A magical's first hunt is ceremonial, and the Khan is wealthy among Khans and fond of her mother and her by extension, so much finery is provided - 

And a powerful witch for her to fight, well past the edge of the camp.

Good. It'll allow her to stretch herself.

She opens the portal into the barrier with ease, and steps through.

The white ground beneath her cracks as she walks. The sky is chitinous, and enormous bones rise out of the mixture of shards and powder formed into dunes. Familiars stalk on numerous bony legs, the first set like someone tried to merge a woman's skeletal torso onto a spider's abdomen. The ribs are odd, deformed around three extra sets of shoulders, to accommodate all eight spindly legs.

They shriek when they see her, a hissing sound that rises into a noise like rainfall.

Her arrows go through multiple at once, and she slowly begins to figure out how to manipulate their paths mid-flight as she progresses through the witch.

Getting the hang of navigating the ever-shifting bone sands is rather easy for her.

The witch itself is a massive scorpion made of bone, pincers and stinger formed of skulls, that surges from the sands beneath her.

It can be a perforated scorpion, then - she's not being at all reckless with her magic, but she already knows how to ration it for maximum effect, and how to aim at magical weak points.

It's now a rather angry perforated scorpion, skeletal teeth gnashing in its pincers as it lunges for her, its tail cracking like a whip to try and stab her.

She jumps high, flipping over its back to fire at its head from behind.

That staggers it, and skeletal insects - wasps or butterflies or wasps with butterfly wings - swarm out of its eyes.

She spins, creating a small whirlwind, and then fires shots of energy that spread out, broad, but her weapon's not really meant for this...

She darts high, draws her bow, focuses energy to the arrow, and fires a tremendously bright bolt into the scorpion's primary skull.

The scorpion buckles, bone shattering as it screeches.

She presses the attack, never staying in one place for long, arrows aimed with increasingly unerring accuracy at weak points.

The scorpion shatters - and the labyrinth with it.

And she steps into the sunlight, glancing around for the grief seed.

There, jagged and black and jarringly wrong.

Her friend the Khan steps up after she retrieves it, grinning broadly. "Congratulations on a successful hunt!" he declares.

She nods, smiling. "Thank you for arranging this, my lord."

He chuckles. "My pleasure. You are a valuable addition to our people."

"I try my best."

She inclines her head towards his tent. "I would like to speak to you, after the festivities."

He nods, slowly, sensing some gravity in her manner. "Of course," he says. "But for now: we celebrate!"

She smiles.

"For now we celebrate," she says, agreeably, and lets herself be spun out into the dances and music and good drink.

When the last fires have burned low, when the airag has flown like water, the Khan returns with Narangerel to his tent.

"You wished to speak?" he asks.

She nods.

"I want to start on my ambitions, soon. But I have not spent long in the political landscape of the clans."

He sits back. "I can explain to you as much as I may, but the wind shifts quickly, out here."

She nods. "I understand. And I don't plan to rush into war. I will spend some time building my reputation first, at least, as well as my power. I am weak now. Eventually..."

"I do believe you have the potential to become the greatest of us," he says, with all sincerity.