It's no secret that Edmund considers himself an athlete, and particularly a fighter. There's no combat sport that he wouldn't try at least once, to learn what he could from it. Boxing is a tradition that goes back centuries, longer than the plane of Crossroads has existed. Naturally, Edmund was acquainted, not just with the history of the sport, but with its practice.

He told his Teach one day, off-handedly, that he would love to try his hand at a boxing tournament. And to his surprise, Enigma told him that he had been keeping tabs on a underground boxing association that had started to spread across Crossroads. In fact, an old friend of his had been making a name for himself as a competitor, and he wouldn't mind referring Edmund over.

To his surprise, the "old friend" had turned out to be a tiger like him, except with sapphire-blue fur and eyes of hazel. Introducing himself, Feng told the young competitor that while Enigma is a solid judge of character, there's no substitute for a good sparring match when gauging a fighter.

So it was that they ended up in the ring. It's not clear who ultimately won their fight, but either way Feng walked away happy enough to vouch for Edmund's entry into the next tournament.

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Nothing beats getting art with friends, like my good friend Feng on BlueSky. ( https://bsky.app/profile/fengblue.bsky.social )
Even better, the excellent Ehud Kurzweil was happy to take on our commission request. ( https://ekurzweil.carrd.co/ )

You can find the artist's post of this piece on his BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/ehudkurzwe...../3lggezzkblk2j

Art by Ehud Kurzweil
Feng belongs to Feng the Blue on BlueSky
Edmund and short story belong to me.