@vipcrarpina
Everything was hot. Everything. The sun beating down from above, the pavement radiating below, the crowd pushing in at all sides... Altheda thought she might faint. Despite bearing her southern mother’s blonde tresses, Altheda was a northern lady through and through. She had always felt more comfortable in snow than sunshine.
But her darling brother had convinced their mother to allow them both to travel south for... well, she wasn’t quite sure what story her twin had concocted, but her mother would never deny him anything. Altheda thought the trip south of The Neck, and then further still, sounded exciting and adventurous, yet all it was proving to be was blisteringly, stiflingly hot.
The thin canopy above her provided some shade, but any relief was outweighed by the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of boisterous spectators around her. When her brother had said he’d secured a box to watch “a bit of sport,” she had expected jousting, not a fighting pit. Yet here she was, her brother having disappeared to place wagers, she presumed, shielding her eyes from the burning sun, peering into a dusty, blood-stained arena, waiting for... whatever came next.
