Title: Blood and Kin
Characters: Lady (Elvira) Grey and Thunder

"But my lady—he killed Whisper!"

Lady Grey offered him only a faint sneer for his exclamation, regarding him with a rather blasé expression. He looked like a broken man standing there, desperate for her to understand something or another. He was pleading with her even, and something in her found that terribly amusing. Poor Thunder was trying frantically to get her to see what a terrible, immoral person that the most recent champion was (if only he knew).

"Oh you," she chided coolly. "Holding on to such silly things like family ties." And that was all she said to him before turning on her heel and lavishing the new champion with her attention.

She flirted, and he received her attentions graciously, displaying some interest in her as she walked away. Behind her Lady Grey could faintly hear Thunder snarling at the smaller man, dispensing his threats and declaring his thirst for revenge for his dead sister's sake.

What a silly man.

He certainly wasn't the only one with a dead sister now was he? She mused as she sashayed through the halls, smirking as she did so. It wasn't as though sisters were terribly useful alive—Thunder had been moaning about how his Whisper wasn't doing as well as he had hoped for her. And her own sister—the useless wench—could do nothing but slip off with her Rhodri and dream of the egalitarian slums that she would have otherwise transformed Bowerstone into.

All Lady Grey had done at her sister's sudden and unfortunate demise was take rejoice that with her death, Amanda had actually done something practical for a change. Thunder's rage at Whisper's death was rather uncalled for. She had died fighting in the final round of the arena, at feat deserving of… oh, maybe a tiny, overlooked plaque or something somewhere.

But at least she got somewhere, like she wouldn't have if she had continued to live and curse the world with her pointless existence. Apparently Thunder couldn't see the merit of her death, desperate to hold on to nonexistent threads. Kin had no purpose other than to further their families in life—something Lady Grey had taken full advantage of.

What had she seen in the fallen Champion anyway?