Cool Club Membership Card [Winged]

[Bre]

Yet you're afraid each thing I do . . .

Eceph would be flying soon, but Ro'za had one important lesson to get in first. Soon enough, I'dou would be healed and the Phoenix wanted her pupil to be able to make a triumphant return, if she wasn't dead by then. Death was always a possibility. However, at the present moment, there wasn't anything very threatening around the grayrider. She stood in the middle of the kitchens, people bustling about around her. She was surveying her surroundings with care, but there wasn't anything that could harm her. The knives in the room were wielded by inexperienced hands or with fingers used to fine motions rather than powerful thrusts. Boiling water would hurt, but it remained safely stored in heavy pots on the stove. A kitchen was supposedly full of many dangers, but Ro'za had trouble seeing it. Everything just seemed so mundane.

In truth, the Phoenix was waiting. She had told I'dou to meet her there the previous day at that hour. Of course, she showed up early, which left her to wait. It was a rather stupid choice on her part. She hated waiting. However, when it came to lessons and training, she believed in punctuality. She only turned up fashionably late to social events. Feasts and parties weren't important in her mind. Waiting for I'dou was aggravating, like always, but she took a deep breath and remained calm. It was cool. She had it. The kitchen smelled good, a fact that slightly annoyed her but mostly soothed her frayed patience. A worker had offered to get her something. Two of them had, in fact, and she had awkwardly refused their offers. Playing kind leader wasn't really something she was good at doing. She preferred bossing I'dou around more.

Eceph was waiting outside and had tuned out her rider, waiting for Laraph to appear. Though the gray still couldn't fly, this would be the first lesson where they would truly be working together, separate from their the Phoenixes. She stood with her head high and her shoulders back, puffing out her chest despite the temperate heat of the late summer day. Her feathers were already glinting with the early signs of her impending flight, but it would still be days before she rose. She constantly gauged her mood, logically running over whether she was acting any different from normal. She didn't like to spend too much time thinking about the future of herself, but it seemed necessary. She had to set a good example for Laraph, who would be arriving soon since she had made sure the young gray knew the time of the lesson. Control was everything.

. . . is just some evil scheme.

[winged]

It was a very disconsolate Laraph that approached the proudly posturing queen, wings tucked close to her slender torso and tail just inches from dragging as the junior Gray settled before her clutch mother; her own posture was limp and void of the pride and self-importance that was the natural birthright of her color. Things had steadily progressed from bad to worse on the personal front, it seemed. Hello. Her greeting was as tepid as her showmanship, and the Gray kept her gaze to just about grazing the sun warmed earth on which they both sat. Not even the promise of a lesson with Eceph could shake much enthusiasm out of the mopey female.

The center of Laraph's misery was currently studying Ro'za from a short distance away, her half-emptied cup rolled between her palms and warm from the winglet's own body heat transferring to the cool clay from which it had been constructed. The young woman's face was just as long as her simourv's, if not as animatedly depressed. Still, her eyes glazed as she mulled over thoughts internally, having not yet decided to approach the Phoenix and get this particular lesson over with. It had been a rough couple of weeks, neither she nor Laraph adjusting to accomodate the conflict that had been brewing between them. That discord had erupted into another argument the night prior, and internalizing all those shouting matches made it no less exhausting.

Laraph was concerned and upset, and I'dou too was upset - and fell immediately back on shoving distance between an already tenuous bond. In the end it had been Laraph that had withdrawn her piece, and the rest of the night had been spent in miserable loneliness, both painfully aware of the other's presence but unwilling to heal any of the freshly inflicted wounds. It was becoming a sad cycle, and I'dou had taken to drinking more heavily than she had in ages. She had at least a pull of something at every meal, sometimes a glass or two more if she had the opportunity. It didn't detract any of the pain, but it numbed her enough so that she could pretend it didn't bother her that Laraph was unhappy.

And now she was supposed to be facing Ro'za, sober. It was difficult now to pull a constant straight face when in public, it would be almost impossible with the Phoenix on her case. She was already minutes past the set deadline...better do it now. Slowly levering herself up from the small table she'd taken, I'dou hobbled towards Ro'za, as dull and unimpressive as her bonded. "Evening." Gruffly, she muttered her hellos, side-stepping to avoid a kitchen worker scuttling past with a hot pot clasped in gloved hands. Better not to underline her obvious tardiness - she knew, Ro'za knew, everyone knew.