A/N: This is a one shot that I may have future plans for. Please, please, please review and let me know what you think, and check out my other one shot, Illusions. Enjoy!

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Her opponent slumped to the ground, his strength spent. Pax curled her lip in disgust as she watched the arrogant man pant at her feet. The seconds passed in silence, and she could feel her disdain losing ground to familiar disappointment, but rather than giving way to encroaching despair, Pax welcomed the warmth of anger.

“Get up,” she growled, and then checked herself. There was no need to be uncivil; it wasn’t this poor fool’s fault that she continuously insisted on setting herself up for disappointment. She had known from his first move that this man was not the one she sought. Pax held out a hand to help the man back to his feet, which she thought was very generous, considering his previous haughty behavior. The offer was greeted with a too-familiar look--one that she had seen regularly since her earliest memory, and one that she had grown to hate.

This man, who, as recently as a few minutes ago, had been a well-respected and powerful magician, looked up at Pax from his seat in the dirt and he made no move to regain his feet. On his face, was a mixture of awe and reverence--and fear. It was the fear that caused the scowl to darken Pax’s brow; that made her want to run away from the people who knew who she was; that made her want to disappear.

As she stood there with her hand outstretched, Pax became aware of the twitters coming from the small crowd circled around the two of them. She finally dropped her arm and looked around at her unwelcome audience, cursing under her breath.

“Damn.” This was the last thing she wanted: more attention. The volume of the surrounding people was mounting, and Pax could see pointing fingers and there were even some who had lost all sense of discretion and were standing on tiptoe to see over the heads of those in front. Well, she thought, a wicked plan beginning to form, since any chance of making a quick and quiet escape is shot anyway…

“Well, my friend, you sure showed me,” she drawled, there was no mistaking the sarcasm. “Now who would’ve thought that you, a University-trained magician of the first rank only twenty-one positions below that of the Royal Mage himself, would be bested by a--what was it that you called me?” Pax placed one hand on her hip and tapped her chin with the forefinger of the other, pretending to wrack her brains for some half-forgotten fact. “Oh yes, an ‘insignificant, no-talent, arrogant child.’” She said it with the offhanded air of someone commenting on the weather. Pax crossed her arms loosely in front of her and glared down at the man on the ground. “Maybe now you’ve learned a lesson about judging people by their appearances. You know what they say about assuming--although I think in this case, you’ve only made an ass of yourself.”

Pax narrowed her eyes and grinned evilly. But the smile slid from her face as the magician edged away from her, sliding backwards and dragging his butt along the dusty ground in his haste. Suddenly, she was no longer enjoying herself.

Pax was always so disheartened when yet another magic-handler did not live up to his or her inflated reputation, that she couldn’t help but take her aggravated frustrations out on her defeated adversaries. But whatever little pleasure she gained from it was fleeting, and it never made up for the hopelessness inspired by the fear on every face that saw what she could do; that unconscious flinch whenever she frowned or made a sudden gesture with her hands. This is what separated Pax from the rest of the world.

Was there no one who could best her? In the end, would she not be able to escape the fate that chased her wherever she went, flying at her heels like a pack of wild dogs? The expectations foisted upon her at birth, the ones she didn’t ask for? The pressure of it all threatened to smother her, to press her down into the earth. God dammit…it wasn’t fair.

“I-I apologize,” the magician stammered, finally getting to his knees. Pax watched him try to gather his composure back around him. For someone so self-important, he had taken defeat fairly well. Slowly, beneath the wonder still imbuing his features, the sly look of a man who recognizes someone more powerful and who wants to get some of that power for himself began to take shape. “I am honored to have been humbled by one as powerful as you.” He bowed from his position on his knees with much unnecessary flourishing of the hands. Pax tightened her lips at his flattery. She hated groveling.

When the man’s flowery words received no response, his eyes shifted nervously and he asked, less confidently, “Uh…Your Greatness, may I, your lowly servant, inquire as to your name?”

Pax said nothing for a few seconds. She then turned and walked away, the people parting before her as if she was on fire, and they were afraid of it catching if they stood too close. She was used to that--to the stares, and the silence. It would never change. She had left the last of the crowd far behind and there was no one left to hear when she answered the magician’s question.

“I am Pax Nix. I am nobody.” She wished it were true.