(Spoilers) What's the deal with Grau Soldado?

[Akita Nightsong]

Didn't want to give it away in the title, but the whole question is actually "what's the deal with Grau Soldado, Vencarlo, and Sabina?"

The AP tells us that there was a love triangle (OK) that was complicated by the fact that Sabina prefers women (fine) and that it culminated in Grau somehow arranging a duel between Vencarlo and Sabina that ended with Vencarlo losing two fingers and Sabina getting a scar on her face. I'm struggling to get a clear picture in my head of how all of this went down, which I need to have for the NPCs involved to be able to cryptically hint at what happened.

Here's what we know:

- Grau had a crush on Sabina
- Vencarlo had a crush on Sabina (this is kind of gross to me since she was his much younger student, so I'm probably going to change it)
- Sabina wasn't interested in either of them
- Grau arranged a duel between Vencarlo and Sabina that somehow got very heated and out of control

How do the first three points lead to the last? Why would Grau arrange a duel between his teacher and his unrequited crush? How did he expect that to go and what was his desired outcome? And why did things fly so wildly out of control?

I don't think this is answered in the AP but I'm curious to know what other people came up with.

[Evilthorne]

Grau didn’t rent a fighting stage and sell tickets, that is not what that meant.

Vencarlo is an honorable man but also a little bit of a horndog. I’m sure he would have been hitting on Sabina all the time and she was probably getting tired of it. Grau more then likely just instigated this more and fired Sabina up until it ended in a fight between her and Vencarlo. I imagine it went down with her trying to leave and Vencarlo getting mad and saying that she is nothing without his fighting technique or whatever. Boom Fight!

[Mazra]

This has all likely passed to the posters above, but others may follow, and I see these were posted in the current year.

This is how I saw the situation. It is actually a good story.

Grau was likely disappointed, maybe even upset, that Sabina spurned any of his advances. And when he notices that Vencarlo was interested in Sabina as well, Grau became a bit jealous. This lead Grau to egg on both Vencarlo and Sabina. Grau could have easily preyed on their pride and vanity as both were exceptionally skilled and likely very proud of it. And Sabina, more likely, would have wanted a real go at her teacher Vencarlo for her own satisfaction. Vencarlo, on the other hand, would have wanted to show Sabina he was the better in the hopes that this would create a greater sense of endearment from Sabina to himself, the classic student crush on her teacher.

The actual fight was likely something that soon got out of hand. It was likely unintentional that Vencarlo struck Sabina in the cheek. He may have become a bit overzealous in trying to prove himself the superior. Sabina may have been holding back some too, but with the strike on the cheek, the adrenalin would have kicked in and she would give it her all with the results two of Vencarlo's fingers. I doubt Vencarlo ever gave it his all in this fight.

The pride of both would have been bruised and the whole affair would be a bad memory for all the parties involved.

As I put it when asked, Sabina would have initially been thankful to Grau, for it was because of his actions that Sabina is (or was) now at the side of the Queen.