find Tuon and stop this madness with the Tower, and tell her what had happened to Selucia, but for the moment he slumped by her side, paying respect. She had been insane, and would have killed him if he hadn’t stopped her, but still, she was owed that much.
Predicted Winner: Mat
You have until Saturday, January 28th at 9:00 p.m. PST to vote.
