The familiarity of the scene both thrilled and nauseated the Malefactor standing in solitude at the outer rim of the arena, even through the quiet, euphoric wakefulness of good qat.  Her fingers drummed on the railings as her attention passed from the combatants to the spectators to the no-longer spectating spectators and back again; the more she watched, the more the situation reminded her of the one Cynis orgy she had been allowed to attend back when the Cynis orgies were still a thing worth gossiping about.  Minha Burning-Heart had largely given up hope of drawing the Second Breath by then, and had understood that that party was perhaps the last time she was going to be honored by her Dynastic cousins until she married.<br/><br/>It was hard to tell how much of this little pre-Allthing had been organized as jeer and how much of it had been organized as laugh-along satire.  It had all the trappings of a proper orgy: plebians spilling blood for their masters' amusement, shadowed nooks and crannies shielded behind curtains of beads or silk and from which spilled voices raised in pain/pleasure/delirium, the heavy scent of incense compounded from exotic plant fibres mingling with foodsmells and drinksmells and fucksmells, and a dozen other little details that really brought out the punch of things.<br/><br/>She could trace her discontent in a few different possible directions, any of which seemed valid at this state of her inebriation.  She was seeing the life she had aspired to live being shat on as a jeer and a jest.  She was watching it from the other side, as an Exalt, one of the great and powerful beyond mortal and serf-based conception, for whom (and by whom!) all this had been accomplished.  She was watching as someone who was, honestly, not terribly interested in partaking.  She was really high on qat.<br/><br/>Now that she thought about it, she was -really- fucking high on qat.  What would go well with qat?... brandy.  Liver brandy would go fine and dandy.<br/><br/>Minha laughed and managed to somehow lurch gracefully away from the railing of the arena, headed towards the nearest table, hunting something to keep in her hands...