#cai.

WHEN: days prior to the blood brawl

WHO: closed for @ircncrowned

She’s fought all her life to keep away that insidious, parasitic thing called doubt. It preys on those of weak will and lesser worth, it roots in the hollows of their bellies and poisons them from the inside.

Now, allow Divina a moment to make perfectly clear: the knots tightly cinched in her own stomach are not that. To doubt her chances of victory in her upcoming Blood Brawl debut would require a healthy, warranted fear of the ancient Shiva—one that Divina wholly lacks. 

Instead, she feels the rumble of a familiar hunger—a terrifying, empty feeling that grows each time she hears passing whispers betting a month’s worth of Blood Yen on her defeat.

In truth, no matter the key in which it’s sung or the melody that accompanies the word, there is no complimentary way in which to be called an underdog. Anger simmers into annoyance as Divina remembers it is, after all, her first Brawl. Those who underestimate her will soon be corrected. Publicly.

Privately, she does what any performer would with new, unfamiliar material. She rehearses. She knows well enough where her strengths lie—deception, evasion, endurance. Where she lacks—hand-to-hand-combat—she knows as well. 

How lucky, then, to have a friendly Cicada to call upon?

Heavy wood panels cover the Opera Theatre stage, and as she paces back and forth across its width, from wing to wing, Divina’s each step is followed by a familiar thump and its resounding echo through the empty auditorium. A creak of the door springs her head upwards. 

“You came!”

The smile that comes next is perhaps wider than she’d meant, and she works to soften the bunched edges of her cheeks and pull her excitement back, just a little, before a conspicuous flush of carnation tells the tale regardless. She settles her gaze on Cai, and with her mind’s eye, she makes real an illusionary grand welcome for her guest—a shower of cherry blossoms float gently from the space beneath the painted ceiling, and a spotlight guides the Cidada queen-in-waiting towards the stage to join her.