[Flashback] Aftershocks of The Call (Sondra)

[Avari]

Season of Summer, Day 10, 502 AV

News traveled quickly on Mura, because the white women who lived there had so many ways besides speech in which to communicate their tidings. Among a race so well-informed about the world around them and so sensitive to each other's feelings, a current of excitement could run through the close-knit community nearly as quickly as a spark of djed through a strand of D-wire. Emotions and gossip leaped rapidly from minds to hearts and lips to ears, often transversing the city within mere hours.

In this case, the news that K'Sondra Kore had heard The Call to serve a man in the distant, wintry city of Avanthal spread through Mura with enthusiastic swiftness. It was said that the man she would serve was wealthy and wise, handsome and strong, who was responsible for the lives of many people and cared greatly for them. Tinges of both rejoicing and sorrow laced the reports as they were passed along from woman to woman. The Konti always celebrated when one of their brethren found their place in the world, even as they grieved that one of their sisters was leaving them to travel abroad, even a sister as recalcitrant and stubborn as K'Sondra. No one had any doubt that K'Sondra was going, of course, for no true Konti who heard The Call to serve and guide a worthy leader with their unique gifts of sight and divination would ever refuse to fulfill the sacred duty that fate and Avalis had allotted them.

No one, except one young girl named Avari who was pelting across the city as fast as she could to find K'Sondra. Disbelief and dismay gave her feet wings, letting her speed recklessly through Mura. Past startled shoppers at the Bountiful Sea, over arching bridges over the Silver Lake, and across pathways wrought of iridescent crushed shells and colored glass she ran, until she arrived panting at the door to the Kore manse. Opening the door, she flew through the gracious rooms and up the stairways until she came at last to a stark, plainly furnished room midway along the northwestern tower.

Avari lifted her hand to rap sharply on the door, but thought better of it. Instead, she reached for the doorknob and pushed impatiently at the door. It swung open with a satisfying crash and Avari rushed inside without preamble.

Inside, the tall figure of K'Sondra stood motionless in the center of the chamber. She was staring in silence at an open, unpacked traveling chest, her arms folded across her chest. The light from the curlicued ceiling lamp overhead caught her face oddly, making her look older and giving her features a squarer, grimmer appearance. At Avari's entrance, she merely turned her head and lifted an eyebrow, conveying mild surprise and curiosity in that simple gesture.

"Sondra, why?" Avari burst out.

She didn't pause to wait for an answer, but flung herself into the one wooden chair in the chamber and plunged onward. "I heard the news when I was at the Bountiful Sea. I heard them chattering about how you heard 'The Call' today. The Call. I heard how everyone expected you to set sail at once to the cold, forsaken North, like you have no choice in the matter or any free will of your own. Is it really true? Did you really have some mystical vision about leaving Mura and serving some complete stranger with your gift? Are you really going to do it?"

Avari's lower lip trembled slightly for a moment, before she gathered her composure. "Are you…are you really going to go away forever…cousin?"

[Sondra]

K’Sondra barely moved as Avari barged in and pressed her for answers. For eras, she and her little cousin had laughed at the idea of being someone’s footman. Avari, because she scorned the obeisance and K’Sondra because she doubted anyone sane would ever have a use for her. ‘The Call’ was for the delicate pearls of Mura, not the Kore cousins, they were unyielding stones. But here she stood, slowly packing a trunk she had imagined for more daring escapes than this. “It’s true,” she finally answered, “But not how they say it is.” K’Sondra kept folding a shawl over her hands, forgetting to pack it. “I wasn’t dazzled by the ‘The Call’. Eunoe says it’s different for everyone. She keeps telling me to have faith because she sees great things for me in this.” Her hazy eyes were forward, seeing nothing. “Eunoe is many things," they rarely called her Grandmother, "But I cannot say she isn’t gifted in foresight.” K’Sondra glanced down at her trunk, her body resuming a living pace. “My mother has locked arms with her too,” a rueful smile for her cousin, “But then it has always been easy for Eunoe to persuade her.” Half-pitching the shawl into the trunk, K’Sondra went on. “I am to be shipped to Avanthal tomorrow.” The elder Konti turned and sat on the edge of the bed, her sharp posture deflating with a sigh. “Don’t look at me like that, Ari-bear,” a nickname laughingly adopted in the midst of Avari’s tempers, but endearingly kept. K’Sondra’s slate colored eyes were pleading for her cousin’s forgiveness. “What if it’s true, Ari?” she asked, hope brightening her brow. “What if I could really be happy with this man?” K’Sondra struggled with the idea of this impossible joy. Eunoe had said she would be more than respected, she would find love, the love of a man and woman’s sweet communion. She reached for her cousin’s hands. “If I am of enough use, you could follow me, Ari. We could be together, without the Mothers and the Grandmothers.” Her words had the same hushed excitement of all their childhood plots. “We would be respected as white witches.” A grin warmed the elder Konti’s face, there was something catching about K’Sondra’s smiles. They were broad and silly, melting the coolness of Konti features. “You could join the Ice Watch and have a Polar Bear mount as cantankerous as you.”

[Avari]

Aside from baring her teeth briefly and playfully when K'Sondra used the teasing nickname "Ari-bear" on her, Avari subsided into attentive silence as her elder cousin struggled to convey the tangled emotions in her heart. She hadn't known what reaction she would see out of K'Sondra toward another outside force sticking its hand in to manipulate and interfere with their lives, but her display of tremulous hopefulness and anticipation startled Avari and subdued her outrage. Strangely enough, K'Sondra seemed happy with this turn of events, and Avari was hard-pressed to continue raising an uproar in the face of her cousin's peculiar stance of combined resignation and interest.

When K'Sondra reached for her hands in a gesture of appealing for understanding, though, Avari blinked in surprise. To be sure, both cousins were wearing gloves, as was their wont, due to both possessing Konti gifts that required physical contact. All the same, neither woman usually sought to touch others as a rule, to keep from seeing things they didn't want to know about. But then, the broad, infectious smile on K'Sondra's face and her laughter-filled words were just as unusual, if not more so. It was all enough to make Avari wonder how much hearing The Call could change someone and what the experience was really like.

Hesitantly, she let her fingertips touch the tips of K'Sondra's gloved fingers. An answering smile blossomed across her own lips. When K'Sondra mentioned the Icewatch and polar bears, Avari couldn't help laughing at the image.

"Oh, gods, if they ever paired me with a polar bear as ornery as me, I wouldn't last ten minutes," she chuckled. "A fine member of the Icewatch I'd be! Whenever we'd get called into action, everyone would see an orderly line of hunters on their polar bears and me, thrashing in the snow wrestling with mine! Can't you just imagine it?"

Sticking out her tongue at K'Sondra, Avari added, "On the other hand, you could make an excellent spy or sneak thief in a land of eternal ice and snow. We Konti are so pale, we'd blend into the background just by standing still! If you were outside and snow was falling - and I've heard that snow falls there all year round; I don't know how you ever plan to keep warm - no one would ever know you were there. You could make an absolute fortune just by being who you are!"

Pausing in the middle of her remarks, Avari glanced over at K'Sondra and her half-packed trunk. Her smile slowly twisted downward into a frown as she remembered why K'Sondra was going to Avanthal at all. To do great things! To have faith! To freeze and suffer and serve some man who would never know a tenth part of K'Sondra's worth, likely as not. How could any non-Konti ever grasp what she saw and felt? How did they have any right to demand her service?

Her mirth faded at these morose thoughts. This was too serious to be a laughing matter. Avari thought again about what K'Sondra had told her, and her features tightened into a deeper frown.

In a more normal tone of voice, she murmured, "But of course, you won't be there to make a fortune. You'll be there to serve some man and be of use." She pronounced the word with distaste. "You'll be there to earn respect and love and maybe even honor for the Kore name.

"You know," she went on, making a face as she spoke, "I should have known Eunoe was behind this, somehow. She's always been trying to make us into perfect little Konti wenches who come running when she calls and do whatever she says. She's the one who told you that following The Call would make you happy, wasn't she?"

Avari grimaced. "I mean, if you're really going to be happy, I don't want to stop you. Gods above, if it wasn't because of The Call, I might even want to go with you and leave Mura! It's just… I don't know. The Call? It's all so…so…mystical. Or mythical, maybe. Or both!" She threw up her hands. "It's one of those things I never thought someone I knew would ever experience."

She hesitated and then asked, softly, "Sondra? What was it like? Do you really think…really, truly think it'll make you happy? Really?"

[Sondra]

K’Sondra’s flush of childish happiness faded as Avari pressed more questions over her heart. The elder Konti half snorted a laugh. “Course, Eunoe is behind it. It’s a last ditch effort to make me respectable. On the upside, Avanthal will spare me the sympathetic looks and wringing of hands from the rest of Mura.” She took a breath and held it for a beat while she drew out thoughts. “I don’t feel anything mystical, Ari,” her voice was quiet and hoarse with honesty, “And that frightens me. Only hope, but that is unusual enough.” Standing from her seat, K’Sondra began to pace the room. “Will I be happy? I don’t know, Ari. I don’t know. Does one ever really know?” K’Sondra made to bite at her thumb, a childhood show of nerves, but stopped herself. “For all our divination and gifts, it is impossible to know all futures. Even if one can see what might happen, you cannot discern what one will feel.” Stopping her tense circuit, K’Sondra looked at her cousin, and Ari could see in her eyes a struggling brightness. “I’m gambling, Ari. I’m hoping that Avanthal will be kinder than Mura. That Eunoe’s desire to see her granddaughters excel outweighs her disappointed anger.” K’Sondra returned to the mundane need to pack her things, opening half-stuck drawers that rattled with collected bric-a-brac. “I mean it, though, Ari. You could come too once I was settled.” The elder cousin’s voice grew reverential, “You could be beautiful with your gift. That precious knowledge. I would give much to see you planted and bloom, Avari.”

[Avari]

Avari's features softened again as she watched K'Sondra pacing around the room, her body tense but her eyes bright and full of restless energy. She nodded in agreement when Sondra spoke of the inability of prophecy and divination to predict everything that could possibly come to pass, and an expression of understanding and wry sympathy crossed her face when her cousin expressed her hopes that Avanthal would be kinder than Mura. Well, perhaps not exactly kinder, but Avari could imagine what her cousin meant: less burdensome in its compassion, its mercy, and its feminine, fluttering notions of goodness. She could certainly relate to why K'Sondra sought to escape from Mura and fulfill their grandmother's ambitions for her in one fell swoop.

When K'Sondra turned to the subject of Avari's gift, though, he younger Konti's face twisted into a mask of childish disdain. "Pah! My gift? Precious? I wish!"

She waved her hand dismissively through the air, as if swatting away a bothersome insect. "You might think it's beautiful, being able to touch someone and see their deepest desires and loves. When compared to your gift, you must think it's positively idyllic! But in practice, it's completely boring. It's always the same things, over and over again. Everyone wants peace, good health, strong children, and a never-ending summer.

"The things that make people happy are all alike," Avari declared, stabbing the air with her finger to emphasize her point. "But their shames, their sorrows, and their sins are all shameful, sad and sinful in their own ways.

She paused for a moment in the midst of her diatribe to contemplate that last phrase in her mind and nodded with satisfaction.

"I would much rather have your gift, Sondra," she continued. "I'd much rather see the worst things about a person. It seems like they tell you so much more about who that person really is. I'd love to be able to see the things that they can't bear to face about themselves, the things they're capable of doing when they...when they..." She paused for a moment and struggled for words to articulate her meaning.

Before K'Sondra could open her mouth to interrupt or contradict her, Avari burst out, "When they're most themselves! That's it. When they're pushed so far that they cast off all the trappings of culture and society and their real personality shines through. That's so much more incredible and amazing. I'd much sooner judge someone by that than by their wanting good harvests and long lives.

"With a gift like yours..." A mischievous smile spread across her features. "With a gift like yours, Sondra, you shouldn't be sailing off to bow down before some fur-clad stranger and beg to serve him. If anything, he should be crawling to Mura on hands and knees...well, swimming on hands and knees, I suppose...to beg and plead to serve you! Don't you think so? You're so much more powerful than he is, and you'd see so much more than he ever could, with his ordinary human eyes. You'd know him so much better than he knows himself.

"I'm sure you'd be a much better ruler, too," she chattered on, delighted with her new idea. "You'd be a much better judge of character, and you'd know just the right thing to make people obey you. If you ask me, it'd make so much more sense if you were being Called to rule, instead of to serve. Don't you think so?"

[Sondra]

K’Sondra chuckled, “Rule?” Her laugh was supplanted by a sly smile. “To rule well is nothing but service, Ari. Service to your followers, to an ideal, to the task at hand. It's dangerous to think otherwise.” Her eyes were scanning the room as she tried to remember what else she would like to bring. “I will disagree with you until my last twitch, Ari. Your gift roots in a more powerful emotion than mine ever will. It is a fallacy to find unpleasant things more ‘real’. Goodness is just as true as wickedness.” K’Sondra warily considered an object on her bedside table as she continued. Her voice hinted at distraction. “The gift leaves a taint, Ari. All sins have residue and power in the Chani. They stay with me --become a part of me. Even you would not like my dreams.” Her hand reached for the object, a mirror turned face down, then withdrew as if scalded. “I’m not taking it,” her voice turning bitter, “Eunoe can keep it and choke on it.” Avari knew of the dark relationship between K’Sondra and her fortune telling. The black scrying mirror has been her only aptitude, but it was a terror to the child and malevolence to the woman. Her reactions to it had been visceral and terrible, similar to the mad panic she felt in the open sea. “I’ve been brave enough,” she was almost hissing, “No one can force me to withstand more.” K’Sondra turned away and forcefully shut her trunk. She breathed deeply several times before recapturing her temper. “Well, Ari-bear. What shall we do on this last evening in Mura?” K'Sondra smiled again, but her eyes made it bittersweet. “A swim and bonfire? It’s not as much fun when we’re not sneaking out, but it still reminds me of happy times. Or perhaps we get tipsy at the Meridian and eat til we’re sick?”

[Avari]

For all that she still disagreed with K'Sondra, and perhaps always would, about the nature and usefulness of their respective gifts of insight, Avari held her tongue this time and let her cousin be. K'Sondra plainly had more than enough matters to occupy her mind at the moment, most of them more important than their age-old, irresolvable debate. She had to pack and to decide what to take and what to leave behind of her possessions, emotions, and memories alike. Her black scrying mirror would stay in Mura, but her horror of it and her revulsion for her sinspeaker's gifts would go with her to Avanthal and, Avari thought sadly, perhaps to all the places she would ever go in her life.

It was hard to imagine that by tomorrow, K'Sondra would be gone from Mura forever. Her strong-willed, stoic protector from the meddling authority figures on Mura, her enthusiastic comrade in escapades and adventures, and the only relative that Avari truly thought of as family...she would leave tomorrow on a ship bound for a land of eternal winter and a life of humble subservience. She had always been there for Avari to run to. The thought that after tomorrow she would be gone made Avari's heart ache with a sort of prescient grief.

However, K'Sondra's suggestion of a swim and bonfire or a night at the Meridian diverted her attention from her gloomy thoughts. Avari briefly bared her teeth again at K'Sondra's insistence on using that childish "Ari-bear" nickname for her, but otherwise gladly seized on the thought of a last celebration before K'Sondra's departure. She weighed both options carefully, rubbing her chin with a solemn air.

"The Meridian," she declared at last. "We should really do something special for your...your last night in Mura. My goodness," she added, ducking her head self-deprecatingly, "that was a lot harder to say than it should have been.

"Anyway, the food is good there and the atmosphere is always lively. Besides, you're pretty amusing when you get some wine in you! I still remember that one time that one tourist asked you to dance. And you actually got up and tried to dance with him! I laughed so hard my stomach hurt, and you came back glaring at me like you wanted to tear my liver out."

As she laughingly related the incident, Avari got up from her chair and opened the door, with a gesture inviting K'Sondra to follow her.

"Hmm, speaking of tourists..." She checked her pockets and smiled when she found her trusty bag of whalebone dice therein. "Anyway, come on. I suppose you really are going to go through with following your Call, after all. It just all seems so sudden and so, well, so strange. I always thought The Call wasn't for people like us, but, well, I guess I was wrong."

She gestured again. "Let's go. We can't let your last evening in Mura be anything less than memorable, after all."

[Sondra]

As Avari voiced her surprise that the Call would ever find the likes of them, K’Sondra tried to hide her own doubts. Her disbelief was almost as strong as her cousin’s, but K’Sondra had a hungry hope. It was slowly overcoming the hollowness of resignation, lending courage to desire. She could not confront her cousin’s fears without letting loose her own, so she only acknowledged the embarrassing memory with a peevish mumble. “He seemed nice enough and no one ever bothered to ask before.” She shook her hair, clearing her head, “I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t drink too often.” As the door opened into the green and pearl colored world of Mura, K’Sondra faltered. Her open manner began to fade and resolution took its place. Mechanically her hands flexed then made fists to be shoved in her pockets. Protective instincts were at the ready as she accompanied her cousin to the Forest Meridian. The café and dance hall was moderately populated. Some even looked at K’Sondra with congratulations in their smiles. The Konti tried to respond in turn but it only came out as a weak-grimace. She had never welcomed their simpers before, why did she feel the need to now? Maybe she truly was trying to join the ranks through the Call. It was a weighty thought. K’Sondra hoped Pu’veo was in, another mild misfit. Poor thing was trying to bring the decadence of Ahnatep to Mura, complete with the reputation as the city horse. She must have forgotten the intrinsic gentleness of the island. As much as K’Sondra was keen on Pu’veo, she still seemed a bit skittish around the Sinspeaker. “There, Avari,” she pointed to the softly curving seat by the window. It was likely intended to be a romantic spot for two, but all K’Sondra saw was the impossibility of them being joined. Waving at what she thought was Pu’veo, K’Sondra whispered sidelong to her cousin. “She better not get nervy and abandon us. I’m famished. I wonder if it’s a guilty conscience that keeps her away or the niggling fear what I have is catching.” Her eyes turned sly, “Can’t blame her. It would be a bit hard for her to sleep with everything if she picked up Sinspeaking.”

[Avari]

OOCHmm, so I totally missed that the dance floor of the Meridian is actually underwater. We're going to pretend that the person I mentioned in my last post who asked Sondra to dance was a particularly good-looking Charoda, okay? Or just a human or other race who could hold his breath a really, really long time.

Were any traveler to wander into the massive seashell-shaped edifice of Forest Meridian House in the evening, particularly a male traveler, the scene within the exotic restaurant and dance hall would undoubtedly have stolen his breath utterly away. Softly lit by the amber glow of reimantic fires burning in cunningly constructed mother-of-pearl sconces, groups of Konti women glided through the colorful, jewel-like rooms and spiraling corridors of the Meridian or descended along the staircase toward the magnificent underwater dance floor. Pale and fair as they were, cloaked in fragile loveliness, there was no mistaking these women for anything but Konti. It was in their faces and forms, wrought in the architecture of their delicate bones, in their smooth brows where Avalis' love shone like an ever-present moonbeam. It was in the silken gleam of their silvery hair, in the light touch of their feet upon the pearlescent floor. If their gossip and laughter had been audible above the music playing and the water splashing, it would have been heard in the tenor of their voices.

But there were no travelers at the Meridian tonight, from what Avari could see, and the only response she made to the view was a faint scowl as some of the Konti women waved and smiled joyously at K'Sondra, sending unspoken messages of congratulations. They looked like they couldn't be happier that she had heard their precious Call and was packing up to leave the island posthaste, and on their terms, no less. She was leaving the island as a good little Konti should, off on a sacred mission to advise and serve, as willingly and docilely as they could ever have wished.

In her own dismay and sadness over K'Sondra's departure, Avari felt more alienated from the smiling Konti women than ever. She found herself wondering about what it would be like if it were her leaving Mura. Would they be just as happy about getting rid of her? Would they throw parties throughout the city out of sheer exuberance? Would there be parades?

Avari was nudged out of a daydream of fluffy white Ivaski-shaped parade floats by K'Sondra pointing out a quiet pleasure niche with a curving window seat. She looked questioningly at her cousin, wondering if she truly intended for them to settle themselves in an alcove normally reserved for romantic trysts and private conversations. But Sondra had already turned away, her gaze raking the crowd as she sought Pu'veo, the more outgoing of the Meridian's two co-owners. She sat down without comment, listening to Sondra's sardonic murmurs about Pu'veo.

"If what you have is catching?" Avari echoed, her voice vibrant with notes of affection and scorn alike. "You really don't listen to anything I say about your gift, do you? If only our gifts were as contagious as colds, I would've infected you with mine long ago and caught yours in exchange. Hmph. We should all be so lucky!"

But she lifted her head to look for Pu'veo as well. Avari had also felt a slight kinship with the glamorous Konti because of their shared enjoyment of the travelers and tourists who visited the island, despite the very different ways in which they enjoyed their company. While Avari loved their stories from afar and the ease with which they were parted from their money, Pu'veo preferred to adore them while prone. Everyone knew she tried to seduce every man who entered Mura into her bed. Still, Pu'veo was amusing and charming, so Avari couldn't help smiling a little when the short-haired Konti finally noticed Sondra waving to her and sashayed toward them with her usual air of hip-swaying sauciness.

"Hello, ladies, and welcome to Forest Meridian House!" she said, with the radiant smile that probably made her irresistible to all men. "What's your pleasure tonight?"

Before K'Sondra could say anything, Avari chimed in, "A bottle of your finest wine, please! Something bubbly and sweet that'll have Sondra's head spinning by tomorrow morning, if you can manage it. I know you just said it's a good thing you don't drink too often," she added as an aside to her cousin, "but this is a special occasion, right? Oh, and as for food..."

Avari paused for a moment, then rattled off a list of light dishes and appetizers: steamed shrimp dumplings, spicy fish-cakes, fried eels, two different types of salad, fragrant rice balls wrapped in seaweed, and other favorite foods and treats. "And please charge it to Eunoe Kore's account," she added, with her best expression of virtuous sincerity.

Eunoe would probably be angry at her for doing this, but Avari figured it was worth it to have their table covered with an array of tempting, delicious dishes for the evening. K'Sondra deserved to eat well for one last night, before she had to start wrestling with polar bears for breakfast every day. Besides, what was one more lecture, after the dozens she'd already heard from her grandmother?

She glanced inquisitively at her cousin. "Is there anything you would like? Considering it's you that we're celebrating and all."

Somehow, Avari felt strange to be asking this of her, when it was her gift to know the desire of another person's heart. She could just as easily take K'Sondra's hand in hers and read immediately what K'Sondra wanted out of this evening, this journey, this Call. But in her heart of hearts, Avari feared and guessed that what she would not see when she touched K'Sondra's hand was the misty reflection of her own face, but something else, much more distant and inscrutable. Even though she had made her peace with it long ago, the thought still hurt. And it hurt even more to think that K'Sondra wanted to leave the island like a good little Konti should, that she might truly be more like the smiling Konti drifting about the Meridian than like Avari herself.

So, because it hurt too much to contemplate, she remained still and did not reach for her cousin's hand. She smiled and waited for K'Sondra's answer instead.

[Sondra]

K’Sondra’s smile was equal parts wickedness and amusement as Avari deftly shifted the tab to their esteemed grandmother. Well, since Eunoe was buying… “I would love a bowl of stewed Vian fruit.” K’Sondra clasped her hands girlishly under her chin, delighted to be ordering a dessert before a proper meal. Such a small rebellion, it was a wonder she had not indulged it sooner. Pu’veo only quirked an eyebrow, suspicious of the tab but not caring. It was one last hurrah for K’Sondra, Eunoe should count her lucky tarot cards if an expensive meal was all it took to get her granddaughter on the esteemed path to the Call. “Will do, my sweetlings,” Pu’veo half purred, almost unable to turn off her feline charm, even when it was lost on the audience. When Pu’veo glided away, K’Sondra grinned wider, thrilled they were getting away with it. Between them, they had done worse to taint the family name, but this prank was more indulgence than spite, free of the acrid aftertaste. Her flush of childish pleasure was dimmed when she caught the subtle shape of her cousin’s eyes. It was a reminder. This was a goodbye feast between them. The last time they hid together, and brandished their defiance. Their fellowship had given them both courage, one driven to protect, the other to grow. She hoped to the white Mother and the silver Father that Avari would not wilt in her absence. K'Sondra inwardly scoffed the thought. It was impossible. Avari was too strong of will to let the Kores limit her or base her courage on K'Sondra's presence. They would grow and return to one another, the years making them bright as shields and tempered as swords. Avari would be happy with her gift one day, blessed and blessing. All it would take was time. “I’ve created a monster with you, Avari,” K’Sondra said with a smile tenderer than the words she spoke. “But then I think you came to me bold. I only gave you further opportunity and a sister’s arm. Well technically, cousin, but I like you better than my sisters for the most. They share a father and a certain…” her mouth twisted slyly, “Rectitude of character.” She waved her hand to clear the air of ill words, “You know I love them. But I don’t always like them. I love and like you, Ari.” K’Sondra’s slate colored eyes were growing dangerously deep. Sometimes they were like the seas in later winter. “You are my heart’s sister, Avari. Always will be.” On cue, a bottle of something sweet and potent was delivered to their table with a flourish. K’Sondra laughed and blushed, “Petch me, I’m getting maudlin and I’m not even drunk yet.” When the bottle was opened, K’Sondra politely shooed the server away, opting to pour for the pair of them. She was especially generous in her own portion. “Let’s hope I don’t pick a fight or try to dance this time.” Raising her glass, K’Sondra said, “Here’s to hope.”