The sounds of Zehair descending into the cell pens prompt Sarathiel to turn toward her old friend, as she did not desire his potentially final impression of her to be marked by ruddy swollen tear-slicked features and pathetic grief stricken gazes. There was little to be said in their parting, and so she kept her silence as well. Not an hour ago she'd nearly begged him to end her, temporarily forgetting the brutal consequences of failure within the Arena's grizzly walls. Her tangle with Argus had been a rude awakening to what precious few options were offered slaves of her present predicament.<br/><br/><em>Slave</em>. There was a surreal concept. Even after a life spent in perpetually obedient servitude, she never imagined being saddled with that unfortunate mantle. Even now, in the putrid pits of the pens, she grappled with the grim reality of her newly acquired status and the depressing futures awaiting her in either victory or defeat. The battle had been difficult enough in and of itself, but the trials of the day were far from over. Her thumb trailed absently over the bundle at her hip as she wallowed on her melancholy, oblivious at first to the new presence at her pen door.<br/><br/>After finally glimpsing shadows and feet looming before her, she pivoted, turning her back to the nameless onlooker and coming to sit facing Zehair's cell. Her small chin tucked behind her arms folded neatly across her knees. A few of her curls had fallen loose during her match and now hung down between her narrow shoulders conspicuously lacking in wings.