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As he rounded the dueling circle, Ashraf's bright eyes flickered over the crowd. They moved from the spectators to the next pair that had stepped in, over the proctors and what he assumed was a healer waiting in the shade of an overhang recently nailed to the fence that roughly encircled the spot. He was headed out of the area, towards other places he might prove his worth.

In the open space between the separate practice stations he saw her approach. The pale girl with dark hair. He would have had to purposefully avoid her not to see it, raised up over the crowd as she was. She moved like a soft breeze, in a way that could not be attributed only to her small build, and Ashraf stopped to wait for her. He wasn't the kind of man to run from anything, least of all an awkward conversation. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately given the topic she had changed to, he wouldn't have to educate her on the relationship between skin tones and sunlight.

[b][color=5B6BBB]"Lost?"[/color][/b] he repeated, taken aback. Then he bristled. He hadn't lost! If he had held back, it was only because he wasn't looking to drive the head of his spear into a stranger's guts, but even so that didn't equate to a loss! If anything he and the noble, Toma, had drawn, but it was more accurate to say the results were inconclusive. 

If they'd been allowed to continue, he would have decisively won, sorcery or no. 

Ashraf didn't have the chance to get a word in edgewise before the girl was talking again. She didn't seem to think at all before speaking, and worse, took her assumptions as fact. Ashraf let out a heavy sigh through his nose, setting his weight on his heels. He felt ripples of annoyance wash over him, though not as strong as the earlier spike when she'd confidently stated that he'd [i]lost.[/i] 

[b][color=5B6BBB]"I am well aware of the strengths of the wind,"[/color][/b] he told her blandly. He had never had the same ability to appear placid and pleasant when dealing with troublesome customers, which is about what he was equating this girl to, but at the very least he could stop himself from snapping his words out. [b][color=5B6BBB]"Ferocious windstorms are a fact of life in Hahral. But wind isn't my element."[/color][/b]

He had an inkling that she would try and keep guessing at it, so before she could jump in and do so Ashraf fixed her with a pointed look and said, [b][color=5B6BBB]"I have no element, yet."[/color][/b]

Some might have kept that information to themselves, either for pragmatic reasons or because they were ashamed. Ashraf was not ashamed. He'd had no tutor for coaxing his magic out nor cruel, pushy parents to force an awakening, and though he had felt the chill of ice and movement of air, could hear cracks of lightning in far ends of the training grounds, he knew he was far from the only Warden hopeful with no sorcery to speak of. Some, especially highborn people, may look down on those without it. Ashraf tilted his chin up slightly, almost daring this girl to do the same. 

[b][color=5B6BBB]"But that's no reason I lost, because I [i]didn't[/i] lose. What even makes you say that? Did you watch with your eyes closed?"[/color][/b]

Clearly he was still hanging onto her very first words after the match. Ultimately he didn't care what some strange girl thought of him, but he couldn't have her going around ignorantly spreading lies about him! ...and, honestly, he was at least a little curious as to what had led her to such an incorrect conclusion in the first place. Hopefully whatever it was existed only in this airhead's mind, and not in ones of watchful Wardens.