Where the Young Prince Stands

             Shabaka hugged Amare and broke down crying. She couldn’t forgive herself. She was trying to hurt her own family in every one of her four fights. And what for? To somehow protect them, to not be a burden. They were supposed to be there for each other, not try life and limb to destroy one up one another.             “I… I… I’m so sorry,” sobbed Shabaka into Amare’s chest. “I didn’t want to hurt you, I didn’t want to lose, I just want to help, I don’t want you all to take care of me.” Amare pet her between her ears. Bard swooped in and hugged her.             “You are my little sister,” Amare said. “It is my job to take care of you. Don’t worry about being a burden on us. Because you aren’t, and never will be.”             “I’m sorry for putting you through this,” said Bard. “The tournament was a horrible idea. I should never have held it.”             “You don’t need to apologize,” said Shabaka, turning her eye to Bard. “But thank you.”             Smalls clapped h

             Tilian spat out of the wood between his dagger fangs. “I’m gonna be finding splinters for weeks,” he said.             Meanwhile, Smalls stood frozen. He clearly wasn’t upset, he wasn’t the kind to get upset with people, but he knew what this loss meant. He was out of the championship race it would come down to a winner take all match between Shabaka and Amare. Shabaka must have been letting her anxiety show, because the next thing she felt was her father’s hand on her shoulder.             “You alright Shabby Cat?” he asked using a nickname that made Shabaka feel like a little girl again.             “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. This just feels big.”             “You can take a few extra minutes if you like,” replied Bard.             “Please go if you like,” said Amare. “It won’t be an issue with me.” Shabaka knew her eldest sibling was not trying to be malicious, but the elf cultural honesty could sometimes feel harsh.             “No,” said Shabaka looking up thr

             Three could still win the tournament, two could not. Those three were Amare, Smalls, and Shabaka. The match order was not announced yet, but only two possible matchups remained. Shabaka vs Amare, and Smallblade vs Tilian. If Smalls won his match, Shabaka could no longer win the tournament, at best she could match his score and he would win the tiebreaker. In this scenario Shabaka could purposefully lose to Amare, drawing the scores of those two and giving Amare the tiebreaker win. She threw off this idea, winning the tournament was secondary to winning as many individual matches as possible. But if Smalls lost, or even tied, Shabaka’s match against Amare would be winner take all.             “Alright,” sung Bard. “Go rest my children, and when you return, the order of this climax shall be determined.”             Everyone knew their final opponents through process of elimination. That was why Shabaka handed the watch over to Vito. It was also why she avoided making eye

            Shabaka slowly got back up to her knees. Her first loss was painful, a depression fell over her, one that made her enraged. She felt as if the world had come to an end, and she had to wonder why she cared so much about this game with her siblings. The fight to hold back the tears was even harder than the one she just had with Smalls.             A large green hand reached out to her. Shabaka looked up and saw the gentle giant smiling. She wanted to knock the hand away and spit in the face of the one who had beat her, but she couldn’t. Not only because she knew it was inherently wrong, but because she was not really angry at him, she was angry at the concept of defeat itself. She took his hand, rose, and hugged him. She felt comfortable in his humongous and strong arms, feeling the rhythm of his heartbeat and his chest rise and fall. This gentle and kind creature had just been extremely violent, it was that family fire.             Shabaka went back to the sidelines and