Home. Ranajira felt, looked and even smelled of home. She could feel the tingle; that longing for the land this represented thrumming through her bloodstream like the steady beats of the drums they used. The intoxication, the heady sensation of it ran rampant inside of her mind and body, bringing out a longing in her she had forgotten about with him. The waves and waves of sand rose and fell into the horizon, an hundred of them, a million of them, like the frozen tides of a squalling sea. Their colour broke into a shimmering pile of orange and red and gold as the sun broke over the horizon and began bathing the land in light. It slowly crept along the sand, heating it beyond that of toleration to the human skin. And it left shadows behind, shadows that monsters hid in and waited patiently for the unsuspecting to cross through. When it touched her caramel skin, she felt that all too familiar shiver of heat race along it, absorbing the light and the warmth it had longed for in all that time in Corone.

But this was not home, could never be home. She knew that, but she could still dream it.

Acyutani sat and waited. In the centre of her new arena she waited, upon a claw of obsidian knocked over with time and broken from its foundation, she waited. The smooth surface beneath her slowly began heating with the coming day and managed to warm her skin even through the layers of her clothes. Her calloused fingers gently caressed it, feeling the wind polished rock as it absorbed the light that hit it, turning it into darkness.

Would it be more fitting for you if it were cold?

A silent question she never dared to speak aloud. Would it matter if it were cold? Would it matter if ice rain down the sky and coated this land, freezing all that she saw before her? What if the wind held a chill in it that made the thickest of blood congeal within the vein, would it matter then? No, none of that would ever matter. Acyutani could recreate the frozen plateau of the Comb Mountains that they had trained on for all those weeks, that she had lost herself on and that he had nearly died upon and it would never matter.

He will come.

He had to come. Or all of this would be in vain. All of this would mean nothing, to her, to him. It already meant nothing to the rest of Althanas. It moved on as if nothing had ever happened, as if he had never happened. But he would find this place, this place built for him to weed out the others and find the one warrior that truly mattered. The only thing that mattered to her.

Slowly, Acyutani shifted her position along the rock. Her leg drew itself up to her body, bent and forcing her knee to point towards the jewel like sky. She rested her arm upon it, the sheer and blood red wrap covering her upper body falling away to reveal the unmarred skin beneath and the glinting light of a single crystal embedded in the leather armguard. The red material wrapped around her chest and shoulders, even her face. Her short purple hair lay hidden beneath the veil, as did her mouth and her nose. The only thing visible through the material was her eyes, no longer silver. She controlled them and they shone as black as the obsidian beneath her.

His eyes had been so much like hers.

Thoughts of him were dangerous, even in this place. Forcing her mind away, she turned her gaze towards the pillars that clawed their way from the sands. Like hands with disfigured fingers they raised high above her head into sharp points. Like a monster attempting to free itself from the sands, they rose. Only one name lay upon their surface right now. Only one; Gareth Vandeburg. The man she had fought and won against to get the position of Pagoda Warrior. He had been skilled but not enough for her blades, not after all of her training. The battle had neither been enjoyable nor a true waste of her time. The opponent had been worthy but unskilled. He had been a youth with much to learn and she had no time to teach time. When her new opponent arrived another name would be etched into the surface of the stone. Once his presence was felt upon this land, he would leave a mark upon it, a small and permanent mark. Nyadir D’Var, whoever he was. His mark would be felt. And in turn, this land would leave a mark upon him and she would leave the deepest of all.