Malta had had a busy day of running supplies from the latest shipment of healercraft things for the prison. Carrying them, organizing them, putting them away, sorting through them for the occasional unusuable supply...
It had been such a busy day.
She liked busy, but there had been other people offloading supplies and... She didn't like those sorts of people much. They said things. Things that made her upset. It wasn't hard, she knew.
She tried to keep out of their way as much as possible. If she looked very busy, she had thought, perhaps they wouldn't bother her.
It hadn't worked, but looking very busy quickly turned into being even busier.
Finally everything was packed away. Finally she could step back and look at what she had managed to help do.
Everything was full and in the right place. She felt a sense of pride in her work that made her stand up a little straighter, rise a little taller.
Then she felt a deeper hollowness in her stomach as it reminded her that she hadn't eaten all day and, while her stomach was fine with missing those meals (the strong, tough men and women that were offloading the goods made her more nervous and queasy than hungry) it absolutely had to insist on dinner.
Particularly because it was late.
With most everything else done, she decided to stop by the kitchen. Dinner itself was likely done, but maybe the cook would have something for her to eat.
Orren was such a nice man! Malta felt so much less nervous around him. She was looking forward to saying hi. And eating. Eating too.
She entered through the back door- it was closest and she was less likely to run into other scarier sorts that way.
"Hello?" she called into the kitchen. Yes it was Orren, and yes it was late and so there weren't many people around, but it was still a place with sharp knives and utensils and she didn't want to startle him...