I type this at the diner as I am eating breakfast. The Hartmans were surprised to see me here. They know Husband and I usually have breakfast at the house, and they probably believe we usually eat together, but today I am at the diner and I am alone.

  Husband would probably have made me breakfast if I had stayed. He perhaps would have made me a feast if I had wanted. But after waking up I got dressed and came here without speaking to him. Before I talk with him, I need to think about last night.

  Husband had offered to sleep on the couch, or even in the tent. I told him to join me in bed because after the evening at the fights I wanted a massage. I do not know if it was because of the massage or the end of the dread, but I did sleep well.

  Myra had proposed a sort of "championship" for the evening, to see who would be the final winner. She said that if I could win two fights in a row, I might seem worn out enough to be beaten in a third. It sounded like the sort of strategizing, or perhaps theatre, that Husband would approve of.

  Perhaps I should have thought of the fighting as theatre from the very beginning. But I was enjoying being successful because of what I was and what I could do. And I liked the adulation.

  I think Myra had timed the fights so that my loss would be the end of the evening. Other people fought, and the winners fought again. No one won twice, and in the end there were three winners remaining that would fight me. I did not pay attention to the fights or the fighters until it was my time. The first opponent was big. The second was fast. Neither were more of a challenge than any others had been.

  The fast one was helped or dragged out of the cage. There was a pause in the audience noise as the next opponent approached. I took some time to stretch my arms and back. Myra has said the audience likes when I do that.

  Tom's voice rang out. "And Cat's Meow is still going strong! But can she handle three fights in a row? Let's find out! Her third and last opponent this evening is…uh…The Other Guy!"

  The cage door shut and I turned.

  Husband.

  He stood there without a shirt and smiled at me. I could not speak at first.

  "...Why are you here?"

  "I'm here to fight."

  "You should not be here!"

  "Aw, but after I heard you were fighting I couldn't stay away."

  "What do you want?"

  His smile got bigger. He thought he was being clever. "Well, now, I heard you have a title here, so I thought I'd come and take it away from you." His smile got bigger still. "Just like I did in Wolves' Den."

  Husband and I never went to Wolves' Den. It is the one place in all of Eorzea where duelling is conducted. We would spar if we were inclined, but we never felt the need to find out which of us was better.

  But that fight was apparently different. Husband was telling me it was Wolves' Den, and it was a duel.

  I did not want to hurt him. I did not want him to hurt me.

  But I did not agree to lose.

  I did not know what he was planning. I assumed he was planning something. He had had time to think about it, especially if he started when he had said to me, "Maybe Myra will find someone you won't feel bad about losing to." Even if he had not thought of it right then, he would have needed time to find Myra and arrange to fight me. So it was not a sudden idea.

  I decided I needed to see what lead he would give me to follow. How he started, how he stood, how he moved, how he feinted, I believed, would tell me what he expected to happen.

  I believed wrong. When Tom called "Fight!" Husband charged.

  In the blink of an eye he was in front of me, ramming his left arm into my face. Right after that his right fist struck my stomach.

  I was no longer used to that sort of fighting. I had not had a true fight since leaving Eorzea. Earth people I fight cannot hurt me, or even slow me down unless I let them. Husband was hurting me. He was slowing me down. He was driving me back while I tried to think of what to do.

  He did not give me time to think. He did things I did not expect, things I had not seen before. He would flutter the fingers of one hand in my face before hitting me with the other. (He later said it was from "the three stooges".) He would slap and poke and ram. He would mix in Monk attacks. I tried to block it all, to slow him down, but he is as strong as I am. Once I was on the defensive with him, I remained that way.

  He finally used both his arms to ram me again, then kicked my leg to make me trip. Another kick caught me in the side, and I rolled away to come up in a crouch, resting on one knee to regain my breath. It gave me a very brief moment to think about what was happening.

  I was angry. Angry about Husband being clever without telling me. Angry about Myra making this happen by telling me to lose. Angry that the first true fight I have had since coming to this world was against the man I love.

  Perhaps that is why I fought as I did.

  Husband had been stepping toward me to finish the fight. I surged up from my crouch and drove my shoulder into his stomach. My charge lifted him off his feet and slammed his back into the cage wall.

  It forced the wind from his lungs. I wrapped an arm around him and put my fist again and again into his belly, trying to keep him from getting it back.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  He brought both fists down on my shoulders. I released him, grabbed one of the pounding arms and pulled, unbalancing him onto me. With another punch to the belly I was able to lift him off the ground and flip him over me onto the floor.

  I sat down hard on his chest. Air blew from his lips, and he shook his head as if trying to regain his senses.

  I glared down at him. He steadied and met my eyes. I raised my fist. I punched him.

  Then I punched him again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And again.

  The crowd had been cheering. They were cheering no longer. It was completely silent when I stopped hitting him. Blood was on my hand. Blood was on his face. Blood may have been on my face.

  I had not hit him enough to kill him. I doubt I had knocked him out. He could perhaps have flung me off of him, used Second Wind, and continued the fight. He did not. He simply laid there with his eyes closed.

  My anger was turning to weariness, but I think I was still scowling. I picked myself up from the floor, stepped unsteadily to the cage wall, and gripped the wire to pull myself upright. I left a trail of blood on the wire as I worked my way to the cage door.

  Tom looked frightened. Perhaps he did not want to let me out of the cage. I brought myself close to the wire.

  "I win."

  Tom pulled himself together and raised his microphone. "The winner and champion for the night…Cat's Meow!"

  He undid the latch on the cage door and stepped back. I pulled it open, held out my hand for my overcoat, and put it on.

  Then the chanting started.

  "Cat's Meow! Cat's Meow!"

  First one voice, then two, then more. As I made my way toward Myra's office the room rang with the voices.

  "CATS-MEE-OW! CATS-MEE-OW!"

  I turned, raised a hand to them, and tried to smile. The chanting continued. I opened the door and went to collect my pay.

  Myra looked unhappy as she raised her eyes from the screen on her desk. "What the hell was that? You were supposed to go down in that last fight!"

  "I told you I did not want to lose."

  "And I told you to do what I said! Do you have any idea what you just did?"

  "I got hurt for others' entertainment."

  Jonah, standing nearby, chuckled. "You shoulda seen The Other Guy." Myra glared at him, and he became quiet.

  She turned back to me. "Why the hell couldn't you listen to me? You just caused me a whole lotta grief!"

  "Can you not get money from other fights? The people are still here."

  "This isn't about them! Or you! Didn't you see the cameras out there? These fights are streamed! There's other people watching…rich people, important people. Dangerous people! People who really want the fights they bet on to go a certain way. Do you understand that?"

  I understood. Aldis in Ul'dah had said something similar about the gladiator fights, and how he had been told to lose. He did not listen. He was nearly killed for his decision.

  I am more dangerous than Aldis. Especially in this world. But these rich, important, dangerous people could perhaps still be troublesome.

  "You did not tell me this."

  "I told you to lose! Why wasn't that enough?"

  "I do not lose. But if I have caused you trouble, I will settle for base pay."

  "You really think I'm paying you for this?"

  The door behind me opened. I heard Husband's voice. "'Scuse me…this where I get paid?"

  Myra and I turned to look at him. He walked in with uneven steps. His face still had blood on it. He would have completely healed at that point, so being bloody and limping was more of his theatre.

  Myra redirected her anger. "You! You said you could beat her!"

  "I said I'd try. She's learned some new moves since the last time we fought." He approached the desk and stood beside me. "You said I'd get paid win or lose."

  "I just lost a buttload of money and got a buttload of trouble because you couldn't do the job!"

  "Not my problem. You said I could fight her and I did. You said I'd get paid."

  Myra started to reply, but stopped. Her eyes narrowed as she looked from Husband to me and back again. "Wait a minute…Are you two in this together?"

  "What, are you kidding? Did you see that fight? She beat the crap out of me! You think I'd sign up for something like that? I mean…"

  He paused and looked at me.

  I looked back at him.

  Myra looked at both of us.

  "...I mean…you wanna get a drink after this?"

  "...I would like a drink."

  "Oh, for fuck's sake!" Myra opened a drawer, grabbed a stack of money and slapped it down on the desk. "Here! Take it and get out of here! I don't want to see either of you ever again!"

  We reached for the stack at the same time. Our hands met on top. After a hesitation, Husband peeled off a third of the stack. We put the money away and turned to go.

  As the door closed behind us, I asked, "Why?"

  "Thought you should have someone worthy to possibly lose to."

  "You could not have told me about this?"

  "Got a more realistic reaction by just showing up."

  "More of your Stanislavski?"

  "Ridley Scott, actually. Look up 'alien chest burster scene'."

  "I did not lose. Did you let me win?"

  "No, my love. You won fair and square."

  "I beat the crap out of you."

  "Yes you did."

  Outside the building, a group of men was waiting for us. Perhaps they had hoped to make money betting against me.

  Husband and I looked at each other. We looked back at them. We smiled.

  They let us pass.

  Perhaps people are finally getting the message.

  We are Hyurcat. Do not fuck with us.