So...long time, no see? [Tal!]

[Rhindeer]

It was uncannily bizarre, and kind of uncomfortably--dare she think it--cute to see the drow grin. Okay. That had to be the first time she'd seen one smile; she didn't even think them capable of it, and she found herself staring a little longer than was polite (except it was a drow, so that didn't really matter...did it?). This was so wrong. They weren't supposed to be capable of anything but savage grunts and their weird animalistic tongue and, y'know, general savagery. Yet here she was, having a fairly normal conversation with a little drow that looked way chipper, serving her food, not trying to kill her and visa versa.

And Dimitri was here. Did she want the drow to send him a message?

Shit, shit, shit.

"Oh, uh, I...yeeeahno. No. That's, um, that's okay," Niamh said, trying to organize her conflicting thoughts. She wanted to say 'yes'; she wanted to see him, say hi, and...

Yeah, get her head lopped off?

Repressing a sigh, she leaned her arms on the counter, food forgotten. "I...don't really know. I dunno if he'd wanna see me, y'know? Of course you don't know."

Then again, if she stayed here a few days, she couldn't just stay cooped up inside all day, right? No. She knew herself, and knew she'd go insane. All her life she'd been the outdoorsy sort, and spending three days locked in a warehouse had made her even more antsy, more claustrophobic; she didn't like feeling trapped and, inevitably, that's what it would feel like.

And if that were the case, if she went out there, there was a chance she'd run into him.

Glancing sidelong at the drow, still feeling a little displaced from reality, she added, half-cringing as she braced for the worst, "Say, Dimitri's never mentioned a 'Niamh' or anything when he's been around, has he?"

[Tally]

Niiki had so much to do, he really ought to get to cleaning up and preparing the list he would need for the market later.  They would need food for the evening meal, and a few other sundries, and he had a handful of fresh flowers in the back to change out with the wilting ones about the house.  He would much rather talk to Mistress Niamh though.

He looked down, thinking, then glanced back up at her through white lashes.  Certain things Master Dimitri said were not necessarily his to repeat.  Certain of those things wouldn't sound right, so he chose his words carefully.

"Regrettably, I have little opportunity to speak with Master Dimitri.  He is so busy seeing to the Lumenari's needs, and such matters are beyond me."  He swept up a small tray of deserts—honeycomb and bite-sized pieces of sugarbread—and slid them smoothly across to her as he left the kitchen to lay out tea for the father's imminent arrival.  "And he is busy in the village as well. He and the father spend time educating the barbarians when possible."

He wrinkled his nose.  "Though there was one mage, some supposed scholar of theirs, who got into an argument with a few of the soldiers. Claimed the stars were suns."  Niiki shook his head.  Some people just would not abandon their ignorance.

[Rhindeer]

It was hard not to show her disappointment, hard to keep from wilting. Niamh didn't know what she'd wanted to hear, but...something, at least! Preferably positive, but as that seemed unlikely, she would have gone for anything else just to get some sort of a read on Dimitri's current, uh, mood. You know, see if he was still feeling all smite-y.

She shoved a piece of honeycomb in her mouth to hide the frown, cheek poking out as she sucked on it. "Yeah, I guess that'd eat up time fast," she said from around it, glaring down at the counter-top without realizing she was and drumming her fingers against it. She crunched down on the comb. Did this mean he hadn't mentioned her since that big explosion? At all? Why not?

Her head snapped back up when the drow spoke again, and her eyebrows rose. "...Really?" She stared as that sank in, trying to wrap her head around how someone could be so stupid, and then burst into laughter--and nearly choked on the wax. She quickly swallowed it.

"Seriously? And people buy this? Pfft, even if there were other suns, they sure wouldn't be that small. What an idiot," she said, rolling her eyes and snagging a piece of sugarbread.

[Tally]

"Oh yes."  Niiki crossed the room to a dust rag he had sitting inside a small cupboard.  He dusted absently, more interested in talking than cleaning really.  He didn't get to talk like this to people normally!  He would never think to speak to the father so casually, but Mistress Niamh didn't seem to mind it and she needed to know what was going on in the village besides! Yes, that was it.  He was doing her a service by informing her of what the inhabitants of the village had been up to since she'd left.

"I heard the soldiers talking about him.  He was apparently very...ah...adamant.  They almost came to blows, but some fellow broke it up."  Niiki paused in his dusting to idly play with the rag in his hands while he stared up at the ceiling, trying to recall the fellow's name.  "Mm...I can't remember what they called him.  Most of the folk listen politely but don't seem to truly believe what we tell them.  Of course these people, they worship themselves rather than the force that created them and don't see how backward that is."

[Rhindeer]

"And...people are sure he's not possessed?" Niamh asked, arching an eyebrow. It sounded like the behavior of one who was: spewing nonsense, getting violent...ah, maybe she was giving this person far too much credit.

"Then again, I guess that is pretty normal for those people. Judging by the stuff I saw..." She took a bite of bread and gave a small huff. It didn't matter how she'd interacted with 'those people' before; the fact of the matter was that she'd been misguided and mislead, still was confused, but that just meant she had to work harder. She knew what was expected of her; she'd lived the life of a Solisi and Lumenari long before she'd ever been taken.

If she acted the part enough, eventually she'd start believing it.

[Tally]

"He may be," Niiki conceded.  That hadn't occurred to him.  He didn't care to think on such insidious possibilities, though surely the father would have noted a demonic presence near them and driven it away.  "Though I believe most think he is merely misguided, as so many of them are.  Some...more than others."

His eyes went wide, imagining all that she must have seen in her travels away from the troop.  Books were forbidden to drow, but he had heard of cities sitting amid great stretches of forest, cities with primitive barbarian magics inlaid in the very brick and stone of the foundation, so many wonders he could scarcely conjure in his mind.

"What did you see," he said, hushed and captivated, "...out there?"

[Rhindeer]

Niamh blinked at the question and looked at the drow, who looked so earnest and fascinated, and she realized abruptly that somewhere during this encounter she'd forgotten to be unnerved by him. Him. When had he transitioned from an 'it' to a 'him' in her brain? Ugh. Well. Whatever. It was hard to view something as a monstrous rat when it--he--was acting so damned civil.

And maybe her time among the heathens had affected her more in that way than she'd thought.

"Weeell," Niamh finally began, looking left and right as though to make sure they were alone before she leaned in closer. She lowered her voice to match Niiki's tone. "All kinds of crazy stuff. Like people that thought they were gods and tried to trick people with their magic. I even ran across a manticore once and I met a djinn and a man that looked like he was made of stone--he was the djinn's master. He didn't wear anything like I've ever seen before. I don't even know where he was from. The cities are really cramped and it's like people from all over go there. There's a lot of really scary stuff out there, too."

She rubbed her arm, remembering Ketra and Cerenis and what went down there. "There were lotsa people out there like the guy you described. Only they were about ten times more scary. Murderers and torturers and stuff."

[Tally]

Niiki clutched the dust rag closer and closer as he heard of the wonders and abominations she had seen until he held it clenched against his chest, wide eyes all on her.  "Ohh," he breathed, lips remaining slightly parted and held in a small, enraptured o.

"Made of stone," he muttered, picturing it.  In his head the man was a creation of sandstone slabs, but that was wrong.  It would be a different kind of stone up there, granite or some such, and he adjusted the look of the stone man accordingly.

"What's a...manti...core?"  He'd never heard of such before.  He wanted to know everything about what she'd seen.  It all made the world seem so much bigger than he'd ever conceived of, and to hear her describe it the barbarians lived in a world of utter madness.

[Rhindeer]

"It's like...it's kinda like a lion. But it's got like wings and horns and a tail like a scorpion, and the freakiest face you've ever seen with huge teeth. Uh, it looks a lot scarier in person," Niamh said, realizing after she'd described it that it sounded more ridiculous than frightening. "Better hope you never run into one! I was told they eat people."

But Niiki's curiosity was by no means one-sided. Now that she was actually talking with a drow, one that actually spoke, one that was actually tamed and civilized and oddly...nice (weird enough as that was), she found herself wondering about them. It was kind of like suddenly discovering your dog could talk. Kind of freaky and unsettling, but after the shock died down, you kind of wanted to know what went through its head.

"Soo..." she said, "didja come from like...down there?"

[Tally]

'Winged lion..."  With horns, and a scorpion's tail.  He didn't know what she was talking about, about how it was more frightening when you saw it for yourself.  The creature Niiki imagined was plenty horrifying, a thing that could stalk you like a cat, or stoop on you like an eagle, or skewer you with a giant scorpion stinger!

He barely noticed her question.  He was too enthralled by her stories, his chores forgotten entirely.  "However did you get away from it?"

[Rhindeer]

The real story was much less exciting. The real story went that the manticore was actually quite tame and apparently was some sort of guard in Arca, but as soon as the drow asked how she got away, and what with how enraptured he looked...

She grinned. "Well, I had to fight the thing, of course. It was just me and it, alone in the woods, and it came upon me at my camp while I was sleeping." Hah. She was already liking this story better--because it involved being alone. Not traveling with...him.

She lowered her voice to an ominous pitch. "Imagine you're alone by a campfire, dreaming, safe...and then you awaken to the feeling of hot, rancid breath on your neck. You sense something large and evil hovering over you, some dark shape in the night, and you hear the deep, snarly breathing..." She paused to imitate the sound, leaning in closer.

"By the time you hear it, by the time that first glob of slobber hits your face, it's usually too late. When I opened my eyes, all I saw was shining teeth. It had me pinned down and was about to rip out my throat, and I was too scared to even scream, but I knew if I didn't do something I was gonna die. So I grabbed my knife and stuck it in the eye! Then I just ran. It chased me down, and those things are fast, lemme tell ya. The only thing that saved me was I managed to get a hold of my staff and turn when it lunged. It impaled itself, right through the mouth."

She paused a beat, then sat back and nodded. "And that was how I escaped a manticore."

[Tally]

How could anyone live like that?  Out in dense forest, in darkness, murderous creatures prowling about beyond view.  Dimitri did things like this, every day of his life.  All soldiers did.  Niiki swallowed a lump in his throat.  He never wanted to go out there.

He spoke in a near whisper.  Even with the Father out, he feared discovery.  He should not be talking like this, not to anyone.  "How can you face such horrors?  I would have been terribly afraid, too afraid to run even!"

[Rhindeer]

"Oh, well, ya know." Niamh grinned and shrugged. "When it's a choice between life or death, you can do some pretty crazy things. Things you never thought you could do. You do what you gotta do to stay alive--or you die. Simple as that."

Huh. Maybe there was more truth to that fabrication than she'd realized in the telling. She'd never slayed any manticores, but she was certainly speaking from experience.

"I'm sure if it came down to it you'd do what ya had to do--" She froze, blinked, and realized with jarring abruptness just who she was talking to right now, and so candidly. A drow. Why was she telling all this to a drow?

"Not that you'll ever have to," she finished, stuffing another piece of fruit in her mouth.

[Tally]

Niiki exhaled a sigh of relief at her last statement.  "No.  Thank the Light for that."

Let soldiers like Dimitri and Niamh go off slaying nightmarish lion monsters with scorpion tails.  He was just fine keeping the Father's house, thank you very much.

As though he'd summoned him with that thought, Speaks-the-Light returned.  Niiki leaped back to his chores, but the Father didn't seem to notice his lapse.  He joined Niamh.

"I hope you found everything you needed this morning?  I apologize for not being here."

[Rhindeer]

Niamh jumped when Speaker appeared--and was ashamed to realize it was because she'd nearly been caught speaking with the drow. For some reason, it felt so forbidden, so sneaky, and she quickly composed herself and swallowed down the fruit.

"Huh? Oh, yeah! I mean, thank you!" she said with a bright smile. "Everything is great!"

Dammit. Too suspiciously perky? She didn't even know why she felt guilty. She hadn't done anything!

"No need to apologize, anyway. You're the Father. You have a lot of important stuff to deal with."

[Tally]

Speaker frowned, and put the expression off as a critical examination of the food platter Niiki had prepared.  Niamh sounded odd.  If she weren't such a simple-minded twit, he would swear she was hiding something.

"Feeling better than yesterday, I hope."

[Rhindeer]

Niamh nodded, still smiling. "Yup! Much better!" she said, and pushed the platter away, finished. "Almost as good as new. Guess I just needed a little sleep and food, heh. I'm pretty easy like that."

She wiped the last bits of fruit juice off her fingers and onto her syrma. Amazingly, it was the truth; she did feel better, lighter. There was still that tight knot of anxiety in her belly because she still had several unresolved issues to deal with and even more questions, but she at least no longer felt like she was going to throw up. For the first time in a long time she'd felt safe and able to sleep with both eyes closed, breathe a little easier, and let her guard down. Somewhat. She didn't know if she'd ever be totally right again, that she'd ever stop glancing over her shoulder or panicking in the dark, didn't think she could ever go back to how she'd been before her world had been turned inside-out, but for now?

She felt pretty good.

If awkward, but what had changed?

"So, how's your day been going? Anything exciting?"

[Tally]

Niiki vanished into the background, cleaning and laying out everything they would need for midday.  He closed the curtains on the windows that weren't letting in any light and turned the mirrors to reflect more brightness into the room.

Speaker took a seat beside Niamh, and had a mirthful laugh at her question.  "Oh my dear, the daily work of a priest is anything but exciting.  I like it that way.  What of you?  Do you have plans for the day?"

[Rhindeer]

"Huh? Me? No...not really. I mean, I thought about checking out the market, but..." Niamh shrugged uncomfortably. "Dimitri's not around, is he?"

[Tally]

"Oh, you won't find him here for several days."  He had arranged that, as soon as he knew the girl would be staying.  "I think the market is a good idea.  It's not good to stay hidden away inside."