Pasarga 0 - 2 Nephara
(4-4-2) 1 - Mercator; 2 - Stride (18 - Rostock 62'), 5 - Thorn (c), 6 - Brosch, 3 - Muscadin; 13 - Saroszi (7 - Kuepper 77'), 4 - Shone (15 - Kastriot 84'), 21 - Moxham, 11 - Deventer; 9 - Bastable, 14 - Tzorvas
Goals: Bastable 52', 81'
Extracts from the Book of Thorn.
It turned out Kurtis Bastable can play the tambura.
We needed last night to break the tension. Training ended early. People were tired, jaded; Strauss had run us hard, harder with the influence of Herrick behind her.
We knocked off, went for a few drinks. A couple. Just enough to loosen our tongues a bit, when the news came through that the Vanorian Emperor ate the dust.
Well, fuck it! Nothing gets people together like a constitutional crisis!
I think it was Lothaire who started singing. One of the old songs, a proper Marcher anthem about the boys going north to escape their broken homes and find their fortunes. Kurtis disappeared, then re-emerged with his tambura. Lothaire can sing; I cannot. Not many of us can. We'd fairly quickly shunted everyone else from the bar, but did anyone dare throw us out?
Well, yeah, but it took a couple hours and we just went somewhere else, anyway. Lasted another hour. Took it to the streets.
It was good to cut loose a bit. We needed that. Felt a bit more pride, a bit more trust in the people around me. Saw Vivica and Monako beat up a guy. They hadn't gone on so well before, I think, but ever since? Thick as thieves.
And I reignited things with Ilyana. The time felt right.
[There's a sketch of Bastable playing a long stringed instrument, as described. He is shirtless and Marica Kuepper has stars for eyes, not as described. Herrick looms in the background with a steel chair.]
--
It all came together, I fucking knew it would!
We clicked like we hadn't since-- not even since the 7-1, we still fucking conceded then. Here? Here it clicked.
Oh, to have played like this in the Final a year ago...
The opposition was basically an all-star Goldleague outfit. Lot of guys I knew the inside track on, me or Monako. And my teammate Jager, love the prick, a proper competitor. But I know how to handle him. I've done it in training multiple times a week for years.
Did a lot of handling in the first half. Lot of running, chasing, swearing, in the dusty red kits still fresh from the memory of the Final, Strongbow's red. But we had 'em under control. 4-4-2 vs. 4-4-2. They had drive and vim and all that shit, and looked dangerous a couple times. Like seven minutes in, Gersten cuts inside Muscadin and shoots, I helpfully get out a leg and nearly send it past Hesterine, who's at full stretch to tip it against the inside of the post and it's pure luck that keeps it rolling in anyway. Ilyana's pace pays off; she beats Mueller and Csapo to it, drives it into the stratosphere. Mercator catches the corner, then we nearly score at
their end but it looks like Arista's just dwelled on it too long, let herself be muscled to the floor by Meier. We're not crying for a penalty over that. It's a contact sport.
Neither side lets themselves get cut open like that again, not in the first half. Kurtis had a shot blocked from a good position. I took one full in the tits from Csapo. Never trust any cunt who willingly goes to the fucking wetlands.
Still, by the end we were narrowly easing on top. Just not quite the cutting edge, not yet. That'll happen when it's a meeting of two of the strongest centre-half partnerships in world football.
Never did believe in false modesty, myself.
It's the fifty-somethingth minute. Deventer down the left - wham! Cleaned out by Csikos. Even our boys are looking for a foul here; no dice. Deventer gets to her feet. Looks limping a bit. But it's just an act, is what she tells me. And Vivica knows it, running up to take the throw-in, looking at her options before suddenly breaking it down the left, a long hurl over the top of Csikos and Deventer is
not offside 'cause that's how throw-ins work and the cross comes in and where's Kurtis? Hanging back towards the edge of the box. The cross thuds into his chest. It drops. He hammers the ball high into the top corner.
Bit of trickery. Bit of guile. Bit of cunning. A damn good cross. A whole heap of ruthlessness.
The rest of the game was kinda calm. Like... calm before the storm, but the storm wasn't coming. It's not that Pasarga didn't try. That they didn't have the tools to break us, on another day. But they had to come at us hard, snatch back an equaliser, but we were on our shit. Ilyana and me, we know each other, we have that instinctive cover. Mercator was on her shit. And not much was getting through anyway because Tawny had the game of her life, destroying without fouling, inch-perfect here there and everywhere. Linde added some stability on my right, too, I'm thankful for that. I love Little Ro but she really needs to track the fuck back more often. She comes on and Csapo finally goes quiet, thank God, and Szolossy comes on only to be quiet too.
And then one attack gets broken down by me, crashing through, battling my man Jager. He steps on my ankle but I get there first, falling, sliding, hooking it away, crumpling. He falls on me. It fucking hurts.
I had to look on twii.tur to find out what happens next, which is; the ball gets to Chimera Moxham, who's been quiet. She passes to Muscadin, to Deventer, who squares it back to her, she's shepherded away from goal, sends it back to Shone who sends it back and she feints with her back to goal, sending her marked Foldessy the wrong way as she plays in Tzorvas with a flick of her boot, Tzorvas leathers it, Szatmary parries instinctively, a great reflex save but it can only bounce into the path of Kurtis Bastable...
And that's the part I see. The important bit.
The boys are getting ready to go out and party again. Not so much we'll be wiped for training tomorrow, but enough to loosen it again.
Kurtis is bringing the tambura.