Better Ambitions

[Navisya Curare]

Making herself upright seemed to do a bit to straighten out Navisya's thoughts and clear her head, even if the daggers behind her eyes pressed a little harder. She had to pause momentarily to hold her eyes before she began to stand up. She left her groggy, half-dream state and braved a cold, uncomfortable reality as the fire was made closer. It was less pleasant, but at least Navisya felt a little further away from death. The warmth of the fire added padding to the compromise. Outside, half the sky had brightened, coloring the clouds purple on the edges as Syna began to bring out the dawn. She began to spill her luster over the rolling, jagged ridges of the Unforgiving, creating stark lines been light and shadow. Jutting rocks and monolithic evergreens sent shadows lancing a hundred feet or more. The glare of daylight would only grow more offensive as the hours passed, bringing more discomfort, but at least the sun would make the air a fraction warmer. She dug her claws into the fur of the cloak and held it closer to her body. Eventually they managed to fasten the clasp. The smaller Curare stiffened as her sister and Duvalyon came near, and only hesitantly made space for them. There was a flash of vulnerability across her young face, a mix of apprehension and worry, but it was soon smothered by badly feigned calm. Navisya gasped as the blanket fell on her, surprised by its weight as well as its warmth. If she had any complaints, they quickly melted away. She immediately wrapped the thing around her cheeks and shoulders. Handed an order, Aessila sent a burning glare at the medic. Still, she stood and approached Navisya, wrapping the blanket more securely around the hunter's form. "For my sister," she repeated, sniffing. "I don't care what Father says. I am not your petching servant girl." "Aessila…" Aessila pressed her mouth into a thin line, fashioning a makeshift hood out of the warm, smoke-scented blanket, pulling it over Navisya's head. "I'm going to get more wood if he's going to burn it all up at that rate." Evidently she was taking her duty very seriously. Or she wanted an excuse to keep her distance from both the Golem and the sister she had betrayed. She moved away then, ascending the rocks and making her way toward a small clutch of pine saplings, still within view. Navisya let out a slow, exaggerated sigh. For a moment she looked about to say something, but the whim dissipated and she closed her mouth. Her golden eyes sat one the flames silently, watching them lick up through the charred, skeletal pine branches. "Thank you," Navisya said finally. For the fire. For coming. For enduring her sister. She couldn't seem to look Duvalyon in the eye. "You came of your own accord, didn't you? Father isn't one to ask for help." As she paused, Aessila cursed from somewhere above. Something about pine needles. There was a flicker in Navisya's expression. "I doubt it's been pleasant for you. Ngh… could I ask for the water again?" Indeed, Duvalyon looked miserable. She wondered how badly he was regretting his involvement. Few Symenestra wore the outdoors well, and he was no exception. Somehow, campfire smoke seemed to know where it was least wanted, and attacked with fury. "I'm in your debt." That was inconvenient. "I couldn't even muster up the humility to apologize to you and now here you come running the moment I need help. It's very embarrassing." He had discouraged her from mentioning the party, but Navisya was not easily frightened. "You were so quick to accuse me of something vile. I thought the man I'd danced with was a lie."

[Duvalyon Hellebore]

"I don't really think this is the appropriate time to discuss that," Duvalyon said evenly as he stood to bring Navisya the water. It wasn't a threat, but a petition for delay as he gave her the skin. "It wouldn't reflect either of us truly." After returning to his seat, he brushed aside the rest of her gratitude with the back of his hand. "No debt. You don't owe me anything." The medic had failed to make eye contact since Navisya began speaking, preferring the stinging smoke and grating light to her expression. Especially as she tilted the conversation towards the injury he had done her. It was obvious it was a discussion he didn't want to resurrect, but didn't know how to abandon. He mumbled in the same hasty tone as his dismissal of her gratitude, "Not a fair setting." It was the first arrow over the wall, cutting a decisive cord in his restraint. His mind began working the memory over. It was skinned and slit open so the grotesque heart could be exhumed and examined. "Look at me, Navisya," He tried to sink his eyes into her like curved fangs. "The name 'Golem' suits you. You have done things for which there is no forgiveness, your life's work is an abomination and you and yours should be stricken from the earth." Every sentence was delivered with the brutal weight of a thrown stone. "Now keep quiet, or you're a bitch with a temper." Duvalyon withdrew, and snapped a sticky branch of pine in his hands before throwing it in the fire that now held his eyes. "Imagine being told that in a crowded room in front of a girl you want to impress, then having it stopped only when anyone but you is insulted. I'm sorry your pretty evening was broken." Another crumbling piece of the thin pine bough was tossed into the flames. "I wasn't prepared for that then. I'm not now." His saber clear voice descended into a grumble. "I didn't want to talk about this."

[Navisya Curare]

Holding the waterskin, between both hands, now slightly lighter than a moment before, Navisya's eyes were pulled upward at Duvalyon's behest. She could never seem to tell exactly what she was looking at when stared into his dark, burgundy gaze. He always seemed a little tired, or impatient. Or scrutinizing and evaluating. Or a multitude of other things. Duvalyon did not seem to possess a broad spectrum of facial expressions, and so he adapted by keeping a relatively ambiguous one. Through his deliberate wording, he began to strike cracks into Navisya's hypothetical veneer, roundly summing up everything Aessila had spat at him that night. 'Golem' came as a surprise—Navisya hadn't heard that one, but now her fleeting curiosity had been resurrected and satisfied. Although these were not direct insults, she could feel the sting of every one. His last remark carried a barb that lodged in her throat. By the time Duvalyon looked away, Navisya looked as if someone had just struck her across the face. Until now she had blamed his bloated pride nearly as much as Aessila's errant tongue, but suddenly she was realizing that she had never considered the full scope of his perspective. He carried himself so surely, Navisya had thought him impervious to self-doubt and the careless words of an ignoramus. She underestimated the burden laid upon Kalinor's firstborn. Navisya looked down, finally closing her mouth. He was right; she had been selfish, thinking only of her own pains. Her cheeks warmed with chagrin, appalled at her own lack of acuity. Always, she had been the Curare Web's de facto mediator, sorting out arguments between her siblings and even her parents. It was instinct not to take a side. Only when Navisya was personally offended did she forcefully step in. Aessila should have been stopped sooner. Through inaction, Navisya was as much to blame as either of them. She shrank under her covers, deflated by her revelation. The preferable quiet filled the air where once there had been tense conversation. Thin, wet pine branches snapped in the fire. Her mind worked over ways to rectify her mistake, but came up with nothing. Things had accelerated beyond the point where prepared words could mend anything. "I'm sorry, yes. You're right," Navisya said quietly. She paused to take another cautious sip of water. "This isn't the appropriate time." Her claws ran themselves over the spout of the waterskin, fidgeting quietly to distract herself from the churning in her stomach. It seemed to be growing worse by the second. The campfire before them was the focal point now, yellow flames dancing over a bed of curled, spider-like pine needle husks. Navisya's thoughts kept her company, recirculating in her head until they were loud enough to become words. "I was impressed," she said at last, making it obvious that some of Duvalyon's wording had stuck in her mind. "No one has ever asked me to dance quite like that. And I still am. Unbidden rescues are the sort of thing that can turn a girl's head." A cough erupted from her throat, cutting her off if she meant to say more. Her body lurched forward, propping itself up one arm, covering her mouth with her other hand. Another cough or two made it out of her, and it took her several moments to recover, by which time she was moaning miserably. Finally she straightened again, meticulously smoothing back her hair and wiping the rim of her mouth as if she could somehow improve her image. She had to believe she could. "I swear that wasn't related. Too much water." Navisya rested her head in one clawed hand, her tired eyes resting lifelessly on the fire. Errant tufts of curling hair had pulled free of the tie and hung like frayed ribbons around her face. The misery on her face seemed to age her features by ten years. Tevander was angry that Navisya had gone up alone. Well, let him be. Hypocrite. "You've seen nothing but the worst sides of me, Duvalyon." Her free hand drew up a stick, which prodded into the fire with halfhearted interest. "You aren't supposed to see me so unkempt." She could have been talking about her appearance, or her behavior. She hadn't exactly been a winning character at the Purging or the dinner party. Even this predicament was due largely to her own arrogance. In truth, she meant both. "I wonder if you and I will ever have a normal, civil moment."

[Duvalyon Hellebore]

In a flare of temper and a slump of fatigue the words had wrangled free and made a fool of him. The open air turned them sour. Duvalyon was praying a sudden delirium would strike Navisya's immediate memory. Instead of disorientation, she was visited by a coughing fit. He threw another bit of pine into the fire irritably. The gods had not seen fit to be kind to him. Her point was fair. They had not met under good or even normal circumstances. The bells they had shared were made molten by conflict or miserable by physical malady. Had they simply come across one another at the Orchard Market they would have at least been civil. Maybe. Duvalyon could imagine himself scowling at any bell in the middle of any activity. His mind was often elsewhere, and the elsewhere was often unpleasant. "Probably not." He retorted starkly to Navisya's lament with an indifferent shrug. "But your standards are appallingly low, so it doesn't matter." When the brusque certainty startled Navisya into looking at him, he smiled. It was only a shade better than a smirk, but his burgundy eyes had changed, crinkling in the corners. There he was. Or at least some part of him. The rare portion didn't survive long in the light though. It quickly retreated under the steadier protection of competence and implacability. Navisya's mind might have even played a trick on her, turning the shadows to make odd shapes on Duvalyon's empty face. "You should lay down," he suggested. "A space from the fire though. You might be insensible to overheating." Reaching for the water skin he added, "And you must ask for this, now. Since you can't seem to drink without spewing it everywhere." The crude words belied the mild humor with which they were delivered.