Closed Two Teens And A Pot (Lavira)

[Alori Sai]

"You mean you got us kicked out of the kitchen?" Alori laughed and floated around. It felt great being in the warm waters, like tiny bubble fingers tickling every inch of her body. She could stay there, inside the spring until her entire body turned into a raisin. Or, she could drift under, submerge herself in the warmth around her and let all else fade away forever. It was like she was in a dream, afloat on warm clouds of liquid.

Alori slowly moved about, fingers and toes moving as they were tickled and warmed at the same time. She spun herself around in the water, head titled back and limbs almost going completely limp. "Vira, this was the best idea, we totally should have done this to start. You know, instead of bothering with miss cranky doe hair lady." She meant it as joke, but the teen realized that they probably should have behaved instead of acting out as they did.

Still, it was all in good fun, and it wasn't as if they didn't contribute to the city. They were Endal, and they were hard working girls who just needed to have fun. Alori turned to seek out her sister again, and smiled as she mentioned Kovac. So far the teen had been tight-lipped about him, but suddenly she was ready to share and Alori was ready to hear it. The young Endal giggled and splashed her friend back, making it a quick and done water fight.

She enjoyed these types of stories, one about friendship, love, and other things that happened. Alori still didn't know the guy well, but she could say that he was a gentlemen, and had been so with her, when he could have simply taken advantage of a girl with far less experience. "That's great Vira. So..what was it like kissing him?" She had to know, the snarky male had said a lot about himself and his...achievements, and she wanted to know if it was all hype.

The subject changed to Endal duties, and Alori had to agree. She was excited to do the job, even though she knew she would be bored out of her mind. "Well...yea I guess. It would be great if I could just pack up all my stuff and take it there. It's ten days!" The teen would have done, as an Avora she didn't have a lot in her home, and it wouldn't take a whole lot to get all of her belongings into the lookout. At least she thought so. "Maybe I'll bring my guitar, I've be working on a few songs when I'm at home, but I keep getting distracted. Hey, what do you do when you're on lookout?"

[Lavira]

Vira was glad for this light topic, beaming at her friend in return. “Oh, he’s a great kisser, I’ll give him that; but I don’t really have that much experience, and he has had a good bit more than me. It’s like…” she paused, rolling onto her back once more to look up at the sky. “It’s like he knows what makes me smile. Like he knows how to move his lips and his tongue against mine…” She sighed, “And he’s always complimenting me. I haven’t told him to stop, really, but I don’t want it to get to my head. I know my skills are nothing compared to his. Except falconry and tracking. I can kick his butt with a bird and prints,hehe.”

Waving her arms some, the woman drew a deep breath and rolled onto her back to dive beneath the surface, sinking a few feet for brief moment, then resurfacing and taking a breath. “I know about his reputation, of course, and it’s alright. I can’t make him change who he is, as long as he treats me right. I will always treat him right.” Her legs kicked gently to keep herself afloat before the topic of the lookout was focused upon.

“Ten days…man that’s a long time. Who am I going to chat with at dinner when Kovac’s out? I’m gonna be so bored when I’m at home.” The teen swished her arms and then sent a wave of water towards Alori. “Just your guitar? You better have a damn good song by the time you get back then!” She laughed, splashing at her friend again. “I want to hear you play sometime, too. My dad used to play the pan flute when I was little; I’m a terrible musician myself, but I’ve always loved the sounds. Maybe when we’re finished we can go to the amphitheater and you can play something?”

When asked what she did at the Lookout, the teen shrugged visibly. “I’m a new Endal too, remember? If I get duty, I won’t know until it’s almost time. I just hope it’s quiet. I would want to do some studying when I can; there’s some great tracking books in the Enclave I’ll probably borrow.” As their chit chat waned, Vira went towards the edge of the cove, flexing one arm out, and then the other, while her feet kicked in an alternating pattern behind her, allowing her the forward momentum to reach the other side.

“You ask a lot of questions about me, you know, but I know next to nothing about you. You have a gnosis from Ivak and some pretty nifty tattoos on your wrists. You’re a huntress who never had a mentor…Just who are you, Alori?” She laughed, resting her elbows on the edge of a rock and staring over at the red head. “I mean, really, who are you? You’re such a mystery!”

[Alori Sai]

"Oh yea? really?" Alori giggled and swooned. The look on her friend's face alone was enough to show her true feelings about the guy. Lavira said she didn't have much experience, but it was more than Alori had. "Awwww, that is so sweet. You two are made for each other. I just know it!" She enjoyed this girl talk, and since Kovac had been so secretive, she was glad that Lavira decided to open up. It was nice to see her bestie so much in love, and to know that Kovac was taking care of her. "Wait skills? Um, what skills are we talking about Vira?"

Boy talk was fun and the best type of gossip, and no matter what the subject was it was easy to misread the lines to be something else. Swaying her legs back and forth, Alori leaned back and relaxed herself to see if she could float for a bit. The temperature outside of the waters was the opposite of what was inside and no matter how much the spring warmed her, the moment her damp flesh lifted above water she felt an icy touch. "So how is he? I mean, is he still..you know..with other women?"

It was a sensitive subject and she wouldn't blame Lavira if she didn't want to get into it. She just worried about her and wanted to know that she was happy. On to the subject about look out, the teen smiled and splashed her sister again. "You're gonna be board? At least you will have Kovac around, I'm gonna be stuck alone for ten days, and market day too." Peddling and waving her arms, Alori pushed herself towards Lavira. "Well, I'll take more than that, but I do want to try something out. If it works you'll be the first to hear it."

Playing at the amphitheater had once been scary, but she had won over that fear when she sang in the contest. Alori didn't win, but it had been about so much more for her, and in that she did win and was better for it. "Yea, sure. You can be my back up, k?" Alori smiled and started to peddle off, she wasn't going far, and her short burst of peddles took her about as far as she would have floated either way. Turning around, she took a quick dip under water and cave back up with a soft gasp.

Lavira spoke up again, this time asking Alori a question after claiming not to know her."Vira! That can't be further from the truth, you know me. I really don't know what to say about Ivak. It was after the storm, and I saved this kid, I got hurt and then I had this weird dream. I guess it wasn't a dream, but that's what it felt like. Anyway he didn't tell me why he chose me, and I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to do either." She decided not to speak about Kelwyn just yet thinking it was a bit too much for one day. "I mean, I don't know what else you want me to say Vira. What did you want to know?"

[Lavira]

"I don't know, Alori, but I trust him to tell me if he were. And if he is and chooses not to tell me, so be it. I wouldn't pressure him except to know if there was something that I could do to help keep him happy." She said in remark to the other question, but chose to ignore the one about skills. It should have been obvious what she was referring to, and it wasn't about sex.

They continued talking about the music bit until Alori suggested she be her back up; Vira barked a laugh at that. "Me? You're kidding, right?" But the other seemed serious enough. "Heh, well, I mean, if you're okay with that. I'm telling you, I'm a terrible singer. I only know one song anyways and it's just an old lullaby." Her head reclined against the rock and her eyes closed, soaking in the heat while Alori talked a little more about herself. Even if she wasn't looking at her, it was clear she was listening.

Once her friend had finished, her head raised and she looked over to her. "That's neat, I didn't know you saved someone. You must have been really courageous! Maybe that was why he came to you?" She suggested, removing her arms from the rock and wading towards the other. "You have a really positive spirit, I can tell that much. I heard sometimes the gods choose their mortals because there is a need in the world for them. It sounds like you just need to find that niche. You're a great hunter, but I remember how you blanched and bleched the whole time we were quartering that elk. Are you sure providing in that way is your calling?"

The teen dipped her head again, letting the bubbly water rumble in her ears. When she brought her head back up from the water, Vira smiled. "What does it matter what I want to know? You pestered me for all this information on Kovac and stuff, but you never talked to me about any of it. And now I know you're a musician, too. What else do you do? Anything else you really like?" Vira pulled her feet up and pushed away from Alori once more.

"Oh, I know! What was the dream you had about?"

[Alori Sai]

"Well I'm sure he's not. You're an awesome girl Vira, and I know he loves you." She had a few lingering doubts, but mostly she didn't want to believe that Kovac would hurt her bestie in that way. Lavira said she was fine with it, but she also said she wouldn't try to change him, which led her to believe she wanted the change, at least in that. Alori didn't blame her, if she had a wonderful bow, she wouldn't want to share him either.

"It's not that hard, you just have to sing with your heart instead of screaming from your lungs." She had learned that truth for herself when she flew with Durveth. The wind eagle had said about the same thing, but a lot harsher and that was before she dropped her. But even before that the teen had started to learn the different between the two. Sighing, she pulled her fingers through her hair to move the matted strains that with latching onto her ears. "You don't have to if you don't want too. It's not a big deal. I just thought you might like it, but don't do just for me."


Alori smiled, thinking about the good in the past instead of the bad that came with it."Yea, I guess. I was just trying to keep the boy from getting eaten. You would have done the same thing. Anyway, I hear that about the Gods too. It's possible I know and I'm sure I'm supposed to figure this out all own my own but.." She paused when Lavira spoke again, talking about her performance during the hunt a season before. "I'm not sure about anything Vira. But I'll figure it out..I know I will." Alori looked away then, staring into the world above them. Everything always seemed so small from up so high, so small and unimportant.

She eyed her friend with a curious glare, it was like she was searching for something, but didn't want Alori to know what it was. "That's so not fair. I asked you questions, you didn't offer up any information Vira." Waving her hands around, she gathered up as much water as she could and sent a huge blast towards the other Endal. "Come on, out with it. What did you want to ask me?"

[Lavira]

Vira twisted away when the other swamped her with a water wave, coughing and sputtering after it had struck her, splashing water back in response and turning around to laugh at her. "Seriously, Alori? I just asked you stuff and you still avoided me! I'm beginning to think you have some serious things to hide, missy." There, it was a start. "Alright, how about this. I'll tell you a big secret of mine and you can tell me one of yours. A game of trust between sisters, hm?" She hoped the other would agree to it as she waded back towards her, reaching out to take Alori's hands.

"And I swear on Dira and Akaija that I won't tell a soul unless you want me to. May they smite me from this world and cast me into the depths of hai before what you share leaves my lips." She promised, her smile sincere. And to show just how much trust she was putting on Alori this time, the teen's face grew more serious as she revealed something she'd carried with her for nearly a year.

"I don't know if you remember last fall or not, but there was a yasi girl who came up there one day when those chicks were getting closed to fledging. Mean, snotty girls who saw fit to interrupt my job with some really nasty bullying. One of them, in particular, was very mean and I...I got pretty upset by what was said. I hit her and she hit me back." Vira paused, wading back a little and looking at the water between them. "Well, the next day I planned something really awful against the girl. I left a note in the yasi quarters for her, anonymously, saying she should come back to the nesting aeries, that the chicks were going to fly that day. I left her a second note outside of that nest, too, telling her to...to get up on the birds back. I knew the bird would most likely kill her, but...but I didn't care at the time. Well, the bird did. She had showed up with her friends, however, and they'd seen her get on the chicks back and the chick freak out and gut her. It wasn't pretty and the healers couldn't save her."

[Alori Sai]

Alori laughed in surprise, she hadn't expected the splash to be so strong, not to mention a direct hit. She covered her head and turned her face away to block the in coming attack, while still giggling about how Lavira looked sputtering and coughing. "I got you good!" she laughed again, before turning back to look at her. Lavira was still digging, but Alori didn't know what she expected to hear. The younger Endal was the more popular of the two and had more friends. "Oh come on, I tell you plenty."

The trust game, that was issued was met with a smirk and she folded her arms. Alori wouldn't have thought the teen had any dark secrets. She was the bad one, the one that had done horrible things in the past that still gave her nightmares in the present. The story that was told was a huge surprise, and Alori stood there with her mouth open. "Holy petch. Are you serious?" She searched her friend's eyes for a moment, trying to figure out if she was being tricked. "Wait..you are serious? Wow..."

Alori wouldn't judge, she didn't have the right too, and she was shocked that Lavira admitted to such a thing. "Do you need to talk about it?" she asked and swam a bit closer. More than anything the teen wanted to tell her bestie the truth, but it was about more than that. She had been warned by a God never to speak of it, and she shuddered to think what would happen if she did. She took a breath and moved a bit closer to keep her words just between them.

"Alright, my turn. So...The summer before last I was hunting with a few others and we were attacked...by a wind eagle." Alori paused, eyes wide as she looked at her friend as she expected her to freak out. "There was something wrong with it, it had been mutated. It's wings were like burned glass and..." She paused again, her features turning serious and sadden as the memories came back. "The rider...stuck to it's back, burned, I couldn't even tell if it was a guy or a woman. They were dead but the body..it still moved, it was SO creepy Vira."

The teen sighed, fingers lifting to comb through her hair as she lowered her voice even more. "The eagle had gone mad and it tried to eat us so..we attacked it and killed it."

[Lavira]

When Alori asked if she was serious, Vira just nodded sadly. "Kovac doesn't even know about that and I tell him almost everything." She said somberly. Kovac was nearer to her than Alori was, but only because she loved him. He knew more about her than anyone, and now Alori had one up on him, something that she might never tell him until the time was right. "It's...it's not one of the brighter moments in my life; I wish I could go back and fix it. The girl was a complete jerk, but I shouldn't have conned her into something like that. It was extremely childish of me and look what happened."

Wading now directly in front of Alori, the teen turned her eyes back onto her friend, waiting with a more calmed attitude for whether or not Alori would say anything. Would she share with her something or just placate her with a lesser truth. But what her friend told her next was a complete shock.

So much so that Vira's mouth hung open and her eyes widened in sheer disbelief. Alori had killed an eagle! The crime was so unforgivable in their culture most were put to death on the spot, but here Alori stood, very much alive and unharmed, or so it appeared. "You...you killed a wind eagle?"

The teen tried to picture what had been described to her but the image was horrific enough in her own mind let alone coming from her friends mouth! The thought that an eagle had been so severely mutated that it had literally fused its riders to it and killed them, that it had been completely transformed into glass....Vira shuddered in sympathy for the bird, chewing at her lower lip as she looked between Alori's eyes. "Alori, that...that's horrible!" She whispered in dismay after several more moments of silence.

But she'd said that the bird had also attacked them, that it had gone mad. That in itself was not unheard of, but the other wind eagles were usually the ones to deal with rogues like that; why hadn't they? The symbiotic relationship between Inarta and Wind Eagle was such that the Inarta built them better, bigger, safer nests and gave the supremely intelligent creatures company; in return, the eagles helped to provide shelter and defense for them. Killing one went so far beyond being a crime!

Vira finally lowered her eyes to the water of the cove, trying to think and justify what had happened. It was a very bad thing, truly, but the fact was that Alori was here now. Which meant whatever punishment she'd been given had already come and gone; that meant that she couldn't justifiably hold the actions of the past against her friend, especially for something she'd never witnessed. Eventually, Vira swam in close to her friend and kicked her feet hard as her arms reached out and embraced Alori tightly, her hands having gone under the others arms and into the hollow of her shoulders in a sisters hug.

"That must have been really hard for you to do and really frightening. But it must have been for the better if the bird was truly suffering. We don't let our kills suffer from the injuries we deal in the hunt; it's only fair we treat our birds the same."

[Alori Sai]

Alori was silent, waiting with baited breath as she watched her friend. This wasn't her biggest secret, only the second biggest, but even that was a heavy load to carry. It was true that the teen shared the burden of this weight with three others, but none of them were still in the city. She was the only one left, and now after bonding to an eagle herself, it bothered her even more than it had before.

Please...please don't turn on me.

It seemed like an eternity before Lavira responded, and the look on the teen's face had Alori's heart jumping. She shivered and the wait had her blood running cold. It was the first time that she had spoken of it ever to anyone who wasn't there on that horrific day.

In truth she had spoken too soon, and too rashly without thinking of the consequences if Lavira decided to turn her in. But at the moment that wasn't her worse fear, the worse that could happen would be if her sister turned against her, that was a sentence she didn't want to take.

Finally, she exhaled a deep breath when she was hugged, and the worried young Endal hugged her friend back tightly. "I was so scared, and I didn't know what to do. But if we hadn't acted it would have killed us...we didn't have a choice." Alori hugged her friend tightly for a bit more before she slowly pulled away. Her crime was far worse, she knew it but she also trusted Lavira who had already promised to keep her secret.

It did feel good to get it off her chest and to tell someone finally, at least about one of her secrets. Alori breathed deeply again and forced a smile to her face. "Yea so, now you know my shame...even though I didn't have a choice. It just feels so wrong. I mean, I try my hardest Vira. I really do and things just go wrong...."

[Lavira]

Vira laughed a little, smiling kindly at her friend. "Alori, we always have a choice, just maybe not the choice we expected to make." She gave her friend, sister, and comrade another friendly splash before wading back to the edge of the pool, her hair weighted by the warm water.

From there, she pulled herself out of the water and sat on the rocks with feet kicking lazily. "It's alright; you really don't have to explain it, sis. I know the feeling more intimately than you think. You know, where every step you take forward is actually taking you three steps backwards. It's kind of discouraging; but I try to keep an open mind and an open heart and look to what lies ahead. I am kind of surprised I've made it as far as I have, considering. But that's not a story for today. Maybe later!"

Pulling her feet out now, the teen stood, her arms wrapping lightly around her chest to help hold in the warmth against the nibbling cold of the wind. "Now come on, let's go down again." She wiggled her eyebrows at the other in invitation. Alori's crime was a hefty one, that was for sure, the secret one of great seriousness, just like Vira's. But Vira wouldn't breathe a word of it to anyone. Her sincerity could not be doubted.

oocShortly short; probably a good point to wrap it up?