Welcome to Gaia! ::

Whatever explanation Len might have expected, ‘the spirits will eat my eyes’ was decidedly not it. She sent the girl a look as she said it, squinting, bemused, and almost disbelieving. Was she serious? Then again, she supposed she had heard concerns or rumors just as odd coming from the mouths of her fellow orphans, during her upbringing, or the townsfolk in bits and pieces. While these things had never been said in jest, however, she still doubted she’d ever heard anyone speak such a fear with quite so much gravity before.

She puffed.

Perhaps it was the result of never having a single, solid and ever-present caretaker figure, or perhaps it was from having heard so many different, conflicting theories, or perhaps simply because she had such an overactive imagination herself, and understood on a certain level that she was making all that up—but whatever the reason, she put little weight on the promises of superstitious sayings. Bad things happened, of course, she knew that. There were dangers everywhere. And nasty spirits? Well, perhaps she believed in that, too, to some extent, at least enough to consider bad actions risky. It seemed reasonable to believe that if you were awful all the time, eventually something was more likely to punish you straight for it.

But not all bad people were punished or suffered. And not all kind people were rewarded or had pleasant lives. So, in the end, Len had to conclude that the world was made up mostly of chaos, with perhaps a pinch of random justice sprinkled about for flavor.

“I don’t think spirits like the flavor of eyes, really,” Len said. “So you’re probably fair safe on that bit, yea? And leastways, even if you’re s’posed to listen, don’t mean you always have to do as you heard. Otherwise you could never make your own path, and what fun’d that be? If you wanna go out, you best do so while you’re not sick, whether your mum pleases or not. How awful would it be if y’ got sick again and never full better and couldn’t go nowhere, but didn’t go when you could have either? Anyhow…”

Len slowed to a stop in an alley, the cool grey stone of the outer city wall to the one side, and the back of a building to the other. A narrow stairway, shadowed by the high wall and partly crumbled away in disrepair, lead up the side of the building’s back wall.

“Up for a spot o’ climbin’? I’ll help hold y’ steady if you’re nervous, don’t mind the broken bit. It’s real solid over most of it.”

Len supposed she wasn’t really much of an authority herself on what it was like and what was proper to do when one had a mother. So, though it all sounded a bit unpleasant, if it was worth it to Taijana, perhaps it just wasn’t her business to butt in. Much easier, in any case, to let the topic drift to more engaging things. Like climbing.

Admittedly, Tai’s assertion that she could climb was a surprise, whether or not it ought to have been. Perhaps it was that Len simply suspected it wasn’t a thing ‘proper’ girls with mothers who obeyed the rules would be want to do. But it was pleasant news just the same, and she grinned for it.

“Oi, can y’ then? Tha’ makes it easier, it does. Just this a’way.” And with the words, Len was off, hop-skip-darting her way up the stairs like a small mountain herd beast making her way up a cliff. She’d been many enough times and trusted the fates to keep her feet steady enough that she didn’t concern herself for an instant with speed. It was the top that was the best part, after all. The flat roof of the building, when reached, was mostly bare, scattered with a few cracked pots that looked to once have contained plants, and a few stray, wild vines growing up out of the stone like stubborn miracles.

But it was the beyond that mattered.

Mid-afternoon had slipped closer into evening and the sky was smeared pink-orange, red, and purple. From this vantage point, which was high enough to allow sight even over the city’s wall, she could spy anything she liked: the far setting sun in the distance over the great ocean, the surrounding deep jungle forest and the ethereal mists that crept through it, and on the other side, all of the city itself, Pajore still bustling with evening life. A breeze skittered over the rooftop, and Len shook her head, tousling her short hair about her face so that the wind gusted through it, and as she did, she peeked back to see Tai’s progress.

Len blinked, and then — as Taijana took a turn, face visibly lighting up with the view of it all — she felt an unexpected swell of something in her chest. Pride? Validation? Happiness? Perhaps a mix of all of them, to know that she had managed to do good and bring the other girl somewhere she could appreciate. Of course, she was entirely oblivious to Taijana’s thoughts of her—but that didn’t matter as much, in light of the fact that she was at least pleased.

So, Len flashed a quick, cheeky grin. “It is pretty though, ain’t it? I’ve always thought so, and liked t’ come up ‘ere, when I get the chance and such. But it’s prettier still I think with you here…” She paused, trailing off and looking puzzled as Tai’s eyes glimmered with something more than their natural glow. “‘Ey…” She took an uncertain step forward. “You’re alright, yea? Ain’t nobody comin’ after us up here, and I can take ya back, soon as you please…fact…” She glanced back out over the city. “We might could figure and find your house from here, if it’s near enough about.”

After skimming the scene — from here, she could map her way back to where they’d come from, and it only made it simpler still to know how near it had been to her mother’s brothel — she hesitated only a moment before venturing another peeking glance in Tai’s direction.

“Y’know…rough as it was t’ be in, and sour-gross as those mainlanders were, feel like it wasn’t all so bad in the end maybe. Kinda more like an adventure you don’t have every day, yea? Almost a bit fun…”