Heh, good question. What was home these days? Her own place of birth was so long behind her that Aibhilin no longer considered it home, not really. Sure it was what was listed on her entry on the wizards list of active Arena combatants, “Aibhilin. The Lady in Blue. Place of Birth: Bhilinai’s Tear,” but she hadn’t witnessed its decrepit tunnels or spiked cavernous ceilings with her own eyes in near on a decade now. Had it really been so long? Australos hadn’t felt like much of a home in the beginning, it had hardly welcomed her or even her considerable talents with much warmth or openly expressed appreciation. At least in Bhilinai’s Tear she had always been taken by those in her caste as a premier example of their people. Strong, deadly, and with an easy grace and manner toward the sometimes unsavory task of enforcing the will of the strong over the fear of the weak, oppression and submission of the foragers to the whims and appetite of the warriors being the only thing keeping those of her station in the meat and snakeskin necessary to continue in their pursuit of their own goals and ambitions, namely that of upward mobility amongst the caste. 

Continued armed opposition to the other tribes who would take their freehold by force was of course the reason they gave to those below them for the brutality with which they treated their foragers, but in reality it mostly came down to being the most desirable, prolific warrior of the lot. The wealthiest, most influential voice you could be, the shot caller. Woman, man, it was all the same there. Through strength and skill at arms coupled with a ferocious reputation and penchant toward violence you would be as guaranteed as you could be to hold position, power and authority. Australos wouldn’t welcome this girl any better than it had welcomed her, Aibhilin herself would not go out of her way to make this place better for the barbarian girl than it had been to her despite the fact that she could in her position as Doctora. It was doubtful any would actively do anything to hurt the girl, violence outside of training was naturally frowned upon and had always been met with swift and immediate repercussion in the form of the camp ritualistically and savagely beating the offending party as a unit. That didn’t mean they would show her any kindness or hold anything back in the mock battles she would be subjected to. 

Aibhilin had killed a fighter with four pairs of ears in the arena to his credit to be seen as worthy to become the first woman to join this camp, and those he had fought and bled alongside in Australos were none too happy about his untimely death upon the very sand they stood upon this moment, nor at her having taking his place alongside them in the stable. None of the people at the camp had ever so much as bumped into her in passing during the fleeting moments primarily restricted to eating and personal hygiene that were permitted the otherwise very industrious fighters, and though she had spent two weeks sleeping in the quarters permitted her with one eye open none ever so much as lingered about her door in passing. She had however been beaten, bruised, broken and beleaguered every moment of every combat drill, sparring match and mock arena competition she had participated in for the first year she spent here. None had taken their meals with her, nor had any spoken more than a few snide curses at her expense to her during that time, and she had daily considered returning to Bhilinai’s Tear, or as she had thought of the place at that time, home. 

She had joined the camp when she was years older than the girl before her, it had been said at the time and repeatedly thereafter that she had been too old for the training, and though she had spent but a year at the camp it was determined that if she was going to prove herself to the owner of the camp as having been a good investment for the year of food she had consumed at his expense and the Doctore’s time she had taken up throughout the year’s training that she would kill or die upon the sand within the season. It was quite the shock to most of the assembled fighters of the camp when she returned after the bout with a pair of ears on a band of snakeskin tied about her neck. The brutality, the ridicule, the lonesomeness of that first year had pushed her all the more to excel in whatever area she could. They would not converse with her, nor take her seriously, but they would cross mock blades and throw blows at her until both entrants found themselves bloodied, bruised and beaten, and so into this pursuit she had put everything she had within herself with the need of a starving wolf to thrive, to succeed, to emerge victorious and superior. 

After her first victory the camp was a different place entirely. Nothing to do with the buildings or scheduling changed, no person had come or gone, but it had never been the same again. All had come to accept her as a competitor. Not to say they had come to see her as an equal, a peer, or even worthy of the cheers and accolades which usually accompany a teammate’s first victory upon the sand. This was perhaps lesser than the respect which came to the others to return to the camp with trophies earned in blood and metal, but it meant much more to her then it did to the average first time victor. To her this was a validation, proof positive that despite the torment and the misery of that first year she had survived and overcome, the first peak of her climb upwards toward a destiny as of yet unknown but ever driving her onward had been surmounted. This girl would learn the same way she had, through pain and isolation, a storm battered island among a sea of uncaring outcroppings and frigid waves, and she would grow and learn or be drowned amongst the treacherous waters. This was the first lesson of the law of blood and sand, to survive despite the pain or be swallowed by it. 

It hadn’t been that moment, or even that day when Aibhilin had begun to think of Australos as home. She wasn’t sure if there had even been a moment when her memories of Bhilinai’s Tear had seemed more to her thoughts of a place she had once been then where she was supposed to be, or at least wanted to be. There was a moment when she understood that she couldn’t remember the last time she had longed to be in Bhilinai’s Tear once more, and a time when it didn’t sadden her to think that she would never be there again. She still thought about her siblings, still wondered whatever became of old flings and if that outsiders hound her, rat faced Bhnnocha had would up together with Efynvair, her once crush and later more than crush who she may well have remained in Bhilinai’s Tear with were it not for Bhnnocha’s constant, seemingly innocent but plainly underhanded meddling in the pair’s affairs. In time, though, Australos had increasingly become where she wanted to be, and the fighters had been the people she wanted to be with. Then came Hektor’s death on the sand, and the whole world fell away beneath her feet. Australos had not been home for her anymore, not since that day.

“Good enough. First you eat. Then you learn,” there would be a ceremony to officially induct her as a member of the camp, but that would come later. First there would be food, and lots of it. The fighters trained near on fourteen hours a day and their rations were close to three times that of the average worker or forager, both to increase the fighter’s size and to promote the psychological understanding of their superiority over the common rabble from whom they had largely been born to. Only after the girl had eaten her fill, almost certainly alone as she assumed none from the camp would deign to take their meal with an as of yet not officially inducted member, would Aibhilin pair the girl up with a more experienced student at the camp and instruct them to savagely beat her in mock combat. She would of course be given the chance to defend herself, but at her age and size it was doubtful she could avoid the worst of the attack even if she happened to be a trained combatant. If she still wanted to join after taking her meal alone and without expectation for that to change any time soon, and withstood repeated, vicious blows from sparring blades then she would take the sacramenta and be accepted as a full member of the camp. 

Food was already being prepared, the process had begun at the first call of Auxiliaries approaching, and the camp would be expected to feed the soldiers regardless of their feelings on the matter. Legally an Imperial owned business could refuse to feed common Auxiliaries, but it would almost never be done. The cost wasn’t the issue so much as the slight toward the Emperor who employed them, something that would almost never reach the attention of so lofty an individual but which if taken in poor taste could result in the turning of the fortunes of the owner. Naturally she had orders to provide adequate hospitality toward the employees of their esteemed ruler handed down from her own employer, though she was not going to be especially polite about the way she handled them. They served a purpose no doubt, and could just as easily have been her should things have gone a different way. Two of her three brothers had become Auxiliaries during the tail end of the ramp-up, less by choice than by order of the Empire, but it would have been her had they been accepting women. Didn’t mean she was going to host them within the grounds of the Courtyard. 

“Devlin, she is our guest and gets the first plate. Our friends here,’ she gestured toward the Auxiliaries, ‘are welcome to their servings after they vacate my courtyard,” Aibhilin gestured toward the fire, erected on the South side of the courtyard near the front entrance to the cavern next to which a series of old world ceramic bowls, most chipped and cracked but all in reasonable working order sat upon a serving table. These in turn were being filled by the presumed students tasked with the duty with flame cooked snake meat, fungi collected from around the mountain stream the camp depended on for its survival, and small cuts of meat which were mammalian in origin, probably rat or even thinly sliced cave lion. Aibhilin made no effort save the gesture to instruct the girl toward the fire, but walked in that direction herself assuming the girl would follow. “What is your name?” she looked toward the fire and the promise of hot food which it offered as she spoke the words rather than ensuring the girl was following her, but assumed she would hear a response, even if it were delayed by a matter of seconds should she choose to engage the Auxiliaries in conversation before her. 

Aibhilin herself would have spat in their faces should she have been in the girl’s position, and wouldn’t care the slightest bit if she did so. They had almost certainly taken everything and everyone the girl had ever known from her, dropping her off in a strange place filled with stranger people without the explanation of why or even the shared vocabulary necessary to explain where they were taking her and to what purpose. Devlin had earlier snorted audibly at the reproach from the youth in response to his comment, had even chuckled a bit under his breath, but he hadn’t made any further comment. Not while the boss lady and the Auxilaries were speaking business. With that over his mouth quickly turned back on, picking up where he had left off. “Well Ouis’Visean, our time here is through. Wish I could say I was gonna miss having you around, but I doubt you’re fit to clean the latrine around here, so let the emperor have you,” Devlin propelled his arms forward in a shooing motion clearly instructing the Auxilaries out through the gate the way that had come, though there was certainly time to interrupt or say something to them on the part of the girl who had been taken here by them.