“There's no such thing as-" Nullik began.

"I'm with you, Gregory Hopkins." Wrut nodded and stood up to his feet.

“As am I." Frun stood alongside him.

“Let's get going then," Frelki nodded and stood after Valise finished administering some oily substance on her bruise.

"Tch, fine! I guess I can't complain about having a sore arm if Wrut's going, can 1?"

"Valise? WiLL you come along to make sure we don't accidentally injure ourselves further?" Gregory asked.

She nodded before picking up the medical bag that had become a familiar companion to her when she was around them.

“Right then, back to work it is. Let's see what we can manage before dark."

The sun settled down beneath the trees, setting the sky alight in waves of orange and red, and ULf Bloodwrath found himself sat in the empty stands of a proving pit. The day's training had ended and the slaves had resettled the sand for the next day, leaving him alone with his troubles.

It had turned out that those troubles were plentiful enough to spread around, and he'd gotten his pack beaten down because of them. What's more, a part of him knew this. It brought up a great deal of shame and self loathing that had been bubbling deep in his gut since he'd marched away in a rage that afternoon. He should go to them and ask their forgiveness for being such an idiot.

The only problem with that was that doing so would clearly involve speaking with Gregory, and every time he laid eyes on the human he couldn't stop replaying the memory of Ulla standing naked before him. She'd offered herself to the human. The thought kept circling in his head. It was no business of his who she offered herself to, but the idea never failed to set his bubbling stew of dark feelings alight into a white-hot rage.

So his head had driven him to seek solitude until he could get his heart under control again. It was proving to be a cruelly slow process, and he eventually sank his head down into his hands in an effort to steady a world that felt as if it burned hotter with every passing breath.

“That was a terrible match. You're all atrocious at fighting like that." The voice rising from behind him was the Last person he expected to find there.

Ulla Strongblood was stood at the uppermost circle, and soon began to descend along the stone steps one at a time toward where he was sat. He'd lifted his head from his hands to watch her, and felt the anger within start to subside at her approach. It was quickly replaced by something nastier still, a hollow sensation that seemed to expand through his ribcage.

“I don't think your opinion on it matters much, given that you should have been down there with us." The words emerged in a dangerously low growl.

“You walked away, Ulla.

“From what I saw today, so did you." She wasn't particularly accusatory in her tone, rather simply stating fact as she continued her approach down across the large stone steps.

He turned his head away from her and said nothing, instead choosing to stare down into the smooth sand of the proving pits. She was annoyingly correct about that, and he knew better than to Launch an attack with the high ground crumbling beneath his feet.

“Why did you do it?" she asked; coming to sit down on the stone step beside him and lifting her Legs up to fold her arms over her knees.

“Why did I walk away? Why do you think? We lost. I was angry.”

She let out an amused huff at that idea and tipped a crooked smile toward him.

“ULf, you're never angry at them. In all the time we've been together I've never seen you so much as frown at the pack.”

"I frown at Nullik all the time. I sometimes want to throw him through a stone wall.”

“Yes, but that's not because he struggles in the provings. It's because he's a moron. You were always there to pick him up out of the sand after every bout. You always encouraged him that he'd do better the next time. And even when he's being a moron, we all know you've got that frown well-practiced because you're trying not to Laugh with him.”

There was a long pause.