Leading up to the match that day, I’ve gone and got a nice shave, cleaned the more unruly and primitively intelligent heaps of rubbish out of my office, and fixed myself a healthy breakfast by picking the pig fat out of my Big Moot Number Nine. I’m feeling good about today. It’s a good day to lose to elves.<\/p>\n
And they’re all good days from here on out, aren’t they? No debts to pay off. No falling axes to dodge. My meals are provided by the sponsor and my salary is fixed by pitifully grateful investors. Sure, our fans are a tad on the worrisome side, but I have worrisome people for that sort of thing. It’s just such a breath of fresh air to know there’s nothing on the other side of an all-gracious clobbering but a snack and a modest paycheck.<\/p>\n
There’s a knock on my office door. Some of my calm crinkles; the knock came from groin height. “Come on, then,” I say.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Pervince skulks in; he’s got his fuck-offs strapped on and a king-sized black eye from the tender ministrations of the Scaryville Uggos. I wouldn’t say it makes him look intimidating; there’s not a lot color, texture, and form can do within the basic parameters of a halfling to have that effect.<\/p>\n
And yet, images of a stunned werewolf spurting fat gobs of blood flicker uneasily in my head. I push my half-eaten sandwich aside. “Mister Potatoe. How are you liking the new helmet?”<\/p>\n
“The spike comes in useful,” he says.<\/p>\n
“You clean it after the match, right?”<\/p>\n
“Nope.”<\/p>\n
“Charming. Listen, I’ve been detecting a little tension in the locker room. I hope you’re here to straighten that out…”<\/p>\n
“Do you think we’re going to win today?”<\/p>\n
Never has such an easy question from such a ridiculous critter been so pregnant with foreboding. I take a moment to swallow my spit, check that I’ve got my brass knuckles in my drawer\u00e2\u20ac"not that I’ll need them, just that I always like to have them on hand when I’m gambling.<\/p>\n
“Nope,” I say, and let it ride. From his blank look, I break even.<\/p>\n
“Of course not,” he says. “That doesn’t bother you, either.”<\/p>\n
“You know, I can’t say it does.”<\/p>\n
“So what happened to the big speech about us going out there and playing like champions? Was that about overcoming adversity or was bullshit just cheaper for you than kneepads?”<\/p>\n
“You missed the point of that speech. You do play like champions. Then you lose<\/i>. My position is that I’m happy with that. I think we’re all doing the best we can and I think it’s healthy to accept that’s not always going to be enough to take home a trophy. Still try<\/em>, obviously, but…”<\/p>\n “Healthy,” says Pervince.<\/p>\n “Is that what I said? Yes. I think it’s healthy.”<\/p>\n “You didn’t look healthy when we were winning yesterday.”<\/p>\n I push the rest of my sandwich to him. “Listen, Perv, I don’t know what’s going through your lovingly concussed head right about now, but I don’t want you to lose. I just accept it’s likely. Don’t you?”<\/p>\n “Why should I?”<\/p>\n “Because you’re going to be crushed!”<\/p>\n “Maybe.” He takes my sandwich and goes to leave.<\/p>\n “Somebody has to be last place, Pervince,” I call before he slams the door.<\/p>\n When my hackles resettle, I take one last gawp at my plans for the day\u00e2\u20ac"my notes from the last time we went up against a wood elf team. Short notes in a shaky hand. Put the ball close to the line to give us a chance at it. Everything comes down to the toss. Use his nerves. KILL THE THROWER.<\/i><\/p>\n Well…it had worked last time. I wasn’t placing any bets either way. But if I did–Pervince’s confidence be damned–it wasn’t going to be on the boy alchemically indistinguishable from a honey ham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leading up to the match that day, I’ve gone and got a nice shave, cleaned the more unruly and primitively intelligent heaps of rubbish out of my office, and fixed myself a healthy breakfast by picking the pig fat out of my Big Moot Number Nine. I’m feeling good about today. It’s a good day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-play"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}