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[color=69D7CC]“Doesn’t seem fair. They get to have fun and showcase their skills while we sit and wait our turn.”[/color]

Luen gave a tiny frown as the boy next to her made...a good point, if a little misguided, she thought. She stayed looking forwards as the first fights were prepared. "[color=D0D4E5]You're—[/color]" She coughed as, for just one syllable, something like her normal voice leaked out before she forced it back down into the quiet, gentle near-monotone that was Lucien's. "[color=D0D4E5]Ehem—you're right, it's not fair, is it? It's...[/color]"

She grappled for the word she was looking for. It was like...it was like a dogfight, almost. Two people sent to fight for the amusement of the nobility. It just didn't sit right with her. Needlessly... "[color=D0D4E5]...Cruel. It's cruel to them, don't you—[/color]"

She turned her head, and there her train of thought stopped and her mouth dropped a little ways open. Next to her—how didn't she notice?—there was a boy, about her height, she thought? With eyes like chips of deep blue ice, and [i]stark white hair.[/i] Almost unconsciously, she reached up and stroked a lock of her own behind her ear with an almost paper-white, near-bloodless hand. She was...more or less to surprised to really speak for the moment. She had never, ever seen anyone else with hair like hers. Well, in fairness, she hadn't seen many people to begin with. But on the way through the city to this arena, she hadn't seen a single person that had hair like hers—[i]theirs[/i]. She knew it was part of what marked her as [i]cursed.[/i] So despite the slightly unsettling way he thought of this whole exercise—[i][color=D0D4E5]fun?[/color][/i]—she felt an immediate kind of kinship with him. She closed her mouth. What could she say?

"[color=D0D4E5]...Are you—[/color]"

A moment passed.

"[color=D0D4E5]—You too?[/color]"