<span style="font-family:Pontano Sans">Mabel wasn’t quite sure whether the gladiator’s attempt at a smile was comforting or not. She wasn’t sure whether it helped her or not and she wasn’t sure whether it helped or hurt any potential trust between them, either. Perhaps all those uncertainties were related to the fact that a small part of Mabel’s mind was curious as to whether his smile was sincere or just related to similar thought processes that the other gladiator’s mind was definitely going through. <br/>
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Their whole conversation - the two gladiators that she was standing between - was something that made her cringe. She didn’t like the thought of being better than them, being better than her brother or being better than her father. After all, her brother and her father had lived the same kind of life that she did and fate had just chosen to pluck them out of her home and throw them into the ring. <i>‘Does that make me no different from these two, though?’</i> Mabel wasn’t sure if she should be comparing her brother and father to the two gladiators who she was now in the presence of or not, though. Mabel didn’t know if it worked that way for everyone or not. <br/>
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She was so distracted by all of that that she almost missed what Elias had started saying. Mabel caught it soon enough that it made sense, but the fact that she almost missed something so potentially important was terrifying in a way. She hadn’t realized that someone could scare her that much. Right away, though, Mabel wasn’t sure if his plan would work. She didn’t have any money on her own and to ask her mother… that required telling her mother that Markel was gone. Mabel didn’t even want to imagine what that news would do to her mom. No. Telling her mother that Markel was gone wasn’t something she could do. It just wouldn’t work. She kept thinking about it, and Mabel was determined to believe that there had to be a way. <br/>
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There was one detail she needed, though. “What is your name?” she asked him, not quite sure who it was that she would be putting the money she didn’t have towards a bet on. <br/>
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“I will do my best to make it happen. I have to.” Not only was it for her brother, but it was for her mother as well. If Markel came back, then maybe - just maybe - she could get her mom back in the process as well.</span>