🧚 Nobility and it's cost 🧚

I trace my finger across the deep rivets and markings, the rampant lion on the left, mirrored by the prancing stallion on the right, a crown proud atop a castle in the centre above the Project Honor crest. Zirconia diamonds all around the edge which sparkle when the light catches it. Validation.

Over the weeks that have passed, I had listened to the same mantra on repeat that I was lucky, that I beat the other guy, that I was an opportunist and when push came to shove, I’d be exposed as a fraud.

This hunk of leather and gold and precious jewels suggested otherwise, and yet there was this hanging feeling over me that I wasn’t certain it was worth it. Putting myself in the public eye, being exposed in other ways.

“Hello, pixie dust.” I could still hear his sickly sweet rasp in my ear. It drove feelings through me that I thought I’d escaped for the rest of my life.

Vulnerability that I had long since squashed down and forgotten about, suppressed to manifest itself only in my failed attempts at establishing a healthy adult relationship.

On the surface, I projected myself as a tough firecracker, willing to take on the world. But in that moment, two weeks before Disputed Territory, I couldn’t have been weaker. His hand around my throat had me shrinking down into the twelve year old that shook and convulsed each and every time I felt his breath on the back of my neck, and his thick filthy claws dug into my thighs as he did unspeakable things to me until I blacked out. I’d wake up and there’d be candy on the dresser. His way of letting me know that he was sorry, he hadn’t meant it. And of course, I bought it.

Whatever.

It was in the past and I didn’t intend to re-live it. But there he was, in all his glory. Ripping out all those years of self-growth as I instantly regressed. Was it worth it? To give him back that power over me? He promised me that he’d be with me for the rest of the tour, and there was nothing I wanted less. Every time I left my hotel room over the following weeks, he’d be there, sitting with an unlit cigar between his lips, Stetson resting on his knee, sat on a chair near the elevator on my floor of the hotel. The anger he stirred in me certainly helped me on my quest to overthrow Kayla, but reality was that I had her number either way.

I’d made a deal that after this show, I’d dip. Vincent and Vhodka were going to fly me back home to celebrate for a little bit, show JJ and the others my belt. I asked if I could have a door for my room, Vhodka said yes, but Vincent said only half a door. We’ll see what they’ve done to my abode when I get there. In the meantime, I had to keep avoiding him, or making sure I was around enough of the others that he didn’t get the confidence to try anything. I had thought I’d fucked up by befriending Dickie after Wired Consequences, because for a bit in the gap nobody seemed interested in making nice with me at all. But I guess now that I put paid to Kayla, all of a sudden I’m hitting the right notes.

I’d dropped a DM to both of my partners for the upcoming show and they’d both offered to chaperone me around the hotel when I needed to go to train or to eat. Savannah was a sweetie, and always gave him the stinkeye when we passed. He would always chuckle to himself, so full of himself that he perceived no threat, I could tell. But she had my back. And she didn’t need to. We were partners this week, but don’t think the topic of her becoming the number one contender to my belt hadn’t come up. We’d agreed that we’d had enough negativity in our dealings with Kayla Richards and we’d keep it on a competitive level, and leave the shit talk and negativity out of it.

But by far the most amusing moment of my week, and possibly my life, was when I walked down the hallway with Julius Fairweather, and as we got closer I could see my stepfather tightening in his chair, tense. I knew why he was getting tense. I’m sure by the way I’m explaining it, you can guess too. His bushy moustache was beginning to furrow and his eyes narrowed. I knew exactly what to do, I just had to pray that Julius was reading the situation the same way I had.

He was almost standing as his legs were so tense, his back arched. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was a snake, coiled and ready to strike. But that’d mean he had a backbone. And this scumbag could be accused of many things but having a backbone wasn’t one of them. Julius was on board, like he read my mind, he wrapped his big muscular arm around my shoulders and pulled me close into his chest, and paused in front of the weather-beaten cowboy looking shell of a man.

“You should mosey on down the road, ya Roadhouse-lookin’ motherfucker.”

My stepfather’s jaw dropped. Nobody spoke to him like that, ever. Especially not ‘one a them black folk’. And I mean, I’m doing my best to not repeat that sentence verbatim because some of the words would have been swapped for different ones.

“He the one botherin’ you?”

“Can’t choose your family. Unfortunately.”

“I’ll put a word in, get him banned from the tour or something.” He said, as he pushed the button on the elevator panel for the restaurant.

“You can do that?” I ask.

“They gave me my own exclusive, I bet I can get some Piggy Wiggly coupon clipping stamp collecting motherfucker kicked out of our shows.”

Fair point, I conceded, still laughing.

It amused me, to see the look on his face as he all but disappeared back into his chair. Later on at night, it was playing on my mind as I thought about what I’d been through to get here. I ran my fingers across the Noble Championship once more.

“Funny thing. Yet another chance to prove myself against Kayla.”

“And yet, the one that is supposed to be in my crosshairs, she’s got my back. But that’s fine. Because there’s enough negativity emanating from Kayla to keep us all full for the rest of our lives. Lets just get back to the good old days of throwing hands and finding out who’s standing at the end of it.”

“Alongside the black hole of negativity, we have a fellow fire enthusiast who has often been around when I have been preparing my firesticks, asking questions. Seems like a perfectly reasonable human, although he has put his hands in a few too many fires as of late. He got twisted up with Drago, then Julius, and its all a bit messy. He stands across the ring from me and my team this week. No ill will, but when fire meets fire, it is going to get hot. I hope he’s as good as his word, and he can take it just as well as he can dish it out.”

“And Valkyrie? Honestly, she was a let down. I thought she was better than she was. No shade, but yeah. I had her pegged as a potential firework of her own that would set the division alight. I am pleased for Savannah, truly, and it makes me feel bad to say that the outcome shocked me. Its because I have spent some time in the company of people who have a history with Robi Mitchell, and she was always highly touted. I guess that speaks volumes about Savannah and her credentials, and what I have to look forward to in competing with her.”

“And in competing with her I will have to tackle it, but this week we will be working together, and more than anything that is an opportunity to learn, and an opportunity to show the world once again that we are the trailblazers that are going to change the face of this division, and by proxy, this brand, organization and the wrestling world as a whole. Mark my words. #StartTheMatriarchy.”