Gods and Magnolias
-:- secret -:-
When she challenged the Champion a year ago, her goal was not money or fame. At the time her only goal was to win. Sitting in the stadium, hands grasping her seat, toes curled around the edge of the bench in front of her, she found that she could predict the fighters' moves and fashion a retaliation before their feet even touched the ground. In that instant the tournament lost its aura of wild brutality that had attracted and enamored her. It was a strategy game, she realized—you just had to know how to play. I could do that, she thought. And she did.
The money she concealed in the only place she was certain no one but herself would uncover—deep underground, nestled among the roots of the big magnolia in the corner of the garden. The heavy sack she could deal with late at night before she crept back to her bedroom. But what she could not hide, what could not be buried and forgotten was the deranged ovation, the undulating cry of Bandit! Bandit! Bandit!
They cried out for her.
She wished she could bottle the thrill of the fight, the shivers that ran through her when the crowd screamed, and hang them from the branches of the magnolia tree, high up where everyone could see them, but no one could take them away.