The ground make a squishing sound under Talen's feet as he turned a full three-sixty degrees to survey the surrounds. The cold wet swamp he found himself in was capped off by the heavy rain that fell from the sky. In only a few second he had been in the forsaken arena he was already drenched head to toe. Bitterly the youth ran a hand through his hair and waited for his opponent to appear.

Outside the Citadel it had been a nice day. Talen had awoken with soft rays of light upon his skin, the sweet aroma of baking bread hovering in the air and just generally the mirth of summer. For a boy of thirteen it was a day to be be enjoyed. In fact, Talen had nearly decided to give the Citadel a miss and spend the day enjoying what mischief he could find. Instead the joke, and a cruel one at that, was on him. Now he had to battle it out in an arena that smelt like it had died in a pool of it's own waste. Even the sparsely spotted trees seemed to have given up on living in the putrid muck one might try and call soil.

Talen looked down at his shoes with slight disgust. Soon the pale youth's skin and cloths would be caked in mud and god knows what. Talen sighed, he had gone to the trouble of wearing his new cloths today, and now he was probably going to have to pay to have them cleaned. His pants were the standard black almost-rags that he always wore, but his top was a finer cut. The black material was tied tightly around his chest to allow for easier movement. While one much longer sleeve hung down over left hand, the right barely covered his shoulder. The boy placed his obscured hand against his waist and waited. For the moment the youth seemed weaponless.