Pity. She’d have had words at least with any who had harmed her people. Then again, she had never had much of a reason not to like her people. Her family had fed her, treated her and her siblings well, taught her enough to excel at her task and produce for herself whatever she had set her mind to. It wasn’t for dislike of her people that she had left home. Who knows what the family or band or whatever this girl, Rags to hear her say it, had come from had been like. It wasn’t uncommon in the wastes for women to be treated as chattel, and her’s was a people barbaric enough to have names for human beings like [i]Rags[/i]. Could have been given to her by the Auxiliaries she supposed, perhaps her own name wherever she had come from might have been feared on her part to have sounded even less regular or palatable to whatever she must have thought of the people of the camp, though it never crossed Aibhilin’s mind that they might not have even had a particular purpose for the convention of giving names to individual people. Her own culture was heavily invested in the name, and in the expression of individuality as a member of the tribe. Hardly a collective of the many over the few, Bhilinai’s Tear. 

She didn’t ask for further clarification on the matter of course, or even look to the girl as she covered the distance to the fire. She was rather upset about her painting, and curious as to whether Rags would choose to stick around after she’d let Revhinult beat her until she couldn’t stand on her own power. Maybe he was a bit much, he had several years both of age and time spent training in the camp over her, as well as a foot at least in height and likely double her weight. He wasn’t anything special, would probably be dead within the Season after his first bout came to pass, but he was her best unblooded student at the moment, and pairing her against a victor was not something she deemed appropriate. She had been a skilled combatant when she was required to prove herself against a fighter with four ears to his credit, and though she had survived the experience it was hardly the same to expect Rags to do the same as she was. She was still young enough to grow, and if she had the birth for it she would grow under the training regimen and food intake the fighters at the camp were subjected to as a rule. 

More importantly she had time to learn. Aibhilin had been too old when she joined for the general curriculum, and had only made it work because of what she had brought with her from Bhilinai’s Tear. This girl could be better instructed from the beginning in the nuances of combat in the arena as opposed to the tribal bickering and the hunt of the foragers she had been taught. Aighrit was closer to Rags in age, and as she was inclined to believe the more promising student in the long term when compared to Revhinult, at least assuming he grew. As of now he was smaller than she would have liked despite the year and a half of the diet and training regimen he had endured, and measured up at only a few inches and perhaps a half larger than Rags. He was a smart one, like the girl she had just welcomed to the camp, and had a greater grasp over the training than any of the other students had been able to claim only this far into the training. He could be a real competitor someday, but for now it might serve well enough to task him with introducing Rags to the brutal nature of the business in which the camp made its living. 

The healthy middle ground would be Aevaur. Almost directly in between Aighrit and Revhinult in size, skill, and duration of training, in addition to being a grumpy, malicious fighter with a penchant towards taking more damage than he rightfully should before throwing it all back at his opponent with a vengeance. Aibhilin decided that she would line the three up, have them remove everything but their practice blades and their skirts, give Rags a practice blade and let her pick an opponent for herself. Maybe she’d pick the biggest, or the smallest, or one who seemed to be in between the other two. Could give her some insight into the girl’s thought process she supposed, and it removed the necessity of making the decision from her and placed it firmly on the newcomer. It wasn’t a realistic welcome to the life of a pit fighter, she had never once chosen her own opponent in the entire duration of her stay at Australos, but it was common to follow practices that gave the students ownership over their own decisions. It’s easier to swallow that you picked an opponent who clobbered you then it is to accept that someone else set you up against someone they didn’t think you had a chance of defeating. 

Aibhilin was upon the fire now, and only once ten feet away from it turned to the girl. “Eat, Rags. Eat much,” speaking of Aighrit she had forgotten he was set to the task of handing out the food, and he approached herself and Rags with a full bowl in one hand and a bronze forked utensil in the other, butt end forward. The boy was pale, too pale in truth though unless you had knowledge of the fact that he had spent the majority of his life above ground most in the wastes would have taken him to be a common underdweller like Aibhilin herself, more grey than pink and more cold then cool in undertone, fair haired with close cut ringlets and pale grey eyes. He was smiling, that one was obnoxious and was always smiling, as he extended both hands towards Rags, though he kept a more than appropriate distance between himself and the newcomer. In one hand the bowl of freshly grilled meat, in the other the utensil, offered butt first. He wouldn’t speak a word to her, none of them would, but it was a more friendly greeting then Aibhilin would have expected for Rags. Food and a smile, you’d think the place was an inn or something. “After you eat, you learn."