There is something refreshing about making the trip to Brambleberry - hitching a ride on one of the massive carriages that are hauled behind the 3 metre tall long haired beasts of burden. It was not a slow process, the massive creatures encouraged to a quick pace, that barely seemed to give the beast a briefest workout. She would have to stay the night and start again in the morning, leaving her but a single day to play with before she had a decision of whether to meet Valtor at the club or not.
Still, she steps into the main 'road' of Brambleberry. Many more staggered and irregular houses grown into the outcroppings of the mountain like polypores, indeed some of the buildings even support the table fungi, as walkways and the fabled Brambleberry hanging gardens adorn the rock face.
This is the closest Thalia has been to the mines, at least legally, and she itches to slip off late at night to do some exploring.
Her cheek stings and she rubs it, wondering how she bruised it getting out the carriage. <Careful> she feels the though in her mind and she remembers Marcus telling her to not be too reckless in rebellion of loosening the shackles this far away from expectations.
She wonders if she will see the creature-kin mayor, even as she notices foliad features with a beak pass her by. Her mind recoils a touch at the unfamiliar sight, but she wills her body to stillness, attempting some facsimile of respect. She looks around and sees person after person has a feature that marks them as other and she forces her brain to recall that she came here to their settlement, not the other way around.
"New here?" A voice says by her elbow and she looks down, simply seeing a three and a half foot foliad, and she takes comfort in that level of unique as her mind takes stock and acclimatised.
"Day visit. City girl and not well travelled one. Trying not to be rude though. I'm Thalia." She gives the customary bow.
"Syngonium, you can call me Syn." Syn says with a chuckle, bowing back wearing overalls with black rock buttons. She offers Thalia a hand and the pair wander through the rope walkways, travelling up the city and the cliff face.
As they travel, Thalia sees much more working with different types of stone here, nothing that would indicate the mining from That Book but certainly more taking use of the debris from the cliff face and surrounds than the average Natare citizen did.
"Researcher or tourist?" Syn asks after a bit, a fire circuit on her wrist lighting up a small paperbark wrapped cigarette, the scent of a clove-like scent hitting Thalia's nose as it starts to burn.
"Researcher, but a touch of tourist given the circumstances. I'm trying to look into human history, and because my mentor likes to keep me in the dark."
The woman by her elbow laughs. "And look at you, not even a mushroom. Never mind, if your mentor wants to be less useful than a flaking paperbark who are we to stop them? Just means we will need to take you to the Wall of Recollections and the Reading Nook. How long is your journey to our earthen city?" Syn blows a stray hair of her deep brown locks from her face as another waft of cloves towards Thalia and Thalia can't help but notice how charming Syn looks despite those rough edges.
"I mean to stay only a day, I am being wooed by VRPI and they've asked me to make a decision in three days time. Back in the city."
Syn laughs and nudges Thalia in the hip with an elbow. "You could stay longer if we ever got one of those fancy mages with any of the device mending in them up this way. They donated a Br1n terminal a few generations back but the thing is bubbling the bad gunk. You know how things are. Either way, you're not staying at the hostel, might have to duck but I've a spare bed with your name on it."
"You barely know me?" Thalia says, confused by the stranger letting her just into her private space like that.
"We have a day, and you look like the type that needs company. Plus you ain't sore on the eyes."
"So I'm the pickled fruit of your day?" Thalia teases, nudging Syn's hip with her knee.
"Oh you like pickled fruit? You need to taste nettle-peppers."
For most of the morning Syn had taken Thalia on a tour of Brambleberry, the climbing gardens, the cave wall called the Wall of Recollections where they had painted a giant mural of the history of the town, finding out that unfortunately the founder was a foliad named Belladonna, but that surely they would find at least one human in Brambleberry's history. They had stood under the massive waterfall at the edge of the settlement, just in their undergarments, feeling the icy water wash away all their thoughts.
Then Syn had shown her to the community dining hall, both women still in their slowly drying underclothes, laughing as Syn had traded roots of a dying plant for 6 thick and spicy nettle- peppers, laughing loudly when Thalia's lips had swollen up while her taste buds died to that delectable juicy flesh-ness and tart pickled taste.
"You should come back to Natare, meet my Yarrow." Thalia says, tongue easy as she grins a big dopey smile at the gardener - she was one of a few people who tended some of the more vertical parts of the garden. In return, Syn would get many a free cooking from some of the others in town of goods she could supply or trade for. And a kiss or two from pretty ladies, she had told Thalia.
"I could take a break one day - not this week, but soon, if your house has space enough for my overalls." Syn is leaning closer and their foreheads bump clumsily as they share affections. Being here was easy for Thalia, and she can almost feel Yarrow's support of her - despite whatever messy name they would have for what they have.
She could just kiss Syn right now, but won't, not for fear of what they would say, but that last lingering fear for what bringing another into her mess would bring.
Instead she jokes; "Don't tempt me, or they'll stay on the hook the entire time you're in town."
She leans away, eyes saying one thing while her body language says 'wait'.
Thalia is just about to explain when Syn shakes her head, placing a palm upon Thalia's swollen lips. "Such a shame, I will have to wait until I arrive to see that pretty derriere."
Thalia smiles with her eyes, grateful for this gorgeous woman, even as the casually electric moment passes and they can return to playful banter.
A shadow looms over them, cast from a person standing behind them as the cave light spills in. It is still strange to exist within a cave like this. The space is unaltered on the physical level, but it is still so strange. Syn looks towards the shadow and smiles widely. "Speaker Wren. What brings you by?"
Wren is a woman in a constant state of casual mess, at least as far as Thalia can see. Feathers in her hair, her head-wrapping askew across her head and neck. A loose fishnet in crocheted thread, across her upper body, modesty held in check by a thick plant fabric that reminds her eyes of animal hide, styled into an open vest. Her legs are covered in tough shorts that accentuate her thick thighs and the peeking of a vine tattoo that peeks from the bottom of them.
"My job as diplomat of course brings me by a representative from the academy, especially when she is seen exploring our history and making trouble in all our landmarks." Her voice is an approving laugh as she motions to the women's lack of dress and the puddle on the floor beneath them.
"We were mostly dry, I promise." Syn says, giving a helpless shrug, even as Thalia catches a motion over her shoulder she has no hope of interpreting. Thalia shivers lightly under the appraising gaze of Wren even as the woman keeps the rest of her face open and honest.
"And what is it that the mage seeks, so far out this way. Are you planning to bring us the troubles of the city? We keep on good terms with you through leaving things be, and even the Ministry of Nature Preservation sends a messenger ahead." Wren puts a hand on their table, tapping large talons on the surface in rhythmic strums that set Thalia straight into that gap between fight and flight.
She feels Yarrow with her almost now, calming her and bringing her back to her centre. <Breathe, think, then act.> She could almost here them say, almost too loud to be a memory.
"You'd not even have need of a messenger if you had someone fix your Br1n terminal. I am here to look into the history of humans in Levis - for I accidently brought one through and at least need to be able to document my actions and their consequences to graduate from this phase of my studies to the next. I can fix your terminal in exchange for this town helping me find out what it knows of my plight." Thalia is level of voice, even as she presses her hands against the table, palms first until light brown webs across her knuckles.
Wren clicks her tongue on the roof of her mouth, flapping the bat like membranes under her arms, considering all that this kind of trade could bring. She rolls the thought back and forth through her mouth.
"You know the risks. What you are slowly putting into the world. That doesn't seem to be the problem. I think you haven't considered the risk to yourself. Global risk is easy, obvious, you know what will happen should.... but that is everyone's problem, and someone smarter than you will fix that. But you? You're too small, you think yourself meaningless in the scale of consequences, so you can only compare it to the benefits for you." She hoists herself onto the seat beside Syn, gazing across at Thalia.
"You keep meeting witches, because we are outside, and most of us like being outside. You are stuck inside and want to be anywhere but, so the options are overwhelming. But being outside is scary, so you didn't try until chaos entered your life. Being outside means that you need to keep inside safe - because without inside as a reference you are just floating in the water."
She pauses in thought, trying to articulate something, her hands constantly gesturing. "It is perfectly fine to make a reckless choice, marks you as your own kind of witch, even without the magic. Specially as a woman. You just need to know the risks in here." She thuds Thalia's chest roughly. "And here." she thuds Thalia's stomach. "I'm going to help you, displease my sisters. In exchange, you will fix my Br1n terminal, you will stay an extra night, and I will make you an outsider. But this must be your choice."
Thalia doesn't even need to think. "When do we start?"
