"Learn," Aibhilin nodded as she spoke the word, chewing with half of a cut of rat meat still in her mouth as she conversed, too impressed with the girl's apparent dedication to her newfound occupation to concern herself with table manners. She hadn’t been eating at a table anyway, and the only other person sitting with her had been Devlin. She didn’t actually like Devlin much, but he’d always been here, made for easy and familiar company. She had had a friend in Bhilinai’s Tear who in turn had a friend she couldn’t stand. Her friend, the one she had cared for, had died of an onset of fever which would not break. The mutual friend, the one she had not cared for previously, had become a lasting part of her life before leaving home in search of the arenas of the Empire of the Crimson Throne. Devlin was much the same to her now, had been conversational with Hektor though too wordy and smart assed to hit it off well with Aibhilin herself. She didn’t see him that way anymore, not after Hektor’s death. He was a cursed barbarian, a lousy fighter and an even less appealing human being, but he was her cursed unappealing human being, because he had been Hektor’s cursed lay about friend. 

Aibhilin wondered if she had initially gotten the point across that here learning meant fighting, beating and being beaten by your fellows. Hopefully Rags didn't expect that this was going to be an enjoyable experience, because even if she somehow miraculously beat any of her three students she had considered for the bout there was almost no chance that it was going to be a painless experience. If she did manage to beat one of her students without it having proven to be a worthy encounter she would make the girl beat them nearly to death simply to impress upon the other students that failure was not an option, and to ensure that it would be remembered by all in attendance, including Rags herself. She was of the opinion that although you swallowed what damage you had wrought upon your foes it wasn't something you were supposed to forget. Battle was thrilling, incredibly so at times, and the memories of the conflict were as prized as the trophies you took from them. Half a blur in the heat of the moment and whose retention and quality of clarity was to be fought for longingly in contest with one’s own mind, the tale and the memory were sweet succor when unable to fight after your career had come to an end. 

What was rarely fought for, and far less remembered in a half haze as opposed to that of a crystal clear reflection was the look in the eyes of a beaten opponent as you delivered blow after blow upon them after they had ceased to fight, their bodies having given way and the realization that they might die on their backs having set in. This was not the part of the contest most wished to remember, and she would make this girl see it in the eyes of her opponent if she won to make doubly sure that she understood what it was she was getting into. After that point she would ask her once more if this is what she truly wanted, and offer her the chance to stay or go, be that to the lands she had come from or to the village on the opposite side of the mountain which provided their food and other provisions. She wasn’t sure what the girl would choose yet, couldn’t be sure, and although she would have enjoyed having her as a student in the camp she would not attempt to sugar coat the grim reality of what this place, and those who called it home, truly was. Here reigned bringers of death upon the sand. 

"Here we fight. We learn to fight by fighting," Aibhilin choked through as she finally remembered herself and decided swallowing was appropriate before continuing her conversation. The students had their meals, more importantly Rags, the victors, herself, the staff and the Auxiliaries had their food. She didn’t mind interrupting the students who ate last and were likely only half way through their own meal as is, it might just give them the added initiative to want to really put the hurt on the newcomer. They were training to be professional killers and shouldn’t have needed that extra justification, but they were also foolish in the way that all youths are foolish and likely none of them were terribly interested in doing this for the reasons she was. She had enough experience to see the larger picture, to understand that if she didn’t get the truth of this life expressed to Rags here today then she would die in her first fight upon the sands. Her opponents would have been shown the truth, would have trained every day to bring death and to avoid having death brought upon themselves, while Rags would be of the understanding that this was more show than life and death survival. It wasn’t worth the food she would eat in the years before her first bout to have her go and die in her first match. 

“Revhinult, Aevaur, Aighrit! On the line!” the students dropped what they were doing and hurried to obey. They had known that someone was being chosen to introduce the newcomer, and though it was unlikely any of them had thought it would be them save perhaps the ever brooding Aevaur all had known to be ready in the unlikely case that it would be their name called out by the Doctora. Most had not finished their food, and it was possible that Aighrit had only just started at his meal given his current position as the last in the line, mostly because he was generally too happy looking for Aibhilin’s taste. “In your skirts, prospects!” They hadn’t quite reached the line, a so-called patch of dirt along the courtyard wall that had no distinguishing features save for the mass of footprints which had been beaten into it over the years and had simply been called that from long before Aibhlin’s time, but once they had they quickly set to removing their jerkins, snakeskin boots, chauses and coifs. What was left was three young men in knee length skirts largely constructed of hanging vertical strips of snakeskin leather with bronze scales sewn to them over a leather undergarment primarily meant for the purposes of modesty. 

They stood in a line from the lightly muscled five foot ten seventeen year old with skin that would have passed for bronze were it not for the almost green and sickly undertone and a close shaved head of what may have been auburn hair, to the maybe five foot seven sixteen year old dark of skin by birth rather than lifestyle and possessed of what was closer to a gut than muscle, clearly unamused in expression beneath dark hair more natty than curled and falling in a mop just over his eyes enough to require him blowing and picking at it on occasion to keep his field of vision clear. The line ended with the boy, Aighrit, who had served Rags food to her, and though the three kept their eyes straight ahead and did not look at the Doctora or Rags in strict discipline hammered into them throughout their duration at the camp he was still as smiley as before. If it phased him that he had been taken from his meal as soon as he had been given it didn’t show, though Revhinult, the comparatively tall bronze student, was steady faced and emotionless and Aevaur was openly glowering at the perceived inequity of their having been taken from their hot meal and ordered to attention on the line. 

“Pick one to fight,” Aibhilin gestured to the three students on the line in their skirts. “Win, lose, doesn’t matter. Fight well is all that matters,” she took a practice blade from off her sword belt, generally relegated to use in display of a technique while standing in front of the students or when pairing up against a victor in a sparring session to more actively impress a certain weakness of their weapon handling upon them without overt risk of harm, and extended it hilt first in her right hand toward Rags, palm upwards and hardly gripped at all. The students carried virtually identical practice blades on their own sword belts, each of them as well as her own about a foot and a half long and of cast bronze, their hilts wrapped diagonally in snakeskin leather to improve their feel in the hand. They were too dull to cut but heavy enough to leave brutal bruises and even potentially small lacerations or breaks should they contact an angled, fleshy or particularly susceptible joint such as a finger knuckle or wrist with sufficient force. “Not sharp, for learning. It can’t kill. It will hurt.” Aibhilin ran a finger over the false edge for clarification, intending to display that it couldn’t actually cut.