Closed Hanging with an Endal (Lavira)

[Azira]

The huntress sighed softly at the woman's reply to her Wind Eagle problem. She wasn't going to explain that it had nothing to do with how she presented herself, something she rarely had the chance to do, but simply her presence that seemed to put ruffle the feathers of the giant birds. They could bristle or decide to try to kill her merely because of her just being near them. The girl had no idea what caused such a reaction but she didn't think she could tell the Endal without sounding ridiculous. If she saw it for herself then she'd understand but it didn't seem likely right now.

When it was time for Lavira to answer her question, Azira concentrated on eating and waiting expectantly for the answer of the other. She broke a chunk off of her bread and dipped it in the chowder, bringing the dripping piece up to her mouth. She very nearly dropped it when the girl said the word 'bear'. She ate the piece of bread, swallowing audibly at the thought. Bears were horrifying and monstrous creatures as far as she was concerned and very dangerous. She was well aware of the dangers they posed to others.

She tried to imagine how the two girls had felt and remembered all too well her own terror when faced with one of the creatures. It sounded like their encounter had been very close, not as close as her one as neither had been injured but she could certainly sympathise. For a moment she met the Endal's gaze, her eye drawn by the blind dead eye rather than the live one before she looked away to answer the question of the other.

"I didn't want to be an Endal originally, didn't even want to be a hunter actually. I was interested in maybe... becoming... a chef actually," she mumbled, the words becoming more incoherent as the sentence progressed. "I did my bendi in the kitchens and I really liked it. I especially liked making bread. Kneading dough is a great stress reliever. I still volunteer sometimes." Her cheeks warmed as she explained. It was something she'd never told anyone having never needed to but it was something she found oddly embarrassing. Now was the time to change the subject back to Lavira. Perhaps she could find something juicy out about the young woman and her past but what could she ask?

"Right, my turn. Um... what is the strangest thing you've ever done?" The question was a little different to the questions they had asked each other so far. It sounded a little less serious.

x

[Lavira]

While she waited for a reply, the young woman continued to eat, pieces of the loaf of bread rhythmically torn off and dipped into the chowder before being put into her mouth. It was rich and creamy and tasted something like clams, if she were to guess. The cheese had been blended perfectly so that it did not have a grainy texture to the soup, only the wonderful smoothness the way chowder should be. It was altogether heavenly and each and every bite was looked forwards to with zeal. As for the meat, Vira waited till the end of Azira’s initial reply to take a bite of the braised brisket.

That too was amazingly delicious. Brisket could take bells or more to cook, forced to slow roast to just the right level of tenderness to fall off the bone while soaking up all the rich flavors. There was also a reasonable trim of fat on one side, further enhancing the smoked flavor. It was interesting, she found, that the food they were eating had been just the kind of thing Azira originally wanted to do. Well, maybe not meats, but the thought of seeing the sealed up tighter than an eagle egg Azira working hard in the kitchens to get food for everyone ready was fascinating.

“That’s kind of cool, Azira; I never knew anybody that wanted to be a cook. It’s an important job for the city, too; what stopped you from going for apprenticeship with Davoid? If you enjoyed it so much, you must have been good, right?” Whatever her answer, she wasn’t completely prepared for the next question.

The strangest thing she’d ever done. That was a toughy; living in Wind Reach was a strange life enough after hearing about some of the other realms in the books at the Enclave and from the rare visitors. The problem here, though, was that Vira had not really done much in the way of strange. Seen some strange things, yes, but other than that? There wasn’t that much that was fascinating about the inner workings of her life. The teen thought back on the last few seasons.

There’d been that day she went cliff diving at Suren cliffs with Addy…But that had turned intense when a little boy became extremely injured. Then there was the time she’d seen her first wind eagle chicks and felt the tug of her heart towards them, but that wasn’t strange either. Falling in love with Kovac couldn’t be counted as strange unless you considered how they had started their romantic journey and she wasn’t sure that Azira would be comfortable hearing about any of that. Then her mind went to Garren and Rengar.

Her cheeks reddened with heat and the young endal looked away. That was entirely inappropriate, and yet that HAD been the strangest thing she’d ever done, just not in the sense that she suspected Azira meant. Her mind delved deeper. “I, er…I’m not really sure, Azira. Until the last three years, my life has actually been pretty normal. I kept to my schedules, I didn’t miss bendi during my yasihood, kept my nose clean. I was about as ramrod straight as it came, heh. I saw a few strange things during the Storm, but everybody did, then, and I’ve had some pretty strange dreams, but well, nothing honestly jumps out at me until you get around to when I was about to turn fifteen. There was one thing I’d done, but I don’t think you’d really want to hear about that.” The teen shifted a little uncomfortably and chewed at the inside of her cheek. “It kind of led to a bunch of things that I didn’t expect to happen.” And for some of those, she didn’t WANT them to happen. But how could she explain that to her colleague?

[Azira]

The huntress finished the last of her chowder, using her bread to gather up the last of the liquid. It was strange to her even now that there had been a time when she had actually wanted to make stuff like this. The bread could have been made by her hands (there were days when that was the case though anyway), the chowder could have been prepared by her or she might have spent bells slaving over the brisket. She couldn't imagine it though, working full time in the kitchens. She was too caught up in the hunt now to want that sort of life. She liked to catch her food too much.

Azira shrugged in response to the Endal's questions. "Maybe I was good, I don't know. I did really enjoy the work. I like a bit of hard work every now and again," she laughed, giving Lavira a sly look. "I was always into archery though and I also loved to learn things so one day I tagged along with a group of Yasi who wanted to go outside and when we got out a rabbit ran across our path and froze. I don't even know why but it just stared at us and I shot it. I couldn't get over that and it was actually quite thrilling especially when I brought it in. We had rabbit stew that night and I wondered if my rabbit had gone into it. It was one thing to cook for Wind Reach but to hunt? Way better."

Her face had lit up as she remembered the occasion. It had been so exhilarating to catch something and she never would have discovered her love of hunting except for a strange twist of fate. She would never normally have gone anywhere with the Yasi, couldn't even remember now why she had, and yet that unusual occurrence had brought her into contact with the rabbit and it had gone from there.

Snapping out of her own thoughts, she began on the brisket as she waited for Lavira's answer. She noted that the other young woman had flushed and looked away, a sure sign that she was having embarrassing thoughts. Azira waited patiently, chewing on her brisket and savouring the flavour. She had never had the meat before but it tasted simply divine to her. How often did she just have some soup and a haunch of rabbit? How long had she been missing out on this?

When the other began to speak, the Avora gave her her full attention. She felt oddly disappointed that the woman seemed to have been such a... goody goody. Although she'd been fairly upstanding herself she hadn't been perfect. Yet there was something, some sort of answer to her question, an answer that Lavira clearly didn't want to give. The girl bit her lip for a moment.

"If you don't want to tell me then you don't have to, I understand if it's something you don't want to share. Just go ahead and ask me a question so we can get on with it," she replied, shrugging to show that it didn't really bother her, not getting an answer. Her eyes burned with curiosity though.

x

[Lavira]

The teen looked in with bright interest as she talked of how she had discovered her passion for hunting. That it had purely been a fluke made it all the more endearing to Vira and she grinned wholeheartedly at the other woman. “That sounds a lot like me and the birds. I remember when my parents gave me my first one; it was a little mockingbird named Ditsy. Heh, she was kind of ditsy, but in a good sort of way. But she was an older bird and I didn’t get to keep her for very long before nature took its course. She had such a pretty voice, too.”

Vira would let out a few whistling notes from the song the little mockingbird used to sing. “I even made up a few words to it when I was younger, though I was never a great singer. Alori’s got a better voice than I do.” She fell quiet for the moment , the question of strange doings coming and the awkwardness of it coloring her cheeks more. “Well, it’s not…strange, I guess. Not in the sense I think you’re referring to, but it was definitely different. Still…” The woman hesitated. “It’s really something I’m trying to move on from, if you want the truth. But it’s hard to when you have to live with a part of it every day.”

She sighed, calming herself before trying to speak. “I met this Akalak back in spring. Kind of odd man, and a total flirt, even worse than Kovac. He was in the market delivering some lumber for one of the stallkeepers and I was getting some new jesse’s for Tulaj. It was kind of obvious what he was after but there was this Yasi who kept getting in the way. I wouldn’t have bit the line anyways. I don’t really enjoy the thought of sleeping around like some of the other women do. I mean, if I’m going to get something in Wind Reach, I’m going to do it by hard work. I’m going to earn it.”

“When Summer came, I went down the Clam for my seasonal dinner and glass of wine and …er…had way more to drink than I should have. But that was this seamstress’s apprentices fault, Lander. He kept harassing me at dinner and we ended up going off on this dare and…and I have no idea why I’m explaining my actions to you. Anyways, the point was I got drunk and woke up with an agonizing hangover in guess who’s tent.” She paused for affect, hanging her head shamefully. “His name was Garren and he said I’d shown up in his neck of the woods or something. I frankly don’t remember the night well enough to say what happened. But Garren let me work it off with him by hauling lumber. I couldn’t exactly show back up at the nesting aeries stinking of booze and shame, so I sweated it out in the morning sun.”

“Then things got a little hot.” She colored and looked away again, her single eye running over the stone contours of the table as her fork picked at the meat of the brisket. “He suggested we wash and cool off in this river eddy nearby. I thought he meant a bath, but he wanted more. And I just…let him. We scrubbed in the water and then he took me over to the waterfall to rinse and…yada yada yada. When it was over and we had dried and dressed we had this, I don’t know, talk. He told me about his people. Akalak are these double souled people, two souls in one body or something, and that he and his brother are one but not one. It kind of scared me, made worse when he brought up pregnancy.”

Vira looked up, searching Azira’s face for a moment as she went on. “So I thought, okay, for a first time lover, that wasn’t bad. He said he cared about me and that he’d keep an eye out for me and that if what we did ended up resulting in…you know…he’d be there. Because it would be hard, he said.” Her eyes grew misty with emotion now. “The problem was that he wasn’t there. He jumped ship the first chance he got, using my accident in summer as the perfect excuse. Used and thrown aside, Azira, a piece of ass to petch a bit then forget. It’s funny how so many of us start out so innocent and it just…goes downhill from there. It makes me glad for Kovac and Mohya and Alori. But, anyways, yea…that was definitely the strangest thing I’ve ever done, though probably not in terms of what you meant. Weird, two souled, all men race who petch and leave you wondering and hoping you’re not.” The teen shuddered, then took another bite of brisket.

Her eye searched the Avora’s face for signs of judgment, sure she would see the taunt in the huntresses eyes, this time, that she will have heard this story and dismiss the endal as being crazy and no longer worthy of company.

[Azira]

   

The two young women shared a smile over how they'd discovered their passions. This little question game was turning out quite well she thought. The pair were really beginning to get to know each other better. This was bringing things to the surface that wouldn't normally come up in conversation. She'd never told anyone about the chef thing and she was sure that Lavira wouldn't have brought up her mockingbird in ordinary conversation. 

When the Endal began to tell her "strange" story, her cheeks flushing more, the huntress watched her curiously. As the story continued however, her face froze by degrees. Apparently Lavira wasn't as perfect as she had thought at first. The story just made her feel uneasy however, reminding her too much of her own experiences with men. As the other woman discussed the Akalak and his attitude, the colour drained from Azira's face. She knew exactly how some men regarded women, understood completely that what they wanted wasn't always something you wanted to give. Unlike her though, Lavira had been willing to give what was asked of her.

The Avora began to feel a little ill at the idea of the Akalak running off and leaving the woman, especially considering what he had taken from her. She had given him something that a woman could only give once and he had taken it without thought, pretty much spitting on her when he was done. How cruel was that?

Her dinner suddenly seemed a little unpleasant. She put down the brisket, one hand gripping the table tightly, her knuckles going white. The woman was almost detached when she told her story. Azira wondered if she could be the same way of she tried to tell hers. No, she couldn't be. She'd be lucky if she managed to get a word out before pretty much curling into a ball and wanting to scream. Just thinking about it made her breathing quicken and she had to close her eyes and force herself to take deep, calming breaths.

"Strange, you could say. Know what you mean though. About men," she managed to choke out, struggling with the simple words. She swallowed audibly then her eyes snapped open to fall on the cider. Picking it up, she gulped it gratefully, the bitter warmth sliding down her throat and distracting her for a moment. It calmed her a bit. She tried to get her mind away from that topic.

"Your question?" she asked.

x

[Lavira]

And there it was, the judgment. It was in the way Azira’s face had stiffened as she told her part of the story of the last three years; seeing the reaction alone made the teen lower her eyes and clear her throat uncomfortably. “You’re probably thinking I was some hussy doing that with him.” Her lips were tight but she kept her voice calm and eyes lowered, spinning the spoon she had retaken in her hand around the chowder bowl. “But I’m not. He took advantage of the situation, knowing I was still getting the alcohol out and I didn’t have enough awareness at the time to stop him. Your first is supposed to be special. And it was, in a way…but it’s been soured by what happened later that season. And it’s why Kovac is so dear to me.”

She cleared her throat again and spooned a mouthful of the soup into her own mouth, chewing it up and swallowing the chunks and thick contents. “You know, they expect us as kids to be these perfect little creatures, scurrying around, shooting arrows, killing animals, smelting glass, forging swords, flying birds. We’re expected to be these pretty darlings who are just petching perfect in every single way, and if you aren’t then shyke on you, you aren’t worth the time. If you got the enough brains to scoop shyke and scrub walls and enough brawn to cut some veggies, you might make it as an average jane or joe, be petch to anyone else who might show even the minutest amount of weakness.”

“I worked my ass off, Azira, all through yasihood. When Meera came to me, I was enthralled and then she just threw my name out because of one bad position; petch, it wasn’t my fault the fledgling landed there! I’m twice as good as any one of those spoiled brats she has working with her now, but she never even looked back. No one did.” The teens face softened, though still angry. “They want us to be flawless, no matter the role we fill, but they can’t even see the flaws in themselves. I know how hard it is to climb out of that hole, bleed for what you believe in, and nearly die as a result. You have no idea how hard I have fought just so I wouldn’t be thrown aside again, Azira. So whatever image you may think an Endal should be, throw it out. We are who we choose to be, not what this-“ the hand holding the soup spoon waved around her, inadvertently flinging some of the chowder at her colleague. “-society says we are.”

Vira fell silent, lowering her single-eyed gaze to the stone table once more and releasing a long slow breath. “Sorry.” It was the best she could offer the other woman this time, holding green-gold gaze down for a moment more before lifting it and staring back at the other huntress. But something behind her distracted her and the teen had to snap a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. The glob of chowder that had been on the spoon had evidently landed on the back of someone behind Azira and was now slowly trailing down their spine. They had yet to notice it, however, but surely might before long.

[Azira]

Azira sighed and shook her head. "No, Lavira, I don't think you were a hussy. Did I say that? No, because I didn't even think it," the huntress replied, tracing the grain of the wood of the table with a finger. Lavira had obviously taken her reaction as some sort of judgement of her because she was trying to justify the incident with the Akalak to her. She wanted to tell her that she didn't need to explain, didn't need to feel guilty about an event from the past. It didn't matter, at least not to Azira and seeing as she was the only one listening, she was all that mattered.

The young woman couldn't get another word in edge ways however as her Endal companion launched into a rant about perfection. The girl let her do it, not willing to interrupt the woman when she was so clearly getting a lot off of her chest. When she brought u the name of the huntress however, she looked up in surprise as the woman threw chowder at her by accident. She dodged the wet missiles and stared at the woman. She had a seriously big chip on her shoulder that was for sure.

"I don't really know what you're getting at to be honest but I'm sure you realise that not all Endals are like you, right? Yes, there are bound to be some good, hard working citizens in the caste but not all of them are perfect. Some of them are downright bastards. I know a fair amount about some of their flaws. One was very eager to drag me to bed whether I wanted to or not only a few market days ago. I can't go anywhere near the Aeries on my own for fear of bumping into some of them an it isn't restricted to Endal either that I know the flaws of. Hai, I'm probably more flawed than the rest of them put together so don't talk to me about flawlessness. It doesn't exist," she explained, her voice full of passion.

It was just as she was finishing that Lavira started to laugh, or rather covered her mouth to hide her laughter. The Avora scowled at her.

"Something funny, Lavira? Would you like to share what you're finding so amusing while I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you?" she asked her, her voice like ice.

x

[Lavira]

Vira's eyes flicked back to Azira, now, and the grin behind her hand was sent away to a small smile, and then at last to nothing. The teen sighed, closing her eyes to draw a second breath and exhale it as well. Azira was right, she did have a chip on her shoulder and it was having a hard time being shrugged off. Things had changed dramatically since summer and the young woman was trying to just keep up.

"Ah, it wasn't anything of importance, Azira. I'm sorry I snapped out like that; I'm not upset with you, honest. Just tired, I guess." She tried to give the other a more encouraging smile as they sat there, Vira lowering her head afterwards to finish eating quietly for a moment more. When the last of the bread had soaked up the remainders of her soup, she chewed it up and looked back up at the huntress. "You're right; there are a few that are genuinely good, but more often they are as arrogant as a goodly chunk of the Avora are, taking advantage of the other castes. And I never said that about perfection. I said they expect it of you, force you to put on this costume or feel the stinging nettles of their assumptiveness. It makes for poor company, in my opinion. I mean, look at the two of us. I don't know very many anti-social gingers, do you? And Kovac's a half-breed."

"The expectations can craft quite the fog to lose yourself in. I hate that I have to prove my worth to them yet don't to those dearest. Why should I feel compelled to be accepted by them?" Vira drew another breath, sitting straight and pushing her soup bowl off to the side. "It's just idiotic. You know, I had this dream earlier in the season where I was in Lhavit. There was this little girl crying, surrounded by all these Inarta. They were all watching her, hating her, judging her, when all she wanted to do was try and stand up. They wouldn't let her until I stepped forward. It was strange, though, I wasn't me, and yet was. In the dream, I was standing in the crowd not as me but as one of the Eagles. They all moved aside when I approached them."

"The little girl kind of reminded me of myself, except worse off. They were so cruel without ever actually touching her, she was nearly broken. They expected her to fail, to be the Dek she had made herself into. I thought, maybe she was a shadow of myself in that sense, and I tried to help her, to show her that she could be a warrior and not a soldier, that it was okay to be afraid but to not let their expectations force you into submission."

Vira canted her head a little as she looked at Azira, her brow pensive. "It was like I was reminding myself that to do what you want to do, you just have to take a step. It's going to be hard, but if you never try, you'll never succeed. It was a very introspective dream; usually, I just have nightmares." her cheeks darkened with heat and she looked ashamedly aside. "Anyways, my point is that I wonder at times if things shouldn't change around here. Not the system itself, I mean, but...I dunno, change the way we think. If that can be altered, so too would the actions. No more leaving the weakest behind; I mean, have you ever actually talked to a Dek, Azira? Sometimes they are more intelligent than some of the Avora and Endal! Yet, they are kept beneath the heel of the powers in Wind Reach purely because of misfortune, never to even be given the chance."

Drawing a breath, the teen leaned back and loosely crossed her arms, shrugging and tightening her cheek muscles slightly. "Maybe things can change, given the right nudge. Those who truly deserve it can be given the opportunity instead of forgotten and left to ruin in the pit the highers put them in."

[Azira]

Her words seemed to have the right effect because Lavira stopped laughing. It had certainly been a highly inappropriate time for such behaviour and she was glad that the other young woman seemed to be taking things seriously once more. The pair ate quietly for a few moments before the Endal made a reply to what Azira had said. The arrogance of the Avora comment got her back up but the huntress thought about it first before she actually opened her mouth to retort. Lavira had a point. She was pretty arrogant herself sometimes, not all the time true but sometimes it was a personality trait of hers.

The woman continued sounding suspiciously like she was working up to another rant. Yes, she definitely had a chip on her shoulder because now she was interpreting a dream she had had. True, a lot could be told from dreams but as far as Azira was concerned unless the thing you got out of it was extremely obvious then you were probably reading too much into it. As far as the Avora was concerned what her companion was explaining was far too complicated to be what the dream had actually been about. Plus with the way she was talking she was beginning to sound like a Dek rights activist. It was far too much for over dinner conversation.

"Yes, I have talked to a Dek before," she replied through gritted teeth. "And I don't mean that I told one what to do either. I actually talked with one. Perhaps that's difficult for you to believe. They can have the good and bad traits of the higher castes but not always in balance. Some of them are bitter too... not that I blame them." The girl stared moodily into her empty chowder bowl. Perhaps Lavira was right but she didn't know if something like that was possible, changing the way Wind Reach thought. It sounded complicated to her.

"Did you have an idea for how to change things in your mind or are you just spouting these ideas? Sometimes putting a plan into action doesn't work out how you expect it to. Perhaps this isn't the time for having such a conversation though. Maybe we could just have a nice relaxing meal without having to discuss complicated ideas that might never come to fruition. Talking about it won't get it done anyway," she told the Endal.

x

[Lavira]

"No, talking certainly would not get anything done." She replied drearily, the surge of emotion from before finally settling back into a more at ease state of mind. "But I think I'm just venting. Too much stress lately and I've gone and spoiled dinner because of it." The teen pushed her bowl away at this point and wiped her mouth of what little had stained it before leaning back and crossing her arms loosely beneath her breasts.

"If there was a way to show the upper castes that the Dek are truly of value and that what many of them do truly does benefit the city, a change might be affected. Like...live a day as a Dek or something. Not all of the Avora and Endal started out at the bottom, afterall; hai, the majority of them started as Yasi, probably fewer than twenty percent actually coming from my former caste, and even fewer from the Dek rankings. So how many of them actually know how much the Dek do? Think about it for a chime, Azira; a goodly portion of the Dek serve as miners with another hefty portion working at the two forges. They can work up to ten hours a day with only a single, fifteen chime break in that entire time, and if their labor is not finished by the end of the shift, they are required to continue until it is finished.

And then, when they are through, they simply collapse where they are to wake at their next shift, eat a small bit, and work themselves into exhaustion again. Have you ever had a circumstance that left you so tired you couldn't even think, yet the bed in which you collapsed to left you waking fairly refreshed? The dek don't even have that. Their meals are enough to nourish them through their shift but nothing else. They are left so tired, filthy, and broken spirited that they never even have the chance to TRY and rise above their circumstances. If you were an Avora and a dek like that came to you, would you honestly want to give them apprenticeship whether their skills were worth it or not?"

"The only reason some of the higher castes do look at the lowers when not looking for apprentices is the opportunity for a good lay, and I have to wonder just how good it is." Vira pursed her lips in thought, lifting her head and tilting it to the right slightly as she watched Azira. "Can you imagine how debilitating that is to their psyche that the only reason they're even considered by an Avora or Endal is because they want them for sex? I mean, besides my claustrophobia, why do you think I avoid places like the Inclement? I know what they've done to those lower in state than I and I did not want to become like that. Fighting it was impossible because of the laws we have in place; I could not see myself just laying back and taking it..."

That turned her thoughts to something Azira had said before and the purse became a frown as she straightened her head. "Did someone actually try and force themselves on you, Azira?" Her face was heavy with concern. "Did you report the incident? Who was it?"