To Yasmin's ears, the world went deathly silent when the leopard tackled her to the moist sands.
It was like this whenever things got bad. The world swam out of focus, the background noise melted away, and suddenly it was just her and her opponent, the here and the now. Everything else ceased to exist as her own world narrowed and focused to a single point, and she moved without thinking, through sheer instinct.
She was aware of the leopard's hot breath against her face, of its gripping claws digging into her shoulders like sharp, searing sparks of flame, of its wet, gleaming fangs flashing as it prepared to tear out her throat.
And then she was aware of her own arms moving, of her slippery hands twisting her sword in her grip, angling the blade upward. The leopard went for her, and she thrust up.
The world swam back into noisy focus and sped up to proper speed again as her sword slid up through the leopard's jaw and up into its skull. With a grunt, she gave the blade a sharp twist to be sure, and the leopard shuddered once before going very still.
Which, of course, meant its full weight collapsed onto her.
Leopards weren't very big as far as large cats went, but exhausted as she was right then, it felt like a lot. Heaving a breath, Yasmin shoved the dead animal off of her to the roaring applause of the crowd. She climbed to her feet shakily and planted her sandal-clad foot on the leopard so she could wrench her sword out of it. Then, with a wide grin up at the crowd, she saluted with her sword and took a bow, turning to face all sides of the Colosseum and even blowing kisses to some of the spectators.
"Thank you, all!" she called, still beaming. "It was a pleasure having you all here! Watching me, yet again, slay some cornered cat! Yay! I know how exciting that is! Apparently! Because blood and death! How exhilarating! Whoo!"
Not that they could hear her. Certainly not over all the noise.
She gave a final bow and then turned to limp out of the arena where several men, including her master, were waiting to tend to her. It was only when she was out of sight of the crowd that she stumbled and collapsed against one of the attendants, who caught her and set her upright again.
"Ugh, sorry," she said, wiping a hand across her face and smearing red there. "Damned cat got me good."
And he had, for the front of her right thigh had a good, deep scratch in it from when she'd jumped back too late and gotten raked by the leopard's claws. Blood streamed from the wound, which another attendant had begun to bandage.
Yasmin shrugged, grinned. "Not as good as I got it, though." She glanced back at the arena where a small crew was cleaning up after the leopards. Plural. There had been two, at first. One would have been too easy or something.
"Still not good enough," her master, a tall, strong man, interjected. "This is the second time you've faced injury in as many weeks. You're getting careless."
"Careless?!" Yasmin said, eyes going wide. "Are you kidding me? We're talking my life here! That's pretty much the last thing I'm careless about!"
"Perhaps careless was the wrong word," her master said with a roll of his eyes. "You could do better. I've seen it."
Frowning, Yasmin wiped her nose. "Ohhhhh. You lost some money gambling today, didn't you? You know, you need to stop taking bad bets. I'm not gonna be able to buy myself out of this if you keep losing our--"
Her master shot her a look that silenced her.
Once she was properly bandaged up and the bleeding stopped, her master took her by the arm. "Let's go. We'll find you a healer. Again," he said, and pulled her along, grumbling something about her upkeep costing more than what he earned in the shows.
Wincing, Yasmin stumbled after him, out of the Colosseum and out into the sunlight of the Essyrni marketplace.
Another day, another healer, and all she really wanted to do right then was sleep.
