Closed The End of Mistrust (Syveris)

[Azira]

11th Winter 513AV Evening

It had been a tiring day, not that that was unusual for the huntress but she'd been out hunting for a little later than normal. It meant that the baths were pretty much deserted when she got there, a blessing, but she was worried that she'd be too late for her dinner. The rationing system was driving her mad but as far as she was concerned, she ought to get her food no matter what time she got in at. Azira wasn't a Dek and she was going to make sure that the kitchen staff understood that if they tried to deny her. It wasn't that much after the 19th bell after all and it wasn't her fault though perhaps she should have eaten first and bathed later. It would have made more sense but then she'd felt so chilled to the bone when she came in that she probably would have been too stiff to eat. She'd just have to plead her case.

Walking quickly through the Inner Warrens, she met many people coming from the direction of the Kitchens and she began to worry that she was too late. She could turn around now and head straight for her room but while there was still a chance of getting food, she was going to take it. The girl was starving! It wouldn't be fair for her to work hard all day and then be denied the very food that she was bringing in for the city. Her pace increased until she was almost jogging towards the eating hall, going against the crowd of people coming back from their meals.

Please let me be on time, please let me be on time, the Avora prayed as she squeezed past people until she reached the entranceway of the KItchens. There were still a handful of people eating and there was even someone getting food as she looked on. Breathing a sigh of relief, the huntress took a moment to work on her composure, making herself seem calm and unhurried before she crossed the space to order her food. She handed her token to the attendant and asked what meats were available, before listening to the limited choice of what was left. Of the few items that were left, one in particular appealed to her.

"I'll take the liver and onions, carrots, bread and... surprise me for the rest. Oh and a drop of cider," she told the woman in charge of serving. She moved out of sight and returned a chime or two later with a dish of food and a mug of with a small measure of cider in it. People still didn't trust the water completely and Azira had learned first hand just what the dodgy water could do. A bit of cider seemed safe and though she'd never admit it, the beverage was beginning to grow on her.

Taking the food and drink from the woman she thanked her, inclining her head before turning and searching for a seat. There were plenty of places for her to sit down but for some reason the wide choice made the huntress pause. She found herself scanning the hall for anyone that she might know, hoping that she might be able to eat with a friend, a pleasant thought.

[Syveris]

Syveris had began to eat late, not because she had been busy with anything. In fact, she got out of the Arms Gallery as soon as she could and spent the rest of her days in her room, mostly, taking care of the nestling. She and Virat had spent a lot of time watching the bird, her mentor only giving food during the time she was working and he was not. It was a pity, because that way she had no one to talk to during the boring bells on the Arms Gallery, but Syveris hoped it would be different soon, after all, the nestling was growing quickly.

The Avora sighed, poking around the meat in her plate. Dinner was the only time when she could eat meat, the other two being given to the bird. However, she was barely feeling like eating it now. She barely felt like eating. Syveris was hungry, the famine affecting even the Avora and the Endals, but she was too emotionally tired. Her search in the Deep Warrens had been completely useless, and people kept looking at her with judgement in their eyes. It was getting more tiring than annoying, and she missed the socialization a lot. The Avora didn't use to talk much with strangers, but at least she could have a decent conversation over dinner if she wanted. Now, she was sitting alone, with no one to talk to. And if she had gotten there earlier, that would only mean she would easily be able to find a table, because others would leave to get away from her. That was why she had been late. She didn't want to face this situation again.

With a sigh, Syveris put another tiny bit of meat on her mouth and chewed lazily, while looking around. The Kitchens were really empty. Then, a familiar figure caught her eye, and the Avora saw Azira look around for a table to sit. She wondered if she should call her over, since she suspected the huntress was still upset with all that Marrin business. But then, hadn't the other been by her side during Zulrav's accusation? She at least believed in her, and Syveris was in need of a friend. Besides, it would be a good opportunity to try to convince Azira that she really didn't feel anything for Marrin.

"Azira!" she called, waving her hand to try to get the huntress attention. A woman looked at her with angry eyes, as if she wanted to murder the other. Syveris ignored it, hoping that her friend wouldn't mind sitting with her.

[Azira]

The sound of her name being screamed so suddenly startled her, her head whipping in the direction of the voice. She sighed softly when she saw that it was Syveris, she'd been meaning to talk to the glassworker but only if she saw her. She hadn't come across the girl since the end of fall and while in the beginning the avoidance had been intentional, now she did actually want to talk to her friend. So she carried her food across to the table where the young woman sat alone.

The huntress couldn't help but notice the animosity towards her friend. One woman was giving her a filthy look and moved further away from her as Azira watched. The woman had been far away as it was but the teen remembered the day of the meeting and the way that everyone had given the girl a wide berth. Apparently that was still the case. Some people were so paranoid.

Funny I should think that. I was paranoid recently for a different reason but it still affected Syveris, she thought as she sat across from the girl. She managed a tired smile.

"Hey, Syveris. Fancy seeing you here," the young woman greeted her, settling herself down to begin eating. "So… how have you been?" she asked as she began to shove food into her mouth. Gods she was starving! It was probably rude of her to eat like that but she couldn't help it, she had every right to be hungry anyway.

[Syveris]

When Azira sat down across her in the table, Syveris almost sighed with relief. So at least the huntress didn't really believed she was helping this Despised. Or at least, Syveris hoped so. But she would just try to trust her. The Avora was happy that she had company to dinner, so she wouldn't be thinking about this kind of thing.

"Tired, annoyed and stressed." Syveris answered, an apologizing smile on her face. She didn't want to bring up all those topics, but she wanted even less to lie to her friend, and Winter was anything but fine. The Avora almost laughed at the way Azira was eating, but she could understand it. The hunters were really having a hard time, too. "And bored. Glassworkers have been reassigned to work on the Arms Gallery. I never thought the forges could be so repetitive and... Well, just plain boring. I just want to go back to the Glass Reverie."

Syveris poked the meat in her plate once again. Now that she thought about it, she didn't even know what it was. She had just asked for a plate, and the woman serving the food had been more than eager to give her it. She ate another piece.

"And you? It has been very tough out there, hasn't it?" the Avora asked the other, not unsure about what she could say. She really wanted to convince Azira that she wasn't interested in Marrin, but then, if she said the wrong thing, it would only anger the huntress, and Syveris wanted company right then. Maybe it was better to not mention it for now. "And all that talk about having to find your own food... Is it going alright?" it wasn't fine, Syveris knew, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad as some had first believed it.

[Azira]

The huntress slowed her wolfing of food to try to be polite and listen while Syveris was talking. The teen munched quietly on her food and tried to pay more attention to the words of her friend rather than the rumbling of her own stomach. She made her expression sympathetic as the glassworker elaborated on her feelings, describing the monotony of working in the Arms Gallery. The Avora could sympathise but she'd never experienced the awful feeling of being forced to do something other than what you loved.

"What have they got you doing exactly? I don't understand what glassworkers can do in that line of work. Glass and metal aren't that similar, are they?" Azira asked, curious about Syveris's current line of work.

When she brought up the hunting situation, the young woman pulled a face and stopped eating. Her friend couldn't know how hard the situation had been so far. Syveris only had to contend with boredom in the safe confines of the city whereas Azira had to put up with the conditions outside and those two troublesome apprentices of hers.

"Ugh, you have no idea how bad it's been," she explained, grimacing as she went back to her food. "Finding game is hard but then we've got the weather as well. The weather is shyke and then there's the apprentice situation. All hunters have to have two apprentices, load of untrained Yasi in the Unforgiving? They're as good as dead. My two..." the huntress trailed off, shaking her head in disgust. She ate in silence for a few moments before launching into a description of her two apprentices.

"So I've got a girl of 11, Aleisa, won't kill anything. Seriously, she refuses to kill anything at all but she can trap so she's not a complete lost cause. The other one, Wilem... gods that guy is an absolute pain. He's nearly 15 so he would have ended up a Dek if I hadn't taken him on and believe me if I'd a choice then I would have gone for someone better but... He can shoot but he's so cranky. Plus he keeps flirting with me. I'm his mentor and he's trying it on with me, I mean come on."

Azira made another face and gave Syveris a chance to speak before she started ranting again.

[Syveris]

"No, glass and metal are totally different" Syveris sighed, remembering the first day she had to work at the forges, and her constant hope in trying to find anything similar, so the work wouldn't be so boring to her. "Okay, there are a few similarities, but they all resume to heat. You heat glass to work, you heat metal to work. And that's it." the Avora groaned, tired. "And we can't do much to help, actually... Fetching water, helping with the hammer and carrying the finished pieces to somewhere. Nothing they couldn't do by themselves. I know it accelerates the production of weapons, but I only got to do boring and repetitive work."

Azira made a face when she asked about hunting, and Syveris could see that it wasn't any better outside. The Avora wished she could go hunting too, do anything that was very far away from the forges, but she kept quiet about this wish. Azira was clearly having many difficulties down there, and it wouldn't be fair to say something like that.

And then, there were the Yasi apprentices. Syveris frowned when the huntress mentioned them. She wasn't a huntress, but even her could understand that making young Inarta hunt in the Unforgiving during Winter was almost the same as killing them. She hoped it wouldn't turn out like that, though. However, the Avora couldn't help but snicker a little when Azira told her about the apprentices she had chosen. They had problems that were completely ironic with the situation.

"So, how do you handle them?" Syveris asked, smiling a bit. It was good to talk. "I mean, Aleisa seems easy to handle, you only have to be the one doing the killing. But this Wilem..." he did sound like a very troublesome Yasi. Syveris would sure be very angry if she was in the huntress place.

[Azira]

The huntress tried to listen with a sympathetic ear to the glassworker's complaints but it wasn't easy. She wanted to grind her teeth at the triviality of it. All she had to worry about was being bored. It annoyed her that Syveris was complaining about her job being easy but boring. Would she prefer to swap? Would she like it better if she risked dying everyday? If she was responsible for the lives of two youths, how would she feel? But Azira kept her mouth shut. She was trying to be friendly with Syveris and there was no point in judging her for her thoughts. She'd never been in Azira's situation so how could she possibly understand? No, she was even trying to sympathise with the huntress so it wasn't fair to want to bite her head off. She really had to get a grip on herself.

"How do I deal with them? Well I'll admit it, I've considered throwing Wilem off the mountain. I'd be doing the city a favour, trust me. Maybe I'll introduce you sometime and you can kill him for me," she explained to her friend, managing a dry laugh. Maybe Syveris would laugh too but if she actually knew the boy. "But yeah Aleisa's a lot easier to deal with. She can trap and so she's not totally useless but I don't know if she'll ever get over the killing thing. If she doesn't then I can't do anything for her. Wilem can shoot but I'm definitely going to strangle him soon."

The teen ate in silence for a few moments, lost for anything to talk about that wasn't hunting or her apprentices. Was that really all she could talk about? Well there's always Marrin... she thought, wincing. No, that wasn't a good topic of conversation. Ever. The thought of Syveris's egg popped into her head then and she seized on the topic eagerly.

"Oh Syv! How's your egg doing?"

[Syveris]

Syveris nodded, listening to Azira talk about her apprentices. They really seemed problematic, and the Avora even managed a amused smile when the huntress said she could kill the boy for her. Of course she wasn't serious (Syveris hoped she wasn't. No, she had to believe she wasn't), but it was exactly because of that that Syveris found it slightly funny. She wondered for a moment if Virat had ever thought the same of her, after all, she had been very troublesome in the beginning too, hadn't she? The Avora almost chuckled at herself. Yes, her mentor had probably wanted to shove her inside the Batch Ovens sometimes. But then, he had said that it was nice to have an apprentice, nevertheless.

Was it? Syveris sure wanted to have one, if only she could. Supposedly, she was going to leave apprenticeship this Season, but now, with her not even being allowed inside the Reverie, she wasn't sure when she would be able to be on her own. And when she could, would she be able to take an apprentice right away? Suddenly, the Avora noticed that there was silence now between her and Azira, and she felt uncomfortable. It was true that conversation had never been exactly easy between them, but, somehow, after what had happened, Syveris felt that this time it was her fault. She sighed, ready to say something just to break the silence, when the huntress asked her about the egg.

"It has hatched." the Avora smiled. That she could easily talk about. "It hatched late on the 1st. I stayed up all night, worrying if something was going to get wrong, but it didn't. Now the chick is doing fine, too. Eating some of the meat I'm allowed, but at least there wasn't any trouble until now. I still can't tell the gender, but I hope I'll, soon. I want to give the bird a name, after all." it felt strange. Between everything that had going on, all the bad things, it was weird that the chick had been developing so greatly, not a single trouble yet. Syveris wasn't sure if she should be grateful or worried.

[Azira]

Syveris was smiling, obviously thinking that Azira was joking. Well at least somebody could laugh about it because the huntress certainly couldn't. Let her laugh, at least she didn't have to know the troublesome pair. A slow smile spread across her face then. She definitely had to introduce them and when they met, she'd be very interested to see how they got on. That was something to look forward to.

She nodded in response to the glassworker's comments on the egg. She could still remember the awful thoughts that she'd had concerning that egg, the thoughts she'd had of crushing it. Thankfully she hadn't because it was quite clear that Syveris would have been truly devastated and it would have been a terrible thing for her to do. The girl was worrying about it and there wasn't even anything wrong with the chick. She was glad that she'd asked though, happy to know that her friend was happy with something at least even if she seemed to dislike a great many things at the present time.

"I'm glad to hear that everything is going so well with it," she replied, wolfing down the last of her dinner and taking a sip of cider. "I don't know much about birds so I can't tell you about how to tell its gender. Maybe you could check with someone in the Aviary, I'm sure they'd know. Maybe you aren't able to tell yet though because it's so young, I don't know. Better off asking an expert rather than talking to an idiot like me about it," she joked. The huntress moved onto her dessert, a piece of some sort of berry tart. She had no idea what it was but she ate it anyway. She made a sound of appreciation as she took a bite.

"Gods, I like this. Do you know what it is?" she asked her friend. Her speech was a bit incoherent because her mouth was full but she was sure that Syveris could work it out. Swallowing, she grinned wickedly. "So are we going to try to find Wilem after we've eaten? I'm sure we can find him moping around somewhere. Or would you sooner introduce me to your chick? I'm sure its much more good-natured." The young woman knew which she'd prefer to do and it definitely didn't involve the human.

[Syveris]

"I'm a bit of an idiot about this subject too." Syveris smiled, each time feeling more relaxed. It was obvious the Marrin thing was still bothering her friend, but she was glad that at least the huntress was willing to talk and socialize with her. Maybe they were still friends. They just had a fight, a fight they would have to talk about sometime, but friends fought sometimes, right? "But I have read a bit about it. Differences in genders, I mean. You are right, though. The bird is still too young. It'll be another fifteen days before I can tell, I think. If it doesn't decide to be late again. Then it can be twenty days more."

Azira had moved to her desert, and Syveris chuckled a little at the excitement in the huntress face when she tasted it. "I have no idea. I'm terrible with plants." it was nice, talking with someone about unimportant things like that. It was truly relaxing.

When Azira asked her what they were going to do after they had eaten, Syveris couldn't help but chuckle again. "I wouldn't really count on it. The falcon seems to think it owns the place. I don't know, it's just... When you look at it, it's almost as if the bird is challenging you. I think it'll be more troublesome once it has grown." the Avora smiled. Even with all the effort, the bird still seemed to be a little troublesome, but Syveris didn't really care that much. "But I need to go back, anyway, because we are doing this thing called imprinting, and when I'm not there, Virat has to be, and he is already annoyed with it. So you can come, too, and then, later, I can meet your apprentice if you want." she hoped Azira wouldn't mind. The huntress hadn't seem very comfortable in her room before, but then, if she truly didn't want to go see the bird, she would probably just have invited her to meet her apprentice.