With the bag of food on his back Sid strolled along the street looking for a place to sit down. It was crowded and noisy everywhere. He didn't dare sit down at any of the cafés with his own food, and could otherwise not find a spare seat under protection from the rain.

After a while he landed in front of a huge stone bridge over an aqueduct. The raindrops made small ripples in the water, stirring the surface that reflected the light-grey hue of the sky.

Seventen-soldiers flanked the bridge, looking dissatisfied with their assignment in the weather. Sid thought of his past meeting with the Seventen and their chroven, and the reproaches of the vendors. He decided to keep his distance from them.

Instead he turned left over to the aqueduct and looked down into the water. The water-level was unusually high because of the rain season, and if he sat down on the edge he could dip his toes in the water.

He looked around to see if there was any free seat he had missed, and as he found none he shrugged and sat down leaning on an empty crate some trader had left there by the edge.

He took up a piece of ham from his bag and closed it tightly again to not let in the damp, then placed the bag as a pillow behind his back.

He sat there looking at Brunnholds buildings and towering spires, chewing on his piece of ham.

Shi was walking towards the service gate, hauling the result of her market tour with her. She was wearing her worst wick tunic, protected by a stained apron she had cut in an overused sheet. Her only jewel was her family knife, but it was hidden under said apron. This time, the woman was enjoying the fresh air so much that she did not even try to protect herself from the rain.
Much easier when you know you're coming back to a dry house, isn't it?

The witch made a bee-line for the service door, careful to avoid crossing the path of a small group of students that did not went home for the holidays, while also careful not to give them too wide a berth and attract attention by looking afraid. Just don't let them read my field...

But she did not make it, as she suddenly realized she knew the young witch who was sitting on the left of the main gate. She didn't remember his name, but was quite sure he was a Laughing Sky. Wasn't he that shy kov that she had once mistook for a chip?

She changed her course to go salute him.
"Hesta, boch! What are you doing here? The skies are in Brunnhold?" She suddenly felt a confusing mix of pain and hope at the thought that, maybe, Noli was somewhere just outside the brick wall.

Sid jumped at the sudden greeting, almost choking on his mouthful of ham.

Looking up, he saw a woman he vaguely remembered seeing in the tribe. He was surprised to see another sky here in Brunnhold.

Suddenly realising that he hadn't answered her yet, he quickly replied.
"Oh, hesta! Ne, the rest aren't here, just me." Hoping his short reply hadn't seemed rude, he finished with a smile.
"I didn't know there were other skies here, either."

Shi stayed silent for a bit after the young man reply, watching him.
"Drifting, are ye?"
She did not return the smile. Not that she didn't want to be friendly, but only a Hoxian, or someone knowing her well, could have guessed. The last three days amongst haughty galdori and suspicious humans had quickly reverted her to her youth distant behaviour, tek or not.

Besides, she was mighty tired. It was only her second day as hostess, and she had yet to adjust to the rhythm of her new job.
The older witch put her heavy basket down and crouched in front of Sid to answer his question.
"You're the first one I see."
And what would bring a young spoke like you in this city?

Sid could tell that the woman was tired, so he reckoned he wouldn't be able to charm her as he did with his sisters and the vendors from earlier. Not that it mattered much.

by habit he smiled again. "You're the first sky I see here, too. Not that I have been here that long, I got here just this morning. I'm Sid. Nice to meet you!"

He opened his sack and took up the pie he got earlier. With his small, dull knife he cut out two generous pieces and offered one for the lady.
"What's your name?"

This time, the witch remembered to return the smile as she answered. "I'm Shi. Junta!"

She took the piece of pie and bit it. "Mujo ma, Sid." The food felt good in her empty stomach. It was not the first time she skipped lunch, but it didn't mean she liked it. And her bag was full of food, but of things that needed to be cooked!
Briefly, she wondered how much money the young man had left. If he was drifting, it might not be much. She'd better refuse another piece if he started cutting it. He'd need it more than her.

"And what brings you to Brunnhold?" Shi asked after swallowing her first bite. The reasons must have been very different from hers. He didn't feel like the kind interested in magic. Actually, he even had no field she could sense. "Your fami knows where you are?"

Sid paused abruptly with his hand raised halfway to his mouth to take a bite of the pie.

Sids gaze trailed of to the distance. He furrowed his brow and scratched his chin, but instead of looking serious he just looked very comical.

"To be honest, I'm not all that sure. I travelled with beata, but I convinced her to let me drop of here on the way. I guess I wanted to see a bit of the world by my own, denk around, maybe find something I've been missing..."
Like my mother..?

Sid abruptly came back to normal, turning to the woman with a smile.

"What about you? Why are you here? When I think about it, I haven't seen you in the tribe for a long time."

Shi answered the long time comment with a bitter smile. "Time flows slower for you, then. I only left after Saint Grumble."
Though I certain wasn't much like myself during Festival.
"As for why I'm here... Let's say I wanted to resume my studies. Problem being that I'm still a witch. So instead, I end up being the landlady of a bunch of gardeners."

The witch looked towards the spires of the church, sighed, and gestured towards her heavy basket. She would offer some food to Sid, but all she had there needed to be cooked. She let the silence extend before she got another idea about his remark on the long time.
"Or you thaught about Neti?"
The boy seemed just a bit younger. Perhaps he had assumed Neti's family was gone, because he hadn't seen her since she drifted.
You're never going to see her again.

She swallowed a lump in her throat, and took a deep breath, looking away from Sid while she waited for her anger to cool down to a manageable level.
"I don't know what you're looking for, but be careful where you denk." Shi's voice was lower, now. It had lost its natural inflexions, and sounded carefully controlled. "It's a dangerous world out there. Wouldn't take much for your fami to miss you forever."
The witch swallowed again, unable to explain further. And realized she'd said the same things to Merry, very recently.
What's up with me, trying to tell everyone how to live their lives?

Sid was surprised of the sudden change in the woman's behaviour, but he decided not to push her more on the subject.

After a short pause he carefully tried to turn the conversation in a more general direction.

"You're not the first to warn me of how dangerous the world is... is it really that bad? I have travelled a lot with my da, when he needed to visit the animals and such, but the worst we've run into is a few pickpockets and a couple of Seventen's..." He tock a small bite if his shrinking piece of pie.

Not many dared to challenge his bear-sized father, that on top of his huge frame mostly were backed up by whichever of the trained beasts he had with him. Like Elizabeth.

Sid made a small smile when he thought of the motherly animal. He would have to repay her with a grooming when he came back, after being gone for so long.

Shi did not answer the question immediately. She looked at the young wick, then at the main gate and its seventen guards, then again at the church roof above the wall.
Then, she remembered she had a pie in her hand, and took a big bite off it. Only after having swallowed it did she answer.

"I don't know what you'd call that dangerous. Pickpockets and seventen, yes. Plus more unsavoury types. You have to keep your eyes open for them. Don't trust people to easily. Even tekaa." She looked at him. He was young. Younger than she had been when she had left Grandma, probably.

"The problem is trouble doesn't warn. You've heard of the Vienda riots, in Intas? A lot of innocent people died. Simply because they were there. For business, or wanting a glimpse of the big city, whatever. They were not looking for trouble. And they just died." There was a new anger now, brewing again in the witch's voice.
"A lot of spokes blame it on the seventen. A mung cast Magma in the crowd, causing a lot of death, that's true. But wicks started the riot! Fighting between themselves! Ti might as well have been killed by a wick. Just for being there. Just for being as curious as I was. Or as you are now."

Shi was now realizing that despite her resolution to turn the page, the wound was still open. That a part of her was still wondering how her daughter had died. What she'd been doing. How she had spent that month away from home. And that she'd been saying all that out loud. How rude, to thrust her personal problems on that boy! Grandma would have been horrified, to see a grown-up she had raised act that way.

"Epaemo, I shouldn't burden you with that story." She tried to lower her tone, to calm herself. "Just be careful in your travels. And send a lot of news to your beata, ye chen? Even if she agreed to let you go, she's surely worrying for you. That's the way it works."

Sid listened at the story in silence. Sid couldn't say that he had heard of the Vienda riots, not that he remembered at least.

But he begun to understand that this woman had a painful past, one involving Neti's death.

Sid was both surprised and horrified to hear of Neti's death. She had been about the same age as Sid, and at times they had played together. This was when they were small, before Sid got caught up in learning his fathers trade. Last he had heard she had went on her own travels almost as he did now, but apparently she hadn't gotten far...



He had to shake himself to snap himself out of his thoughts, like a dog fending of a fly.

He shook his head. "Ne, its no problem, I won't be burdened." He shoved the last bit of his piece of pie into his mouth. "But I will take your advises to heart. I will definitely send letters to beata."

Suddenly he thought of something. He turned to Shi and asked, right out of the blue, "Excuse me, but what would it take to get into Brunnhold? You talk like a wick and you got in. I have some things I want to do in there."

Now, that was an unexpected turn of events.
What would a non-magically inclined boy want to do in Brunnhold? Forgetting the half pie still in her hand, Shi cast a long surprised gaze on Sid.
His question needed answering, anyway.

"Be sure I'm careful not to talk like that inside! They don't want any wicks there. Though they have mean to know, talk or not." She shook her head. "They read your field, you know." And even one like mine, who has mostly practised a golly grimoire and upheld the noble uses, tastes different. The witch was still disappointed at how casually professor Benstrum had dismissed the notion she might pass for a magically weak galdor. She still hoped that, weird as he was, the man had forgotten everyone was not as magically attuned as him.
"I only got past the gate because some weird teacher decided, I still don't know why, to vouch for me."
I should write him to thank him, one day.
"And I'm not allowed in the school, or library, or any interesting place. Only gollies go there. I just tend the grounds." Or rather, tend the ones who tend the grounds!

Once again, Shi tried to feel for the youngster field, and got nothing. Maybe he wouldn't register as a wick? That is, if his eyes weren't that vroon-looking.
"Pardon me for asking, but what do you want in for?"
A plan was starting to form in the witch's head. But she wasn't sure. She wasn't ready to risk her new job for anything. Not before she'd have lost all hope to set a foot in the inner campus!

The way she looked at Sid was cold, calculating, and suspicious, now. And the bitten pie in her hand was definitely forgotten.

Sid shrugged while licking his fingers. "Dze, I just want to look around, see the people in there. 'If you never tasted it, even though the berry may be bitter, you would never appreciate the flavour for what it was.' That's what my father said once. He had heard it from someone when he was taming Elizabeth..."

He resumed the same pondering, ridiculous expression as before."Hmm, do you think they need an animal handler, I'm good at that. Or maybe a gardener or something? I could try to get a job in there, for a time..."

If you think you're gonna fool me by using poetic detours...
Shi had not been living twenty years with a Mugrobi for nothing. She patiently waited for the end of the metaphor to extract what concrete goal was stated behind. And the result was none. Just looking around.
How do you want me to trust you if you don't trust me?

"The problem is you're a wick. Yes, they probably have animal handlers inside, it's a full town in there, with carriages and all. And they surely have gardeners, I work for them!" The dark-haired witch gestured towards her heavy bag. "But they don't want wicks in there!"

She sighed. She was not happy to be harsh like that with a fellow Laughing Sky. But she knew the kind of mischief adolescent wicks were able to plan. No way she would put her job, and professor Benstrum reputation (if he still had one after recommending a wick), at risk like that. Not to mention the risks to Sid himself, if he got into serious trouble.

"Look, if you really want to ask for a job, just follow me to the service door and ask them." Her voice sounded more weary than suspicious or angry, now. "Maybe you'll get lucky? But once there, you're on your own. I can't vouch for you, and a witch trying to get you in would probably lower your chances anyway."

Remembering she had a meat pie in hand, Shi took another bite, and waited for the young man decision. There was rain on the pie now. But it was good enough that this was not a problem. Especially for someone who had skipped lunch.

Sid scratched his nose. "Well, you don't have to take me there right now, I think I can find my way there. I need to get prepared If I want to have a chance to get hired, anyway."

Looking at the sky, Sid realized that it had gotten much darker.

"Well, I guess I will have to go find an inn. Thank you for the talk, and all of the advices. I will keep them to mind." Sid smiled, then got up and hung his bag over his shoulder.

"I guess this is goodbye. Maybe we will meet again!"

"Fotamos Sid. I'll be on the market everyday. Just look for me if you need something."
The witch looked at the last bite of meat pie still in her hand.
"I owe you a pie," she added with a smile.

She waited for the boy to have turned his back on her before she allowed the smile to falter.
That's children... Wanting to do everything by themselves! I hope he's not going to get into trouble.
The young boy had been friendly and polite enough. He seemed to be a good boy. If only he had trusted her a little more, they might have managed to work something out.
And how do you want him to trust someone who thrusts her personal problems on him?

Shi sighed, picked her heavy bag up, and heaved it towards the service entrance.
Dinner's not going to cook itself!

(( EOT? ))