Ember leads Fianna into the central dormitory, and sits her down in the central pit of sandbags. Ducking into her own room, she comes back with the bnket Ishaza gave her and offers it to Fianna, with a gnce over at Ishaza to be sure.

  Ishaza pauses when she sees the fmmable bnket being handed over, but nods to Ember after considering. “Stay with her for a moment for me, please, and don’t let her burn the bnket,” Ishaza says. “I’ll be back shortly with a soothing tea that will reduce the pain.”

  Ember nods in response to Ishaza’s gently-phrased command, and sits down across Fianna in the pillow pit as Ishaza departs.

  Fianna fidgets with the bnket in her p, hesitant to put it on. “I…” She looks down at it. “I don’t want to ruin this.”

  Ember shakes her head. “It’s more important that you be comfortable than that we don’t run through the Guild’s budget. If that soul injury gets worse then we could lose you, and you’re a lot more valuable than any bnket.”

  Fianna takes a breath, and nods. She picks up the bnket, careful of her welt-scarred wrists, and carefully slings it around her back, not too tightly so as to aggravate her injuries.

  “It helps, a little,” she says. “Thank you.”

  “It’s nothing,” Ember says. “It’s Ishaza’s bnket anyway.”

  Fianna nods, and settles in as comfortably as she can on the sandbags. She says nothing.

  “Is there anything you’d like to talk about to spend the time…?” Ember tilts her head. “Or just not in a talkative mood?”

  Fianna shakes her head.

  Ember just nods. “Alright. We can just sit together then.”

  A few minutes’ wait epses, and then soft footsteps come down the hallway from the dormitories. Ember turns - to see Camellia, wearing nothing but a soft smile on her face. She looks as gorgeous as ever, and Ember’s suddenly very aware that both of them are nude. She’d just been starting to get used to that. Her lust surges, treacherously threatening to take over her brain, and Ember shoves it down with a heavy mental NO.

  “How’s Maeve?” Ember asks, forcing her gaze to Camellia’s face.

  Camellia smiles slightly. “Cried herself out and went to sleep. I was able to comfort her a little. I say we let her rest.”

  Ember nods. “Good pn.”

  Camellia comes and sits next to Ember and Fianna in the circle of sandbags. Ember looks away, trying not to let her treacherous libido get caught up in Camellia’s suddenly-closer breasts.

  “So,” Camellia says. “What’s happening?”

  Ember runs a hand through her own loose red hair, trying to recover her focus. She misses her butterfly hairclip, damn it. “Ah… I’m not sure what Fianna would like to share. But yes, it’s a soul injury. Ishaza is fetching a painkiller to make her more comfortable, so we’re really just waiting around right now.”

  “Ah.” Camellia nods. “That makes sense.” She looks over at Ember and then back at Fianna. “Good of you to give her the bnket.” She smiles slightly. “Would you like to py a game to pass the time?”

  Ember raises an eyebrow. Anything for something to keep her mind off Camellia’s breasts. “A game? What kind of game? I don’t think there’s anything with pieces that would stand up to us right now…”

  “Well,” Camellia says. “There are games you can py without pieces. Like… Twenty questions.”

  “Twenty questions, huh?” Ember tilts her head. “I guess I could py that.” She looks over at Fianna. “What do you think, Fianna? Would you like to py?”

  Fianna tilts her head, then a small smile comes to her face. She nods.

  Camellia looks over at Fianna. “I think it’ll be easier for Fianna if she answers the questions and we ask. Less talking that way.”

  Ember nods. It’s getting easier and easier to keep her eyes on Camellia’s face now that she’s actually talking to her. “Sounds good to me. Should I ask or you ask?”

  Camellia shrugs. “Why don’t we do it as a team? And to make it harder, let’s say five questions each.”

  Ember smiles. “Sounds like a challenge. Sure. Fianna, do you have something?”

  Fianna nods firmly, a smile coming to her face.

  Ember steeples her fingers. “Alright. Camellia, you can have the first question.”

  Camellia’s lips quirk up. “Sure. Is it animate?”

  Fianna quickly shakes her head.

  Camellia looks over at Ember. “Your turn, then.”

  Ember considers. Something inanimate. It could be almost any object…

  “Is it something you like?” Ember asks. That should cut the field down a lot for Camellia, even if it’s not very useful for her.

  Fianna nods eagerly.

  “Something you like, huh…” Camellia tilts her head. “And it’s inanimate, so it can’t be Maeve. Is it money?”

  Fianna rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

  Ember tilts her head. “Is it something you could buy?”

  Fianna considers, then nods.

  Camellia looks over at Ember and taps her thumb to her lips. “Something inanimate that she could buy and likes… Is it something you wear?”

  Fianna shakes her head.

  Ember raises an eyebrow. That eliminates Fianna’s silver owl pin, and also her makeup…

  “Is it part of a hobby?” Ember tilts her head. “I don’t know what Fianna does in her free time…”

  Fianna shakes her head.

  “She embroiders, mostly,” Camellia says. “I’ve seen her working on projects sometimes in her room. But she hasn’t had time for a project recently, so I don’t think it’s been on her mind. Something that she’s had on her mind recently, that she likes, that she doesn’t wear or do as a hobby…”

  Camellia snaps her fingers. “Is it food?”

  Fianna gets a big grin and nods. “Yes!”

  Camellia looks over at Ember and raises an eyebrow. “Do you have it?”

  Ember nods. “Yeah. It has to be the bckberry pie we had for the celebrations of Maeve graduating and us kindling. I’m right, right?”

  “Yeah.” Fianna smiles a little to herself. “You’re right.”

  Camellia smiles. “That was close. Just one question left for each of us. Another game? I have some marbles in my room…”

  Camellia is interrupted by the click of hooves on the stone floor: Ishaza, carrying a small tea service. This one is ceramic, rather than silver.

  “I’m gd to see you all smiling,” Ishaza says quietly. “This is willow bark tea. It should help with the pain. It’s woody and medicinal; I apologize, I can’t disguise the taste more effectively without wasting time. Fianna, if you’d have a cup?”

  Fianna takes a cup, and Ishaza pours the tea for her. Ember almost can’t believe it; before they kindled, Ishaza was always careful to have someone else serve, rather than her.

  Fianna knocks the tea back in one gulp, and offers her cup again. “It’s less bad than I expected,” she says. “It’s not nearly as bad as the aphrodisiacs.”

  Ishaza nods. “Indeed.” She seems to remember herself after a moment, and looks over at Ember and Camellia. “Ember, practice your service skills here. I’ve done the first cup; you can continue. If everyone is well situated, there are more comforts I can fetch for Fianna. A cushion, at least.”

  Ember nods. “I’ll see to it, Courtesan.”

  Ishaza nods in reply, and departs as quickly as she came.

  “Another game of twenty questions?” Ember asks.

  Fianna smiles slightly. “I don’t see why not.”

  ~*~

  A few companionable hours pass as the girls do their best to distract Fianna from the pain of her soul’s injuries, with games of Tic-Tac-Toe in sand and Twenty Questions. While Fianna doesn’t feel at all like getting down on her hands and knees to shoot marbles, Ember tries a few rounds with Camellia and loses soundly, to Fianna’s amusement.

  Before long, Ishaza returns with a scarred set of go stones in white and bck, and a simple hatched sb for a board, and at st Fianna joins in. And for a while, everything is fine. So what if everything is changing. So what if Fianna gets a little too enthusiastic about her victory celebrations, or if Ember gets distracted by Camellia’s nude body enough to have to be prompted to take her turn a few times. No-one brings up Fianna’s past again; clearly it’s already hurting her enough. And though the fact that Camellia’s starting to shed downy feathers necessitates a little effort to keep the room fire-safe, after a few hours with no incidents of fmes Ishaza gives up collecting them and instead brings in proper pillows for everyone to sit on, though they’re not the intricately-embroidered expensive ones that she usually uses.

  Eventually, it’s time for dinner, and Maeve reluctantly emerges from her bedroom to join the rest of the girls. She avoids Fianna’s gaze, her eyes downcast; but when Ishaza serves up an assortment of skewers of mb and pork, along with cheese-covered tomatoes and a side of ftbread still warm from the oven, she manages to eat.

  Though Ember and Camellia have kept up a steady patter of conversation back and forth for the past few hours, the appearance of the food provides a convenient excuse for both of them to rest their voices; and so the four girls eat in silence, at first companionable and then increasingly awkward as no-one proves willing to be the first to speak. The gnces Ember and Maeve keep sneaking at each other’s nude bodies don’t help the atmosphere much.

  Ember catches Camellia gncing sideways at her with a worried look, but when she turns to face her Camellia just smiles and looks away. A simir exchange of gnces is going on across the table between Maeve and Fianna; neither of them seems to know what to say. There’s probably a conversation they ought to be having, but neither of them seems willing to raise the topic again after the yelling argument they had just a few hours ago.

  … If no-one else is going to talk, she supposes she has to.

  “Fianna,” Ember says softly. “I was wondering if… You had any good memories of growing up you might want to share?”

  Fianna looks down at her welt-covered wrists, and bites her lip.

  “... There weren’t a lot of those,” she says after a moment. “A few, but… They’re kind of personal. I just… Could you leave me be for a moment?”

  Ember looks down at her p. “Yeah. I… My life before this wasn’t so great either, I guess. Maybe a topic for another time.”

  Camellia and Maeve nod almost simultaneously.

  For ck of a conversational topic or comfort in ogling her cssmates for the whole meal, Ember tries to focus on the food instead. Fortunately, that’s easy: it’s all delicious, the tomatoes juicy, the mb and pork skewers perfectly seasoned, and with the new fidelity of her enhanced senses she can taste so much more depth to the fvors. Even the fresh-baked ftbread tastes far better than usual.

  With no conversation to distract them, the four girls polish off supper quickly. Ishaza takes away the ptes, and then directs her students back to their rooms for the night. She allows Ember and Camellia to keep the same room, however.

  Though Ember wants to ask Camellia to have sex again, one look at Camellia’s exhausted face tells her everything she needs to know. It just isn’t going to happen tonight. Better not to ask.

  “... I’m going to go masturbate,” she tells Camellia. “And then I’ll join you in bed.”

  Camellia tilts her head, considering, then nods after a moment.

  “Alright. Just… Don’t get lost in it again, alright? I know you don’t have the technique so perfect you don’t expel fme yet, so I guess you’ll be out on the training ground again, but… Please hurry back. If you’re not back soon I’ll have to come get you, so…”

  Ember takes a long breath, and nods. “Yeah. I’ll… Try to be more disciplined. I don’t want to disappoint you.”

  Camellia smiles, and nods. “Good girl.” She reaches up and pats Ember on the head. “Now go; I want to sleep as soon as I can.”

  “Alright.” And with that simple answer, Ember departs to see to her new needs once more.