*quietly tags @MelonHead*



Florian faced his opponent, determination in his eyes.

The plate of cold meat occupied most of the large table in front of him. It appeared as impassive as it was five minutes prior.

I will eat you. Florian thought. He had no choice, really. He'd paid for the thing already. A King's meal, the innkeeper had told him. Composed only of the finest meat, sculpted so perfectly a greek would cry, dripping with fat and juice, like some sort of cannibal's cornucopia. Limited time only. Its very appearance was daring Florian to take it on. He was not at fault.

Florian glanced up at Lucian. The innkeeper stared back at him smugly. He'd placed the plate at his table with a certain weight to his movement. The others around Florian were eating their bread and garum quietly, looking down at their plates. Florian had seen Marcus and his parasites tackling the beast in front of him the day before. It was then he'd decided to try it. Of course, there had been four of them, and only one of him. But such odds had never scared Florian Eleuterios.

He was about to take his first bite when he heard a commotion outside. A man rushed inside, eyes alight.

"Lucian!" he exclaimed. "Come see! An Icatian gladiator has just arrived! He's in the plaza doing some demonstrations."

"An Icatian gladiator?" Lucian's eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, some big brute with crazy brown and blond hair," the man replied.

"Oh yeah, I think my cousin told about someone like that," another man in a corner said. "He was in Rome a few weeks ago, apparently that gladiator placed quite highly in the games."

Florian's ears perked up. A renowned fighter, up here in Mediolanum? This was news. He bolted up, turning in the same movement.

"What are you doing, Florian," Lucian said. "You haven't even started eating."

"If I am to die," Florian began, raising a finger skyward, "it will not be at the hands of grease, but that of a mighty warrior!"

Lucian sighed deeply.

"I say we go and take a look at this famous gladiator," Florian continued. "I will challenge him to a duel. If I win, you will eat that monstrosity at my table with me."

"And if you lose?"

"Why, I will buy another!"



The gladiator was indeed big, and was indeed strong. He loomed in the center of the theater, as two others circled him. They attacked the man simultaneously. Brennus sidestepped to the left, grabbed one, and threw him bodily onto the second.

The crowd cheered.

"Brennus!" yelled a third man, in a safe corner. He faced the crowd. "The greatest prodigy Rome's arena's have seen since the time of heroes!"

Brennus flexed his muscles appropriately. Florian grinned. Evidently, this was a practiced routine. His manager was good.

"Dare any of you stand up on this theater and challenge him?" the man in the corner continued. "Fifty denarii to any who can best him!"

The crowd exploded. There was a small riot as some threw themselves towards the theater and others rushed to pull them back. Florian dodged a flailing limb and jumped up.

"I will!" he exclaimed.

There was silence.

Florian glanced back at Lucian, who was standing a few meters from the crowd. He winked.

"I challenge Brennus the gladiator to a duel!" Florian repeated himself.

"Come forth, challenger!" the manager bellowed. "State your name!"

Florian clambered on the stage. He unclasped his cloak and let it fall to the ground theatrically.

"I am Florian the Free," he said, trying to have himself heard above the crowd's roaring. "And I am here to have my name sung throughout Mediolanum!" He raised his arms like the imperators in their triumphs. The crowd's roaring intensified.

"I am also here to avoid dying of indigestion," he muttered to himself, "but nobody needs to know that."

The manager scrambled to clear everyone off the arena. The men Brennus had previously beaten up hopped down the stage lithely. The crowd slowly quieted as the two contendents eyed each other.

Florian picked up two wooden longswords that had been discarded in a corner. He tossed one to the gladiator and winked.

"Nobody wants to get hurt here."

Brennus looked around with little understanding, his knowledge of the local language next to nothing. Still, he was able to just about work out he was being challenged when another local decided to grace the theatre with his presence. The Iceni warrior stared him down, looking part intimidating part odd with his spiked up blonde hair and muscularly lean 5ft 8” frame painted with blue spirals. His right hand nimbly caught the sword by the hilt as it was thrown at him, and he carried out a couple flourishes as an exercise, continuing to stare unflinchingly at his foe, trying to force him to maintain eye contact.

They were about ten feet away from each other, just out of decent sword-fighting range, so Brennus felt confident in his start-up theatrics. They were fighting on a fairly wide stage of about twenty feet wide by thirty feet long, so they would have some room to maneuver if necessary. He looked his foe up and down, judging his worth, a useful ability in the Arena particularly when it came to large group melee. If you could cut the least skilled foe down first it was usually pretty easy to hack away at the more talented opponents from behind. Brennus wasn’t sure what to make of ‘Florian’ quite yet, as he had yet to assume any sort of stance after throwing him a practice sword. He shrugged inwardly.

He quickly assumed what looked like a rough approximation of the ‘Plow’ guard position from the German school of longsword fighting. His left side faced his opponent while his right foot was back and turned. His sword was roughly pointed at his opponent’s chest and the pommel was just in front of his right thigh gripped in both hands. He shuffled forward a step while maintaining the stance, to close the distance and bring the fight to a more suitable fighting range of about six or seven feet. He then stood there, eying up his opponent all the while.

The warrior wasn't actually that tall, now that Florian stood closer to him. Still, he was bulky and as menacing as he was twenty feet away, if not more. After flexing for the crowd a bit Brennus assumed a very defensive guard, left side facing his right, sword close to his body. Surprisingly defensive, for a gladiator who fought for sport. Maybe he valued his life? Interesting. It was at no risk now.

Florian debated flexing for the crowd, but he knew it wouldn't have the same effect. He assumed a second position invite. His sword, in his right hand, was pointed diagonally to his left, leaving his upper body entirely uncovered. Grinning, legs bent, Florian shifted his weight slightly forward, hoping to give the impression he was closer than he actually was. Like so, Florian watched his opponent. This was rather more exciting than his food, he had to say.

"Beautiful weather, right?" he said, still smiling widely.

The crowd behind them watched, silent and wide-eyed. Florian hoped matronae everywhere were swooning.

"And so, our two brave contestants face off!" the manager said. "Will this mysterious blond man take down our champion, or will Brennus' rule remain uncontested?"

Oh yes. That was something for the Annales all right.

Brennus noted immediately that his opponent seemed not to notice his stare, but neither did he meet it. This suggested to the Iceni that Florian was probably a coward, and that this fight would be brief and uninteresting. He began to feel this was ever more likely the case when they reached a comfortable fighting distance and his foe left himself exposed and presented his sword in a particularly unthreatening way. Should Brennus have been granted the use of a shield, he would have simply bum-rushed and battered the man to the ground before beating him with the wooden sword, but such was not to be the case.

Instead, Brennus launched a fairly simple attack, stepping forward on his right foot to grant himself extra reach as he lifted his weapon slightly and pushed down with his forward hand, with the effect of delivering a speedy vertical cut towards Florian’s left shoulder, compensating for the fact that he seemed to be leaning forward slightly and would probably yank himself back when the attack came.

The beauty of Brennus’ simple assault was that it was incredibly low risk, such a cut could be blocked, but countering it was unlikely.

Florian blinked. He knew there were two kinds of people in this world: those who were immediately on guard when an opponent presented an invite, and those who attacked blindly into it. He had hoped Brennus wasn't the latter, but this too would be interesting.

It appeared Florian's simple ruse had succeeded. Brennus moved his right foot forward, striking in gran passata towards his left shoulder. A gran passata allowed the fighter to cover large distances, but was difficult to control. Florian knew this very well.

With a practiced movement, he brought his left foot forward in passata and parried Brennus' attack, moving his arm above his head, so as to position Florian's sword horizontally, point facing left, protecting his upper left body, where Brennus was attacking. His own passata allowed him to reach grappling distance -- but Florian had the advantage, since Brennus' movement would take several moments to complete, and his sword was already caught by Florian's parry.

As the gladiator completed his movement, Florian moved to grab his sword hand. If this succeeded, he would disengage his blade and take Brennus' head cleanly off.

Brennus’ strike was forceful, perhaps more than necessary for skilled sword-fighting, but such was the ferocity of his people. With both hands on his weapon stopping it with a simple parry above one’s head would be more difficult than Florian might have expected, as the blades remained in contact and neither could afford to pull away and expose themselves. It was rare for such a situation to occur in a real fight, but Brennus was not above performing theatrics for their small audience.

Florian relinquished one of his hands on his blade, and Brennus immediately doubled the pressure, really forcing his body down into the attack, while also twisting his strike at an angle that would put the end of his wooden sword directly into contact with Florian’s head unless he could withstand the stronger Iceni’s assault with one hand against two.

Florian made to grab him, but it would be difficult to know for sure if trying to reach for Brennus’ hand would be possible before he was inevitably forced to accept that he could not match Brennus in a pure contest of strength. The moment Brennus felt his opponent’s sword lower he could quickly swipe his blade left and down to club Florian’s head, scoring what would be a dangerous cut in a real fight.

Florian blinked as he saw his attempt to make a grab demolished. He had miscalculated the gladiator's range, and now found himself with a point dangerously close to his face.

He stopped and raised his free hand to the air.

"I yield!" He exclaimed, theatrically.

The gladiator glared at him. Florian dropped his sword. Brennus seemed to understand, and loosened his guard somewhat.

Florian bowed and turned to the audience. "I have been bested. Truly, Brennus is a formidable opponent. I would like you all to know Lucian's tavern, close to here, offers delicious meals at discounted prices. He said tonight everyone would have free wine!"

Cackling, Florian turned again to salute his opponent briefly again, then threw himself off the stage.

Lucian wasn't going to get off this easily.