Darin paused to think about what Ridahne had said. She raised a good point. It wasn’t like Ridahne should be allowed to wander about unpunished after murdering someone. That wasn’t what Darin had been trying to say at all. Though that still left Darin with a question; a question she had asked before but didn’t receive a proper answer to. She slowly stood from where she was kneeling. She thought she might ask the question again. This Ridahne might just have to answer this time.

Darin slowly moved back to the table with her fiddle on it, “You’re right. Murder cannot go unpunished. So, I’ll ask again. Were you due to be executed for the innocents or the liar? If the answer was the innocents or both than I owe you an apology. I judged the Sols too quickly. But if you if the only answer you can honestly give is the liar, then perhaps you do not know the Sols as well as you might wish you did.” She carefully locked the case, “Then again, I’m sure there is more to this story than more than either of us know; more than anyone but the Sols know.” She turned to smile at the Elf over her shoulder, “You’ll have to forgive me though. I tend to be possessive of what, or rather, who, I consider to belong to me.” She shrugged, “I also tend to not like people who hurt my people.”

From the corner her eye Darin spotted the shattered cup. It felt so good at the time. Now it just felt childish and stupid. Well, Mama did say she needed to learn to clean up her own messes. Darin moved from the table to bend down and start picking up pieces of the broken cup. She waved away the hands of the Worker that came to help her. The Workers were still staring at her in shock. She wasn’t surprised. She was beginning to think that the Workers had built her up to be some sort of idol. Now that she had proven that she wasn’t they didn’t know what to make of her. She was okay with that. She wasn’t sure what to make of most people. Then again, she wasn’t sure people were meant to be understood. At least she hoped that people weren’t meant to make sense. It made her feel better to think that.

As she picked up pieces she spoke, “Life is hard Ridahne. I’m only nineteen and I already know that. Life isn’t meant to be easy. I sincerely doubt your life was any easier than mine, and I doubt my life was any easier than yours; just a bunch of different hardships. I’m not sure I could live the life you’ve lived or make the choices you’ve had to make. Then again, could you say you could make the choices I’ve had to make?” She sighed, “I had a point.” She smiled lightly, “See? I do it too; ramble and hope that something makes sense sooner or later.”

She finished picking up the pieces she could get with her bare hands. She managed to cut herself a few times, but Darin paid no attention to that. It wasn’t the first time she had suffered such minor injuries to her hands from picking things up that she shouldn’t really pick up. She doubted it would be the last. She supposed that there was a metaphor in there somewhere about making choice you knew what hurt you, but she was honestly far too tired to think of them at the moment. She was far too tired in general right now. Her crazed descent down the hill, her interaction with The Tree, the dancing, the fiddle, and now this conversation with Ridahne; they were all exhausting in their own way. Perhaps Ravi was right. Maybe she should have gone to bed. She walked back over to Ridahne with her cupped hands. 

She spoke simply, “Though, like it or not, we are in this honorless task, and I do promise that it is a task without honor, together now. If we do not learn how to at least not end every night without a fight we are in for a very long tip that might just end up with one or both of us dead and Astra doomed. So, for the sake of both our sanity, I promise not to insult, scoff at, belittle, or imply I don’t like, the Sols. I will do my best to not make light of the things that are important to you, and to take the things you take seriously, seriously. In return I need you to think about the fact that I told you I needed you to treat me like Darin and, at least from my point of view, you treat me as incapable, a child, or some sort of royalty. I may not know how to survive on the road, but I do know how to take care of myself. I may not be an adult, but I stopped being a child long ago. I maybe the Seed-Bearer, but I will always be a farmer; not a queen, not a princess, a farmer, and by The Tree, a stubborn one.” She smiled lightly, “Maybe that’s why it really bothered me; not me thinking they are dishonorable, which may or may not be true, I do not know for sure. But because I am not a ruler. I will never be a ruler. Even The Gardener was not a ruler.” She moved back to the table and let the shards fall on the table, “At this point I have nothing left to say. Do you?”

Darin didn’t think there was anything more to say. She desperately just wanted to sleep. She might sneak away from the table to go sleep with Talbot. She couldn’t do that yet though. She needed to give Ridahne a chance to answer what she had to say. Communication had to go both ways. Darin had done her best to express her points of view clearly. Now she had to listen carefully. If she didn’t, she might miss something, and that was the last thing she wanted. They had to figure out how to live together. If things went the way they were supposed to they would be living together for a very, very long time.