He woke again, lying flat on his stomach, in a place that was quiet. It was dim in that place, and there was only, from far away, the sound of water.
He remembered, as he woke, in quick, bright flashes. Days had gone by since he had come to the pen. Or he assumed they had.
For a moment, he could not understand how he had come to leave it.
He remembered the heat, then, and the breath and sweat of a fight in the dark.
Returning to those moments, he winced.
He was so tired. There had been too many of them, and they knew what small area they were allowed better than he.
Even at his best he would have been hard-pressed against those odds.
He cared not to show them his power.
He cared little to defend himself.
What they wanted, eventually, they took. And he feigned unconsciousness until, finally, it claimed him.
He recalled coming back to himself, pushing his body up from the ground. Recalled the blood about him, running coldly from his back. He'd remembered the quick downward slice of a blade across the skin of his shoulder and the driving in of a cold stab beneath, under the flat of the bone. He remembered the gush of blood that he'd felt across his back. He had not screamed.
Remembered looking at the blood on his hand, black in the dark and sudden solitude, and the cold rush that ran all over him like a wave as he slid under it again.
Very foggy, in the nearest, most chaotic time, he remembered falling. There was shouting from someone who must have been supporting him because he recalled falling against a body, and there was something being forced into his mouth.
He knew he had wanted to scream at the pain of the liquid that touched his throat, but he wasn't sure that he had.
Behind him, and near, in the present time, he heard the quick ting of metal on stone, and that brought his mind back to the present. Something cold touched him, something that burned in his wound. He drew a breath through his teeth and opened his eyes.
The pain did much to steady him.
He raised his head. "Where am I?" he asked, watching the solidity of the thing on which he lay. His head spun and he closed his eyes against it.
There was a gentle sound of movement behind him, and no sound of answer, so he turned his head. The female was white as snow, bound in a strange grey dress. Placidly, she did not raise her eyes from her task. A sharp pain flashed at his movement, and touching the bone along his cheek with the tips of long, cold fingers, she 'tsk-tsked' that he ought not move and pressed him back.
"In a place for healing," she purred. "Not to be frightened."
The salve she put on him burned anew as she resumed her work, and he breathed thickly through it.
"Why."
There was, again, a long pause before her strange, flute-like voice answered him, "Your holder makes currency on the show. You must thrive before combat. You comprehend?"
His head throbbed, but it was clearer than it had been. He was returning to himself. He could feel it in his blood. Could feel it in the swift, flickering movement of his thought. He was more himself than he had been since he'd gone from Asgard.
"Such lengths," he gave a little gasp as she pressed some binding or cloth against the wound, "for something only to be slaughtered in sport."
It took him a moment to realize that she had stopped and she had come around, by his head. He raised his face to look into her weird, flat eyes. Void of life and color.
"You are of further worth than that," she said, finally, "You are cherished exceedingly by your master. He crushed the ones damaged you. Be cheered."
She moved around behind him, clattering her things together, gently, moving them away from him to a little table in the far side of the room and a cupboard that stood above.
"And what," he asked, finally, beginning to feel something beyond the throbbing of his head and his back, beginning to see more clearly his arms on the surface beneath him. He raised his head to watch her, "does he prize me for?"
She was gathering things in her arms, making for the door. She did not turn around. "Asgardians are cherished always," she said as she left him. "They are so rare in coming to our hands. Make for good show."
For a long moment, he only watched the place where she had gone out. Then he began to laugh. He dropped his head down on his arm and laughed until the tears ran down his face.
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Again, not Sakaar, not the GrandMaster. Something else. (I was envisioning something Guardians of the Galaxy/Star Wars-esque this whole time, but go with it where you will).