They were the first and only time travellers. They closed their eyes and never even felt the cold and when they woke up it was to bodies restored, to bodies clothed in the softest of fabrics, close to two hundred years removed from their dying past. They were time's fugitives, the chosen. How people had laughed at them then and now all those people were dust, while they would live on in this miraculous now, where poverty and sickness no longer existed, where war and crime were things hardly remembered, where men and women were at peace at last.
It was the best of times, it was the most boring of times, and so the ice creatures served a purpose. They were defrosted in pairs, debriefed and taken to their new quarters. From there it was a short daily walk to the arena. Involving citizens, or animals, would have been unthinkable. It had to be these wretched refugees that were made to fight, maim and torture each other, while specialist teams of resurrectionists stood by to intervene at the exact right moment, at each dying moment. There were only 80.762 ice creatures left, after all, and they had to be made to last.