Matthew led them down through a disorienting path through the castle that led to, strangely, the grand entryway where the delegations had been received a few days ago.

On consideration, it actually made sense. The entryway was large enough to accommodate several groups, and no one would be using the place for the duration of the International Assembly. The Royal Knights with bows up in the rafters, and those at the doors could keep an eye on things. Anyone who needed to enter the castle would do so through more subtle doors, or was already inside, so there doors out would not need to open.

The afternoon light coming in through the windows provided sufficient illumination, but as was traditional, glowing prism stones of different colors were arranged on the ground to mark out the boundaries of the fighting. Those waiting their turn to fight all sat around those boundaries, while the host of each fight club—a torch in hand as was traditional—stood to one side to oversee the fight.

There were seven such arrangements of prism stones spread out across the entryway, with four of them focused on one-on-one duels that the ancients called Peeveepee. Two were running doubles, where two teams of two were dueling. One host seemed to be hosting fisticuffs, where the duelist were fighting with bare fists without any sort of weapons at all, though everyone still wore their armor.

Spread along the edges of the entryway, those who were only spectating stood, many leaning back languidly against the walls, hand supporting the opposite elbow as they held their chins. Some people didn't even need the wall, which had Katarina starring when she saw them. For some reason, a whole line of such people were 'leaning back' together on an imaginary wall as some strange display of coordinated balance.

"So… this is the fight club?" Katarina asked. "It's… not what I thought it would be."

"What did you think it would be?" Maria asked, curious.

"Well… for some reason I thought it would be in the basement," her squire said. "And that we wouldn't be allowed to talk about it."

"There isn't nearly enough room in the castle basement," Matthew said. "At least, not for this many people."\

"Dame Matthew would know"," Maria said. "I didn't know where to go, and I believe she has a standing invitation to attend." Indeed, people had noticed Matthew entering the hall. Women bearing a colossal shield on their backs tended to draw attention almost as much as women carrying giant blood-splatted cleavers. Matthew seemed to recognize some people, nodding at them but staying with her and Katarina as they walked. Maria supposed the way she fought with her shield was still a novel challenge people were interested of testing themselves against.

Katarina blinked, turning towards one of the rings. "I thought it would be more… violent."

"You're thinking the illegal fighting pits," Matthew said. "These are all friendly duels, so it's basically sparring with enthusiasm. People come here to test and show their skills, not to hurt anyone. No gambling is allowed beyond who's getting who drinks afterwards. It will be a while before I'll be able to fight because there are probably people ahead of me, so why don't you go and mingle? Don't worry. According to tradition, one's rank doesn't matter in a fight club, so you don't need to worry about etiquette so much. All that matters is that you adhere to the fight club's rules."

Maria was slightly heartened when instead of celebrating, Katarina turned to look to her for confirmation. The blonde knight nodded at her squire.

Still, Katarina hesitated. "Well… what are the rules, then?"

Was that from a loss of innocence or increasing maturity?

"Why don't you ask people as a way of introducing yourself?" Maria suggested. She reached into her coat's pocket and drew out a tied cloth. "Here. Something for you to share."

Katarina accepted the little bundle, and her gaze suddenly sharpened. "Cookies," she declared, almost to herself. "Oatmeal raisin… no, that and hazelnut caramel… twelve each… baked today, about six hours ago… you had these delivered from your estate?"

Why was she not surprised her squire could tell that from weight alone? "Yes," Maria said. "Now go and make friends. You don't need to join the spars, but you might enjoy yourself if you try." She handed Katarina back her sword, the peacebond ribbon removed.

Maria and Matthew watched as Katarina walked towards the group she had indicated, cookies in hand. Her squire was literally the only person she was confident could make friends in a place like this with cookies in lieu of hard alcohol of some sort.

"If she gets made fun of…" Matthew threatened through gritted teeth.

"She won't be made fun of," Maria assured her. "Katarina can literally make friends with someone who kidnapped her with the intention of using her as political leverage. A few jaded foreigns knights is nothing."

"…that's not hyperbole, is it."

"No."

"Katarina literally once made friends with someone who kidnapped her for use as political leverage."

"They're quite close, and that person considers Katarina a dear friend now. You should ask my squire about it some time."

"…that… I don't even know what to say."

"Some variation of 'only Katarina' is what we go with."

"I'm still making you suffer."

"So I recall."

A Katarina Interlude

Katarina watched. Katarina waited. Katarina… didn't want to embarrass herself. Well, no, that was a lie, she was perfectly fine with embarrassing herself. She didn't want to embarrass herself in a way that made mother disappointed in her… again. On the same should wait a month, at least. Maybe even two months.

So she didn't jump to conclusions. She looked at the woman intently to ascertain her identity. She checked her weapon, to make double sure. Then she did both again, just to be safe.

"Uh, Katarina… what are you doing?"

Katarina gave the woman a very serious look. "Siegadme?"

"Yes?"

Finally, Katarina let out a sigh of relief. "Oh good! It's really you and not just someone who looks like you! I was worried there. Hi, Siegadme! Nice to see you again." She held up what Maria had given her. "Have a cookie! It doesn't matter which one you get, they're both good!"

"Oh… thank you?" She took a cookie hesitantly, which showed she hadn't had a good cookie in a while, and definitely not a Maria cookie. Once you had a Maria cookie, you checked every cookie you ran into in hopes that they were a Maria cookie.

"Enjoy!" Katarina said, not doubting that she would. She smiled at the people around them, some of them she recognized as people she'd thought were Siegadme before she'd been corrected. "Hi Siegevey, hi Sieglizabeth! It's nice to see you two again too! Cookie?"

The two knights who kinda looked like Siegadme glanced at her, and when she nodded, hesitantly took a cookie.

"This is your first fight club, I take it?" Siegadme said.

"Yes! How did you know?"

"Most people don't take cookies to a fight club."

Eh? Why not? "Eh? Why not? Are there cookie thieves?"

Siegadme laughed. "No, not any that I'm aware of. But if this is your first fight club, do you know the rules?"

Katarina shook her head. "My knight and Cousin Matthew said I needed to ask around to find out what the rules are. They said it was tradition. I don't see why I couldn't ask them, though…"

"Ah. Well, let me tell you the rules, then. The first rule of fight club is that you don't talk while you're waiting for your turn in the fight club…"

Katarina nodded as she listened to the rules. She wasn't going to embarrass herself this time! She was going to listen to all the rules, and she was going to follow them. Thankfully, there weren't many, and they mostly boiled down to 'don't mess with people's fights', 'don't cheat in fights', and 'don't be a bad audience'. Though some, like 'no using Light Magic on yourself during your match' wasn't really something she could do. Though now she understood why there were circles of prism stones on the ground. She thought it was just reserved seating for everyone's pet rocks!

"So, are you going to try your luck?" Sieglizabeth asked.

"Ah, I don't think so," Katarina said, rubbing the back of her head. "I'm just here to support my cousin and maybe make some new friends. I don't really—"

Katarina cut off as a woman carrying a stylized scythe, the blade formed from several square, cleaver-like razors mounted on a curving frame stepped into one of the circles of prism stones. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the bastardized, defiled, ruined farming tool in the admittedly pleasant, friendly-looking woman's hands..

"Ah… I know that look…" Siegadme said, a knowing smile on her face. "So you want to challenge Lady Vardan? You'll have to wait. A lot of people will be wanting to challenge her, she's a famous for the elegance of her scythe-play."

Katarina Claes felt her farmer's soul, steeped in the darkness of fertilizer and marinated in sweat from day working under the sun and rain, twitch violently for some reason. "I… talk to the host guy of the circle, right? The one with the torch?"

"Yes," Siegevey said. "Then you sit down and wait your turn at the circle. Do you have a weapon?"

Katarina patted her sheathed sword at her side.

"Then you should be set. But… uh, before that…"

"Yes?"

"Could I have another cookie? Please?"

"Uh, could I also have some?"

"And me?"

"Oh, sure! Let's finish the cookies first so they don't get crushed!"