Champion schmampion.
She should've known. Of course Arlen is not good enough at, at this whole not getting caught business, the reason he got given up to the priesthood in the first place was being caught too many times. Fucking Arlen.
And is he the one being sent to whoever the fuck knows where through that gods be thrice damned portal? Nope. No, she's the one doing it. All he has to do is pay penance. Sure, he's gonna be flogged a li'l bit, and gonna have to spend a whole lot of time in some boring empty room meditating his sins away. But he's still going to be alive.
Fucking Arlen.
And now she's trapped in a gracious guest of the temple, strongly discouraged to leave, and of course that's the stupidest thing she's ever heard but she's trying to figure out a way to get out anyway.
(Not that she's not curious what's actually on the other side of the portal, mind you. But, uh, one does not need the ability to even put two and two together to notice that all the so-called "Champions of Ingnam" never come back. She's not betting on the other side being so fucking good no one ever decides to come back. They probably got eaten by something.)
She doesn't want to die. She really, really doesn't. She just wants to run away. Never see this stupid fucking village again, never see Arlen and that thrice-gods-damned priest again - she's begged and asked to be given exile instead - at least she'd still be alive -
This is the stupidest way to die. Stupidest, stupidest way to die. She's not dying this way. She's not. She's not she's not she's not.
She'll figure something out. She always does.