[PM to Join] Can You Walk on the Water

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 35 Dentis 2719
Guest Quarters, Brunnhold Campus

Nkemi woke to a world made of ice; there were heavy gray clouds in the sky outside, dark but stranger and softer than rain, and flakes of white were swirling down from them. It was not quite the first time she had seen snow; that honor had gone to the week before, and the sudden heavy snowstorm which had swirled over Vienda two days, and left strange gray-ish sludge on the streets, which had frozen to ice and taken days to melt; when she had left, there had still been bits of it clinging to dark corners, here and there. There had been only the faintest snow the day before, although it had left traces of crunch in the gravel pathways.

But this –

Nkemi threw open the window of her small guest room, peering out wide-eyed. The world was blanketed in white, crisp and fresh. Red slate roofs just barely showed through the edge of it, and trees were dappled with white like a blanket, with all the strange gray patterns of nature beneath highlighted by the contrast. Nkemi’s breath clouded the air, and she shivered in her bedclothes against the cold wind that whisked in; reluctantly, she closed the window, and dragged the heavy chair close to it, wrapped herself up in the blanket from the bed, and watched, wide-eyed, as the snow fell.

It was cold; it was strange. It was, Nkemi realized, with a strange little flutter in her chest, beautiful.

But Nkemi could not simply sit and watch all the day. She left the blanket folded on the chair, and shoved it further back out of the way, all the way against the long rectangular window. The bed, too, she pushed cheerfully back out of the way, and she rolled up the rug, kneeling and pushing it over itself one by at a time. Nkemi took her thick purple wool socks off, bare toes wriggling against the floor; it was unexpectedly cold, and send strange little jolts through her toes and up her ankles, but it was bearable.

The Mugrobi washed her face and brushed her teeth down the hall; she came back, and dressed in her thick warm brown sweater and pants, and wrapped her rich red scarf around her head, tucking it carefully into itself to keep her arm.

Then, feeling the stillness of the last few days and the faint lingering ache of her cast the day before, Nkemi took out her baton, and looped its leather strap over her wrist. The heavy wood gleamed; it was made of two pieces, fitted together invisibly inside, with only the thinnest of seams running around the edge to show where they went. Nkemi spun it around her wrist, once, and settled it into the grasp of her hands.

Practice, Jubo had told her, was the difference between being able to use the baton when she needed it and being helpless. You need to drill until there is no thought, Jubo had said, sternly, only memory. The muscles and body must know what to do even when the mind is unsure. You will be ahead of your mind, at times; this is just as well. Trust the body; trust your instincts. They know what to do.

Nkemi ran through several of her training forms, steady and careful, trapped in an imaginary, one-sided fight against an invisible opponent. She used the baton like an extension of her arm; she snapped it out drive the wind from her opponent’s stomach, and to break their nose. She rolled with it, and brought it up to tangle in another invisible opponent’s legs, to bring them down with her. She spun, and flicked it up and down, from side to side; she chased it around her arm, and caught it and brought the momentum down, sharp and hard.

There was enough space, for a small Mugrobi and her baton, and Nkemi did not shy away from using any inch of it. Her training took her up onto the bed with a quiet crash and the groan of springs; she marched up and down it, spinning the baton as she went. She pressed forward, coming up onto the headboard, bare toes holding tight, and wobbled, just a little, baton pressed forward steadily, the bed creaking under her slight weight.

Nkemi giggled, holding there; she eased back, carefully, retreating halfway onto the bed. She turned to the door, then, and grinned, sheepish, at the passive standing there wide-eyed. “Good morning,” Nkemi hopped down from the mattress and bowed, politely; the baton tumbled down alongside her hand, and rose back up with her when she did. She grinned. “You may come in, if you like,” Nkemi offered, her eyes dropping to the tray and lifting back to the passive. “Is this for me?”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Dentis 35, 2719 - Morning | Guest Rooms, Brunnhold

Snow was not Aurelie's favorite, it had to be admitted. Oh, it was certainly very pretty—not even she could deny that. The young woman was not immune to feeling a flutter in her heart at the charm of winter's first real snowfall, either. The campus seemed quieter on those mornings when she woke up to a thick blanket of it. The edges were softened, details obscured. Fresh and clean.

The problem really was when she had to move from admiring it through a window to walking through it. Shoveling it off of walkways and other common areas wasn't usually her responsibility, for which she was glad, but often the paths between buildings she most favored were attended to last, if at all. And somehow, no matter what she did, snow seemed to creep into her boots and wet her socks. There was very little Aurelie Steerpike enjoyed less than perpetually wet socks, and if they became so in the morning she didn't get a chance to do anything about it until the mid-afternoon at least. Worse still if the snow was still falling when her morning began, as it so often was.

Her grumbling about it did nothing to stop it from happening, nor did it change the material circumstances of her boots and socks, so Aurelie did her best to keep these things to herself. On this morning in particular, she only allowed herself some quiet muttering in empty stretches of back corridors as she carried a tray laden with a guest's breakfast to their room. The contemplation of why her and not one of the younger girls she did not allow herself—at least not for long. It didn't matter, and it would have mattered even less were she not already slightly annoyed by the snowfall.

Although the walk was certainly enough of a novelty, she reflected, to take her mind off other things. There was value in that, at least. And a degree of relief too in being able to grumble, even internally, about the inconvenience of snow. Better such a petty problem than to dwell on other, larger problems. Her steps were swift but not hurried; her only concern was getting to the guest's room before her tray was cold.

Aurelie was surprised to find the door slightly ajar as she approached; a mistake, she could only assume. She knocked on it lightly all the same, as best she could with the tray in her hands. She had surprised someone more than once, on errands such as this—she was not eager to repeat the experience. For a moment she avoided looking at the gap the open door left her, as it seemed rude to do otherwise until she was acknowledged. Aurelie could hear movement from within, but no answer to her knocking. The movement itself sounded strange, not what she expected for the hour or the setting.

A little harder—if she knocked a little harder, maybe she would be better heard. The awkward position she had to hold herself to do so made her apply more force than she had intended; the door swung open a bit more, and Aurelie couldn't help but look inside then. Though she had opened her mouth to call out, she closed it again, fascinated.

The guest was a woman, not much taller than Aurelie but slightly built where Aurelie was sturdy. As the door swung open, she seemed to be—to be locked in combat against some invisible opponent the passive could not see. All of the furniture had been pushed away from the center of the room. The movements were careful and seemed born of a good deal of practice; Aurelie couldn't help but think of them as lovely. Naked interest showed on Aurelie's face, in this moment where she felt so invisible.

Quite abruptly, she was less invisible than she had been—Aurelie tried to wipe her face into something more politely neutral. She wasn't sure she should have been looking; a flush of embarrassment crept onto her face at having been caught.

"Good morning, ma'am," she mumbled politely, just as surprised to be addressed as she was by anything else. She attempted a bow, hampered slightly by the silver tray in her hands and the items atop it. She stepped inside the room as she was bid, intending to set the tray down and leave again. The rearranged furniture did not present herself immediately with a place to do so; she kept hold of the tray.

"Er—yes ma'am. Where, ah, would you...?" Aurelie's eyes flicked from the tray to the baton and back; she did not raise her face to look the woman in the eye.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 35 Dentis 2719
Guest Quarters, Brunnhold Campus

Nkemi had looked up to see wide, bright eyes on the passive’s face, practically glowing with interest, and an expression that was not quite a smile, but was far from a frown.

The moment she spoke, however, everything changed; bright red crept into the girl’s cheeks, and she looked down, instead. She managed an awkward bow, coming just a little inside the room, as if she wasn’t sure if she was meant to. Her voice was very soft. It was such a stark change that Nkemi felt it like a blow; she was half-reminded of the little beggar children in the street of Thul Ka, who could follow you with keen interest one moment, but would shrink back, fearful, at the slightest sharp movement.

The girl glanced around, glancing at Nkemi, although not quite looking her in the face, and then back around. Where…? She asked, the words trailing off into a half-soundless mumble.

“Oh!” Nkemi unhooked the strap of the baton from her wrist, and set it on the bed. “Thank you very much. Here, please let me,” she hurried across the room, and took the tray from the passive with a bright smile. Soft clairvoyant and warm static mona mingled in the air around her, freely twining together, a little too friendly to be quite called indectal. “There, that’s –”

Nkemi paused, glancing down at the tray now solidly grasped in her hands, and then around the room. She had stacked a lamp atop the desk, and so the surface of it was covered; the baton was on the midst of the bed, and anyway she did not think the soft mattress would take the tray well, with what smelled like tea drifting from a small pot. The chair was no better, with its comfortable, soft cushion.

“Oh,” Nkemi said, again. She grinned, more sheepishly this time, with a much more visceral understanding. The passive was perhaps the shortest person she had met in Anaxas so far, with bright, vivid red hair cut to about the length of her chin; Nkemi had a very good view of how lovely it was, with the girl’s gaze tilted squarely towards the ground. She looked thoroughly Anaxi; other than her height, which was a bit on the short side, Nkemi rather felt she looked like what one imagined when picturing an Anaxi – other than the short-bitten nails and callused hands, and the slightly pinched look about her eyes.

“Would you help me move the lamp, please?” Nkemi asked, hopefully. She could set the tray on the ground, of course, but it would be a little difficult, she thought, and she was fairly sure she’d spill the tea. She was beginning to understand something of Anaxas, and it was clear enough to her that if she did, it would be the passive girl who would be expected to clean it up. Instead, she shifted out of the way, still holding the tray, and smiled encouragingly at the other girl.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Bright—that was the word that immediately came to Aurelie's mind, thinking of the woman that stood in front of Aurelie. Bright voice, bright expression, and bright field too. Aurelie didn't know what to make of it. Mugrobi visitors, Aurelie decided, set her on edge. They were entirely too friendly to her, and even now she didn't know how to handle it. To get used to it was dangerous, and yet to brush it off always felt rude and dangerous again in a different way.

To this point, Aurelie let the woman take the tray from her with no protest. Perhaps there was a surface she simply hadn't seen to rest it upon. Her eyes followed the path from the desk over to the bed, and from the bed to the chair. Ah. No more insight than Aurelie herself had, then—just a lack of awareness of the practical considerations that had made Aurelie hold on to the tray. She wanted to smile back; it was very tempting. She couldn't quite bring herself to do it, though there was a marked lightness to her face, if one knew where to look.

"Ah—yes, of course!" Aurelie was almost relieved to be asked to do something useful. She had been a little worried that she would have to figure out something herself. Her sense of responsibility was too strong to just leave the tray there with nowhere to put it. Aurelie moved forward to take the lamp from the desk, although this merely shifted the issue. Still, easier to place a lamp than a tray with hot tea and a small selection of snacks to go with it. Aurelie picked up the lamp and moved back out of the way.

The question now became: where to put the lamp? The floor, perhaps, but she wouldn't do such a thing unless bid. It was not her room to rearrange; it was not the Mugrobi woman's either, but it was far more hers than it was Aurelie's. Besides, what if the location she chose was in the way of her practice, if that's indeed what that had been? Aurelie looked down at the lamp and hummed quietly to herself in contemplation. The chair? Once again, all options seemed inappropriate.

Perhaps we can just keep passing every object in this room to one another until the whole of it is somewhere other than where it started! The thought was so absurd; the corners of Aurelie's mouth twitched in a barely contained smile.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 35 Dentis 2719
Guest Quarters, Brunnhold Campus

Nkemi would not quite have said the passive was smiling, but she was aware of the faint lift at the edges of the girl’s cheek, the slightest crinkling at the corners of her eyes, and something of a renewed smoothness in her forehead.

“Thank you,” Nkemi said, gratefully. She went and set the tray down on the desk, relieved, and turned to the passive with a grin. The girl was standing holding the lamp still. Nkemi reached for the lamp, confident that there must be some place to put it – and then paused, her hand curled around the stand with the passive’s, and began to giggle. It was the absurdity of the passing of the lamp, and the slightly wide-eyed look on the passive’s face, and the smile twitching at the edges of her lips.

The passive had been looking around for a suitable place, Nkemi realized, although it seemed no better to put the lamp on the bed or the soft cushion of the chair than it had the tray. Putting it on the chair would be a rather temporary solution, if Nkemi meant to eat any of the breakfast things which had been brought.

“I almost think I should ask you to take the blanket off the chair,” Nkemi said with a final little giggle, “and then we may trade that between us also.”

“But - I think it can go on the floor,” Nkemi looked down at the lamp, and back up, hopeful, inviting the red-haired girl to share the joke. She took the lamp more decisively; she glanced around once more, and set it carefully on the floor next to the desk, sort of tucked between it and the wall, where it would be out of the way.

Nkemi glanced down at the tray on the desk, and then back at the small red-haired girl. There was a little distance between them now; she did not seek to close it. “Please forgive me if I overstep,” she said, politely, with the tiniest incline of her head, the suggestion of the respect a bow would offer. “I am a new visitor to Anaxas, and I – there are many ways here with which I am unfamiliar. I should like to offer you something to eat, but I do not wish to make you uncomfortable.” Nkemi paused, and wrinkled her nose, “or, at least, not more uncomfortable.” She said, very honestly, looking at the young passive.

“But I am curious,” Nkemi said, honestly. She had not met an Anaxi passive before; she had scarcely seen any, and then only at a distance or through Professor Andressa, watching as they went heads bowed place to place, busy at errands or other such menial tasks. She let a moment pass, a careful, quiet beat of time.

“May I offer?” Nkemi asked. She stood barefoot still against the cold floor of the room, her thick purple socks laying over the footboard of the large, neatly made bed, wrapped in her warm brown sweater, with the folds of her red scarf tucked into one another against her head. She smiled, a hopeful, easy smile, and stood with her hands lightly together behind her back.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

The guest had set the tray down on the desk and now turned as if to take the lamp from Aurelie's hands. For a moment she thought her ridiculous idea may come to pass after all. They could make a game of it, she thought, passing things between each other. A game traditionally had a winner; she couldn't think as to what the conditions of such a victory would be, but it would be amusing at any rate. The other woman seemed to realize just what was about to happen, however, and did not take the lamp from out of Aurelie's hands.

Aurelie couldn't stop herself then—she did smile, although it was slight and disappeared almost as quickly as it had come. Aurelie nodded; yes, the floor was perfectly suitable, if the other woman thought so. Even if Aurelie hadn't thought to put it there herself, she wouldn't have argued. It simply wasn't her place. She relinquished her hold on it and watched as it was placed out of the way between the wall and the desk. Sensible, Aurelie thought.

Or at least, not more uncomfortable. The honesty of it surprised her, and Aurelie thought it shouldn't have. No, not the honesty—the directness. There was a difference, she thought, between being truthful and being direct. This was both and left Aurelie somewhat unsettled. How was she to answer? She didn't want to lie—she had given that no small degree of thought, in the past few weeks. But honesty in this way sat very uncomfortably on her.

"C-curious?" The word fell out of Aurelie's mouth before she could stop it. Curious? About what? Aurelie wasn't so strange a thing, she thought, even to someone new to Anaxas. Somewhere else, perhaps, she might have stood out more—she was Anaxi through and through, no doubt there. But so were so many others, passive and student alike. One red-haired passive girl among many. Aurelie couldn't think what the curiosity could possibly be.

"Ah, uhm. T-thank you, but, ah. I'm afraid it—I couldn't." Aurelie chewed her lip. Her posture was stiff and uncertain, although she hadn't quite lost all the warmth from before. They were remarkably close in height, Aurelie noticed with some surprise. She was still the shorter of the pair—she had yet to meet any adult who was shorter, really, at least not in a long time. "It would not be, ah, appropriate," she added, more gently. She didn't quite want to dim such an easy smile, but it simply wasn't done. The offer was kindly meant, she supposed. And there was no harm in it. But she thought, if this were the source of the curiosity, how things were done, here in Anaxas, then Aurelie should answer properly.

"But," she offered, hesitant, "if there was—anything else you, er, wanted?"

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 35 Dentis 2719
Guest Quarters, Brunnhold Campus

Whatever little sputtering flicker of a smile had grown on the passive’s face flickered out. Nkemi, watching her curiously from across the room, inclined her head politely. “I understand,” Nkemi said, her smile still polite. “Thank you for telling me.”

The girl as chewing her lip; there was a stiffness to her back, and a little hunching of her shoulders, the discomfort that Nkemi had caused rippled all through her. She asked, a little hesitant, if there was anything else Nkemi wanted.

Nkemi thought of the walls of the Turtle, the three bridges which stretched out to meet it from the rest of the city, and the heavy gates which closed at sunset and opened at sunrise. She had waited outside them, before, in the cool pre-dawn hours which brought only a taste of the heat to come, sat on the side of a bridge. She had done it only a handful of times, when joining Prefects who worked in the Turtle or looking for an imbala from Windward Market to question. If she thought of it, she could remember the distant spilling of pale light over the horizon, and the careful, deliberate opening of the doors at the appointed time.

“No," Nkemi said, carefully, “thank you. I do not need anything else.” It was a difficult question to answer; it was a very Anaxi way of asking. Nkemi was not yet used to the politenesses which seemed so oddly close to lies; what man or woman could say, comfortably and honestly, that they wanted for nothing? It was not, Nkemi thought, the passive’s own way of asking; she had heard galdori ask similarly here.

There were those in Thul Ka, even some prefects, who saw imbali in such a way, who believed that every imbala they spoke to was deliberately twisting the very concept of honesty, who were guarded and closed up, waiting for the tiniest scrap of a lie upon which to pounce. Nkemi had never seen the point; she knew her own honesty, and she knew, too, what it meant to speak a truth of the heart. If there was honor that it was encumbent upon her to guard, it was her own and no one else’s; nor did she think the encouraging of a lie should be a punishable offense. It was not outlawed; her brief was to uphold the laws as written, not as believed.

Nkemi smiled, friendly and easy, at the passive. She found an uneasy place to stand between regretting having made the girl uncomfortable, and not regretting having tried to speak with her. It was selfish, perhaps, her curiosity. But was she not here to understand Anaxi and their ways? Was that now a part of her brief, now? It was easy to draw such lines within the Seventen; it was harder, Nkemi felt, to find them in the moments which might have been private.

Was any part of her life truly hers? Yes, Nkemi thought; yes. It had not been of her choice to come to this strange place of red hair and polite lies, of drifting white snow and frozen slush underfoot. But the time she did not spend working was still her own, to do with what she liked. Her work was a calling, and she knew many prefects swallowed whole by it; Nkemi did not hesitate, either, to give what she could of herself freely. She did not think she could wrap a vestibule around her prefectness, and settle the rest of herself into a more distant latibule.

So she balanced, uneasy, barefoot, and waited, and did not lose her smile.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Aurelie frowned to herself, briefly, considering the answer to her question. It had been a careful answer, more careful than the question really warranted. Had the question been asked incorrectly, or was she reading too much into the answer? That was perfectly likely; Aurelie read too much into most things. After all, wasn't the woman smiling? So perhaps it was nothing, or there was a something but not anything Aurelie could address.

Well, it didn't matter. It wasn't her job to divine the thoughts and intentions of Brunnhold guests, no matter how friendly. Just a lingering sense of responsibility, and curiosity of her own. Aurelie tugged at the ties of her bracelet; it had become a steadying sort of gesture, these last few months. Generally it had replaced her terrible nail-biting habit, though not entirely. It didn't help when it was the gesture itself that made her anxious, but she felt it lessened the frequency. Any improvement was good, she hoped.

"Well, if... If you don't want anything else I can provide..." Aurelie paused again, considering the tray on the desk, and the polite smile. Wasn't she doing her best to be less--less herself? Aurelie didn't think she would make a friend here, and she didn't particularly care to, but the practice was important. Just in case she should ever need to actually try.

"I, er. I don't know if you've--ah." Aurelie gestured at the tea cakes on the tray, a small pile of snowball shapes. Aurelie had made them herself that morning, with a few of others in the kitchens--the snow had provided an excuse to break away from the more plain variety normally prepared for the professors' lounges and guest trays. Aurelie thought they looked rather cheerful herself, even if she did find them too dry to have without tea. "They aren't, ah. They aren't the usual--if you find you like them, while you are here, they're, ah. Snowballs. Uhm--if you've... er. Had them before, I, ah. Apologize."

Aurelie regretted her stuttering attempt the moment it left her lips. What had she hoped to achieve, precisely? Granted, the woman had said she was new to Anaxas, but that didn't follow that she had never had a snowball before. They surely made them elsewhere, even if--she did remember Aremu telling her that baked goods like this were not as common in Mugroba. But she shouldn't have assumed--and even if it were true, she hardly needed Aurelie's recommendation. Aurelie saw that polite smiling face from the corner of her eye, and was sure she should already have left. What a pointless, silly thing to say!

Face warm, Aurelie bowed again and turned to the door.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 35 Dentis 2719
Guest Quarters, Brunnhold Campus

Nkemi was not sure what she had expected. She did not quite know how to interact with the passive; she could not think of ever having had someone sent to her room with a tray of breakfast things. People had brought her breakfast before; her mother or aunt might have come up with a tray of food when she was sick as a girl, and fussed over her with cool lips against her forehead, or settled next to the bed with a book to coax her into eating with a story.

If she were sick or injured – yes, Nkemi supposed, it was possible. She had lived in rooms too small for a kitchen, and there the landlord might have shouted her down to the kitchen or – perhaps, once or twice, brought a tray up and knocked at the door for her to take it. At Thul’Amat, Nkemi had never experienced such a thing. She understood, now, that the passives cleaned and did laundry for the students; such things were not done at Thul’Amat, although there were humans one could pay to perform such services. Nkemi had, herself, bundled her own clothing carefully into the laundry room even at ten years old, and faithfully scrubbed the dust and stains from them, as her mother had taught her at home.

But, all the same, Nkemi had expected her to go. She had made her tentative offer, and the girl had politely corrected her; she bore no resentment, and was grateful that she had not come on too strongly. But the girl was hedging, carefully, a little hesitant.

Nkemi followed her gesture to the little snacks that had come with the tea pot, the small round white cakes. She studied them, and then looked back at the passive with a smile. “Snowballs?” Nkemi asked, wide-eyed. Her gaze jerked to the window, and her eyes widened more. She looked back at the little red-haired passive, faintly horrified. “Balls of – of snow?”

“They don’t melt?” Nkemi asked, very tentatively. She frowned, uncertain; she came a little closer to the desk, and tentatively laid a dark finger against the outside of the ball, as if expecting to find it cold. “It’s – it doesn’t feel like – ” She looked back at the passive, her eyes wide. “It is – only a name? Or is it – inside…” Nkemi frowned; she knew enough of static conversation and, so, chemistry, to find it highly unlikely that such a thing was possible; but she did not know much of Anaxi cooking beyond the glops and messes served at the Seventen barracks, and she had understood already from her meals at Brunnhold that this was a rather different sort of operation.

“Is there snow in them?” Nkemi asked, a little breathless. “I – it’s only water I suppose, but – is it – “ She looked down at the little white balls, and then back at the passive, and grinned, sheepishly.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Aurelie's eyes blinked once, and then several more times in rapid succession. Somehow, she had not expected this, of all things, to be where she was misunderstood. A corner of her mouth twitched; it was a struggled to keep it down. To laugh would be rude, at the very least, but... Well. She supposed that many things were possible, really, and unmelting snow was least among them.

"N-no, they don't--it's, ah, just a name. They're, er. Well they're not sweet, not really, without the sugar on the outside they're actually quite... Oh. Uhm. They're a snack, t-to go with... with your tea. There are nuts in them," she offered helpfully. The laughter that she tried so hard to keep from her face came through just a little in her voice. Oh, bells and chimes. She hoped it didn't sound too terribly unkind--it was just charming, somehow. Perhaps finding it charming was unkind, too? Was there anything she could do about that?

"They, er. They just look like that. I thought--well, not just me, ah, there were others on shift of course, er. We thought it would be... nice. With the..." Aurelie gestured to the window, to the thick blanket of fluffy white that covered the campus on the other side of the glass.

They could contain snow, she supposed, if she really wanted them to. But the recipe didn't even call for any water, so it would be a strange addition. Aurelie's eyesbrows raised again as she thought on it. Snow, inside... well.

"They're actually quite dry, without tea." Aurelie said this with a conspiratorial curve to her mouth. They were lovely with tea, of course. Just indeed very dry without. The texture was crumbly in a way she could never decide if she enjoyed or found irritating. That they should be called "snowballs" and not only contain no water of any form at all but indeed be overall crumbling and dry made the passive smile.

As amused as she was, Aurelie rather regretted offering her opinion. She almost wanted to ask if there was something else the other woman would have preferred, or wait to see if she liked these at all. That wasn't something she offered to most people, of course, a replacement for an unwanted snack. Aurelie realized with a sort of sinking feeling that she didn't know how to talk to most people if it wasn't about a task, or food-related in some way. Most passives were poorly socialized, of course... But Aurelie perhaps a little more than most, as she so rarely strayed from the kitchens. Even when she did, it was often to clean an empty room--she was not often assigned to work that required her to interact with, well, much of anyone at all. No wonder she was so hopeless at it.

Aurelie shifted her weight uneasily, unsure if she should leave. Surely this was enough practice pretending to be a person for her in one day. It was just--she had opened her mouth to offer an unwanted opinion, and she had yet to be dismissed. She was a little at a loss.