Don't Complain (Avari)

[Warden Thrice]

39th of Winter, 511 AV It was a nice day. The water was warmer than usual, and high tide had just receded and with it, pulled away and dispersed a large amount of murk that had built up over the day. The unusual freshness had even lured a few fish from deeper within the bay, their silver bodies flashing playfully through the blue. Eorar, however, couldn’t have cared less. He pounded at the stubborn crate, informing it of various inappropriate and unsanitary things that it could do to itself at its earliest convenience. The blasted thing had fallen into the water in the early morning and hadn’t moved an inch. It was rock-heavy so he couldn’t move it and the wood itself was hard and well-worked. He had circled around it, hitting it and cursing at it for over an hour, and was in the process of trying to pry it open with knife he had found. After ten minutes of hard labor, it was starting to give. Tenten bubbled and prodded Eorar with his nose, causing the Charoda to turn. “What, you think you could do better?” he asked the seahorse before turning back. He stabbed it in irritation then slipped it back between the two boards upon which he ad been previously working. He wriggled it back and forth and felt a small movement. Heartened, he continued with more force, and felt it give more. He aligned an eye with the space and peered in, seeing absolutely nothing. Sighing, he flipped his makeshift crowbar and put the thicker handle into the crevice, pressing on the flat of the blade carefully. He heard a snap. Then another snap. Biting his lip in concentration, he gave a might heave downwards, and…

[Avari]

Had it been a day since she'd last eaten? Or was it two?

Above the water, Avari shuffled slowly along the edge of the docks, casting a disconsolate eye over the empty fishing boats and the flat grey surface of the bay. The day was not too cold for winter in Zeltiva, yet she shivered and huddled under her cloak, feeling as hollow as an empty vase spun from thin glass. She hugged herself with both arms as she paced the length of the small, relatively quiet pier. Business and traffic alike were always slower in the winter, when stormy skies and treacherous waves made sailing and trading more difficult than usual.

And when business and trade were slow, that meant fewer sailors and passengers flowing in and out of the city. It meant less money changing hands every day. Worst of all, it often meant severe rationing of the markets, as available food ran short. Even the fishermen rowed out into the bay less often, citing the inactivity of the fish during the winter and their unwillingness to bite. Though people like Avari might have the coin to purchase food, there were simply not enough provisions to go around for everyone.

This morning, the Konti had dreamed vividly about the handful of stale bread hidden in a hollow in the floorboards of her home. She awoke from the dream with her mouth watering and her hands shaking. Only when she had fully roused did she remember, with bitterness, that she had eaten the last of the bread several days ago. There was no more food stored or hidden anywhere else in her home, not even a crumb of the bread. Never had the gnawing of her empty stomach felt so galling or so painful before.

In past winters, Avari had often been reduced to meager fare, perhaps one tiny meal a day of thin gruel or dried fish, but she had never gone entirely without food for more than a day. She thought with fierce longing of horned sand-fish hot off the grill or a bowl of stewed vian fruit, even as her stomach churned from grumbling emptiness to feeble nausea.

Now, the cool salt wind brushed against Avari's face, causing her entire body to shudder. She swayed from side to side, feeling as merely standing upright was taking most of her willpower. Her hands and feet felt ice-cold, yet she could have sworn her face was burning red-hot. Cautiously, she extended one hand to feel her forehead, wondering if she was suffering from a touch of fever as well as hunger. With no one to tend her and no medicine to take, illness was the last thing she needed. How could she pick pockets or locks if her hands were shaking with sickness and she felt too weak to stand?

Oh, merciful Avalis, let me not be ill, she prayed tiredly. She felt so weak, so drained, and so very hungry.

The touch of her bare fingers on her hot forehead felt freezing cold. The chill of it traveled through her body, provoking another violent shiver and a sharp tickling sensation in her nose. Before she knew what was happening, Avari sneezed mightily. Her head snapped back and then down from the force of the sneeze, and her hands flew up to cover her nose and mouth. She sneezed again and again, unable to stop.

Finally, after several minutes, her nose seemed to calm down and Avari breathed freely, hoping the fierce sneezing bout was over. A rush of dizziness overcame her from the sudden motions of her head and neck. As she slowly drew her hands away from her face, she gasped when she saw a tiny drop of blood staining her glove.

With her dizziness and hunger already weakening her, the sight of her own blood was too much. Avari felt her knees buckle beneath her and the world start swirling madly around her. Her vision went dark as she fainted and fell unconscious.

Her body slowly crumpled, and she toppled sideways off the side of the docks and dropped into the waters of Mathews Bay with a quiet splash.

[Warden Thrice]

Crack! The lid of the sideways crate gave way. Eorar got out of the way as the contents spilled out, then looked at them with slight disbelief. They were oranges. Lots and lots of oranges. Eorar picked up one of them and regarded it incredulously. It did not change. It was still, indeed, an orange. Astrolabe had told the Charoda of the food shortages when it was warm enough for them to meet. Someone must have paid a great deal for such a large amount of fruit, and he felt suddenly blessed to have found it. Eorar whistled for Tenten as he loaded his pockets. The seahorse came reluctantly, uneasy so close to the harbor. The Charoda stroked his mount soothingly as he stuffed the saddlebags to the absolute brim. Even so, they barely had a third of the total. But wait… if they had a third… Eorar put his hands on the side facing up and heaved. With a creaking sound it rose, tilting farther and farther upwards until it sank right-side up. Without a third of its oranges, it was lighter. Hmming, the fish-man got a grip on two corners and tried to lift it… Splash! …and promptly dropped it. He managed to pull his feet from danger as it crashed back onto the sea floor, then looked up to see what exactly had startled him so. It was a person. Figured. They seemed to have a habit of falling into the water, which had always confused Eorar. After all, he didn’t have a habit of falling into the air, now did he? Wait… he frowned. The person was shining. He had seen someone do that before. He swam upwards curiously. Was that… yes. It was. He blinked. It was the konti he’d raced in the fall. What was she doing down here? He hadn’t seen her in— He faltered as the scent of blood diluted by water wove into his nostrils. His eyes went wide as he saw tendrils of red swirling from her mouth and nose, and his curiosity immediately turned to concern. He sped up, reaching her within seconds. He held his arms out for her to gently float into, allowing their combined weight carry them down. Tenten bubbled anxiously Eorar lay her on one of the cleaner stone outcroppings. He tilted her head back and forth, but his knowledge of humanoids was limited. He could tell that she looked gaunter, but not much else. Confused, the Charoda put an ear to her chest, and felt understanding blossom when he detected the cause. Her breathing was ragged; there was probably something in her lungs blocking the airflow. He sat back on his heels, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. What was he to do? Lung blockage was a sign of sickness, fever most likely, and could be cleared up with enough rest, but it was something she needed to do. He couldn’t heal it for her, but healing required strength, and her present predicament and general appearance suggested that she did not have enough of that particular vitality. He sighed and rubbed his temples. She needed help. She needed care. But most of all, she needed warmth, and one of the things he did know about the world above was that wet things were cold things. She couldn’t go up there, not unless he knew for sure that someone would take care of her. And since no one had dived in after her, she was alone for the time being. No, she isn’t, he suddenly realized. I’m here. Yes. He was here. He could take her to his home. It was warm there, even if it was darker than the bottom of a sea canyon. That was the best place he knew of. Eorar knelt and picked her—what was her name? Avari, that was it—up, holding her close to his chest to share his body heat. He whistled for Tenten to follow as he set off, going as fast as he could while keeping his grip gentle. The seahorse bubbled and hurried after. -- It was times like this that he cursed his home being so far from the city. He finally came in sight of the cave, and Tenten hovered at the entrance as his master entered. The creature had always been uneasy in the place. Anxiety struck as the dark thickened. Eorar usually chirped to gauge distances, but he didn’t want to aggravate his self-appointed patient. He slowed progressively, thinking hard. He couldn’t sense his way if he couldn’t make noise. He slowed almost to a stop, and then was struck with the answer. He spurred forward and began to sing. Where has the music gone? A figure stands against the surface Shafts of light shifting as they pierce A shattered world below the water He felt much better. The echoes reassured him, and he continued with confidence. He only sang the low lines, skipping over the chirps and clicks. The song was a very old one, composed barely after the Valterrian, and some scholars even argued that it had been composed during the cataclysm. Eorar didn’t really care. It was a nice song. The sea is at war With the world above But has he forgotten about His peaceful children? She waits for the daughter That will never come home She waits for the father That she will never embrace again She waits for the mother That promised to sing to her She smells blood in the water Feels it coming, sees its teeth But still she waits, and miles away Her son waits for his mother Who will never teach him again Where has the music gone When all the singers Will never sing again? Good gods, that’s depressing, Eorar thought as he approached his destination. The counterpoint lyrics were supposed to tell of the new songs, of rising from the ashes, and how life went on. But with just one half of the song it was even darker than his current location. He rose into the black, struggling to set the Konti on the stone ledge before pulling himself up. He put his hands back in place to lift her again, and almost fell back into the water. She was heavy in the air! Huffing, the Charoda lifted her back into his arms, fairly sure that his back was going to break, and staggered to the back of the cave. The wall radiated heat and he did his best to set her next to it gently. He sat back, breathing heavily, and allowed himself a moment to rest. He rolled his shoulders and arched his back until he heard satisfying cracks, then moved his hand along the floor until it found hers. He took her pulse. She seemed the same. He needed to get her dry. He got onto his hands and knees and crawled to the corner where he kept his possessions, feeling around until he found his extra shirt and breeches. He returned to the Konti and felt around until he found her hand again, tracing up her arm to her shoulder, then down her ribs until he found the edge of her shirt. It took a bit of manipulating, but he managed to get it off. Eorar wrung her shirt until it was damp, then used it to mop up the rest of the water on her skin. He stopped as he came across two strange growths on her chest. There was very little difference between male and female Charodae, so Eorar thought nothing of females without a tops. Women, after all, did not breastfeed their offspring, and he had seen plenty of shirtless women growing up. They looked quite similar to shirtless men, except usually a little shorter. My gods, this woman is horribly deformed! he thought, alarmed. He managed to control his startlement after a few moments and get his dry shirt on her, then turned to her pants. This one made him rather uncomfortable, as Charodae gender did differ in that area, and that such locations were treated much the same as other races, seeing their exposure as nudity. Swallowing his aversion, he steeled himself and got them off, though he didn’t use them to dry her off and instead just put his extra pants on. He wrung out her pants and set both them and her shirt out on the floor to dry. He returned to his hands and knees and crawled back over to his things, rooting through the hoard he had collected over the season. His hands fell on a fork that he’d deemed shiny enough to claim, and went back to his seat beside Avari. He reached into his bulging pockets and methodically retrieved the oranges, putting them before him. The last one he did not set down; instead, he felt it with both hands, sensing every part of it, memorizing all he felt. When he thought it safe, he picked up the fork and began to peel it, trying his best to keep his mind off of the two fleshy tumors he’d discovered on the woman’s chest. He couldn't take care of her like this. She couldn't get better with nothing but clothes and a wall to sleep against. He needed supplies. He needed to go into Zeltiva and get whatever was possible; she needed blankets, a pillow, he needed light, and it would probably be a good idea to get fresh water. He had the money; he'd been saving his entire life, and amounted to roughly five and a half hundred mizas. That should be enough to provision her. He finished the orange and set it apart from the others before starting on a second one. There were sharp things in his cave, and he needed to make sure she wouldn't hurt herself before he could go and get what he needed; she also looked like she could use an orange or two.

[Avari]

When Avari came to and opened her eyes, she wondered for a moment if she had actually succeeded. It seemed just as dark as though she'd kept her eyes closed. Her head was swimming, and her body felt sluggish and weak. She seemed to be lying down, and it bothered her that she couldn't remember how she had come to be lying down or where she was. When she furrowed her brow and forced herself to concentrate, she could remember standing at the docks and sneezing...and then, nothing more.

Am I dead? she wondered, with curious unconcern. Am I in Dira's domain now? Or Lhex's?

She began to feel her body and grew aware of sensations upon her skin. She was indeed lying down on a hard, smooth surface that felt like stone, against a wall that felt curiously warm to the touch. Her clothes hung strangely loose on her, as though they no longer fit her body properly, though they were clean and dry. She took a deep breath and smelled the air, scenting the overwhelming salt tang of the sea, a faint fishy odor, and, surprisingly, the slightest hint of citrus. The aroma made her think of the vian trees in Mura, of sky-blue fruits hanging amid white leaves and ripening in the sun.

Then Avari became aware of soft noises in the darkness, the sounds of biting, chewing, and swallowing. There's someone in here with me! she thought with alarm.

A thrill of fear coursed through her, waking her up the rest of the way. She sat bolt upright and fumbled around herself, looking for a candle, a lantern, anything to give her light to see by. It was so dark that she couldn't see her own hand in front of her face. Her hands brushed across the rough cloth of her shirt, and she realized with horror that it wasn't her own familiar tunic, worn soft by frequent wearing and washing. Someone had undressed her and put her in different clothes without her knowing and had brought her here to this strange place with no light!

Her daggers. She felt for them at her hips and realized they had been taken away as well, along with her own breeches. Avari slumped against the heated wall, taking comfort in its warmth even as her mind reeled. She was utterly defenseless here and unable to run, if the shakiness in her legs was any indications.

The worst part was that she couldn't remember any of it happening. She let out a short, sharp scream and pressed her hands to her face, wondering what was going on. Blindly, she twisted this way and that in the darkness, trying to ascertain where the unknown other person in the room was and whom they might be.

"Where am I?" she demanded aloud. Her voice sounded weak and reedy to her ears. The act of speaking made her aware of the itch in her dry throat, yearning for water.

Still, Avari persisted. "Where am I? What am I doing here? Who are you? I can hear you there. Why have you brought me here?" She gulped and took a deep breath. "Am I...am I a hostage here?" she asked as fiercely as she could manage. "What do you want with me?"

[Warden Thrice]

Eorar had peeled three when he decided that he was hungry enough to eat. He shifted into another position, discovered that it was just as uncomfortable as the first, and returned to his former one. He peeled off a segment and bit into it in what felt like a thoughtful pose, even though he was not really thinking at all. The cave was suddenly filled with the sound of moving cloth, and he dropped the orange, startled. She shifted around, and he chewed quickly to free his mouth for speech. She screamed the instant he began to form sounds, and he cringed as the noise reverberated around the stone enclosure. “Please—” he began. She turned one him when she heard his voice, demanding to know where she was and why. Eorar held up his hands in surrender, but the darkness made it folly, and he could do nothing but weather her words until they ceased. “A… hostage?” he asked. He realized that she might not recognize his voice out of water, and groaned inwardly. “No, no. Not hostage, not prisoner. Please, stop to thrashing. Will be hurting yourself with the wall, which you not be needing. Calm yourself.” He understood her fear, but did not know how to calm it. He thought, and remembered the orange at his feet. “In light you be thin. Here.” He rolled one of the complete fruits to her. “Orange. To be eating. You be hungry, I think?” He sat back on his heels. “We met before, I and you, but you maybe not being remember. Many days between then and now. I found you… asleep? No, bad asleep. Unconscious. Blood from mouth, and you were being alone. I heard to your breathing. You were being ill. I was brought you to only safe area I be knowing: here. My home.” He sighed apologetically. “I am sorry to scare you, but I am having no light. To bring candles or torches is to make them useless. But if you are wishing, I have some food for you.” He crossed his legs and sat back. “Please believe. I am not wishing to be harmful to you. I am wishing to help.”

[Avari]

Avari tensed at first when she heard the strange, oddly clicking voice respond to her frantic questions, but slowly she relaxed as the fumbling, stuttering words of her unseen interlocutor slowly penetrated through her initial bout of terror. All she had to go on was the voice, but from what she could tell, the stranger's voice did not sound commanding, or cruel, or in control, as she would expect a captor would sound. The other person sounded just as nervous and anxious as she felt, which was oddly comforting.

When something rolled toward her and bumped into her foot, Avari jumped a little and squeaked in surprise. She had been concentrating so hard on listening to the stranger that the small bump gave her quite a shock. The stranger's explanation that it was food made her eager, though. She bent over, picked up the small, round sphere at her feet, and examined it by touch.

The skin was cool and leathery to the touch, with a hint of pebbling, and her fingernail pierced it easily. A tart, sweet aroma of citrus filled the air, and her stomach rumbled. Avari's entire world dwindled to the fruit cupped in her hands. She bit ravenously into the delicious-smelling flesh, which reminded her vividly of vian fruits, only sharper and stronger. It tasted ripe and wonderful, and she couldn't restrain herself from devouring the gift of fruit as fast as she could.

The stranger talked on, and occasionally a few words penetrated Avari's consciousness, like "my home" and "unconscious" and "blood from mouth," which elicited a moment of concern from her before she sank her teeth again into the fruit, and "sorry to scare you." She munched happily on the fruit, sending trails of sticky juice running down her chin. When the last piece was gone, Avari leaned back contentedly against the warm wall, feeling a little more energetic with her first taste of food in two days.

"Thish wash ongerful!" she enthused through a mouthful of fruit.

She flushed with embarrassment and swallowed. "Thank you," she said softly, with more sincerity than she had believed possible. "For the food. And for bringing me here. If I really did fall into the water, then by all rights I should be dead by now, if it hadn't been for you."

If it was true that she had fallen into the water -- and she did remember everything going black after she had started sneezing, which probably meant she had fallen unconscious -- then he had truly saved her life. Avari squirmed a little, knowing that she was deep in the stranger's debt now. It was better to owe someone than to be dead and drowned, though.

"I'm sorry that I started screaming," she added, with dignity. "You've been very kind. Thank you. I hope...I hope I haven't been much bother."

Then Avari's curiosity got the better of her. "But tell me, where did you get food like this? The markets are so tightly rationed, you'd be lucky to get a fishbone, let alone whole fruit. And why is it so dark in h- Ow!"

She clutched her stomach, stricken by a sudden sharp pain in her belly. After two days of not eating, the sudden influx of food was causing her stomach to cramp, but Avari didn't know that. All she knew was that her stomach was roiling and she suddenly felt weak all over her body again. The Konti huddled on the stone shelf where her unknown savior had placed her, letting out a low gasp.

"Ow," she hissed through gritted teeth. "It hurts! My stomach! Ahh!" She stretched her hand into the darkness, reaching out for help, though in completely the wrong direction. "Help me..."

[Warden Thrice]

She calmed as he spoke, listening intently, but her squeak hit his ears as sharply as her scream. He rubbed one temple to stave off a headache as the Konti began to investigate the fruit, and smiled in the darkness when he heard the telltale sounds of vicious chewing. “Easy,” he warned. She was chewing rather fast, and he couldn’t tell if she had heeded him or not. He waited patiently and a bit anxiously as the sounds continued, worrying that she might make herself ill with her speed. He tilted his head as she spewed nonsense, trying to find words in her speech. This was… He had no idea what the last word was. Still she sounded happy. She swallowed, and he found it much easier to decipher what she was saying. “I am glad to being help,” he assured her. It was true. Since the start of winter, he hadn’t surfaced at all, completely without company save for Tenten. While he loved the seahorse dearly, he was a Charoda. He wanted company, wanted to talk, to sing, to tell jokes and stories. It had nearly driven him mad with loneliness, knowing that there was a world of people above the water that he couldn’t reach without freezing to death. “I am alone much. Is my horse, but Tenten does not listen if I am being talk. I am happy to being the one to helping you. You are not bother any.” He prepared to tell her about the crate, but her cry of pain erased any such intentions from his mind. He knew she had been eating too fast! He crawled over, skimming his hands along the floor until he found where she was sitting. “Easy. Be calm,” he said, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. He found her shoulders and tried to guide her into a half-laying down position, one hand at the small of her back to open more space for her lungs and stomach. “Burp.” As a child, it had been the first word Common he’d memorized. “Burping is help. Breathe deep.”

[Avari]

Avari curled up into a ball and rocked miserably from side to side, her face scrunched up in discomfort. As her insides writhed, she could only hope that the first food she had eaten in days wasn't about to come right back up, ruining any chances of proper sustenance from the small fruit. She scarcely noticed the soft sounds of someone crawling toward her until a pair of cool, smooth hands descended on her shoulders. Instinctively, she tried to shake off the unexpected touch, until she realized the hands were touching the loose cloth of her borrowed shirt and not her bare skin. The hands pulled at her, gently but authoritatively, and Avari decided not to fight.

Instead, she weakly obeyed as one hand guided her to stretch out into a half-lying position rather than a tight-curled ball, while the other hand pushed down on her back. Dimly, Avari sensed something odd about those hands, something in the shape and texture. However, most of her mind was occupied with the pain in her stomach, which only seemed to expand when she shifted into her new position. She forced herself to focus on the stranger's voice murmuring soothing words to her, telling her to be calm.

"It hurts," she whimpered now and again. "My stomach, it hurts!"

However, as the hand on her back pushed lightly downward, the cramps that gripped her belly seemed to rise and even to bubble upward through her stomach, if that was the right word for such a strange sensation. Avari's whimpering softened into deep, anxious breaths as her stomach tried to settle itself. The Konti groaned, wondering how even a small fruit could do this to her.

Suddenly, much to her surprise, the pain abruptly dissipated into an odd bubbly, airy feeling of urgency. Involuntarily, Avari opened her mouth wide and burped, loud and frog-like.

Surprised and embarrassed in equal amounts, she covered her mouth with one hand and cautiously pressed the other against her stomach.

"You were right!" she exclaimed gratefully. "It doesn't hurt anymore. You knew just the right thing."

She relaxed atop the hard, flat stone, grateful that her stomach had stopped cramping and that she hadn't ruined her stranger-savior's hospitality by throwing up all over his floor. Perhaps she had eaten the fruit a trifle too quickly, she thought. She should have known better and paced herself. If it hadn't been for the stranger hurrying over to guide her into the proper position and telling her to burp, Avari might have stayed curled up forever and would probably have hurt for a lot longer.

Curiously, she squinted into the darkness, trying to make out who her unknown helper might be. It was too dim to make out anything, though, even a general shape. The Konti reached inquisitively toward the hand on her shoulder, and her eyes widened when she sensed the smooth, almost rubbery texture of the skin even through her gloves and brushed tentatively against what surely must be webbing between two fingers.

Avari let out a startled gasp, trying to imagine what such hands would look like in the light. Long, slender hands with smooth, pliable skin like a dolphin's and webbing between the fingers like a frog's... She was sure she had seen hands like that before, once in her life. But where?

"A Charoda!" she exclaimed aloud, remembering suddenly how she had encountered a male of that species while swimming in Mathews Bay. "You're...a Charoda? Are you that Charoda? I...I remember meeting one before. Do we know each other? Are you the same one I met last season?"

She looked around in the darkness, something like comprehension dawning on her face. "Are we in your home now? Underwater? Is that why it's so dark in here?"

[Warden Thrice]

A large belch erupted from the Konti’s mouth, and Eorar felt her relax. He emitted a small sigh of relief, guiding her gently back to the ground. “You should be—what you are doing?” Her hands were on his, feeling them, and though her touch wasn’t solid enough to tickle it made goosebumps shoot up his arm. He smiled to himself when she exclaimed her surprise and recognition, gently removing her hand and placing it on her own shoulder. “Yes, is I. The one raced you. But is not matter now; you are being sick and quite weak, and you are need to rest.” He returned all of her weight to the floor and stood. “Try to sleep. The wall here is being warmest. Do not move too much; some sharp things around.” He walked to the pillar in the center of the cave and retrieved the fat sack of mizas that lay against it. “I will going to Zeltiva for needed things. An hour, two most. Eating nothing until return, and I will have better food plans, and fresh water too. Oh, also, I borrow your shirt?”

[Avari]

Somehow, the realization that the person who had pulled her out of the water and brought her to this pitch-black cave was someone she had met before and knew came as an immense relief to Avari. Even though her unknown helper had given her food, eased her cramping stomach, and generally shown her nothing but goodwill, it was still very hard not to be apprehensive about being in a strange cave tended by someone whose face you couldn't see. Now, though, the Konti could put a face and name to her no-longer-unknown helper. It made her feel better, knowing that she was in the hands of someone she knew who hadn't seemed to wish her any harm.

"So, it is you," she murmured, when he identified himself in his odd but not unpleasant chirping, clicking voice, which sounded so different above water. "I guess I was lucky to, uh, to bump into you of all people. A fast swimmer like you would have no problems, err, fishing me out of the bay. So to speak."

Obediently, she lay back against the warm wall when his webbed hands and his voice alike bid her to rest and sleep. It was better than a blanket or a brazier, though she could have used a pillow under her head. She fancied she could hear the low murmur of the sea outside, a wonderfully lulling sound, and the momentary sound of clinking mizas caused her ears to perk with interest. Even if she were strong enough to pursue the sound, though, Avari deduced from the receding clinking sound and the swish of footsteps that the Charoda had picked up the mizas and was walking away.

His mention of her shirt alarmed her, though.

"My shirt?" she repeated, a little suspiciously. "What do you need my shirt for? Where is it, anyway?"

Then she sighed and held up her hands in the air, though it was unlikely that he could see them unless he had much better night vision than she guessed. "You know what," she murmured tiredly, "just take what you need to and go do what you wanted to do. I...I'm sure you know what you're doing. I'll just...go to sleep here for a little while...just a little while..."

Relaxed by the warmth and soothed by the taste of the vian-like fruit in her mouth, Avari curled up against the wall and her eyelids drooped. She had no more energy to waste in being distrustful or wary, leaving her to simply trust that the Charoda meant well toward her and would bring back food and water as he promised. Though trust did not normally come easily to the Konti, the Charoda did have a kind voice and he hadn't left her to drown. That was something, at least.

Besides, she was so sleepy. Her last words drifted off, followed by the sound of steady breathing broken by an occasional gentle snore. Avari sprawled across the floor of the cave, fast asleep, not even tossing or turning in her much-needed healing rest.