Hyperfixation Carousel

Setting: sometime during the great war, both Thalleous and Oskandor are sitting by the campfire at night. No one else is around.

"Oskandor, can I ask you something?" Thalleous asked out of nowhere, jolting the Nestoris finalist out of his own thoughts.

"Sure?"

"Why did you keep coming to the tournaments?"

"Why do you ask?"

The Sendaris shifted in his seat before turning to face him. "Well, I've seen you in the semi-finals twice, and I'm sure you've been participating since before then." Oskandor shrugged, no lies there. He has been going to the tournaments for a good while.

Thalleous continued, "Azoreus keeps coming back because he's not in this for the crown. He sees the tournaments as a way to meet and spar with skilled warriors of other clans. But you... you seem equally uninterested in the act of winning, but you come back again and again, determined to win for some reason. I'm just wondering... what's in it for you?"

Oskandor sighed, half laughing, "You probably understand this better than Azoreus. When your clan doesn't value combat, having it as the thing you spend most of your time on... earns you weird looks."

Thalleous nodded. The Sendaris clan was not big on combat, the Nestoris clan even less so. Even he recalled a few odd looks thrown his way in his youth when he spent all day in the training grounds.

"I've always been fascinated with combat. Nothing is more exciting than figuring out how to take down your opponents with as little wasted movement as possible. Unfortunately, it seemed to only frighten my clanmates." Oskandor stands up his diamond blade by its tip, etching a small ditch into the dirt at his feet.

"I go to the tournaments, so they can finally... see a point to my weirdness, so to say. They'd go 'ah, he's working towards being the Champion' instead of 'ugh, he's just bent on bloodshed'. Even though the title of Champion means nothing to me...maybe if I got it, they would finally stop looking at me like a rabid coyote that needs to be put down." The Nestoris shrugged, "And in that sense, what difference is there between me and a Voltaris? Everyone looks at us like we'll bite their faces off anyway."

With that, both finalists fell silent. After a long pause, Oskandor broke the silence. "What's in it for you, Thalleous?"

"Hm?"

"By the time I got anywhere in these tournaments, you've already been Champion four times. You could have just- stopped participating, and no one would be surprised," the Nestoris turned to face the ex-Champion, "You have made Ardoni history already. No one has ever been Champion for this long. You could have bowed out of the scene years ago and history would still remember you. So why do you keep coming back?"

The Sendaris chuckled bitterly, "Because the title of Champion...is one you wear with your own blood." he added with a grimace and a wave of his hand, "And Voltaris blood, as you've come to know."

"Wielding all four Prime Songs has done irreversible damage to me," Thalleous scoffed, "and all in the name of what? Some conquest that logically can be done with no Prime Songs involved?"

He picked up his diamond greatsword, letting its new enchanted glow catch the fire light. "I decided that before I can get it through the masters thick skulls to stop subjecting young warriors to the pain of wielding Prime Songs under the name of fame, no one else will get to be Champion if I can help it."

"And...did they listen?" Oskandor gently pressed.

There was silence for a long time.

"...we were getting somewhere, but then the war happened."

"...and Ingressus showed up." The Nestoris added.

"And you two showed up." Thalleous shot him an amused look, "Haven't felt genuine fear in that arena in so long."

"We scared the shit outta you that day, huh?"

"Oh yeah."

Thalleous added after a bit, "We should spar for fun some time after all of this is over."