[h3]High Society Girls[/h3] [@LadyTabris] & [@Stormflyx] [i] Alik’r Desert, Oasis Late afternoon, 15th of Midyear, 4E208[/i] [hr] Alim was gone. Taken to a prison. It was completely unbelievable, and no matter how hard Raelynn had tried to distract herself with other things, everytime her mind stopped, she thought of Alim and a painful knot formed inside her stomach that was tight enough to about make her vomit. Now was one of those moments, her hands were shaking and she was alone. There was nothing going on for her to involve herself with. She didn’t really want to talk to anyone in particular again, she’d been doing the rounds enough. She felt like crying. The knot was working it’s way up through her throat, choking her. She heard a soft clatter somewhere in the distance that caught her attention enough to push the knot back down, she turned her head sharply to see what had caused the noise, and her eyes found the sight of the Altmer girl, Anifaire, stumbling around over her tent which had collapsed. “Anifaire…” she whispered softly. She would be feeling rotten too. She and Alim, were they an item? Raelynn bit down on her lip and made her way over to the girl with soft footsteps as always, “Anifaire, do you need some help?” she asked, placing a gentle hand on the Altmer’s shoulder comfortingly. The sadness over Alim had not left her system and being confronted with Anifaire did nothing to quell it’s presence. “Anifaire, are you okay?” “I… I can’t keep this tent upright. Sevari helped me… but I knocked into it so much in my sleep that it’s tipped over, I guess,” Anifaire muttered, speaking with frustration, almost more directed at the tent than Raelynn. The tent was indeed a bit askew again, too small in size for someone of Anifaire’s height. “Hmmm, Gregor put up our tent so I can’t say I know much about fixing one, but I’m sure us two women can manage it. There’s not a lot we can’t do when we put our minds to a task.” The mage gave Anifaire’s arm a quick squeeze before bending over to pick up the cloth of the tent. “Take the other corner, we’ll fold this and then get the structure up first. We can do this!” A mundane task was what they both needed, she decided. Anifaire nodded, ready to go to work. The task was focusing her attention and she had been holding up so far that morning, though she could feel the edge of despair waiting for her to topple back into it at any time. She grabbed the fabric, folded it over, and nodded to Raelynn. “Thank you,” she said, as they worked. She felt like she was needing help at every turn. She couldn’t help but feel the weight of the mammoth in the room, Alim, and as she began to peg in the first of the structural rods for the tent, she cast a long glance at Anifaire. “I miss him too, and I’m worried…” She swallowed back a lump in her throat. “Can’t believe the clod got himself caught…” the peg took the brunt of her anger and she smacked it in with force. At least it wouldn’t budge now. Anifaire straightened the pole she was working with, imagining the way Sevari had fixed it before. “I can’t believe he’s gone…” Anifaire trailed off. The emptiness she had been struggling with since finding out and seeing those awful things was back, and she embraced it. She didn’t want to cry in front of Raelynn. “Do you think he’s really at this prison we’re heading to?” [i]What if it’s the wrong prison?[/i] she’d been worrying. The mage thought on it for a moment, she had no way of being completely certain. “I don’t know, I hope he is. It seems the most logical thing to have happened though, doesn’t it?” she asked with a reassuring smile as she [i]thwacked[/i] in the next peg on her side. “You know, Alim is the reason I am even here. He saved my life in the Imperial City!” Raelynn crawled over to Anifaire’s side, and placed a comforting hand on her thigh, “I’m quite sure he’ll be alright, and when we free him we’ll scold him for having been caught.” She laughed slightly, trying to help the Altmer break her bad mood, or at least make her feel like she wasn’t alone. “I hope he will be,” Anifaire replied. Her companion’s efforts to comfort her were welcome, and she was glad for them, though she didn’t feel any more cheerful. “I doubt I’ll be much help.” She adjusted the first peg and whacked it as hard as she could, repeating the action a few times for good measure. She hoped it was more secure than the first time she’d set it up. “He gets himself captured and I can’t even do anything about it.” Raelynn’s entire expression narrowed at Anifaire’s confession, and her hand made its way to her back. “Whatever do you mean? Where are these thoughts coming from?” she asked. Truthfully, she knew very little about the Altmer, she had heard she was something of a mage but she hadn’t herself seen it. Still, it flattened her spirit to hear her speak like that about herself. “Well, I can only do Alteration magic, mostly, and it doesn’t seem to help anybody with anything,” she replied. The thoughts poured out of her, upon finally hearing someone else was affected by Alim’s capture, she started to finally express how she felt in full. “I can’t fight, I can’t heal, I can’t sneak.” She sighed. “I just lack any skill at this life, I think.” The Breton laughed at the Altmer, but without any ill-intent behind it. “Oh Anifaire, the only thing you lack is confidence.” Raelynn said with a smile, “I can't fight, I can't sneak, I can't use alteration magic either! But, what has gotten me through my life is confidence.” She sighed, letting her laughter trail off. “If you were as lacking as you are trying to have me believe, you would not have gotten this far in life now, would you?” Anifaire smiled at her effort, and whacked the next peg with all her strength. “I suppose I have come rather far. Here we are, with sand in places it shouldn’t be, putting up a tent that’s been set up twice already.” She laughed lightly, feeling embarrassed at how her thoughts had flowed out. “Oh, I’m glad it’s not just me feeling the sand in all the wrong places,” she laughed, attempting to put Anifaire at ease. She’d never have said such a thing to anyone else, but it felt right to do so with her. She hadn’t really noticed before, but Anifaire had an air of high society about her. Maybe that was because she had her own nose so high, she had missed the Altmer entirely. “You know,” she began, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, “I’ve gotten this far in life because I tell myself that this is my world and you’re all simply living in it,” there was confidence in her tone and a spark in her eyes that suggested that yes, this absolutely was her world. “That’s confidence.” She snapped her fingers dramatically and seriously. Anifaire believed it. The confidence Raelynn held herself with was impressive. She smiled. “Someday,” she said, a tinge of hopefulness that would’ve have been there earlier in the day present. Anifaire hadn’t felt like herself in several days, as though her body moved without conscious direction and her words were not her own. She considered Raelynn’s words; she couldn’t fight either, and when she considered it, Judena was also an Alteration mage and no one treated her as any less. She needed to pull herself together. “Thank you for your help,” she said, gesturing to the tent. At any level of distress, Anifaire would never forget her manners. Raelynn smiled, but her gaze was somewhere off in the distance - as it happened, she had suddenly allowed ‘high society’ thoughts to creep into her mind. It all seemed like such a world away to where she was now, she flipped the cloth of the tent over on the pegs with a daydreamers smile. “Do you miss it Anifaire?” she asked with a dreamy sigh, “luxury and comfort…?” “I do miss lots of things,” she replied immediately. She allowed thoughts of home, the positive things, to fill her mind. A warm summer, reading on a balcony, fresh fruits and cheeses nearby, or swimming in the ocean near her family’s villa, a closet of clothes to choose from. “Yes, I miss it… It would be delightful to be resting in a chair with a book in hand, with as much wine and fruit as I could ask for. A… preferable atmosphere to this desert cave, but I think it has its charms as well.” She thought of the time in Cyrodiil after the Imperial City, skipping meals at a time, afraid to bother anyone. She groaned out at the very mention of fruit and wine. “Tell me about it, I long to sit on the balcony of my parents home, overlooking the ocean, platters of food, a good book. You’re right.” If she thought on it hard enough, she could smell the ocean air and the gentle wafts of heavenly bread rolls rolling around the air on a carefree breeze. “I hope to never have to sleep on the floor of a cave again after this is all done.” She laughed at herself, pulling the cloth taught around the pegs on her side. “Soft beds and softer blankets for me in my future…” The description of home was strikingly familiar to her, similar in a lot of ways to her own, and she was surprised to find such a similarity with someone who wasn’t from the Summerset Isles. Anifaire hovered over her next words, a question she’d been asking herself coming to mind. She wondered if someone else’s perspective would be different. “Why do you travel? I mean… why don’t you go back?” Raelynn looked up as she was asked, as if the answer was somewhere in the clouds. “I wanted adventure… To do something different and make a name for myself, my own way. To be honest, it has been some years since I visited home. It is nice to go there once in a while, but… I am torn to Skyrim too. I do my work there, so it’s also home in a way. Far less luxurious, but… I at least have a bed! What about you? What brought you here?” “I was tired of only reading books and never seeing anything with my own eyes,” Anifaire replied. She had never expected it to be so bloody, or so terrifying. Perhaps that was what you could expect when drawing expectations from books. Yet, there was something she still couldn’t figure out about why she stayed out in the world when she could return to the comfort of home. “I didn’t expect it to be like this.” “I certainly didn't either. That was my first visit to the Imperial City… I wanted a break. I got swept up in this, I wasn't in your expedition. Like I said, the only reason I'm here is because of Alim… Everything I have is because of him…” she smiled and glanced at Gregor, the smile could not be hidden from her face. “He's been a good friend to me… He really likes you, you know?” Anifaire blushed, a small jump in her chest. She shrugged, unable to hold back a small smile. “Do… you think?” She scratched the back of her neck. “He is a good friend… he saved me from some thieves once, actually.” She felt a twinge of anger at the thought that now he was captured and the one in need of help, the small flash breaking through the despair and helplessness she felt about the situation. She grabbed it, glad to feel something different. “We need to get him out.” “Ummm, I don’t think -- I know.” Raelynn remarked as she drew closer to Anifaire with a playful narrowing of her eyes. “He told me so himself. He said that you’re cute, kind, and wonderfully mesmerising” she said, embellishing on what it was Alim had actually said. She couldn’t quite recall, there had been alcohol involved. “Oh, and then he did this;” she sat up straight, and shook her shoulders, as if to get into Alim’s skin momentarily. In her absolute best impression of the rogue, she ran her hands through her hair and bit her lip, looking at Anifaire as if from afar admiringly. She laughed and snapped back to herself. A surprised smile lit Anifaire’s face. She watched Raelynn’s impression with a slight laugh, covering her mouth in an effort to hide how embarrassed she felt. “He really said that?” she asked, disbelief in her tone. “I thought he was just… being friendly…” She really hadn’t considered that Alim thought she was cute, or interesting, simply thinking that he would be more interested in, well, someone more adventurous. “[i]’Friendly’[/i]... yes, he’s being friendly,” she laughed, fastening the last of the cloth over the peg, smacking it once more to secure it. “You’re gentle, smart, and dainty. These are things he finds attractive in you because he probably thinks he can protect you and take care of you. He likes to sweep the ladies off their feet and make them feel special… He doesn’t want to be overly challenged by...” she thought long and hard on the right word, “by some untameable daredevil of a woman!” She smirked. Raelynn moved over to sit at the opening of the tent now that it was up, she hoped it would stay upright. “So if you like him, just take him already! That’s what I did. I knew from the second I saw Gregor that I wanted him, so I waited for my moment, and I took him.” She gave a smug smile and an almost dirty laugh. It was said so matter-of-factly that Raelynn made it seem like the task was as easy as breathing to her. “Us ladies of high society [i]always[/i] get what we want…” “You’re making it sound easy,” Anifaire said. She felt less embarrassed about the conversation topic as it went on, and her posture relaxed as they finished with the tent. She gave it a test nudge and it seemed secure. She joined Raelynn in front of it, a thoughtful expression on her face. The things she said made some sense, and were part of the reasons she liked Alim as well. Perhaps she was right and she should say something to him. If they broke him out of prison, she supposed, feeding the twinge of anger that flared up again. “I don’t know if I can do that.” “Well, when you see him again, just see how you feel. Let the moment do the talking.” The Breton gave the Altmer another smile, a reassuring one this time. “That anger that you’re feeling? Use it. Use it when we go to get him back…” She turned her face to look at Anifaire, she could sense that she was still deeply unsettled. “Let that start the fire in you to do what must be done.” Anifaire nodded thoughtfully. The anger was preferable to despair, and perhaps feeding it would give her some type of strength. “I… will,” she agreed. She smiled. “I hope we leave soon. I don’t anticipate another desert journey, but it will… be worth it.” Uncertain, she tried to convince herself with determined words. “Thank you, Raelynn.”