i don't know how i lived without it. it was all i cared about for a time, nothing else mattered and nothing else would ever come close to it. the roar of the audience in the grand arena. earth shaking, brain rattling, heart pumping...


	my first memory of a real fight was in a mud pit some low ranking lord had made for his own and his family's entertainment on their land. we would beat each other to near death for the scraps of their food thrown over the balcony to us like dogs.


he eventually realized he could charge his noble friends a small fee for them to come and watch his home made arena of starving young men and boys fight tooth and nail for whatever was thrown. that's how i made it out, through one of his guests. he came down to me after the fighting was over and asked me if i wanted to have a real fight, for a real reward. i of course said yes to this as the promise of anything more than half eaten bread and chicken bones was like the call of a siren to me.


	my first day in the real fighting pits was horrifying. i didn't understand at the time how many people would be fighting in the pit at once, in the noble's home it was only five or six of us there, and only two or three would fight at a time. but here - maybe twenty of us would fight at once.


	i remember the first man i killed in that pit. we were surrounded by all the other fighters who were busy with their own fights. but i could swear it was just him and myself. he had cut my hand and the grip on my sword was getting worse and worse as i bled more. he parried one of my blows and i dropped my sword - a death sentence usually. in a desperate attempt to save myself i swung my shield arm towards his head. the pit master said i hit him in his throat and he collapsed. i stood and found my sword, and drove it through the back of his neck into the ground.


	there he was. the first man i had killed. impaled through the neck on his knees. ill never forget the sight, and the sounds... the audience erupted into cheers as i stood victorious in the center of the arena. still surrounded by fighting and those who had already met their end. all i could think was that i don't remember hitting him with my shield, or standing and finding my weapon. all i remember is the moment before i drove my sword downwards. and the rush i felt afterwards knowing i had won.


	the routine of fighting and winning in the pits became normal to me. i had started to enjoy it. knowing that if i won the crowd would see me, and love me for what i had done. i was eventually approached by the man that took me from the nobles mud pit. he told me he wanted to enter me into the grand arena. real fighters, real armor and weapons, but an enormous crowd. the crowd size was all i cared about, i wanted to hear them cheer my name, and i would give them a treat for my first victory.



	i would go on to win my first fight in the arena against a gladiator using two small axes. my victory was reached when he attempted to swing both axes over his head down onto me. i stepped in and raised my two handed sword above my head. he brought his arms down onto my blade and both of his hands were severed clean off. he fell to his knees, screaming i'm sure, but all i could hear was the thousands of people cheering. cheering for me. they see me, they know me, and they want more. i drive my sword through the back of his neck into the ground as i had done the first man i killed. the audience grew louder still as the wide blade of my greatsword decapitated him wholly, and his body was left leaning against my sword in the ground.



	i would live for this feeling, ending every fight i could with the same form of beheading.



earth shaking. brain rattling. heart pumping.



applause.