Fool's Gold | God Tamer x Tiso

Chapter 6 - In Which Tiso Asks Why Tamer Fights

"I don't know, warrior," she looked at him expectantly. "Why did you challenge me?"

Tiso asks Tamer why she fights. She asks him the same.

—

"You'd be surprised how many warriors skip over this," Tamer told Tiso, focused on her task. "They walk into the arena with neglected armor, and then wonder why their plates are so easy to cut through."

Tamer was caring for her gear after the match. She sat at the edge of the hot spring pool, just her legs in the water. The look of concentration on her face was mesmerizing, even if Tiso could only catch it through the small holes of her helmet. In her hands she held her chest piece, inspecting and cleaning it as if it were worth a million geo, but with her name attached to it, it might as well be.

"It's not just about how clean it is either," Tamer continued, "that's another mistake a lot of warriors make. They seem to believe that an armor's worth is equal to how much it shimmers under the light. Many fools tell me my armor looks cheap compared to theirs, but when it comes to pass, their armor is the one that crumbles."

Tiso found that he was watching her, her hands, how they wiped away the sickly infection as if it were nothing. The globs of filth that she washed away, accompanied by dripping soul, it made his stomach twist looking at it. He had seen the bug this soul had belonged to, he had watched each blow that poured it out onto Tamer and her blade. That soul had animated a bug just earlier today, now it was nothing more than filth on a blade, needing to be washed away. Tiso looked away. Tamer didn't notice, as she just went on about the best way to wax a chestplate.

That easily could've been him, and the thought plagued his mind. The thought of being stabbed through the heart, the thought of the calloused hands that patched his wounds driving a blade through his shell. The thought that he was weak, the thought that he's only alive because Tamer allowed him to be.

"Why do you fight in the arena?" Tiso asks once Tamer's lecture comes to an end, not that he'd been paying much attention to it anyway. "Most warriors come here for glory, is that why you came?"

At first, Tamer seemed shocked to have been asked such a question. She sat up, her posture becoming stiff, and she took a moment to think about her answer, facing him but not looking at him. "I think you're the first bug to ever ask me that," is what she said at last. "No one ever asks a fool why they fight, it's such a stupid question."

"If it's so stupid then what's the answer?"

"I don't know, warrior," she looked at him expectantly. "Why did you challenge me?"

"To prove myself," Tiso said after a pause. "I wanted to prove that I was strong enough to do it."

"Well, warrior," she shrugged, "there's your answer."

—

Another warrior challenges the Trial of the Fool, this one more skilled than the last.

Tiso watched as they took on the trial, besting their enemies along with the changing terrain. This warrior knew what they were doing, their skill level above any challenger Tiso had seen before. They took down their foes with a certain precision. Every movement of theirs was calculated and meaningful. They did nothing that didn't guarantee them the upper hand.

The audience loved them, if the ear splitting cheers of excitement were anything to go by. Tiso heard one viewer lean towards another, whispering that this one might actually have a chance. The bug they were whispering to chuckled, elbowed them, and reminded them just who their champion was.