[CENTER][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/191226/e1e3aaf5b62cf11fe9d6fee5e4623c14.png[/img][/CENTER]
[indent][hr][/indent][color=silver]
[indent][indent]The ceiling was too tall. 

Sybil couldn’t help staring up at it. It rose so high that the torchlight didn’t reach the top, and the light piece dangling from a chain, arrayed with a dozen candles, didn’t either. It was just…black, up there, and no one could say with absolute certainty whether there was stone above, or just [i]nothing[/i]. She’d seen all manner of southron creatures emerge from darkness like that, some she could kill, some she could outrun, and some she just didn’t stand a chance against. Obviously nothing was going to drop out of the ceiling in a Blackwarden castle, but, still, it begged attention from someone who’d only ever seen the low ceilings of roadside inns, and commandeered farmsteads. 

It was also a better sight than the rest of the meal hall. 

Sparsely populated as it was, Sybil hadn’t had much issue pinning the other initiates. Anyone who wasn’t bussing plates, peppering food, or who didn’t have spine-bending hunches and brows low enough to make a Neanderthal jealous, seemed like a safe bet. She counted two, maybe three, but she was also shit with math. It hadn’t quite settled with her yet whether she was meant to think of them as companions or competition, nor did she know which she’d have preferred. Competition? Sure. Kick some ass, she could do that. Easy. Ass-kick was her middle name, which was particularly impressive since she didn’t even have a last name. 

But companions? Her kneejerk reaction was along the lines of “gross,” especially considering one of the initiates looked like she’d been [i]hurled[/i] out of a swamp orphanage, and the other looked like nobility. That skeeved her out a bit. She’d robbed plenty of nobles—most indirectly, through their couriers or trade routes—had she ever lined her pockets with his family’s gold? Was that something to feel bad about? 

Fuck the nobles. That’s what her father had always said, but she still thought it anyway. She might have been a piece a of shit, but that meant she could recognize other pieces of shit. Or, she thought reluctantly, she was being presumptuous, and this was precisely the sort of thinking she was trying to get away from. And sure, maybe. But fuck the nobles. 

Sybil gnawed clean the last bone on her plate and finally brought her eyes down from the ceiling. On their way into the Vólkerben someone had remarked on it being their first time in a castle—fellow initiate or other passerby, she didn’t remember. In response, Sybil mentioned that she’d been in a castle once, much smaller, poorly guarded, more like a fort, really, when she thought about it. She’d found the minor lord of the property on the shitter, heard the fear drop right out of his guts. Now she was sitting alone. Alone, and still hungry.

She got up and headed for the little cove the cook inhabited, leaving her sword propped up against the table. Among bandits, or at least in her father’s band, the only people who left their things unattended were the ones who weren’t afraid they’d be stolen. Here, well, that wasn’t really a worry, but in her mind it was still a power move. In her mind she was also an even six-foot, and the maids swooned when she passed by. [i]Someone[/i] had to think highly of her, might as well be herself.

“Garçon,” she said with as much pomp as she could muster, slapping the iron plate down onto the cook’s table. “Your finest…I dunno, something with a bone in it. The closer it has to a pulse, the better. Really just, just the bloodiest—”

“You got your share,” the cook said grimly. 

Sybil blinked, eyes flicking to the rest of the food he was preparing. He noticed, and his demeanor didn’t lighten any at the implication. 

“Ain’t meal hours. You get what was prepped for you, this is for later—for the real wardens. You want more? Maybe there’s someone you could [i]steal[/i] it from.” 

The twist in his words was…unsubtle. She licked her teeth to bite off whatever nasty and ill-minded retort was bubbling up in her throat, and merely huffed out “fine,” before turning to the rest of the feasting hall. 

“Okay,” she called out, arms wide. “Who’s feeling charitable today?” 

Her eyes swept the room, searching not only her fellow initiates, but even the veterans. If it was worth doing, it was worth overdoing, and she’d be [i]under[/i]doing if she left out the grizzled old bastards just because they outranked her—or could kick her ass.

She walked by the tables, swallowing down the taste of distaste at interacting with people. People she didn’t know or cared to know. Stomach over discomfort. Growing up as she did might have taught her a lot of unsavory things, but it had also instilled in her the value of a good meal. 

“Doesn’t have to be charity, if the word offends you,” she said with faux-amicability. “You’re just as welcome to call it ‘self-preservation,’ hm? How’s that? Anyone feel like doing [i]themselves[/i] a favor?”[/indent][/indent][/color]